Part 10 (2/2)

In the celibacy of the clergy, we may discover also the origin of nunneries; the intrigues they could procure, while at confession, were only short, occasional, and with women whom they could not entirely appropriate to themselves; to remedy which, they probably fabricated the scheme of having religious houses, where young women should be shut up from the world, and where no man but a priest, on pain of death, should enter. That in these dark retreats, secluded from censure, and from the knowledge of the world, they might riot in licentiousness. They were sensible, that women, surrounded with the gay and the amiable, might frequently spurn at the offers of a cloistered priest, but that while confined entirely to their own s.e.x, they would take pleasure in a visit from one of the other, however slovenly and unpolished. In the world at large, should the crimes of the women be detected, the priests have no interest in mitigating their punishment; but here the whole community of them are interested in the secret of every intrigue, and should Lucinda unluckily proclaim it, she can seldom do it without the walls of the convent, and if she does, the priests lay the crime on some luckless laic, that the holy culprit may come off with impunity.

DESPERATE ACT OF EUTHIRA.

In ancient and modern history, we are frequently presented with accounts of women, who, preferring death to slavery or prost.i.tution, sacrificed their lives with the most undaunted courage to avoid them. Apollodorus tells us, that Hercules having taken the city of Troy, prior to the famous siege of it celebrated by Homer, carried away captive the daughters of Laomedon then king. One of these, named Euthira, being left with several other Trojan captives on board the Grecian fleet, while the sailors went on sh.o.r.e to take in fresh provisions, had the resolution to propose, and the power to persuade her companions, to set the s.h.i.+ps on fire, and to perish themselves amid the devouring flames. The women of Phoenicia met together before an engagement which was to decide the fate of their city, and having agreed to bury themselves in the flames, if their husbands and relations were defeated, in the enthusiasm of their courage and resolution, they crowned her with flowers who first made the proposal. Many instances occur in the history of the Romans of the Gauls and Germans, and of other nations in subsequent periods; where women being driven to despair by their enemies, have bravely defended their walls, or waded through fields of blood to a.s.sist their countrymen, and free themselves from slavery or from ravishment. Such heroic efforts are beauties, even in the character of the softer s.e.x, when they proceed from necessity: when from choice, they are blemishes of the most unnatural kind, indicating a heart of cruelty, lodged in a form which has the appearance of gentleness and peace.

It has been alleged by some of the writers on human nature, that to the fair s.e.x the loss of beauty is more alarming and insupportable than the loss of life; but even this loss, however opposite to the feelings of their nature, they have voluntarily consented to sustain, that they might not be the objects of temptation to the lawless ravisher. The nuns of a convent in France, fearing they should be violated by a ruffian army, which had taken by storm the town in which their convent was situated, at the recommendation of their abbess, mutually agreed to cut off all their noses, that they might save their chast.i.ty by becoming objects of disgust instead of desire. Were we to descend to particulars, we could give innumerable instances of women, who from Semiramis down to the present time, have distinguished themselves by their courage. Such was Penthesilea, who, if we may credit ancient story, led her army of viragoes to the a.s.sistance of Priam, king of Troy; Thomyris, who encountered Cyrus, king of Persia; and Thalestris, famous for her fighting, as well as for her amours with Alexander the Great. Such was the brave but ill-fated Boadicea, queen of the Britons, who led on that people to revenge the wrongs done to herself and her country by the Romans. And in later periods, such were the Maid of Orleans, and Margaret of Anjou; which last, according to several historians, commanded at no less than twelve pitched battles. But we do not choose to multiply instances of this nature, as we have already said enough to shew, that the s.e.x are not dest.i.tute of courage when that virtue becomes necessary; and were they possessed of it, when unnecessary, it would divest them of one of the princ.i.p.al qualities for which we love, and for which we value them. No woman was ever held up as a pattern to her s.e.x, because she was intrepid and brave; no woman ever conciliated the affections of the men, by rivalling them in what they reckon the peculiar excellencies of their own character.

LUXURIOUS DRESS OF THE GRECIAN LADIES.

As the Greeks emerged from the barbarity of the heroic ages, among other articles of culture, they began to bestow more attention on the convenience and elegance of dress. At Athens, the ladies commonly employ the whole morning in dressing themselves in a decent and becoming manner; their toilet consisted in paints and washes, of such a nature as to cleanse and beautify the skin, and they took great care to clean their teeth, an article too much neglected: some also blackened their eyebrows, and, if necessary, supplied the deficiency of the vermillion on their lips, by a paint said to have been exceedingly beautiful. At this time the women in the Greek islands make much use of a paint which they call Sulama, which imparts a beautiful redness to the cheeks, and gives the skin a remarkable gloss. Possibly this may be the same with that made use of in the times we are considering; but however this be, some of the Greek ladies at present gild their faces all over on the day of their marriage, and consider this coating as an irresistible charm; and in the island of Scios, their dress does not a little resemble that of ancient Sparta, for they go with their bosoms uncovered, and with gowns which only reach to the calf of their leg, in order to show their fine garters, which are commonly red ribbons curiously embroidered. But to return to ancient Greece; the ladies spent likewise a part of their time in composing head-dresses, and though we have reason to suppose that they were not then so preposterously fantastic as those presently composed by a Parisian milliner, yet they were probably objects of no small industry and attention, especially as we find that they then dyed their hair, perfumed it with the most costly essences, and by the means of hot irons disposed of it in curls, as fancy or fas.h.i.+on directed.

Their clothes were made of stuffs so extremely light and fine as to show their shapes without offending against the rules of decency. At Sparta, the case was widely different; we shall not describe the dress of the women; it is sufficient to say that it has been loudly complained of by almost every ancient author who has treated on the subject.

GRECIAN COURTs.h.i.+P.

In the earlier periods of the history of the Greeks, their love, if we may call it so, was only the animal appet.i.te, impetuous and unrestrained either by cultivation of manners, or precepts of morality; and almost every opportunity which fell in their way, prompted them to satisfy that appet.i.te by force, and to revenge the obstruction of it by murder. When they became a more civilized people, they shone much more ill.u.s.triously in arts and in arms, than in delicacy of sentiment and elegance of manners: hence we shall find, that their method of making love was more directed to compel the fair s.e.x to a compliance with their wishes by charms and philtres, than to win them by the nameless a.s.siduities and good offices of a lover.

As the two s.e.xes in Greece had but little communication with each other, and a lover was seldom favored with an opportunity of telling his pa.s.sion to his mistress, he used to discover it by inscribing her name on the walls of his house, on the bark of the trees of a public walk, or leaves of his books; it was customary for him also to deck the door of the house where his fair one lived, with garlands and flowers, to make libations of wine before it, and to sprinkle the entrance with the same liquor, in the manner that was practised at the temple of Cupid.

Garlands were of great use among the Greeks in love affairs; when a man untied his garland, it was a declaration of his having been subdued by that pa.s.sion; and when a woman composed a garland, it was a tacit confession of the same thing: and though we are not informed of it, we may presume that both s.e.xes had methods of discovering by these garlands, not only that they were in love, but the object also upon whom it was directed.

Such were the common methods of discovering the pa.s.sion of love; the methods of prosecuting it were still more extraordinary, and less reconcilable to civilization and to good principles; when a love affair did not prosper in the hands of a Grecian, he did not endeavor to become more engaging in his manners and person, he did not lavish his fortune in presents, or become more obliging and a.s.siduous in his addresses, but immediately had recourse to incantations and philtres; in composing and dispensing of which, the women of Thessaly were reckoned the most famous, and drove a traffic in them of no considerable advantage. These potions were given by the women to the men, as well as by the men to the women, and were generally so violent in their operations as for some time to deprive the person who took them, of sense, and not uncommonly of life: their composition was a variety of herbs of the most strong and virulent nature, which we shall not mention; but herbs were not the only things they relied on for their purpose; they called in the productions of the animal and mineral kingdoms to their a.s.sistance; when these failed, they roasted an image of wax before the fire, representing the object of their love, and as this became warm, they flattered themselves that the person represented by it would be proportionally warmed with love. When a lover could obtain any thing belonging to his mistress, he imagined it of singular advantage, and deposited in the earth beneath the threshold of her door. Besides these, they had a variety of other methods equally ridiculous and unavailing, and of which it would be trifling to give a minute detail; we shall, therefore, just take notice as we go along, that such of either s.e.x as believed themselves forced into love by the power of philtres and charms, commonly had recourse to the same methods to disengage themselves, and break the power of these enchantments, which they supposed operated involuntarily on their inclinations; and thus the old women of Greece, like the lawyers of modern times, were employed to defeat the schemes and operations of each other, and like them too, it is presumable, laughed in their sleeves, while they hugged the gains that arose from vulgar credulity.

POWER OF PHILTRES AND CHARMS.

