ANSWER.]
HUDIBRAS.
449
Or, as some nations use, give place,
And truckle to your mighty race,[1] 380
Let men usurp th' unjust dominion,
As if they were the better women.
And truckle to your mighty race,[1] 380
Let men usurp th' unjust dominion,
As if they were the better women.
- ↑ Grey thinks this may be an allusion to the obsequiousness of the Muscovite women, recorded in Purchas's Pilgrimes (vol. ii. p. 230), a book with which our poet seems to have been very familiar. It is there said, "That if in Muscovy the woman is not beaten once a week she will not be good; and therefore they look for it weekly: and the women say, if their husbands did not beat them, they should not love them."
Thus knights' foes were in some parts terræ salicæ: males only being allowed to inherit such lands, because females could not perform the services for which they were granted. In France this law regulates the inheritance of the crown itself. See Shakspeare, Henry V., Act i. sc. 2.
