SUBSECT. I.

Cure of Love-Melancholy, by Labour, Diet, Physic, Fasting, &c.

Although it be controverted by some, whether love-melancholy may be cured, because it is so irresistible and violent a passion; for as you know,

[5601]———facilis descensus Averni;
Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras;
Hic labor, hoc opus est.———

It is an easy passage down to hell,
But to come back, once there, you cannot well.

Yet without question, if it be taken in time, it may be helped, and by many good remedies amended. Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. cap. 23. et 24. sets down seven compendious ways how this malady may be eased, altered, and expelled. Savanarola 9. principal observations, Jason Pratensis prescribes eight rules besides physic, how this passion may be tamed, Laurentius 2. main precepts, Arnoldus, Valleriola, Montaltus, Hildesheim, Langius, and others inform us otherwise, and yet all tending to, the same purpose. The sum of which I will briefly epitomise, (for I light my candle from their torches) and enlarge again upon occasion, as shall seem best to me, and that after mine own method. The first rule to be observed in this stubborn and unbridled passion, is exercise and diet. It is an old and well-known, sentence, Sine Cerere et Saccho friget Venus (love grows cool without bread and wine). As an [5602]idle sedentary life, liberal feeding, are great causes of it, so the opposite, labour, slender and sparing diet, with continual business, are the best and most ordinary means to prevent it.

Otio si tollas, periere Cupidinis artes,
Contemptaeque jacent, et sine luce faces.

Take idleness away, and put to flight
Are Cupid's arts, his torches give no light.

Minerva, Diana, Vesta, and the nine Muses were not enamoured at all, because they never were idle.

[5603]Frustra blanditae appulistis ad has,
Frustra nequitiae venistis ad has,
Frustra delitiae obsidebitis has,
Frustra has illecebrae, et procacitates,
Et suspiria, et oscula, et susurri,
Et quisquis male sana corda amantum
Blandis ebria fascinat venenis.

In vain are all your flatteries,
In vain are all your knaveries,
Delights, deceits, procacities,
Sighs, kisses, and conspiracies,
And whate'er is done by art,
To bewitch a lover's heart.

'Tis in vain to set upon those that are busy. 'Tis Savanarola's third rule, Occupari in multis et magnis negotiis, and Avicenna's precept, cap. 24. [5604]Cedit amor rebus; res, age tutus eris. To be busy still, and as [5605]Guianerius enjoins, about matters of great moment, if it may be. [5606]Magninus adds, Never to be idle but at the hours of sleep.

[5607]———et si
Poscas ante diem librum cum lumine, si non
Intendas animum studiis, et rebus honestis,
Invidia vel amore miser torquebere.———

For if thou dost not ply thy book,
By candlelight to study bent,
Employ'd about some honest thing,
Envy or love shall thee torment.

[5608]Cur in penates rarius tenues subit,
Haec delicatas eligens pestis domus,
Mediumque sanos vulgus affectuss tenet? &c.

Why dost thou ask, poor folks are often free,
And dainty places still molested be?

Because poor people fare coarsely, work hard, go woolward and bare. [5609] Non habet unde suum paupertas pascat amorem. [5610]Guianerius therefore prescribes his patient to go with hair-cloth next his skin, to go barefooted, and barelegged in cold weather, to whip himself now and then, as monks do, but above all to fast. Not with sweet wine, mutton and pottage, as many of those tender-bellies do, howsoever they put on Lenten faces, and whatsoever they pretend, but from all manner of meat. Fasting is an all-sufficient remedy of itself; for, as Jason Pratensis holds, the bodies of such persons that feed liberally, and live at ease, [5611]are full of bad spirits and devils, devilish thoughts; no better physic for such parties, than to fast. Hildesheim, spicel. 2. to this of hunger, adds, [5612]often baths, much exercise and sweat, but hunger and fasting he prescribes before the rest. And 'tis indeed our Saviour's oracle, This kind of devil is not cast out but by fasting and prayer, which makes the fathers so immoderate in commendation of fasting. As hunger, saith [5613] Ambrose, is a friend of virginity, so is it an enemy to lasciviousness, but fullness overthrows chastity, and fostereth all manner of provocations. If thine horse be too lusty, Hierome adviseth thee to take away some of his provender; by this means those Pauls, Hilaries, Anthonies, and famous anchorites, subdued the lusts of the flesh; by this means Hilarion made his ass, as he called his own body, leave kicking, (so [5614]Hierome relates of him in his life) when the devil tempted him to any such foul offence. By this means those [5615]Indian Brahmins kept themselves continent: they lay upon the ground covered with skins, as the red-shanks do on heather, and dieted themselves sparingly on one dish, which Guianerius would have all young men put in practice, and if that will not serve, [5616]Gordonius would have them soundly whipped, or, to cool their courage, kept in prison, and there fed with bread and water till they acknowledge their error, and become of another mind. If imprisonment and hunger will not take them down, according to the directions of that [5617] Theban Crates, time must wear it out; if time will not, the last refuge is a halter. But this, you will say, is comically spoken. Howsoever, fasting, by all means, must be still used; and as they must refrain from such meats formerly mentioned, which cause venery, or provoke lust, so they must use an opposite diet. [5618]Wine must be altogether avoided of the younger sort. So [5619]Plato prescribes, and would have the magistrates themselves abstain from it, for example's sake, highly commending the Carthaginians for their temperance in this kind. And 'twas a good edict, a commendable thing, so that it were not done for some sinister respect, as those old Egyptians abstained from wine, because some fabulous poets had given out, wine sprang first from the blood of the giants, or out of superstition, as our modern Turks, but for temperance, it being animae virus et vitiorum fomes, a plague itself, if immoderately taken. Women of old for that cause, [5620]in hot countries, were forbid the use of it; as severely punished for drinking of wine as for adultery; and young folks, as Leonicus hath recorded, Var. hist. l. 3. cap. 87, 88. out of Athenaeus and others, and is still practised in Italy, and some other countries of Europe and Asia, as Claudius Minoes hath well illustrated in his Comment on the 23. Emblem of Alciat. So choice is to be made of other diet.

Nec minus erucas aptum est vitare salaces,
Et quicquid veneri corpora nostra parat.

Eringos are not good for to be taken,
And all lascivious meats must be forsaken.

Those opposite meats which ought to be used are cucumbers, melons, purslane, water-lilies, rue, woodbine, ammi, lettuce, which Lemnius so much commends, lib. 2, cap. 42. and Mizaldus hort. med. to this purpose; vitex, or agnus castus before the rest, which, saith [5621]Magninus, hath a wonderful virtue in it. Those Athenian women, in their solemn feasts called Thesmopheries, were to abstain nine days from the company of men, during which time, saith Aelian, they laid a certain herb, named hanea, in their beds, which assuaged those ardent flames of love, and freed them from the torments of that violent passion. See more in Porta, Matthiolus, Crescentius lib. 5. &c., and what every herbalist almost and physician hath written, cap. de Satyriasi et Priapismo; Rhasis amongst the rest. In some cases again, if they be much dejected, and brought low in body, and now ready to despair through anguish, grief, and too sensible a feeling of their misery, a cup of wine and full diet is not amiss, and as Valescus adviseth, cum alia honesta venerem saepe exercendo, which Langius epist. med. lib. 1. epist. 24. approves out of Rhasis (ad assiduationem coitus invitat] and Guianerius seconds it, cap. 16. tract. 16. as a [5622] very profitable remedy.

