Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/344

Rh Christian law hath reformed all this, albeit our Holy Father hath in divers cases granted dispensations founded on divers reasons. In Spain 'tis a practice much adopted, but never without dispensation.

Well! to say something more, and as soberly as we may, of some other sorts of widows,—and then an end.

One sort there is, widows which do absolutely refuse to marry again, hating wedlock like the plague. So one, a lady of a great house and a witty woman withal, when that I asked her if she were not minded to make her vow once again to the god Hymen, did reply: "Tell me this, by'r lady; suppose a galley-slave or captive to have tugged years long at the oar, tied to the chain, and at last to have got back his freedom, would he not be a fool and a very imbecile, an if he did not hie him away with a good heart, determined never more to be subject to the orders of a savage corsair? So I, after being in slavery to an husband, an if I should take a fresh master, what should I deserve to get, prithee, since without resorting to that extreme, and with no risk at all, I can have the best of good times?" Another great lady, and a kinswoman of mine own, on my asking her if she had no wish to wed again, replied: "Never a bit, coz, but only to bed again," playing on the words wed and bed, and signifying she would be glad enough to give herself some treat, but without intervention of any second husband, according to the old proverb which saith, "A safer fling unwed than wed." Another saying hath it, that women be always good hostesses, in love as elsewhere; and a right saying 'tis, for they be mistresses of the situation, and queens wherever they be, that is the pretty ones be so.

I have heard tell of another, which was asked of a