Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/97

Rh finished harlots. So under pretext of visiting the Holy Sepulchre, amid all that press of arms they did much amorous wantoning; for verily, as I have observed afore, arms and love do well accord together, so close and congruous is the sympathy betwixt these twain.

Suchlike dames ought surely to be esteemed, loved and treated like men,—not as the Amazons did of old, which proclaiming themselves daughters of Mars, did rid them of their husbands, pretending marriage was sheer slavery; yet desire enough and to spare had they to go with other men, for to have daughters of them, but killing all the male children.

Jo. Nauclerus, in his Cosmography, relates how, in the year of Christ 1123, after the death of Tibussa, Queen of the Bohemians, she who did first close in the town of Prague with walls, and who did very greatly abhor the power and domination of men, there was one of her damsels, by name Valasca, which did so well gain over the maids and matrons of that land by her fair and alluring promises of liberty, and did so thoroughly disgust and set them against their servitude to manfolk, as that they did slay each her man, one her husband, another her brother, another her kinsman or next neighbour, and so in less than no time were mistresses of the realm. Then having taken their husbands' harness of war, they did make such good use thereof, and grew so valiant and skilled in arms, fighting after the Amazon fashion, as that they soon gat them several victories. Yet were they presently, by the conduct and cunning wiles of one Primislaus, husband of Tibussa, a man she had raised up from low and humble state, routed entirely and put to death. This was sure God Almighty's vengeance for so heinous