The Worming of a mad Dog;
or, A Sop for Cerberus, the Jailor of Hell.
No Confutation but a sharp Redargution [reproof]
of the baiter of Women
by Constantia Munda:
dux femina facti [a woman is in charge, is the leader]

The itching desire of oppressing the press with many sottish and illiterate Libels stuffed with all manner of ribaldry and sordid inventions, when every foul-mouthed malcontent may disgorge his Lycambean poison in the face of all the world, hath broken out into such a dismal contagion in these our days that every scandalous tongue and opprobrious wit, like the Italian Mountebanks, will advance their peddling wares of detracting virulence in the public Piazza of every Stationer's shop. And Printing, that was invented to be the storehouse of famous wits, the treasure of Divine literature, the pandect [complete treatise], and maintainer of all Sciences, is become the receptacle of every dissolute Pamphlet, the nursery and hospital of every spurious and penurious brat which proceeds from base phrenetical brainsick babblers. . . . [The evils of the time] may be seen by the works of diverse men that make their pens their pencils to limn out vice that it may seem delicious and amiable, so to detract from virtue and honesty, as though their essence were only in outward appearance of goodness, as if mortality were only circumscribed within the conditions of our sex. . . . [F]oolish man will reprehend his Creator in the admirable work of his generation and conservation. Woman, the second edition of the Epitome of the whole world, the second Tome of that goodly volume compiled by the great God of heaven and earth, is most shamefully blurred and derogatively erased by scribbling pens of savage and uncouth monsters. To what an irregular strain is the daring impudence of blindfold bayards [fools] aspired unto that they will presume to call in question even the most absolute work composed by the world's great Architect? A strange blasphemy, to find fault with that which the Privy Council [cabinet] of the high and mighty Parliament of the inscrutiable Trinity in Heaven determined to be very good, to call that imperfect, froward, crooked and perverse, to make an arraignment and Bearbaiting of that which the Pantocrator [creator of all] would in his omniscient wisdom have to be the consummation of his blessed week's work, the end, crown, and perfection of the never sufficiently glorified creation. What is it but an exorbitant frenzy and woeful taxation of the sumpreme deity? Yet woman, the greatest part of the lesser world, is generally become the subject of every pedantical goose quill. Every fantastic Poetaster which thinks he hath licked the vomit of his Coryphaeus [leader of Greek dramatic chorus] and can but patch a hobbling verse together will strive to represent unseemly figments imputed to our sex as a pleasing theme to the vulgar on the public Theater.

Yet lest villainy domineer and triumph in fury, we will manacle your dissolute fist, that you deal not your blows so unadvisedly. Though feminine modesty hath confined our rarest and ripest wits to silence, we acknowledge it our greatest ornament; but when necessity compels us, 'tis as great a fault and folly "loquenda tacere, ut contra gravis est culpa tacenda loqui" [to keep silent about things that should be spoken, as it is to speak about things that should be kept silent], being too much provoked by arraignments, baitings, and rancorous impeachments of the reputation of our whole sex. . . .

