Leslie Fish - The Female Of The Species lyrics

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride He shouts to scare the monster who will often turn aside But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail, For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. When Nag, the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail, For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws Twas the women not the warriors turned those stark enthusiasts pale For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say For the woman that God gave him isn't his to give away But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the other's tale, That the female of the species is more deadly than the male. Man a bear in most relations, worm and savage otherwise Man propounds negotiations, man accepts the compromise Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act. But the woman that God gave him, every fiber of her frame Proves her launched for one sole issue armed and engined for the same And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail The female of the species must be deadlier than the male. She who faces d**h by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity, must not swerve or fact or jest These are purely male diversions, not in these her honor dwells She, the other law they live by is that law and nothing else She is wedded to convictions in default of grosser ties Her contentions are her children, heaven help him who denies He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant white-hot wild Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child. So it comes that man, the coward when he gathers to confer- With his fellow braves in council dare not leave a place for her While at war with life and conscience, he uplifts his erring hands To some god of abstract justice that no woman understands And man knows it- knows more over that the woman that God gave him Must command but may not govern, shall enthrall but not enslave him And she knows because she warns him and her instincts never fail That the female of her species is more deadly than the male.