—"Merchant's Tale," l. 943.
"No crafty widow shall approach my bed;
Those are too wise for batchelors to wed.
As subtle clerks by many schools are made,
Twice-married dames are mistresses o' th' trade;
But young and tender virgins, rul'd with ease,
We form like wax, and mould them as we please."
—"January and May," l. 106.
[308] The Floralia or feast of Flora, Goddess of Flowers, were celebrated with public sports on the 5th of the Kalends of May. The chief part of the "solemnity was managed by a company of lewd strumpets, who ran up and down naked, sometimes dancing, sometimes fighting, or acting the mimic. However it came to pass, the wisest and gravest Romans were not for discontinuing this custom, though the most indecent imaginable: for Portius Cato, when he was present at these games, and saw the people ashamed to let the women strip while he was there, immediately went out of the theatre to let the ceremony have its course."—Kennet's "Roman Antiquities," p. 297.
[309] So in "The Return from Parnassus," act iii. sc. 1: "My mistress upon good days puts on a piece of a parsonage; and we pages play at blow-point for a piece of a parsonage."
And in Donne ("Poems," 1719, p. 119)—
"Shortly, boys shall not play
At span-counter, or blow-point, but shall pay
Toll to some courtier."