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380 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
Galla nega; tatiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent. 1
Good wench, deny, my love is cloied,
Unlesse joyes grieve, before enjoyed.
To keepe love in breath and longing, Lycurgus
ordained that the maried men of Lacedemonia might
never converse with their wives but by stealth, and
that it should be as great an imputation and shame to
finde them laide together, as if they were found lying
with others. The difficulty of assignations or matches
appointed, the danger of being surprised, and the shame
of ensuing to-morrow,
et languor, et silentlum,
Et latere petitus tmo spu itus,*
And whispering voice, and languishment,
And breath in sighes from deepe sides sent.
are the things that give relish and tartnesse to the
sawce. How many most lasciviously-pleasant sports
proceed from modest and shamefast manner of speech,
of the daliances and workes of love ? Even voluptuousnesse
seekes to provoke and stirre it selfe up by
smarting. It is much sweeter when it itcheth, and
endeared when it gauleth. The curtezan Flora was
wont to say that she never lay with Pompey but she
made him carry away the markes of her teeth.
Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem
Corpons, et dentes inlidunt scope label I is :
Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant Imdere id ipsum
Quodcumque ed, rabies unde dlt germina surgunt, 9
So goes it every where : rarenesse and difficulty giveth
esteeme unto things. Those of Marca d'Ancona, in
Italy, make their vowes, and goe on pilgrimage rather
unto lames in Galicia, and those of Galicia rather unto
our Lady of Loreto. In the country of Liege they
make more account of the Bathes of Luca; and they of
Tuscany esteeme the Baths of Spawe more than their
1 MART. 1. iv. Epig. xxxviii. ² HOR. Epod. xi. 13.
* LUCR. 1. iv. 1070.