Albert Cohen (1895–1981) Swiss writer
Le livre de ma mère [The Book of My Mother] (1954)
As quoted in Giordano Bruno : His Life and Thought (1950) by Dorothea Waley Singer http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno03.htm#CH3 <br class="br">Context: If all things are in common among friends, the most precious is Wisdom. What can Juno give which thou canst not receive from Wisdom? What mayest thou admire in Venus which thou mayest not also contemplate in Wisdom? Her beauty is not small, for the lord of all things taketh delight in her. Her I have loved and diligently sought from my youth up.
Albert Cohen (1895–1981) Swiss writer
Le livre de ma mère [The Book of My Mother] (1954)
Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) English writer and gardener
"Mariana In The North"; also in Country Life Vol. 50 (1921), p. 738
Orchard and Vineyard (1921)
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
Stanza 1. <br class="br"> She Was a Phantom of Delight http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww259.html (1804)
“A forty-year-old woman is only something to men who have loved her in her youth!”
Stendhal book The Charterhouse of Parma
Une femme de quarante ans n'est plus quelque chose que pour les hommes qui l'ont aimée dans sa jeunesse!
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 23
Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso
La verginella e simile alla rosa
Ch'in bel giardin' su la nativa spina
Mentre sola e sicura si riposa
Ne gregge ne pastor se le avvicina;
L'aura soave e l'alba rugiadosa,
L'acqua, la terra al suo favor s'inchina:
Gioveni vaghi e donne inamorate
Amano averne e seni e tempie ornate.<p>Ma no si tosto dal materno stelo
Rimossa viene, e dal suo ceppo verde
Che quato havea dagli huoi e dal cielo
Favor gratia e bellezza tutto perde.
Canto I, stanzas 42–43 (tr. G. Waldman)
Compare:
Ut flos in saeptis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro,
Quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber;
Multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae:
idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae:
sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est;
cum castum amisit polluto corpore florem,
nec pueris iucunda manet, nec cara puellis.
As a flower springs up secretly in a fenced garden, unknown to the cattle, torn up by no plough, which the winds caress, the sun strengthens, the shower draws forth, many boys, many girls, desire it: so a maiden, whilst she remains untouched, so long she is dear to her own; when she has lost her chaste flower with sullied body, she remains neither lovely to boys nor dear to girls.
Catullus, Carmina, LXII (tr. Francis Warre-Cornish)
Orlando Furioso (1532)