Car. But since she don't, what do I whining here? Curse on the base humilities of love.
San. Right.
Car. Let children kiss the rod that fleas them, let dogs lie down and lick the shoe that spurns them.
San. Ay.
Car. I am a man by nature meant for power; the scepter's given us to wield, and we betray our trust whenever we meanly lay it at a woman's feet.
San. True, we are men, boo——Come, Master, let us both be in a passion; here's my scepter, [Shewing a cudgel.] Subject Jacinta, look about you. Sir, was you ever in Muscovy? the women there love the men dearly; why? because——[Shaking his stick.] there's your love-powder for you. Ah, Sir, were we but wise and stout, what work should we make with them! But this humble love-making, spoils them all. A rare way indeed to bring matters about with them; we are persuading them all day they are angels and Goddesses, in order to use them at night like human creatures; we are like to succeed truly.
Car. For my part I never yet could bear a slight from any thing, nor will I now. There's but one way however to resent it from a woman: and that's to drive her bravely from your heart, and place a worthier in her vacant throne.
San. Now, with submission to my betters, I have another way, Sir, I'll drive my tyrant from my heart, and place myself in her throne. Yes; I will be lord of my own tenement, and keep my household in order. Wou'd you wou'd do so too, Master; for look you, I have been servitor in a college at Salamanca, and read philosophy with the doctors; where I found that a woman, in all times, has been observed to be an animal hard to understand, and much inclined to mischief. Now as an animal is always an animal, and a captain always a captain, so a woman is always a woman: whence it is, that a certain Greek says, her head is like a bank of sand; or, as another, a solid rock; or, according to a third, a dark lanthorn. Pray, Sir, observe, for this is close reasoning; and so as the head is the head of the body; and that the body without a head, is like a head without a tail; and that where there is neither head nor tail, 'tis a very strange body: so I say a woman is by comparison, do you see, (for nothing explains things like comparisons) I say by comparison, as Aristotle has often said before me, one may compare her to the raging sea; for as the sea, when the wind rises, knits its brows like an angry bull, and that waves mount upon rocks, and rocks mount upon waves: that porpusses leap like trouts, and whales skip about like gudgeons; that ships roll like beer-barrels, and mariners pray like saints; just so, I say a woman——A woman, I say, just so, when her reason is ship-wreck'd upon her passion, and the hulk of her understanding lies thumping against the rock of her fury; then it is, I say, that by certain immotions, which——um cause, as one may suppose, a sort of convulsive——yes——hurricanious——um——like——in short, a woman is like the Devil.
Car. Admirably reason'd indeed, Sancho.