[5747] “At vos festivae ne ne saltate puellae,
En
malus hireus adest in vos saltare paratus.”
Young men will do it when they come to it. Fauns and satyrs will certainly play reaks, when they come in such wanton Baccho’s or Elenora’s presence. Now when they shall perceive any such obliquity, indecency, disproportion, deformity, bad conditions, &c., let them still ruminate on that, and as [5748]Haedus adviseth out of Ovid, earum mendas notent, note their faults, vices, errors, and think of their imperfections; ’tis the next way to divert and mitigate love’s furious headstrong passions; as a peacock’s feet, and filthy comb, they say, make him forget his fine feathers, and pride of his tail; she is lovely, fair, well-favoured, well qualified, courteous and kind, “but if she be not so to me, what care I how kind she be?” I say with [5749]Philostratus, formosa aliis, mihi superba, she is a tyrant to me, and so let her go. Besides these outward neves or open faults, errors, there be many inward infirmities, secret, some private (which I will omit), and some more common to the sex, sullen fits, evil qualities, filthy diseases, in this case fit to be considered; consideratio foeditatis mulierum, menstruae imprimis, quam immundae sunt, quam Savanarola proponit regula septima penitus observandam; et Platina dial. amoris fuse perstringit. Lodovicus Bonacsialus, mulieb. lib. 2. cap. 2. Pet. Haedus, Albertus, et infiniti fere medici. [5750]A lover, in Calcagninus’s Apologies, wished with all his heart he were his mistress’s ring, to hear, embrace, see, and do I know not what: O thou fool, quoth the ring, if thou wer’st in my room, thou shouldst hear, observe, and see pudenda et poenitenda, that which would make thee loathe and hate her, yea, peradventure, all women for her sake.