Read Parthenium in Eroticis, and Plutarch’s amatorias narrationes, or love stories, all tending almost to this purpose.  Valleriola, lib. 2. observ. 7, hath a lamentable narration of a merchant, his patient, [5584] “that raving through impatience of love, had he not been watched, would every while have offered violence to himself.”  Amatus Lusitanus, cent. 3. car. 56, hath such [5585]another story, and Felix Plater, med. observ. lib. 1. a third of a young [5586]gentleman that studied physic, and for the love of a doctor’s daughter, having no hope to compass his desire, poisoned himself, [5587]anno 1615.  A barber in Frankfort, because his wench was betrothed to another, cut his own throat. [5588]At Neoburg, the same year, a young man, because he could not get her parents’ consent, killed his sweetheart, and afterward himself, desiring this of the magistrate, as he gave up the ghost, that they might be buried in one grave, Quodque rogis superest una requiescat in urna, which [5589] Gismunda besought of Tancredus, her father, that she might be in like sort buried with Guiscardus, her lover, that so their bodies might lie together in the grave, as their souls wander about [5590]_Campos lugentes_ in the Elysian fields,—­quos durus amor crudeli tabe peredit, [5591]in a myrtle grove

[5592]  ------“et myrtea circum
Sylva tegit:  curae non ipsa in morte relinquunt.”

You have not yet heard the worst, they do not offer violence to themselves in this rage of lust, but unto others, their nearest and dearest friends. [5593]Catiline killed his only son, misitque ad orci pallida, lethi obnubila, obsita tenebris loca, for the love of Aurelia Oristella, quod ejus nuptias vivo filio recusaret. [5594]Laodice, the sister of Mithridates, poisoned her husband, to give content to a base fellow whom she loved. [5595]Alexander, to please Thais, a concubine of his, set Persepolis on fire. [5596]Nereus’ wife, a widow, and lady of Athens, for the love of a Venetian gentleman, betrayed the city; and he for her sake murdered his wife, the daughter of a nobleman in Venice. [5597]Constantine Despota made away Catherine, his wife, turned his son Michael and his other children out of doors, for the love of a base scrivener’s daughter in Thessalonica, with whose beauty he was enamoured. [5598]Leucophria betrayed the city where she dwelt, for her sweetheart’s sake, that was in the enemies’ camp. [5599]Pithidice, the governor’s daughter of Methinia, for the love of Achilles, betrayed the whole island to him, her father’s enemy. [5600]Diognetus did as much in the city where he dwelt, for the love of Policrita, Medea for the love of Jason, she taught him how to tame the fire-breathing brass-feeted bulls, and kill the mighty dragon that kept the golden fleece, and tore her little brother Absyrtus in pieces, that her father.  Aethes might have something to detain him, while she ran away with her beloved Jason, &c.  Such acts and scenes hath this tragicomedy of love.