From Arber’s reprint, 1579.

IT is a world to see how commonly we are blinded with the collusions of women, and more enticed by their ornaments being artificial than their proportion being natural. I loathe almost to think on their ointments and apothecary drugs, the sleeking of their faces, and all their slibber sauces, which bring quasiness to the stomach, and disquiet to the mind.

  Take from them their periwigs, their paintings, their jewels, their roules, their bolsterings, and thou shalt soon perceive that a woman is the least part of herself. When they be once robbed of their robes, then will they appear so odious, so ugly, so monstrous, that thou wilt rather think them serpents than saints, and so like hags that thou wilt fear rather to be enchanted than enamored. Look in their closets, and there shalt thou find an apothecary’s shop of sweet confections, a surgeon’s box of sundry salves, a peddler’s pack of new fangles…. If every one of these things severally be not of force to move thee, yet all of them jointly should mortify thee.

  Moreover, to make thee the more stronger to strive against these sirens, and more subtle to deceive these tame serpents, my counsel is that thou have more strings to thy bow than one. It is safe riding at two anchors; a fire divided in twain burneth slower; a fountain running into many rivers is of less force; the mind enamored on two women is less affected with desire, and less infected with despair; one love expelleth another, and the remembrance of the latter quencheth the concupiscence of the first.

  Yet if thou be so weak, being bewitched with their wiles, that thou hast neither will to eschew nor wit to avoid their company; if thou be either so wicked that thou wilt not, or so wedded that thou canst not, abstain from their glances, yet at the least dissemble thy grief. If thou be as hot as mount Ætna, feign thyself as cold as the hill Caucasus, carry two faces in one hood, cover thy flaming fancy with feigned ashes, show thyself sound when thou art rotten, let thy hue be merry when thy heart is melancholy, bear a pleasant countenance with a pined conscience, a painted sheath with a leaden dagger. Thus dissembling thy grief, thou mayest recur thy disease. Love creepeth in by stealth, and by stealth slideth away….

  Let every one loathe his lady, and be ashamed to be her servant. It is riches and ease that nourisheth affection; it is play, wine, and wantonness, that feedeth a lover as fat as a fool; refrain from all such meats as shall provoke thine appetite, and all such means as may allure thy mind to folly. Take clear water for strong wine; brown bread for fine manchet; beef and brews for quail and partridge; for ease, labor; for pleasure, pain; for surfeiting, hunger; for sleep, watching; for the fellowship of ladies, the company of philosophers. If thou say to me, Physician heal thyself, I answer that I am meetly well purged of that disease, and yet was I never more willing to cure myself than to comfort my friend. And seeing the cause that made in me so cold a devotion should make in thee also as frozen a desire, I hope thou wilt be as ready to provide a salve as thou wast hasty in seeking a sore. And yet, Philautus, I would not that all women should take pepper in the nose, in that I have disclosed the legerdemains of a few; for well I know none will wince except they be galled, neither any be offended unless she be guilty. Therefore I earnestly desire thee that thou show this cooling card to none, except thou show also this, my defense, to them all. For although I weigh nothing the ill-will of light housewives, yet would I be loath to lose the good-will of honest matrons. Thus being ready to go to Athens, and ready there to entertain thee whensoever thou shalt repair thither, I bid thee farewell, and fly women.