Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/320

298 would run and void by those pipes and conducts, it maketh use thereof for to nourish, and (as it were) to water the infant, which beginneth by this time to take some consistence and receive shape and form, so long, until a certain number of days which are necessary for the full growth thereof within be expired; at which time it had need to remove from thence for a kind of nutriment elsewhere in another place; and then diverting the said course of blood with all dexterity and a skilful hand (no gardener nor fountainer in drawing of his trenches and channels with all his cunning so artificial), and employing it from one use to another, she hath certain cisterns (as it were) or fountainheads prepared of purpose from a running source most ready to receive that liquor of blood quickly, and not without some sense of pleasure and contentment; but withal, when it is received, they have a power and faculty, by a mild heat of the natural spirits within them, and with a delicate and feminine tenderness, to concoct, digest, change and convert it into another nature and quality, for that the paps have within them naturally the like temperature and disposition answerable unto it: now these teats which spout out milk from the cocks of a conduct, are so framed and disposed that it fioweth not forth all at once, neither do they send it away suddenly: but nature hath so placed the dug, that as it endeth one way in a spongeous kind of flesh full of small pipes, and made of purpose to transmit the milk, and let it distil gently by many little pores and secret passages, so it yieldeth a nipple in manner of a faucet, very fit and ready for the little babe's mouth, about which to nuzzle and nudgel with its pretty lips it taketh pleasure, and loveth to be tugging and lugging of it; but to no purpose and without any fruit or profit at all had nature provided such tools and instruments for to engender and bring forth a child; to no end (I say) had she taken so good order, used so great industry, diligence and forecast, if withal she had not imprinted in the heart of mothers a wonderful love and affection, yea, and an extraordinary care over the fruit of their womb, when it is born into the world: for And whosoever saith thus of a young infant newly coming forth of the mother's womb, maketh no lie at all, but speaketh truth; for nothing is there so imperfect, so indigent and poor, so naked.