No More Learning

What's this behind them, that we cannot near,
Secret still on the point of being blabbed,
The ghost in the world that flies from being named?
Where do they get their beauty from, all these?
They do but glaze a lantern lit for man,
And woman's beauty is the flame therein
Feeding on sacred oil, man's desire,
A golden flame possessing all the earth.
Or as a queen upon an embassage
From out some mountain-guarded far renown,
Brings caravans stockt from her slavish mines,
Her looms and forges, with a precious friendship;
So comest thou from the chambers of the stars
On thy famed visit unto man the king;
So bringing from the mints and shops of Heaven,
Where thou didst own labours of all the fates,
A shining traffic, all that man calls beauty:
There is no holding out for the heart of man
Against thee and such custom. O hard to be borne,
Often hard to be borne is woman's beauty! --
And well I guess it does but cover up
Enmity, hanging falseness between our souls,
And buy at a dishonest price the mouth
True nature hath for thee, to speak thee fair.
Were not man's thought so gilded with thy beauty,
Woman, and caught in the desire of thee,
O, there'ld be hatred in his use of thee.
You should be thankful for your pleasantness!

_Vashti_.
Yes, I am thankful. For I hope, my lord,
We women know our style. Ay, we are fooled
Sometimes with heady tampering thoughts, that come
To bother our submission, I confess.
We to ourselves have said, that when God took
The fierce beginning of the unwrought world
From out his fiery passion, and, breathing cool,
Tamed the wild molten being, with his hands
Fashion'd and workt the hot clay into world,
Then with green mercy quieted the land
And claspt it with the summer of blue seas,
With brooches of white spray along the shores,--
It was to be an equal dwelling-place
For humans that he did it, into sex
Unknowably dividing human kind.
But wickedly we say this. God made man
For his delight and praise, and then made woman
For man's delight and praise, submiss to man.
Else wherefore sex? And it is better thus,
To be man's pleasure. What noble work is ours,
To have our bodies proper for your love,
The means of your delight! Ay, and minds too,
Sometimes; we think, we women think we know
What shape of mind pleases our masters best,
And that we build up in us. A tender shyness,
A coy reluctancy,--we use these well.
Man is our master; it is best for us
Persuading him line our captivity
With wool-soft love, lest it be bitter iron.

_Ahasuerus_.
This is the marvel's head, that thou, so fair,
And loved by me, should keep so good a mind.
--They shall not see thee, when I display at large
The riches and the honour; I've enough
Possession, without thee, to stupify
The assembly of my men, my herd of kings.
I mean there shall not be a hint of doubt
About whose world this is. So I have bid,
From all the utter regions of my land,
The kings whom I allow to rule, who breathe
My air, to feast with me and for a while
Flatter their trivial lives with a brief relish
Of being king of the world's kings in Shushan.
Yea, and I will dismay their wits with splendour;
No noise shall be against me in the world.
I am more open, kinder than Lord God,
Who never shows how much he has of thunder;
Wherefore against him men presume, and go
Often out of his ways extravagant.
But all the fear I keep obedient by me
Now to the gather'd world I openly shew.
So God is spoken against, I am never,
And I have a better terror in the world;
And chiefly for the happiness built round me
Divinely firm. O all the kings, my men,
Shall fear this terrible happiness of mine!