He is admirably
learned in the doctrines of meats and sauces, and deserves the chair in
_juris-prudentia_; that is, in the skill of pottages. At length he eats
his life out of house and home and becomes a treat for worms, sells his
clothes to feed his gluttony, and eats himself naked, as the first of
his family, Adam, did.
A RIBALD
Is the devil's hypocrite, that endeavours to make himself appear worse
than he is. His evil words and bad manners strive which shall most
corrupt one another, and it is hard to say which has the advantage. He
vents his lechery at the mouth, as some fishes are said to engender. He
is an unclean beast that chews the cud, for after he has satisfied his
lust he brings it up again into his mouth to a second enjoyment, and
plays an after-game of lechery with his tongue much worse than that
which the _Cunnilingi_ used among the old Romans. He strips Nature stark
naked, and clothes her in the most fantastic and ridiculous fashion a
wild imagination can invent. He is worse and more nasty than a dog, for
in his broad descriptions of others' obscene actions he does but lick up
the vomit of another man's surfeits. He tells tales out of a
vaulting-school. A lewd, bawdy tale does more hurt and gives a worse
example than the thing of which it was told, for the act extends but to
few, and if it be concealed goes no farther; but the report of it is
unlimited, and may be conveyed to all people and all times to come. He
exposes that with his tongue which Nature gave women modesty, and brute
beasts tails, to cover.
Pages:
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478