380 THE DECLINE AND FALL cretion, and threatened them with a sentence of divorce both in this world and in the next : a dreadful sentence, since those who had ascended the bed of the prophet were for ever ex- cluded from the hope of a second marriage. Perhaps the in- continence of Mahomet may be palliated by the tradition of his natural or ])reternatural gifts : ^^ he united the manly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam ; and the apostle might rival the thirteenth labour ^^'^ of the Grecian Hercules.^"" A more serious and decent excuse may be drawn from his fidelity to Cadijah. During the twenty-four years of their marriage, her youthful husband abstained from the right of polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death he placed her in the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of his daughters. " Was she not old ? " said Ayesha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty ; " has not God given you a better in her place ? " " No, by God," said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest gratitude, " there never can be a better ! she believed in me, when men despised me ; she relieved my M^ants, when I was poor and per- secuted by the world." ^^^ and children In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a re- ligion and empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous posterity and a lineal succession. The hopes of Mahomet were fatally disappointed. The virgin Ayesha, and his ten widows of mature age and approved fertility, were barren in his potent embraces. The four sons of Cadijah died in their i^°Sibi robur ad generationem, quantum triginta viri habent, inesse jactaret ; ita ut unica'hora posset undecim feminis satisfacere, ut ex Arabum libris refert Stus. Petrus Paschasius, c. 2 (Maracci, Prodromus Alcoran, p. iv. p. 55. See likewise Observations de Belon, I. iii. c. 10, fol. 179, recto). Al Jannabi (Gagnier, torn. iii. p. 487) records his own testimony that he surpassed all men in conjugal vigour ; and Abulfeda mentions the exclamation of Ali, who washed his body after his death, " O propheta, certe penis tuus caslum versus erectus est " (in Vit. Moham- med, p. 140). 1761 borrow the style of a father of the church, ivaSkivt>^v'Yipa.Kk^^-Tp<.(iKa.iUKa.Tov leov (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 108 [Or. iv. c. 122 ; ap. Migne, Patr. Gr. 35, p. 661]). I'^'The common and most glorious legend includes, in a single night, the fifty victories of Hercules over the virgin daughters of Thestius (Diodor. Sicul. torn i. 1. iv. p. 274 [c. 29; Diodorus does not say " in a single night"] ; Pausanias, 1. ix. p. 763 [c. 27, 6] ; Statius Sylv. 1. i. eleg. iii. v. 42). But Athenseus allows seven nights (Deipnosophist. 1. xiii. p. 556 [c. 4]) and Apollodorus fifty, for this arduous achievement of Hercules, who was then no more than eighteen years of ' age (Bibliot. 1. ii. c. 4, p. iii, cum notis Heyne, part i. p. 332). i"8 Abulfeda in Vit. Moham. p. 12, 13, 16, 17, cum notis Gagnier.
