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32 Erasmus
to be carried whither they please to hurry
him.
But forasmuch as such as are born to the
business of the world have some little sprinklings
of Reason more than the rest, yet that they may
the better manage it, even in this as well as in
other things, they call me to counsel; and I
give ’em such as is worthy of my self, to wit
That they take to ’em a wife—a silly thing,
God wot, and foolish, yet wanton and pleasant,
by which means the roughness of the Masculine
temper is season’d and sweeten’d by her folly.
For in that Plato seems to doubt under which
Genus he should put woman, to wit that of
rational Creatures or Brutes, he intended no
other in it than to shew the apparent folly of
the Sexe. For if perhaps any of them goes about
to be thought wiser than the rest, what else
does she do but play the fool twice, as if a man
should 1‘ teach a Cow to dance’, ?‘a thing quite
against the hair’. For as it doubles the crime
if any one should put a disguise upon Nature,
or endeavour to bring her to that she will in
no wise bear, according to that Proverb of the
1 Bovem ad ceroma. ? invita reluctanteque Minerva.