Stab me with sword, or poison strong O spare my Love, to have alone Nay, Jove himself Ile not endure This Jealousie which I am to treat of, is that which belongs to married men, in respect of their own wives; to whose estate, as no sweetness, pleasure, happiness can be compared in the world, if they live quietly and lovingly together; so if they disagree or be jealous, those bitter pils of sorrow and grief, disasterous mischieves, mischances, tortures, gripings, disconients, are not to be separated from them. A most violent passion it is where it taketh place, an unspeakable torment, a hellish torture, an infernal plague, as Ariosto cals it, "A fury, a continual fever, full of suspition, fear, and sorrow, a martyrdome, a mirth-marring monster. The sorrow and grief of heart of one woman jealous of another, is heavier than death, Ecclus 28. 6. as Peninnah did Hannah, vex her and upbraid her sore." "Tis a main vexation, a most intolerable burden, a corrosive to all content, a frenzy, a madness it self, as Beneditto Varchi proves out of that select Sonnet of Giovanni de la Casa, that reverend Lord, as he stiles him. SUBSECT. II. Causes of Jealousie. Who are most apt. Idleness, Melancholy, Impotency, long absence, beauty, wantonness, naught themselves. Allurements from time, As place, persons, bad usage, Causes. STROLOGERS make the stars a cause or sign of this bitter passion, and out of every man's Horoscope will give a probable conjecture whether he will be jealous or no, and at what time, by direction of the significators to their several promissors: their Aphorisms are to be read in Albubator, Pontanus, Schoner, Junctine, &c. Bodine cap. 5. meth. hist. ascribes Blason of Jealousie. * ! Sam. 1. 6. a great C b a great cause to the country or clime, and discourseth largely there of this subject, saying, that southern men are more hot, lascivious, and jealous, then such as live in the North; they can hardly contain themselves in those hotter climes, but are most subject to prodigious lust. Leo Afer telleth incredible things almost, of the lust and jealousie of his country men of Africk, and especially such as live about Carthage, and so doth every Geographer of them in Asia, Turky, Spaniards, Italians. Germany hath not so many drunkards, England Tobacconists, France dancers, Holland mariners, as Italy alone hath jealous husbands. And in * Italy some account them of Piacenza more jealous then the rest. In Germany, France, Brittain, Scandia, Poland, Muscovy, they are not so troubled with this ferall malady, although Damianus à Goes, which I do much wonder at, in his Topography of Lapland, and Herbastein of Russia, against the stream of all other Geographers, would fasten it upon those Northern inhabitants. Altomarius Poggius, and Munster in his description of Baden, reports that men and women of all sorts go commonly into the Bathes together, without all suspition," the name of jealousie (saith Munster) is not so much as once heard of among them." In Frisland the women kiss him they drink to, and ate kissed again of those they pledge. The virgins in Holland go hand in hand with young men from home, glide on the Ice, such is their harmless liberty, and lodge together abroad without suspition, which rash Sansovinus an Italian makes a great sign of unchastity. In France, upon small acquaintance, it is usual to court other men's wives, to come to their houses, and accompany them arm in arm in the streets, without imputation, In the most Northern Countries young men and maids familiarly dance together, men and their wives, † which, Siena only excepted, Italians may not abide. The Greeks on the other side have their private bathes for men and women, where they must not come neer, not so much as see one another; and as Bodine observes lib. 5. de repub. "the Italians could never endure this," or a Spaniard, the very conceit of it would make him mad: and for that cause they lock up their women, and will not suffer them to be neer men, so much as in the 'Church, с d vivat. Præ Mulierum conditio misera; nullam honestam credunt nisi domo conclusi *Fines Morison. Nomen zelotypiæ apud istos locum non habet. lib. 3. c. 8. +Fines Moris. part. 3. cap. 2. d Busbequius. Sands, amore & zelotypia sæpius insaniunt. f Australes ne sacra quidem publica fieri patiuntur, nisi uterque sexus paricte medio dividatur: & quum in Angliam inquit, legationis causa profectus essem, audivi Mendozam legatum Hispaniarum dicentem turpe esse viros & fæminas in, &c. but but with a partition between. He telleth moreover, how that when he was Embassadour in England, he heard Mendoza the Spanish Legate finding fault with it, as a filthy custome for men and women to sit promiscuously in Churches together: but Dr. Dale the Master of the requests told him again, that it was indeed a filthy custome in Spain, where they could not contain themselves from lascivious thoughts in their holy places, but not with us." Baronius in his Annals, out of Eusebius, taxeth Licinius the Emperour for a decree of his made to this effect, Jubens ne viri simul cum mulieribus in Ecclesia interessent: for being prodigiously naught himself, aliorum naturam ex sua vitiosa mente spectavit, he so esteemed others. But we are far from any such strange conceits, and will permit our wives and daughters to go to the Tavern with a friend, as Aubanus saith, modo absit lascivia, and suspect nothing, to kiss coming and going, which, as Erasmus writes in one of his Epistles, they cannot endure. England is a paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy a paradise of horses, hell for women, as the diverbe goes. Some make a question whether this headstrong passion rage more in women then men, as Montagne 1. 