[28]
The pleasure of the act of love is gross and brief,
and love once consummated brings loathing after it. Let us then not rush blindly
thither straightway like lustful beasts, for love sickens and the flame dies down;
but even so, even so, let us keep eternal holi[p. 361] day, and lie with thy
lips to mine. No toil is here and no shame: in this, delight has been, and is, and
long shall be; in this there is no diminution, but a beginning everlastingly.
Petronius Arbiter. Petronius. Michael Heseltine. London. William Heinemann. 1913.
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