Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

and left his genitals behind him in a box, sealed up. His mistress, by the way, fell in love with him, but he not yeelding to her, was accused to Seleucus of incontinency, (as that Bellerophon was, in like case, falsely traduced by Sthenobia, to king Prætus her husband, cum non posset ad coitum inducere) and that by her, and was therefore at his coming home, cast into prison: the day of hearing appointed, he was sufficiently cleared and acquitted by shewing his privities, which, to the admiration of the beholders, he had formerly cut off. The Lydians used to geld women whom they suspected, saith Leonicus var. hist. lib. 3. cap. 59. as well as men. To this purpose' Saint Francis, because he used to confess women in private, to prevent suspition, and prove himself a maid, stripped himself before the bishop of Assise and others: and frier Leonard, for the same cause, went through Viterbium in Italy, without any garments.

Our pseudocatholickes, to help these inconveniences which proceed from jealousie, to keep themselves and their wives. honest, make severe lawes: against adultery, present death: and withal, fornication a venial sin. As a sink to convey that furious and swift stream of concupiscence, they appoint and permit stewes, those punks and pleasant sinners, the more to secure their wives in all populous cities; for they hold them as necessary as churches. And howsoever unlawful, yet to avoid a greater mischiefe, to be tolerated in policy, as usury, for the hardness of mens hearts; and for this end, they have whole colledges of curtisans in their towns and cities. Of Catos minde, belike, that would have his servants (cum ancillis congredi coitus causá, definito ære, ut graviora facinora evitarent, cæteris interim interdicens) familiar with some such feminine creatures, to avoid worse mischiefs in his house, and made allowance for it. They hold it unpossible for idle persons, yong, rich, and lusty, so many servants, monkes, friers, to live honest; too tyrannical a burden to compel them to be chast; and most unfit to suffer poor men, yonger brothers and souldiers at all to marry, as also diseased persons, votaries, priests, servants. Therefore, as well to helpe and ease the one as the other, they tolerate and wink at these kind of brothel houses and stewes. Many probable arguments they have to prove the lawfulness, the necessity, and a toleration of them, as of usury; and without question in policy, they are not to be contradicted but altogether in religion. Others prescribe philters, spels, charms to keep men and woman honest. Mulier ut alienum virum non admittat præter suum: Accipe fel

1 Stephanus e 1. confor. Bonavent. c. 6. vit. Francisci.

3

2 Plutarch. vit.

ejus.

3 Wecker lib. 5. secret.

hirci, et adipem, et exsicca, calescat in oleo, &c. et non alium præter te amabit. In Alexi, Portá, &c. plura invenies, et multo his absurdiora; uti et in Rhasi, ne mulier virum admittat, et maritum solum diligat, &c. But these are most part Pagan, impious, irreligious, absurde, and rediculous devices.

2

3

The best meanes to avoid these and like inconveniences, are, to take away the causes and occasions. To this purpose, ' Varro writ Satyram Menippeam, but it is lost. Patricius prescribes foure rules to be observed in chusing of a wife (which who so will may reade) Fonseca the Spaniard in his 45. c. Amphitheat. Amoris, sets down six special cautions for men, foure for women: Sam. Neander out of Shonbernerus, five for men, five for women: Anthony Guiverra many good lessons: Cleobulus two alone, others otherwise; as first, to make a good choyce in marriage, to invite Christ to their wedding, and which Saint Ambrose adviseth, Deum conjugii præsidem habere, and to pray to him for her, (a Domino enim datur uxor prudens, Prov. 19.) not to be too rash and precipitate in his election, to run upon the first he meets, or dote on every stout faire peece he sees, but to chuse her as much by his ears as eyes; to be well advised whom he takes, of what age, &c. and cautelous in his proceeding. An old man should not marry a yong woman, or a yong man an old woman:

5 Quam male inæquales veniunt ad aratra juvenci !

such matches must needs minister a perpetual cause of suspition, and be distastful to each other.

Noctua ut in tumulis, super atque cadavera bubo,
Talis apud Sophoclem nostra puella sedet.

