the facility presently sated him as
towards his own, but towards strange mares, and the first that passed by
the pale of his pasture, he would again fall to his importunate neighings
and his furious heats as before. Our appetite contemns and passes by
what it has in possession, to run after that it has not:

"Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat."

["He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her
who flees from him."--Horace, Sat., i. 2, 108.]

To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't:

"Nisi to servare puellam
Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea:"

["Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin
to be no longer mine."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 47.]

to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt. Want and
abundance fall into the same inconvenience:

"Tibi quod superest, mihi quod desit, dolet."

["Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want
troubles me.--"Terence, Phoym., i. 3, 9.]

Desire and fruition equally afflict us. The rigors of mistresses are
troublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so; forasmuch as
discontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing desired,
heat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a blunt, dull,
stupid, tired, and slothful passion:

"Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem."

["She who would long retain her power must use her lover ill."
--Ovid, Amor., ii. 19, 33]

"Contemnite, amantes:
Sic hodie veniet, si qua negavit heri."

["Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you
yesterday.--"Propertius, ii. 14, 19.]

Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her face,
but to enhance it to her lovers? Why have they veiled, even below the
heels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every one
desires to see? Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one over
another, the parts where our desires and their own have their principal
seat? And to what serve those great bastion farthingales, with which our
ladies fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite and to draw us
on by removing them farther from us?

"Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri."

["She flies to the osiers, and desires beforehand to be seen going."
--Vir