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which infallibly holds good of infants new-born. For nothing can be beheld so imperfect, helpless, naked, shapeless, and nasty, as man is just at his birth; to whom alone almost Nature has denied a cleanly passage into the world; and as he is smeared with blood, and daubed with filth, more like to one killed than to one new-born, he could never be touched, taken in arms, kissed, or hugged by any one to whom Nature had not given an inbred affection for him. Therefore other animals have their dugs below their belly, which grow on woman above her breast, that she may the more conveniently kiss, embrace, and cherish her infant; because the end of bringing forth and rearing is not necessity but love.
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For let us look back to ancient times, to those who first brought forth and who first saw a child born. Upon them certainly no law enjoined any necessity of rearing their offspring, nor could expectation of thanks oblige them to feed their infants, as if it were for usury. Nay, rather, they were angry with their children, and long remembered the injuries they had received from them, as authors of so many dangers and of so much pain and travail to them. As when keen darts the fierce Ilithyiae send; the powers that cause the teeming matron’s throes, Sad mothers of unutterable woes! Il. XI. 269. These verses, some say, were not written by Homer, but by some Homeress, who either had been or was then in travail, and felt the very pangs in her bowels. Yet the love implanted by Nature melts and sways the childbed woman. While she is still in a sweat and trembling for pain, she is not averse to her infant; but turns it to her, smiles on it, hugs and kisses it. Though she finds no true sweetness, nor yet profit, however, she sometimes rocks it in a warm cradle, sometimes she dances it in the cool air, turning one toil into another, resting neither night nor day.
