不要以为这张纸是带着虚情假意来的，为的是唤起你的怜悯，或为你的过错哀悼。我太了解那颗坚硬固执的心;没有温柔的怜悯能代替我，女人的辩词也不能占上风，即使你的恩人的英明榜样都失败了。但我仍然保留着这最后的特权;受压迫和受伤害的人总是会抱怨。荣誉的法则也太严厉了，束缚着软弱顺从的女性。如果我们被叹息所蒙蔽，被武力所迫，被诡计所欺骗，或被严厉的命令所催促，不管这致命的枷锁是出于什么动机，审判的世界期待着我们坚定不移。就是天堂!(因为在天堂里，正义的确是至高无上的，尽管在那神圣的名字下面的诡计是亵渎的)我向你申诉，我向你提交我的案件，也不怕公正的法律的判决。一切交易都是有条件的; The purchase void, the creditor unpaid; Defrauded servants are from service free; A wounded slave regains his liberty. For wives ill used no remedy remains, To daily racks condemned, and to eternal chains. From whence is this unjust distinction grown? Are we not formed with passions like your own? Nature with equal fire our souls endued, Our minds as haughty, and as warm our blood; O'er the wide world your pleasures you pursue, The change is justified by something new; But we must sigh in silence -- and be true. Our sex's weakness you expose and blame (Of every prattling fop the common theme). Yet from this weakness you suppose is due Sublimer virtue than your Cato knew. Had heaven designed us trials so severe, It would have formed our tempers then to bear. And I have borne (oh what have I not borne!) The pang of jealousy, the insults of scorn. Wearied at length, I from your sight remove, And place my future hopes in secret love. In the gay bloom of glowing youth retired, I quit the woman's joy to be admired, With that small pension your hard heart allows, Renounce your fortune, and release your vows. To custom (though unjust) so much is due; I hide my frailty from the public view. My conscience clear, yet sensible of shame, My life I hazard, to preserve my fame. And I prefer this low inglorious state To vile dependence on the thing I hate -- But you pursue me to this last retreat. Dragged into light, my tender crime is shown And every circumstance of fondness known. Beneath the shelter of the law you stand, And urge my ruin with a cruel hand, While to my fault thus rigidly severe, Tamely submissive to the man you fear. This wretched outcast, this abandoned wife, Has yet this joy to sweeten shameful life: By your mean conduct, infamously loose, You are at once my accuser and excuse. Let me be damned by the censorious prude (stupidly dull, or spiritually lewd), My hapless case will surely pity find From every just and reasonable mind. When to the final sentence I submit, The lips condemn me, but their souls acquit. No more my husband, to your pleasures go, The sweets of your recovered freedom know. Go: court the brittle friendship of the great, Smile at his board, or at his levee wait; And when dismissed, to madam's toilet fly, More than her chambermaids, or glasses, lie, Tell her how young she looks, how heavenly fair, Admire the lilies and the roses there. Your high ambition may be gratified, Some cousin of her own be made your bride, And you the father of a glorious race Endowed with Ch------l's strength and Low---r's face.