To do your exercise for honour, 355
And have your brains beat out the sooner;
Or crack’d, as learnedly, upon
Things that are never to be known;
And still appear the more industrious,
The more your projects are prepost’rous; 360
To square the circle of the arts,
And run stark mad to shew your parts;
Expound the oracle of laws,
And turn them which way we see cause
Be our solicitors and agents, 365
And stand for us in all engagements.

And these are all the mighty pow’rs
You vainly boast to cry down ours;
And what in real value’s wanting,
Supply with vapouring and ranting; 370
Because yourselves are terrify’d,
And stoop to one another’s pride,
Believe we have as little wit
To be out-hector’d, and submit;
By your example, lose that right 375
In treaties which we gain’d in fight;
And, terrify’d into an awe,
Pass on ourselves a Salique law: 

Or, as some nations use, give place,
And truckle to your mighty race; 380
Let men usurp th’ unjust dominion,
As if they were the better women.

Notes on the LADY’s answer to the knight.

133 l Whose Arrows learned Poets hold, &c.] The poets feign Cupid to have two sorts of arrows; the one tipped with gold, and the other with lead.  The golden always inspire and inflame love in the persons he wounds with them:  but, on the contrary, the leaden create the utmost aversion and hatred.  With the first of these he shot Apollo, and with the other Daphne, according to Ovid.

277 m While, like the mighty Prester John, &c.] Prester John, an absolute prince, emperor of Abyssinia or Ethiopia.  One of them is reported to have had seventy kings for his vassals, and so superb and arrogant, that none durst look upon him without his permission.

285 Or Joan de Pucel’s braver Name.] Joan of Arc, called also the Pucelle, or Maid of Orleans.  She was born at the town of Damremi, on the Meuse, daughter of James de Arc, and Isabella Romee; and was bred, up a shepherdess in the country.  At the age of eighteen or twenty she pretended to an express commission from God to go to the relief of Orleans, then besieged by the English, and defended by John Compte de Dennis, and almost reduced to the last extremity.  She went to the coronation of Charles the Seventh, when he was almost ruined.  She knew that prince in the midst of his nobles; though meanly habited.  The doctors of divinity, and members of parliament, openly declared that there was some thing supernatural in her conduct.  She sent for a sword, which lay in the tomb of a knight, which was behind the great altar of the church of St. Katharine de Forbois, upon the blade of which the cross and flower-de-luces were engraven, which put the king in a very great surprise, in regard none besides himself knew of it.  Upon this he sent her with the command of some troops, with which she relieved Orleans, and drove the English from it, defeated Talbot at the battle of Pattai, and recovered Champagne.  At last she was unfortunately taken prisoner in a sally at Champagne in 1430, and tried for a witch or sorceress, condemned, and burnt in Rouen market-place in May 1430.