[5623]———tument tibi quum inguina, cum si
Ancilla, aut verna praesto est, tentigine rumpi
Malis? non ego namque, &c.———

[5624]Jason Pratensis subscribes to this counsel of the poet, Excretio enim aut tollet prorsus aut lenit aegritudinem. As it did the raging lust of Ahasuerus, [5625]qui ad impatientiam amoris leniendam, per singulas fere noctes novas puellas devirginavit. And to be drunk too by fits; but this is mad physic, if it be at all to be permitted. If not, yet some pleasure is to be allowed, as that which Vives speaks of, lib. 3. de anima., [5626]A lover that hath as it were lost himself through impotency, impatience, must be called home as a traveller, by music, feasting, good wine, if need be to drunkenness itself, which many so much commend for the easing of the mind, all kinds of sports and merriments, to see fair pictures, hangings, buildings, pleasant fields, orchards, gardens, groves, ponds, pools, rivers, fishing, fowling, hawking, hunting, to hear merry tales, and pleasant discourse, reading, to use exercise till he sweat, that new spirits may succeed, or by some vehement affection or contrary passion to be diverted till he be fully weaned from anger, suspicion, cares, fears, &c., and habituated into another course. Semper tecum sit, (as [5627]Sempronius adviseth Calisto his lovesick master) qui sermones joculares moveat, conciones ridiculas, dicteria falsa, suaves historias, fabulas venustas recenseat, coram ludat, &c., still have a pleasant companion to sing and tell merry tales, songs and facete histories, sweet discourse, &c. And as the melody of music, merriment, singing, dancing, doth augment the passion of some lovers, as [5628] Avicenna notes, so it expelleth it in others, and doth very much good. These things must be warily applied, as the parties' symptoms vary, and as they shall stand variously affected.

If there be any need of physic, that the humours be altered, or any new matter aggregated, they must be cured as melancholy men. Carolus a Lorme, amongst other questions discussed for his degree at Montpelier in France, hath this, An amantes et amantes iisdem remediis curentur? Whether lovers and madmen be cured by the same remedies? he affirms it; for love extended is mere madness. Such physic then as is prescribed, is either inward or outward, as hath been formerly handled in the precedent partition in the cure of melancholy. Consult with Valleriola observat. lib. 2. observ. 7. Lod. Mercatus lib. 2. cap. 4. de mulier. affect. Daniel Sennertus lib. 1. part. 2. cap. 10. [5629]Jacobus Ferrandus the Frenchman, in his Tract de amore Erotique, Forestus lib. 10. observ. 29 and 30, Jason Pratensis and others for peculiar receipts. [5630]Amatus Lusitanus cured a young Jew, that was almost mad for love, with the syrup of hellebore, and such other evacuations and purges which are usually prescribed to black choler: [5631]Avicenna confirms as much if need require, and [5632]bloodletting above the rest, which makes amantes ne sint amentes, lovers to come to themselves, and keep in their right minds. 'Tis the same which Schola Salernitana, Jason Pratensis, Hildesheim, &c., prescribe bloodletting to be used as a principal remedy. Those old Scythians had a trick to cure all appetite of burning lust, by [5633] letting themselves blood under the ears, and to make both men and women barren, as Sabellicus in his Aeneades relates of them. Which Salmuth. Tit. 10. de Herol. comment. in Pancirol. de nov. report. Mercurialis, var. lec. lib. 3. cap. 7. out of Hippocrates and Benzo say still is in use amongst the Indians, a reason of which Langius gives lib. 1. epist. 10.

Huc faciunt medicamenta venerem sopientia, ut camphora pudendis alligata, et in bracha gestata (quidam ait) membrum flaccidum reddit. Laboravit hoc morbo virgo nobilis, cui inter caetera praescripsit medicus, ut laminam plumbeam multis foraminibus pertusam ad dies viginti portaret in dorso; ad exiccandum vero sperma jussit eam quam parcissime cibari, et manducare frequentur coriandrum praeparatum, et semen lactucae, et acetosae, et sic eam a morbo liberavit. Porro impediunt et remittunt coitum folia salicis trita et epota, et si frequentius usurpentur ipsa in totum auferunt. Idem praestat Topatius annulo gestatus, dexterum lupi testiculum attritum, et oleo vel aqua rosata exhibitum veneris taedium inducere scribit Alexander Benedictus: lac butyri commestum et semen canabis, et camphora exhibita idem praestant. Verbena herba gestata libidinem extinguit, pulvisquae ranae decollatae et exiccatae. Ad extinguendum coitum, ungantur membra genitalia, et renes et pecten aqua in qua opium Thebaicum sit dissolutum; libidini maxime contraria camphora est, et coriandrum siccum frangit coitum, et erectionem virgae impedit; idem efficit synapium ebibitum. Da verbenam in potu et non erigetur virga sex diebus; utere mentha sicca cum aceto, genitalia illinita succo hyoscyami aid cicutae, coitus appelitum sedant, &c. ℞. seminis lactuc. portulac. coriandri an. ℨj. menthae siccae ℨß. sacchari albiss. ℥iiij. pulveriscentur omnia subtiliter, et post ea simul misce aqua neunpharis, f. confec. solida in morsulis. Ex his sumat mane unum quum surgat. Innumera fere his similia petas ab Hildeshemo loco praedicto, Mizaldo, Porta, caeterisque.

SUBSECT. II.

Withstand the beginnings, avoid occasions, change his place: fair and foul means, contrary passions, with witty inventions: to bring in another, and discommend the former.

Other good rules and precepts are enjoined by our physicians, which, if not alone, yet certainly conjoined, may do much; the first of which is obstare principiis, to withstand the beginning,[5634]Quisquis in primo obstitit, Pepulitque amorem tutus ac victor fuit, he that will but resist at first, may easily be a conqueror at the last. Balthazar Castilio, l. 4. urgeth this prescript above the rest, [5635]when he shall chance (saith he) to light upon a woman that hath good behaviour joined with her excellent person, and shall perceive his eyes with a kind of greediness to pull unto them this image of beauty, and carry it to the heart: shall observe himself to be somewhat incensed with this influence, which moveth within: when he shall discern those subtle spirits sparkling in her eyes, to administer more fuel to the fire, he must wisely withstand the beginnings, rouse up reason, stupefied almost, fortify his heart by all means, and shut up all those passages, by which it may have entrance. 'Tis a precept which all concur upon,

[5636]Opprime dum nova sunt subiti mala semina morbi,
Dum licet, in primo lumine siste pedem.

