the air, and devils of hell themselves, who are as much enamoured and
dote (if I may use that word) as any other creatures whatsoever. For if
those stories be true that are written of incubus and succubus, of
nymphs, lascivious fauns, satyrs, and those heathen gods which were
devils, those lascivious Telchines, of whom the Platonists tell so many
fables; or those familiar meetings in our days, and company of witches
and devils, there is some probability for it. I know that Biarmannus,
Wierus, lib. 1. cap. 19. et 24. and some others stoutly deny it, that
the devil hath any carnal copulation with women, that the devil takes
no pleasure in such facts, they be mere fantasies, all such relations
of incubi, succubi, lies and tales; but Austin, lib. 15. de civit. Dei.
doth acknowledge it: Erastus de Lamiis, Jacobus Sprenger and his
colleagues, &c. [4675] Zanchius, cap. 16. lib. 4. de oper. Dei.
Dandinus, in Arist. de Anima, lib. 2. text. 29. com. 30. Bodin, lib. 2.
cap. 7. and Paracelsus, a great champion of this tenet amongst the
rest, which give sundry peculiar instances, by many testimonies,
proofs, and confessions evince it. Hector Boethius, in his Scottish
history, hath three or four such examples, which Cardan confirms out of
him, lib. 16. cap. 43. of such as have had familiar company many years
with them, and that in the habit of men and women Philostratus in his
fourth book de vita Apollonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind,
which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five
years of age, that going between Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a
phantasm in the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which taking him by the
hand, carried him home to her house in the suburbs of Corinth, and told
him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her,
[4676]he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never
any drank, and no man should molest him; but she being fair and lovely
would live and die with him, that was fair and lovely to behold. The
young man a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate
his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her awhile to his
great content, and at last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other
guests, came Apollonius, who, by some probable conjectures, found her
out to be a serpent, a lamia, and that all her furniture was like
Tantalus's gold described by Homer, no substance, but mere illusions.
When she saw herself descried, she wept, and desired Apollonius to be
silent, but he would not be moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and
all that was in it, vanished in an instant: [4677]many thousands took
notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece. Sabine in
his Comment on the tenth of Ovid's Metamorphoses, at the tale of
Orpheus, telleth us of a gentleman of Bavaria, that for many months
together bewailed the loss of his dear wife; at length the devil in her
habit came and comforted him, and told him, because he was so
importunate for her, that she would come and live with him again, on
that condition he would be new married, never swear and blaspheme as he
used formerly to do; for if he did, she should be gone: [4678]he vowed
it, married, and lived with her, she brought him children, and governed
his house, but was still pale and sad, and so continued, till one day
falling out with him, he fell a swearing; she vanished thereupon, and
was never after seen. [4679]This I have heard, saith Sabine, from
persons of good credit, which told me that the Duke of Bavaria did tell
it for a certainty to the Duke of Saxony. One more I will relate out of
Florilegus, _ad annum_ 1058, an honest historian of our nation, because
he telleth it so confidently, as a thing in those days talked of all
over Europe: a young gentleman of Rome, the same day that he was
married, after dinner with the bride and his friends went a walking
into the fields, and towards evening to the tennis-court to recreate
himself; whilst he played, he put his ring upon the finger of Venus
statua, which was thereby made in brass; after he had sufficiently
played, and now made an end of his sport, he came to fetch his ring,
but Venus had bowed her finger in, and he could not get it off.
