The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

213
Clouds keep the stoutest mortals under,
When, bellowing*, they discharge their thunder:
*[Footnote: This word is not here to be understood of a bull,
but a cloud, which makes a noise like a bull, when it thunders.]
So, when the alarum-bell is rung,
Of Xanti's* everlasting tongue,
[Footnote: Xanti, a nick-name of Xantippe, that scold of glorious
memory, who never let poor Socrates have one moment's peace of mind;
yet with unexampled patience he bore her pestilential tongue.
I shall beg the ladies' pardon if I insert a few passages concerning
her: and at the same time I assure them it is not to lesson
those of the present age, who are possessed of the like laudable
talents; for I will confess, that I know three in the city of Dublin,
no way inferior to Xantippe, but that they have not as great men to
work upon.
When a friend asked Socrates how he could bear the scolding of his
wife Xantippe, he retorted, and asked him how he could bear the
gaggling of his geese Ay but my geese lay eggs for me, replies his
friend; So does my wife bear children, said Socrates.--Diog, Laert,
Being asked at another time, by a friend, how he could bear her
tongue, he said, she was of this use to him, that she taught him to
bear the impertinences of others with more ease when he went abroad,--
Plat, de Capiend. ex. host. utilit.
Socrates invited his friend Euthymedus to supper. Xantippe, in great
rage, went into them, and overset the table. Huthymedus, rising in a
passion to go off, My dear friend, stay, said Socrates, did not a hen
do the same thing at your house the other day, and did I show any
resentment?--Plat, de ira cohibenda.
I could give many more instances of her termagancy and his philosophy,
if such a proceeding might not look as if I were glad of an
opportunity to expose the fair sex; but, to show that I have no such
design, I declare solemnly, that I had much worse stories to tell of
her behaviour to her husband, which I rather passed over, on account
of the great esteem which I bear the ladies, especially
those in the honorable station of matrimony.]
The husband dreads its loudness more