Let your mistress’s birthday be one of great terror to you:
that’s a black day when anything has to be given.
However much you avoid it, she’ll still win: it’s
a woman’s skill, to strip wealth from an ardent lover.
A loose-robed pedlar comes to your lady: she likes to buy:
and explains his prices while you’re sitting there.
She’ll ask you to look, because you know what to look for:
then kiss you: then ask you to buy her something there.
She swears that she’ll be happy with it, for years,
but she needs it now, now the price is right.
If you say you haven’t the money in the house, she’ll ask
for a note of hand – and you’re sorry you learnt to write.
Why - she asks doesn’t she for money as if it’s her birthday,
just for the cake, and how often it is her birthday, if she’s in need?
Why - she weeps doesn’t she, mournfully, for a sham loss,
that imaginary gem that fell from her pierced ear?
They many times ask for gifts, they never give in return:
you lose, and you’ll get no thanks for your loss.
And ten mouths with as many tongues wouldn’t be enough
for me to describe the wicked tricks of whores.
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William Congreve, British writer (1670-1729)
Love for Love (1695)
David Gemmell, British author of heroic fantasy (1948-2006)
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Ah, wasteful woman, she who may
On her sweet self set her own price,
Knowing man cannot choose but pay,
How has she cheapen'd paradise;
How given for nought her priceless gift,
How spoil'd the bread and spill'd the wine,
Which, spent with due, respective thrift,
Had made brutes men, and men divine.
Coventry Patmore, English poet (1823–1896)
But why give a man something it's so hard to earn? In that respect women are really thick. They're the daughters of rigidity. They need a man to feel secure but they don't realize that the one thing they should be afraid of is men. They don't know how to run their lives. They have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of someone else. Whores are the worst, patron, believe me. They throw their lives away working for some pimp, smile when he beats them, feel proud when he's well dressed, with his gold teeth and rings on his fingers, and when he goes off and takes up with a woman half their age they forgive him everything because 'he's a man.
Women have tongues of craft, and hearts of guile,
They will, they will not, fools that on them trust,
For in their speech is death, hell in their smile.
Edward Fairfax, English translator
Nahuseresh, if there is one thing a woman understands, it is the nature of gifts. They are bribes when threats do not avail." The queen shook her head. "The problem with bribes, Nahuseresh, is that after your money is gone, threats still do not avail.
Megan Whalen Turner, American children's writer
Don Siegel, American film director (1912–1991)
Women have tongues of craft, and hearts of guile,
They will, they will not; fools that on them trust.
Torquato Tasso, Italian poet (1544–1595)
The less we show our love to a woman,
Or please her less, and neglect our duty,
The more we trap and ruin her surely
In the flattering toils of philandery.
Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet, playwright, and novelist (1799–1837)
Francis Bacon, English philosopher and statesman (1561–1626)
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