[4731]Aratine Lucretia sold her maidenhead a thousand times before she was twenty-four years old, plus milies vendiderant virginitatem, &c. neque 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 [4732]Hugh Broughton proves, to whom Serrarius the Jesuit, quaest. 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, [4733]at fourteen years old, then they do offer themselves, and some plainly rage. [4734]Leo Afer saith, that in Africa a man shall scarce find 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 kind the middle ages have played is not to be recorded. Si mihi sint centum linguae, sint oraque centum, no tongue can sufficiently declare, every story is full of men and women’s insatiable lust, Nero’s, Heliogabali, Bonosi, &c. [4735] Coelius Amphilenum, sed Quintius Amphelinam depereunt, &c.  They neigh after other men’s wives (as Jeremia, cap. v. 8. complaineth) like fed horses, or range like town bulls, raptores virginum et viduarum, as many of our great ones do.  Solomon’s wisdom was extinguished in this fire of lust, Samson’s strength enervated, piety in Lot’s daughters quite forgot, gravity of priesthood in Eli’s sons, reverend old age in the Elders that would violate Susanna, filial duty in Absalom to his stepmother, brotherly love in Ammon. towards his sister.  Human, divine laws, precepts, exhortations, fear of God and men, fair, foul means, fame, fortune, shame, disgrace, honour cannot oppose, stave off, or withstand the fury of it, omnia vincit amor, &c.  No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with, a twined thread.  The scorching beams under the equinoctial, or extremity of cold within the circle arctic, where the very seas are frozen, cold or torrid zone, cannot avoid or expel this heat, fury, and rage of mortal men.

[4736] “Quo fugis ab demens, nulla est fuga, tu licet usque
        Ad Tanaim fugias, usque sequetur amor.”

Of women’s unnatural, [4737]insatiable lust, what country, what village doth not complain?  Mother and daughter sometimes dote on the same man, father and son, master and servant, on one woman.

[4738] “—­Sed amor, sed ineffrenata libido,
        Quid castum in terris intentatumque reliquit?”