]Trismegistus to his son Tatius, "have no commerce with a single
man:" Holding belike that a bachelor could not live honestly as he should,
and with Georgius Wicelius, a great divine and holy man, who of late by
twenty-six arguments commends marriage as a thing most necessary for all
kinds of persons, most laudable and fit to be embraced: and is persuaded
withal, that no man can live and die religiously, and as he ought, without
a wife, _persuasus neminem posse neque pie vivere, neque bene mori citra
uxorem_, he is false, an enemy to the commonwealth, injurious to himself,
destructive to the world, an apostate to nature, a rebel against heaven and
earth. Let our wilful, obstinate, and stale bachelors ruminate of this, "If
we could live without wives," as Marcellus Numidicus said in [5954]
Agellius, "we would all want them; but because we cannot, let all marry,
and consult rather to the public good, than their own private pleasure or
estate." It were an happy thing, as wise [5955]Euripides hath it, if we
could buy children with gold and silver, and be so provided, _sine mulierum
congressu_, without women's company; but that may not be:

[5956] "Orbis jacebit squallido turpis situ,
Vanum sine ullis classibus stabit mare,
Alesque coelo deerit et sylvis fera."

"Earth, air, sea, land eftsoon would come to nought,
The world itself should be to ruin brought."

Necessity therefore compels us to marry.

But what do I trouble myself, to find arguments to persuade to, or commend
marriage? behold a brief abstract of all that which I have said, and much
more, succinctly, pithily, pathetically, perspicuously, and elegantly
delivered in twelve motions to mitigate the miseries of marriage, by [5957]
Jacobus de Voragine,

_1. Res est? habes quae tucatur et augeat.--2. Non est? habes quae
quaerat.--3. Secundae res sunt? felicitas duplicatur.--4. Adversae sunt?
Consolatur, adsidet, onus participat ut tolerabile fiat.--5. Domi es?
solitudinis taedium pellit.--6. Foras? Discendentem visu prosequitur,
absentem desiderat, redeuntem laeta excipit.--7. Nihil jucundum absque
societate? Nulla societas matrimonio suavior.--8. Vinculum conjugalis
charitatis adamentinum.--9. Accrescit dulcis affinium turba, duplicatur
numerus parentum, fratrum, sororum, nepotum.--10. Pulchra sis prole
parens.--11. Lex Mosis sterilitatem matrimonii execratur, quanto amplius
coelibatum?--12. Si natura poenam non effugit, ne voluntas