“Rosa honor decusque florum,
        Rosa flos odorque divum,
        Hominum rosa est voluptas,
        Decus illa Gratiarum,
        Florente amoris hora,
        Rosa suavium Diones,” &c.

       “Rose the fairest of all flowers. 
        Rose delight of higher powers,
        Rose the joy of mortal men,
        Rose the pleasure of fine women,
        Rose the Graces’ ornament,
        Rose Dione’s sweet content.”

To this effect the lovely virgin with a melodious air upon her golden wired harp or lute, I know not well whether, played and sang, and that transported him beyond himself, “and that ravished his heart.”  It was Jason’s discourse as much as his beauty, or any other of his good parts, which delighted Medea so much.

[5086]  ------“Delectabatur enim
Animus simul forma dulcibusque verbis.”

It was Cleopatra’s sweet voice and pleasant speech which inveigled Antony, above the rest of her enticements. Verba ligant hominem, ut taurorum cornua funes, “as bulls’ horns are bound with ropes, so are men’s hearts with pleasant words.”  “Her words burn as fire,” Eccles. ix. 10.  Roxalana bewitched Suleiman the Magnificent, and Shore’s wife by this engine overcame Edward the Fourth, [5087]_Omnibus una omnes surripuit Veneres_.  The wife of Bath in Chaucer confesseth all this out of her experience.

       Some folk desire us for riches. 
        Some for shape, some for fairness,
        Some for that she can sing or dance. 
        Some for gentleness, or for dalliance.

[5088]Peter Aretine’s Lucretia telleth as much and more of herself, “I counterfeited honesty, as if I had been virgo virginissima, more than a vestal virgin, I looked like a wife, I was so demure and chaste, I did add such gestures, tunes, speeches, signs and motions upon all occasions, that my spectators and auditors were stupefied, enchanted, fastened all to their places, like so many stocks and stones.”  Many silly gentlewomen are fetched over in like sort, by a company of gulls and swaggering companions, that frequently belie noblemen’s favours, rhyming Coribantiasmi, Thrasonean Rhadomantes or Bombomachides, that have nothing in them but a few player’s ends and compliments, vain braggadocians, impudent intruders, that can discourse at table of knights and lords’ combats, like [5089]Lucian’s Leonitiscus, of other men’s travels, brave adventures, and such common trivial news, ride, dance, sing old ballad tunes, and wear their clothes in fashion, with a good grace; a fine sweet gentleman, a proper man, who could not love him!  She will have him though all her friends say no, though she beg with him.  Some again are incensed by reading amorous toys, Amadis de Gaul, Palmerin de Oliva, the Knight of the Sun, &c., or hearing such tales of [5090]lovers, descriptions of their persons, lascivious discourses, such as Astyanassa, Helen’s waiting-woman, by the report of Suidas,