Then do not marry, quoth Pantagruel, for without all controversy this sentence of Seneca is infallibly true, What thou to others shalt have done, others will do the like to thee.

Do you, quoth Panurge, aver that without all exception?
Yes, truly, quoth Pantagruel, without all exception.

Ho, ho, says Panurge, by the wrath of a little devil, his meaning is, either in this world or in the other which is to come.

Yet seeing I can no more want a wife than a blind man his staff--( for) the funnel must be in agitation, without which manner of occupation I cannot live--were it not a great deal better for me to apply and associate myself to some one honest, lovely, and virtuous woman, than as I do, by a new change of females every day, run a hazard of being bastinadoed, or, which is worse, of the great pox, if not of both together.

For never--be it spoken by their husbands' leave and favour--had I enjoyment yet of an honest woman.