Rhythmus de amore Veneris

Against the love of Venus.

Scarce can I loose this knot so tightly laced,

or prove this monster no eye can trace,

Yet I would strip the veil from Venus' face,

Who twists men's natures out of nature's place.

By this dark art may any shape be tamed,

till Jove's own godhead into man is framed;

Mars in his peace is by soft Bacchus shamed,

Titan takes fire, and Triton is inflamed.

It robs by giving, gives by theft again,

impoverishes honor, gilds the plain,

it makes the incestuous clean, the modest stain,

it fondles into wounds, and wounds to feign.

It joins the glad to grief, the sweet to gall,

and, offering honey, drains the blood from all,

it lures, entices, wounds beneath its thrall,

it stings while soothing, soothes us as we fall.

First comes the milk, and then the blow, for swine;

it wounds through fondling, fondles as a sign

of wounding; lying, speaks the truth's own line;

truth masters all, and bows to none's design.

Love is sweet poison, bitterness turned sweet,

an enemy of love, a friend deceit,

wise ignorance, a knowing incomplete,

a wary giving where the giver's cheat.

A gentle storm, a calm that will not please,

a mighty weakness, power on its knees,

a bondage free, a freedom bound to seize,

a wealth that's poor, a poverty at ease.

A pleasant pain, a paradise of grief,

a smiling sorrow, laughter's sad relief,

a seeing blindness, blindness past belief,

a hateful love, a love that plays the thief.

A thirst grown drunk, a drunkenness gone dry,

a hunger fed, a fullness starved thereby,

a virtue turned to vice we glorify,

a restless joy, a rest gone all awry.

On this alone the ancient question turns:

if man's love should for playful maidens burn,

or to a wedded matron's service yearn,

or which of these the higher right should earn.

Behold, it wears the face of doubt's disguise,

a sophist's question, shadow in men's eyes;

and at the threshold where the dispute lies

waits the solution, born of reason's ties.

Who, but a fool at war with reason's light,

brings tears to joy and turns to grief delight,

likens the owl to peacock, mud to bright

gem, straw to bloom, Thersites to Adonis' plight?

He labors in a frenzied mind's excess

who likens hemlock to the lily's dress,

or purple robes to tattered cloth's undress,

and strips the glorious thing of gloriousness.

But evil's malice cannot spoil the flower

of good, nor falsehood strip truth's honor's power;

no cloud of vice can cloud the modest hour,

nor Venus stain the wife's or virgin's bower.

Evil, set by good, grows cheap and small;

good, against its opposite, shines tall;

in one thing's dark, the other lights the hall;

and in the other's light, one fades to thrall.

As summer's day feels sweeter than the last,

and the young rose than blooms already past,

so is a wife's love good, a thing held fast,

a virgin's love, the higher good, unsurpassed.

Venus yet blossoms in the virgin's guard,

for, like the threshed ear, worn love comes hard

and cheap; what's still untouched is sweetest, starred,

a sealed spring, sweeter than a fountain marred.

In her no ferment stirs, no taint, no flaw,

nor will she to deceit's false tales withdraw;

modesty, simplicity, delight her law,

beneath her shade each lover rests in awe.

Nothing more wretched than this bitter dew,

nothing more sweet than this sweet honey's due,

nothing more grievous than this raging rue,

nothing more joyful, sweeter, than love true.

A virgin's first bloom is a fresh array,

the earliest spring, youth's brightest opening day;

here Venus offers her most sweet display,

least steeped in lust's harsh ferment and decay.

But he who wastes himself in a wife's embrace

plucks winter's flowers, sows seed in barren space,

seeks green in drought, sweet honey in gall's place,

and treads the public road all men retrace.

By nature's sovereign law it is decreed,

that under fixed age, safe from all misdeed,

under a settled rule that all must heed,

virgins should render Venus tribute's need.

But neither law nor justice this allows,

nor nature grants, though pained, what this endows:

that any wife her debt to Venus owes,

unloosing thus the marriage bed's chaste vows.

A virgin's made love's tributary, bound

to favor him whose heart to hers is wound,

that she may bear what nature's way has found,

too weak to spurn sweet pleading's gentle sound.

Love drives the wife with passion's bitter fire,

to feed a hunger baser than desire,

to tend the burning oven's raging pyre,

and break the vow the marriage bed held higher.

Once lured by money's glinting, golden ore,

the woman arms herself for sin once more;

she whores while wasting thin, thin to the core,

to squeeze a gift from her adulterer's store.

Once drunk upon the draught of Venus' cup,

his belly gorged, he's forced to vomit up;

he's ruined wholly, plucked to the very stub,

and he who once was rich now begs his sup.

Wretched is he who hammers at that trade,

who plays this game and finds himself betrayed;

if she with clever sophistries has played,

begun in hope, in tears his tale is laid.

He too far strips love's nature of its grace,

who tends the care of a wife's close embrace,

whom the rough flail of manhood's blows would chase,

yet still she stands unshaken in her place.

No man of sense attempts so poor a game,

such joy is leavened through with fear's dark flame,

where dread and groaning come and stake their claim,

where every trace of safety flees the same.

Where often deathlike sleep the senses drains,

while the adulterer at his trade remains,

where often passion's purse runs dry of gains,

where often the paired treasure feels its chains.

While in a wife such heat of Venus grows,

she runs to crime, to reckless fever goes,

dares anything, and fears no shame she shows,

the mother spurns her son, no father the daughter knows.

No shame, no piety, the wife will heed,

when lust's own furnace kindles up its need,

she wrongs the laws and vows with shameless deed,

forgets her chastity, and sells that creed.

When lust invites its own lust to the bed,

she will not shrink from shortening life instead,

the better to commit her sin widespread,

she severs from her husband's trunk, unwed.

To ruin sons, see Procne turn to Nero's rage,

see Pasiphae, lust-tantalized, engage,

see her, through cunning, play the beast's own stage,

this truth stands proven on reason's honest page.

To this same pact would Helen make her stand,

well able to dispute on either hand;

for Troy's proud nobles yet might rule the land,

had Paris only loved with wiser command.

Therefore let further argument recede,

since reason to the virgins' cause gives heed;

let then the wife to virgin love concede,

let any unwed woman take the lead.