Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DIALOGUE BETWEEN A SQUEAMISH COTTING MECHANIC AND HIS WIFE, by EDWARD WARD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A SQUEAMISH COTTING MECHANIC AND HIS WIFE, by                    
First Line: Is the fish ready? You're a tedious while
Last Line: When heaven knows I do but gull the fool.
Subject(s): Conversation; Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


Husband Is the fish ready? You're a tedious while;
Take care the butter does not turn to oil:
Lay on more coals, and hang the pot down low'r,
Or 'twill not boil with such a fire this hour.
Is that, my dear, the saucepan you design
To stew the shrimps and melt the butter in?
Nouns! withinside as nasty it appears
As if't had ne'er been scoured this fifty years.
Rare hussifs! how confounded black it looks!
God sends us meat, the devil sends us cooks.
Wife Why, how now, cot! Must I be taught by you?
Sure I without you know what I've to do.
Prithee go mind your shop, attend your trade,
And leave the kitchen to your wife and maid.
O'erlook your 'prentices, you cot, and see
They do their work, leave cookery to me.
Is't fit a man, you contradicting sot,
Should mind the kettle or the porridge-pot,
And run his nose in ev'ry dirty hole,
To see what platter's clean, what dish is foul?
Be gone, you prating ninny, whilst you're well,
Or, faith, I'll pin the dish-clout to your tail.
Husband I'll not be poisoned by a sluttish quean.
Hussy, I say, go scour the saucepan clean.
What though your mistress is a careless beast,
I love to have my victuals cleanly dressed!
Cot me no cots, I'll not be bound to eat
Such dirty sauce to good and wholesome meat.
I will direct and govern, since I find
You're both to so much nastiness inclined.
I'd have you know I neither fear or matter
Your threatened dish-clouts or your scalding water.
Wife Stand by, you prating fool, you damned provoker,
Or, by my soul, I'll burn you with the poker.
Must I be thus abused, as if your maid,
And called a slut before a saucy jade?
Gad, speak another word and, by my troth,
I'll spoil the fish and scald you with the broth.
The kitchen fire, alas! don't burn to please ye;
The saucepan is, forsooth, too foul and greasy.
Minx, touch it not, I say it's clean enough:
Your scouring rubs the tin withinside off;
I'll have no melted butter taste of brass
To please the humour of a squeamish ass.
If cot-comptroller does not like its looks,
Let him spend sixpence at his nasty cook's,
Where rotten mutton, beef that's turnip-fed,
Lean measly pork on London muck-hills bred,
Will please the fool much better than the best
Of meat by his own wife or servant dressed.
Why don't you thither go before you dine,
Where you may see, perhaps, a noble loin
Of a bull-calf lie sweating at the fire,
Beneath fat pork, nursed up in t—d and mire,
And under that a chump of Suffolk beef,
Thrice roasted for some hungry clown's relief,
Till black as soot that from the chimney falls,
And hard as Severn salmon dried in Wales,
All basted with a flux of mingled fat,
Which greasily distils from this and that?
Such nice tid cleanly bits would please my dear;
Prithee go thither, do not plague us here.
Husband Hussy, what I direct you ought to do;
I'm lord and master of this house and you.
Do you not know that wise and noble prince,
King 'Hasuerus, made a law long since
That ev'ry husband should the ruler be
Of his own wife, as well as family?
How dare you then control my lawful sway,
When Scripture tells you woman should obey?
Therefore, I say, I'll have my fish well dressed,
After such manner as shall please me best,
Or, hussy, by this ladle, if I han't,
I'll make you show good reason why I shan't.
I'll have more coals upon the fire, I tell ye,
And have the saucepan cleaned, aye marry will I,
Or I'll acquaint your teacher, Mr. Blunder,
That all the art of man can't keep you under.
Wife Here, hussy, fetch some coals, 'tis long of you
That we have ev'ry day all this to do.
Pray clean the saucepan, you forgetful trull,
I must confess it looks a little dull.
You shall not say I love this jarring life,
You shall have no complaints against your wife.
But prithee, husband, leave us and be easy,
Ne'er doubt but I will cook your fish to please ye.
When men o'erlook us, we proceed in fear,
And ne'er can do so well when they are near;
Therefore I hope, my dear, you will not mind
A woman's passion, words you know are wind.
I would not for the world have Mr. Blunder
Know that we jar; the good old man would wonder
That you and I, who've been so long his hearers,
Should now want grace, and fall into such errors.
Husband Since you repent your failings, I'll be gone,
But prithee let the fish be nicely done.
I buy the best and, whether roast or boiled,
You know I hate to have my victuals spoiled.
Wife My dear, I'll take such care, that you shall find
It shall be rightly ordered to your mind.
I'm glad he's gone. Pox take him for a cot;
What wife would humour such a snarling sot?
Here, Kather'n, take my keys, slip gently by
The Fox, and fetch a dram for thee and I.
Lay down the saucepan; poh! it's clean enough
For such an old, ill-natured, stingy cuff.
Prithee ne'er value what thy master says;
You should not mind his cross-grained, foolish ways;
But when I bid you, hussy, you must run.
Now his back's turned, the kitchen is our own.
Bless me! how eas'ly can a woman blind
And cheat a husband, if he proves unkind:
He thinks, poor cuckold, that he bears the rule,
When heaven knows I do but gull the fool.





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