No Emblem, Can at Full Declare, How Fickle, Minds-unconstant Are
SOme, thinke this Emblem serveth to expresse
No more, but onely Womens ficklenesse;
And, they will most desire to have it so,
Who, like those best, that most inconstant grow.
Although my Fortunes were, in some things, bad,
I never in my life, experience had
Of an inconstant woman: Wherefore, then,
Should I condemne the Females, more than men?
I heare some talke, that Women fickle be:
And so I thinke; and so I know are wee.
And (being put together) say I dare,
That, they and wee, in equall manner, share
A giddinesse, and ficklenesse of minde,
More wavering, than a Feather, or the Winde.
The Woman, heere, is plac’d, to typifie
A minde distracted with much levitie:
Not, that the womans Wav’rings are the more;
But, for this cause: Most Vices, heretofore,
And Vertues too, our Ancestors did render,
By words declined in the female-gender.
The winged Ball, (whose tottering Foundation,
Augments the causes of our variation)
Meanes, here, those uselesse, and vaine temp’rall things,
That come and goe, with never-staying wings;
And, which (if thereupon our hearts we set)
Make Men and Women, the Vertigo get.
Hereafter, then, let neither Sexe accuse
Each other; but, their best endeavours use,
To cure this Maladie in one another,
By living well, and lovingly together.