However this is all contrary to the opinion expressed by M. du Gua, to whom one day I did make a proposition on the part of a certain great lady which had begged me so to do, to marry him. But he did make this answer only, that heretofore he had ever deemed me one of his best friends, but that now I did make him think himself deceived in this, by my holding such language to him, trying to hunt him into the very thing he most did hate, that is to get him to marry and be cuckolded, in lieu of his making other men so. He did further say he could always wed plenty of women every year, speaking of marriage as an hidden prostitution of a man’s repute and liberty, ordained by a specious law. Moreover that the worst of it was, this, as myself also do see and have noted to be the case, that the more part, nay! all, of them that have thus taken delight in making other folks cuckold, when themselves come to wed, infallibly do they fall into the married, I mean the cuckolded, state. Never yet have I known it fall out otherwise, according to the word, “As thou shalt do to others, so shall it be done unto you.”
Before making an end, I will say yet one word more,—how that I have seen a dispute raised that is still undecided, to wit, in which provinces and regions of our Christendom and Europe there be most cuckolds and harlots? Men declare that in Italy the ladies are exceedingly hot, and for that cause very whorish, as saith M. de Bèze[97] in a Latin Epigram, to the effect that where the sun is hot and doth shine with most power, there doth it the most heat women, inditing a verse thus conceived;
Credible est ignes multiplicare suos.
(’Tis to believed he doth there multiply their fires.)
Spain is in the like case, though it lie more to the Westward; yet doth the sun there warm fair ladies as well as ever it can in the East.
Flemish, Swiss, German, English and Scotch women, albeit they dwell more to the Northward and inhabit cold regions, share no less in this same natural heat; and indeed I have known them as hot as dames of any other land.
The Greeks have good reason to be so, for that they are well to the Eastward. So in Italy men do pray for _Greca in letto_,—or “a Greek bedfellow.” And in sooth they do possess many attractive points and merits, as is but to be expected, seeing in times of old they were the delight of all the world, and have taught many a secret to the ladies of Italy and Spain, from ancient times even to the present day,—so much so that these do well nigh surpass their teachers, whether ancient or modern. And verily was not the Queen and Empress of all harlots, which was Venus, a Greek?
As for my fair countrywomen of France, in old days they were notoriously very coarse and unrefined, contenting themselves with doing of it in a coarse, rude fashion. But, beginning some fifty years since, they have borrowed so much and learned from other nations so many gentle ways, pretty tricks, charms and attractions, fine clothes, wanton looks, or else themselves have so well studied to fashion themselves therein, that we are bound to say that they do now surpass all other women in every way. So, as I have heard even men of foreign nations admit, they are better worth a man’s having than any others, not to mention that naughty words in French are more naughty, better sounding and more rousing, than in any other tongue.[98*]
Over and above all this, that excellent liberty we have in France, a thing more to be esteemed than aught else, doth surely make our women more desirable and lovable, more easy of access and more amenable, than they of any other nation. Again adultery is not so constantly punished as in other lands, by the good wisdom of our noble Councils and French law-makers, which seeing abuses to arise by reason of such harsh punishments, have something checked the same, and corrected the rigorous laws of a former day, passed by men which herein did allow themselves full license of merry disport, but deprived women altogether of the same privilege. Thus was it not allowed to an innocent woman to accuse her husband of adultery, by any laws imperial or canon, as Cajetan doth assure us. But truly cunning men did make this rule for the reasons named in the following Italian verses:
Perche, di quel che Natura concede Cel’ vieti tu, dura legge d’honore. Ella à noi liberal large ne diede Com’ agli altri animai legge d’amore. Ma l’huomo fraudulento, e senza fede, Che fu legislator di quest’ errore, Vendendo nostre forze e buona schiena, Copri la sua debolezza con la pena.
(“Oh! over harsh law of honour, why dost thou forbid the thing that Nature urges us to do? She grants us, as to all animals, the enjoyment of love abundantly and liberally. But the base deceiver, man, knowing only too well the vigour of our loins, has established this mistaken law, so to conceal the weakness of the sexes.”)
In a word, ’tis good to love in this land of France. I appeal to our authentic doctors in this science, and even to our courtesans, which will be more apt than I to elaborate subtle details thereanent. And to tell the very truth: harlots are there in all lands, and cuckolds the same, as myself can surely testify, for that I have seen all the countries I have named, and others to boot. Chastity abideth not in one quarter of the earth more than another.
15.
Now will I further ask this one question only, and never another, one which mayhap hath never yet been enquired into of any, or possibly even thought of,—to wit, whether two ladies that be in love one with the other, as hath been seen aforetime, and is often seen nowadays, sleeping together in one bed, and doing what is called _donna con donna_, imitating in fact that learned poetess Sappho, of Lesbos, whether these can commit adultery, and between them make their husbands cuckold.
Of a surety do they commit this crime, if we are to believe Martial in Epigram CXIX of his First Book.[99*] Therein doth he introduce and speak of a woman by name Bassa, a tribad, reproaching the same greatly in that men were never seen to visit her, in such wise that folk deemed her a second Lucretia for chasteness. But presently she came to be discovered, for that she was observed to be constantly welcoming at her house beautiful women and girls; and ’twas found that she herself did serve these and counterfeit a man. And the poet, to describe this, doth use the words, _geminos committere cunnos_. And further on, protesting against the thing, he doth signify the riddle and give it out to be guessed and imagined, in this Latin line:
Hic, ubi vir non est, ut sit adulterium,
(“a strange thing,” that is, “that where no man is, yet is adultery done.”)
I knew once a courtesan of Rome, old and wily if ever there was one, that was named Isabella de Luna,[100*] a Spanish woman, which did take in this sort of friendship another courtesan named Pandora. This latter was eventually married to a butler in the Cardinal d’Armaignac’s household, but without abandoning her first calling. Now this same Isabella did keep her, and extravagant and ill-ordered as she was in speech, I have oft times heard her say how that she did cause her to give her husbands more horns than all the wild fellows she had ever had. I know not in what sense she did intend this, unless she did follow the meaning of the Epigram of Martial just referred to.
* * * * *
’Tis said how that Sappho the Lesbian was a very high mistress in this art, and that in after times the Lesbian dames have copied her therein, and continued the practice to the present day. So Lucian saith: such is the character of the Lesbian women, which will not suffer men at all. Now such women as love this practice will not suffer men, but devote themselves to other women and are called _tribads_, a Greek word derived, as I have learned of the Greeks, from τρίδω, τρίδειν, that is to say _fricare_. These tribads are called in Latin _fricatrices_, and in French the same, that is women who do the way of _donne con donne_, as it is still found at the present day.
Juvenal again speaks of these women, when he saith:[101*]
... frictum Grissantis adorat
talking of such a tribad, who adored and loved the embraces of one Grissas.
The excellent and diverting Lucian hath a chapter on this subject, and saith therein how that women do come mutually together. Moreover this name of tribad, which doth elsewhere occur but rarely as applied to these women, is freely employed by him throughout, and he saith that the female sex must needs be like the notorious Philaenis, who was used to parody the actions of manly love. At the same time he doth add, ’tis better far for a woman to be given up to a lustful affection for playing the male, than it is for a man to be womanish; so utterly lacking in all courage and nobility of character doth such an one show himself. Thus the woman, according to this, which doth counterfeit the man, may well be reputed to be more valorous and courageous than another, as in truth I have known some such to be, as well in body as in spirit.