2

than Virgil in Priapeiis, Petronius in Catalectis, Aristophanes in Lysistrata, Martialis, or any other pagan prophane writer, qui tam atrociter ('one notes) hoc genere peccarunt, ut multa ingeniosissime scripta obscœnitatum gratiá casta mentes abhorreant. Tis not scurrile this, but chast, honest, most part serious, and even of religion it self. Incensed (as he said) with the love of finding love, we have sought it, and found it. More yet, I have augmented and added something to this light treatise (if light), which was not in the former editions: I am not ashamed to confess it, with a good 3 author, quod extendi et locupletari hoc subjectum plerique postulabant, et eorum importunitate victus, animum, utcunque renitentem, eo adegi, ut jam sextá vice calamum in manum sumerem, scriptionique longe et a studiis et professione med aliena me accingerem, horas aliquas a seriis meis occupationibus interim suffuratus, easque veluti ludo cuidam ac recreationi destinans ;

3

etsi non ignorarem novos fortasse detractores novis hisce interpolationibus meis minime defuturos.

5

And thus much I have thought good to say by way of preface, lest any man (which Godefridus feared in his book) should blame in me lightness, wantonness, rashness, in speaking of loves causes, entisements, symptomes, remedies, lawfull and unlawfull loves, and lust it self. I speak it, only to tax and deter others from it; not to teach, but to shew the vanities and fopperies of this heroicall or Herculean love, and to apply remedies unto it. I will treat of this with like liberty as of the rest.

7

'Sed dicam vobis ; vos porro dicite multis

Millibus; et facite hæc charta loquatur anus.

Condemn me not, good reader, then, or censure me hardly, if some part of this Treatise, to thy thinking, as yet be too light;

3 Auc

1 Barthius, notis in Cœlestinam, ludum Hisp. 2 Ficinus, Comment. c. 17. Amore incensi inveniendi amoris, amorem quæsivimus et invenimus. tor Cœlestinæ, Barth. interprete. 4 Hor. lib. 1. Ode 34. 5 Hæc prædixi, ne quis temere nos putaret scripsisse de amorum lenociniis, de praxi, fornicationibus, adulteriis, &c. 6 Taxando et ab his deterrendo humanam lasciviam et insaniam, sed et remedia docendo: non igitur candidus lector nobis succenseat, &c. Commonitio erit juvenibus hæc, hisce ut abstineant magis, et omissâ lasciviâ quæ homines reddit insanos, virtutis incumbant studiis (Æneas Silv.): et curam amoris si quis nescit, hinc poterit scire. 7 Martianus Capella,

lib. 1. de nupt. philol. Virginali suffusa rubore, oculos peplo obnubens, &c. • Catullus.

8

but consider better of it. Omnia munda mundis: 1a naked man, to a modest woman, is no otherwise then a picture, as Augusta Livia truly said; and mala mens, malus animus; 'tis as 'tis taken. If in thy censure it be too light, I advise thee, as Lipsius did his reader for some places of Plautus, istos quasi Sirenum scopulos prætervehare; if they like thee not, let them pass; or oppose that which is good to that which is bad, and reject not therefore all. For, to invert that verse of Martial, and, with Hierome Wolfius, to apply it to my present

purpose,

Sunt mala, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt bona plura ;

some is good, some bad, some is indifferent. I say farther with him yet, I have inserted (3 levicula quædam et ridicula ascribere non sum gravatus, circumforanea quædam e theatris, e plateis, etiam e popinis) some things more homely, light, or comicall, litans Gratiis, &c. which I would request every man to interpret to the best: and, as Julius Cæsar Scaliger besought Cardan, (si quid urbaniuscule lusum a nobis, per Deos immortales te oro, Hieronyme Cardane, ne me male capias.) I beseech thee, good reader, not to mistake me, or misconstrue what is here written; Per Musas et Charites, et omnia poëtarum numina, benigne lector, oro te, ne me male capias. 'Tis a comicall subject; in sober sadness I crave pardon of what is amiss, and desire thee to suspend thy judgement, wink at small faults, or to be silent at least: but, if thou likest, speak well of it, and wish me good success.

Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem.

