were either Whores Bawds Panders c. by which means he converted his royal Palace into a most filthy brothel-house Doubtless there is scarce a whoredome or adultery committed wherein this sluggish vice hath not a predominant hand You may be resolved of the Poet why Aegisthus fell adulterately in love with Clitemnestra both of which being steep'd in ease and rest and she being a lusty Lady taking likewise with impatience the absence of her husband such secret familiarity sprung up between them that at last it turned into flat adultery Aegisthus did fair Clitemnestra wo Being idle he had nothing else to do Those yet have been cried up through the whole world for their prowess and valour have by a little giving their minds to rest been miserably infested with this lustful vice Achilles had no sooner rested himself from slaying the Trojans but he was ready to embrace his love if you will believe Ovid as he expresseth it in these termes He unarm'd his head To tumble with his love in a down bed Those war-like hands that did but late embrew Themselves in bloud of Trojans whom they slew Were now imployed to tickle touch and feel And shake a lance that had no point of steel It should seem by this that amorous encounters is a petty kind of war or at least a duel if I may terme it so improperly otherwise Mars the God of war would have never loved it so well Here Ovid relates his being in love with Venus The God of war doth in his brow discover The perfect and true pattern of a lover Nor could the Goddess Venus be so cruel Mars to deny such kindness is a jewel The Sun both sees and blabs the sight forthwith In all great haste he speeds to tell the Smith Oh Sun what bad example doest thou show What thou in secret seest must all men know For silence sake ask bribes from her fair treasure She 'll grant thee that shall make thee swell with pleasure The Smith whose face is smok'd with smut and fire Placeth about the bed a net of wire The lovers met where he that train hath set And both are catch'd within that wiry net He calls the Gods the lovers naked spraul And cannot rise the Queen of Love shews all Mars chafes and Venus weeps Moreover Phlegmatick and Melancholy men as it is confest are not easily induced to love yet when once they are so they love most vehemently Another thing that doth invite or rather charm men to love is Musick As without breath no pipe doth move No musick kindly without love To be sure they have little else to do then to behave themselves as servants befitting Venus that spend most of their most precious time in reading Romances and such like amorous and fictitious stories Concerning those things that increase love A Morous desies are rekindled by the sight and remembrance of the object beloved Tu nisi vitaris quicquid revocabit amorem Flamma redardescet quae modo nulla fuit Or as one of our English-men hath it Fair beauty is the spark of hot desire And sparks in time will kindle to a fire Philosophers are of opinion that we are nourished of that of which we are Love hath its original from the eyes and from thence by consequence it must have its increment and aliment Love though blind by often meeting and seeing the person beloved observes some new pleasing charme which it observed not before which keeps up its heart from sinking into despair and which forceth him to use importunity and opportunity that he may at last crown his desires Do but persist that suit thou hast begun In time will chaste Penelopy be won Oft what she most denies she most desires In frosty woods are hid the hottest fires Onely begin to reap what thou hast sown A million to a mite she is thy own Whether Love may be cured by medicaments ALthough there be many things that will blunt the edge of lust yet when love is a chast passion being of a long time rooted in the heart it s not easily to be supplanted but by death or the object possessed or enjoyed Apollo that by vertual heat Did virdant plants and herbs create Yet found no herb or plant to be A medicine for loves malady Concerning Love-potions or Philters ALbertus Magnus and Plinie relate several things conducing to this Philter though for the most part vaine and feigned Former times joyned to ours will afford variety of examples of such men as by these potions have so perverted female fancies as in an instant they have caused them to love those which a little before they hated At Brixia there is a monument which makes mention of a woman that used this art with this inscription D. M. Qui me volent Valete matronae matresque Familiâs vixi ultra Vitam nihil credidi Me Veneri alumnae addixi Quos potui pellexi philtro Et astu viro humato Non vidua fui c. It s reported that Charles the Great King of France was by this means charmed to affect a woman of a mean beauty and had he not been miraculously admonished by an Angel what to do he had been for ever undone The thing effecting this is small if you consider its external quality as being nothing but a little stone fastned to the womans gums but it seems its internal vertue was such that it made him lay aside and almost wholly forget the affairs of his kingdome that thereby he might have the more freedom and occasion to be continually imbracing this strumpet At last a Priest of this Kings was admonished by an Angel to kill