Thou nothing giv’st, but dying wilt: then die:
He giveth twice, who giveth speedily.
Balthasar Bonifacius
DANGEROUS LOVE
All whom I love die young; Zoilus, I’ll try,
Tho’ loath’d, to love thee—that thou too may’st die.
From Bhartrihari, an Indian philosopher who flourished about the ninth century, we select the following cynical paragraphs.
I believed that one woman was devoted to me, but she is now attracted by another man, and another man takes pleasure in her, while a second woman interests herself in me. Curses on them both, and on the god of love, and on the other woman, and on myself.
The fundamentally ignorant man is easily led, and the wise man still more easily; but not even the Almighty Himself can exercise any influence on the smatterer.