Whereupon loath to make his company tarry at present, there left it,
intending to fetch it the next day, or at some more convenient time,
went thence to supper, and so to bed. In the night, when he should come
to perform those nuptial rites, Venus steps between him and his wife
(unseen or felt of her), and told her that she was his wife, that he
had betrothed himself unto her by that ring, which he put upon her
finger: she troubled him for some following nights. He not knowing how
to help himself, made his moan to one Palumbus, a learned magician in
those days, who gave him a letter, and bid him at such a time of the
night, in such a cross-way, at the town's end, where old Saturn would
pass by with his associates in procession, as commonly he did, deliver
that script with his own hands to Saturn himself; the young man of a
bold spirit, accordingly did it; and when the old fiend had read it, he
called Venus to him, who rode before him, and commanded her to deliver
his ring, which forthwith she did, and so the gentleman was freed. Many
such stories I find in several [4680]authors to confirm this which I
have said; as that more notable amongst the rest, of Philinium and
Machates in [4681]Phlegon's Tract, de rebus mirabilibus, and though
many be against it, yet I, for my part, will subscribe to Lactantius,
lib. 14. cap. 15. [4682]God sent angels to the tuition of men; but
whilst they lived amongst us, that mischievous all-commander of the
earth, and hot in lust, enticed them by little and little to this vice,
and defiled them with the company of women: and to Anaxagoras, de
resurrect. [4683]Many of those spiritual bodies, overcome by the love
of maids, and lust, failed, of whom those were born we call giants.
Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, Sulpicius Severus, Eusebius, etc.,
to this sense make a twofold fall of angels, one from the beginning of
the world, another a little before the deluge, as Moses teacheth us,
[4684]openly professing that these genii can beget, and have carnal
copulation with women. At Japan in the East Indies, at this present (if
we may believe the relation of [4685]travellers), there is an idol
called Teuchedy, to whom one of the fairest virgins in the country is
monthly brought, and left in a private room, in the fotoqui, or church,
where she sits alone to be deflowered. At certain times [4686]the
Teuchedy (which is thought to be the devil) appears to her, and knoweth
her carnally. Every month a fair virgin is taken in; but what becomes
of the old, no man can tell. In that goodly temple of Jupiter Belus in
Babylon, there was a fair chapel, [4687]saith Herodotus, an eyewitness
of it, in which was splendide stratus lectus et apposita mensa aurea, a
brave bed, a table of gold, &c., into which no creature came but one
only woman, which their god made choice of, as the Chaldean priests
told him, and that their god lay with her himself, as at Thebes in
Egypt was the like done of old. So that you see this is no news, the
devils themselves, or their juggling priests, have played such pranks
in all ages. Many divines stiffly contradict this; but I will conclude
with [4688]Lipsius, that since examples, testimonies, and confessions,
of those unhappy women are so manifest on the other side, and many even
in this our town of Louvain, that it is likely to be so. [4689]One
thing I will add, that I suppose that in no age past, I know not by
what destiny of this unhappy time, have there ever appeared or showed
themselves so many lecherous devils, satyrs, and genii, as in this of
ours, as appears by the daily narrations, and judicial sentences upon
record. Read more of this question in Plutarch, vit. Numae, Austin de
civ. Dei. lib. 15. Wierus, lib. 3. de praestig. Daem. Giraldus
Cambrensis, itinerar. Camb. lib. 1. Malleus malefic. quaest. 5. part.
1. Jacobus Reussus, lib. 5. cap. 6. fol. 54. Godelman, lib. 2. cap. 4.
Erastus, Valesius de sacra philo. cap. 40. John Nider, Fornicar. lib.
5. cap. 9. Stroz. Cicogna. lib. 3. cap. 3. Delrio, Lipsius Bodine,
daemonol. lib. 2. cap. 7. Pererius in Gen. lib. 8. in 6. cap. ver. 2.
King James, &c.
SUBSECT. II.—_How Love tyranniseth over men. Love, or Heroical
Melancholy, his definition, part affected_.
You have heard how this tyrant Love rageth with brute beasts and
spirits; now let us consider what passions it causeth amongst men.
[4690]Improbe amor quid non mortalia pectora cogis? How it tickles the
hearts of mortal men, Horresco referens,—I am almost afraid to relate,
amazed, [4691]and ashamed, it hath wrought such stupendous and
prodigious effects, such foul offences. Love indeed (I may not deny)
first united provinces, built cities, and by a perpetual generation
makes and preserves mankind, propagates the church; but if it rage it
is no more love, but burning lust, a disease, frenzy, madness, hell.