3. But sure it is more outragious in women, as all other melancholy is, by reason of the weakness of their sex. Scaliger Poet. lib. cap. 13. concludes against women. "Besides their inconstancy, treachery, suspition, dissimulation, superstition, pride, (for all women are by nature proud) desire of soveraignty, if they be great women, (he gives instance in Juno) bitterness and jealousie are the most remarkable affections. "Sed neque fulvus aper media tam fulvus in ira est, Nec Leo," &c. Tyger, Bore, Bear, Viper, Lioness, Some say red-headed women, pale-coloured, black-eyed, and of a shril voice, are most subject to jealousie. * High colour in a woman choler shews, Naught are they, peevish, proud, malicious; Idea: mulieres præterquam quod sunt infidæ, suspicaces, inconstantes, ins sidiosæ, simulatrices, superstitiosæ, & si potentes, intolerabiles, amore zelo typæ supra modum. Ovid, 2. de art. Bartello. *R. T. Comparisons Comparisons are odious, I neither parallel them with others, nor debase them any more: men and women are both bad, and too subject to this pernicious infirmity. It is most part a symptome and cause of Melancholy, as Plater and Valescus teach us melancholy men are apt to be jealous, and jealous apt to be melancholy. Pale jealousie, childe of insatiate love, Of heart-sick thoughts which melancholy bred, If idleness concurr with melancholy, such persons are most apt to be jealous; 'tis Nevisanus' nete, "An idle woman is presumed to be lascivious, and often jealous," Mulier cum sola cogitat, male cogitat: And 'tis not unlikely, for they have no other business to trouble their heads with. More particular causes be these which follow. Impotency first, when a man is not able of himself to perform those dues which he ought unto his wife: for though he be an honest liver, hurt no man, yet Trebius the Lawyer may make a question, an suum cuiq; tribuat, whether he give every one their own; and therefore when he takes notice of his wants, and perceives her to be more craving, clamorous, unsatiable and prone to lust than is fit; he begins presently to suspect, that wherein he is defective, she will satisfie her self, she will be pleased by some other means. Cornelius Gallus hath ele. gantly expressed this humor in an Epigram to his Lychoris. "Jamque alios juvenes aliosque requirit amores, For this cause is most evident in old men, that are cold and dry by nature, and married succi plenis, to young wanton wives, with old doting Janivere in Chaucer, they begin to mistrust all is not well, -she was young and he was old, And therefore be feared to be a Cuckold. And how should it otherwise be? Old age is a disease of it self, loathsome, full of suspition and fear; when it is at best, unable, unfit for such matters. *Tam apta nuptiis quàm Lib. 2. num. 8. mulier otiosa facile præsumitur luxuriosa, & sæpe zelo→ typa. *Lib. 2. num. 4. bruma bruma messibus, as welcome to a yong woman as snow in harvest, saith Nevisanus: Et si capis juvenculam, faciet tibi cornua: Marry a lusty maide and she will surely graft horns on thy head. "All women are slippery, often unfaithfull to their husbands (as Æneas Sylvius epist. 38. seconds him), but to old men most treacherous: they had rather mortem amplexarier, lye with a coarse than such a one: * Oderunt illum pueri, contemnunt mulieres. On the other side many men, saith Hieronymus, are suspitious of their wives, if they be lightly given, but old folks above the rest. In so much that she did not complain without a cause in " Apuleius of an old bald, bedridden knave she had to her good man. "Poor woman as I am, what shall I do? I have an old grim sire to my husband, as bald as a cout, as little and as unable as a child," a bedfull of bones, he keeps all the doors barred and locked upon me, wo is me, what shall I do?" He was jealous, and she made him a cuckold for keeping her up: Suspition without a cause, hard usage is able of it self to make a woman flie out, that was otherwise honest. "+ bad usage aggravates the matter. Nam quando mulieres cognoscunt maritum hoc advertere, licentiùs peccant, as Nevisanus holds, when a woman thinks her husband watcheth her, she will sooner offend; Liberiùs peccant, & pudor omnis abest, rough handling makes them worse: as the good wife of Bathe in Chaucer brags, In his own grease I made him frie 'Tis a Of two extreames, this of hard usage is the worst. great fault (for some men are uxorii) to be too fond of their wives, to dote on them as P Senior Deliro on his Fallace, to be too effeminate, or as some do, to be sick for their wives, breed children for them, and like the Tiberini lie in for them, as some birds hatch egges by turns, they do all women's offices: Calius Rhodiginus ant. lect. lib. 6. cap. 24. makes mention of 1Quum omnibus infideles fœminæ, senibus infidelissimæ. * Mimnernus. Vix aliqua non impudica, & quam non suspectam merito quis habeat. n Lib. 5. de aur. asino. At ego misera patre meo seniorem maritum nacta sum, dem cucurbita calviorem & quovis puero pumiliorem, cunctam domum seris & catenis obditam custodientem. + Chaloner. Lib. 4. n. 80. Ovid. 2. de art. amandi. Every man out of his humour. 9 Calcagninus Apol. Tiberini ab uxorum partu earum vices subeunt, ut aves per vices incubant, &c. VOL. II. Ff a fellow |