About the Book
Excerpt from The Universal Anthology, Vol. 14: A Collection of the Best Literature, Ancient, Medieval and Modern, With Biographical and Explanatory Notes Why, Sister, said he unto her, you see me to be an hundred leagues from the Court, in a solitary Country, where one can hardly behold anything that so much as resembles a woman, and you will be so cruel as to deprive me Of a company, wherein I meet with four very amiable ones; so as if it be true that the loss Of one Mistress brings an unquietness that cannot be ended but by Iron or poison, what do you think will become Of me, when you shall have taken from me four at a time, which I love passionately; and in a place where I can find no others? If I were at Paris, I should comply with you herein, not only for four, but for thirty, being well assured that I should repair this loss in a little time; but in the midst Of a Desert to deprive me Of four sole maids whom I can love, is so great an inhuman ity, in the humor wherein I am, as if you consider it seriously you must needs repent you Of it.
But, answered his sister laughing, you do not love them, for how can you share yourself amongst so many?
Not love them (replied the Marquis), naughty Sister, come, you do not know me, if you believe as you say; for it is most cer tain that I love them with all my soul; and that in all my life I never found myself so constant nor so amorous. And whereas this Maid could not very easily comprehend how a man could love four at once, and term himself constant; for to make her understand it, he told her that by a very extraordinary adven ture he had no great affection for any of them in particular, but meeting in these four persons separately, with that which he would have in one alone, he was so desperately in love there with as he was never in such a passion before.
He told her further, that ordinarily when he found any thing that was amiable ih a woman he excused the defects which were in her, and became in love with all her person but that in this encounter, through a capriciousness of love, he was wounded in another sort. For, said he seriously, it would be impossible for me, in the estate wherein my mind now is, to love any of those maids singly; and I am never more joyful than when I see them all four together. I behold the whiteness of the first, the look of the second; I hear the voice of the third; and admire the gentleness of the last. In conclusion, I am so satisfied with this manner of loving, that when I could, by an unheard-of miracle, take from those four maids all that doth please me in them, to make thereof a masterpiece and a marvel such as I may imagine, yet should I rather choose to love them as I do. For if I should love but one of them, I should be without consolation when she were in choler; whereas contrari wise I am never altogether unhappy: if I have angered the fair one, the brown one regards me favorably; and if I am out with the serious one, the merry one comforts me with her jocund humor; and when it falls out that I am upon good terms with all the four, I have such delight as cannot be expressed. One. Prepares a Bracelet for me, another ties a band about my hat, a third gives me powder and essences, whilst the fourth causes her picture to be drawn for the love of me. In pursuance hereof, I sing a song that is agreeable to all four, which each of them applies to their own particular for a mark of my affection, and which they all commend with address and joy; and that which is yet more worth than all these things is that this passion is so fair and so extraordinary as the end of it can never be unhappy. For when as myself would contribute to mine own ruin, it is impossible that ever I should arrive to that unfortunate term, which for the most.
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