Accepturus ab ipsa venere 7, suavia, &c. with such other obscenities that vain lovers use, which are abominable and pernicious.  If, as Peter de Ledesmo cas. cons. holds, every kiss a man gives his wife after marriage, be mortale peccatum, a mortal sin, or that of [5120]Hierome, Adulter est quisquis in uxorem suam ardentior est amator; or that of Thomas Secund. quaest. 154. artic. 4. contactus et osculum sit mortale peccatum, or that of Durand. Rational. lib. 1. cap. 10. abstinere debent conjuges a complexu, toto tempore quo solennitas nuptiarum interdicitur, what shall become of all such [5121]immodest kisses and obscene actions, the forerunners of brutish lust, if not lust itself!  What shall become of them that often abuse their own wives?  But what have I to do with this?

That which I aim at, is to show you the progress of this burning lust; to epitomise therefore all this which I have hitherto said, with a familiar example out of that elegant Musaeus, observe but with me those amorous proceedings of Leander and Hero:  they began first to look one on another with a lascivious look,

       “Oblique intuens inde nutibus,—­
        Nutibus mutuis inducens in errorem mentem puellae. 
        Et illa e contra nutibus mutuis juvenis
        Leandri quod amorem non renuit, &c.  Inde
        Adibat in tenebris tacite quidem stringens
        Roseos puellae digitos, ex imo suspirabat
        Vehementer------Inde
        Virginis autem bene olens collum osculatus. 
        Tale verbum ait amoris ictus stimulo,
        Preces audi et amoris miserere mei, &c. 
        Sic fatus recusantis persuasit mentem puellae.”

       “With becks and nods he first began
          To try the wench’s mind. 
        With becks and nods and smiles again
          An answer he did find.”

       “And in the dark he took her by the hand,
        And wrung it hard, and sighed grievously,
        And kiss’d her too, and woo’d her as he might,
        With pity me, sweetheart, or else I die,
        And with such words and gestures as there past,
        He won his mistress’ favour at the last.”

The same proceeding is elegantly described by Apollonius in his Argonautics, between Jason and Medea, by Eustathius in the ten books of the loves of Ismenias and Ismene, Achilles Tatius between his Clitophon and Leucippe, Chaucer’s neat poem of Troilus and Cresseide; and in that notable tale in Petronius of a soldier and a gentlewoman of Ephesus, that was so famous all over Asia for her chastity, and that mourned for her husband:  the soldier wooed her with such rhetoric as lovers use to do,—­placitone etiam pugnabis amori? &c. at last, frangi pertinaciam passa est, he got her good will, not only to satisfy his lust, [5122]but to hang her dead husband’s body on the cross (which he watched instead of the thief’s that was newly stolen away), whilst he wooed her in her cabin.  These are tales, you will say, but they have most significant morals, and do well express those ordinary proceedings of doting lovers.