captive friends, and bringing your enemies to subjection, you must not
only learn of those that are experienced in the art of war, but exercise
yourself also in the use of military affairs; and if you would excel in
the strength of your body you must keep your body in due subjection to
your mind, and exercise it with labour and pains."

"'Here Pleasure broke in upon her discourse--"Do you see, my dear
Hercules, through what long and difficult ways this woman would lead you
to her promised delights? Follow me, and I will show you a much shorter
and more easy way to happiness."

"Alas!" replied the Goddess of Virtue, whose visage glowed with a passion
made up of scorn and pity, "what happiness can you bestow, or what
pleasure can you taste, who would never do anything to acquire it? You
who will take your fill of all pleasures before you feel an appetite for
any; you eat before you are hungry, you drink before you are athirst;
and, that you may please your taste, must have the finest artists to
prepare your viands; the richest wines that you may drink with pleasure,
and to give your wine the finer taste, you search every place for ice and
snow luxuriously to cool it in the heat of summer. Then, to make your
slumbers uninterrupted, you must have the softest down and the easiest
couches, and a gentle ascent of steps to save you from any the least
disturbance in mounting up to them. And all little enough, heaven knows!
for you have not prepared yourself for sleep by anything you have done,
but seek after it only because you have nothing to do. It is the same in
the enjoyments of love, in which you rather force than follow your
inclinations, and are obliged to use arts, and even to pervert nature, to
keep your passions alive. Thus is it that you instruct your
followers--kept awake for the greatest part of the night by debaucheries,
and consuming in drowsiness all the most useful part of the day. Though