this woman to free his Majesty from such a pernicious malady which accordingly was done yet the King still loved the dead and almost stinking carcase till the second time the Angel appeared and told him he should remove the stone out of her mouth which was no sooner done but the King then as much detested her as before he loved her There is no question but Philters may be made but the danger the composing and administring them will bring may be a sufficient ground to hinder any from making them Whether females may change their Sex HIstories are full of such accidents Ausonius saith Venus Epheborum virgo repente fuit Hippocrates Marcellus Donatus with many other learned Physicians can sufficiently furnish you with many examples of such catastrophe's Michael Montanus attests that in his time a maid by a violent jump was changed into a man her Clytoris issuing forth Fulgosius writes of a maid of fifteen years of age being married the first night her husband lay with her was thus changed whether it was by reason of her too much motion in the venereal act or the fervent heat of those parts I cannot tell but probably it might happen by an extraordinary dilatation of the Clytoris by much hoat and thereby being provok'd and by reason of its swelling on every side not able to contain
yours hath not so much as a black patch or any discoverable inequality In the interim what others discover must go under the usual apology of humanity and clemency there is not in any singular a prerogative of infallibility That in most things there are both superfluous additions and substantial deficiencies this paper of mine which haste must excuse wil bear sufficient demonstration And really I think that deception and misapprehension are become so universal and epidemical that there is hardly a book but that may have for its prologue a catalogue of Errata and for its Epilogue a Caetera desiderantur Concerning the Name of VENUS THe Poets feign the Original of this Goddess to arise from the seed and testicles of Saturne cast into the Sea whence the name in Greek is ἀφÏοδίτη although others would have Venus to be derived from the Latin word viere to bind thereby intimating its usual effects by inslaving and captivating mens bodies and minds It would not be improper to deduce her name from ἀφÏοσÏνη since that pourtraies her nature By reason she excell'd all in her excessive appetite after pleasure and delight in lust she is held of old to be the patroness or Goddess of Love And hence by reason her adorers found such delighting ease in worshipping her she soon acquired a vast number of vassals and subjects so that now she is become the most powerful among the Goddesses Above all others that worshipped this light Goddess there was a Cynique sect of Philosophers that without either shame or blushing did openly ofter up their chastities to her shrine At Corinth she had a Temple consecrated to her name unto which did daily flock a number of young men and maids at whose altar they willingly did sacrifice as a pleasing offering unspotted virginities Boemus Aubanus makes mention of a Countrey whose inhabitants are all Adamites or those which went naked These people have very often set meetings where a number of both sexes meeting together every man takes her that likes him best to satisfie his lust according to the Poet And then upon these well known sweets they ventred Where many an oft sack'd for t was scal'd and entred Art they had none no man there plaid the suitor Each man link'd to his own without a tutor Let thus much suffice for the name of Venus which you may take throughout this discourse for nothing else then a mutual copulation or lust the substance of which being an unbridled force and scum of a luxurious nature What is Copulation LEt us now pass from the name to the knowledge of the thing it self and although there is none so ignorant but knows somewhat of it yet a word or two may not be amiss to make it appear more perspicuous It s thus then Copulation is a conjunction of male and female by fitness of instruments with an ejection of seed to beget their likeness It s a conjunction because its act cannot be done at a distance of male and female because in every operation of nature there is required an active and passive faculty by apt instruments is meant male and female genitals which are required to be fit and proper and not as some vainly suppose that creatures may ingender by conjoyning mouth to mouth or eyes to eyes c. or unnaturally one male with another for that is not by apt instruments Lastly with the effusion of seed c. which is the complement of venereal action and without which conception and generation can no way be effected In this consists the whole pleasure and delight of lovers this is that which luls nay almost stupifies their mutual senses Wherefore take Ovids counsel if you please Flie not then maids your tickling pleasures when They are desir'd of you by loving men Tell me what lose you by it of your store You nothing lose but rather still get more Tast then a thousand sweets be not afraid You keep your own and nothing is decay'd Stones are by use made soft irons wore to dross That never wears and therefore finds no loss What is Venereal love THere are of this love two sorts the one contemplative or Platonick the other active or Socratical the first contents it self solely with seeing the object beloved the other is inflamed the more by it and can no wayes be satisfied but by the carnal injoyment of its beloved This is that which is termed lust Seneca's definition of it is a forgetting of reason to this you may add it s an enemy to the purse a foe to the person a canker to the mind a corrasive to the conscience a weakner of the wit a besotter of the senses and finally an enemy to the whole body Another saith Love is I know not what born I know not where it came I know not from whence and inflamed I know not how Love is a blinded fool an angry boy He 's neither God nor man a witless toy He 's any thing yet 's nothing that is just A private hell a raging sea of lust Through what part is love at first received in THe receptacle and habitation of Love is the eye that is the first thing we perceive in the face Venus her eyes do deeper wound mens hearts Then Cupid can with all his bows and darts Love wounding through the eye of a lover easily laieth open a passage to penetrate the heart Cardanus is of opinion that those are not easily affectionate but are flowly inthral'd by love that have their eyes quick and piercing For there is no beauty so perfect in which a curious sharp eye may not find some defect In a word it s the eye which is all in all to a lover It s his sentinel to perceive all things for his advantage nay it even penetrates the thoughts it s his legate and silent orator to discover when by either fear or her presence he is struck mute thereby the inward motions of his or her amorous heart Who are they which are most apt to be in love ONe calls love a passion of an idle soul In idle breasts Love takes its rests Let labour be thy sauce and excercise thy fire Then will loves flames with its effects retire Sloth and idleness being it is said to be the pillow of the Devil therefore it must needs be the fountain of most vices but especially of lustful desires How in an instant was valiant Hercules metamorphosed by it into effeminate Venus By giving way to idleness he soon laid aside his Lions skin and his mortiferous club and betook himself to soft wantonness and effeminacy he quickly changed his masculine habit and invested himself with feminine apparel that thereby he might insinuate himself and more easily enjoy Queen Omphale Sardanapalus fell into the self same errour as Hercules did by not banishing idleness from him For divesting himself of that sublimity and excellency which accompanies Majesty and sequestring his person from his martial Nobility he made these solely his companions which
extensively as continually having in her remembrance her past and future sweet ravishing imbraces The signes and marks of lustfulness from a mans temperament age disposition of body and his Countrey Temperament IN the first place the sanguine complexion is that which hath the greatest proclivity to Venus for in this temperament hath calidity and humidity almost the sole predominancy such was the complexion of a man of Arragon of whom it is reported that he his wife ten times a day In the second rank is to be accounted the melancholick whose flatuous humour much whets the edge of lust In the third place the Cholerick which though it abounds not with seed yet there are sharp spirits which cause prurition Whence Plato gathers that concupiscence and anger are cousin-germans for the seat of both these passions is the Liver The last temperament is the Phlegmatick which being cold and moist the edge of lust is thereby supprest Age. THe youthful age is the time of Venus her harvest In old men there is not so much vigor and heat as to prick them on to lust whereas youth is all spirit and life Hence the Poet Prima Cupidine is aetas manet apta triumphis Non gaudet veteri sanguine mollis amor The youthful age lies ope to Cupids dart But the old man is valued not a Sick men want seed by reason of their weakness old men want it because they have no strength to concoct their aliment young lads have it not because it s converted into increment And youths though they have it yet by a small matter they lose it accordingly Seneca saith Juvenilis ardor impetu primo furit Languescet idem facilè nec durat diu In Venere turpi ceu levis flammae vapor Disposition of body A Thin body both gives and receives far more delight then a fat corpulent one For fat men are destitute of much bloud and therefore are inclined to cold your fat women are commonly barren Ovid affirmes what I say to be true in saying that Thy leanness argues love seem sparely fed And sometimes wear a night-cap on thy head Countrey THose which inhabit cold Countreys are both hot and strong it must needs be then that they are inclined to venery The Thracians a war-like people loved venery so well that they gloried in the multitude of their wives Thus Ovid sings of Tereus King of the Thracians being in love with Progne Progne in Tereus such a burning breeds As when we fire a heap of hoary reeds Or catching flames to sun-burnt stubble thrust Her face was excellent but inbred lust Inrag'd his bloud to which those climes are prone c. The Egyptians so much devote themselvs to this kind of life as that few among them are found chaste Americus reports that in his voyage