The Anatomy of Melancholy Part 73

[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 circ.u.mspect, 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]_c.u.m 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, [Greek: haeiroon tekna paemata], _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 wh.o.r.e; 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 Nevisa.n.u.s, she will be too insolent and peevish, [5792]_Malo Venusinam quam te Cornelia mater_.

Take heed; if she be a s.l.u.t, 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 adscit.i.tiis 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 Nevisa.n.u.s), 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 l.u.s.ty, 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 n.o.bly 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 ta.s.sel 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 c.u.m 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 a.s.sideat et curet aegrotum, fomentum paret, roget medieum_, &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 enc.u.mbrances 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 ment.i.tis 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]Ammia.n.u.s) "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 amic.u.m."

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 enc.u.mbrances 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, [Greek: syzygia] _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._ Espensaeus _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_, Nevisa.n.u.s 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 p.i.s.s 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 sent.i.t, amor solvitur. Noctuae oc.u.m 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]_c.u.m vesana suas torreret flamma medullas_, came to the temple of Apollo to know what she should do to be eased of her pain: Apollo sent her to Leucata Petra, where she precipitated herself, and was forthwith freed; and when she would needs know of him a reason of it, he told her again, that he had often observed [5821]Jupiter, when he was enamoured on Juno, thither go to ease and wash himself, and after him divers others. Cephalus for the love of Protela, Degonetus' daughter, leaped down here, that Lesbian Sappho for Phaon, on whom she miserably doted. [5822]_Cupidinis aestro percita e summo praeceps ruit_, hoping thus to ease herself, and to be freed of her love pangs.

[5823] "Hic se Deucalion Pyrrhae suecensus amore Mersit, et illaeso corpore pressit aquas.

Nec mora, fugit amor," &c.------

"Hither Deucalion came, when Pyrrha's love Tormented him, and leapt down to the sea, And had no harm at all, but by and by His love was gone and chased quite away."

This medicine Jos. Scaliger speaks of, _Ausoniarum lectionum lib. 18._ Salmutz _in Pancirol. de 7. mundi mirac._ and other writers. Pliny reports, that amongst the Cyzeni, there is a well consecrated to Cupid, of which if any lover taste, his pa.s.sion is mitigated: and Anthony Verdurius _Imag.

deorum de Cupid._ saith, that amongst the ancients there was [5824]_Amor Lethes_, "he took burning torches, and extinguished them in the river; his statute was to be seen in the temple of Venus Eleusina," of which Ovid makes mention, and saith "that all lovers of old went thither on pilgrimage, that would be rid of their love-pangs." Pausanias, in [5825]

Phocicis, writes of a temple dedicated _Veneri in spelunca_, to Venus in the vault, at Naupactus in Achaia (now Lepanto) in which your widows that would have second husbands, made their supplications to the G.o.ddess; all manner of suits concerning lovers were commenced, and their grievances helped. The same author, in Achaicis, tells as much of the river [5826]

Senelus in Greece; if any lover washed himself in it, by a secret virtue of that water, (by reason of the extreme coldness belike) he was healed, of love's torments, [5827]_Amoris vulnus idem qui sanat facit_; which if it be so, that water, as he holds, is _omni auro pretiosior_, better than any gold. Where none of all these remedies will take place, I know no other but that all lovers must make a head and rebel, as they did in [5828]Ausonius, and crucify Cupid till he grant their request, or satisfy their desires.

SUBSECT. V.--_The last and best Cure of Love-Melancholy, is to let them have their Desire_.

The last refuge and surest remedy, to be put in practice in the utmost place, when no other means will take effect, is to let them go together, and enjoy one another: _potissima cura est ut heros amasia sua potiatur_, saith Guianerius, _cap. 15. tract. 15._ Aesculapius himself, to this malady, cannot invent a better remedy, _quam ut amanti cedat amatum_, [5829](Jason Pratensis) than that a lover have his desire.

"Et pariter torulo bini jungantur in uno, Et pulchro detur Aeneae Lavinia conjux."

"And let them both be joined in a bed, And let Aeneas fair Lavinia wed;"

'Tis the special cure, to let them bleed in _vena Hymencaea_, for love is a pleurisy, and if it be possible, so let it be,--_optataque gaudia carpant_.

[5830]Arcula.n.u.s holds it the speediest and the best cure, 'tis Savanarola's [5831]last precept, a princ.i.p.al infallible remedy, the last, sole, and safest refuge.

[5832] "Julia sola poles nostras extinguere flammas, Non nive, nun glacie, sed potes igne pari."

"Julia alone can quench my desire, With neither ice nor snow, but with like fire."

When you have all done, saith [5833]Avicenna, "there is no speedier or safer course, than to join the parties together according to their desires and wishes, the custom and form of law; and so we have seen him quickly restored to his former health, that was languished away to skin and bones; after his desire was satisfied, his discontent ceased, and we thought it strange; our opinion is therefore that in such cases nature is to be obeyed." Areteus, an old author, _lib. 3. cap. 3._ hath an instance of a young man, [5834]when no other means could prevail, was so speedily relieved. What remains then but to join them in marriage?

[5835] "Tunc et basia morsiunculasque Surreptim dare, mutuos fovere Amplexus licet, et licet jocari;"

"they may then kiss and coll, lie and look babies in one another's eyes,"

as heir sires before them did, they may then satiate themselves with love's pleasures, which they have so long wished and expected;

"Atque uno simul in toro quiescant, Conjuncto simul ore suavientur, Et somnos agitent quiete in una."

Yea, but _hic labor, hoc opus_, this cannot conveniently be done, by reason of many and several impediments. Sometimes both parties themselves are not agreed: parents, tutors, masters, guardians, will not give consent; laws, customs, statutes hinder: poverty, superst.i.tion, fear and suspicion: many men dote on one woman, _semel et simul_: she dotes as much on him, or them, and in modesty must not, cannot woo, as unwilling to confess as willing to love: she dare not make it known, show her affection, or speak her mind.

"And hard is the choice" (as it is in Euphues) "when one is compelled either by silence to die with grief, or by speaking to live with shame." In this case almost was the fair lady Elizabeth, Edward the Fourth his daughter, when she was enamoured on Henry the Seventh, that n.o.ble young prince, and new saluted king, when she broke forth into that pa.s.sionate speech, [5836] "O that I were worthy of that comely prince! but my father being dead, I want friends to motion such a matter! What shall I say? I am all alone, and dare not open my mind to any. What if I acquaint my mother with it? bashfulness forbids. What if some of the lords? audacity wants. O that I might but confer with him, perhaps in discourse I might let slip such a word that might discover mine intention!" How many modest maids may this concern, I am a poor servant, what shall I do? I am a fatherless child, and want means, I am blithe and buxom, young and l.u.s.ty, but I have never a suitor, _Expectant stolidi ut ego illos rogatum veniam_, as [5837]she said, A company of silly fellows look belike that I should woo them and speak first: fain they would and cannot woo,--[5838]_quae primum exordia sumam_? being merely pa.s.sive they may not make suit, with many such lets and inconveniences, which I know not; what shall we do in such a case?