[4692]Est orcus ille, vis est immedicabilis, est rabies insana; 'tis no
virtuous habit this, but a vehement perturbation of the mind, a monster
of nature, wit, and art, as Alexis in [4693]Athenaeus sets it out,
viriliter audax, muliebriter timidium, furore praeceps, labore
infractum, mel felleum, blanda percussio, &c. It subverts kingdoms,
overthrows cities, towns, families, mars, corrupts, and makes a
massacre of men; thunder and lightning, wars, fires, plagues, have not
done that mischief to mankind, as this burning lust, this brutish
passion. Let Sodom and Gomorrah, Troy, (which Dares Phrygius, and
Dictis Cretensis will make good) and I know not how many cities bear
record,—et fuit ante Helenam, &c., all succeeding ages will subscribe:
Joanna of Naples in Italy, Fredegunde and Brunhalt in France, all
histories are full of these basilisks. Besides those daily monomachies,
murders, effusion of blood, rapes, riot, and immoderate expense, to
satisfy their lusts, beggary, shame, loss, torture, punishment,
disgrace, loathsome diseases that proceed from thence, worse than
calentures and pestilent fevers, those often gouts, pox, arthritis,
palsies, cramps, sciatica, convulsions, aches, combustions, &c., which
torment the body, that feral melancholy which crucifies the soul in
this life, and everlastingly torments in the world to come.
Notwithstanding they know these and many such miseries, threats,
tortures, will surely come upon them, rewards, exhortations, e contra;
yet either out of their own weakness, a depraved nature, or love's
tyranny, which so furiously rageth, they suffer themselves to be led
like an ox to the slaughter: (Facilis descensus Averni) they go down
headlong to their own perdition, they will commit folly with beasts,
men leaving the natural use of women, as [4694]Paul saith, burned in
lust one towards another, and man with man wrought filthiness.
Semiramis equo, Pasiphae tauro, Aristo Ephesius asinae se commiscuit,
Fulvius equae, alii canibus, capris, &c., unde monstra nascuntur
aliquando, Centauri, Sylvani, et ad terrorem hominum prodigiosa
spectra: Nec cum brutis, sed ipsis hominibus rem habent, quod peccatum
Sodomiae vulgo dicitur; et frequens olim vitium apud Orientalis illos
fuit, Graecos nimirum, Italos, Afros, Asianos: [4695]Hercules Hylam
habuit, Polycletum, Dionem, Perithoonta, Abderum et Phryga; alii et
Euristium ab Hercule amatum tradunt. Socrates pulchrorum Adolescentum
causa frequens Gymnasium adibat, flagitiosque spectaculo pascebat
oculos, quod et Philebus et Phaedon, Rivales, Charmides et
[4696]reliqui Platonis Dialogi, satis superque testatum faciunt: quod
vero Alcibiades de eodem Socrate loquatur, lubens conticesco, sed et
abhorreo; tantum incitamentum praebet libidini. At hunc perstrinxit
Theodoretus lib. de curat. graec. affect. cap. ultimo. Quin et ipse
Plato suum demiratur Agathonem, Xenophon, Cliniam, Virgilius Alexin,
Anacreon Bathyllum: Quod autem de Nerone, Claudio, caeterorumque
portentosa libidine memoriae proditum, mallem a Petronio, Suetonio,
caeterisque petatis, quando omnem fidem excedat, quam a me expectetis;
sed vetera querimur. [4697]Apud Asianos, Turcas, Italos, nunquam
frequentius hoc quam hodierno die vitium; Diana Romanorum Sodomia;
officinae horum alicubi apud Turcas,—qui saxis semina mandant—arenas
arantes; et frequentes querelae, etiam inter ipsos conjuges hac de re,
quae virorum concubitum illicitum calceo in oppositam partem verso
magistratui indicant; nullum apud Italos familiare magis peccatum, qui
et post [4698]Lucianum et [4699]Tatium, scriptis voluminibis defendunt.
Johannes de la Casa, Beventinus Episcopus, divinum opus vocat, suave
scelus, adeoque jactat, se non alia, usum Venere. Nihil usitatius apud
monachos, Cardinales, sacrificulos, etiam [4700]furor hic ad mortem, ad
insaniam. [4701]Angelus Politianus, ob pueri amorem, violentas sibi
inanus injecit. Et horrendum sane dictu, quantum apud nos patrum
memoria, scelus detestandum hoc saevierit! Quum enim Anno 1538.
prudentissimus Rex Henricus Octavus cucullatorum coenobia, et
sacrificorum collegia, votariorum, per venerabiles legum Doctores
Thomam Leum, Richardum Laytonum visitari fecerat, &c., tanto numero
reperti sunt apud eos scortatores, cinaedi, ganeones, paedicones,
puerarii, paederastae, Sodomitae, ([4702]Balei verbis utor) Ganimedes,
&c. ut in unoquoque eorum novam credideris Gomorrham. Sed vide si lubet
eorundem Catalogum apud eundem Balcum; Puellae (inquit) in lectis
dormire non poterant ob fratres necromanticos. Haec si apud votarios,
monachos, sanctos scilicet homunciones, quid in foro, quid in aula
factum suspiceris? quid apud nobiles, quid inter fornices, quam non
foeditatem, quam non spurcitiem? Sileo interim turpes illas, et ne
nominandas quidem monachorum [4703] mastrupationes, masturbatores.
[4704]Rodericus a Castro vocat, tum et eos qui se invicem ad Venerem
excitandam flagris caedunt, Spintrias, Succubas, Ambubeias, et
lasciviente lumbo Tribades illas mulierculas, quae se invicem fricant,
et praeter Eunuchos etiam ad Venerem explendam, artificiosa illa
veretra habent. Immo quod magis mirere, faemina foeminam
Constantinopoli non ita pridem deperiit, ausa rem plane incredibilem,
mutato cultu mentita virum de nuptiis sermonem init, et brevi nupta
est: sed authorem ipsum consule, Busbequium. Omitto [4705]Salanarios
illos Egyptiacos, qui cum formosarum cadaveribus concumbunt; et eorum
vesanam libidinem, qui etiam idola et imagines depereunt. Nota est
fabula Pigmalionis apud [4706]Ovidium; Mundi et Paulini apud Aegesippum
belli Jud. lib. 2. cap. 4. Pontius C. Caesaris legatus, referente
Plinio, lib. 35. cap. 3. quem suspicor eum esse qui Christum
crucifixit, picturis Atalantae et Helenae adeo libidine incensus, ut
tollere eas vellet si natura tectorii permisisset, alius statuam bonae
Fortunae deperiit (Aelianus, lib. 9. cap. 37.) alius bonae deae, et ne
qua pars probro vacet. [4707]Raptus ad stupra (quod ait ille) et ne
[4708]os quidem a libidine exceptum. Heliogabalus, per omnia cava
corporis libidinem recepit, Lamprid. vita ejus. [4709]Hostius quidam
specula fecit, et ita disposuit, ut quum virum ipse pateretur, aversus
omnes admissarii motus in speculo videret, ac deinde falsa magnitudine
ipsius membri tanquam vera gauderet, simul virum et foeminam passus,
quod dictu foedum et abominandum. Ut veram plane sit, quod apud
[4710]Plutarchum Gryllus Ulyssi objecit. Ad hunc usque diem apud nos
neque mas marem, neque foemina foeminam amavit, qualia multa apud vos
memorabiles et praeclari viri fecerunt: ut viles missos faciam,
Hercules imberbem sectans socium, amicos deseruit, &c. Vestrae
libidines intra suos naturae fines coerceri non possunt, quin instar
fluvii exundantis atrocem foeditatum, tumultum, confusionemque naturae
gignant in re Venerea: nam et capras, porcos, equos inierunt viri et
foeminae, insano bestiarum amore exarserunt, imde Minotauri, Centauri,
Sylvani, Sphinges, &c. Sed ne confutando doceam, aut ea foras efferam,
quae, non omnes scire convenit (haec enim doctis solummodo, quod causa
non absimili [4711]Rodericus, scripta velim) ne levissomis ingentis et
depravatis mentibus focdissimi sceleris notitiam, &c., nolo quem
diutius hisce sordibus inquinare.
