Well! to make an end of the subject, ’tis very meet all ladies be respected of all men, and the secret of their loves and favours duly kept. This is why Pietro Aretino said, that when lovers were come to it, the kisses that man and maid did give each other were not so much for their mutual delight as for to join connection of the mouths together and so make signal betwixt them that they do keep hid the secret of their merry doings. Nay, more! that some lustful and lascivious husbands do in their wantonness show them so free and extravagant in words, as that not content with committing sundry naughty profligacies with their wives, they do declare and publish the same to their boon-companions, and make fine tales out of them. So much so that I have myself known wives which did conceive a mortal repugnance to their husbands for this cause and would even very often refuse them the pleasures they had erst afforded them. They would not have such scandalous things said of them, albeit ’twas but betwixt husband and wife.
M. du Bellay, the poet, in his book of Latin epitaphs called Les Tombeaux, which he hath composed, and very fine it is, hath writ one on a dog, that methinks is well worth quoting here, for ’tis writ much in our own manner. It runneth thus:
Latratu fures excepi, mutus amentes.
Sic placui domino, sic placui dominæ.
(By my barking I did drive away thieves, with a quiet tongue I did greet lovers. Thus I did please my master, and thus my mistress.)
Well! if we are so to love animals for discreetness, how much more must we not value men for holding silence? And if we are to take advice on this matter of a courtesan which was one of the most celebrated of former days, and a past mistress in her art, to wit Lamia, here it is. Asked wherein a woman did find most satisfaction in her lover, she replied ’twas when he was discreet in talk and secret as to what he did. Above all else she said she did hate a boaster, one that was forever boasting of what he did not do, yet failing to accomplish what he promised,—two faults, each as bad as the other. She was used to say further: that a woman, albeit ready enough to be indiscreet, would never willingly be called harlot, nor published abroad for such. Moreover she said how that she did never make merry at a man’s expense, nor any man at hers, nor did any ever miscall her. A fair dame of this sort, so experienced in love’s mysteries, may well give lessons to other women.
Well, well! enough said on these points. Another man, more eloquent than I, might have embellished and ennobled the subject better far. To such I do pass on hereby mine arms and pen.
SEVENTH DISCOURSE[84*]
Concerning married women, widows and maids,—to wit, which of these same be better than the other to love.