4
Fire takes speedy hold of straw or hare’s fur, but soon goes out again, unless fed with an addition of more fuel. Thus that same love, whose flames are nourished only by heat of youth and looser charms of beauty, seldom proves of long continuance or grows to wedlock maturity, unless it have taken a deep root in conformity of manners, and mutual affection be enlivened by the intermixture of souls as well as bodies, while prudence and discretion feed the noble flame.
5
They who bait their hooks with intoxicated drugs with little pains surprise the hungry fish, but then they prove unsavory to the taste and dangerous to eat. Thus women that by the force of charms and philters endeavor to subdue their husbands to the satisfaction of their pleasure become at length the wives of madmen, sots, and fools. For they whom the sorceress Circe had enchanted, being then no better than swine and asses, were no longer able to please or do her service. But she loved Ulysses entirely, whose prudence avoided her venomous intoxications and rendered his conversation highly grateful.
6
They who rather choose to be the mistresses of senseless fools than the obedient wives of wise and sober husbands are like those people that prefer misguidance of the blind before the conduct of them that can see and know the way.
