[5425] “Ipsa comes veniam, neque me salebrosa
movebunt
Saxa,
nec obliquo dente timendus aper.”
As Phaedra to Hippolitus. No danger shall affright, for if that be true the poets feign, Love is the son of Mars and Venus; as he hath delights, pleasures, elegances from his mother, so hath he hardness, valour, and boldness from his father. And ’tis true that Bernard hath; Amore nihil mollius, nihil volentius, nothing so boisterous, nothing so tender as love. If once, therefore, enamoured, he will go, run, ride many a mile to meet her, day and night, in a very dark night, endure scorching heat, cold, wait in frost and snow, rain, tempest, till his teeth chatter in his head, those northern winds and showers cannot cool or quench his flame of love. Intempesta nocte non deterretur, he will, take my word, sustain hunger, thirst, Penetrabit omnia, perrumpet omnia, “love will find out a way,” through thick and thin he will to her, Expeditissimi montes videntur omnes tranabiles, he will swim through an ocean, ride post over the Alps, Apennines, or Pyrenean hills,
[5426] “Ignem marisque fluctus, atque turbines Venti paratus est transire,”------
though it rain daggers with their points downward, light or dark, all is one: (Roscida per tenebras Faunus ad antra venit), for her sweet sake he will undertake Hercules’s twelve labours, endure, hazard, &c., he feels it not. [5427]"What shall I say,” saith Haedus, “of their great dangers they undergo, single combats they undertake, how they will venture their lives, creep in at windows, gutters, climb over walls to come to their sweethearts,” (anointing the doors and hinges with oil, because they should not creak, tread soft, swim, wade, watch, &c.), “and if they be surprised, leap out at windows, cast themselves headlong down, bruising or breaking their legs or arms, and sometimes loosing life itself,” as Calisto did for his lovely Melibaea. Hear some of their own confessions, protestations, complaints, proffers, expostulations, wishes, brutish attempts, labours in this kind. Hercules served Omphale, put on an apron, took a distaff and spun; Thraso the soldier was so submissive to Thais, that he was resolved to do whatever she enjoined. [5428]_Ego me Thaidi dedam; et faciam quod jubet_, I am at her service. Philostratus in an epistle to his mistress, [5429]"I am ready to die sweetheart if it be thy will; allay his thirst whom thy star hath scorched and undone, the fountains and rivers deny no man drink that comes; the fountain doth not say thou shalt not drink, nor the apple thou shalt not eat, nor the fair meadow walk not in me, but thou alone wilt not let me come near thee, or see thee, contemned and despised I die for grief.” Polienus, when his mistress Circe did but frown upon him in Petronius, drew his sword, and bade her [5430]kill, stab, or whip him to death, he would strip himself naked, and not resist. Another will take a journey