CHAP. i. THE FIRST DAY. 35 



VEN. Sir, take what liberty you think fit, for your discourse 

 seems to be music, and charms me to an attention. 



PlSC. Why then, sir, I will take a liberty to tell, or rather 

 to remember you what is said of turtle-doves : first, that they 

 silently plight their troth, and marry; and that then the sur- 

 vivor scorns, as the Thracian women are said to do, to outlive 

 his or her mate, and this is taken for a truth; and if the sur- 

 vivor shall ever couple with another, then not only the living 

 but the dead, be it either the he or the she, is denied the name 

 and honour of a true turtle-dove. 



And to parallel this land-rarity, and teach mankind moral 

 fakhfulness, and to condemn those that talkof^TeTtgion, and 

 vet come ^hnrf r>f the moral faith of fish and fowl ; men that 

 violate the law affirmed by St. Paul (Rom. ii. 14, 15), to be writ 

 in their hearts, and which he says shall at the last day condemn 

 and leave them without excuse ; I pray hearken to what Du 

 Bartas sings, for the hearing of such conjugal faithfulness will 

 be music to all chaste ears, and therefore I pray hearken to 

 what Du Bartas sings of the mullet. 



"But for chaste love the Mullet hath no peer ; 

 For if the fisher hath surprised her pheer, 

 As mad with woe to shore she followeth, 

 Prest to consort him both in life and death." 



On the contrary, what shall I say of the house-cock, which 

 treads any hen, and then, contrary to the swan, the partridge, 

 and pigeon, takes no care to hatch, to feed or to cherish his 

 own brood, but is senseless, though they perish. 



And it is considerable that the hen, which, because she also 

 takes any cock, expects it not, who is sure the chickens be her 

 own, hath by a moral impression her care and affection to her 

 own brood more than doubled, even to such a height that our 

 Saviour, in expressing his love to Jerusalem (Matt, xxiii. 37), 

 quotes her for an example of tender affection ; as his Father 

 had done Job for a pattern of patience. 



And to parallel this cock, there be divers fishes that cast 

 their spawn on flags or stones, and then leave it uncovered and 