to East-India he found an Island whose inhabitants were so extremely given to lechery that his Mariners were hadly ashore before ten women were about one man every one desiring him to appease and qualifie their burning itch these people have among them an herb which hath such a mysterious quality as that it will dilate girles privy members and magnifie and longifie their boys members to both which they use to administer it that they may the sooner be capable for to exercise them The signs of lustfulness from the stature colour strength and season of the year From the Stature MEn of a low or short composure of body injoy a more quick and piercing sense of venereal pleasure then tall men For since their aliment doth not increase their bodies certainly the more oft it is converted into seed This holds even in beasts the Elephant brings forth but one and yet the little Coney bears twelve the Wren eighteen yet the Pigeon but two Colour ARistotle in his Epistle to Alexander admonisheth him to beware of the red hair'd man because as he is given to all manner of vices so especially to incontinency Women that have flaxen hair are for the most part wanton of the same signification are brown hairs Therefore Physicians advise to choose a nurse that 's brown for by her temperate natural heat she breeds good milk That man or woman that have hairs of a leadish colour proceeding from adustion are insatiable in venery Beauty ALthough a beautiful soul may inhabit in a comely body yet it is not ordinary to meet with them both so accomplished It is a thing we seldome see Juvenal Beauty and honesty agree Demetrius Hysmael Lais and Faustina were beautiful and handsome even to admiration yet unchaste even to detestation Season of the year WOmen are most lustful in the Summer but Men in the winter Women being of cold and moist temper are refresh'd and cherish'd by the application of its contrary whereas a man is debilitated by the too much extracting of his proper heat Wherefore for the commodity of both Sexes the Spring is to be chosen as the best season of the year for generation Signs of lustfulness from diseases Barrenness BArren Women for the most part are unsatisfiable in their lust And this is so upon two considerations First having no children they are so much the more desirous to have them and therefore they would use the means oftner Give me childen saith barren Rachel or I die But the chief reason is that they abound with so much heat and bloud as it burns the mans seed the same thing makes them excessively lecherous Retention of the Courses OBstructions do so inflame the womb and genitals that as they cause a prurition so likewise they are the original of a thousand dangerous symptomes The sign of this indisposition of body is too too visible to every ones eye to wit and universal paleness This wanness if we may credit Ovid in his Art of Love is an excellent indicium of a loving soul Let him that loves look pale for I protest That colour in a lover still shews best Orion wandring in the woods look'd sickly Daphne be'ng once in love love colour quickly Bunch-Backs THese sort of men as they are for the most part proud and fantastick so they are commonly very lecherous They seldome or never are fat therefore we may suppose that the seminal humour by reason of the shortness of their back dath pass immediately into the seminal vessels This may be the reason that Camels use copulation all the day long There are very few defective in one part that are not gratified by nature in some extraordinary manner in some other part Those that have lame legs are fruitful and lustful for that which should nourish those parts is turned into seed Wherefore Antianita Queen of the Amazons being reprehended for marrying a lame man made this her plea that Claudus optimè virum agit The lame man is the best womans man Concerning Satyriasis THis affection is an itching in a womans privities causing in her an ardent desire to scratch them This disease is so powerful that it forces women against their custome
companions his six-foot-long not without their admiration and laughter Petronius makes mention of one that had so large and long a Priapus as that all the rest of his body seemed but as an appendix to it You may ask the question how these men were known to be so qualified The Ancients had publick baths where the men went in naked so that if any appeared to have greater members then ordinary the standers by gave a great shout So that that doubt is easily resolved Phisippus Haeasterus reports in the sixth Decade of his observations that there was a man in his time had a monstrous great Yard full of innumerable warts just like the seeds in a bunch of grapes The top of this mighty thing was as big as the head of a new-born child The part adjoyning with the scrotum was an ell long The prepuce drawn back had the likeness of a horses coller If you desire a larger description of it consult with the Author himself where you may see the shape of it cut in brass Some questions concerning the Pudenda WHy is the Yard composed of nerves Because nerves are strong and have a very great sense of feeling and thereby mankind injoys the greater sensual pleasure in the venereal act Why is the Yard fat Because it might not be any impediment to its