Page:On Friendship (Howe, 1915).pdf/33

 (For neither is the goddess unknown to us, who mingles a sweet bitterness with our pain)

is livelier, hotter, and sharper; but ’t is a daring and fickle flame, flickering and changeable, a fever flame, subject to increase and diminution, and touching us only at one corner. In friendship, there is a general and universal warmth, temperate moreover, and equable; a warmth that’s constant and serene, all sweetness and smoothness, with nothing sharp or poignant in it. Furthermore, in love, there is only a mad desire for what flees: Come segue la lepre il cacciatore Al freddo, al caldo, alla montagna, al lito; Ne pits Pestima poi che presa vede; E sol dietro a chi fugge affretta il piede:

(So as the hunter follows on the hare Through cold and heat, by mountains and the shore; Nor prizes it when once ’t is made a prize; And only presses hard on prey that flies)

as soon as it enters on terms of friendship, that is to say on an agreement of desires, it grows