University Microfilms International - Arizona Campus Repository

21
them" (sig. J4 V ). The Defence concludes with a prayer to Divine
Matrimonie who "alone createst and makest Noble men upon the earth,"
and with a compliment, which does not appear in the Italian original,
to the "famous English Queen":
I finding my selfe far insufficient and unable to
praise her, by reason of her royal qualities, and
matchlesse vertues, they being like a soundlesse
Ocean that hath no bottome, like unto an intricate
labyrinth, wherein a man may sooner loose himselfe,
then finde the end of the same any way.
(sig. L2)
Of Mariage and Wiving was undoubtedly included in the Bishops' Ban
„ because of the invective of part one. In fact, the order of 1 June 1599
condemning satires and epigrams identified it as "The booke againste
women viz, of marriage and wyvinge." 23
Had the book been considered as
a whole, however, it seems unlikely that the censors would have classed
it with Marston's Scourge of Villanie, Guilpin's Skialethia, or the other
six books named in the decree (Arber, ui, 677). Torquato's "Answere"
clearly succeeds in refuting Ercole's "Declamation," and the entire book
undeniably supports Torquato's view of women and marriage. Tofte may
not have held this opinion, though, because his interest in anti-feminist
literature is well documented in his later works, especially in Satire 4
of Ariosto's Satyres and in The Blazon of Jealousie. Moreover, Tofte's
misogynist tendencies may have interested him in translating a French
document that was a classic statement of the anti-feminist perspective.
Les Quinze Joyes de Mariage, a French satire of the early
fifteenth century, first appeared in English in 1603 as The Batchelars
Banquet: or a banquet for batchelars. 2h
The anonymous translation has