[5644] “Et fugitare decet simulacra et pabula amoris,
        Abstinere sibi atque alio convertere mentem.”

“Gaze not on a maid,” saith Siracides, “turn away thine eyes from a beautiful woman,” c. 9. v. 5. 7, 8. averte oculos, saith David, or if thou dost see them, as Ficinus adviseth, let not thine eye be intentus ad libidinem, do not intend her more than the rest:  for as [5645]Propertius holds, Ipse alimenta sibi maxima praebet amor, love as a snow ball enlargeth itself by sight:  but as Hierome to Nepotian, aut aequaliter ama, aut aequaliter ignora, either see all alike, or let all alone; make a league with thine eyes, as [5646]Job did, and that is the safest course, let all alone, see none of them.  Nothing sooner revives, [5647]"or waxeth sore again,” as Petrarch holds, “than love doth by sight.”  “As pomp renews ambition; the sight of gold, covetousness; a beauteous object sets on fire this burning lust.” Et multum saliens incitat unda sitim. The sight of drink makes one dry, and the sight of meat increaseth appetite.  ’Tis dangerous therefore to see.  A [5648]young gentleman in merriment would needs put on his mistress’s clothes, and walk abroad alone, which some of her suitors espying, stole him away for her that he represented.  So much can sight enforce.  Especially if he have been formerly enamoured, the sight of his mistress strikes him into a new fit, and makes him rave many days after.

[5649]  ------“Infirmis causa pusilla nocet,
Ut pene extinctum cinerem si sulphure tangas,
Vivet, et ex minimo maximus ignis erit: 
Sic nisi vitabis quicquid renovabit amorem,
Flamma recrudescet, quae modo nulla fuit.”

       “A sickly man a little thing offends,
          As brimstone doth a fire decayed renew,
        And makes it burn afresh, doth love’s dead flames,
          If that the former object it review.”

Or, as the poet compares it to embers in ashes, which the wind blows, [5650]_ut solet a ventis_, &c., a scald head (as the saying is) is soon broken, dry wood quickly kindles, and when they have been formerly wounded with sight, how can they by seeing but be inflamed?  Ismenias acknowledged as much of himself, when he had been long absent, and almost forgotten his mistress, [5651]"at the first sight of her, as straw in a fire, I burned afresh, and more than ever I did before.” [5652]"Chariclia was as much moved at the sight of her dear Theagines, after he had been a great stranger.” [5653]Mertila, in Aristaenetus, swore she would never love Pamphilus again, and did moderate her passion, so long as he was absent; but the next time he came in presence, she could not contain, effuse amplexa attrectari se sinit, &c., she broke her vow, and did profusely embrace him.  Hermotinus, a young man (in the said [5654]author) is all out as unstaid, he had forgot his mistress quite, and by his friends was well weaned from her love; but seeing her by chance, agnovit