erection, growing sometimes to the length of two inches out of the body,
but that never happens except through extreme lustfulness or some
extraordinary accident. This _clitoris_ consists of two spongy and
skinny bodies, containing a distinct original from the _os pubis_, its
tip being covered with a tender skin, having a hole or passage like a
man's yard or _penis_, although not quite through, in which alone, and
in its size it differs from it.

The next things are the fleshy knobs of the great neck of the womb, and
these knobs are behind the wings and are four in number, resembling
myrtle berries, and being placed quadrangularly one against the other,
and here the orifice of the bladder is inserted, which opens into the
fissures, to evacuate the urine, and one of these knobs is placed before
it, and closes up the passage in order to secure it from cold, or any
suchlike inconvenience.

The lips of the womb, which appear next, disclose its neck, if they are
separated, and two things may be observed in them, which are the neck
itself and the _hymen_, or more properly, the _claustrum virginale_, of
which I have spoken before. By the neck of the womb we must understand
the channel that lies between the above-mentioned knobs and the inner
bone of the womb, which receives the penis like a sheath, and so that it
may be more easily dilated by the pleasure of procreation, the substance
is sinewy and a little spongy. There are several folds or pleats in this
cavity, made by tunicles, which are wrinkled like a full blown rose. In
virgins they appear plainly, but in women who are used to copulation
they disappear, so that the inner side of the neck of the womb appears
smooth, but in old women it is more hard and gristly. But though this
channel is sometimes crooked and sinks down yet at the times of
copulation, labour, or of the monthly flow, it is erected or distended,