Our forefathers framed their daughters’ countenances unto shamefastness and fear (their inclinations and desires always alike); we, unto assurance. We understand not the matter. That belongeth to the Sarmatian wenches, who by their laws may lie with no man except with their own hands they have before killed another man in war.
To me that have no right but by the ears, [121] it sufficeth if they retain me to be of their counsel, following the privilege of mine age. I then advise both them and us to embrace abstinence, but if this season be too much against it, at least modesty and discretion. For, as Aristippus (speaking to some young men who blushed to see him go into a bawdy house) said, the fault was not in entering but in not coming out again. She that will not exempt her conscience, let her exempt her name: though the substance be not of worth, yet let the appearance hold still good.
I love gradation and prolonging in the distribution of their favours. Plato showeth that in all kinds of love, facility and readiness is forbidden to defendants. ’Tis a trick of greediness which it behooveth them to cloak with their art, so rashly and fond-hardily to yield themselves in gross. In their distributions of favours, holding a regular and moderate course, they much better deceive our desires and conceal theirs. Let them ever be flying before us: I mean even those that intend to be overtaken. As the Scythians are wont, though they seem to run away, they beat us more and sooner put us to rout. Verily, according to the law which Nature giveth them, it is not fit for them to will and desire; their part is to bear, to obey, and to consent. Therefore hath nature bestowed a perpetual capacity; on us a seld [122] and uncertain ability. They have always their hour that they may ever be ready to let us enter. And whereas she hath willed our appetites should make apparent show and declaration, she caused theirs to be concealed and inward and hath furnished them with parts unfit for ostentation and only for defence. [123]
Such pranks as this we must leave to the Amazonian liberty. Alexander the great, marching through Hyrcania, Thalestris, queen of the Amazons, came to meet him with three hundred lances [124] of her sex, all well mounted and completely armed, having left the residue of a great army that followed her beyond the neighbouring mountains. And thus aloud, that all might hear, she bespake him that the far-resounding fame of his victories and matchless valour had brought her thither to see him and to offer him her meanes and forces for the advancing and furthering of his enterprises. And finding him so fair, so young, and strong, she, who was perfectly accomplished in all his qualities, advised him to lie with her that so there might be born of the most valiant woman in the world and only valiant man then living, some great and rare creature for posterity. Alexander thanked her for the rest; but to take leisure for her last demand’s accomplishment, he stayed thirteen days in that place, during which he reveled with as much glee and feasted with as great jollity as possibly could be devised, in honour and favour of so courageous a princess.
We are well-nigh in all things partial and corrupted judges of their action, as no doubt they are of ours. I allow of truth as well when it hurts me as when it helps me. It is a foul disorder that so often urgeth them unto change and hinders them from settling their affection on any one subject, as we see in this goddess, to whom they impute so many changes and several friends. But withal, it is against the nature of love not to be violent, and against the condition of violence to be constant. And those who wonder at it, exclaim against it, and in women search for the causes of this infirmity as incredible and unnatural—why see they not how often, without any amazement and exclaiming, themselves are possessed and infected with it? It might happily seem more strange to find any constant stay in them. It is not a passion merely corporeal. If no end be found in coveteousness, nor limit in ambition, assure yourself there is nor end nor limit in lechery. It yet continueth after satiety: nor can any man prescribe [its] end or constant satisfaction; it ever goeth on beyond its possession, beyond its bounds.
And inconstancy be peradventure in some sort more pardonable in them than in us. They may readily allege against us our ready inclination unto daily variety and new ware. And secondly allege without us that they buy a pig in a poke. Ione, [125] queen of Naples, caused Andreosse [126] her first husband to be strangled and hanged out of the bars of his window with a cord of silk and gold woven with her own hands because in bed-business she found neither his members nor endeavours answerable the hope she had conceived of him, by viewing his stature, beauty, youth, and disposition, by which she had formerly been surprised and abused. That action [127] hath in it more violence than passion, so that on their part at least necessity is ever provided for; on our behalf it may happen otherwise. [128]
Therefore Plato by his laws did very wisely establish that before marriages, the better to decide its opportunity, competent judges might be appointed to make view of young men which pretended the same, all naked: and of maidens but to the waist. In making trial of us, they happily [129] find us not worthy their choice:
Experta latus, madidoque simillima loro
Inguina, nec lassa stare coacta manu.
Deserit imbelles thalamos. [130]
It is not sufficient that will keepe a level course: weaknesse and incapacity may lawfully break wedlock:
Et querendum aliunde foret neruosius illud,
Quod posset Zonam soluere virgineam. [131]
Why not? And according to measure, an amorous intelligence, more licencious and more active?
Si blando nequeat superesse labori.
If it cannot out last, labor with pleasure past. [132]
But is it not great impudency to bring our imperfections and weakness in place where we desire to please and leave good report and commendation behind us? For the little I now stand in need of,
——ad unum.
Mollis opus.
Unable to hold out, one only busy bout, [133]
I would not importune anyone, whom I am to reverence and fear.
