French fiction -- Translations into English; Italian fiction -- Translations into English
thy bodie, and not to giue sucke to thy children? In like sort many
prodigious and monstruous women, haue dried vp and extinguished that
moste sacred fountaine of the body, the educatour of mankinde: not
without peril of their persons: as though the same were a disgracing of
their beautie and comlinesse. The like also some do attempt by deuises
and subtile secretes to extrude theyr conceptions, that the swelling of
their body might not irrigate and wrinckle their faces, and that their
paineful labours and great burdens, do not make them looke olde in their
youthly dayes. And like as it is generally to be abhorred, that man in
his first beginnings, (when he is fashioned and inspired with life, and
in the handes of the cunning and wise woman, dame Nature,) should be
killed and slaine: euen so with not much lesse detestation it is to be
had and compted, when he is perfecte and borne and the childe of thine
owne bloude, to be depriued from his due sustenance. But it is no matter
(wil som say) with whose milke hee be nourced, so hee receiue milke and
liue. The like may be said to that man which is so dull in perceyuing
the prouidence of nature, that what matter had it been in whose bodye,
and with whose bloud, he himselfe had been formed and brought into
light. Hath not she which nowe respireth, and with beauty waxeth white
and fayre, the same bloud now in her breastes, which was before
remayninge in her wombe? Is not the wysedome of nature manifest in this,
that after the cunning workman the bloud, hath framed in the inward
parts euery body of man, straight way when the time of byrthe
approcheth, the same bloude infudeth himselfe into the vpper partes, and
is readie to nourishe the rudimentes of lyfe and lighte, offeringe
acquaintaunce and familiar sustinance to the new borne? Wherefore in
vaine is not that report and beliefe, that like as the force and nature
of the generation seede is able to shape the similitudes of the mind and
body, euen so the qualities and properties of the Milke, do auayle to
like effect. Which thinge is not onelye marked in men, but also in brute
beastes. For if Kiddes be sockled vp wyth Ewes Milke, and Lambes wyth
Goates, the woll of thone will grow more rough and hard, and the heare
of the other more tender and soft. In trees also and fruites, there is
for the most part, a greater force and power in the nature of the soile
and water where they grow, eyther for the pruning and planting, then
there is if straunge impes and seedes be grifted and sowen there. And
many times you see, that a fruitfull tree, caried and set in an other
place, decayeth, throughe the nature of the ground more barren. What
reason is this then, to corrupt the noble nature of this borne childe,
whose body and minde, is well begunne wyth naturall beginninges to
infect the the same wyth the degenerate food of straung Milke. Specially
if she to whom you shall put forth this childe to giue sucke, be eyther
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