ook-nosed knave to marry a
young wench; how odious a thing it is to see an old lecher! What should a
bald fellow do with a comb, a dumb doter with a pipe, a blind man with a
looking-glass, and thou with such a wife? How absurd it is for a young man
to marry an old wife for a piece of good. But put case she be equal in
years, birth, fortunes, and other qualities correspondent, he doth desire
to be coupled in marriage, which is an honourable estate, but for what
respects? Her beauty belike, and comeliness of person, that is commonly the
main object, she is a most absolute form, in his eye at least, _Cui formam
Paphia, et Charites tribuere decoram_; but do other men affirm as much? or
is it an error in his judgment.

[5710] "Fallunt nos oculi vagique sensus,
Oppressa ratione mentiuntur,"

"our eyes and other senses will commonly deceive us;" it may be, to thee
thyself upon a more serious examination, or after a little absence, she is
not so fair as she seems. _Quaedam videntur et non sunt_; compare her to
another standing by, 'tis a touchstone to try, confer hand to hand, body to
body, face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose, neck to neck, &c., examine
every part by itself, then altogether, in all postures, several sites, and
tell me how thou likest her. It may be not she, that is so fair, but her
coats, or put another in her clothes, and she will seem all out as fair; as
the [5711]poet then prescribes, separate her from her clothes: suppose thou
saw her in a base beggar's weed, or else dressed in some old hirsute
attires out of fashion, foul linen, coarse raiment, besmeared with soot,
colly, perfumed with opoponax, sagapenum, asafoetida, or some such filthy
gums, dirty, about some indecent action or other; or in such a case as
[5712]Brassivola, the physician, found Malatasta, his patient, after a
potion of hellebore, which he had prescribed: _Manibus in terram depositis,
et ano versus caelum elevato (ac si videretur Socraticus ille Aristophanes,
qui Geometricas figuras in terram scribens, tubera colligere videbatur)
atram bilem in album parietem injiciebat, adeoque totam cameram, et se
deturpabat, ut_, &c., all to bewrayed, or worse; if thou saw'st her (I say)
would thou affect her as thou dost? Suppose thou beheldest her in a [5713]
frosty morning, in cold weather, in some passion or perturbation of mind,
weeping, chafing, &c., rivelled and ill-favoured to behold. She many times
that in a composed look seems so am