Scaliger calls the eyes, [4937]"Cupid’s arrows; the tongue, the lightning of love; the paps, the tents:”  [4938]Balthazar Castilio, the causes, the chariots, the lamps of love,

------“aemula lumina stellis,
Lumina quae possent sollicitare deos.”

       “Eyes emulating stars in light,
        Enticing gods at the first sight;”

Love’s orators, Petronius.

       “O blandos oculos, et o facetos,
        Et quadam propria nota loquaces
        Illic est Venus, et leves amores,
        Atque ipsa in medio sedet voluptas.”

       “O sweet and pretty speaking eyes,
        Where Venus, love, and pleasure lies.”

Love’s torches, touch-box, naphtha and matches, [4939]Tibullus.

       “Illius ex oculis quum vult exurere divos,
        Accendit geminas lampades acer amor.”

       “Tart Love when he will set the gods on fire,
        Lightens the eyes as torches to desire.”

Leander, at the first sight of Hero’s eyes, was incensed, saith Musaeus.

       “Simul in [4940]oculorum radiis crescebat fax amorum,
        Et cor fervebat invecti ignis impetu;
        Pulchritudo enim Celebris immaculatae foeminae,
        Acutior hominibus est veloci sagitta. 
        Oculos vero via est, ab oculi ictibus
        Vulnus dilabitur, et in praecordia viri manat.”

       “Love’s torches ’gan to burn first in her eyes. 
        And set his heart on fire which never dies: 
        For the fair beauty of a virgin pure
        Is sharper than a dart, and doth inure
        A deeper wound, which pierceth to the heart
        By the eyes, and causeth such a cruel smart.”

[4941]A modern poet brings in Amnon complaining of Thamar,

------“et me fascino
Occidit ille risus et formae lepos,
Ille nitor, illa gratia, et verus decor,
Illae aemulantes purpuram, et [4942]rosas genae,
Oculique vinctaeque aureo nodo comae.”------

       “It was thy beauty, ’twas thy pleasing smile,
        Thy grace and comeliness did me beguile;
        Thy rose-like cheeks, and unto purple fair
        Thy lovely eyes and golden knotted hair.”

[4943]Philostratus Lemnius cries out on his mistress’s basilisk eyes, ardentes faces, those two burning-glasses, they had so inflamed his soul, that no water could quench it.  “What a tyranny” (saith he), “what a penetration of bodies is this! thou drawest with violence, and swallowest me up, as Charybdis doth sailors with thy rocky eyes:  he that falls into this gulf of love, can never get out.”  Let this be the corollary then, the strongest beams of beauty are still darted from the eyes.

[4944] “Nam quis lumina tanta, tanta
        Posset luminibus suis tueri,
        Non statim trepidansque, palpitansque,
        Prae desiderii aestuantis aura?” &c.

       “For who such eyes with his can see,
        And not forthwith enamour’d be!”