Night-crows on tombes, owl sits on carcass dead
So lyes a wench with Sophocles in bed.

For Sophocles, as 'Athenæus describes him, was a very old man, as cold as January, a bedfellow of bones; and doted yet upon Archippe a yong curtisan, then which nothing can be more odious. "Senex maritus uxori juveni ingratus est, an old man is a most unwelcome guest to a yong wench, unable, unfit.

'Amplexus suos fugiunt puellæ,
Omnis horret amor, Venusque Hymenque.

1 Citatur a Gellio.

2 Lib. 4. Tit. 4. de instit. reipub. de officio mariti. 4 Epist. 70. 8 Eu

3 Ne cum eâ blande nimis agas, ne objurges præsentibus extraneis. 5 Ovid.

ripides.

6 Alciat. emb. 116.

9 Pontanus biarum lib. 1.

7 Deipnosoph. 1. 3.

cap. 12.

And as, in like case, a good fellow that had but a peck of corn weekly to grinde, yet would needs build a new mill for it, found his errour eftsoons, for either he must let his mill lye waste, pull it quite down, or let others grinde at it. So these men, &c.

Seneca therefore, disallowes all such unseasonable matches; habent enim maledicti locum crebræ nuptiæ. And as 'Tully farther inveighs, 'tis unfit for any, but ugly and filthy in old age. Turpe senilis amor, one of the three things God hateth. Plutarch in his book contra Coleten, rails downright at such kinde of marriages, which are attempted by old men, qui jam corpore impotenti, et a voluptatibus deserti, peccant animo; and makes a question, whether, in some cases, it be tolerable at least for such a man to marry,

qui Venerem affectat sine viribus :

that is now past those venerous exercises, as a gelded man lyes with a virgin and sighs, Ecclus. 30. 20. and now complains with him in Petronius, funerata est hæc pars jam, quæ fuit olim Achillea, he is quite done.

Vixit puellæ nuper idoneus,
Et militavit non sine gloriâ.

But the question is, whether he may delight himself, as those Priapeian popes, which in their decrepid age lay commonly between two yong wenches every night, contactu formosarum et contrectatione, num adhuc gaudeat; and as many doting syres still do to their own shame, their childrens undoing, and their families confusion: he abhors it, tanquam ab agresti et furioso domino fugiendum, it must be avoided as a bedlame master, and not obeyed.

Alecto

Ipsa faces præfert nubentibus, et malus Hymen
Triste ululat,-

4

the divel himself makes such matches. Levinus Lemnius reckons up three things, which generally disturb the peace of marriage. The first is, when they marry intempestive or unseasonably, as many mortall men marry precipitately and inconsiderately, when they are effete and old. The second, when they marry unequally for fortunes and birth. The third, when a sick impotent person weds one that is sound, novæ nuptæ spes frustratur: Many dislikes instantly follow. Many doting

2 Ec

1 Offic. lib. Luxuria cum omni ætati turpis, tum senectuti fœdissima. clus. 25. 2. An old man that dotes, &c. 3 Hor. lib. 3. ode 26. Cap. 54. instit. ad optimam vitam. Maxima mortalium pars præcipitanter et inconsiderate nubit, idque eâ ætate quæ minus apta est, quum senex adolescentulæ, sanus mor bidæ, dives pauperi, &c.

3

2

1

dizards, it may not be denyed, as Plutarch confesseth, recreate themselves with such obsolete, unseasonable and filthy remedies (so he calls them) with a remembrance of their former pleasures, against nature, they stir up their dead flesh: but an old leacher is abominable; mulier tertio nubens, Nevisanus holds, præsumitur lubrica et inconstans, a woman that marries the third time may be presumed to be no honester than she should. Of them both, thus Ambrose concludes, in his comment upon Luke, they that are coupled together, not to get children, but to satisfie their lust, are not husbands, but fornicators; with whom St. Austin consents. Matrimony, without hope of children, non matrimonium, sed concubium dici debet, is not a wedding, but a jumbling or coupling together. In a word, except they wed for mutual society, helpe and comfort one of another, (in which respects, though Tiberius denye it, without question old folk may well marry) for sometimes a man hath most need of a wife, according to Puccius, when he hath no need of a wife; otherwise, it is most odious, when an old Acheronticke dizard, that hath one foote in his grave, a silicernium, shall flicker after a lusty yong wench that is blithe and bonny :

7

salaciorque

Verno passere, et albulis columbis.

