[4904] “Sola haec inflexit sensus, animumque labentem
Impulit”------

I could hold out no longer.  Such another mishap, but worse, had Stratocles the physician, that blear-eyed old man, muco plenus (so [4905]Prodromus describes him); he was a severe woman’s-hater all his life, foeda et contumeliosa semper in faeminas profatus, a bitter persecutor of the whole sex, humanas aspides et viperas appellabat, he forswore them all still, and mocked them wheresoever he came, in such vile terms, ut matrem et sorores odisses, that if thou hadst heard him, thou wouldst have loathed thine own mother and sisters for his word’s sake.  Yet this old doting fool was taken at last with that celestial and divine look of Myrilla, the daughter of Anticles the gardener, that smirking wench, that he shaved off his bushy beard, painted his face, [4906]curled his hair, wore a laurel crown to cover his bald pate, and for her love besides was ready to run mad.  For the very day that he married he was so furious, ut solis occasum minus expectare posset (a terrible, a monstrous long day), he could not stay till it was night, sed omnibus insalutatis in thalamum festinans irrupit, the meat scarce out of his mouth, without any leave taking, he would needs go presently to bed.  What young man, therefore, if old men be so intemperate, can secure himself?  Who can say I will not be taken with a beautiful object?  I can, I will contain.  No, saith [4907]Lucian of his mistress, she is so fair, that if thou dost but see her, she will stupefy thee, kill thee straight, and, Medusa like, turn thee to a stone; thou canst not pull thine eyes from her, but, as an adamant doth iron, she will carry thee bound headlong whither she will herself, infect thee like a basilisk.  It holds both in men and women.  Dido was amazed at Aeneas’ presence; Obstupuit primo aspectu Sidonia Dido; and as he feelingly verified out of his experience;

[4908] “Quam ego postquam vidi, non ita amavi ut sani solent
        Homines, sed eodem pacto ut insani solent.”

       “I lov’d her not as others soberly,
        But as a madman rageth, so did I.”

So Museus of Leander, nusquam lumen detorquet ab illa; and [4909]Chaucer of Palamon,

       He cast his eye upon Emilia,
        And therewith he blent and cried ha, ha,
        As though he had been stroke unto the hearta.

If you desire to know more particularly what this beauty is, how it doth Influere, how it doth fascinate (for, as all hold, love is a fascination), thus in brief. [4910]"This comeliness or beauty ariseth from the due proportion of the whole, or from each several part.”  For an exact delineation of which, I refer you to poets, historiographers, and those amorous writers, to Lucian’s Images, and Charidemus, Xenophon’s description of Panthea, Petronius Catalectes, Heliodorus Chariclia, Tacius Leucippe, Longus Sophista’s Daphnis and Chloe,