ne asked hir thys question: "What is that, Lamia,
which most troubleth a Woman's hart?" "There is nothing,"
answered Lamia, "wherwith a woman is more grieued, and maketh
hir more sad, than to be called ill fauored, or that she hath no
good grace, or to vnderstand that she is dissolute of lyfe."
This lady Lamia was of iudgement delicate and subtyll, although
il imployed in hir, and thereby made al the world in loue with
hir, and drew al men to hir through hir fayre speach. Now,
before she lost the heart of Kyng Demetrius, shee haunted of
long time the vniuersities of Athenes, where she gayned great
store of money, and brought to destructyon many young men.
Plutarch, in the lyfe of Demetrius, saith, That the Atheniens
hauing presented vnto him XII. C. talents of money for a
subsidie to pay his men of warre, he gaue al that summe to his
woman Lamia: by meanes whereof the Atheniens grudged, and were
offended wyth the kyng, not for the losse of their gift, but for
that it was so euil employed. When the King Demetrius would
assure any thynge by oth, hee swore not by his gods, ne yet by
his predecessors, but in this sort: "As I may be styll in the
grace of my lady Lamia, and as hir lyfe and mine may ende
together, so true is this which I say and do, in this and thys
sort." One yere and two Moneths before the Death of King
Demetrius, his frend Lamia died, who sorowed so mutch hir death,
as for the absence and death of hir, he caused the Phylosophers
of Athens to entre in this Disputation, Whether the teares and
sorow whiche he shed and toke for her sake, were more to be
estemed than the riches which he spent in her obsequies and
funerall pompes. This Amorous gentlewoman Lamia, was borne in
Argos, a City of Peloponnesus, besides Athenes, of base
parentage, who in hir first yeares haunted the countrey of Asia
Maior, of very wyld and dissolute lyfe, and in the ende came
into Phaenicia. And when the Kyng Demetrius had caused hir to be
buried beefore hys chamber-window, hys chiefest frendes asked
him, wherefore hee had entoomed hir in that place? his aunswere
was this: "I loued hir so wel, and she likewyse me so hartyly,
as I know not which way to satisfie the loue which she bare me,
and the duety I haue to loue her agayne, if not to put hir in
such place as myne eyes maye wepe euery day and mine hart still
lament." Truely this loue was straung, which so mighty a Monarch
as Demetrius was, did beare vnto such a notable curtizan,
a