rest of her enticements. _Verba ligant hominem, ut taurorum
cornua funes_, "as bulls' horns are bound with ropes, so are men's hearts
with pleasant words." "Her words burn as fire," Eccles. ix. 10. Roxalana
bewitched Suleiman the Magnificent, and Shore's wife by this engine
overcame Edward the Fourth, [5087]_Omnibus una omnes surripuit Veneres_.
The wife of Bath in Chaucer confesseth all this out of her experience.

_Some folk desire us for riches.
Some for shape, some for fairness,
Some for that she can sing or dance.
Some for gentleness, or for dalliance_.

[5088]Peter Aretine's Lucretia telleth as much and more of herself, "I
counterfeited honesty, as if I had been _virgo virginissima_, more than a
vestal virgin, I looked like a wife, I was so demure and chaste, I did add
such gestures, tunes, speeches, signs and motions upon all occasions, that
my spectators and auditors were stupefied, enchanted, fastened all to their
places, like so many stocks and stones." Many silly gentlewomen are fetched
over in like sort, by a company of gulls and swaggering companions, that
frequently belie noblemen's favours, rhyming Coribantiasmi, Thrasonean
Rhadomantes or Bombomachides, that have nothing in them but a few player's
ends and compliments, vain braggadocians, impudent intruders, that can
discourse at table of knights and lords' combats, like [5089]Lucian's
Leonitiscus, of other men's travels, brave adventures, and such common
trivial news, ride, dance, sing old ballad tunes, and wear their clothes in
fashion, with a good grace; a fine sweet gentleman, a proper man, who could
not love him! She will have him though all her friends say no, though she
beg with him. Some again are incensed by reading amorous toys, Amadis de
Gaul, Palmerin de Oliva, the Knight of the Sun, &c., or hearing such tales
of [5090]lovers, descriptions of their persons, lascivious discourses, such
as Astyanassa, Helen's waiting-woman, by the report of Suidas, writ of old,
_de variis concubitus modis_, and after her Philenis and Elephantine; or
those light tracts of [5091]Aristides Milesius (mentioned by Plutarch) and
found by the Persians in Crassus' army amongst the spoils, Aretine's
dialogues, with ditties, love songs, &c., must needs set them on fire, with
such like pictures, as those of Aretine, or wanton objects of what kind
soever; "no stronger engine than to hear or read of love toys, fables and
discourses" ([5092]one