Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/314

292 inclinations, and appetites, not ruled by reason, they break out by the means thereof otherwhiles, wandering astray, and running up and down, to and fro, howbeit, for the most part, not very far out of order, but they take sure hold of nature; much like a ship which lieth in the road at anchor, well may she dance and be rocked up and down, but she is not carried away into the deep at the pleasure of winds and waves; or much after the manner of an ass or hackney, travelling with bit and bridle, which go not out of the right and straight way, wherein the master or rider guideth them; whereas in man, even reason herself, the mistress that ruleth and commandeth all, findeth out new cuts (as it were) and by-ways, making many starts and excursions at her pleasure to and fro, now here, now there; whereupon it is that she leaveth no plain and apparent print of nature's tracks and footing.

Consider, I pray you, in the first place the marriages (if I may so term them) of dumb beasts and reasonless creatures; and namely how therein they follow precisely the rule and direction of nature. To begin withal; they stand not upon those laws that provide against such as marry not, but lead a single life; neither make they reckoning of the acts which lay a penalty upon those that be late ere they enter into wedlock, like as the citizens under Lycurgus and Solon, who stood in awe of the said statutes; they fear not to incur the infamy which followed those persons that were barren and never had children; neither do they regard and seek after the honours and prerogatives which they attained who were fathers of three children, like as many of the Romans do at this day, who enter into the state of matrimony, wed wives and beget children, not to the end that they might have heirs to inherit their lands and goods, but that they might themselves be inheritors and capable of dignities and immunities. But to proceed unto more particulars, the male afterwards doth deal with the female in the act of generation not at all times; for that the end of their conjunction and going together is not gross pleasure so much as the engendering of young and the propagation of their kind: and therefore at a certain season of the year, to wit, the very prime of the spring, when as the pleasant winds so apt for generation do gently blow, and the temperature of the air is friendly unto breeders, cometh the female full lovingly and kindly toward her fellow the male, even of her own accord and motion (as it were), trained by the hand of that secret instinct and desire in nature; and for her own part, she doth what she can to woo and solicit him to