cients alleges for the contempt of life: "No good can bring
pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand
prepared."

"In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,"

["The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it,
are equal."--Seneca, Ep., 98.]

meaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us
if we are in fear of losing it. It might, however, be said, on the
contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly,
and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less
assured and fear to have it taken from us: for it is evident, as fire
burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is
more obstinate by being opposed:

"Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris,
Non esses, Danae, de Jove facta parens;"

["If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have
been made a mother by Jove."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]

and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety
which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as
rarity and difficulty:

"Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit."

["The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that
should deter it."--Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]

"Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent."

["Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended
with trouble."--Martial, iv. 37.]

To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of
Lacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that it
should be as great a shame to take them in bed together as committing
with others. The difficulty of assignations, the danger of surprise, the
shame of the morning,

"Et languor, et silentium,
Et latere petitus imo Spiritus:"

["And languor, and silence, and sighs, coming from the innermost
heart."--Hor., Epod., xi. 9.]

these are what give the piquancy to the sauce. How many very wantonly
pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the
works on love? Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is
much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled. The courtesan
Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the
prints of her teeth.-