ace, with their circumstances, are so
forcible motives, that it is impossible almost for two young folks equal in
years to live together, and not be in love, especially in great houses,
princes' courts, where they are idle _in summo gradu_, fare well, live at
ease, and cannot tell otherwise how to spend their time. [5065]_Illic
Hippolitum pone, Priapus erit_. Achilles was sent by his mother Thetis to
the island of Scyros in the Aegean sea (where Lycomedes then reigned) in
his nonage to be brought up; to avoid that hard destiny of the oracle (he
should be slain at the siege of Troy): and for that cause was nurtured in
Genesco, amongst the king's children in a woman's habit; but see the event:
he compressed Deidamia, the king's fair daughter, and had a fine son,
called Pyrrhus by her. Peter Abelard the philosopher, as he tells the tale
himself, being set by Fulbertus her uncle to teach Heloise his lovely
niece, and to that purpose sojourned in his house, and had committed _agnam
tenellam famelico lupo_, I use his own words, he soon got her good will,
_plura erant oscula quam sententiae_ and he read more of love than any
other lecture; such pretty feats can opportunity plea; _primum domo
conjuncti, inde animis_, &c. But when as I say, _nox, vinum, et
adolescentia_, youth, wine, and night, shall concur, _nox amoris et quietis
conscia_, 'tis a wonder they be not all plunged over head and ears in love;
for youth is _benigna in amorem, et prona materies_, a very combustible
matter, naphtha itself, the fuel of love's fire, and most apt to kindle it.
If there be seven servants in an ordinary house, you shall have three
couple in some good liking at least, and amongst idle persons how should it
be otherwise? "Living at [5066]Rome," saith Aretine's Lucretia, "in the
flower of my fortunes, rich, fair, young, and so well brought up, my
conversation, age, beauty, fortune, made all the world admire and love me."
Night alone, that one occasion, is enough to set all on fire, and they are
so cunning in great houses, that they make their best advantage of it: Many
a gentlewoman, that is guilty to herself of her imperfections, paintings,
impostures, will not willingly be seen by day, but as [5067]Castilio
noteth, in the night, _Diem ut glis odit, taedarum lucem super omnia
mavult_, she hateth the day like a dormouse, and above all things loves
torches and candlelight, and if she must come abroad in the day, she
covets, as [5068]in a mercer's