——fuge suspicari,
Cuius undenum trepidavit ætas
Claudere lustrum.
Him of suspicion clear,
Whom age hath brought well neare
To five and fifty year. [134]
Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable without making it also ridiculous. I hate to see one, for an inch of wretched vigor which enflames him but thrice a week, take on and swagger as fiercely as if he had some great and lawful day’s work in his belly: a right blast or puff of wind. And admire his itching, so quick and nimble, all in a moment to be lubberly, [135] squat, and benumbed. This appetite should only belong to the blossom of a prime youth. Trust not unto it, [136] though you see it second that indefatigable, full, constant and swelling heat that is in you. For truly it will leave you at the best and when you shall most stand in need of it. Send it rather to some tender, irresolute, and ignorant guirle, [137] which yet trembleth for fear of the rod and that will blush at it,
Indum sanguineo veluti violaverit ostro,
Si quis ebur, vel mista rubent ubi lilia, multa
Alba rosa.
As if the Indian ivory one should taint
With bloody scarlet grain, or lilies’ paint,
White intermixed with red, with roses over-spread. [138]
Who can stay until the next morrow and not die for shame, the disdain of those love-sparkling eyes, privy to his faintness, [139] dastardise [140] and impertinency,
El taciti fecere tamen convitia vultus.
The face though silent, yet silent upbraid it, [141]
he never felt the sweet contentment and the sense-moving earnestness to have beaten and tarnished them by the vigorous exercise of an officious and active night. When I have perceived any of them weary of me, I have not presently accused her lightness but made question whether I had not more reason to quarrel with nature for handling me so unlawfully and uncivilly—
Si non longa satis, si non bene mentula crassa:
Nimirum sapiunt videntque parvam
Matronæ quoque mentulam ill
ibenter. [142]
—and to my exceeding hurt.
Each of my pieces are equally mine, one as another: and no other doth more properly make me a man than this. My whole portraiture I universally owe unto the world. The wisdom and reach of my lesson is all in truth, in liberty, in essence; disdaining in the catalogue of my true duties, these easy, faint, ordinary, and provincial rules; all natural, constant, and general, whereof civility and ceremony are daughters, but bastards.
We shall easily have the vices of appearance when we shall have had those of essence. [143] When we have done with these, we run upon others, if we find need of running. For there is danger that we devise new offices, to excuse our negligence toward natural offices and to confound them. That it is so, we see that in places where faults are crimes, crimes are but faults. That among nations, where laws of seemliness [144] are more rare and slack, the primitive lawes of common reason are better observed, the innumerable multitude of so manifold duties stifling, languishing, and dispersing our care. The applying of ourselves unto sleight matters, withdraweth us from such as be just. Oh how easy and plausible a course do these superficial men undertake, in respect of ours. These are but shadows under which we shroud wherewith we pay one another. But we pay not but rather heap debt on debt, unto that great and dreadful Judge who tucks up our clouts and rags from about our privy parts and is not squeamish to view all-over, even to our most inward and secret deformities—a beneficial decency of our maidenly bashfulness, could it debar him of this tainted discovery.
To conclude, he that could recover or un-besot man from so scrupulous and verbal a superstition should not much prejudice the world. Our life consisteth partly in folly and partly in wisdom. He that writes of it but reverently and regularly omits the better moiety of it. I excuse me not unto myself, and if I did, I would rather excuse my excuses than any fault else of mine. I excuse myself of certain humors, which in number I hold stronger than those which are on my side. In consideration of which, I will say thus much more (for I desire to please all men, though it be a hard matter, Esse unum hominem accommodatum ad tantam morum, ac sermonum et voluntatum varietatem. That one man should be appliable to so great variety of manners, speeches, and dispositions [145]) that they are not to blame me for what I cause authorities received and approved of many ages to utter: and that it is not reason they should for want of rhyme deny me the dispensation which even some of our churchmen usurp and enjoy in this season. Whereof behold here two, and of the most pert and cocket [146] amongst them:
Rimula, dispeream, ni mono qramma tua est. [147]
Un vit d’ami la contente et bien traite. [148]
How many others more?
I love modesty, nor is it from judgement that I have made choice of this kind of scandalous speech: ’tis nature hath chosen the same for me. I commend it no more than all forms contrary unto received custom; only I excuse it, and by circumstances as well general as particular would qualify the imputation. Well, let us proceed.
Whence commeth also the usurpation of sovereign authority which you assume unto yourselves, over those that favour you to their cost and prejudice—
Si furtiua dedit nigra munuscula nocte.
