Come then, ATHENIA, freely let us scan
The coward insults of that tyrant, man.
Self-prais'd, and grasping at despotick pow'r,
He looks on slav'ry as the female dow'r;
To Nature's boon ascribes what force has giv'n,
And usurpation deems the gift of heav'n.
See the first-peopled East, where ASIA sheds
Her balmy spices o'er her fertile meads:
There, while th' ASSYRIAN stretch'd his wide domain
From distant Indus to the Cyprian main,
All nature's laws by impious force were broke;
The female sex to slav'ry's galling yoke
Bow'd their fair necks: from social life confin'd,
And all th' exertions of th' enlighten'd mind,
Clos'd in a proud Seraglio's wanton bow'rs,
The dalliance of a tyrant's looser hours.
By kings' examples subjects form their lives,
Dependent satraps had their train of wives;
Proportion'd pow'r each petty tyrant craves,
And each poor female was the slave of slaves.