Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/340

Rh cross-question them concerning the other's sturdiness and vigour in these sweet encounters. In like wise have I heard of some which to put their bedfellows in better case, do lead them to think their former mates were prentice hands compared with them, a device that doth oft times answer their purpose well. Others again will say just the opposite, and declare their first husbands were perfect giants, so as to spur on their new mates to work like very pack mules.

 

IDOWS of the sort just described would be in good case in the island of Chios, the fairest, sweetest and most pleasant of the Levant, formerly possessed by the Genoese, but now for five and thirty years usurped by the Turks,—a crying shame and loss for Christendom. Now in this isle, as I am informed of sundry Genoese traders, 'tis the custom that every woman desiring to continue a widow, without any intent to marry again, is constrained to pay to the Seigneurie of the island a certain fixed sum of money, which they call argomoniatiquo, which is the same as saying (with all respect to the ladies), an idle spot is useless. So likewise at Sparta, as Plutarch saith in his Life of Lysander, was a fine established by law against such as would not marry, or did marry over late, or ill. To return to Scio (Chios), I have enquired of certain natives of that island, what might be the aim and object of the said custom, which told me 'twas to the end the isle might always be well peopled. I can vouch for this, that our land of France will surely never be left desert or infertile