If she have giv’n by night,
The stolen gift of delight. [149]
—that you should immediately invest withal the interest, the coldness, and a wedlock authority? It is a free bargain: why do you not undertake it on those terms you would have them to keep? There is no prescription upon voluntary things. [150]
It is against form, yet it is true that I have in my time managed this match (so far as the nature of it would allow) with as much conscience as any other whatsoever and not without some colour of justice; and have given them no further testimony of mine affection than I sincerely felt, and have lively displayed unto them the declination, vigor, and birth of the same, with the fits and deferring of it. A man cannot always keep an even pace, nor ever go to it alike. I have been so sparing to promise that (as I think) I have paid more than either I promised or was due. They have found me faithful even to the service of their inconstancy—I say an inconstancy avowed and sometimes multiplied. I never broke with them as long as I had any hold, were it but by a threads-end; and whatsoever occasion they have given me by their fickleness, I never fell off unto contempt and hatred. For such famliarities, though I attain them on most shameful conditions, yet do they bind me unto some constant good will. I have sometimes given them a taste of choler and indiscreet impatience, upon occasions of their wiles, sleights, close-conveyances, controversies, and contestations between us; for, by complexion, I am subject to hasty and rash motions which often impeach my traffic and mar my bargains, though but mean and of small worth. Have they desired to essay the liberty of my judgement, I never dissembled to give them fatherly counsel and biting advice, and shewed myself ready to scratch them where they itched. If I have given them cause to complain of me, it hath been most for finding a love in me, in respect of our modern fashion, foolishly conscientious. I have religiously kept my word in things that I might easily have been dispensed with. They then yielded sometimes with reputation and under conditions which they would easily suffer to be infringed by the conqueror. I have more than once made pleasure in her greatest efforts strike sail unto the interest of their honor. And where reason urged me, armed them against me so that they guided themselves more safely and severely by my prescriptions, if they once freely yielded unto them, than they could have done by their own.
I have as much as I could endeavored to take on myself the charge and hazard of our appointments, [151] thereby to discharge them from all imputation, and ever contrived our meetings in most hard, strange, and unsuspected manner, to be the less mistrusted and (in my seeming) the more accessible. They are opened, especially in those parts, where they suppose themselves most concealed. Things least feared are least defended and observed. You may more securely dare what no man thinks you would dare, which by difficulty becometh easy.
Never had man his approaches more impertinently genital. [152] This way to love is more according to discipline. But how ridiculous unto our people and of how small effect, who better knows than I? Yet will I not repent me of it; I have no more to lose by the matter.
——me tabula sacer
Votiva paries, indicat uvida,
Suspendisse potenti
Vestimenta maris Deo.
By tables of the vows which I did owe
Fastened thereto the sacred wall doth show;
I have hung up my garments water-wet,
Unto that God whose power on seas is great. [153]
It is now high time to speak plainly of it. But even as to another, I would perhaps say, “My friend thou dotest; the love of thy times hath small affinity with faith and honesty.”
——hæc si tu postules
Ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas,
Quam si des operam; ut cum ratione insanias.
If this you would by reason certain make,
You do no more, than if the pains you take
To be stark-mad, and yet to think it reason fit. [154]
And yet if I were to begin anew, it should be by the very same path and progress, how fruitless soever it might prove unto me. Insufficiency and sottishness are commendable in a discommendable action. As much as I separate myself from their humor in that, so much I approach unto mine own.
Moreover, I did never suffer myself to be wholly given over to that sport; I therewith pleased but forgot not myself. I ever kept that little understanding and discretion which nature hath bestowed on me, for their service and mine: some motion towards it, but no dotage. My conscience also was engaged therein, even unto incontinency and excess but never unto ingratitude, treason, malice or cruelty. I bought not the pleasure of this vice at all rates and was content with its own and simple cost. Nullum intra se vitium est. There is no vice contained in itself. [155]
I hate almost alike a crouching dull laziness and a toilsome and thorny working. The
one pincheth, the other dulleth me. I love wounds as much as bruises, and blood wipes as well as dry-blows. [156] I had in the practise of this solace, when I was fitter for it, an even moderation between these two extremities. Love is a vigilant, lively, and blithe agitation: I was neither troubled nor tormented with it, but heated and distempered by it. There we must make a stay; it is only hurtful unto fools.
A young man demanded of the philosopher Panetius whether it would beseem a wise man to be in love. Let wise men alone (quoth he), but for thee and me that are not so, it were best not to engage ourselves into so stirring and violent a humour, which makes us slaves to others and contemptible unto ourselves. [157] He said true, for we ought not entrust a matter so dangerous unto a mind that hath not wherewith to sustain the approaches of it, nor effectually to quail the speech of Agesilaus, that wisdom and love cannot liue together. It is a vain occupation (’tis true), unseemly, shameful, and lawless. But using it in this manner, I esteem it wholesome and fit to rouse a dull spirit and a heavy body; and as a physician experienced, I would prescrib the same unto a man of my complexion and form, as soon as any other receipt [158] to keep him awake and in strength when he is well in years, and delay him from the grippings of old age. As long as we are but in the suburbs of it and that our pulse yet beateth,
Dum nona canities, dum prima et recta senectus,
Dum superest Lachesi quod torqueat, et pedibus me
Porto meis, nullo dextram subeunte bacillo.
While hoary haires are new, and old-age fresh and straight,
While Lachesis hath yet to spin, while I my weight
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