Now you must know that when the first dizziness Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided, The Duke put this question, "The Duke's part provided, Had not the Duchess some share in the business?" For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses: And, after much laying of heads together, Somebody's cap got a notable feather By the announcement with proper unction 260 That he had discovered the lady's function; Since ancient authors gave this tenet, "When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege, Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet, And with water to wash the hands of her liege In a clean ewer with a fair toweling, Let her preside at the disemboweling." Now, my friend, if you had so little religion As to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner, And thrust her broad wings like a banner 270 Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon; And if day by day and week by week You cut her claws, and sealed her eyes, And clipped her wings, and tied her beak, Would it cause you any great surprise If, when you decided to give her an airing, You found she needed a little preparing? --I say, should you be such a curmudgeon, If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon? Yet when the Duke to his lady signified, 280 Just a day before, as he judged most dignified, In what a pleasure she was to participate,-- And, instead of leaping wide in flashes, Her eyes just lifted their long lashes, As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate, And duly acknowledged the Duke's fore-thought, But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught, Of the weight by day and the watch by night, And much wrong now that used to be right, So, thanking him, declined the hunting-- 290 Was conduct ever more affronting? With all the ceremony settled-- With the towel ready, and the sewer Polishing up his oldest ewer, And the jennet pitched upon, a piebald, Black-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-balled-- No wonder if the Duke was nettled! And when she persisted nevertheless,-- Well, I suppose here's the time to confess That there ran half round our lady's chamber 300 A balcony none of the hardest to clamber; And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting,