The Essays of Montaigne [427]
De tenero, meditatur ungui."
["The maid ripe for marriage delights to learn Ionic dances, and to
imitate those lascivious movements. Nay, already from her infancy
she meditates criminal amours."—Horace, Od., iii. 6, 21., the text
has 'fingitur'.]
Let them but give themselves the rein a little, let them but enter into liberty of discourse, we are but children to them in this science. Hear them but describe our pursuits and conversation, they will very well make you understand that we bring them nothing they have not known before, and digested without our help.
[This sentence refers to a conversation between some young women in
his immediate neighbourhood, which the Essayist just below informs
us that he overheard, and which was too shocking for him to repeat.
It must have been tolerably bad.—Remark by the editor of a later
edition.]
Is it, perhaps, as Plato says, that they have formerly been debauched young fellows? I happened one day to be in a place where I could hear some of their talk without suspicion; I am sorry I cannot repeat it. By'rlady, said I, we had need go study the phrases of Amadis, and the tales of Boccaccio and Aretin, to be able to discourse with them: we employ our time to much purpose indeed. There is neither word, example, nor step they are not more perfect in than our books; 'tis a discipline that springs with their blood,
"Et mentem ipsa Venus dedit,"
["Venus herself made them what they are,"
—Virg., Georg., iii. 267.]
which these good instructors, nature, youth, and health, are continually inspiring them with; they need not learn, they breed it:
"Nec tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columbo,
Compar, vel si quid dicitur improbius,
Oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro,
Quantum praecipue multivola est mulier."
["No milk-white dove, or if there be a thing more lascivious,
takes so much delight in kissing as woman, wishful for every man
she sees."—Catullus, lxvi. 125.]
So that if the natural violence of their desire were not a little restrained by fear and honour, which were wisely contrived for them, we should be all shamed. All the motions in the world resolve into and tend to this conjunction; 'tis a matter infused throughout: 'tis a centre to which all things are directed. We yet see the edicts of the old and wise Rome made for the service of love, and the precepts of Socrates for the instruction of courtezans:
"Noncon libelli Stoici inter sericos
Jacere pulvillos amant:"
["There are writings of the Stoics which we find lying upon
silken cushions."—Horace, Epod., viii. 15.]
Zeno, amongst his laws, also regulated the motions to be observed in getting a maidenhead. What was the philosopher Strato's book Of Carnal Conjunction?—[ Diogenes Laertius, v. 59.]—And what did Theophrastus treat of in those he intituled, the one 'The Lover', and the other 'Of Love?' Of what Aristippus in his 'Of Former Delights'? What do the so long and lively descriptions in Plato of the loves of his time pretend to? and the book called 'The Lover', of Demetrius Phalereus? and 'Clinias', or the 'Ravished Lover', of Heraclides; and that of Antisthenes, 'Of Getting Children', or, 'Of Weddings', and the other, 'Of the Master or the Lover'? And that of Aristo: 'Of Amorous Exercises' What those of Cleanthes: one, 'Of Love', the other, 'Of the Art of Loving'? The amorous dialogues of Sphaereus? and the fable of Jupiter and Juno, of Chrysippus, impudent beyond all toleration? And his fifty so lascivious epistles? I will let alone the writings of the philosophers of the Epicurean sect, protectress of voluptuousness. Fifty deities were, in time past, assigned to this office; and there have been nations where, to assuage the lust of those who came to their devotion, they kept men and women in their temples for the worshippers to lie with; and it was an act of ceremony to do this before they went to prayers:
"Nimirum propter continentiam incontinentia necessaria est;
incendium ignibus extinguitur."
["Forsooth incontinency is necessary for continency's sake; a
conflagration