a good prince and a wise, but, saith Machiavel, [6088]prodigiously lascivious.  None so valiant as Castruccius Castrucanus, but, as the said author hath it, [6089]none so incontinent as he was.  And ’tis not only predominant in grandees this fault:  but if you will take a great man’s testimony, ’tis familiar with every base soldier in France, (and elsewhere, I think).  “This vice” ([6090] saith mine author) “is so common with us in France, that he is of no account, a mere coward, not worthy the name of a soldier, that is not a notorious whoremaster.”  In Italy he is not a gentleman, that besides his wife hath not a courtesan and a mistress.  ’Tis no marvel, then, if poor women in such cases be jealous, when they shall see themselves manifestly neglected, contemned, loathed, unkindly used:  their disloyal husbands to entertain others in their rooms, and many times to court ladies to their faces:  other men’s wives to wear their jewels:  how shall a poor woman in such a case moderate her passion? [6091]_Quis tibi nunc Dido cernenti talia sensus_?

How, on the other side, shall a poor man contain himself from this feral malady, when he shall see so manifest signs of his wife’s inconstancy? when, as Milo’s wife, she dotes upon every young man she sees, or, as [6092]Martial’s Sota,—­deserto sequitur Clitum marito, “deserts her husband and follows Clitus.”  Though her husband be proper and tall, fair and lovely to behold, able to give contentment to any one woman, yet she will taste of the forbidden fruit:  Juvenal’s Iberina to a hair, she is as well pleased with one eye as one man.  If a young gallant come by chance into her presence, a fastidious brisk, that can wear his clothes well in fashion, with a lock, jingling spur, a feather, that can cringe, and withal compliment, court a gentlewoman, she raves upon him, “O what a lovely proper man he was,” another Hector, an Alexander, a goodly man, a demigod, how sweetly he carried himself, with how comely a grace, sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat, how neatly he did wear his clothes! [6093] Quam sese ore ferens, quam forti pectore et armis, how bravely did he discourse, ride, sing, and dance, &c., and then she begins to loathe her husband, repugnans osculatur, to hate him and his filthy beard, his goatish complexion, as Doris said of Polyphemus, [6094]_totus qui saniem, totus ut hircus olet_, he is a rammy fulsome fellow, a goblin-faced fellow, he smells, he stinks, Et caepas simul alliumque ructat [6095]—­si quando ad thalamum, &c., how like a dizzard, a fool, an ass, he looks, how like a clown he behaves himself! [6096]she will not come near him by her own good will, but wholly rejects him, as Venus did her fuliginous Vulcan, at last, Nec Deus hunc mensa, Dea nec dignata cubili est. [6097]So did Lucretia, a lady of Senae, after she had but seen Euryalus, in Eurialum tota ferebatur, domum reversa, &c., she would not hold her eyes off him in his presence,—­ [6098]_tantum egregio decus enitet ore_, and in his absence could think of none but him, odit virum, she loathed her husband forthwith, might not abide him: