much labours to Paula, to Nepotian; Chrysost. so much inculcates in
ser. in contubern. Cyprian, and many other fathers of the church,
Siracides in his ninth chapter, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, Arnoldus,
Valleriola, &c., and every physician that treats of this subject. Not
only to avoid, as [5639] Gregory Tholosanus exhorts, kissing,
dalliance, all speeches, tokens, love-letters, and the like, or as
Castilio, lib. 4. to converse with them, hear them speak, or sing,
(tolerabilius est audire basiliscum sibilantem, thou hadst better hear,
saith [5640]Cyprian, a serpent hiss) [5641]those amiable smiles,
admirable graces, and sweet gestures, which their presence affords.
[5642]Neu capita liment solitis morsiunculis,
Et his papillarum oppressiunculis
Abstineant:———
but all talk, name, mention, or cogitation of them, and of any other
women, persons, circumstance, amorous book or tale that may administer
any occasion of remembrance. [5643]Prosper adviseth young men not to
read the Canticles, and some parts of Genesis at other times; but for
such as are enamoured they forbid, as before, the name mentioned, &c.,
especially all sight, they must not so much as come near, or look upon
them.
[5644]Et fugitare decet simulacra et pabula amoris,
Abstinere sibi atque alio convertere mentem.
Gaze not on a maid, saith Siracides, turn away thine eyes from a
beautiful woman, c. 9. v. 5. 7, 8. averte oculos, saith David, or if
thou dost see them, as Ficinus adviseth, let not thine eye be intentus
ad libidinem, do not intend her more than the rest: for as
[5645]Propertius holds, Ipse alimenta sibi maxima praebet amor, love as
a snow ball enlargeth itself by sight: but as Hierome to Nepotian, aut
aequaliter ama, aut aequaliter ignora, either see all alike, or let all
alone; make a league with thine eyes, as [5646]Job did, and that is the
safest course, let all alone, see none of them. Nothing sooner revives,
[5647]or waxeth sore again, as Petrarch holds, than love doth by sight.
As pomp renews ambition; the sight of gold, covetousness; a beauteous
object sets on fire this burning lust. Et multum saliens incitat unda
sitim. The sight of drink makes one dry, and the sight of meat
increaseth appetite. 'Tis dangerous therefore to see. A [5648]young
gentleman in merriment would needs put on his mistress's clothes, and
walk abroad alone, which some of her suitors espying, stole him away
for her that he represented. So much can sight enforce. Especially if
he have been formerly enamoured, the sight of his mistress strikes him
into a new fit, and makes him rave many days after.
[5649]———Infirmis causa pusilla nocet,
Ut pene extinctum cinerem si sulphure tangas,
Vivet, et ex minimo maximus ignis erit:
Sic nisi vitabis quicquid renovabit amorem,
Flamma recrudescet, quae modo nulla fuit.
A sickly man a little thing offends,
As brimstone doth a fire decayed renew,
And makes it burn afresh, doth love's dead flames,
If that the former object it review.
Or, as the poet compares it to embers in ashes, which the wind blows,
[5650]ut solet a ventis, &c., a scald head (as the saying is) is soon
broken, dry wood quickly kindles, and when they have been formerly
wounded with sight, how can they by seeing but be inflamed? Ismenias
acknowledged as much of himself, when he had been long absent, and
almost forgotten his mistress, [5651]at the first sight of her, as
straw in a fire, I burned afresh, and more than ever I did before.
[5652]Chariclia was as much moved at the sight of her dear Theagines,
after he had been a great stranger. [5653]Mertila, in Aristaenetus,
swore she would never love Pamphilus again, and did moderate her
passion, so long as he was absent; but the next time he came in
presence, she could not contain, effuse amplexa attrectari se sinit,
&c., she broke her vow, and did profusely embrace him. Hermotinus, a
young man (in the said [5654]author) is all out as unstaid, he had
forgot his mistress quite, and by his friends was well weaned from her
love; but seeing her by chance, agnovit veteris vestigia flammae, he
raved amain, Illa tamen emergens veluti lucida stella cepit elucere,
&c., she did appear as a blazing star, or an angel to his sight. And it
is the common passion of all lovers to be overcome in this sort. For
that cause belike Alexander discerning this inconvenience and danger
that comes by seeing, [5655]when he heard Darius's wife so much
commended for her beauty, would scarce admit her to come in his sight,
foreknowing belike that of Plutarch, formosam videre periculosissimum,
how full of danger it is to see a proper woman, and though he was
intemperate in other things, yet in this superbe se gessit, he carried
himself bravely. And so when as Araspus, in Xenophon, had so much
magnified that divine face of Panthea to Cyrus, [5656]by how much she
was fairer than ordinary, by so much he was the more unwilling to see
her. Scipio, a young man of twenty-three years of age, and the most
beautiful of the Romans, equal in person to that Grecian Charinus, or
Homer's Nireus, at the siege of a city in Spain, when as a noble and
most fair young gentlewoman was brought unto him, [5657]and he had
heard she was betrothed to a lord, rewarded her, and sent her back to
her sweetheart. St. Austin, as [5658]Gregory reports of him, ne cum
sorore quidem sua putavit habitandum, would not live in the house with
his own sister. Xenocrates lay with Lais of Corinth all night, and
would not touch her. Socrates, though all the city of Athens supposed
him to dote upon fair Alcibiades, yet when he had an opportunity,
[5659]solus cum solo to lie in the chamber with, and was wooed by him
besides, as the said Alcibiades publicly [5660]confessed, formam
sprevit et superbe contempsit, he scornfully rejected him. Petrarch,
that had so magnified his Laura in several poems, when by the pope's
means she was offered unto him, would not accept of her. [5661]It is a
good happiness to be free from this passion of love, and great
discretion it argues in such a man that he can so contain himself; but
when thou art once in love, to moderate thyself (as he saith) is a
singular point of wisdom.
[5662]Nam vitare plagas in amoris ne jaciamur
Non ita difficile est, quam captum retibus ipsis
Exire, et validos Veneris perrumpere nodos.
To avoid such nets is no such mastery,
But ta'en escape is all the victory.
But, forasmuch as few men are free, so discreet lovers, or that can
contain themselves, and moderate their passions, to curb their senses,
as not to see them, not to look lasciviously, not to confer with them,
such is the fury of this headstrong passion of raging lust, and their
weakness, ferox ille ardor a natura insitus, [5663]as he terms it such
a furious desire nature hath inscribed, such unspeakable delight.
Sic Divae Veneris furor,
Insanis adeo mentibus incubat,
which neither reason, counsel, poverty, pain, misery, drudgery, partus
dolor, &c., can deter them from; we must use some speedy means to
correct and prevent that, and all other inconveniences, which come by
conference and the like. The best, readiest, surest way, and which all
approve, is Loci mutatio, to send them several ways, that they may
neither hear of, see, nor have an opportunity to send to one another
again, or live together, soli cum sola, as so many Gilbertines.
Elongatio a patria, 'tis Savanarola's fourth rule, and Gordonius'
precept, distrahatur ad longinquas regiones, send him to travel. 'Tis
that which most run upon, as so many hounds, with full cry, poets,
divines, philosophers, physicians, all, mutet patriam: Valesius:
[5664]as a sick man he must be cured with change of air, Tully 4
Tuscul. The best remedy is to get thee gone, Jason Pratensis: change
air and soil, Laurentius. [5665]Fuge littus amatum.
Virg. Utile finitimis abstinuisse locis.
[5666]Ovid. I procul, et longas carpere perge vias.
———sed fuge tutus eris.
Travelling is an antidote of love,
[5667]Magnum iter ad doctas proficisci cogor Athenas,
Ut me longa gravi solvat amore via.
For this purpose, saith [5668]Propertius, my parents sent me to Athens;
time and patience wear away pain and grief, as fire goes out for want
of fuel. Quantum oculis, animo tam procul ibit amor. But so as they
tarry out long enough: a whole year [5669]Xenophon prescribes
Critobulus, vix enim intra hoc tempus ab amore sanari poteris: some
will hardly be weaned under. All this [5670]Heinsius merrily inculcates
in an epistle to his friend Primierus; first fast, then tarry, thirdly,
change thy place, fourthly, think of a halter. If change of place,
continuance of time, absence, will not wear it out with those precedent
remedies, it will hardly be removed: but these commonly are of force.
Felix Plater, observ. lib. 1. had a baker to his patient, almost mad
for the love of his maid, and desperate; by removing her from him, he
was in a short space cured. Isaeus, a philosopher of Assyria, was a
most dissolute liver in his youth, palam lasciviens, in love with all
he met; but after he betook himself, by his friends' advice, to his
study, and left women's company, he was so changed that he cared no
more for plays, nor feasts, nor masks, nor songs, nor verses, fine
clothes, nor no such love toys: he became a new man upon a sudden,
tanquam si priores oculos amisisset, (saith mine [5671]author) as if he
had lost his former eyes. Peter Godefridus, in the last chapter of his
third book, hath a story out of St. Ambrose, of a young man that
meeting his old love after long absence, on whom he had extremely
doted, would scarce take notice of her; she wondered at it, that he
should so lightly esteem her, called him again, lenibat dictis animum,
and told him who she was, Ego sum, inquit: At ego non sum ego; but he
replied, he was not the same man: proripuit sese tandem, as
[5672]Aeneas fled from Dido, not vouchsafing her any farther parley,
loathing his folly, and ashamed of that which formerly he had done.
[5673]Non sum stultus ut ante jam Neaera. O Neaera, put your tricks,
and practise hereafter upon somebody else, you shall befool me no
longer. Petrarch hath such another tale of a young gallant, that loved
a wench with one eye, and for that cause by his parents was sent to
travel into far countries, after some years he returned, and meeting
the maid for whose sake he was sent abroad, asked her how, and by what
chance she lost her eye? no, said she, I have lost none, but you have
found yours: signifying thereby, that all lovers were blind, as Fabius
saith, Amantes de forma judicare non possunt, lovers cannot judge of
beauty, nor scarce of anything else, as they will easily confess after
they return unto themselves, by some discontinuance or better advice,
wonder at their own folly, madness, stupidity, blindness, be much
abashed, and laugh at love, and call it an idle thing, condemn
themselves that ever they should be so besotted or misled: and be
heartily glad they have so happily escaped.
If so be (which is seldom) that change of place will not effect this
alteration, then other remedies are to be annexed, fair and foul means,
as to persuade, promise, threaten, terrify, or to divert by some
contrary passion, rumour, tales, news, or some witty invention to alter
his affection, [5674]by some greater sorrow to drive out the less,
saith Gordonius, as that his house is on fire, his best friends dead,
his money stolen. [5675]That he is made some great governor, or hath
some honour, office, some inheritance is befallen him. He shall be a
knight, a baron; or by some false accusation, as they do to such as
have the hiccup, to make them forget it. St. Hierome, lib. 2. epist.
16. to Rusticus the monk, hath an instance of a young man of Greece,
that lived in a monastery in Egypt, [5676]that by no labour, no
continence, no persuasion, could be diverted, but at last by this trick
he was delivered. The abbot sets one of his convent to quarrel with
him, and with some scandalous reproach or other to defame him before
company, and then to come and complain first, the witnesses were
likewise suborned for the plaintiff. The young man wept, and when all
were against him, the abbot cunningly took his part, lest he should be
overcome with immoderate grief: but what need many words? by this
invention he was cured, and alienated from his pristine
love-thoughts—Injuries, slanders, contempts, disgraces—spretaeque
injuria formae, the insult of her slighted beauty, are very forcible
means to withdraw men's affections, contumelia affecti amatores amare
desinunt, as [5677]Lucian saith, lovers reviled or neglected, contemned
or misused, turn love to hate; [5678]redeam? Non si me obsecret, I'll
never love thee more. Egone illam, quae illum, quae me, quae non? So
Zephyrus hated Hyacinthus because he scorned him, and preferred his
co-rival Apollo (Palephaetus fab. Nar.), he will not come again though
he be invited. Tell him but how he was scoffed at behind his back,
('tis the counsel of Avicenna), that his love is false, and entertains
another, rejects him, cares not for him, or that she is a fool; a nasty
quean, a slut, a vixen, a scold, a devil, or, which Italians commonly
do, that he or she hath some loathsome filthy disease, gout, stone,
strangury, falling sickness, and that they are hereditary, not to be
avoided, he is subject to a consumption, hath the pox, that he hath
three or four incurable tetters, issues; that she is bald, her breath
stinks, she is mad by inheritance, and so are all the kindred, a
hair-brain, with many other secret infirmities, which I will not so
much as name, belonging to women. That he is a hermaphrodite, an
eunuch, imperfect, impotent, a spendthrift, a gamester, a fool, a gull,
a beggar, a whoremaster, far in debt, and not able to maintain her, a
common drunkard, his mother was a witch, his father hanged, that he
hath a wolf in his bosom, a sore leg, he is a leper, hath some
incurable disease, that he will surely beat her, he cannot hold his
water, that he cries out or walks in the night, will stab his
bedfellow, tell all his secrets in his sleep, and that nobody dare lie
with him, his house is haunted with spirits, with such fearful and
tragical things, able to avert and terrify any man or woman living,
Gordonius, cap. 20. part. 2. hunc in modo consulit; Paretur aliqua
vetula turpissima aspectu, cum turpi et vili habitu: et portet subtus
gremium pannum menstrualem, et dicat quod amica sua sit ebriosa, et
quod mingat in lecto, et quod est epileptica et impudicia; et quod in
corpore suo sunt excrescentiae enormes, cum faetore anhelitus, et aliae
enormitates, quibus vetulae sunt edoctae: si nolit his persuaderi,
subito extrahat [5679]pannum menstrualem, coram facie portando,
exclamando, talis est amica tua; et si ex his non demiserit, non est
homo, sed diabolus incarnatus. Idem fere, Avicenna, cap. 24, de cura
Elishi, lib. 3, Fen. 1. Tract. 4. Narrent res immundas vetulae, ex
quibus abominationem incurrat, et res [5680]sordidas et, hoc assiduent.
Idem Arculanus cap. 16. in 9. Rhasis, &c.
Withal as they do discommend the old, for the better effecting a more
speedy alteration, they must commend another paramour, alteram
inducere, set him or her to be wooed, or woo some other that shall be
fairer, of better note, better fortune, birth, parentage, much to be
preferred, [5681] Invenies alium si te hic fastidit Alexis, by this
means, which Jason Pratensis wisheth, to turn the stream of affection
another way, Successore novo truditur omnis amor; or, as Valesius
adviseth, by [5682]subdividing to diminish it, as a great river cut
into many channels runs low at last. [5683]Hortor et ut pariter binas
habeatis amicas, &c. If you suspect to be taken, be sure, saith the
poet, to have two mistresses at once, or go from one to another: as he
that goes from a good fire in cold weather is both to depart from it,
though in the next room there be a better which will refresh him as
much; there's as much difference of haec as hac ignis; or bring him to
some public shows, plays, meetings, where he may see variety, and he
shall likely loathe his first choice: carry him but to the next town,
yea peradventure to the next house, and as Paris lost Oenone's love by
seeing Helen, and Cressida forsook Troilus by conversing with Diomede,
he will dislike his former mistress, and leave her quite behind him, as
[5684]Theseus left Ariadne fast asleep in the island of Dia, to seek
her fortune, that was erst his loving mistress. [5685]Nunc primum
Dorida vetus amator contempsi, as he said, Doris is but a dowdy to
this. As he that looks himself in a glass forgets his physiognomy
forthwith, this flattering glass of love will be diminished by remove;
after a little absence it will be remitted, the next fair object will
likely alter it. A young man in [5686]Lucian was pitifully in love, he
came to the theatre by chance, and by seeing other fair objects there,
mentis sanitatem recepit, was fully recovered, [5687] and went merrily
home, as if he had taken a dram of oblivion. [5688]A mouse (saith an
apologer) was brought up in a chest, there fed with fragments of bread
and cheese, though there could be no better meat, till coming forth at
last, and feeding liberally of other variety of viands, loathed his
former life: moralise this fable by thyself. Plato, in. his seventh
book De Legibus, hath a pretty fiction of a city under ground, [5689]to
which by little holes some small store of light came; the inhabitants
thought there could not be a better place, and at their first coming
abroad they might not endure the light, aegerrime solem intueri; but
after they were accustomed a little to it, [5690]they deplored their
fellows' misery that lived under ground. A silly lover is in like
state, none so fair as his mistress at first, he cares for none but
her; yet after a while, when he hath compared her with others, he
abhors her name, sight, and memory. 'Tis generally true; for as he
observes, [5691]Priorem flammam novus ignis extrudit; et ea multorum
natura, ut praesentes maxime ament, one fire drives out another; and
such is women's weakness, that they love commonly him that is present.
And so do many men; as he confessed, he loved Amye, till he saw
Florial, and when he saw Cynthia, forgat them both: but fair Phillis
was incomparably beyond, them all, Cloris surpassed her, and yet when
he espied Amaryllis, she was his sole mistress; O divine Amaryllis:
quam procera, cupressi ad instar, quam elegans, quam decens, &c. How
lovely, how tall, how comely she was (saith Polemius) till he saw
another, and then she was the sole subject of his thoughts. In
conclusion, her he loves best he saw last. [5692]Triton, the sea-god,
first loved Leucothoe, till he came in presence of Milaene, she was the
commandress of his heart, till he saw Galatea: but (as [5693]she
complains) he loved another eftsoons, another, and another. 'Tis a
thing which, by Hierom's report, hath been usually practised.
[5694]Heathen philosophers drive out one love with another, as they do
a peg, or pin with a pin. Which those seven Persian princes did to
Ahasuerus, that they might requite the desire of Queen Vashti with the
love of others. Pausanias in Eliacis saith, that therefore one Cupid
was painted to contend with another, and to take the garland from him,
because one love drives out another, [5695]Alterius vires subtrahit
alter amor; and Tully, 3. Nat. Deor. disputing with C. Cotta, makes
mention of three several Cupids, all differing in office. Felix Plater,
in the first book of his observations, boasts how he cured a widower in
Basil, a patient of his, by this stratagem alone, that doted upon a
poor servant his maid, when friends, children, no persuasion could
serve to alienate his mind: they motioned him to another honest man's
daughter in the town, whom he loved, and lived with long after,
abhorring the very name and sight of the first. After the death of
Lucretia, [5696]Euryalus would admit of no comfort, till the Emperor
Sigismund married him to a noble lady of his court, and so in short
space he was freed.
SUBSECT. III.—_By counsel and persuasion, foulness of the fact, men's,
women's faults, miseries of marriage, events of lust, &c._
As there be divers causes of this burning lust, or heroical love, so
there be many good remedies to ease and help; amongst which, good
counsel and persuasion, which I should have handled in the first place,
are of great moment, and not to be omitted. Many are of opinion, that
in this blind headstrong passion counsel can do no good.
[5697]Quae enim res in se neque consilium neque modum
Habet, ullo eam consilio regere non potes.
Which thing hath neither judgment, or an end,
How should advice or counsel it amend?