From thence I went to the single women (such as made profession never to marry) which were the least outrageous and discomposed of all; for they had a thousand ways to lay the devil as well as to raise him. Some of them lived like common highwaymen, by robbing Peter to pay Paul; and stripping honest men to clothe rascals, which is (under favour) but a lewd kind of charity. Others there were, that were absolutely out of their seven senses, and as mad as March hares for this wit and t’other poet, that never failed to pay them again in rhymes and madrigals, with ruby lips, pearly teeth, so that to read their verses, a man would swear the whole woman to be directly petrified.
Of sapphire fair, or crystal clear, Is the forehead of my dear, etc.
I saw one in consultation with a cunning man to know her fortune; another, dealing with a conjurer for a philter, or drink to make her beloved. A third was daubing and patching up an old ruined face, to make it fresh and young again; but she might as well have been washing of a blackamoor to make him white. In fine, a world there were, that with their borrowed hair, teeth, eyes, eyebrows, looked like fine folks at a distance, but would have been left as ridiculous as Æsop’s crow, if every bird had fetched away his own feather. ’Deliver me (thought I, smiling and shaking my head) if this be woman.
And so I stepped into the men’s quarter, which was but next door, and only a thick wall between. Their great misery was that they were deaf to good advice, obstinately hating and despising both physic and physician; for if they would have either quitted or changed, they might have been cured. But they chose rather to die, and though they saw their error, would not mend it. Which minded me of the old rhyme:
Where love’s in the case, The doctor’s an ass.