Thy quick disease, whilst it is fresh today,
By all means crush, thy feet at first step stay.

Which cannot speedier be done, than if he confess his grief and passion to some judicious friend [5637](qui tacitus ardet magis uritur, the more he conceals, the greater is his pain) that by his good advice may happily ease him on a sudden; and withal to avoid occasions, or any circumstance that may aggravate his disease, to remove the object by all means; for who can stand by a fire and not burn?

[5638]Sussilite obsecro et mittite istanc foras,
quae misero mihi amanti ebibit sanguinem.

'Tis good therefore to keep quite out of her company, which Hierom so much labours to Paula, to Nepotian; Chrysost. so much inculcates in ser. in contubern. Cyprian, and many other fathers of the church, Siracides in his ninth chapter, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, Arnoldus, Valleriola, &c., and every physician that treats of this subject. Not only to avoid, as [5639] Gregory Tholosanus exhorts, kissing, dalliance, all speeches, tokens, love-letters, and the like, or as Castilio, lib. 4. to converse with them, hear them speak, or sing, (tolerabilius est audire basiliscum sibilantem, thou hadst better hear, saith [5640]Cyprian, a serpent hiss) [5641]those amiable smiles, admirable graces, and sweet gestures, which their presence affords.

[5642]Neu capita liment solitis morsiunculis,
Et his papillarum oppressiunculis
Abstineant:———

but all talk, name, mention, or cogitation of them, and of any other women, persons, circumstance, amorous book or tale that may administer any occasion of remembrance. [5643]Prosper adviseth young men not to read the Canticles, and some parts of Genesis at other times; but for such as are enamoured they forbid, as before, the name mentioned, &c., especially all sight, they must not so much as come near, or look upon them.

[5644]Et fugitare decet simulacra et pabula amoris,
Abstinere sibi atque alio convertere mentem.

Gaze not on a maid, saith Siracides, turn away thine eyes from a beautiful woman, c. 9. v. 5. 7, 8. averte oculos, saith David, or if thou dost see them, as Ficinus adviseth, let not thine eye be intentus ad libidinem, do not intend her more than the rest: for as [5645]Propertius holds, Ipse alimenta sibi maxima praebet amor, love as a snow ball enlargeth itself by sight: but as Hierome to Nepotian, aut aequaliter ama, aut aequaliter ignora, either see all alike, or let all alone; make a league with thine eyes, as [5646]Job did, and that is the safest course, let all alone, see none of them. Nothing sooner revives, [5647]or waxeth sore again, as Petrarch holds, than love doth by sight. As pomp renews ambition; the sight of gold, covetousness; a beauteous object sets on fire this burning lust. Et multum saliens incitat unda sitim. The sight of drink makes one dry, and the sight of meat increaseth appetite. 'Tis dangerous therefore to see. A [5648]young gentleman in merriment would needs put on his mistress's clothes, and walk abroad alone, which some of her suitors espying, stole him away for her that he represented. So much can sight enforce. Especially if he have been formerly enamoured, the sight of his mistress strikes him into a new fit, and makes him rave many days after.

Or, as the poet compares it to embers in ashes, which the wind blows, [5650]ut solet a ventis, &c., a scald head (as the saying is) is soon broken, dry wood quickly kindles, and when they have been formerly wounded with sight, how can they by seeing but be inflamed? Ismenias acknowledged as much of himself, when he had been long absent, and almost forgotten his mistress, [5651]at the first sight of her, as straw in a fire, I burned afresh, and more than ever I did before. [5652]Chariclia was as much moved at the sight of her dear Theagines, after he had been a great stranger. [5653]Mertila, in Aristaenetus, swore she would never love Pamphilus again, and did moderate her passion, so long as he was absent; but the next time he came in presence, she could not contain, effuse amplexa attrectari se sinit, &c., she broke her vow, and did profusely embrace him. Hermotinus, a young man (in the said [5654]author) is all out as unstaid, he had forgot his mistress quite, and by his friends was well weaned from her love; but seeing her by chance, agnovit veteris vestigia flammae, he raved amain, Illa tamen emergens veluti lucida stella cepit elucere, &c., she did appear as a blazing star, or an angel to his sight. And it is the common passion of all lovers to be overcome in this sort. For that cause belike Alexander discerning this inconvenience and danger that comes by seeing, [5655]when he heard Darius's wife so much commended for her beauty, would scarce admit her to come in his sight, foreknowing belike that of Plutarch, formosam videre periculosissimum, how full of danger it is to see a proper woman, and though he was intemperate in other things, yet in this superbe se gessit, he carried himself bravely. And so when as Araspus, in Xenophon, had so much magnified that divine face of Panthea to Cyrus, [5656]by how much she was fairer than ordinary, by so much he was the more unwilling to see her. Scipio, a young man of twenty-three years of age, and the most beautiful of the Romans, equal in person to that Grecian Charinus, or Homer's Nireus, at the siege of a city in Spain, when as a noble and most fair young gentlewoman was brought unto him, [5657]and he had heard she was betrothed to a lord, rewarded her, and sent her back to her sweetheart. St. Austin, as [5658]Gregory reports of him, ne cum sorore quidem sua putavit habitandum, would not live in the house with his own sister. Xenocrates lay with Lais of Corinth all night, and would not touch her. Socrates, though all the city of Athens supposed him to dote upon fair Alcibiades, yet when he had an opportunity, [5659]solus cum solo to lie in the chamber with, and was wooed by him besides, as the said Alcibiades publicly [5660]confessed, formam sprevit et superbe contempsit, he scornfully rejected him. Petrarch, that had so magnified his Laura in several poems, when by the pope's means she was offered unto him, would not accept of her. [5661]It is a good happiness to be free from this passion of love, and great discretion it argues in such a man that he can so contain himself; but when thou art once in love, to moderate thyself (as he saith) is a singular point of wisdom.

[5662]Nam vitare plagas in amoris ne jaciamur
Non ita difficile est, quam captum retibus ipsis
Exire, et validos Veneris perrumpere nodos.

To avoid such nets is no such mastery,
But ta'en escape is all the victory.

But, forasmuch as few men are free, so discreet lovers, or that can contain themselves, and moderate their passions, to curb their senses, as not to see them, not to look lasciviously, not to confer with them, such is the fury of this headstrong passion of raging lust, and their weakness, ferox ille ardor a natura insitus, [5663]as he terms it such a furious desire nature hath inscribed, such unspeakable delight.

