Lyly on Love

So, I have been getting my school work done like a good girl and am going to share the Epilogue from John Lyly's play Gallathea. (Which i recommend by the by, it is quite fun.) I am writing a transcription below because long S's can be a right pain if you're not used to them, they look like f but aren't f's clearly. Also v and u are interchangeable. Its probably straight forward but if you'd rather have the more modern letter forms they are provided :) (and there's this one long s that when you read it you'll think "what profanity!! ... oh, sucking. Oops")

Gallathea: Goe all tis I onely that conclude al. You Ladies may see that Venus can make constancie ficklenes, courage cowardice, modestie lightnesse, working things impossible in your Sexe, and tempering hardest harts like softest wooll. Yeelde Ladies, yeeld to love Ladies, which lurketh under your eye-lids whilst you sleepe, and plaieth with your hart strings whilst you wake: whose sweetnes never breedeth satietie, labor wearinesse, nor greefe bitternesse, Cupid was begotten in a miste, nursed in Clowds and sucking only upon conceits. Confesse him a Conqueror, whom yee ought to regard sith it is unpossible to resist for this is infallible, that Love conquerith all things but it selfe, and Ladies all harts but their owne.

I thought the sentiment quite nice. Love is madness, it changes you, makes hard hearts "like the softest wooll" and it is a maddness you must yield to. It is "unpossible to resist" and the idea that "Love conquerith all things but it selfe." I also find it amusing that a lady can conquer all hearts but her own. Perhaps an overstatement but it is true to a degree. Love conquers all, but not itself, and no woman has control over her heart. Though I suspect no man either. Love is not contained or definable, not manipulatable (except in this play by Cupid, though when asked to "unbind" what he had tied he claims that "If they be true love knots, tis unpossible to unknit them, if false i never tied them." and "Love knots are tyde with eyes and cannot be undoone with hands, madefast with thoughts and cannot be unlosed with fingers" "It is the true love knotte of a woman's hart therefore cannot be undoone")

A man's love isn't really identified in this play, as the prime lovers are two females, thrown together in male garb because their fathers' love them selfishly and refuse to give them to Neptune. And for true happiness to occur Venus...nah, i won't spoil it in the off chance you actually go out and find the play (mom :)) if anyone else is interested in the end of that sentence shoot me an email. Or find the play, it is fun, and a fast read.