No More Learning

I've heard, the best
Riddance for evil notions in the mind,
Is for a toad to sit upon the tongue;
While, breathed against the scalp, some power of spells
Loosens the clasp the notion hath digg'd deep
Into the soul; so that it passeth down,
Shaken and mastered, and creeps into the toad,--

_3rd Woman_.
Which gives a foolish kick or start to feel it,--

_4th Woman_.
Then the trapt notion may be easily burnt.

_Vashti_.
Yea? --I think mine would not burn easily.
With fire, with such indignant fire as pride
Yields, when it must destroy itself to feel
The power of the world touch it with humbling flame,--
With such a fire, whose heat you know not of,
Have I assayed this--notion, didst thou say?
And it stood upright, with its shape unquencht,
And lived within the fire.

_3rd Woman_.
Thou hast it wrong.

_4th Woman_.
Thou hast not understood the cure we meant.

_2nd Woman_.
Stop brabbling, fools; I would hear the Queen's mind.

_1st Woman_.
I too; I hate a thing I cannot skill;
And thee and all that lives in thee, O Queen,
I would keep friendly to my spirit; yet
I do suspect something amazing in thee.

_Vashti_.
And if thou seest not how slippery
Is women's place in the world of men, 'tis like
Thou wilt amazedly the vision take,
When I have led thee up my tower of thought.

_2nd Woman_.
How are we dangerous? Are we not women,
Man's endless need?

_Vashti_.
Ay, and therein the danger!
Is it not possible he hate the need?
For not as he were a beast it urges him:
He is aware of it, he knows its force,--
The kind of beasts is in their blood alone,
But man is blood and spirit. And in him,
As in all creature, is the word from God,
"Utter thyself in joy. "

_2nd Woman_.
And we his joy.

_Vashti_.
But such an one that may become, perhaps,
Something not utterance, but strict commanding,
Yea, mastery, like the dancing in the blood
Of one bitten by spiders. And it is Spirit,
Spirit enjoying woman, that hath sent
A beating poison in the blood of man,
The poison which is lust.