The Romans, who borrowed most of their customs from the Greeks, also followed them in that of endeavoring to conciliate love by the power of philtres and charms; a fact of which we have not the least room to doubt, as they are in Virgil and some other of the Latin poets so many instances that prove it. But it depends not altogether on the testimony of the poets: Plutarch tells us, that Lucullus, a Roman General, lost his senses by a love potion; and Caius Caligula, according to Suetonius, was thrown into a fit of madness by one which was given him by his wife Caesonia; Lucretius too, according to some authors, fell a sacrifice to the same folly. The Romans, like the Greeks, made use of these methods mostly in their affairs of gallantry and unlawful love; but in what manner they addressed themselves to a lady they intended to marry, has not been handed down to us, and the reason we suppose is, that little or no courts.h.i.+p was practised among them; women had no disposing power of themselves, to what purpose was it then to apply to them for their consent? They were under perpetual guardians.h.i.+p, and the guardian having sole power of disposing of them, it was only necessary to apply to him.

In the Roman authors, we frequently read of a father, a brother, or a guardian, giving his daughter, his sister, or his ward, in marriage; but we do not recollect one single instance of being told that the intended bridegroom applied to the lady for her consent; a circ.u.mstance the more extraordinary, as women in the decline of the Roman empire had arisen to a dignity, and even to a freedom hardly equalled in modern times.

EASTERN COURTs.h.i.+P.

It has long been a common observation among mankind, that love is the most fruitful source of invention; and that in this case the imagination of a woman is still more fruitful of invention and expedient than that of a man; agreeably to this, we are told, that the women of the island of Amboyna, being closely watched on all occasions, and dest.i.tute of the art of writing, by which, in other places, the sentiments are conveyed to any distance, have methods of making known their inclinations to their lovers, and of fixing a.s.signations with them, by means of nosegays, and plates of fruit so disposed, as to convey their sentiments in the most explicit manner: by these means their courts.h.i.+p is generally carried on, and by altering the disposition of symbols made use of, they contrive to signify their refusal, with the same explicitness as their approbation. In some of the neighboring islands, when a young man has fixed his affection, like the Italians, he goes from time to time to her door, and plays upon some musical instrument; if she gives consent, she comes out to him, and they settle the affair of matrimony between them; if, after a certain number of these kind of visits, she does not appear, it is a denial; and the disappointed lover is obliged to desist.

We shall see afterward when we come to treat of the matrimonial compact, that, in some places, the ceremony of marriage consists in tying the garments of the young couple together, as an emblem of that union which ought to bind their affections and interests. This ceremony has afforded a hint for lovers to explain their pa.s.sion to their mistresses, in the most intelligible manner, without the help of speech, or the possibility of offending the nicest delicacy. A lover in these parts, who is too modest to declare himself, seizes the first opportunity he can find, of sitting down by his mistress, and tying his garment to hers, in the manner that is practised in the ceremony of marriage: if she permits him to finish the knot, without any interruption, and does not soon after cut or loose it, she thereby gives her consent; if she looses it, he may tie it again on some other occasion, when she may prove more propitious; but if she cuts it, his hopes are blasted forever.

LONG HAIR OF SAXONS AND DANES.

The human hair has ever been regarded as an ornament. The Anglo-Saxons and Danes considered their hair as one of their greatest personal beauties, and took great care to dress it to the utmost advantage. Young ladies wore it loose, and flowing in ringlets over their shoulders; but after marriage they cut it shorter, tied it up, and covered it with a head-dress, according to the fas.h.i.+on of the times; but to have the hair cut entirely off, was a disgrace of such a nature, that it was even thought a punishment not inadequate to the crime of adultery; so great, in the Middle ages, was the value set upon the hair by both s.e.xes, that, as a piece of the most peculiar mortification, it was ordered by the canons of the church, that the clergy should keep their hair short, and shave the crown of their head; and that they should not, upon any pretence whatever, endeavor to keep the part so shaved from public view.

Many of the clergy of these times, finding themselves so peculiarly mortified, and perhaps so easily distinguished from all other people by this particularity, as to be readily detected when they committed any of the follies or crimes to which human nature is in every situation sometimes liable, endeavored to persuade mankind that long hair was criminal, in order to reduce the whole to a similarity with themselves.

Amongst these, St. Wulstan eminently distinguished himself. ”He rebuked,”

says William of Malmsbury, ”the wicked of all ranks with great boldness, but was _peculiarly_ severe upon those who were proud of their long hair. When any of these vain people bowed their heads before him, to receive his blessing, before he gave it he cut a lock from their hair, with a sharp penknife, which he carried about him for that purpose; and commanded them, by way of penance for their sins, to cut all the rest in the same manner: if any of them refused to comply with his command he reproached them for their effeminacy, and denounced the most dreadful judgments against them. Such, however, was the value of their hair in these days, that many rather submitted to his censures than part with it; and such was the folly of the church, and of this saint in particular, that the most solemn judgments were denounced against mult.i.tudes, for no other crime than not making use of pen-knives and scissors, to cut off an ornament bestowed by nature.”

<script>