Vestræ libidines intra suos naturæ fines coerceri non possunt, quin instar fluvii exundantis atrocem fœditatem, tumultum, confusionemque naturæ gignant in re Venerea: nam & capras, porcos, equos inierunt viri & fœminæ, insano bestiarum amore exarserunt, unde Minotauri, Centauri, Sylvani, Sphinges, &c.

Sed ne confutando doceam, aut ea foras efferam, quæ non omnes scire convenit (hæc enim doctis solummodo quod causa non absimili Rodericus, scripta velim) ne levissimis ingeniis & depravatis mentibus fœdissimi sceleris notitiam, &c. nolo quem diutius hisce sordibus inquinare.

I come at last to that Heroicall Love, which is proper to men and women, is a frequent cause of melancholy, and deserves much rather to be called burning lust, then by such an honourable title.

There is an honest love I confess, which is naturall, laqueus occultus captivans corda hominum, ut à mulieribus non possint separari, a secret snare to captivate the hearts of men, as Christopher Fonseca proves, a strong allurement, of a most attractive, occult, adamantine property, and powerfull vertue, and no man living can avoid it.

Et qui vim non sentit amoris, aut lapis est, aut bellua. He is not a man but a block, a very stone, aut Numen, aut Nebuchadnezzar, he hath a gourd for his head, a pepon for his heart, that hath not felt the power of it, and a rare creature to be found, one in an age,

Qui nunquam visæ flagraverit amore puellæ:

for semel insanivimus omnes, dote we either yong or old, as he said, and none are excepted but Minerva and the Muses: so Cupid in Lucian complains to his mother Venus, that amongst all the rest, his arrows could not pierce them.

But this nuptiall love, is a common passion, an honest, for men to love in the way of marriage; ut materia appetit formam, sic mulier virum. You know marriage is honorable, a blessed calling, appointed by God himself in Paradise; it breeds true peace, tranquillity, content and happiness, qua nulla est aut fuit unquam sanctior conjunctio, as Daphnæus in Plutarch could well prove, & quæ generi humano immortalitatem parat, when they live without jarring, scolding, lovingly as they should do.

Felices ter & amplius Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec ullis Divulsus querimoniis Suprema citius solvit amor die.

Thrice happy they, and more then that, Whom bonds of love so firmly ties, That without brawls till death them part, ’Tis undissolv’d and never dies.

As Seneca lived with his Paulina, Abraham and Sara, Orpheus and Euridice, Arria and Pætus, Artemisia and Mausolus, Rubenius Celer, that would needs have it ingraven on his tomb, he had led his life with Ennea his dear wife forty three years eight moneths, and never fell out. There is no pleasure in this world comparable to it, ’tis summum mortalitatis bonum

—— hominum divûmq; voluptas, Alma Venus —— latet enim in muliere aliquid majus potentiusq; omnibus aliis humanis voluptatibus, as one holds, there’s something in a woman beyond all humane delight; a magnetique vertue, a charming quality, an occult and powerfull motive.

The husband rules her as head, but she again commands his heart, he is her servant, she his onely joy and content: no happiness is like unto it, no love so great as this of man and wife, no such comfort, as placens uxor, a sweet wife:

Omnis amor magnus, sed aperto in conjuge major.

when they love at last as fresh as they did at first,

Charaq; charo consenescit conjugi,

as Homer brings Paris kissing Helena, after they had been married ten years, protesting withall that he loved her as dear as he did the first hour that she was betrothed.

And in their old age when they make much of one another, saying as he did to his wife in the Poet,

Uxor vivamus quod viximus, & moriamur; Servantes nomen sumpsimus in thalamo; Nec ferat ulla dies ut commutemur in ævo, Quin tibi sim juvenis, tuq; puella mihi.

Dear wife, let’s live in love, and dye together, As hitherto we have in all good will: Let no day change or alter our affections, But let’s be young to one another still.

Such should conjugall love be, still the same, and as they are one flesh, so should they be of one mind, as in an Aristocraticall government, one consent, Geryon-like, coalescere in unum, have one heart in two bodies, will and nill the same.

A good wife according to Plutarch, should be as a looking-glass to represent her husbands face and passion: If he be pleasant, she should be merry: if he laugh, she should smile; if he look sad, she should participate of his sorrow, and bear a part with him, and so they should continue in mutuall love one towards another.

Et me ab amore tuo deducet nulla senectus, Sive ego Tythonus, sive ego Nestor ero.

No age shall part my love from thee sweet wife, Though I live Nestor or Tithons life.

And she again to him, as the Bride saluted the Bridegrome of old in Rome, Ubi tu Caius, ego semper Caia, be thou still Caius, Ile be Caia.

’Tis an happy state this indeed, when the fountain is blessed (saith Solomon, Prov. 5. 17.) and he rejoyceth with the wife of his youth, and she is to him as the loving Hinde, and pleasant Roe, and he delights in her continually.

But this love of ours is immoderate, inordinate, and not to be comprehended in any bounds. It will not contain it self within the union of marriage, or apply to one object, but is a wandring, extravagant, a domineering, a boundless, an irrefragable, a destructive passion: sometimes this burning lust rageth after marriage, and then it is properly called Jealousie; sometimes before, and then it is called Heroicall melancholy; it extends sometimes to corrivals, &c. begets rapes, incests, murders:

Marcus Antonius compressit Faustinam sororem, Caracalla Juliam Novercam, Nero Matrem, Caligula sorores, Cyneras Mirrham filiam, &c. But it is confined within no terms of bloud, years, sex, or whatsoever else.

Some furiously rage before they come to discretion or age. Quartilla in Petronius, never remembred she was a maid: and the wife of Bath in Chaucer, cracks,

Since I was twelve years old, believe, Husbands at kirk door had I five.

Aratine Lucretia sold her maiden-head a thousand times before she was twenty four years old, plus millies vendideram virginitatem, &c. neq; te celabo, non deerant qui ut integram ambirent.

Rahab that harlot began to be a professed quean at ten years of age, and was but fifteen when she hid the spies, as Hugh Broughton proves, to whom Serrarius the Jesuite, quæst. 6. in cap. 2. Josue, subscribes.

Generally women begin pubescere as they call it, or catullire, as Julius Pollux cites, lib. 2. cap. 3. onomast. out of Aristophanes, at fourteen years old, then they doe offer themselves, and some plainly rage. Leo Afer saith, that in Africk a man shall scarce finde a maid at fourteen years of age, they are so forward, and many amongst us after they come into the teens do not live without husbands, but linger.

What pranks in this kinde the middle age have played, is not to be recorded.

Si mihi sint centum linguæ, sint oraq; centum,