I come at last to that heroical love which is proper to men and women,
is a frequent cause of melancholy, and deserves much rather to be
called burning lust, than by such an honourable title. There is an
honest love, I confess, which is natural, laqueus occultus captivans
corda hominum, ut a mulieribus non possint separari, a secret snare to
captivate the hearts of men, as [4712]Christopher Fonseca proves, a
strong allurement, of a most attractive, occult, adamantine property,
and powerful virtue, and no man living can avoid it. [4713]Et qui vim
non sensit amoris, aut lapis est, aut bellua. He is not a man but a
block, a very stone, aut [4714]Numen, aut Nebuchadnezzar, he hath a
gourd for his head, a pepon for his heart, that hath not felt the power
of it, and a rare creature to be found, one in an age, Qui nunquam
visae flagravit amore puellae; [4715]for semel insanivimus omnes, dote
we either young or old, as [4716]he said, and none are excepted but
Minerva and the Muses: so Cupid in [4717]Lucian complains to his mother
Venus, that amongst all the rest his arrows could not pierce them. But
this nuptial love is a common passion, an honest, for men to love in
the way of marriage; ut materia appetit formam, sic mulier virum.
[4718]You know marriage is honourable, a blessed calling, appointed by
God himself in Paradise; it breeds true peace, tranquillity, content,
and happiness, qua nulla est aut fuit unquam sanctior conjunctio, as
Daphnaeus in [4719]Plutarch could well prove, et quae generi humano
immortalitatem parat, when they live without jarring, scolding,
lovingly as they should do.
[4720]Felices ter et amplius
Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec ullis
Divulsus querimoniis
Suprema citius solvit amor die.
Thrice happy they, and more than that,
Whom bond of love so firmly ties,
That without brawls till death them part,
'Tis undissolv'd and never dies.
As Seneca lived with his Paulina, Abraham and Sarah, Orpheus and
Eurydice, Arria and Poetus, Artemisia and Mausolus, Rubenius Celer,
that would needs have it engraven on his tomb, he had led his life with
Ennea, his dear wife, forty-three years eight months, and never fell
out. There is no pleasure in this world comparable to it, 'tis summum
mortalitatis bonum— [4721]hominum divumque voluptas, Alma Venus—latet
enim in muliere aliquid majus potentiusque, omnibus aliis humanis
voluptatibus, as [4722]one holds, there's something in a woman beyond
all human delight; a magnetic virtue, a charming quality, an occult and
powerful motive. The husband rules her as head, but she again commands
his heart, he is her servant, she is only joy and content: no happiness
is like unto it, no love so great as this of man and wife, no such
comfort as [4723]placens uxor, a sweet wife: [4724]Omnis amor magnus,
sed aperto in conjuge major. When they love at last as fresh as they
did at first, [4725]Charaque charo consenescit conjugi, as Homer brings
Paris kissing Helen, after they had been married ten years, protesting
withal that he loved her as dear as he did the first hour that he was
betrothed. And in their old age, when they make much of one another,
saying, as he did to his wife in the poet,
[4726]Uxor vivamus quod viximus, et moriamur,
Servantes nomen sumpsimus in thalamo;
Nec ferat ulla dies ut commutemur in aevo,
Quin tibi sim juvenis, tuque puella mihi.
Dear wife, let's live in love, and die together,
As hitherto we have in all good will:
Let no day change or alter our affections.
But let's be young to one another still.
Such should conjugal love be, still the same, and as they are one
flesh, so should they be of one mind, as in an aristocratical
government, one consent, [4727]Geyron-like, coalescere in unum, have
one heart in two bodies, will and nill the same. A good wife, according
to Plutarch, should be as a looking-glass to represent her husband's
face and passion: if he be pleasant, she should be merry: if he laugh,
she should smile: if he look sad, she should participate of his sorrow,
and bear a part with him, and so should they continue in mutual love
one towards another.
[4728]Et me ab amore tuo deducet nulla senectus,
Sive ego Tythonus, sive ego Nestor ero.
No age shall part my love from thee, sweet wife,
Though I live Nestor or Tithonus' life.
And she again to him, as the [4729]Bride saluted the Bridegroom of old
in Rome, Ubi tu Caius, ego semper Caia, be thou still Caius, I'll be
Caia.
'Tis a happy state this indeed, when the fountain is blessed (saith
Solomon, Prov. v. 17.) and he rejoiceth with the wife of his youth, and
she is to him as the loving hind and pleasant roe, and he delights in
her continually. But this love of ours is immoderate, inordinate, and
not to be comprehended in any bounds. It will not contain itself within
the union of marriage, or apply to one object, but is a wandering,
extravagant, a domineering, a boundless, an irrefragable, a destructive
passion: sometimes this burning lust rageth after marriage, and then it
is properly called jealousy; sometimes before, and then it is called
heroical melancholy; it extends sometimes to co-rivals, &c., begets
rapes, incests, murders: Marcus Antonius compressit Faustinam sororem,
Caracalla Juliam Novercam, Nero Matrem, Caligula sorores, Cyneras
Myrrham filiam, &c. But it is confined within no terms of blood, years,
sex, or whatsoever else. Some furiously rage before they come to
discretion, or age. [4730]Quartilla in Petronius never remembered she
was a maid; and the wife of Bath, in Chaucer, cracks,
Since I was twelve years old, believe,
Husbands at Kirk-door had I five.
[4731]Aratine Lucretia sold her maidenhead a thousand times before she
was twenty-four years old, plus milies vendiderant virginitatem, &c.
neque te celabo, non deerant qui ut integram ambirent. Rahab, that
harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age, and was but
fifteen when she hid the spies, as [4732]Hugh Broughton proves, to whom
Serrarius the Jesuit, quaest. 6. in cap. 2. Josue, subscribes.
Generally women begin pubescere, as they call it, or catullire, as
Julius Pollux cites, lib. 2. cap. 3. onomast out of Aristophanes,
[4733]at fourteen years old, then they do offer themselves, and some
plainly rage. [4734]Leo Afer saith, that in Africa a man shall scarce
find a maid at fourteen years of age, they are so forward, and many
amongst us after they come into the teens do not live without husbands,
but linger. What pranks in this kind the middle ages have played is not
to be recorded. Si mihi sint centum linguae, sint oraque centum, no
tongue can sufficiently declare, every story is full of men and women's
insatiable lust, Nero's, Heliogabali, Bonosi, &c. [4735] Coelius
Amphilenum, sed Quintius Amphelinam depereunt, &c. They neigh after
other men's wives (as Jeremia, cap. v. 8. complaineth) like fed horses,
or range like town bulls, raptores virginum et viduarum, as many of our
great ones do. Solomon's wisdom was extinguished in this fire of lust,
Samson's strength enervated, piety in Lot's daughters quite forgot,
gravity of priesthood in Eli's sons, reverend old age in the Elders
that would violate Susanna, filial duty in Absalom to his stepmother,
brotherly love in Ammon. towards his sister. Human, divine laws,
precepts, exhortations, fear of God and men, fair, foul means, fame,
fortune, shame, disgrace, honour cannot oppose, stave off, or withstand
the fury of it, omnia vincit amor, &c. No cord nor cable can so
forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with, a twined thread.
The scorching beams under the equinoctial, or extremity of cold within
the circle arctic, where the very seas are frozen, cold or torrid zone,
cannot avoid or expel this heat, fury, and rage of mortal men.
[4736]Quo fugis ab demens, nulla est fuga, tu licet usque
Ad Tanaim fugias, usque sequetur amor.
Of women's unnatural, [4737]insatiable lust, what country, what village
doth not complain? Mother and daughter sometimes dote on the same man,
father and son, master and servant, on one woman.
[4738]—Sed amor, sed ineffrenata libido,
Quid castum in terris intentatumque reliquit?