and filthy remedies” (so he calls them), “with a remembrance of their former pleasures, against nature they stir up their dead flesh:”  but an old lecher is abominable; mulier tertio nubens, [6251]Nevisanus holds, praesumitur lubrica, et inconstans, a woman that marries a third time may be presumed to be no honester than she should.  Of them both, thus Ambrose concludes in his comment upon Luke, [6252]"they that are coupled together, not to get children, but to satisfy their lust, are not husbands, but fornicators,” with whom St. Austin consents:  matrimony without hope of children, non matrimonium, sed concubium dici debet, is not a wedding but a jumbling or coupling together.  In a word (except they wed for mutual society, help and comfort one of another, in which respects, though [6253]Tiberius deny it, without question old folks may well marry) for sometimes a man hath most need of a wife, according to Puccius, when he hath no need of a wife; otherwise it is most odious, when an old Acherontic dizzard, that hath one foot in his grave, a silicernium, shall flicker after a young wench that is blithe and bonny,

[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.”