The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.

The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.
they are fatally driven on, and by reason of their hot blood, idle life, full diet, &c., are forced to dote upon them that come next.  And many times those which at the first sight cannot fancy or affect each other, but are harsh and ready to disagree, offended with each other’s carriage, like Benedict and Beatrice in the [5056]comedy, and in whom they find many faults, by this living together in a house, conference, kissing, colling, and such like allurements, begin at last to dote insensibly one upon another.

It was the greatest motive that Potiphar’s wife had to dote upon Joseph, and [5057]Clitiphon upon Leucippe his uncle’s daughter, because the plague being at Bizance, it was his fortune for a time to sojourn with her, to sit next her at the table, as he tells the tale himself in Tatius, lib. 2. (which, though it be but a fiction, is grounded upon good observation, and doth well express the passions of lovers), he had opportunity to take her by the hand, and after a while to kiss, and handle her paps, &c., [5058] which made him almost mad.  Ismenias the orator makes the like confession in Eustathius, lib. 1, when he came first to Sosthene’s house, and sat at table with Cratistes his friend, Ismene, Sosthene’s daughter, waiting on them “with her breasts open, arms half bare,” [5059]_Nuda pedem, discincta sinum, spoliata lacertos_; after the Greek fashion in those times,—­[5060] nudos media plus parte lacertos, as Daphne was when she fled from Phoebus (which moved him much), was ever ready to give attendance on him, to fill him drink, her eyes were never off him, rogabundi oculi, those speaking eyes, courting eyes, enchanting eyes; but she was still smiling on him, and when they were risen, that she had got a little opportunity, [5061]"she came and drank to him, and withal trod upon his toes, and would come and go, and when she could not speak for the company, she would wring his hand,” and blush when she met him:  and by this means first she overcame him (bibens amorem hauriebam simul), she would kiss the cup and drink to him, and smile, “and drink where he drank on that side of the cup,” by which mutual compressions, kissings, wringing of hands, treading of feet, &c. Ipsam mihi videbar sorbillare virginem, I sipped and sipped so long, till at length I was drunk in love upon a sudden.  Philocharinus, in [5062] Aristaenetus, met a fair maid by chance, a mere stranger to him, he looked back at her, she looked back at him again, and smiled withal.

[5063] “Ille dies lethi primus, primusque malorum
Causa fuit.”------

It was the sole cause of his farther acquaintance, and love that undid him. [5064]_O nullis tutum credere blanditiis_.

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The Anatomy of Melancholy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.