What can be more detestable?

Tu cano capite amas, senex nequissime,
Jam plenus ætatis, animâque fœtidâ,
Senex hircosus tu osculare mulierem ?
Utine adiens vomitum potius excuties?

Thou old goat, hoary leacher, naughty man,
With stinking breath, art thou in love?
Must thou be slavering? she spewes to see
Thy filthie face, it doth so move.

8

Yet as some will, it is much more tolerable for an old man to marry a yong woman (our ladies match they call it) for cras erit mulier, as he said in Tully. Cato the Roman, Critobulus in Xenophon, Tiraquellus of late, Julius Scaliger, &c. and many famous precedents we have in that kinde; but not e contra: 'tis not held fit for an ancient woman to match with a yong man. For as Varro will, Anus dum ludit morti delicias

1 Obsoleto, intempestivo, turpi remedio fatentur se uti; recordatione pristinarum voluptatum se recreant, et adversante naturâ, pollinctam carnem et enectam excitant. 2 Lib. 2. nu. 35. 3 Qui vero non procreandæ prolis, sed explendæ libidinis causâ, sibi invicem copulantur, non tam conjuges quam fornicarii habenLex Papia. Sueton. Ciaud, c. 23. 5 Pontanus biarum lib. 1. Plautus. Mercator. 7 Symposio. 8 Vide Thuani historiam.

tur.

facit; 'tis Charons match between' Cascus and Casca, and the divel himself is surely well pleased with it. And therefore, as the poet inveighs, thou old Vetustina bed-ridden quean, thou art now skin and bones,

2 Cui tres capilli, quatuorque sunt dentes,
Pectus cicada, crusculumque formica,
Rugosiorem quæ geris stolâ frontem,
Et aranearum cassibus pares mammas.

That hast three hairs, foure teeth, a brest
Like grashopper, an emmets crest,

A skin more rugged then thy coat,
And duggs like spiders web to boot.

Must thou marry a youth again? And yet ducentas ire nuptum post mortes amant: howsoever it is, as3 Apuleius gives out of his Meröe, congressus annosus, pestilens, abhorrendus, a pestilent match, abominable, and not to be endured. In such case, how can they otherwise choose but be jealous, how should they agree one with another? This inequality is not in yeers only, but in birth, fortunes, conditions, and all good qualities.

4 Si qua voles apte nubere, nube pari;

'Tis my counsell, saith Anthony Guiverra, to choose such a one. Civis civem ducat, nobilis nobilem, let a citizen match with a citizen, a gentleman with a gentlewoman; he that observes not this precept, (saith he) non generum sed malum genium; non nurum sed furiam; non vitæ comitem, sed litis fomitem domi habebit: instead of a faire wife shall have a furie: for a fit son-in-law a meer fiend, &c. examples are too frequent.

Another main caution fit to be observed, is this, that though they be equal in yeers, birth, fortunes, and other conditions, yet they do not omit vertue and good education, which Musonius and Antipater so much inculcate in Stobæus:

Dos est magna parentûm

Virtus, et metuens alterius viri

Certo fœdere castitas.

If, as Plutarch adviseth, one must eat modium salis, a bushell of salt with him, before he choose his friend, what care should be had in choosing a wife, his second self; how sollicitous should he be to know her qualities and behaviour? and when he is assured of them, not to prefer birth, fortune, beauty, before bringing up, and good conditions. Coquage, god of cuckolds, as one merrily said, accompanies the goddess Jea

2 Martial. lib. 3. 62. Epig. 5 Rabelais hist. Pantagruel. 1. 3. cap. 33.

1 Catal. vet. poetarum. 4 Ovid.

3 Lib. 1. Miles.

« ZurückWeiter »