Sic Divae Veneris furor,
Insanis adeo mentibus incubat,

which neither reason, counsel, poverty, pain, misery, drudgery, partus dolor, &c., can deter them from; we must use some speedy means to correct and prevent that, and all other inconveniences, which come by conference and the like. The best, readiest, surest way, and which all approve, is Loci mutatio, to send them several ways, that they may neither hear of, see, nor have an opportunity to send to one another again, or live together, soli cum sola, as so many Gilbertines. Elongatio a patria, 'tis Savanarola's fourth rule, and Gordonius' precept, distrahatur ad longinquas regiones, send him to travel. 'Tis that which most run upon, as so many hounds, with full cry, poets, divines, philosophers, physicians, all, mutet patriam: Valesius: [5664]as a sick man he must be cured with change of air, Tully 4 Tuscul. The best remedy is to get thee gone, Jason Pratensis: change air and soil, Laurentius. [5665]Fuge littus amatum.

Virg. Utile finitimis abstinuisse locis.
[5666]Ovid. I procul, et longas carpere perge vias.
———sed fuge tutus eris.

Travelling is an antidote of love,

[5667]Magnum iter ad doctas proficisci cogor Athenas,
Ut me longa gravi solvat amore via.

For this purpose, saith [5668]Propertius, my parents sent me to Athens; time and patience wear away pain and grief, as fire goes out for want of fuel. Quantum oculis, animo tam procul ibit amor. But so as they tarry out long enough: a whole year [5669]Xenophon prescribes Critobulus, vix enim intra hoc tempus ab amore sanari poteris: some will hardly be weaned under. All this [5670]Heinsius merrily inculcates in an epistle to his friend Primierus; first fast, then tarry, thirdly, change thy place, fourthly, think of a halter. If change of place, continuance of time, absence, will not wear it out with those precedent remedies, it will hardly be removed: but these commonly are of force. Felix Plater, observ. lib. 1. had a baker to his patient, almost mad for the love of his maid, and desperate; by removing her from him, he was in a short space cured. Isaeus, a philosopher of Assyria, was a most dissolute liver in his youth, palam lasciviens, in love with all he met; but after he betook himself, by his friends' advice, to his study, and left women's company, he was so changed that he cared no more for plays, nor feasts, nor masks, nor songs, nor verses, fine clothes, nor no such love toys: he became a new man upon a sudden, tanquam si priores oculos amisisset, (saith mine [5671]author) as if he had lost his former eyes. Peter Godefridus, in the last chapter of his third book, hath a story out of St. Ambrose, of a young man that meeting his old love after long absence, on whom he had extremely doted, would scarce take notice of her; she wondered at it, that he should so lightly esteem her, called him again, lenibat dictis animum, and told him who she was, Ego sum, inquit: At ego non sum ego; but he replied, he was not the same man: proripuit sese tandem, as [5672]Aeneas fled from Dido, not vouchsafing her any farther parley, loathing his folly, and ashamed of that which formerly he had done. [5673]Non sum stultus ut ante jam Neaera. O Neaera, put your tricks, and practise hereafter upon somebody else, you shall befool me no longer. Petrarch hath such another tale of a young gallant, that loved a wench with one eye, and for that cause by his parents was sent to travel into far countries, after some years he returned, and meeting the maid for whose sake he was sent abroad, asked her how, and by what chance she lost her eye? no, said she, I have lost none, but you have found yours: signifying thereby, that all lovers were blind, as Fabius saith, Amantes de forma judicare non possunt, lovers cannot judge of beauty, nor scarce of anything else, as they will easily confess after they return unto themselves, by some discontinuance or better advice, wonder at their own folly, madness, stupidity, blindness, be much abashed, and laugh at love, and call it an idle thing, condemn themselves that ever they should be so besotted or misled: and be heartily glad they have so happily escaped.

If so be (which is seldom) that change of place will not effect this alteration, then other remedies are to be annexed, fair and foul means, as to persuade, promise, threaten, terrify, or to divert by some contrary passion, rumour, tales, news, or some witty invention to alter his affection, [5674]by some greater sorrow to drive out the less, saith Gordonius, as that his house is on fire, his best friends dead, his money stolen. [5675]That he is made some great governor, or hath some honour, office, some inheritance is befallen him. He shall be a knight, a baron; or by some false accusation, as they do to such as have the hiccup, to make them forget it. St. Hierome, lib. 2. epist. 16. to Rusticus the monk, hath an instance of a young man of Greece, that lived in a monastery in Egypt, [5676]that by no labour, no continence, no persuasion, could be diverted, but at last by this trick he was delivered. The abbot sets one of his convent to quarrel with him, and with some scandalous reproach or other to defame him before company, and then to come and complain first, the witnesses were likewise suborned for the plaintiff. The young man wept, and when all were against him, the abbot cunningly took his part, lest he should be overcome with immoderate grief: but what need many words? by this invention he was cured, and alienated from his pristine love-thoughts—Injuries, slanders, contempts, disgraces—spretaeque injuria formae, the insult of her slighted beauty, are very forcible means to withdraw men's affections, contumelia affecti amatores amare desinunt, as [5677]Lucian saith, lovers reviled or neglected, contemned or misused, turn love to hate; [5678]redeam? Non si me obsecret, I'll never love thee more. Egone illam, quae illum, quae me, quae non? So Zephyrus hated Hyacinthus because he scorned him, and preferred his co-rival Apollo (Palephaetus fab. Nar.), he will not come again though he be invited. Tell him but how he was scoffed at behind his back, ('tis the counsel of Avicenna), that his love is false, and entertains another, rejects him, cares not for him, or that she is a fool; a nasty quean, a slut, a vixen, a scold, a devil, or, which Italians commonly do, that he or she hath some loathsome filthy disease, gout, stone, strangury, falling sickness, and that they are hereditary, not to be avoided, he is subject to a consumption, hath the pox, that he hath three or four incurable tetters, issues; that she is bald, her breath stinks, she is mad by inheritance, and so are all the kindred, a hair-brain, with many other secret infirmities, which I will not so much as name, belonging to women. That he is a hermaphrodite, an eunuch, imperfect, impotent, a spendthrift, a gamester, a fool, a gull, a beggar, a whoremaster, far in debt, and not able to maintain her, a common drunkard, his mother was a witch, his father hanged, that he hath a wolf in his bosom, a sore leg, he is a leper, hath some incurable disease, that he will surely beat her, he cannot hold his water, that he cries out or walks in the night, will stab his bedfellow, tell all his secrets in his sleep, and that nobody dare lie with him, his house is haunted with spirits, with such fearful and tragical things, able to avert and terrify any man or woman living, Gordonius, cap. 20. part. 2. hunc in modo consulit; Paretur aliqua vetula turpissima aspectu, cum turpi et vili habitu: et portet subtus gremium pannum menstrualem, et dicat quod amica sua sit ebriosa, et quod mingat in lecto, et quod est epileptica et impudicia; et quod in corpore suo sunt excrescentiae enormes, cum faetore anhelitus, et aliae enormitates, quibus vetulae sunt edoctae: si nolit his persuaderi, subito extrahat [5679]pannum menstrualem, coram facie portando, exclamando, talis est amica tua; et si ex his non demiserit, non est homo, sed diabolus incarnatus. Idem fere, Avicenna, cap. 24, de cura Elishi, lib. 3, Fen. 1. Tract. 4. Narrent res immundas vetulae, ex quibus abominationem incurrat, et res [5680]sordidas et, hoc assiduent. Idem Arculanus cap. 16. in 9. Rhasis, &c.

Withal as they do discommend the old, for the better effecting a more speedy alteration, they must commend another paramour, alteram inducere, set him or her to be wooed, or woo some other that shall be fairer, of better note, better fortune, birth, parentage, much to be preferred, [5681] Invenies alium si te hic fastidit Alexis, by this means, which Jason Pratensis wisheth, to turn the stream of affection another way, Successore novo truditur omnis amor; or, as Valesius adviseth, by [5682]subdividing to diminish it, as a great river cut into many channels runs low at last. [5683]Hortor et ut pariter binas habeatis amicas, &c. If you suspect to be taken, be sure, saith the poet, to have two mistresses at once, or go from one to another: as he that goes from a good fire in cold weather is both to depart from it, though in the next room there be a better which will refresh him as much; there's as much difference of haec as hac ignis; or bring him to some public shows, plays, meetings, where he may see variety, and he shall likely loathe his first choice: carry him but to the next town, yea peradventure to the next house, and as Paris lost Oenone's love by seeing Helen, and Cressida forsook Troilus by conversing with Diomede, he will dislike his former mistress, and leave her quite behind him, as [5684]Theseus left Ariadne fast asleep in the island of Dia, to seek her fortune, that was erst his loving mistress. [5685]Nunc primum Dorida vetus amator contempsi, as he said, Doris is but a dowdy to this. As he that looks himself in a glass forgets his physiognomy forthwith, this flattering glass of love will be diminished by remove; after a little absence it will be remitted, the next fair object will likely alter it. A young man in [5686]Lucian was pitifully in love, he came to the theatre by chance, and by seeing other fair objects there, mentis sanitatem recepit, was fully recovered, [5687] and went merrily home, as if he had taken a dram of oblivion. [5688]A mouse (saith an apologer) was brought up in a chest, there fed with fragments of bread and cheese, though there could be no better meat, till coming forth at last, and feeding liberally of other variety of viands, loathed his former life: moralise this fable by thyself. Plato, in. his seventh book De Legibus, hath a pretty fiction of a city under ground, [5689]to which by little holes some small store of light came; the inhabitants thought there could not be a better place, and at their first coming abroad they might not endure the light, aegerrime solem intueri; but after they were accustomed a little to it, [5690]they deplored their fellows' misery that lived under ground. A silly lover is in like state, none so fair as his mistress at first, he cares for none but her; yet after a while, when he hath compared her with others, he abhors her name, sight, and memory. 'Tis generally true; for as he observes, [5691]Priorem flammam novus ignis extrudit; et ea multorum natura, ut praesentes maxime ament, one fire drives out another; and such is women's weakness, that they love commonly him that is present. And so do many men; as he confessed, he loved Amye, till he saw Florial, and when he saw Cynthia, forgat them both: but fair Phillis was incomparably beyond, them all, Cloris surpassed her, and yet when he espied Amaryllis, she was his sole mistress; O divine Amaryllis: quam procera, cupressi ad instar, quam elegans, quam decens, &c. How lovely, how tall, how comely she was (saith Polemius) till he saw another, and then she was the sole subject of his thoughts. In conclusion, her he loves best he saw last. [5692]Triton, the sea-god, first loved Leucothoe, till he came in presence of Milaene, she was the commandress of his heart, till he saw Galatea: but (as [5693]she complains) he loved another eftsoons, another, and another. 'Tis a thing which, by Hierom's report, hath been usually practised. [5694]Heathen philosophers drive out one love with another, as they do a peg, or pin with a pin. Which those seven Persian princes did to Ahasuerus, that they might requite the desire of Queen Vashti with the love of others. Pausanias in Eliacis saith, that therefore one Cupid was painted to contend with another, and to take the garland from him, because one love drives out another, [5695]Alterius vires subtrahit alter amor; and Tully, 3. Nat. Deor. disputing with C. Cotta, makes mention of three several Cupids, all differing in office. Felix Plater, in the first book of his observations, boasts how he cured a widower in Basil, a patient of his, by this stratagem alone, that doted upon a poor servant his maid, when friends, children, no persuasion could serve to alienate his mind: they motioned him to another honest man's daughter in the town, whom he loved, and lived with long after, abhorring the very name and sight of the first. After the death of Lucretia, [5696]Euryalus would admit of no comfort, till the Emperor Sigismund married him to a noble lady of his court, and so in short space he was freed.

SUBSECT. III.

By counsel and persuasion, foulness of the fact, men's, women's faults, miseries of marriage, events of lust, &c.

As there be divers causes of this burning lust, or heroical love, so there be many good remedies to ease and help; amongst which, good counsel and persuasion, which I should have handled in the first place, are of great moment, and not to be omitted. Many are of opinion, that in this blind headstrong passion counsel can do no good.

[5697]Quae enim res in se neque consilium neque modum
Habet, ullo eam consilio regere non potes.

Which thing hath neither judgment, or an end,
How should advice or counsel it amend?

[5698]Quis enim modus adsit amori? But, without question, good counsel 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.

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.

The worldly cares, miseries, discontents, that accompany marriage, I pray you learn of them that have experience, for I have none; [5760]παίδας ἐγὸ λόγους ἐγενσάμην, libri mentis liberi. For my part I'll dissemble with him,

[5761]Este procul nymphae, fallax genus este puellae,
Vita jugata meo non facit ingenio: me juvat, &c.

many married men exclaim at the miseries of it, and rail at wives downright; I never tried, but as I hear some of them say, [5762]Mare haud mare, vos mare acerrimum, an Irish Sea is not so turbulent and raging as a litigious wife.

[5763]Scylla et Charybdis Sicula contorquens freta,
Minus est timenda, nulla non melior fera est.

Scylla and Charybdis are less dangerous,
There is no beast that is so noxious.

Which made the devil belike, as most interpreters hold, when he had taken away Job's goods, corporis et fortunae bona, health, children, friends, to persecute him the more, leave his wicked wife, as Pineda proves out of Tertullian, Cyprian, Austin, Chrysostom, Prosper, Gaudentius, &c. ut novum calamitatis inde genus viro existeret, to vex and gall him worse quam totus infernus than all the fiends in hell, as knowing the conditions of a bad woman. Jupiter non tribuit homini pestilentius malum, saith Simonides: better dwell with a dragon or a lion, than keep house with a wicked wife, Ecclus. xxv. 18. better dwell in a wilderness, Prov. xxi. 19. no wickedness like to her, Ecclus. xxv. 22. She makes a sorry heart, an heavy countenance, a wounded mind, weak hands, and feeble knees, vers. 25. A woman and death are two the bitterest things in the world: uxor mihi ducenda est hodie, id mihi visus est dicere, abi domum et suspende te. Ter. And. 1. 5. And yet for all this we bachelors desire to be married; with that vestal virgin, we long for it, [5764]Felices nuptae! moriar, nisi nubere dulce est. 'Tis the sweetest thing in the world, I would I had a wife saith he,

For fain would I leave a single life,
If I could get me a good wife.

Heigh-ho for a husband, cries she, a bad husband, nay, the worst that ever was is better than none: O blissful marriage, O most welcome marriage, and happy are they that are so coupled: we do earnestly seek it, and are never well till we have effected it. But with what fate? like those birds in the [5765]Emblem, that fed about a cage, so long as they could fly away at their pleasure liked well of it; but when they were taken and might not get loose, though they had the same meat, pined away for sullenness, and would not eat. So we commend marriage,

So long as we are wooers, may kiss and coll at our pleasure, nothing is so sweet, we are in heaven as we think; but when we are once tied, and have lost our liberty, marriage is an hell, give me my yellow hose again: a mouse in a trap lives as merrily, we are in a purgatory some of us, if not hell itself. Dulce bellum inexpertis, as the proverb is, 'tis fine talking of war, and marriage sweet in contemplation, till it be tried: and then as wars are most dangerous, irksome, every minute at death's door, so is, &c. When those wild Irish peers, saith [5766]Stanihurst, were feasted by king Henry the Second, (at what time he kept his Christmas at Dublin) and had tasted of his prince-like cheer, generous wines, dainty fare, had seen his [5767]massy plate of silver, gold, enamelled, beset with jewels, golden candlesticks, goodly rich hangings, brave furniture, heard his trumpets sound, fifes, drums, and his exquisite music in all kinds: when they had observed his majestical presence as he sat in purple robes, crowned, with his sceptre, &c., in his royal seat, the poor men were so amazed, enamoured, and taken with the object, that they were pertaesi domestici et pristini tyrotarchi, as weary and ashamed of their own sordidity and manner of life. They would all be English forthwith; who but English! but when they had now submitted themselves, and lost their former liberty, they began to rebel some of them, others repent of what they had done, when it was too late. 'Tis so with us bachelors, when we see and behold those sweet faces, those gaudy shows that women make, observe their pleasant gestures and graces, give ear to their siren tunes, see them dance, &c., we think their conditions are as fine as their faces, we are taken, with dumb signs, in amplexum ruimus, we rave, we burn, and would fain be married. But when we feel the miseries, cares, woes, that accompany it, we make our moan many of us, cry out at length and cannot be released. If this be true now, as some out of experience will inform us, farewell wiving for my part, and as the comical poet merrily saith,

[5768]Perdatur ille pessime qui foeminam
Duxit secundus, nam nihil primo imprecor!
Ignarus ut puto mali primus fuit.

[5769]Foul fall him that brought the second match to pass,
The first I wish no harm, poor man alas!
He knew not what he did, nor what it was.

What shall I say to him that marries again and again, [5770]Stulta maritali qui porrigit ora capistro, I pity him not, for the first time he must do as he may, bear it out sometimes by the head and shoulders, and let his next neighbour ride, or else run away, or as that Syracusian in a tempest, when all ponderous things were to be exonerated out of the ship, quia maximum pondus erat, fling his wife into the sea. But this I confess is comically spoken, [5771]and so I pray you take it. In sober sadness, [5772]marriage is a bondage, a thraldom, a yoke, a hindrance to all good enterprises, (he hath married a wife and cannot come) a stop to all preferments, a rock on which many are saved, many impinge and are cast away: not that the thing is evil in itself or troublesome, but full of all contentment and happiness, one of the three things which please God, [5773] when a man and his wife agree together, an honourable and happy estate, who knows it not? If they be sober, wise, honest, as the poet infers,

[5774]Si commodos nanciscantur amores,
Nullum iis abest voluptatis genus.

If fitly match'd be man and wife,
No pleasure's wanting to their life.

But to undiscreet sensual persons, that as brutes are wholly led by sense, it is a feral plague, many times a hell itself, and can give little or no content, being that they are often so irregular and prodigious in their lusts, so diverse in their affections. Uxor nomen dignitatis, non voluptatis, as [5775]he said, a wife is a name of honour, not of pleasure: she is fit to bear the office, govern a family, to bring up children, sit at a board's end and carve, as some carnal men think and say; they had rather go to the stews, or have now and then a snatch as they can come by it, borrow of their neighbours, than have wives of their own; except they may, as some princes and great men do, keep as many courtesans as they will themselves, fly out impune, [5776]Permolere uxores alienas, that polygamy of Turks, Lex Julia, with Caesar once enforced in Rome, (though Levinus Torrentius and others suspect it) uti uxores quot et quas vellent liceret, that every great man might marry, and keep as many wives as he would, or Irish divorcement were in use: but as it is, 'tis hard and gives not that satisfaction to these carnal men, beastly men as too many are: [5777]What still the same, to be tied [5778]to one, be she never so fair, never so virtuous, is a thing they may not endure, to love one long. Say thy pleasure, and counterfeit as thou wilt, as [5779]Parmeno told Thais, Neque tu uno eris contenta, one man will never please thee; nor one woman many men. But as [5780]Pan replied to his father Mercury, when he asked whether he was married, Nequaquam pater, amator enim sum &c. No, father, no, I am a lover still, and cannot be contented with one woman. Pythias, Echo, Menades, and I know not how many besides, were his mistresses, he might not abide marriage. Varietas delectat, 'tis loathsome and tedious, what one still? which the satirist said of Iberina, is verified in most,

[5781]Unus Iberinae vir sufficit? ocyus illud
Extorquebis ut haec oculo contenta sit uno.

As capable of any impression as materia prima itself, that still desires new forms, like the sea their affections ebb and flow. Husband is a cloak for some to hide their villainy; once married she may fly out at her pleasure, the name of husband is a sanctuary to make all good. Eo ventum (saith Seneca) ut nulla virum habeat, nisi ut irritet adulterum. They are right and straight, as true Trojans as mine host's daughter, that Spanish wench in [5782]Ariosto, as good wives as Messalina. Many men are as constant in their choice, and as good husbands as Nero himself, they must have their pleasure of all they see, and are in a word far more fickle than any woman.

Good men have often ill wives, as bad as Xanthippe was to Socrates, Elevora to St. Lewis, Isabella to our Edward the Second; and good wives are as often matched to ill husbands, as Mariamne to Herod, Serena to Diocletian, Theodora to Theophilus, and Thyra to Gurmunde. But I will say nothing of dissolute and bad husbands, of bachelors and their vices; their good qualities are a fitter subject for a just volume, too well known already in every village, town and city, they need no blazon; and lest I should mar any matches, or dishearten loving maids, for this present I will let them pass.

Being that men and women are so irreligious, depraved by nature, so wandering in their affections, so brutish, so subject to disagreement, so unobservant of marriage rites, what shall I say? If thou beest such a one, or thou light on such a wife, what concord can there be, what hope of agreement? 'tis not conjugium but conjurgium, as the Reed and Fern in the [5783]Emblem, averse and opposite in nature: 'tis twenty to one thou wilt not marry to thy contentment: but as in a lottery forty blanks were drawn commonly for one prize, out of a multitude you shall hardly choose a good one: a small ease hence then, little comfort,

[5784]Nec integrum unquam transiges laetus diem.

If he or she be such a one,
Thou hadst much better be alone.

If she be barren, she is not—&c. If she have [5785]children, and thy state be not good, though thou be wary and circumspect, thy charge will undo thee,—foecunda domum tibi prole gravabit, [5786]thou wilt not be able to bring them up, [5787]and what greater misery can there be than to beget children, to whom thou canst leave no other inheritance but hunger and thirst? [5788]cum fames dominatur, strident voces rogantium panem, penetrantes patris cor: what so grievous as to turn them up to the wide world, to shift for themselves? No plague like to want: and when thou hast good means, and art very careful of their education, they will not be ruled. Think but of that old proverb, ᾑρώων τέκνα πήματα, heroum filii noxae, great men's sons seldom do well; O utinam aut coelebs mansissem, aut prole carerem! would that I had either remained single, or not had children, [5789]Augustus exclaims in Suetonius. Jacob had his Reuben, Simeon and Levi; David an Amnon, an Absalom, Adoniah; wise men's sons are commonly fools, insomuch that Spartian concludes, Neminem prope magnorum virorum optimum et utilem reliquisse filium: [5790]they had been much better to have been childless. 'Tis too common in the middle sort; thy son's a drunkard, a gamester, a spendthrift; thy daughter a fool, a whore; thy servants lazy drones and thieves; thy neighbours devils, they will make thee weary of thy life. [5791]If thy wife be froward, when she may not have her will, thou hadst better be buried alive; she will be so impatient, raving still, and roaring like Juno in the tragedy, there's nothing but tempests, all is in an uproar. If she be soft and foolish, thou wert better have a block, she will shame thee and reveal thy secrets; if wise and learned, well qualified, there is as much danger on the other side, mulierem doctam ducere periculosissimum, saith Nevisanus, she will be too insolent and peevish, [5792]Malo Venusinam quam te Cornelia mater. Take heed; if she be a slut, thou wilt loathe her; if proud, she'll beggar thee, so [5793]she'll spend thy patrimony in baubles, all Arabia will not serve to perfume her hair, saith Lucian; if fair and wanton, she'll make thee a cornuto; if deformed, she will paint. [5794]If her face be filthy by nature, she will mend it by art, alienis et adscititiis imposturis, which who can endure? If she do not paint, she will look so filthy, thou canst not love her, and that peradventure will make thee dishonest. Cromerus lib. 12. hist., relates of Casimirus,[5795]that he was unchaste, because his wife Aleida, the daughter of Henry, Landgrave of Hesse, was so deformed. If she be poor, she brings beggary with her (saith Nevisanus), misery and discontent. If you marry a maid, it is uncertain how she proves, Haec forsan veniet non satis apta tibi. [5796]If young, she is likely wanton and untaught; if lusty, too lascivious; and if she be not satisfied, you know where and when, nil nisi jurgia, all is in an uproar, and there is little quietness to be had; If an old maid, 'tis a hazard she dies in childbed; if a [5797]rich widow, induces te in laqueum, thou dost halter thyself, she will make all away beforehand, to her other children, &c.—[5798]dominam quis possit ferre tonantem? she will hit thee still in the teeth with her first husband; if a young widow, she is often insatiable and immodest. If she be rich, well descended, bring a great dowry, or be nobly allied, thy wife's friends will eat thee out of house and home, dives ruinam aedibus inducit, she will be so proud, so high-minded, so imperious. For—nihil est magis intolerabile dite, there's nothing so intolerable, thou shalt be as the tassel of a goshawk, [5799]she will ride upon thee, domineer as she list, wear the breeches in her oligarchical government, and beggar thee besides. Uxores divites servitutem exigunt (as Seneca hits them, declam. lib. 2. declam. 6.)—Dotem accepi imperium perdidi. They will have sovereignty, pro conjuge dominam arcessis, they will have attendance, they will do what they list. [5800]In taking a dowry thou losest thy liberty, dos intrat, libertas exit, hazardest thine estate.

Hae sunt atque aliae multae in magnis dotibus
Incommoditates, sumptusque intolerabiles, &c.

with many such inconveniences: say the best, she is a commanding servant; thou hadst better have taken a good housewife maid in her smock. Since then there is such hazard, if thou be wise keep thyself as thou art, 'tis good to match, much better to be free.

[5801]—procreare liberos lepidissimum.
Hercle vero liberum esse, id multo est lepidius.

[5802]Art thou young? then match not yet; if old, match not at all.

Vis juvenis nubere? nondum venit tempus.
Ingravescente aetate jam tempus praeteriit.

And therefore, with that philosopher, still make answer to thy friends that importune thee to marry, adhuc intempestivum, 'tis yet unseasonable, and ever will be.

Consider withal how free, how happy, how secure, how heavenly, in respect, a single man is, [5803]as he said in the comedy, Et isti quod fortunatum esse autumant, uxorem nunquam habui, and that which all my neighbours admire and applaud me for, account so great a happiness, I never had a wife; consider how contentedly, quietly, neatly, plentifully, sweetly, and how merrily he lives! he hath no man to care for but himself, none to please, no charge, none to control him, is tied to no residence, no cure to serve, may go and come, when, whither, live where he will, his own master, and do what he list himself. Consider the excellency of virgins, [5804] Virgo coelum meruit, marriage replenisheth the earth, but virginity Paradise; Elias, Eliseus, John Baptist, were bachelors: virginity is a precious jewel, a fair garland, a never-fading flower; [5805]for why was Daphne turned to a green bay-tree, but to show that virginity is immortal?

[5806]Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro,
Quam mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber, &c.
Sic virgo dum intacta manet, dum chara suis, sed
Cum Castum amisit, &c.———

Virginity is a fine picture, as [5807]Bonaventure calls it, a blessed thing in itself, and if you will believe a Papist, meritorious. And although there be some inconveniences, irksomeness, solitariness, &c., incident to such persons, want of those comforts, quae, aegro assideat et curet aegrotum, fomentum paret, roget medicum, &c., embracing, dalliance, kissing, colling, &c., those furious motives and wanton pleasures a new-married wife most part enjoys; yet they are but toys in respect, easily to be endured, if conferred to those frequent encumbrances of marriage. Solitariness may be otherwise avoided with mirth, music, good company, business, employment; in a word, [5808]Gaudebit minus, et minus dolebit; for their good nights, he shall have good days. And methinks some time or other, amongst so many rich bachelors, a benefactor should be found to build a monastical college for old, decayed, deformed, or discontented maids to live together in, that have lost their first loves, or otherwise miscarried, or else are willing howsoever to lead a single life. The rest I say are toys in respect, and sufficiently recompensed by those innumerable contents and incomparable privileges of virginity. Think of these things, confer both lives, and consider last of all these commodious prerogatives a bachelor hath, how well he is esteemed, how heartily welcome to all his friends, quam mentitis obsequiis, as Tertullian observes, with what counterfeit courtesies they will adore him, follow him, present him with gifts, humatis donis; it cannot be believed (saith [5809]Ammianus) with what humble service he shall be worshipped, how loved and respected: If he want children, (and have means) he shall be often invited, attended on by princes, and have advocates to plead his cause for nothing, as [5810] Plutarch adds. Wilt thou then be reverenced, and had in estimation?

[5811]———dominus tamen et domini rex
Si tu vis fieri, nullus tibi parvulus aula.
Luserit Aeneas, nec filia dulcior illa?
Jucundum et charum sterilis facit uxor amicum.

Live a single man, marry not, and thou shalt soon perceive how those Haeredipetae (for so they were called of old) will seek after thee, bribe and flatter thee for thy favour, to be thine heir or executor: Aruntius and Aterius, those famous parasites in this kind, as Tacitus and [5812]Seneca have recorded, shall not go beyond them. Periplectomines, that good personate old man, delicium senis, well understood this in Plautus: for when Pleusides exhorted him to marry that he might have children of his own, he readily replied in this sort,

Quando habeo multos cognatos, quid opus mihi sit liberis?
Nunc bene vivo et fortunate, atque animo ut lubet.
Mea bona mea morte cognatis dicam interpartiant.
Illi apud me edunt, me curant, visunt quid agam, ecquid velim,
Qui mihi mittunt munera, ad prandium, ad coenam vocant.

Whilst I have kin, what need I brats to have?
Now I live well, and as I will, most brave.
And when I die, my goods I'll give away
To them that do invite me every day.
That visit me, and send me pretty toys,
And strive who shall do me most courtesies.

This respect thou shalt have in like manner, living as he did, a single man. But if thou marry once, [5813]cogitato in omni vita te servum fore, bethink thyself what a slavery it is, what a heavy burden thou shalt undertake, how hard a task thou art tied to, (for as Hierome hath it, qui uxorem habet, debitor est, et uxoris servus alligatus,) and how continuate, what squalor attends it, what irksomeness, what charges, for wife and children are a perpetual bill of charges; besides a myriad of cares, miseries, and troubles; for as that comical Plautus merrily and truly said, he that wants trouble, must get to be master of a ship, or marry a wife; and as another seconds him, wife and children have undone me; so many and such infinite encumbrances accompany this kind of life. Furthermore, uxor intumuit, &c., or as he said in the comedy, [5814]Duxi uxorem, quam ibi miseriam vidi, nati filii, alia cura. All gifts and invitations cease, no friend will esteem thee, and thou shalt be compelled to lament thy misery, and make thy moan with [5815]Bartholomeus Scheraeus, that famous poet laureate, and professor of Hebrew in Wittenberg: I had finished this work long since, but that inter alia dura et tristia quae misero mihi pene tergum fregerunt, (I use his own words) amongst many miseries which almost broke my back, συζυγία ob Xantipismum, a shrew to my wife tormented my mind above measure, and beyond the rest. So shalt thou be compelled to complain, and to cry out at last, with [5816]Phoroneus the lawyer, How happy had I been, if I had wanted a wife! If this which I have said will not suffice, see more in Lemnius lib. 4. cap. 13. de occult. nat. mir. Espencaeus de continentia, lib. 6. cap. 8. Kornman de virginitate, Platina in Amor. dial. Practica artis amandi, Barbarus de re uxoria, Arnisaeus in polit. cap. 3. and him that is instar omnium, Nevisanus the lawyer, Sylva nuptial, almost in every page.

SUBSECT. IV.

Philters, Magical and Poetical Cures.

Where persuasions and other remedies will not take place, many fly to unlawful means, philters, amulets, magic spells, ligatures, characters, charms, which as a wound with the spear of Achilles, if so made and caused, must so be cured. If forced by spells and philters, saith Paracelsus, it must be eased by characters, Mag. lib. 2. cap 28. and by incantations. Fernelius Path. lib. 6. cap. 13. [5817]Skenkius lib. 4. observ. med. hath some examples of such as have been so magically caused, and magically cured, and by witchcraft: so saith Baptista Codronchus, lib. 3. cap. 9. de mor. ven. Malleus malef. cap. 6. 'Tis not permitted to be done, I confess; yet often attempted: see more in Wierus lib. 3. cap. 18. de praestig. de remediis per philtra. Delrio tom. 2. lib. 2. quaest. 3. sect. 3. disquisit. magic. Cardan lib. 16. cap. 90. reckons up many magnetical medicines, as to piss through a ring, &c. Mizaldus cent. 3. 30, Baptista Porta, Jason Pratensis, Lobelius pag. 87, Matthiolus, &c., prescribe many absurd remedies. Radix mandragora ebibitae, Annuli ex ungulis Asini, Stercus amatae sub cervical positum, illa nesciente, &c., quum odorem foeditatis sentit, amor solvitur. Noctuae ocum abstemios facit comestum, ex consilio Jarthae Indorum gymnosophistae apud Philostratum lib. 3. Sanguis amasiae, ebibitus omnem amoris sensum tollit: Faustinam Marci Aurelii uxorem, gladiatoris amore captam, ita penitus consilio Chaldaeorum liberatam, refert Julius Capitolinus. Some of our astrologers will effect as much by characteristical images, ex sigillis Hermetis, Salomonis, Chaelis, &c. mulieris imago habentis crines sparsos, &c. Our old poets and fantastical writers have many fabulous remedies for such as are lovesick, as that of Protesilaus' tomb in Philostratus, in his dialogue between Phoenix and Vinitor: Vinitor, upon occasion discoursing of the rare virtues of that shrine, telleth him that Protesilaus' altar and tomb [5818]cures almost all manner of diseases, consumptions, dropsies, quartan-agues, sore eyes: and amongst the rest, such as are lovesick shall there be helped. But the most famous is [5819]Leucata Petra, that renowned rock in Greece, of which Strabo writes, Geog. lib. 10. not far from St. Maures, saith Sands, lib. 1. from which rock if any lover flung himself down headlong, he was instantly cured. Venus after the death of Adonis, when she could take no rest for love, [5820]Cum vesana suas torreret flamma