There is Latin authority for this barbarous distich.[7] The Italians say, "Women, asses, and nuts require rough hands."[8] Much wiser is the Scotch adage,—

Ye may ding the deil into a wife, but ye'll ne'er ding him out o' her.

Take your wife's first advice, and not her second.

The French make the rule more general—"Take a woman's first advice, &c."[9] There is good reason for this if the Italian proverb is true, "Women are wise offhand, and fools on reflection."[10] They have less logical minds than men, but surpass them in quickness of intuition, having, says Dean Trench, "what Montaigne ascribes to them in a remarkable word, l'esprit prime-sautier—the leopard's spring, which takes its prey, if it be to take it at all, at the first bound." "Summer-sown corn and women's advice turn out well once in seven years,"[11] say the Germans; and the Spaniards hold that "A woman's counsel is no great thing, but he who does not take it is a fool."[12] In Servia they say, "It is sometimes right even to obey a sensible wife;" and they tell this story in elucidation of the proverb. A Herzegovinian once asked a Kadi whether a man ought to obey his wife, whereupon the Kadi answered that he needed not to do so. The Herzegovinian then continued, "My wife pressed me this morning to bring thee a pot of beef suet, so I have done well in not obeying her." Then said the Kadi, "Verily, it is sometimes right even to obey a sensible wife."

It's nae mair ferlie to see a woman greet than to see a guse gang barefit.—Scotch.

That is, it is no more wonder to see a woman cry than to see a goose go barefoot. "Women laugh when they can, and weep when they will."[13] This is a French proverb, translated by Ray. Its want of rhyme makes it probable that it was never naturalised in England. The Italians say, "A woman complains, a woman's in woe, a woman is sick, when she likes to be so,"[14] and that "A woman's tears are a fountain of craft."[15]

A woman's mind and winter wind change oft.

"Women are variable as April weather" (German).[16] "Women, wind, and fortune soon change" (Spanish).[17] Francis I. of France wrote one day with a diamond on a window of the château of Chambord,—

"Souvent femme varie:

Bien fou qui s'y fie."