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A42026
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[Apographē storgēs], or, A description of the passion of love demonstrating its original, causes, effects, signes, and remedies / by Will. Greenwood, [Philalethēs].
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Greenwood, Will.
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1657
(1657)
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Wing G1869; ESTC R43220
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76,029
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156
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whose hands the Book might come neither do I write it to be an instrument ready tun'd for every wanton eye tongue and hand to play upon I forbear lest more hurt then good come thereby For Pliny reporteth that Lucullus a most brave General and Captain of great execution lost his life by a Love-potion Love hath us'd against frail hearts Unlawful weapons shooting poyson'd darts That there is things that have power and virtue to cause Love is not to be doubted for the Soul of the World according to Corn Agrip. by its vertue doth make all things that are naturally generated and artificially made fruitfull by infusing into them Celestial properties for the working of these effects then those things themselves not only administred by potions or any other such like way but also when they being conveniently wrapped up and bound to or hanged about the neck or any other way applyed although by never so small a contact do impresse their virtue upon us For by those applications or contacts the accidents of the body and minde are changed causing them to whom they are administred to love and render them that carry them to be beloved But if these be not done under a sutable and proper Constellation you may as well go about to pick stravvs as effect any thing by them no more but verbum sat sapienti Also there are certain seasons which I will conceal for modesties sake when Women though never so forward at other times may be won in the which moment they have neither will to deny nor wit to mistrust such a time is recorded in History a young Gentleman found to obtain the love of the Dutchesse of Millaine such a time a poor Yeoman elected and in it purchased the love of the fairest Lady in Mantua Sed vulgo prodere grande nefas If I have displeased any fools in concealing such things as are to be concealed I hope the wise will hold me excused whilst I proceed to declare unto them in the next Chapter the Power and Effects of Love Of the Power and Effects of Love THe Reader shall pay nothing but his pains in following me whilest I shew him the great power and various effects of Love and yet I think I may as well go about to number the leaves of trees and sands of the Sea the grasse piles upon the Land and the stars in the firmament as enumerate the different effects and disorders that Love produceth in mortals What poyson may be dissolved which Love mingleth not What weapons can be forged and filed to transfix the sides of innocent creatures which Love hammereth and polisheth not in his shop or what precipices are there which Love prepareth not All the mischiefs and crimes which have in former ages been perpetrated Love hath acted and dayly invented them Plato cals it Magnus Daemon or the great Devill for its vehemency and soveraingty over all other passions For saith one I had rather contend with Tygers Wolves Dragons Lions Buls Bears and Gyants then with Love he is so powerfull Regnat in superos jus habet ille Deus saith Ovid he enforceth all to become tributary to him he domineers over all and can make mad and sober whom he list and strikes with sickness and cures whom he list he is of such power and majesty that no creature can withstand him he is to be seen in creatures void of reason for the Pelican gores her brest to feed her young ones and the Storke is not unkinde to feed her old one in her age We are informed by common experience how violently brute Beasts are carryed away with this passion Lions Buls Dogs and Cocks are so furious in this kinde that they will kill one another but especially Harts are so fierce that they may be heard fight at a great distance Pliny saith Fishes pine away for love and wax lean For saith he a Dolphin so loved a Boy that when he dyed the Fish came on Land and so perished This Love is the most fatall plague amongst all the passions it hath the shiffering and heat of Fevers the ach and striking of the Meagrim the rage of Teeth the stupefaction of the Vertigo the furies of Frenzie the black vapors of the Hypochondry the stupidities of the Lethargie the fits of the Mother and Spleen the faintness of the Ptisick the tremblings and palpitations of the heart It is wils darling the triall of patience passions torture the pleasure of melancholy the sport of madnesse the delight of varieties and the deviser of vanities After all this it is made a God called Cupid to whom Poems Elogies Hymnes Songs and Victimes are offered Empire over the heart is given to it There are many millions of Men in the World who would be most fortunate and flourishing if they knew how to avoid the mischievous power of this passion What a sweet poyson is the beauty and comelinesse of one sex to another which entereth in by the eye and maketh a strange havock I wonder not at all why the Scriptures compare it to a Panther a savage and cruell Beast which with teeth teareth those she hath amazed with the mirour-like spots of her skin and drawn to her by the sweet exhalation of her body Love hath walked on Scepters parched the Lawrels of Victors thrown trouble into States Schismes into Churches corruption among Judges and furies into Arms It assaulteth in company in solitude at windowes at Prison gates at Theaters and in Cabinets at sports in a feast at a Comedy and many times at Church like the simple old woman belull'd with a sleepy zeal had a minde to go to Church purposely to take a nap so many of our dainty ones desire nothing more then to go to the Temple to present to the deluded eye a new dresse and captivating Love-tainted hearts and who can assure us against it When it once gets the master-head of reason and passion prevails there is nothing left but wandering of the soul a Fever a perpetual Frenzie a neglect of operations of affaires of functions sadnesse languor and impatience they think businesse is done when 't is but thought on Amor ordinem nescit Love knows nor keeps no order O the inexpressible variousnesse of this Love in some it is sharp and violent in others dull and impetuous in others toyish and wanton in others turbulent and cloudy in others brutish and unnatural in others mute and shamefaced in others perplexed and captious in others light and transitory in others fast and retentive in others fantastick and inconstant in others weak and foppish in others stupid and astonished in others distempered and in some furious and desperate Magna suo ardent furore pectora It inflameth the bloud it weakens the body it wanneth the colour it holloweth the eyes it totally subverts the minde it hath somewhat of being possessed something of Idolatry for those that are thus Love-stricken make lust the idoll of their souls and the person loved
