True it is, that the poets, according to their sportive
humor, seem to write many things in merriment concerning
this Deity, and to make him the subject of their lascivious
songs in the height of their revelling jollity, making but
little serious mention of him; whether out of judgment
and reason, or being assured of the truth by divine inspiration, is the question. Among the rest, there is one thing
which they say very oddly concerning the birth and generation of this God:
Young Zephyr, doting on his golden hair,
At last the silver-slippered Iris won;
And thus embraced, at length she bore a son,
Of all the Gods the shrewdest and most fair:
1
unless the grammarians have likewise persuaded you, by
saying that this fable was invented to set forth the variety
and gay diversity of passions that attend on love.
To whom Daphnaeus: To what other end or purpose
could it be? Hear me then. said my father; for 'tis no
more than what the celestial meteor constrains us to say.
The affection of the sight in the case of the rainbow (or
Iris) is caused by reflection. For when the sight lights
upon a cloud somewhat of a dewy substance, but smooth,
[p. 297]
and moderately thick withal, and we behold the repercussion of the sunbeams upon it, together with the light and
splendor about the sun, it begets an opinion in us that the
apparition is in the cloud. In like manner, this same
subtle invention of love-sophistry in generous and noble
souls causes a repercussion of the memory from objects
that here appear and are called beautiful, to the beauty
really divine, truly amiable and happy, and by all admired.
But most people pursuing and taking hold of the fancied
image of this beauty in boys and women, as it were seen in
a mirror, reap nothing more assured and certain than a
little pleasure mixed with pain. But this seems to be no
more than a delirium or dizziness of the vulgar sort, beholding their empty and unsatisfied desires in the clouds,
as it were in so many shadows; like children who, thinking to catch the rainbow in their hands, snatch at the apparition that presents itself before their eyes. But a
generous and modest lover observes another method; for
his contemplations reflect only on that beauty which is
divine and perceptible by the understanding; but lighting
upon the beauty of a visible body, and making use of it as
a kind of organ of the memory, he embraces and loves,
and by conversation argumenting his joy and satisfaction
still more and more inflames his understanding. But
neither do these lovers conversing with bodies rest satisfied
in this world with a desire and admiration of this same
light; neither when they are arrived at another world after
death, do they return hither again as fugitives, to hover about
the doors and mansions of new-married people and disturb
their dreams with ghosts and visions; which sort of visions
really come only from men and women given to pleasure
and corporeal delights, who by no means deserve the name
and characters of true lovers. Whereas a lover truly
chaste and amorous, being got to the true mansion of
beauty, and there conversing with it as much as it is lawful
[p. 298]
for him to do, mounted upon the wings of chaste desire,
becomes pure and hallowed; and being initiated into sacred
orders, continues dancing and sporting about his Deity, till
returning again to the meadows of the Moon and Venus,
and there laid asleep, he becomes ready for a new nativity.
But these are points too high for the discourse which we
have proposed to ourselves.
To return therefore to our purpose; Love, according to
Euripides, with all the rest of the Gods, delights
When mortals here his honored name invoke;2
on the other side, he is no less offended when any affront
or contempt is put upon him, as he is most kind and benign to those that entertain him with proper respect. For
neither does Jupiter surnamed the Hospitable so severely
prosecute injuries done to strangers and suppliants, nor is
Jupiter Genitalis so rigorous in accomplishing the curses
of parents disobeyed, as Love is to listen to the complaints
of injured lovers; being the scourger and punisher of
proud, ill-natured, and ill-bred people. For, not to mention
Euxynthetus and Leucomantis, at this day in Cyprus called
the Peeper, 'tis a hundred to one but you have heard of the
punishment inflicted upon Gorgo the Cretan, not much unlike to that of Leucomantis, only that Gorgo was turned
into a stone as she looked out of a window to see her love
going to his grave. With this Gorgo Asander fell in love,
a young gentleman virtuous and nobly descended, but reduced from a flourishing estate to extremity of poverty.
However, he did not think so meanly of himself but that,
being her kinsman, he courted this Gorgo for a wife,
though she had many suitors at the same time by reason
of her great fortune; and he so carried this business that,
notwithstanding his numerous and wealthy rivals, he had
gained the good-will of all her guardians and nearest relations.
[p. 299]
