There is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest of the philosophers. I was just now ruminating on the excellent saying one of the ancients alleges for the contempt of life: "No good can bring pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand prepared."
"In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,"
["The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it, are equal."--Seneca, Ep., 98.] meaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us if we are in fear of losing it. It might, however, be said, on the contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly, and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less assured and fear to have it taken from us: for it is evident, as fire burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is more obstinate by being opposed:
"Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris, Non esses, Danae, de Jove facta parens;"
["If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae", have been made a mother by Jove."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.] and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as rarity and difficulty:
"Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit."
["The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that should deter it."--Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]
"Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent."
["Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended with trouble."--Martial, iv. 37.]
To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of Lacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that it should be as great a shame to take them in bed together as committing with others. The difficulty of assignations, the danger of surprise, the shame of the morning, "Et languor, et silentium, Et latere petitus imo Spiritus:"
[And languor, and silence, and sighs, coming from the innermost heart."--Hor., Epod., xi. 9.] these are what give the piquancy to the sauce. How many very wantonly pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the works on love? Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled. The courtesan Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the prints of her teeth. --[Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. i.]
"Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem Corporis, et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis . . .
Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere ad ipsum, Quodcunque est, rabies unde illae germina surgunt."
["What they have sought they dress closely, and cause pain; on the lips fix the teeth, and every kiss indents: urged by latent stimulus the part to wound"--Lucretius, i. 4.]
And so it is in everything: difficulty gives all things their estimation; the people of the march of Ancona more readily make their vows to St.
James, and those of Galicia to Our Lady of Loreto; they make wonderful to-do at Liege about the baths of Lucca, and in Tuscany about those of Aspa: there are few Romans seen in the fencing school of Rome, which is full of French. That great Cato also, as much as us, nauseated his wife whilst she was his, and longed for her when in the possession of another.
I was fain to turn out into the paddock an old horse, as he was not to be governed when he smelt a mare: the facility presently sated him as towards his own, but towards strange mares, and the first that passed by the pale of his pasture, he would again fall to his importunate neighings and his furious heats as before. Our appetite contemns and passes by what it has in possession, to run after that it has not:
"Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat."
[" He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her who flees from him."--Horace, Sat., i. 2, 108.]
To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't:
"Nisi to servare puellam Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea:"
["Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin to be no longer mine."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 47.] to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt. Want and abundance fall into the same inconvenience:
"Tibi quod superest, mihi quod desit, dolet."
["Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want troubles me.--"Terence, Phoym., i. 3, 9.]
Desire and fruition equally afflict us. The rigors of mistresses are troublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so; forasmuch as discontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing desired, heat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a blunt, dull, stupid, tired, and slothful passion:
"Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem."
["She who. would long retain her power must use her lover ill."--Ovid, Amor., ii. 19, 33]
"Contemnite, amantes:
Sic hodie veniet, si qua negavit heri."
["Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you yesterday.--"Propertius, ii. 14, 19.]
Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her face, but to enhance it to her lovers? Why have they veiled, even below the heels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every one desires to see? Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one over another, the parts where our desires and their own have their principal seat? And to what serve those great bastion farthingales, with which our ladies fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite and to draw us on by removing them farther from us?
"Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri."
["She flies to the osiers, and desires beforehand to be seen going."--Virgil, Eclog., iii. 65.]
"Interdum tunica duxit operta moram."
["The hidden robe has sometimes checked love."--Propertius, ii. 15, 6.]