Читать книгу Love Potions Through the Ages: A Study of Amatory Devices and Mores онлайн

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Why do the strickt-liv’d Cato’s of the age,

At my familiar lines so gravely rage?

In measures loosely plain, blunt satyr flows,

And all the people so sincerely shows.

For whose a stranger to the joys of love?

Who, can’t the thoughts of such lost pleasures move?

Such Epicurus own’d the chiefest bliss,

And such fives the gods themselves possess.

There’s nothing more deceitful than a ridiculous opinion, nor more ridiculous, than an affected gravity. After this, I call’d Gito to me; and “tell me,” said I, “but sincerely, whether Ascyltos, when he took you from me, pursu’d the injury that night, or was chastly content to lye alone?” The boy with his finger at his eyes, took a solemn oath, that he had no incivility offer’d him by Ascyltos.

This drove me to my wits end, nor did I well know what to say: For why, I consider’d, shou’d I think of the twice mischievous accident that lately befell me? At last, I did what I cou’d to recover my vigor: and willing to invoke the assistance of the gods, I went out to pay my devotions to Priapus, and as wretched as I was, did not despair, but kneeling at the entry of the chamber, thus beseecht the god: