Of Love. (21)

AUTOB. Now as for those things which they say are the causes that beget love, they are not peculiar to this or the other sex, but common to both. For it cannot be that those images that enter into amorous persons and whisk about from one part to another, by their various forms moving and tickling the mass of atoms that slide into the seed, can come from young boys, and that the same cannot come from young women. But as to these noble and sacred remembrances with which the soul is winged, recalling that same divine, real, and Olympic beauty, what should hinder but that these may pass from boys and young men, and also from virgins and young women, whenever a disposition chaste and good-natured appears united with bloom of youth and grace of body? For, as a handsome and well-made shoe shows the proportion of the foot (as Ariston says), so they that have judgment in these matters can discern the splendid, upright, and uncorrupted footsteps of a noble and generous soul in beautiful forms and features, and bodies undefiled. For, if a voluptuous person, who when the question was put to him,

To which are your hot passions most inclined,

Or to the male, or to the female kind?

AUTOB. answered thus,

’Tis the same thing to me

Where’er I beauty see,

AUTOB. was thought to have returned a proper and pertinent answer and one that accorded with his passions, is it possible that a noble and generous lover directs his amours not to loveliness and good-nature, but only to the parts that distinguish the sex? For certainly a man that delights in horses will no less value the mettle and swiftness of Podargus, than of Aetha that was Agamemnon’s mare; and he that is a good huntsman does not only delight in dogs, but mixes with his cry the bitches of Crete and Laconia; and shall he that is a lover as well as of civil behavior carry himself with an inequality more to one than to another, and make a distinction, as of garments, between the love of men and women? But some say that beauty is the flower of virtue. Will they then affirm, that the female sex never blossoms nor makes any show of tendency to virtue? It were absurd to think so. Therefore was Aeschylus in the right when he said, that he could never mistake the fire in the eye of a young woman who had once known a man. Now then are those signs and marks of lasciviousness, wantonness, and impudence to be discovered in the visages of women, and shall there be no light shining in their faces for the discovery of modesty and chastity? Nay, shall there be many such signs, and those apparent, and shall they not be able to allure and provoke love? Both are contrary to reason, and dissonant from truth. But every one of these things is common to both sexes, as we have showed.

AUTOB. Now then, Daphnaeus, let us confute the reason that Zeuxippus has but now alleged, by making love to be all one with inordinate desire that hurries the soul to intemperance. Not that it is his opinion, but only what he has frequently heard from men morose and no way addicted to love. Of this class there are some who, marrying poor silly women for the sake of some petty portion, and having nothing to do with them and their money but to make them perpetual drudges in pitiful mechanic employments, are every day brawling and quarrelling with them. Others, more desirous of children than of wives, like cicadae that spill their seed upon squills or some such like herb, discharge their lust in haste upon the next they meet with; and having reaped the fruit they sought for, bid marriage farewell or else regard it not at all, neither caring to love nor to be beloved. And in my opinion, the words στέργειν and στέργεσθαι, which signify dearly to love and dearly to be beloved again, differing but one letter from στέγειν, which signifies to contain or endure, seem to me to import and denote that mutual kindness called conjugal, which is intermixed by time and custom with necessity. But in that wedlock which love supports and inspires, in the first place, as in Plato’s Commonwealth, there will be no such language as thine and mine. For properly to speak, there is not community of goods among all friends; but only where two friends, though severed in body, yet have their souls joined and as it were melted together, and neither desire to be two nor believe themselves to be separate persons. And, in the second place, there will be that mutual respect and reverence, which is the chiefest happiness of wedlock. Now as to that respect that comes from without, carrying with it more force of law than voluntary and reciprocal duty, or that comes by fear and shame,

And many other curbs, that loose desire

And lawless frisks of wanton heat require,

[*]

AUTOB. these are always present with those who are coupled in matrimony. Whereas in love there is so much continency, so much modesty, and so much of loyal affection, that even if it happen upon an intemperate and lascivious soul, it is thereby diverted from all other amours, by cutting off all malapert boldness and bringing down the insolence of imperious pride; instead of which it introduces modest bashfulness, silence, and submission, and adorning it with decent and becoming behavior, makes it for ever after the obedient observer of one lover. Most certainly you have heard of that celebrated and highly courted courtesan Lais, how her beauty inflamed all Greece, or rather how two seas strove for her. This famous beauty, being seized with an ardent affection for Hippolochus the Thessalian, leaving the Acrocorinthus, as the poet describes it,

With sea-green water all encompassed round,[*]

AUTOB. and privately avoiding the great army (as I may call it) of those that courted her favor, withdrew herself modestly to the enjoyment of him only; but the women, incensed with jealousy and envying her surpassing beauty, dragged her into the temple of Venus, and there stoned her to death; for which reason it is called to this day the temple of Venus the Murderess. We ourselves have known several young damsels, mere slaves, who never would submit to the embraces of their masters, and private men who have disdained the company of queens, when love had the absolute dominion of their hearts. For, as in Rome, when there is a dictator chosen, all other chief magistrates lay down their offices; so all such persons, where love is truly predominant, are immediately free and manumitted from all other lords and masters, and afterwards live like servants in the temple of Love. And indeed a virtuous and generous lady, once linked to her lawful husband by an unfeigned affection, will sooner choose the embraces of bears and dragons, than to be the bed-fellow of any other person whatsoever but her only spouse.