[6254] ------“salaciorque Verno passere, et albulis columbis.”
What can be more detestable?
[6255] “Tu cano capite amas senex nequissime
Jam
plenus aetatis, animaque foetida,
Senex
hircosus tu osculare mulierem?
Utine
adiens vomitum potius excuties.”
“Thou
old goat, hoary lecher, naughty man,
With
stinking breath, art thou in love?
Must
thou be slavering? she spews to see
Thy
filthy face, it doth so move.”
Yet, as some will, it is much more tolerable for an old man to marry a young woman (our ladies’ match they call it) for cras erit mulier, as he said in Tully. Cato the Roman, Critobulus in [6256]Xenophon, [6257]Tiraquellus of late, Julius Scaliger, &c., and many famous precedents we have in that kind; but not e contra: ’tis not held fit for an ancient woman to match with a young man. For as Varro will, Anus dum ludit morti delitias facit, ’tis Charon’s match between [6258]Cascus and Casca, and the devil himself is surely well pleased with it. And, therefore, as the [6259]poet inveighs, thou old Vetustina bedridden quean, that art now skin and bones,
“Cui
tres capilli, quatuorque sunt dentes,
Pectus
cicadae, crusculumque formicae,
Rugosiorem
quae geris stola frontem,
Et
arenaram cassibus pares mammas.”
“That
hast three hairs, four teeth, a breast
Like
grasshopper, an emmet’s crest,
A
skin more rugged than thy coat,
And
drugs like spider’s web to boot.”