Quoth Hudibras thou still giv’st sentence
Impertinently, and against sense. 
Tis not the least disparagement 715
To be defeated by th’ event,
Nor to be beaten by main force;
That does not make a man the worse,
Although his shoulders with battoon
Be claw’d and cudgel’d to some tune. 720
A taylor’s ’prentice has no hard
Measure that’s bang’d with a true yard: 
But to turn tail, or run away,
And without blows give up the day,
Or to surrender ere th’ assault, 725
That’s no man’s fortune, but his fault,
And renders men of honour less
Than all th’ adversity of success;
And only unto such this shew
Of horns and petticoats is due. 730
There is a lesser profanation,
Like that the Romans call’d ovation: 
For as ovation was allow’d
For conquest purchas’d without blood,
So men decree these lesser shows 735
For victory gotten without blows,
By dint of sharp hard words, which some
Give battle with, and overcome. 
These mounted in a chair-curule,
Which moderns call a cucking-stool, 740
March proudly to the river’s side,
And o’er the waves in triumph ride;
Like Dukes of Venice, who are said
The Adriatick Sea to wed;
And have a gentler wife than those 745
For whom the State decrees those shows,
But both are heathenish, and come
From th’ whores of Babylon and Rome;
And by the Saints should be withstood,
As Antichristian and lewd; 750
And as such, should now contribute
Our utmost struggling to prohibit.

This said, they both advanc’d, and rode
A dog-trot through the bawling crowd,
T’attack the leader, and still prest, 755
Till they approach’d him breast to breast
Then Hudibras, with face and hand,
Made signs for silence; which obtain’d,
What means (quoth he) this Devil’s precession
With men of orthodox profession? 760
’Tis ethnic and idolatrous,
From heathenism deriv’d to us,
Does not the Whore of Babylon ride
Upon her horned beast astride
Like this proud dame, who either is 765
A type of her, or she of this? 
Are things of superstitious function
Fit to be us’d in Gospel Sun-shine? 
It is an Antichristian opera,
Much us’d in midnight times of Popery, 770
Of running after self-inventions
Of wicked and profane intentions;
To scandalize that sex for scolding,
To whom the Saints are so beholden. 
Women, who were our first Apostles 775
Without whose aid we had been lost else;
Women, that left no stone unturn’d
In which the Cause might he concern’d;