So mortal was their malice and so sore,
That both resolved (than yield) to die before.
Not courage only doth love add, but as I said, subtlety, wit, and many pretty devices, [5501]Namque dolos inspirat amor, fraudesque ministrat, [5502]Jupiter in love with Leda, and not knowing how to compass his desire, turned himself into a swan, and got Venus to pursue him in the likeness of an eagle; which she doing, for shelter, he fled to Leda's lap, et in ejus gremio se collocavit, Leda embraced him, and so fell fast asleep, sed dormientem Jupiter compressit, by which means Jupiter had his will. Infinite such tricks love can devise, such fine feats in abundance, with wisdom and wariness, [5503]quis fallere possit amantem. All manner of civility, decency, compliment and good behaviour, plus solis et leporis, polite graces and merry conceits. Boccaccio hath a pleasant tale to this purpose, which he borrowed from the Greeks, and which Beroaldus hath turned into Latin, Bebelius in verse, of Cymon and Iphigenia. This Cymon was a fool, a proper man of person, and the governor of Cyprus' son. but a very ass, insomuch that his father being ashamed of him, sent him to a farmhouse he had in the country, to be brought up. Where by chance, as his manner was, walking alone, he espied a gallant young gentlewoman, named Iphigenia, a burgomaster's daughter of Cyprus, with her maid, by a brook side in a little thicket, fast asleep in her smock, where she had newly bathed herself: “When [5504]Cymon saw her, he stood leaning on his staff, gaping on her immovable, and in amaze;” at last he fell so far in love with the glorious object, that he began to rouse himself up, to bethink what he was, would needs follow her to the city, and for her sake began to be civil, to learn to sing and dance, to play on instruments, and got all those gentlemanlike qualities and compliments in a short space, which his friends were most glad of. In brief, he became, from an idiot and a clown, to be one of the most complete gentlemen in Cyprus, did many valorous exploits, and all for the love of mistress Iphigenia. In a word, I may say thus much of them all, let them be never so clownish, rude and horrid, Grobians and sluts, if once they be in love they will be most neat and spruce; for, [5505]Omnibus rebus, et nitidis nitoribus antevenit amor, they will follow the fashion, begin to trick up, and to have a good opinion of themselves, venustatem enim mater Venus; a ship is not so long a rigging as a young gentlewoman a trimming up herself against her sweetheart comes. A painter's shop, a flowery meadow, no so gracious aspect in nature's storehouse as a young maid, nubilis puella, a Novitsa or Venetian bride, that looks for a husband, or a young man that is her suitor; composed looks, composed gait, clothes, gestures, actions, all composed; all the graces, elegances in the world are in her face. Their best robes, ribands, chains, jewels, lawns, linens, laces, spangles, must come on, [5506]praeter quam res patitur student elegantiae, they are beyond all measure coy, nice, and too curious on a sudden; 'tis all their study, all their business, how to wear their clothes neat, to be polite and terse, and to set out themselves. No sooner doth a young man see his sweetheart coming, but he smugs up himself, pulls up his cloak now fallen about his shoulders, ties his garters, points, sets his band, cuffs, slicks his hair, twires his beard, &c. When Mercury was to come before his mistress,
[5507]———Chlamydemque ut pendeat apte
Collocat, ut limbus totumque appareat aurum.
He put his cloak in order, that the lace.
And hem, and gold-work, all might have his grace.
Salmacis would not be seen of Hermaphroditus, till she had spruced up herself first,
[5508]Nec tamen ante adiit, etsi properabat adire,
Quam se composuit, quam circumspexit amictus,