Pippa: Tell me more about these old chaps.

Nanna: Well, here you are at supper with those lechers who’ve got goodwill and miserable legs. Now, Pippa, there is food in abundance, wine on demand, and gentlemanly chit-chat. Anyone who listened to them boast would say: “These men must go at it like the clappers.” And if their prowess in bed were anything like the results they achieve with pleasants and malmsey wine, they would cast Orlando himself into the shade. Why, if they satisfied their women by screwing them as well as they satisfy them by providing good tidbits to eat, then lucky girls! These boastful eager beavers, pinning their hopes on peppers, truffles, thistles, and certain warm tinctures imported from France, take in more bellyfuls than peasants do harvesting grapes. And gulping down oysters without chewing, they expect to perform miracles. At dinners like this, you can pretty much eat without ceremony.

Pippa: Why?

Nanna: Because their pleasure is to spoonfeed you as you would be a baby. And they’re happier watching you eat as if you were starved, than a horse is at hearing the water-boy’s whistle. What’s more, old men are the enemies of formality.

From Pietro Aretino’s The School of Whoredom, London: Hesperus Press, 2003, p. 15.