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CHAP. III. What is the cause why the Females of all brute beasts, being great with young, doe neither desire, nor admit the males, untill they have brought forth their Young.
THe cause hereof is, that, forasmuch as they are moved by sense only, * 1.1 they apply themselves unto the thing that is present, very little, or nothing at all perceiving things that are past, and to come. Therfore after they have conceived, they are unmindfull of the pleasure that is past, and doe abhor copulation: for the sense or feeling of lust is given unto them by nature, onely for the preservation of their kinde, and not for voluptuousnesse, or delectation. But the males * 1.2 raging, swelling, and as it were stimulated by the provocations of the heat, or fer∣vency of their lust, do then runne unto them, follow and desire copulation, because a certaine strong odour or smell commeth into the aire from their secret or genitall parts, which pierceth into their nostrills, and unto their braine, and so inferreth an imagination, desire, and heat. Contrariwise, the sense and feeling of venereous acti∣ons seemeth to be given by nature to women, not onely for the propagation of issue * 1.3 and for the conservation of mankinde, but also to mitigate and asswage the miseries of mans life, as it were by the entisements of that pleasure: also the great store of hot blood that is about the heart, wherewith men abound, maketh greatly to this purpose, which by impulsion of imagination, which ruleth the humours, being dri∣ven by the proper passages, downe from the heart and entralls into the genitall parts, doth stirre up in them a new lust.
The males of brute beasts, being provoked or moved by the stimulations of lust, rage, and are almost burst with a Tentigo or extension of the genitall parts, and some∣times waxe mad, but after that they have satisfied their lust with the female of their kinde, they presently become gentle, and leave off such fiercenesse.