As I were a shepherdess, I would be piped and
sung to; as a dairy-wench, I would dance at maypoles, and make
syllabubs; as a country gentlewoman, keep a good house, and come up
to term to see motions; as a citizen's wife, to be troubled with a
jealous husband, and put to my shifts; others' miseries should be
my pleasures. As a waiting-woman, I would taste my lady's delights
to her; as a miscellany madam, invent new tires, and go visit
courtiers; as a great lady, lie a-bed, and have courtiers visit me;
as a duchess, I would keep my state; and as an empress, I would do
any thing. And, in all these shapes, I would ever be follow'd with
the affections of all that see me. Marry, I myself would affect
none; or if I did, it should not be heartily, but so as I might
save myself in them still, and take pride in tormenting the poor
wretches. Or, now I think on't, I would, for one year, wish myself
one woman; but the richest, fairest, and delicatest in a kingdom,
the very centre of wealth and beauty, wherein all lines of love
should meet; and in that person I would prove all manner of
suitors, of all humours, and of all complexions, and never have any
two of a sort. I would see how love, by the power of his object,
could work inwardly alike, in a choleric man and a sanguine, in a
melancholic and a phlegmatic, in a fool and a wise man, in a clown
and a courtier, in a valiant man and a coward; and how he could
vary outward, by letting this gallant express himself in dumb gaze;
another with sighing and rubbing his fingers; a third with
play-ends and pitiful verses; a fourth, with stabbing himself, and
drinking healths, or writing languishing letters in his blood; a
fifth, in colour'd ribands and good clothes; with this lord to
smile, and that lord to court, and the t'other lord to dote, and
one lord to hang himself.
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