What poets say about love

part 17

Qui blandiendo dulce nutrivit malum,

Sero recusat ferre, quod subiit, jugum.

  He who has fostered the sweet poison of love by fondling it, finds it too late to refuse the yoke which he has of his own accord assumed.

        Seneca””Hippolytus. CXXXIV.              311

Si vis amari, ama.

  If you wish to be loved, love.

        Seneca””Epistolæ Ad Lucilium. IX. Ausonius””Epigrams. XCI. 6. Martial””Epigrams. VI. 11. Ovid””Ars Amatoria. II. 107. Attributed to Plato by Burton.       312

      But love that comes too late,

Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,

To the great sender turns a sour offence.

        All’s Well That Ends Well. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 5.    313

  There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

        Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 15.          314

If thou remember’st not the slightest folly

That ever love did make thee run into,

Thou hast not lov’d.

        As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 34.        315

  It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover.

        As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 245.     316

  But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

  Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

        As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 418.     317

  O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.

        As You Like It. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 208.     318

  No sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason.

        As You Like It. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 36.        319

Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.

It is to be all made of sighs and tears;””

    *    *    *    *    *

It is to be all made of faith and service;””

    *    *    *    *    *

It is to be all made of fantasy.

        As You Like It. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 89.        320

                I know not why

I love this youth; and I have heard you say,

Love’s reason’s without reason.

        Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 20.              321

This is the very ecstasy of love,

Whose violent property foredoes itself,

And leads the will to desperate undertakings.

        Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 102.       322

  He is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this.

        Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 188.       323

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;

When little fears grow great, great love grows there.

        Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 181.     324

            Forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum.

        Hamlet. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 292.       325

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee.

        Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 444.           326

Though last, not least in love!

        Julius Cæsar. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 189.         327

Which of you shall we say doth love us most?

That we our largest bounty may extend

Where nature doth with merit challenge.

        King Lear. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 52.      328

  Love, whose month is ever May,

Spied a blossom passing fair,

Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,

All unseen can passage find;

That the lover, sick to death,

Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath.

        Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. Song.         329

  By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy.

        Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 10.         330