The words of the third article are: She will suck me at my best end. Why not? That pleaseth me right well. You know the thing; I need not tell you that it is my intercrural pudding with one end. I swear and promise that, in what I can, I will preserve it sappy, full of juice, and as well victualled for her use as may be. She shall not suck me, I believe, in vain, nor be destitute of her allowance; there shall her justum both in peck and lippy be furnished to the full eternally. You expound this passage allegorically, and interpret it to theft and larceny. I love the exposition, and the allegory pleaseth me; but not according to the sense whereto you stretch it. It may be that the sincerity of the affection which you bear me moveth you to harbour in your breast those refractory thoughts concerning me, with a suspicion of my adversity to come. We have this saying from the learned, That a marvellously fearful thing is love, and that true love is never without fear. But, sir, according to my judgment, you do understand both of and by yourself that here stealth signifieth nothing else, no more than in a thousand other places of Greek and Latin, old and modern writings, but the sweet fruits of amorous dalliance, which Venus liketh best when reaped in secret, and culled by fervent lovers filchingly. Why so, I prithee tell? Because, when the feat of the loose-coat skirmish happeneth to be done underhand and privily, between two well-disposed, athwart the steps of a pair of stairs lurkingly, and in covert behind a suit of hangings, or close hid and trussed upon an unbound faggot, it is more pleasing to the Cyprian goddess, and to me also--I speak this without prejudice to any better or more sound opinion--than to perform that culbusting art after the Cynic manner, in the view of the clear sunshine, or in a rich tent, under a precious stately canopy, within a glorious and sublime pavilion, or yet on a soft couch betwixt rich curtains of cloth of gold, without affrightment, at long intermediate respites, enjoying of pleasures and delights a bellyfull, at all great ease, with a huge fly-flap fan of crimson satin and a bunch of feathers of some East-Indian ostrich serving to give chase unto the flies all round about; whilst, in the interim, the female picks her teeth with a stiff straw picked even then from out of the bottom of the bed she lies on. If you be not content with this my exposition, are you of the mind that my wife will suck and sup me up as people use to gulp and swallow oysters out of the shell? or as the Cilician women, according to the testimony of Dioscorides, were wont to do the grain of alkermes? Assuredly that is an error. Who seizeth on it, doth neither gulch up nor swill down, but takes away what hath been packed up, catcheth, snatcheth, and plies the play of hey-pass, repass.
The fourth article doth imply that my wife will flay me, but not all. Othe fine word! You interpret this to beating strokes and blows. Speak wisely. Will you eat a pudding? Sir, I beseech you to raise up your spirits above the low-sized pitch of earthly thoughts unto that height of sublime contemplation which reacheth to the apprehension of the mysteries and wonders of Dame Nature. And here be pleased to condemn yourself, by a renouncing of those errors which you have committed very grossly and somewhat perversely in expounding the prophetic sayings of the holy sibyl.
Yet put the case (albeit I yield not to it) that, by the instigation of the devil, my wife should go about to wrong me, make me a cuckold downwards to the very breech, disgrace me otherwise, steal my goods from me, yea, and lay violently her hands upon me;--she nevertheless should fail of her attempts and not attain to the proposed end of her unreasonable undertakings. The reason which induceth me hereto is grounded totally on this last point, which is extracted from the profoundest privacies of a monastic pantheology, as good Friar Arthur Wagtail told me once upon a Monday morning, as we were (if I have not forgot) eating a bushel of trotter-pies; and I remember well it rained hard. God give him the good morrow! The women at the beginning of the world, or a little after, conspired to flay the men quick, because they found the spirit of mankind inclined to domineer it, and bear rule over them upon the face of the whole earth; and, in pursuit of this their resolution, promised, confirmed, swore, and covenanted amongst them all, by the pure faith they owe to the nocturnal Sanct Rogero. But O the vain enterprises of women! O the great fragility of that sex feminine! They did begin to flay the man, or peel him (as says Catullus), at that member which of all the body they loved best, to wit, the nervous and cavernous cane, and that above five thousand years ago; yet have they not of that small part alone flayed any more till this hour but the head. In mere despite whereof the Jews snip off that parcel of the skin in circumcision, choosing far rather to be called clipyards, rascals, than to be flayed by women, as are other nations. My wife, according to this female covenant, will flay it to me, if it be not so already. I heartily grant my consent thereto, but will not give her leave to flay it all. Nay, truly will I not, my noble king.
Yea but, quoth Epistemon, you say nothing of her most dreadful cries and exclamations when she and we both saw the laurel-bough burn without yielding any noise or crackling. You know it is a very dismal omen, an inauspicious sign, unlucky indice, and token formidable, bad, disastrous, and most unhappy, as is certified by Propertius, Tibullus, the quick philosopher Porphyrius, Eustathius on the Iliads of Homer, and by many others. Verily, verily, quoth Panurge, brave are the allegations which you bring me, and testimonies of two-footed calves. These men were fools, as they were poets; and dotards, as they were philosophers; full of folly, as they were of philosophy.
