Other women, for dread of colds and catarrhs, do smother themselves in bed with cape and mufflers about the head, till upon my word they do look more like old witches than young women. Yet once out of bed, they are as smart as dolls. Others again be all rouged and painted up like images, fine enough by day; but a-nights the paint is off, and they are as ugly as sin.
It were well to examine suchlike dames before loving, marrying and enjoying the same, as Octavius Caesar was used to do.[131*] For along with his friends he did have sundry great ladies and Roman matrons stripped naked, and even virgins of marriageable age, and did examine them from head to foot, as if they had been slave-women and purchased serfs. The said examination was carried out by a certain horse-jockey or dealer by name Toranus, and according as this man did approve and find them to his liking, and unspoiled, would the Emperor take his pleasure with them.
This is precisely what the Turks do in their slave-market at Constantinople and other great towns, when they buy slaves, whether male or female.
Well! I will say no more of all this; indeed methinks I have already said over much. So this is how we be sore deceived in many sights we at the first imagine and believe very admirable. But if we be thus deceived in some good ladies, no less are we edified and well satisfied in other some, the which are so fair and sweet and clean, so fresh and plump, so lovable and desirable, in one word so perfect in all their bodily parts, that after them all sights in this world are but mean and empty. Whence it cometh there be men, which at such a sight do so lose their wits they must at once to work. Moreover ’tis often the case that such fair dames do find pleasure in showing their persons and do make no difficulty so to do, knowing themselves as they do without spot or blemish, to the end they may the better rouse temptation and concupiscence in our manly bosoms.
One day when we were together at the siege of La Rochelle, the late unfortunate Duc de Guise,[132] which did me the honour to hold me in affection, did come and show me some tables he had just filched from Monsieur the King’s brother,[132] our General in that enterprise, from out the pocket of his breeches, and said thus: “Monsieur hath done me a displeasure and mocked me concerning my love for a certain lady. Well I would fain now take my revenge; look at these tables of his, and read what I have writ therein.” With this he did hand me the tables, and I saw writ therein in his hand these four verses following, which he had just made up,—only that the word was set down outright in the first line:
Si vous ne m’avez congeue,
Il n’a pas tenu à moy;
Car vous m’avez bien vue nue,
Et vous ay monstré de quoy.
(If you have not known me, this is no fault of mine. For indeed you have seen me naked, and I have shown you all you need.)