# Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies/Volume I/Second Discourse (2.)

2.
OF THE POWER OF SPEECH IN LOVE
HAVE heard many fair ladies and cavaliers which have practised love declare how that but for sight and speech, they had rather be like brute beasts, that following a mere natural appetite of the senses, have no thought of love or affection, but only to satisfy their sensual rage and animal heat.
Likewise have I heard many lords and gallants which have lain with high-born ladies say, that they have ever found these an hundred times more lascivious and outspoken in words than common women and the like. Herein do they show much art, seeing it is impossible for a man, be he as vigorous as he may, to be alway hard at the collar and in full work. So when the lover cometh to lie still and relax his efforts, he doth find it so pleasant and so appetizing whenas his lady doth entertain him with naughty tales and words of wit and wantonness, that Venus, no matter how soundly put to sleep for the time being, is of a sudden waked up again. Nay! more, many ladies, conversing with their lovers in company, whether in the apartments of Queens and Princesses or elsewhere, will strangely lure them on, for that they will be saying such lascivious and enticing words to them that both men and women will be just as wanton as in a bed together. ​Yet all the while we that be onlookers will deem their conversation to be of quite other matters.
This again is the reason why Mark Antony did so love Cleopatra and preferred her before his own wife Octavia, who was an hundred times more beautiful and lovable than the Egyptian Queen. But this Cleopatra was mistress of such happy phrases and such witty conversation, with such wanton ways and seductive graces, that Antony did forget all else for love of her.
Plutarch doth assure us, speaking of sundry quips and tricks of tongue she was used to make such pretty play withal, that Mark Antony, when he would fain imitate her, was in his bearing (albeit he was only too anxious to play the gallant lover) like naught so much as a common soldier or rough man-at-arms, as compared with her and her brilliant ways of talk.
Pliny doth relate a story of her which I think excellent, and so I will repeat the same here in brief. One day, being in one of her wildest moods, she was attired most enticingly and to great advantage, and especially did wear on her head a garland of divers blossoms most suitable to provoke wanton imaginings. Well, as they sat at table, and Mark Antony was fain to drink, she did amuse him with pleasant discourse, and meanwhile all the time she spake, she kept plucking out one by one fair flowers from her garland (but they were really strewed over every one with poisonous essences), and tossing the same from time to time into the cup Antony held ready to drink from. Presently when she had ended her discourse and Mark Antony was on the point of lifting the goblet to his lips to drink, Cleopatra doth stay him suddenly with her hand, and having stationed some slave or ​condemned criminal ready to hand, she did call this fellow to her and made them give him the draught Mark Antony was about to swallow. On drinking this he fell down dead; and she turning to Antony, said, "And if I did not love you as I do, I should e'en now have been rid of you; yea! and would gladly have had it so, only that I see plainly I cannot live without you." These words and this device were well fitted to confirm Mark Antony in his passion, and to make him even more submissive before his charmer's feet.
In such ways did her cleverness of tongue serve Cleopatra, whom all the Historians do describe as having been exceedingly ready of speech. Mark Antony was used never to call her anything but "the Queen," by way of greater distinction. So he did write to Octavius Caesar, previous to the time when they were declared open enemies: "What hath changed you," he writes, "concerning my loving the Queen? She is my wife. Is it but now I have begun the connection? You fondle Drusilla, Tortale, Leontiphe and a dozen others; what reck you on whom you do bestow your favour, when the caprice seizeth you?"
In this letter Mark Antony was for extolling his own constancy, and reproaching the other's changeableness, for loving so many women at once, while himself did love only the Queen. And I only wonder Octavius did not love her too after Antony's death. It may well be he had his pleasure when he had her come alone to his chamber, and he there beheld her beauty and heard her address him; or mayhap he found her not so fair as he had thought, or scorned her for some other reason, and did wish to make his triumph of her at Rome and show her in his public ​procession. But this indignity she did forestall by her self-inflicted death.
There can be no doubt, to return to our first point, that when a woman is fain after love, or is once well engaged therein, no orator in all the world can talk better than she. Consider how Sophonisba hath been described to us by Livy, Appian and other writers, and how eloquent she did show herself in Massinissa's case, when she did come to him for to win over and claim his love, and later again when it behooved to swallowed the fatal poison. In short, every woman, to be well loved, is bound to possess good powers of speech; and in very deed there be few known which cannot speak well and have not words enough to move heaven and earth, yea! though this were fast frozen in mid winter.
Above all must they have this gift which devote themselves to love. If they can say naught, why! they be so savourless, the morsel they give us hath neither taste nor flavour. Now when M. du Bellay, speaking of his mistress and declaring her ways, in the words,
De la vertu je sçavois deviser, Et je sçavois tellement éguiser, Que rien qu'honneur ne sortait de ma bouche; Sage au parler et folastre à la couche.
(Of virtue I knew how to discourse, and hold such fair language, naught but honour did issue from my mouth; modest in speech, and wanton a-bed.)
doth describe her as "modest in speech, and wanton a-bed," this means of course in speaking before company and in general converse. Yet when that she is alone and ​in private with her lover, every gallant dame is ready enough to be free of her speech and to say what she chooseth, the better to provoke his passion.
I have heard tales told by sundry that have enjoyed fair and high-born ladies, or that have been curious to listen to such talking with others a-bed, how that these were every whit as free and bold in their discourse as any courtesans they had ever known. And this is a noteworthy fact that, accustomed as they were so to entertain their husbands or lovers with lecherous and wanton words, phrases and discourse, and even freely to name the most secret parts of their bodies, and this without any disguisement, yet when the same ladies be set to polite converse, they do never go astray and not one of all these naughty words doth ever issue from their lips. Well, we can only say they are right well skilled in self-command and the art of dissimulation; for no other thing is there which is so frisky and tricksome as a lady's tongue or an harlot's.
So I once knew a very fair and honourable lady of the great world, who one day discoursing with an honourable gentleman of the Court concerning military events in the civil wars of the time, did say to him: "I have heard say the King hath had every spot in all that countryside broke down." Now when she did say "every spot, what she meant to say was every bridge" (pont); but, being just come from her husband, or mayhap thinking of her lover, she still had the other word fresh in her mouth. And this same slip of the tongue did mightily stir up the gentleman for her. Another lady I knew, talking with a certain great lady and one better born than herself, and praising and extolling her beauty, did presently say ​thus to her, "Nay! Madam, what I tell you, is not to futter you," meaning to say, flatter you, and did afterward correct herself. The fact is her mind was full of futtering and such like.
In short, lively speech hath a very great efficacy in the game of love; and where it is lacking, the pleasure is incomplete. So in very truth a fair body, if it have not a fair mind to match, is more like a mere image of itself or idol than a true human body. However fair it may be, it must needs be seconded by a fair mind likewise, if it is to be really loved; and if this be not so by nature, it must be so fashioned by art.
The courtesans of Rome do make great mock of the gentlewomen of the same city, which are not trained in witty speech like themselves, and do say of them that chiavano come cani, ma che sono quiete della bocca come sassi, that is, "they yield them like bitches, but are dumb of mouth like sticks and stones."
And this is why I have known many honourable gentlemen which have declined the acquaintance of ladies, and very fair ladies I tell you, because that they were simpletons, without soul, wit or conversation, and have quitted them for good and all, saying they would as soon have to do with a beautiful statue of fair white marble, like that Athenian youth which did love a statue, and went so far as to take his pleasure thereof. And for the same reason strangers that do travel in foreign lands do seldom care to love foreign women, nor are at all apt to take a fancy to them. For they understand not what they say, and their words in no wise touch their hearts. I speak of course of such as know not their language. And if they do go with them, 'tis but to satisfy nature, and quench the ​mere brute flame of lust, and then andar in barca ("away to the ship"), as said an Italian who had come ashore one day at Marseilles on his way to Spain, and enquired a place where women were to be found. He was directed to a spot where a wedding feast was being held. So when a lady came up to accost him and engage him in conversation, he said to her only, V. S. mi perdona, non voglio parlare, voglio solamente chiavare, e poi me n'andar in barca,—"Pardon me, Madam; I want not to talk, but only to do, and then away again to the ship."
A Frenchman doth find no great pleasure with a German, Swiss, Flemish, English, Scotch, Slavonian, or other foreign woman, albeit she should chatter with the best, if he understand her not. But he taketh great delight with his French mistress, or with an Italian or Spanish woman, for generally speaking the most part of Frenchmen of our day, at any rate such as have seen the world a little, can speak or understand these languages. And God wot, it matters not if he be skilled and meet for love, for whosoever shall have to do with a Frenchwoman, an Italian, Spanish or Greek, and she be quick of tongue, he must needs frankly own he is fairly catched and conquered.
In former times this our French tongue was not so excellent and rich a language as nowadays it is; whereas for many a long year the Italian, Spanish and Greek have been so. And I will freely own I have scarce ever seen a lady of these nations, if she have but practised a little the profession of love, but hath a very good gift of speech. I do refer me to them that have dealt with such women. Certain it is, a fair lady, if endowed with fair and witty words, doth afford double contentment.