I am resolved howsoever, velis, nolis, audacter stadium intrare, in the Olympicks, with those liensian wrestlers in Philostratus, boldly to shew my self in this common stage, and in this trage-comedy of love, to act severall parts, some satyrically, some comically, some in a mixt tone, as the subject I have in hand gives occasion, and present scene shall require, or offer it self.

Viros nudos castæ feminæ nihil a statuis distare. pense. 3 Præf. Suid.

2 Hony soyt qui mal y

SUBSECT II.

Loves Beginning, Object, Definition, Division.

LOVES limits are ample and great; and a spatious walk it hath, beset with thorns, and for that cause, (which 'Scaliger reprehends in Cardan), not likely to be passed over. Least I incur the same censure, I will examine all the kinds of love, his nature, beginning, difference, objects, how it is honest or dishonest, a vertue or vice, a naturall passion or a disease, his power and effects, how far it extends: of which although something hath been said in the first partition, in those sections of perturbations (for love and hatred are the first and most common passions, from which all the rest arise, and are attendant, as Picolomineus holds, or as Nich. Caussinus, the primum mobile of all other affections, which carry them all about them) I will now more copiously dilate, through all his parts and severall branches, that so it may better appear what love is, and how it varies with the objects, how in defect, or (which is most ordinary and common) immoderate, and in excess, causeth melancholy.

3

4

Love, universally taken, is defined to be desire, as a word of more ample signification: and though Leon Hebreus, the most copious writer of this subject, in his third dialogue make no difference, yet in his first he distinguisheth them again, and defines love by desire. Love is a voluntary affection, and desire to enjoy that which is good. Desire wisheth; love enjoyes; the end of the one is the beginning of the other : that which we love is present; that which we desire is absent. It is worth the labour, saith Plotinus, to consider well of love, whether it be a god or a divell, or passion of the minde, or partly god, partly divell, partly passion. He concludes love to participate of all three, to arise from a desire of that which is beautiful and fair, and defines it to be an action of the minde, desiring that which is good. Plato calls

5

6

1 Exerc. 301. Campus amoris maximus et spinis obsitus, nec levissimo pede transvolandus. 2 Grad. 1. cap. 29. ex Platone. Primæ et communissimæ perturbationes, ex quibus cæteræ oriuntur, et earum sunt pedissequæ. 3 Amor est voluntarius affectus et desiderium re bonâ fruendi. 4 Desiderium optantis; amor eorum quibus fruimur; amoris principium, desiderii finis; amatum adest. 5 Principio 1. de amore. Operæ pretium est de amore considerare, utrum Deus, an dæmon, an passio quædam animæ, an partim Deus, partim dæmon, passio partim, &c. Amor est actus animi bonum desiderans. 6 Magnus Dæmon, Convivio.

2

it the great divell, for its vehemency, and soveraignty over all other passions, and defines it an appetite, by which we desire some good to be present. Ficinus, in his comment, addes the word fair to this definition-love is a desire of enjoying that which is good and fair. Austin dilates this common definition, and will have love to be a delectation of the heart, for something which we seek to win, or joy to have, coveting by desire, resting in joy. Scaliger (Exerc. 301.) taxeth these former definitions, and will not have love to be defined by desire or appetite; for, when we enjoy the things we desire, there remains no more appetite: as he defines it, love is an affection by which we are united to the thing we love, or perpetuate our union; which agrees in part with Leon Hebreus.

3

5

Now this love varies as its object varies, which is alwayes good, amiable, fair, gracious, and pleasant. All things desire that which is good, as we are taught in the ethicks, or at least that which seems to them to be good: quid enim vis mali, (as Austin well inferres) dic mihi? puto nihil in omnibus actionibus; thou wilt wish no harm I suppose, no ill in all thine actions, thoughts or desires; nihil mali vis; thou wilt not have bad corn, bad soil, a naughty tree, but all good; a good servant, a good horse, a good son, a good friend, a good neighbour, a good wife. From this goodness comes beauty; from beauty, grace, and comeliness, which result as so many rayes from their good parts, make us to love, and so to covet it: for, were it not pleasing and gracious in our eyes; we should not seek. No man loves (saith Aristotle, 9 mor. cap. 5.) but he that was first delighted with comeliness and beauty. As this fair object varies, so doth our love; for, as Proclus holds, omne pulchrum amabile, every fair thing is amiable; and what we love is fair and gratious in our eyes; or at least we do so apprehend and still esteem of it. Amiableness is the object of love; the scope and end is to obtain it, for whose sake we love, and which our minde covets to enjoy. And it seems to us especially fair and good: for good, fair, and unity, cannot be separated. Beauty shines, Plato saith, and

