CHAPTER LXXVI.
A STORY CONCERNING CUPID WHICH NOT ONE READER IN TEN THOUSAND HAS EVER HEARD BEFORE; A DEFENCE OF LOVE WHICH WILL BE VERY SATISFACTORY TO THE LADIES.
They do lie,
Lie grossly who say Love is blind,—by him
And Heaven they lie! he has a sight can pierce
Thro' ivory, as clear as it were horn,
And reach his object.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
The Stoics who called our good affections eupathies, did not manage those affections as well as they understood them. They kept them under too severe a discipline, and erroneously believed that the best way to strengthen the heart was by hardening it. The Monks carried this error to its utmost extent, falling indeed into the impious absurdity that our eupathies are sinful in themselves. The Monks have been called the Stoics of Christianity; but the philosophy of the Cloister can no more bear comparison with that of the Porch, than Stoicism itself with Christianity pure and undefiled. Van Helmont compares even the Franciscans with the Stoics, “paucis mutatis,” he says, “videbam Capucinum esse Stoicum Christianum.” He might have found a closer parallel for them in the Cynics both for their filth and their extravagance. And here I will relate a Rabbinical tradition.
On a time the chiefs of the Synagogue, being mighty in prayer, obtained of the Lord that the Evil Spirit who had seduced the Jews to commit idolatry, and had brought other nations against them to overthrow their city and destroy the Temple, should be delivered into their hands for punishment; when by advice of Zachariah the prophet they put him in a leaden vessel, and secured him there with a weight of lead upon his face. By this sort of peine forte et dure, they laid him so effectually that he has never appeared since. Pursuing then their supplications while the ear of Heaven was open, they entreated that another Evil Spirit by whom the people had continually been led astray, might in like manner be put into their power. This prayer also was granted; and the Demon with whom Poets, Lovers and Ladies are familiar, by his heathen name of Cupid, was delivered up to them.
————folle per lui
Tutto il mondo si fa. Perisca Amore,
E saggio ognun sarà.1
The prophet Zachariah warned them not to be too hasty in putting him to death, for fear of the consequences;
——You shall see
A fine confusion in the country; mark it!