The Essays, vol 11 | Page 8

burns with
greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is more
obstinate by being opposed:
"Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris, Non esses, Danae, de
Jove facta parens;"
["If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have
been made a mother by Jove."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]
and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety
which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as
rarity and difficulty:
"Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit."
["The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that should
deter it."--Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]
"Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent."
["Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended with
trouble."--Martial, iv. 37.]
To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people
of Lacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that
it should be as great a shame to take them in bed together as
committing with others. The difficulty of assignations, the danger of
surprise, the shame of the morning,
"Et languor, et silentium, Et latere petitus imo Spiritus:"
["And languor, and silence, and sighs, coming from the innermost
heart."--Hor., Epod., xi. 9.]
these are what give the piquancy to the sauce. How many very
wantonly pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest
language of the works on love? Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened
with pain; it is much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled.

The courtesan Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made
him wear the prints of her teeth.--[Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. i.]
"Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem Corporis, et dentes
inlidunt saepe labellis . . . Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere ad
ipsum, Quodcunque est, rabies unde illae germina surgunt."
["What they have sought they dress closely, and cause pain; on the lips
fix the teeth, and every kiss indents: urged by latent stimulus the part to
wound"--Lucretius, i. 4.]
And so it is in everything: difficulty gives all things their estimation;
the people of the march of Ancona more readily make their vows to St.
James, and those of Galicia to Our Lady of Loreto; they make
wonderful to-do at Liege about the baths of Lucca, and in Tuscany
about those of Aspa: there are few Romans seen in the fencing school
of Rome, which is full of French. That great Cato also, as much as us,
nauseated his wife whilst she was his, and longed for her when in the
possession of another. I was fain to turn out into the paddock an old
horse, as he was not to be governed when he smelt a mare: the facility
presently sated him as towards his own, but towards strange mares, and
the first that passed by the pale of his pasture, he would again fall to his
importunate neighings and his furious heats as before. Our appetite
contemns and passes by what it has in possession, to run after that it
has not:
"Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat."
[" He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her who flees from
him."--Horace, Sat., i. 2, 108.]
To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't:
"Nisi to servare puellam Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea:"
["Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin to be no
longer mine."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 47.]

to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt. Want and
abundance fall into the same inconvenience:
"Tibi quod superest, mihi quod desit, dolet."
["Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want troubles
me.--"Terence, Phoym., i. 3, 9.]
Desire and fruition equally afflict us. The rigors of mistresses are
troublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so; forasmuch as
discontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing
desired, heat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a blunt,
dull, stupid, tired, and slothful passion:
"Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem."
["She who. would long retain her power must use her lover ill." --Ovid,
Amor., ii. 19, 33]
"Contemnite, amantes: Sic hodie veniet, si qua negavit heri."
["Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you
yesterday.--"Propertius, ii. 14, 19.]
Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her
face, but to enhance it to her lovers? Why have they veiled, even below
the heels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every
one desires to see? Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one
over another, the parts where our desires and their own have their
principal seat? And to what