6

1 Boni pulchrique fruendi desiderium.

7

2 Godefridus, 1. 1. cap. 2. Amor est delectatio cordis alicujus ad aliquid, propter aliquod desiderium in appetendo, et gaudium perfruendo, per desiderium currens, requiescens per gaudium. 3 Non est amor desiderium aut appetitus, ut ab omnibus hactenus traditum ; nam, cum potimur amatâ re, non manet appetitus; est igitur affectus, quo cum re amatâ aut unimur, aut unionem perpetuamus. 4 Omnia appetunt bonum. 5 Terram non vis malam, malam segetem, sed bonam arborem, equum bonum, &c. Nemo amore capitur, nisi qui fuerit ante formâ specieque delectatus. 7 Amabile objectum amoris et scopus, cujus adeptio est finis cujus gratiâ amamus. Animus enim aspirat ut eo fruatur; et formam boni habet, et præcipue videtur et placet. Picolomineus, grad. 7. cap. 2. et grad. 8. cap. 35.

1

3

by reason of its splendor and shining, causeth admiration; and the fairer the object is, the more eagerly is it sought. For, as the same Plato defines it, beauty is a lively shining or glittering brightness, resulting from effused good, by ideas, seeds, reasons, shadowes, stirring up our minds, that by this good they may be united and made one. Others will have beauty to be the perfection of the whole composition, 'caused out of the congruous symmetry, measure, order and manner of parts: and that comeliness which proceeds from this beauty is called grace; and from thence all fair things are gracious; for grace and beauty are so wonderfully annexed, so sweetly and gently win our souls, and strongly allure, that they confound our judgement, and cannot be distinguished. Beauty and grace are like those beams and shinings that come from the glorious and dicine sun, which are diverse, as they proceed from the diverse objects, to please and affect our several senses; *as this species of beauty are taken at our eyes, ears, or conceived in our inner soul, as Plato disputes at large in his Dialogue de Pulchro, Phædro, Hippias, and, after many sophisticall errours confuted, concludes that beauty is a grace in all things, delighting the eyes, ears, and soul it self; so that, as Velesius infers hence, whatsoever pleaseth our ears, eyes, and soul, must needs be beautifull, fair, and delightsome to us. And nothing can more please our ears then musick, or pacifie our minds. Fair houses, pictures, orchards, gardens, fields, a fair hawk, a fair horse, is most acceptable unto us; whatsoever pleaseth our eyes and ears, we call beautifull and fair. Pleasure belongeth to the rest of the senses, but grace and beauty to these two alone. As the objects vary and are diverse, so they diversely affect our eyes, ears, and soul it self: which gives occasion to some, to make so many severall kindes of love as there be objects: one beauty ariseth from God, of which and divine love, St. Dionysius, with many fathers and Neotoricks, have written just volumes, De amore Dei, as they term it, many parænetical discourses; another from his creatures; there is a beauty of the body, a beauty of the soul, a beauty from vertue, formam martyrum Austin calls it,

5

'Forma est vitalis fulgor ex ipso bono manans, per ideas, semina, rationes, umbras effusus, animos excitans, ut per bonum in unum redigantur. 2 Pulchritudo est perfectio compositi, ex congruente ordine, mensurâ, et ratione partium consurgens; et venustas inde prodiens gratia dicitur, et res omnes pulchræ gratiosæ. 3 Gratia et pulchritudo ita suaviter animos demulcent, ita vehementer alliciunt, et admirabiliter connectuntur, ut in unum confundantur, et distingui non possunt; et sunt tanquam radii et splendores divini solis in rebus variis vario modo fulgentes. Species pulchritudinis hauriuntur oculis, auribus, aut concipiuntur internâ Nihil hinc magis animos conciliat quam musica, pulchræ picturæ, In reliquis sensibus voluptas, in his pulchritudo et gratia. Convivio Platonis.

mente. ædes, &c.

7 Lib. 4. de divinis.