Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SOME WOMEN, by SIMONIDES OF AMORGOS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SOME WOMEN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: At the creation god made women's natures
Last Line: By god -- she is the best and wisest wife.
Alternate Author Name(s): Semonides Of Amorgos
Subject(s): Love - Marital; Women; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love


AT the creation God made women's natures
various. One he made from a bristly sow:
and all her household welters in confusion,
lying aground in miscellaneous muck,
while she unwashen in unlaundered clothes
reposes in her pigsty, fattening.
God made another from a canny vixen,
the woman who knows all -- nothing escapes her,
evil and good, she knows it all alike.
Many a time she says an evil thing,
but often good: such is her shifty nature.
The dog's own image for activity,
eager to hear and find out everything,
runs peering everywhere, casting about,
and even without finding still gives tongue.
Her husband's threats will not avail to stop her,
not even anger and a stone to smash
her teeth, nor yet a kindly word and a pat:
even if she's a guest in another home,
the bitch persists in her incessant yapping.
The Heavenly Ones moulded a woman of earth
and gave her to a husband, incomplete.
She lacks the knowledge of both good and evil:
the only work she understands is eating;
not even when she's chilled by wintry weather
does she bestir herself to move to the fire.
Another is the sea, and double natured.
One day she is all laughter and radiance:
a stranger, seeing her at home, would praise her --
'There is no finer woman in existence
anywhere in the earth, nor lovelier.'
Another day she cannot be approached
or looked upon -- she is a maniac,
berserk, like mother-dog above her whelps;
implacable she is to all alike,
a stumbling-block to enemies and friends.
She is the sea: it lies in kindly calm,
often in summertime, a boundless joy
to sailors; yet it often turns to madness,
sweeping along in thundershouting billows.
This woman has a kindred temperament:
she has a nature like the fickle deep.
And one, a bee: fortunate man who gets her!
In her alone blame finds no resting place:
she makes a life fertile and prosperous;
bearing a noble and illustrious stock
she reaches age in the love of a dear spouse.
She grows in good repute among all women
and is invested with a heavenly grace.
Her pleasure is not sitting among women
when they tell tales of love and venery.
Such a woman is a bounty given to man
by God -- she is the best and wisest wife.





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