not
how many black, deformed eunuchs (for the white serve for other
ministeries) to this purpose sent commonly from Egypt, deprived in their
childhood of all their privities, and brought up in the seraglio at
Constantinople to keep their wives; which are so penned up they may not
confer with any living man, or converse with younger women, have a cucumber
or carrot sent into them for their diet, but sliced, for fear, &c. and so
live and are left alone to their unchaste thoughts all the days of their
lives. The vulgar sort of women, if at any time they come abroad, which is
very seldom, to visit one another, or to go to their baths, are so covered,
that no man can see them, as the matrons were in old Rome, _lectica aut
sella tecta, vectae_, so [6139]Dion and Seneca record, _Velatae totae
incedunt_, which [6140]Alexander ab Alexandro relates of the Parthians,
_lib. 5. cap. 24._ which, with Andreas Tiraquellus his commentator, I
rather think should be understood of Persians. I have not yet said all,
they do not only lock them up, _sed et pudendis seras adhibent_: hear what
Bembus relates _lib. 6._ of his Venetian history, of those inhabitants that
dwell about Quilon in Africa. _Lusitani, inquit, quorundum civitates
adierunt: qui natis statim faeminis naturam consuunt, quoad urinae exitus
ne impediatur, easque quum adoleverint sic consutas in matrimonium
collocant, ut sponsi prima cura sit conglutinatas puellae oras ferro
interscindere_. In some parts of Greece at this day, like those old Jews,
they will not believe their wives are honest, _nisi pannum menstruatum
prima nocte videant_: our countryman [6141]Sands, in his peregrination,
saith it is severely observed in Zanzynthus, or Zante; and Leo Afer in his
time at Fez, in Africa, _non credunt virginem esse nisi videant sanguineam
mappam; si non, ad parentes pudore rejicitur_. Those sheets are publicly
shown by their parents, and kept as a sign of incorrupt virginity. The Jews
of old examined their maids _ex tenui membrana_, called Hymen, which
Laurentius in his anatomy, Columbus _lib. 12. cap. 10._ Capivaccius _lib.
4. cap. 11. de uteri affectibus_, Vincent, Alsarus Genuensis _quaesit. med.
cent. 4._ Hieronymus Mercurialis _consult._ Ambros. Pareus, Julius Caesar
Claudinus _Respons. 4._ as that also _de [6142]ruptura venarum ut sauguis
fluat_, copiously confute; 'tis no sufficient trial they contend. And yet
others again defend it, Gaspar Bartholinus _Institut. Anat. lib. 1.