headstrong and unruly." That
monster-conquering Hercules was tamed by him:

"Quem non mille ferae, quem non Sthenelejus hostis,
Nec potuit Juno vincere, vicit amor."

"Whom neither beasts nor enemies could tame,
Nor Juno's might subdue, Love quell'd the same."

Your bravest soldiers and most generous spirits are enervated with it,
[4655]_ubi mulieribus blanditiis permittunt se, et inquinantur amplexibus_.
Apollo, that took upon him to cure all diseases, [4656]could not help
himself of this; and therefore [4657]Socrates calls Love a tyrant, and
brings him triumphing in a chariot, whom Petrarch imitates in his triumph
of Love, and Fracastorius, in an elegant poem expresseth at large, Cupid
riding, Mars and Apollo following his chariot, Psyche weeping, &c.

In vegetal creatures what sovereignty love hath, by many pregnant proofs
and familiar examples may be proved, especially of palm-trees, which are
both he and she, and express not a sympathy but a love-passion, and by many
observations have been confirmed.

[4658] "Vivunt in venerem frondes, omnisque vicissim
Felix arbor amat, nutant et mutua palmae
Foedera, populeo suspirat populus ictu,
Et platano platanus, alnoque assibilat alnus."

Constantine _de Agric. lib. 10. cap. 4._ gives an instance out of
Florentius his Georgics, of a palm-tree that loved most fervently, [4659]
"and would not be comforted until such time her love applied herself unto
her; you might see the two trees bend, and of their own accords stretch out
their boughs to embrace and kiss each other: they will give manifest signs
of mutual love." Ammianus Marcellinus, _lib. 24_, reports that they marry
one another, and fall in love if they grow in sight; and when the wind
brings the smell to them, they are marvellously affected. Philostratus _in
Imaginibus_, observes as much, and Galen _lib. 6. de locis affectis, cap.
5._ they will be sick for love; ready to die and pine away, which the
husbandmen perceiving, saith [4660]Constantine, "stroke many palms that
grow together, and so stroking again the palm that is enamoured, they carry
kisses from the one to the other:" or tying the leaves and branches of the
one to the stem of the other, will make them both flourish and prosper a
great deal better: [4661]"which are enamoured, they can perceive by the
bending of boughs, and inclination of their bodies." If any man think this
which I say to be a tale,