Pride and vanity of young women/The Pride and Vanity of Young Women

The Pride and Vanity of Young Women.

COme all you young men I pray you attend,
Unto the few verses which here I have penn’d,
Concerning young women wherever they go,
With their new fashion dresses they make a fine show.

⁠Therefore I’ll begin at the crown of their head,
And speak of the habits which they wear indeed,
The better sort goes with their necks almost bare,
Yet they are right costly in dressing their hair.

⁠They plate up their hair and gives it a set,
With near by a hand-breadth of miniken net,
Which is fit for nothing but fancy to please,
Or to set in a window for catching of flies.

⁠They must have fine ribbons their heads for to tye,
With top-knots and lug-knots to glitter and fly,
With rings and side ruffles so wondrous queer,
They cock up their heads like a high bridled mare.

⁠They must have their stays to lace them about,
Tho’ they were but rushes well shew’d in a clout,
And some stuft with fegs, a fluff that’s right frail,
And some sews hemp in an old dyed sark tail.

⁠And them that has money they have a good hap,
For they’ll have a bonnet or else a black cap,
They look as high minded with pride and disdain,
As a toad when he’s sitting below a big stane.

⁠With their famous cloke stocking and fine leather shoon,
And white metal buckles that glances therein,
With pretty silk garters tyed below their knee.
Their coats they will kilt that the lads may them see.

⁠And if a hail coat they chance for to have,
They’ll let it hing down to cover the lave,
And when a new gown they chance for to get,
It covers, the fault of the old ragget set.

⁠All modest women these dresses they scorn,
Wherewith these gaukies themselves do adorn,
Which is nothing else but the simptoms of pride,
Or else for the fashion to co’er their din hyde.

⁠The lads when they see them in markets so fine,
He thinks with himself if this lass were but mine,
No fear of riches and gold in great store,
A well mounted lass, and what would he have more.

⁠But mark and you’ll see how the tocher is paid,
When he gets the first night of his beautiful bride,
Next morning the merchants are all at his door,
For the braws that the bride wore seven years before.

⁠And thus begins his sad sorrow and wreck,
In paying the debt which he ne’er did contract,
His prompted up nothing thus did him deceive,
And led him to ruin like old mother Eve.

⁠A woman that’s modest I duly will prize,
For she shines more bright than the stars in the skies,
While by a lew’d woman you may see indeed,
How a man he is brought to a morsal of bread.

⁠But that if you be for a virtuous wife,
To yield you the pleasure and comfort of life,
Take one that her mother has learned right well,
To card a few rowands and spin at her wheel.

⁠A well tempered lass that can sew and knit,
And order her business as she thinks fit,
Wears no out-landish dress without nor within,
But only such cloaths as her mother did spin.

⁠For these giglet gaukies as here you may see,
They are good for nothing but pleasing the eye,
And bringing a man to sorrow and strife,
They’re fitter for misses than to be a wife.