SUBSECTION 3 Honourable objects of love

Beauty is the common object of all love: “as jet attracts a straw, so beauty attracts love.” Virtue and integrity are powerful inducements and shine as beautifully as the rest, especially when they are sincere and genuine, not painted over, but arise from true inward form and uncorrupted judgement. Then Venus’s two twins, Eros and Anteros, are most firmly and securely joined.

Otherwise people are often deceived by their flattering Gnathos, their dissembling chameleons, creatures of appearances, hypocrites who make a show of great love and learning, pretending to integrity, virtue, zeal and modesty through affected looks and counterfeit gestures. False declarations often steal people’s hearts and favour, deceiving them “with the appearance and shadow of virtue,” when “in reality,” indeed, there is no worth or integrity in them, no truth, but sheer hypocrisy, cunning, roguery and the like.

They are as true friends as the man Caelius Secundus met beside the highway; and in this opportunistic age it is hard to distinguish such companions or expose them. Such Gnathos generally attach themselves to great men. Through smooth flattery, friendliness and similar love potions, they worm their way so deeply into favour that they are taken for men of exceptional worth, wisdom and learning—demigods—and so work themselves into high positions, honours and offices. Yet these men often cause terrible confusion and as much turmoil in a commonwealth as Rehoboam’s counsellors, ruining themselves and others.

Tandler and some other authors debate whether love and hatred can be compelled by love potions or magical symbols; Cardan and Marbod by precious stones and amulets; astrologers by choosing favourable times, and so on, as I shall discuss elsewhere.

The true object of this honourable love is virtue, wisdom, integrity, real worth, “inward beauty”; and this love cannot deceive or be forced. “To be loved, be lovable.” Love itself is the most powerful love potion; virtue and wisdom are “grace that makes one pleasing,” the sole and only grace, unfeigned, open, honest, simple and unadorned,

“descending from heaven,” as our apostle says: a disposition infused by God, who has bestowed various gifts—intelligence, learning, languages—for which people become lovable and pleasing, Ephesians 4:11. Thus Saul received stature and a handsome presence, 1 Samuel 9:1. Joseph found favour in Pharaoh’s court, Genesis 39, for his appearance; and Daniel with the princes of the eunuchs, Daniel 19:19.

Christ found favour with God and men, Luke 2:52. There is always some special grace—good conversation, eloquence, intelligence or integrity—that acts as the “first mover,” a powerful lodestone drawing people’s favourable eyes, ears and affections towards its possessor. When Jesus spoke, “they were all astonished at his answers,” Luke 2:47, “and marvelled at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” An orator steals people’s hearts and, like another Orpheus, draws them to himself by speech alone, “wherever he wishes, from wherever he wishes.” A sweet voice inspires admiration; someone who can express himself well is called, in our ordinary phrase, a fine man, a divine spirit.

For this reason, perhaps, our ancient poets, “the senate and people of poets,” made Mercury the gentleman usher to the Graces, the captain of eloquence, and those Graces the daughters of Jupiter and Eurymone, descended from above.

Though people may otherwise be misshapen, crooked and ugly to look at, these good qualities of mind entitle them to be called beautiful. Plato praises Socrates’ beauty; yet who had a grimmer face or looked more stern and frightful? Many great philosophers are and have been like this: as Gregory of Nazianzus observes, “for the most part misshapen in what the eyes can see, but most beautiful in what cannot be seen.”

“Wisdom often lies hidden beneath a worn garment.” Aesop, Democritus, Aristotle, Poliziano, Melanchthon, Gesner and others: shrivelled old men, “the Sileni of Alcibiades,” very rough and unpolished to the eye. Yet who were so refined, cultivated, eloquent, widely learned, temperate and modest?

No man living then was as beautiful as Alcibiades, so lovely “on the surface,” to the eye, as Boethius observes; yet he had “a body most hideous within,” a most deformed soul. Integrity, virtue and good character strongly attract those who are well disposed, and do much to gain people’s favour and goodwill.

Abdolominus, in Curtius, was a poor man—though, as my author notes, “his integrity was the cause of his poverty.” For his modesty and self-restraint he was raised from private life—they found him digging in his garden—and hailed as king, preferred to all the great men of his time. “A robe adorned with purple and gold was thrown over him”: a purple embroidered garment was put upon him, “and they told him to wash himself and, being worthy, to assume the title and spirit of a king,” while maintaining his self-restraint and other good qualities.

Titus Pomponius Atticus, that noble citizen of Rome, had such a good character and gracious manner that he was generally beloved by all good men—Caesar, Pompey, Antony and Cicero, men of different parties and so on. As Cornelius Nepos writes, he “obtained many inheritances through goodness alone.”

“It is worth hearing,” and so on. It deserves your attention, Livy cries, “you who scorn everything but riches and esteem no one’s virtue unless he is also wealthy: Quintus Cincinnatus had only four acres, yet by the Senate’s consent was chosen dictator of Rome.”

Cato, Fabricius, Aristides, Antonius and Probus were held in such esteem for their outstanding worth; so were Caesar, Trajan and Alexander, admired for courage. Hephaestion loved Alexander, but Parmenio loved the king. Titus was “the delight of humankind”; Vespasian, as Aurelius Victor says, was the darling of his age, as Edgar Atheling was in England, for his excellent virtues. Their memory is still fresh and sweet, and we love them many ages later, though they are dead. “He left a sweet memory of himself,” Lipsius says of his friend: living or dead, they are all the same.