could but as much as with modesty I dare Let that which I borrow be surveyed and then tell me whether I have made good choise of Ornaments to beautifie and set forth the Work for I make others to relate not after my own fancy but as it best falleth out what I cannot so well expresse either through unskill of language or want of judgement I have purposely concealed the Authors of those I have transplanted into my soil and digested them with my own thereby to bridle the rashness of the hasty knit brown'd censurer I will honour him that shall trace and unfeather me by the only distinction of the force and beauty of my discourse Look how my humours or conceits present themselves so I shuffle them up for these are matters which Juniors may not be ignorant of But not to tire you with a tedious preamble like the Pulpit Cuffers of this age and a long discourse argueth folly and delicate words incur the suspicion of obsequiousness I am determined to use neither of them only intreating your milde and charitable censure of this my rude and hirsute labour untill the next occasion I conclude Your Friend W. G. To his Honoured and Ingenious Friend Mr. W. G. on his Description of the Passion of Love WHen Criticks shall but view the title they Will carp at this great enterprize and say It was too boldly done thus to comprize In this small tract Loves passion and true size To set upon it but the learned will Excuse thy little Book and praise thy quill Thy aime being only to instruct the youth In male and female thou discover'st truth Thy pencil in live colours hath limm'd out Erotick passion from its very root Causes Effects and Signes thou here discovers The jealousies and fears of wanton Lovers Physician-like thou here prescribest cures To ease poor Lovers of their Calentures My worthy friend In either Hemisphere Where ere I goe thy praise I 'le eccho there W. B. ERRATA PAge 8. line 19. dele 1. p. 19. l. 9. r. osculis p. 26. l. 19 r. conducted p. 30. l. 2. r. froward p 33. l. 30 r. magno sua p. 38 l. 10. r. torment p. 40. l. 4. r. can'st p. 42. l. 3. â— to l. 14. r. never p. 44. l. 29. r. vollyes p. 48. l. 33. r. Mistresse p. 51. l. 11. r. fairest p. 55. l. 15. r. sighes p. 64. l 7. r. heart p. 70. l. 26. r. specter p. 85. l. 20. r. prae se ferat cum pharetrâ— A DESCRIPTION OF THE PASSIONS OF LOVE Of Love the Original the Universality and the Definition of it THe nature of the whole Universe according to the primo-geniture tendeth to that which we are now determined to treat o f for it was Love that moved God not only to create the World but also to create it beautiful in every part the name whereof in Greek yieldeth a testimony of Loveliness and Beauty {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Mundus signifying a beautiful and well decked Ornament Therefore seeing God hath created and framed it by Love then indubitably Love is dispersed throughout the whole World and invested into every creature as well Mineral and Vegetable as Animal all obeying the statute of the great Law-giver instituted in primo Adami The which causeth a Sympathie or Love in all things Now to demonstrate this in Man He having by nature imprinted in his soul an affected desire or earnest inclination to that which seemeth good is drawn as it were by necessity to search it out in every thing which he esteemeth fair and good finds nothing so apt to be the center of his Affections and to correspond with his nature her creation solely tending to that as Woman For after God had created Man and placed him in the Garden to dresse it It is not good saith he that Man should be alone I will make him an help meet for him to demonstrate how this help was not only meet but also necessary for Man Moses addeth that amongst all those living creatures he found no help meet for Adam For although all the Beasts and the residue of creatures were given to Man to assist him so that being in the state of innocency wherein he was then he might receive all service and ready obedience from them nevertheless he had not yet an help of his kinde for he could not have the familiarity and society with Beasts nor receive such help from them as he could from a Creature of his own nature Now seeing Man was created for this end he could not continue without generation which could not be unless he were joyned to a Woman which was before his fall a most pure and innocent love But now because of his corruption his affections are irregular and are made extreme there is nothing so greatly exciteth and carryeth away his minde nor cometh more neer to his destruction then this foolish passion endangereth his life To prove which many presidents might be produced Galacea of Mantua declairing oftentimes to a Maid of Pavia whom he courted and made love to that he would suffer a thousand deaths for her sake which she imagining was but spoken coggingly and in jest commanded him to cast himself into the River which he presently performed and was drowned But we shall more fitly alleadge such testimonies of the effects of Love when we discourse more particularly of every Vice that proceedeth from them Yet as well as Man this amity as I have said is ingraffed into every creature this love appetite or universal inclination or complacency given to them at the creation likewise and inciteth them to desire and search out that which is consentaneous to and agreeth and sympathizeth with their own nature so that there is nothing so insensible which hath not in it self this amity innate propending and moving to its proper object as Amber and Straw Iron and Adamant and the Palme-trees of both sexes express not a sympathy only but a love passion according to that of the Poet Vivunt in Venerem frondes omnisque vicissim Foelix arbor amat nutant ad mutua Palmae Foedera Populeo suspirat Populus ictu Et Platano Platanus Alnoque assibilat Alous Which is thus paraphraz'd Leaves sing their loves each complemental tree In Courtship bowes the amorous Palmes we see Confirm their leagues with nods Poplers inchaine Their armes the Plane infettereth the Plane Now the better to illustrate this by example Florentius tels us of a Palme that loved most fervently and would receive if properly it may be so said no consolation until her Love applyed himself to her you might see the two trees bend and of their own accord stretch out their boughes to embrace and kiss each other They saith he marry one another and when the winde brings their odour unto each other they are marvellously affected they will be sick and pine away for love which the husbandman perceiving strokes his hand on those Palmes which grow