FOURTH DISCOURSE
Concerning old dames as fond to practise love as
ever the young ones be.
1.
HAVE spoke afore of old dames which be fain to play the wanton; yet do I further append this discourse here. So by way of commencement, I will say how one day myself being at the Court of Spain and conversing with a very honourable and fair lady, but withal something advanced in age, I did hear her pronounce these words: Que ningunas damas lindas, o alo menos pocas, se hazen viejas de la cinta hasta abaxo, "that never a fair lady, or at the least very few such, are old from the waist downwards." On my asking her in what sense she did mean this, whether 'twas the beauty of person from waist down that did never diminish in any wise by reason of age, or the desire and appetite of concupiscence that did not at all fail or grow chilled in these parts, she did make answer she intended both the one and the other. "For indeed," she went on, "as to the prickings of the flesh, no cure is there for these you must know, but death only; albeit old age would seem to be an obstacle thereto. Yet doth every beautiful woman ever fondly love her own self, and in so loving, 'tis not for her own, but some other's sake; and is in
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