"Qui*, whose harridan are you now?"
this withered crone you see all bone
was once a bloom your sweet coquette
yet, years have not been kind to we.
Each maid becomes a mother
"Qui, whose harridan are you now?"
Men bleed us dry as beaten wheat
upon a dusty floor we lie.
Those maids who lived to birth and nurse
now possess but hairy lipped sighs.
"Qui, whose harridan are you now?
and where is he who loved that youth?"
They have no horrid name for he,
our aged counterparts of limp form
though stud has come and gone, we ask.
"Qui, whose harridan are you now?"
* Qui means WHO in french
* harridan origin 1690–1700; perhaps alteration of French haridelle
thin, worn-out horse, large, gaunt woman (compared with the initial
element of haras stud farm, though derivation is unclear)
** 89 years later Madam Guillotine's reigned perhaps woman don't like
being called names?