------“Non tam grandes
Gargara culmos, quot demerso
Pectore curas longa nexas
Usque catena, vel quae penitus
Crudelis amor vulnera miscet.”

       “Mount Gargarus hath not so many stems
        As lover’s breast hath grievous wounds,
        And linked cares, which love compounds.”

When the King of Babylon would have punished a courtier of his, for loving of a young lady of the royal blood, and far above his fortunes, [5344] Apollonius in presence by all means persuaded to let him alone; “For to love and not enjoy was a most unspeakable torment,” no tyrant could invent the like punishment; as a gnat at a candle, in a short space he would consume himself.  For love is a perpetual [5345]_flux, angor animi_, a warfare, militat omni amans, a grievous wound is love still, and a lover’s heart is Cupid’s quiver, a consuming [5346]fire, [5347]_accede ad hunc ignem_, &c. an inextinguishable fire.

[5348]  ------“alitur et crescit malum,
Et ardet intus, qualis Aetnaeo vapor
Exundat antro”------

As Aetna rageth, so doth love, and more than Aetna or any material fire.

[5349]  ------“Nam amor saepe Lypareo
Vulcano ardentiorem flammam incendere solet.”

Vulcan’s flames are but smoke to this.  For fire, saith [5350]Xenophon, burns them alone that stand near it, or touch it; but this fire of love burneth and scorcheth afar off, and is more hot and vehement than any material fire:  [5351]_Ignis in igne furit_, ’tis a fire in a fire, the quintessence of fire.  For when Nero burnt Rome, as Calisto urgeth, he fired houses, consumed men’s bodies and goods; but this fire devours the soul itself, “and [5352]one soul is worth a hundred thousand bodies.”  No water can quench this wild fire.

[5353]  ------“In pectus coecos absorbuit ignes,
Ignes qui nec aqua perimi potuere, nec imbre
Diminui, neque graminibus, magicisque susurris.”

       “A fire he took into his breast,
          Which water could not quench. 
        Nor herb, nor art, nor magic spells
          Could quell, nor any drench.”

Except it be tears and sighs, for so they may chance find a little ease.

[5354] “Sic candentia colla, sic patens frons,
        Sic me blanda tui Neaera ocelli,
        Sic pares minio genae perurunt,
        Ut ni me lachrymae rigent perennes,
        Totus in tenues eam favillas.”

       “So thy white neck, Neaera, me poor soul
        Doth scorch, thy cheeks, thy wanton eyes that roll: 
        Were it not for my dropping tears that hinder,
        I should be quite burnt up forthwith to cinder.”

This fire strikes like lightning, which made those old Grecians paint Cupid, in many of their [5355]temples, with Jupiter’s thunderbolts in his hands; for it wounds, and cannot be perceived how, whence it came, where it pierced. [5356]_Urimur, et coecum, pectora vulnus habent_, and can hardly be discerned at first.