_Since I was twelve years old, believe,
Husbands at Kirk-door had I five_.

[4731]Aratine Lucretia sold her maidenhead a thousand times before she was
twenty-four years old, _plus milies vendiderant virginitatem, &c. neque te
celabo, non deerant qui ut integram ambirent_. Rahab, that harlot, began to
be a professed quean at ten years of age, and was but fifteen when she hid
the spies, as [4732]Hugh Broughton proves, to whom Serrarius the Jesuit,
_quaest. 6. in cap. 2. Josue_, subscribes. Generally women begin
_pubescere_, as they call it, or _catullire_, as Julius Pollux cites, _lib.
2. cap. 3. onomast_ out of Aristophanes, [4733]at fourteen years old, then
they do offer themselves, and some plainly rage. [4734]Leo Afer saith, that
in Africa a man shall scarce find a maid at fourteen years of age, they are
so forward, and many amongst us after they come into the teens do not live
without husbands, but linger. What pranks in this kind the middle ages have
played is not to be recorded. _Si mihi sint centum linguae, sint oraque
centum_, no tongue can sufficiently declare, every story is full of men and
women's insatiable lust, Nero's, Heliogabali, Bonosi, &c. [4735] _Coelius
Amphilenum, sed Quintius Amphelinam depereunt_, &c. They neigh after other
men's wives (as Jeremia, _cap. v. 8._ complaineth) like fed horses, or
range like town bulls, _raptores virginum et viduarum_, as many of our
great ones do. Solomon's wisdom was extinguished in this fire of lust,
Samson's strength enervated, piety in Lot's daughters quite forgot, gravity
of priesthood in Eli's sons, reverend old age in the Elders that would
violate Susanna, filial duty in Absalom to his stepmother, brotherly love
in Ammon. towards his sister. Human, divine laws, precepts, exhortations,
fear of God and men, fair, foul means, fame, fortune, shame, disgrace,
honour cannot oppose, stave off, or withstand the fury of it, _omnia vincit
amor_, &c. No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love
can do with, a twined thread. The scorching beams under the equinoctial, or
extremity of cold within the circle arctic, where the very seas are frozen,
cold or torrid zone, cannot avoid or expel this heat, fury, and rage of
mortal men.

[4736] "Quo fugis ab demens, nulla est fuga, tu licet usque
Ad Tanaim fugias, usque sequetur amor."

Of women's unnatural, [4737]insatiable lust, what country, what village
doth not complain? Mother and