your eye drew him down;” and in another place:  “the cup is filled with joy because it is allowed to touch the beautiful lips of Zenophila.  Would that she drank my soul in one draught, pressing firmly her lips on mine” (a passage which Tennyson imitated in “he once drew with one long kiss my whole soul through my lips").  “Not stone only, but steel would be melted by Eros,” cried Antipater of Sidon.  Burton tells of a cold bath that suddenly smoked and was very hot when Coelia came into it; and an anonymous modern poet cries: 

     Look yonder, where
     She washes in the lake! 
     See while she swims,
     The water from her purer limbs
     New clearness take!

The Persian poet, Saadi, tells the story of a young enamoured Dervish who knew the whole Koran by heart, but forgot his very alphabet in presence of the princess.  She tried to encourage him, but he only found tongue to say, “It is strange that with thee present I should have speech left me;” and having said that he uttered a loud groan and surrendered his soul up to God.

To lovers nothing seems impossible.  They “vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers,” as Troilus knew.  Mephistopheles exclaims: 

     So ein verliebter Thor verpufft
     Euch Sonne, Mond und alle Sterne
     Zum Zeitvertreib dem Liebchen in die Luft.

(Your foolish lover squanders sun and moon and all the stars to entertain his darling for an hour.) Romantic hyperbole is the realism of love.  The lover is blind as to the beloved’s faults, and color-blind as to her merits, seeing them differently from normal persons and all in a rosy hue.  She really seems to him superior to every one in the world, and he would be ready any moment to join the ranks of the mediaeval knights who translated amorous hyperbole into action, challenging every knight to battle unless he acknowledged the superior beauty of his lady.  A great romancer is the lover; he retouches the negative of his beloved, in his imagination, removes freckles, moulds the nose, rounds the cheeks, refines the lips, and adds lustre to the eyes until his ideal is realized and he sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.

...  For to be wise and love
Exceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.

VII.  PRIDE

I dare not ask a kiss,
I dare not beg a smile,
Lest having that or this
I might grow proud the while.
—­Herrick.

Let fools great Cupid’s yoke disdain,
Loving their own wild freedom better,
Whilst proud of my triumphant chain
I sit, and court my beauteous fetter.
—­Beaumont.

COMIC SIDE OF LOVE

“There was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person beloved,” said Bacon; “and therefore it is well said that it is impossible to love and be wise.”