and advice must needs be of great force, especially if it shall proceed
from a wise, fatherly, reverent, discreet person, a man of authority,
whom the parties do respect, stand in awe of, or from a judicious
friend, of itself alone it is able to divert and suffice. Gordonius,
the physician, attributes so much to it, that he would have it by all
means used in the first place. Amoveatur ab illa, consilio viri quem
timet, ostendendo pericula saeculi, judicium inferni, gaudia Paradisi.
He would have some discreet men to dissuade them, after the fury of
passion is a little spent, or by absence allayed; for it is as
intempestive at first, to give counsel, as to comfort parents when
their children are in that instant departed; to no purpose to prescribe
narcotics, cordials, nectarines, potions, Homer's nepenthes, or Helen's
bowl, &c. Non cessabit pectus tundere, she will lament and howl for a
season: let passion have his course awhile, and then he may proceed, by
foreshowing the miserable events and dangers which will surely happen,
the pains of hell, joys of Paradise, and the like, which by their
preposterous courses they shall forfeit or incur; and 'tis a fit
method, a very good means; for what [5699]Seneca said of vice, I say of
love, Sine magistro discitur, vix sine magistro deseritur, 'tis learned
of itself, but [5700]hardly left without a tutor. 'Tis not amiss
therefore to have some such overseer, to expostulate and show them such
absurdities, inconveniences, imperfections, discontents, as usually
follow; which their blindness, fury, madness, cannot apply unto
themselves, or will not apprehend through weakness; and good for them
to disclose themselves, to give ear to friendly admonitions. Tell me,
sweetheart (saith Tryphena to a lovesick Charmides in [5701]Lucian),
what is it that troubles thee? peradventure I can ease thy mind, and
further thee in thy suit; and so, without question, she might, and so
mayst thou, if the patient be capable of good counsel, and will hear at
least what may be said.
If he love at all, she is either an honest woman or a whore. If
dishonest, let him read or inculcate to him that 5. of Solomon's
Proverbs, Ecclus. 26. Ambros. lib. 1. cap. 4. in his book of Abel and
Cain, Philo Judeus de mercede mer. Platina's dial. in Amores,
Espencaeus, and those three books of Pet. Haedus de contem. amoribus,
Aeneas Sylvius' tart Epistle, which he wrote to his friend Nicholas of
Warthurge, which he calls medelam illiciti amoris &c. [5702]For what's
a whore, as he saith, but a poller of youth, a [5703]ruin of men, a
destruction, a devourer of patrimonies, a downfall of honour, fodder
for the devil, the gate of death, and supplement of hell? [5704]Talis
amor est laqueus animae, &c., a bitter honey, sweet poison, delicate
destruction, a voluntary mischief, commixtum coenum, sterquilinium. And
as [5705]Pet. Aretine's Lucretia, a notable quean, confesseth:
Gluttony, anger, envy, pride, sacrilege, theft, slaughter, were all
born that day that a whore began her profession; for, as she follows
it, her pride is greater than a rich churl's, she is more envious than
the pox, as malicious as melancholy, as covetous as hell. If from the
beginning of the world any were mala, pejor, pessima, bad in the
superlative degree, 'tis a whore; how many have I undone, caused to be
wounded, slain! O Antonia, thou seest [5706]what I am without, but
within, God knows, a puddle of iniquity, a sink of sin, a pocky quean.
Let him now that so dotes meditate on this; let him see the event and
success of others, Samson, Hercules, Holofernes, &c. Those infinite
mischiefs attend it: if she be another man's wife he loves, 'tis
abominable in the sight of God and men; adultery is expressly forbidden
in God's commandment, a mortal sin, able to endanger his soul: if he be
such a one that fears God, or have any religion, he will eschew it, and
abhor the loathsomeness of his own fact. If he love an honest maid,
'tis to abuse or marry her; if to abuse, 'tis fornication, a foul fact
(though some make light of it), and almost equal to adultery itself. If
to marry, let him seriously consider what he takes in hand, look before
ye leap, as the proverb is, or settle his affections, and examine first
the party, and condition of his estate and hers, whether it be a fit
match, for fortunes, years, parentage, and such other circumstances, an
sit sitae Veneris. Whether it be likely to proceed: if not, let him
wisely stave himself off at the first, curb in his inordinate passion,
and moderate his desire, by thinking of some other subject, divert his
cogitations. Or if it be not for his good, as Aeneas, forewarned by
Mercury in a dream, left Dido's love, and in all haste got him to sea,
[5707]Mnestea, Surgestumque vocat fortemque Cloanthem,
Classem aptent taciti jubet———
and although she did oppose with vows, tears, prayers, and imprecation.
[5708]———nullis ille movetur
Fletibus, aut illas voces tractabilis audit;
Let thy Mercury-reason rule thee against all allurements, seeming
delights, pleasing inward or outward provocations. Thou mayst do this
if thou wilt, pater non deperit filiam, nec frater sororem, a father
dotes not on his own daughter, a brother on a sister; and why? because
it is unnatural, unlawful, unfit. If he be sickly, soft, deformed, let
him think of his deformities, vices, infirmities; if in debt, let him
ruminate how to pay his debts: if he be in any danger, let him seek to
avoid it: if he have any lawsuit, or other business, he may do well to
let his love-matters alone and follow it, labour in his vocation
whatever it is. But if he cannot so ease himself, yet let him wisely
premeditate of both their estates; if they be unequal in years, she
young and he old, what an unfit match must it needs be, an uneven yoke,
how absurd and indecent a thing is it! as Lycinus in [5709]Lucian told
Timolaus, for an old bald crook-nosed knave to marry a young wench; how
odious a thing it is to see an old lecher! What should a bald fellow do
with a comb, a dumb doter with a pipe, a blind man with a
looking-glass, and thou with such a wife? How absurd it is for a young
man to marry an old wife for a piece of good. But put case she be equal
in years, birth, fortunes, and other qualities correspondent, he doth
desire to be coupled in marriage, which is an honourable estate, but
for what respects? Her beauty belike, and comeliness of person, that is
commonly the main object, she is a most absolute form, in his eye at
least, Cui formam Paphia, et Charites tribuere decoram; but do other
men affirm as much? or is it an error in his judgment.
[5710]Fallunt nos oculi vagique sensus,
Oppressa ratione mentiuntur,
our eyes and other senses will commonly deceive us; it may be, to thee
thyself upon a more serious examination, or after a little absence, she
is not so fair as she seems. Quaedam videntur et non sunt; compare her
to another standing by, 'tis a touchstone to try, confer hand to hand,
body to body, face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose, neck to neck,
&c., examine every part by itself, then altogether, in all postures,
several sites, and tell me how thou likest her. It may be not she, that
is so fair, but her coats, or put another in her clothes, and she will
seem all out as fair; as the [5711]poet then prescribes, separate her
from her clothes: suppose thou saw her in a base beggar's weed, or else
dressed in some old hirsute attires out of fashion, foul linen, coarse
raiment, besmeared with soot, colly, perfumed with opoponax, sagapenum,
asafoetida, or some such filthy gums, dirty, about some indecent action
or other; or in such a case as [5712]Brassivola, the physician, found
Malatasta, his patient, after a potion of hellebore, which he had
prescribed: Manibus in terram depositis, et ano versus caelum elevato
(ac si videretur Socraticus ille Aristophanes, qui Geometricas figuras
in terram scribens, tubera colligere videbatur) atram bilem in album
parietem injiciebat, adeoque totam cameram, et se deturpabat, ut, &c.,
all to bewrayed, or worse; if thou saw'st her (I say) would thou affect
her as thou dost? Suppose thou beheldest her in a [5713] frosty
morning, in cold weather, in some passion or perturbation of mind,
weeping, chafing, &c., rivelled and ill-favoured to behold. She many
times that in a composed look seems so amiable and delicious, tam
scitula, forma, if she do but laugh or smile, makes an ugly
sparrow-mouthed face, and shows a pair of uneven, loathsome, rotten,
foul teeth: she hath a black skin, gouty legs, a deformed crooked
carcass under a fine coat. It may be for all her costly tires she is
bald, and though she seem so fair by dark, by candlelight, or afar off
at such a distance, as Callicratides observed in [5714]Lucian, If thou
should see her near, or in a morning, she would appear more ugly than a
beast; [5715]si diligenter consideres, quid per os et nares et caeteros
corporis meatus egreditur, vilius sterquilinium nunquam vidisti. Follow
my counsel, see her undressed, see her, if it be possible, out of her
attires, furtivis nudatam coloribus, it may be she is like Aesop's jay,
or [5716]Pliny's cantharides, she will be loathsome, ridiculous, thou
wilt not endure her sight: or suppose thou saw'st her, pale, in a
consumption, on her death-bed, skin and bones, or now dead, Cujus erat
gratissimus amplexus (whose embrace was so agreeable) as Barnard saith,
erit horribilis aspectus; Non redolet, sed olet, quae, redolere solet,
As a posy she smells sweet, is most fresh and fair one day, but dried
up, withered, and stinks another. Beautiful Nireus, by that Homer so
much admired, once dead, is more deformed than Thersites, and Solomon
deceased as ugly as Marcolphus: thy lovely mistress that was erst
[5717]Charis charior ocellis, dearer to thee than thine eyes, once sick
or departed, is Vili vilior aestimata coeno, worse than any dirt or
dunghill. Her embraces were not so acceptable, as now her looks be
terrible: thou hadst better behold a Gorgon's head, than Helen's
carcass.
Some are of opinion, that to see a woman naked is able of itself to
alter his affection; and it is worthy of consideration, saith
[5718]Montaigne the Frenchman in his Essays, that the skilfulest
masters of amorous dalliance, appoint for a remedy of venerous
passions, a full survey of the body; which the poet insinuates,
[5719]Ille quod obscaenas in aperto corpore partes
Viderat, in cursu qui fuit, haesit amor.
The love stood still, that run in full career,
When once it saw those parts should not appear.
It is reported of Seleucus, king of Syria, that seeing his wife
Stratonice's bald pate, as she was undressing her by chance, he could
never affect her after. Remundus Lullius, the physician, spying an
ulcer or cancer in his mistress' breast, whom he so dearly loved, from
that day following abhorred the looks of her. Philip the French king,
as Neubrigensis, lib. 4. cap. 24. relates it, married the king of
Denmark's daughter, [5720]and after he had used her as a wife one
night, because her breath stunk, they say, or for some other secret
fault, sent her back again to her father. Peter Mattheus, in the life
of Lewis the Eleventh, finds fault with our English [5721]chronicles,
for writing how Margaret the king of Scots' daughter, and wife to Louis
the Eleventh, French king, was ob graveolentiam oris, rejected by her
husband. Many such matches are made for by-respects, or some seemly
comeliness, which after honeymoon's past, turn to bitterness: for
burning lust is but a flash, a gunpowder passion; and hatred oft
follows in the highest degree, dislike and contempt.
[5722]———Cum se cutis arida laxat,
Fiunt obscuri dentes———
when they wax old, and ill-favoured, they may commonly no longer abide
them,—Jam gravis es nobis, Be gone, they grow stale, fulsome,
loathsome, odious, thou art a beastly filthy quean,—[5723]faciem Phoebe
cacantis habes, thou art Saturni podex, withered and dry, insipida et
vetula,—[5724]Te quia rugae turpant, et capitis nives, (I say) be gone,
[5725]portae patent, proficiscere.
Yea, but you will infer, your mistress is complete, of a most absolute
form in all men's opinions, no exceptions can be taken at her, nothing
may be added to her person, nothing detracted, she is the mirror of
women for her beauty, comeliness and pleasant grace, inimitable, merae
deliciae, meri lepores, she is Myrothetium Veneris, Gratiarum pixis, a
mere magazine of natural perfections, she hath all the Veneres and
Graces,—mille faces et mille figuras, in each part absolute and
complete, [5726]Laeta genas laeta os roseum, vaga lumina laeta: to be
admired for her person, a most incomparable, unmatchable piece, aurea
proles, ad simulachrum alicujus numinis composita, a Phoenix, vernantis
aetatulae Venerilla, a nymph, a fairy, [5727]like Venus herself when
she was a maid, nulli secunda, a mere quintessence, flores spirans et
amaracum, foeminae prodigium: put case she be, how long will she
continue? [5728]Florem decoris singuli carpunt dies: Every day detracts
from her person, and this beauty is bonum fragile, a mere flash, a
Venice glass, quickly broken,
[5729]Anceps forma bonum mortalibus,
———exigui donum breve temporis,
it will not last. As that fair flower [5730]Adonis, which we call an
anemone, flourisheth but one month, this gracious all-commanding beauty
fades in an instant. It is a jewel soon lost, the painter's goddess,
fulsa veritas, a mere picture. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is
vanity, Prov. xxxi. 30.
[5731]Vitrea gemmula, fluxaque bullula, candida forma est,
Nix, rosa, fumus, ventus et aura, nihil.
A brittle gem, bubble, is beauty pale,
A rose, dew, snow, smoke, wind, air, nought at all.
If she be fair, as the saying is, she is commonly a fool: if proud,
scornful, sequiturque superbia formam, or dishonest, rara est concordia
formae, atque pudicitiae, can she be fair and honest too? [5732]
Aristo, the son of Agasicles, married a Spartan lass, the fairest lady
in all Greece next to Helen, but for her conditions the most abominable
and beastly creature of the world. So that I would wish thee to
respect, with [5733]Seneca, not her person but qualities. Will you say
that's a good blade which hath a gilded scabbard, embroidered with gold
and jewels? No, but that which hath a good edge and point, well
tempered metal, able to resist. This beauty is of the body alone, and
what is that, but as [5734] Gregory Nazianzen telleth us, a mock of
time and sickness? or as Boethius, [5735]as mutable as a flower, and
'tis not nature so makes us, but most part the infirmity of the
beholder. For ask another, he sees no such matter: Dic mihi per gratias
quails tibi videtur, I pray thee tell me how thou likest my sweetheart,
as she asked her sister in Aristenaetus, [5736]whom I so much admire,
methinks he is the sweetest gentleman, the properest man that ever I
saw: but I am in love, I confess (nec pudet fateri) and cannot
therefore well judge. But be she fair indeed, golden-haired, as
Anacreon his Bathillus, (to examine particulars) she have
[5737]Flammeolos oculos, collaque lacteola, a pure sanguine complexion,
little mouth, coral lips, white teeth, soft and plump neck, body,
hands, feet, all fair and lovely to behold, composed of all graces,
elegances, an absolute piece,
[5738]Lumina sint Melitae Junonia, dextra Minervae,
Mamillae Veneris, sura maris dominae, &c.
Let [5739]her head be from Prague, paps out of Austria, belly from
France, back from Brabant, hands out of England, feet from Rhine,
buttocks from Switzerland, let her have the Spanish gait, the Venetian
tire, Italian compliment and endowments:
[5740]Candida sideriis ardescant lumina flammis,
Sudent colla rosas, et cedat crinibus aurum,
Mellea purpurem depromant ora ruborem;
Fulgeat, ac Venerem coelesti corpore vincat,
Forma dearum omnis, &c.
Let her be such a one throughout, as Lucian deciphers in his Imagines,
as Euphranor of old painted Venus, Aristaenetus describes Lais, another
Helena, Chariclea, Leucippe, Lucretia, Pandora; let her have a box of
beauty to repair herself still, such a one as Venus gave Phaon, when he
carried her over the ford; let her use all helps art and nature can
yield; be like her, and her, and whom thou wilt, or all these in one; a
little sickness, a fever, small-pox, wound, scar, loss of an eye, or
limb, a violent passion, a distemperature of heat or cold, mars all in
an instant, disfigures all; child-bearing, old age, that tyrant time
will turn Venus to Erinnys; raging time, care, rivels her upon a
sudden; after she hath been married a small while, and the black ox
hath trodden on her toe, she will be so much altered, and wax out of
favour, thou wilt not know her. One grows to fat, another too lean,
&c., modest Matilda, pretty pleasing Peg, sweet-singing Susan, mincing
merry Moll, dainty dancing Doll, neat Nancy, jolly Joan, nimble Nell,
kissing Kate, bouncing Bess, with black eyes, fair Phyllis, with fine
white hands, fiddling Frank, tall Tib, slender Sib, &c., will quickly
lose their grace, grow fulsome, stale, sad, heavy, dull, sour, and all
at last out of fashion. Ubi jam vultus argutia, suavis suavitatio,
blandus, risus, &c. Those fair sparkling eyes will look dull, her soft
coral lips will be pale, dry, cold, rough, and blue, her skin rugged,
that soft and tender superficies will be hard and harsh, her whole
complexion change in a moment, and as [5741]Matilda writ to King John.
I am not now as when thou saw'st me last,
That favour soon is vanished and past;
That rosy blush lapt in a lily vale,
Now is with morphew overgrown and pale.
'Tis so in the rest, their beauty fades as a tree in winter, which
Dejanira hath elegantly expressed in the poet,
[5742]Deforme solis aspicis truncis nemus?
Sic nostra longum forma percurrens iter,
Deperdit aliquid semper, et fulget minus,
Malisque minus est quiquid in nobis fuit,
Olim petitum cecidit, et partu labat,
Maturque multum rapuit ex illa mihi,
Aetas citato senior eripuit gradu.
And as a tree that in the green wood grows,
With fruit and leaves, and in the summer blows,
In winter like a stock deformed shows:
Our beauty takes his race and journey goes,
And doth decrease, and lose, and come to nought,
Admir'd of old, to this by child-birth brought:
And mother hath bereft me of my grace,
And crooked old age coining on apace.
To conclude with Chrysostom, [5743]When thou seest a fair and beautiful
person, a brave Bonaroba, a bella donna, quae salivam moveat, lepidam
puellam et quam tu facile ames, a comely woman, having bright eyes, a
merry countenance, a shining lustre in her look, a pleasant grace,
wringing thy soul, and increasing thy concupiscence; bethink with
thyself that it is but earth thou lovest, a mere excrement, which so
vexeth thee, which thou so admirest, and thy raging soul will be at
rest. Take her skin from her face, and thou shalt see all loathsomeness
under it, that beauty is a superficial skin and bones, nerves, sinews:
suppose her sick, now rivelled, hoary-headed, hollow-cheeked, old;
within she is full of filthy phlegm, stinking, putrid, excremental
stuff: snot and snivel in her nostrils, spittle in her mouth, water in
her eyes, what filth in her brains, &c. Or take her at best, and look
narrowly upon her in the light, stand near her, nearer yet, thou shalt
perceive almost as much, and love less, as [5744] Cardan well writes,
minus amant qui acute vident, though Scaliger deride him for it: if he
see her near, or look exactly at such a posture, whosoever he is,
according to the true rules of symmetry and proportion, those I mean of
Albertus Durer, Lomatius and Tasnier, examine him of her. If he be
elegans formarum spectator he shall find many faults in physiognomy,
and ill colour: if form, one side of the face likely bigger than the
other, or crooked nose, bad eyes, prominent veins, concavities about
the eyes, wrinkles, pimples, red streaks, freckles, hairs, warts,
neves, inequalities, roughness, scabredity, paleness, yellowness, and
as many colours as are in a turkeycock's neck, many indecorums in their
other parts; est quod desideres, est quod amputes, one leers, another
frowns, a third gapes, squints, &c. And 'tis true that he saith,
[5745]Diligenter consideranti raro facies absoluta, et quae vitio
caret, seldom shall you find an absolute face without fault, as I have
often observed; not in the face alone is this defect or disproportion
to be found; but in all the other parts, of body and mind; she is fair,
indeed, but foolish; pretty, comely, and decent, of a majestical
presence, but peradventure, imperious, dishonest, acerba, iniqua,
self-willed: she is rich, but deformed; hath a sweet face, but bad
carriage, no bringing up, a rude and wanton flirt; a neat body she
hath, but it is a nasty quean otherwise, a very slut, of a bad kind. As
flowers in a garden have colour some, but no smell, others have a
fragrant smell, but are unseemly to the eye; one is unsavoury to the
taste as rue, as bitter as wormwood, and yet a most medicinal cordial
flower, most acceptable to the stomach; so are men and women; one is
well qualified, but of ill proportion, poor and base: a good eye she
hath, but a bad hand and foot, foeda pedes et foeda manus, a fine leg,
bad teeth, a vast body, &c. Examine all parts of body and mind, I
advise thee to inquire of all. See her angry, merry, laugh, weep, hot,
cold, sick, sullen, dressed, undressed, in all attires, sites,
gestures, passions, eat her meals, &c., and in some of these you will
surely dislike. Yea, not her only let him observe, but her parents how
they carry themselves: for what deformities, defects, encumbrances of
body or mind be in them at such an age, they will likely be subject to,
be molested in like manner, they will patrizare or matrizare. And
withal let him take notice of her companions, in convictu (as Quiverra
prescribes), et quibuscum conversetur, whom she converseth with.
Noscitur ex comite, qui non cognoscitur ex se. [5746]According to
Thucydides, she is commonly the best, de quo minimus foras habetur
sermo, that is least talked of abroad. For if she be a noted reveller,
a gadder, a singer, a pranker or dancer, than take heed of her. For
what saith Theocritus?
[5747]At vos festivae ne ne saltate puellae,
En malus hireus adest in vos saltare paratus.
Young men will do it when they come to it. Fauns and satyrs will
certainly play reaks, when they come in such wanton Baccho's or
Elenora's presence. Now when they shall perceive any such obliquity,
indecency, disproportion, deformity, bad conditions, &c., let them
still ruminate on that, and as [5748]Haedus adviseth out of Ovid, earum
mendas notent, note their faults, vices, errors, and think of their
imperfections; 'tis the next way to divert and mitigate love's furious
headstrong passions; as a peacock's feet, and filthy comb, they say,
make him forget his fine feathers, and pride of his tail; she is
lovely, fair, well-favoured, well qualified, courteous and kind, but if
she be not so to me, what care I how kind she be? I say with
[5749]Philostratus, formosa aliis, mihi superba, she is a tyrant to me,
and so let her go. Besides these outward neves or open faults, errors,
there be many inward infirmities, secret, some private (which I will
omit), and some more common to the sex, sullen fits, evil qualities,
filthy diseases, in this case fit to be considered; consideratio
foeditatis mulierum, menstruae imprimis, quam immundae sunt, quam
Savanarola proponit regula septima penitus observandam; et Platina
dial. amoris fuse perstringit. Lodovicus Bonacsialus, mulieb. lib. 2.
cap. 2. Pet. Haedus, Albertus, et infiniti fere medici. [5750]A lover,
in Calcagninus's Apologies, wished with all his heart he were his
mistress's ring, to hear, embrace, see, and do I know not what: O thou
fool, quoth the ring, if thou wer'st in my room, thou shouldst hear,
observe, and see pudenda et poenitenda, that which would make thee
loathe and hate her, yea, peradventure, all women for her sake.
I will say nothing of the vices of their minds, their pride, envy,
inconstancy, weakness, malice, selfwill, lightness, insatiable lust,
jealousy, Ecclus. v. 14. No malice to a woman's, no bitterness like to
hers, Eccles. vii. 21. and as the same author urgeth, Prov. xxxi. 10.
Who shall find a virtuous woman? He makes a question of it. Neque jus
neque bonum, neque aequum sciunt, melius pejus, prosit, obsit, nihil
vident, nisi quod libido suggerit. They know neither good nor bad, be
it better or worse (as the comical poet hath it), beneficial or
hurtful, they will do what they list.
[5751]Insidiae humani generis, querimonia vitae,
Exuviae noctis, durissima cura diei,
Poena virum, nex et juvenum, &c.———
And to that purpose were they first made, as Jupiter insinuates in the
[5752]poet;
The fire that bold Prometheus stole from me,
With plagues call'd women shall revenged be,
On whose alluring and enticing face,
Poor mortals doting shall their death embrace.
In fine, as Diogenes concludes in Nevisanus, Nulla est faemina quae non
habeat quid: they have all their faults.
[5753]Every each of them hath some vices,
If one be full of villainy,
Another hath a liquorish eye,
If one be full of wantonness,
Another is a chideress.
When Leander was drowned, the inhabitants of Sestos consecrated Hero's
lantern to Anteros, Anteroti sacrum, [5754]and he that had good success
in his love should light the candle: but never any man was found to
light it; which I can refer to nought, but the inconstancy and
lightness of women.
[5755]For in a thousand, good there is not one;
All be so proud, unthankful, and unkind,
With flinty hearts, careless of other's moan.
In their own lusts carried most headlong blind,
But more herein to speak I am forbidden;
Sometimes for speaking truth one may be chidden.
I am not willing, you see, to prosecute the cause against them, and
therefore take heed you mistake me not, [5756]matronam nullam ego
tango, I honour the sex, with all good men, and as I ought to do,
rather than displease them, I will voluntarily take the oath which
Mercurius Britannicus took, Viragin. descript. tib. 2. fol. 95. Me
nihil unquam mali nobilissimo sexui, vel verbo, vel facto machinaturum,
&c., let Simonides, Mantuan, Platina, Pet. Aretine, and such
women-haters bare the blame, if aught be said amiss; I have not writ a
tenth of that which might be urged out of them and others; [5757]non
possunt invectivae omnes, et satirae in foeminas scriptae, uno volumine
comprehendi. And that which I have said (to speak truth) no more
concerns them than men, though women be more frequently named in this
tract; (to apologise once for all) I am neither partial against them,
or therefore bitter; what is said of the one, mutato nomine, may most
part be understood of the other. My words are like Passus' picture in
[5758]Lucian, of whom, when a good fellow had bespoke a horse to be
painted with his heels upwards, tumbling on his back, he made him
passant: now when the fellow came for his piece, he was very angry, and
said, it was quite opposite to his mind; but Passus instantly turned
the picture upside down, showed him the horse at that site which he
requested, and so gave him satisfaction. If any man take exception at
my words, let him alter the name, read him for her, and 'tis all one in
effect.
But to my purpose: If women in general be so bad (and men worse than
they) what a hazard is it to marry? where shall a man find a good wife,
or a woman a good husband? A woman a man may eschew, but not a wife:
wedding is undoing (some say) marrying marring, wooing woeing: [5759]a
wife is a fever hectic, as Scaliger calls her, and not be cured but by
death, as out of Menander, Athenaeus adds,
In pelaprus te jacis negotiorum,—
Non Libyum, non Aegeum, ubi ex triginta non pereunt
Tria navigia: duceus uxorem servatur prorsus nemo.
Thou wadest into a sea itself of woes;
In Libya and Aegean each man knows
Of thirty not three ships are cast away,
But on this rock not one escapes, I say.