erection the nature of fat being laxative and mollifying wherefore it is that the fatter a man grows the less becomes his Priapus Why is he that hath a desire to piffe unable to perform the venereal act till such time as he hath evacuated his water Because the pores of the yard being filled with moisture they cannot admit of any thing more of that nature Why is it that there are two holes in a mans yard the one a passage for the water the other for the seed Because the one helps the way of the other for were it not so it is to be feared that that passage would by reason of seldome copulating be wholly stopped up Why did the Ancients believe that there is a certain kind of spell in the pudenda against witchcraft It may be from an old custome the Italians had in worshipping the privities of Bacchus For on his Festival day they carried them about first into the fields and then into the city where an honest Matron did crown them with laurels and gatlands Concerning the excellency vertue and temper of the stones EVen as the chyle in the ventricle in the liver the bloud the vital spirits in the heart and the animal in the brain are concocted for the preservation of life so for the propagation of mankind is the seed wrought and prepared by the stones or testicles They are called so from the Latin word testes which signifie witnesses and truly a man without such witnesses will have bad success in his cause if a woman be of the Jury These are the flower of life the well-springs of generosity and valour of heat and of pure bloud In brief as without them the body becomes effeminate so it loses the most part of all the fore-mentioned vertues Besides they are not onely of such inestimable value in men but also the stones of other creatures Concerning the usefulness of the Castors stones there is none so ignorant in Physick but knows somewhat of their excellent quality They are hot and dry and are good against any disease except a violent feaver The stones of a dung-hill-cock do wonderfully refresh the body being eaten and do increase seed for which purpose they are used by new married people Amatus Lusitanus tells us a notable story of a woman that prepared a dish of them for her husband being a man that little used her company carnally but it seems these stones so altered his body that he immediately was troubled with such a priapisme as nothing would satisfie him till he was in bed with his wife Into which he was no sooner entred but he plied his wife so close that she was able to hold out no longer but ran out of the bed from him and he after her but being not able to overtake her he went into the room where his three maids lay and went into the bed to them and begat them all with child None knows what farther mischief he would have done had he not been prevented by a Physician The stones of a young Pig do wonderfully help barrenness both in men and women and will cause them to be fruitful A Foxes stones dried have the same vertue Horses stones are an excellent thing to bring away the secundines of women Gesner knew a man that got his living by helping women by this remedy They are likewise very good against colical paines as Fonseca saith The powder of a Bulls stones is commended for curing ulcers in the vulva an Asses and Stags for expelling of poison a Goats against shedding the water in the night a Ganders are excellent good to help conception immediately after congression and lastly a mans testicles though they are placed in the last rank yet for their variety of vertue excel all will make excellent mummie good against all diseases See more of their vertue in Crollius and the rest of the Theophrastians What may be the reason that though a man loveth a woman extraordinary well yet after the injoyment of her his love grows cold HOw unhappy are they that are in love They are alwayes distracted with anguish and grief they are ever perplexed with new cases they lived a dying life and a living death He a long time languisheth for the possession of his dearly beloved but in a far shorter time is satiated and glutted with her The reason may be because being in love his fancy is perverted and so judges of its effects contrary to what really it is En quod non esset esse putaret amor Besides the mind is most eagerly bent on that which is forbidden nitimur in vetitum and therefore like a torrent it overflows and becomes more impetuous by opposition Too much liberty in any thing nauseates the appetite I have heard of a Gentleman that kept a Lady of pleasure allowing her two hundred pounds for yearly maintenance but would not marry her because saith he knowing she is my own I shall disesteem of her whereas now I accost her every time I come to her as if she was a new mistress Cornelius Gallus professeth that he was perditly in love with a fair virgin and could have been willing to have redeemed her life by his till she yielded to his unlawful imbraces and then he slighted her Hence Ausonius Hanc volo quae non vult illam que vult ego nolo She that is willing to love me To her unwilling will I be And a little after he proceeds Oblatas sperno illecebras detrecto negatas Proffered pleasures I defie Give me her that doth deny If love be onely a desire as some say it is then desire is no desire when it is satisfied Concerning