Yet shall she not be photographed by me, but feebly indicated: for it was just four hundred years ago, the raillery was coarse, she returned every stroke in kind, and, though a virtuous woman, said things without winking, which no decent man of our day would say even among men.
Gerard sat gaping with astonishment. This was to him almost a new variety of "that interesting species," homo. He whispered Denys, "Now I see why you Frenchmen say 'a woman's tongue is her sword'": just then she levelled another assailant; and the chivalrous Denys to console and support "the weaker vessel," the iron kettle among the clay pots, administered his consigne, "Courage, ma mie, le—" etc.
She turned on him directly. "How can he be dead as long as there is an archer left alive?" (General laughter at her ally's expense.)
"It is 'washing day' my masters," said she with sudden gravity.
"Après? We travellers cannot strip and go bare while you wash our clothes," objected a peevish old fellow by the fireside, who had kept mumchance during the raillery, but crept out into the sunshine of commonplaces.
"I aimed not your way, ancient man," replied Marion superciliously. "But, since you ask me" (here she scanned him slowly from head to foot), "I trow you might take a turn in the tub, clothes and all, and no harm done" (laughter). "But what I spoke for, I thought—this young sire—might like his beard starched."
Poor Gerard's turn had come: his chin crop was thin and silky.
The loudest of all the laughters this time was the traitor Denys, whose beard was of a good length, and singularly stiff and bristly: so that Shakespeare, though he never saw him, hit him in the bull's eye.
"Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard."
As You Like It.
Gerard bore the Amazonian satire mighty calmly. He had little personal vanity. "Nay, 'chambrière'" said he with a smile, "mine is all unworthy your pains: take you this fair growth in hand!" and he pointed to Denys's vegetable.