Wherefore none either good or bad, fair or foul, or what estate soever, of what parentage or royal descent and lineage soever, how well soever nurtured and qualified, shall escape the convicious violence of your preposterous procacity [presumption]. Why did you not snarl at them directly that wronged you? Why did not you collimate [aim] your infectious Javelins at the right mark? If a thief take your purse from you, will you malign and swagger with everyone you meet? If you be beaten in an Alehouse, will you set the whole Town afire? If some courtesans that you have met with in your travels (or rather that have met with you) have ill-treated you, must honest and religious people be the scope [target] of your malicious speeches and reproachful terms. Yet it may be you have a further drift [point], to make the world believe you have an extraordinary gift of continence: soothing yourself with this supposition, that this open reviling is some token and evidence you never were affected with delicate and effeminate [romantic] sensuality; thinking this pamphlet should assoil [absolve] thee from all maner of levy and taxation of a lascivious life; as if, because you cynically rail at all, both good and bad, you have been hatched up without concupiscence; as if nature had bestowed on you all thumos [anger] and no epithumia [lust]. . . . The crabbedness of your style, the unsavory periods of your broken-winded sentences, persuade your body to be of the same temper as your mind. Your ill-favored countenance, your wayward conditions, your peevish and pettish nature is such that none of our sex with whom you have obtained some partial conference could ever brook your dogged frumpard [satiric] frowardness: upon which malcontented desperation you hung out your flag of defiance against the whole world as a prodigious monstrous rebel against nature. Besides, if your currish disposition had dealt with men, you were afraid that Lex talionis [retribution] would meet with you; wherefore you surmised that, inveighig against poor illiterate women, we might fret and bite the lip at you, we might repine to see ourselves baited and tossed in a blanket, but never durst in open view of the vulgar either disclose your blasphemous and derogative slanders or maintain the untainted purity of our glorious sex. Nay, you'll put gags in our mouths and conjure us all to silence; you will first abuse us, then bind us to peace. We must be tongue-tied, lest in starting up to find fault we prove ourselves guilty of those horrible accusations. . . .

[Munda takes on the illogic of Swetnam's argument throughout the rest of the pamphlet.] Do ye not see (goodman woodcock) what a spring [trap] you make for your own self? Whereas you say 'tis "a great discredit for a man to be accounted a scold," and that you deal "after the manner of a shrew, which cannot ease her curst heart but by her unhappy tongue," observe but what conclusion demonstratively follows these premises:
A man that is accounted a scold hath great discredit.
Joseph Swetnam is accounted a scold.
Ergo, Joseph hath great discredit,
If you deny the Minor [proposition, or second statement of the syllogism], 'tis proved out of your own assertion, because you deal "after the manner of a shrew," etc., where we may note first a corrupt fountain whence the polluted puddles of your accustomed actions are derived. . . .

I would run through all your silly discourse and anatomize your baseness, but as some have partly been bolted [sifted] out already and are promised to be prosecuted, so I leave them as not worthy rehearsal or refutation. I would give a supersedeas to my quill [tell it to stop], but there is a most pregnant place in your book which is worthy laughter that comes to my mind, where you most graphically describe the difference and antipathy of man and woman; which being considered, you think it strange there should be any reciprocation of love. "For a man," say you, "delights in arms and hearing the rattling drum, but a woman loves to hear sweet music on the Lute, Cittern, or Bandore." I prithee, who but the long-eared animal had rather hear the Cuckoo than the Nightingale? Whose ears are not more delighted with the melodious tunes of sweet music than with the harsh sounding drum? . . . Nay, is there not more men that rather affect [enjoy] the laudable use of the Cittern, and Bandore, and Lute for the recreation of their minds than the clamorous noise of drums? Whether is it more agreeable to human nature to march "amongst murdered carcasses," which you say man rejoiceth in, than to enjoy the fruition of peace and plenty, even "to dance on silken Carpets," as you say is our pleasure? What man soever maketh wars, is it not to this end, that he might enjoy peace? Who marcheth among murdered carcasses but to this end, that his enemies being subdued and slain, he may securely enjoy peace? "Man loves to hear the threatening of his Prince's enemies, but woman weeps when she hears of war." What man that is a true and loyal subject loves to hear his Prince's enemies threaten: is it not more humane to bewail the wars and loss of our countrymen than to rejoice in the threats of an adversary? But you go forward in your paralleling a man's love "to lie on the cold grass," but "a woman must be wrapped in warm mantles." I never heard of any that had rather lie in the cold grass than in a featherbed, if he might have his choice; yet you make it a proper attribute to all your sex. Thus you see your chiefest elegance to be but miserable patches and botches: this Antithesis you have found in some Author betwixt a warrior and a lover, and you stretch it to show the difference betwixt a man and a woman.

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