The wealth of a classical education is that we can learn from the foolishness of those who came before us by reading about them. In my quest to improve my own education, I've been working my way through The Well-Educated Mind.
Well, okay, that's a flat out lie.
The truth is I've been working my way through the first novel in the reading list, Don Quixote, and slowly at that.
But, I stopped reading this morning as I came across a quote that struck me. Quixote, in his adventures, comes across a man who tells him a story. In this story, the man tells of his friend.
"He loved a wealthy farmer's daughter, one of his father's tenants, and she was so beautiful, modest, intelligent and virtuous that nobody who knew her could decide which of these excellent qualities was most outstanding in her. And they raised Don Fernando's desires to such a pitch that he decided that to have his way with her and conquer her virginity he'd give her his word of marriage..."
The story teller goes on to explain that his friend suggests that going away for a time would be the solution to his problem. The young man agrees and encourages him to do so.
"By the time he told me all this he had already , as later became apparent, enjoyed the girl's favours as her husband, and was looking for an opportunity to reveal all without having to pay the consequences, fearful as he was of what the Duke his father would do when he found out about his folly."
So, the story teller encourages his friend to go back home with him to get away from the temptations of this girl who so drove his desires that he was willing to marry her to quench the fire. But, then, when they had arrived at his home, he discovered that his friend had already taken the girl as a wife (without putting forth the necessary price of marriage).
This next quote in the story is pivotal to the point here:
"It happened, then, that since love in young men is usually not love at all, but lust, which, since gratification is its sole aim, ceases to exist as soon as it is satisfied, and what had looked like love turns back because it cannot go any further than the limits fixed for it by nature, which does not establish any limits for true love... what I'm trying to say is that as soon as Son Fernando had his way with the farmer's daughter his desires abated and his ardour cooled, and, if at first he'd pretended to want to leave so as to cure his desires, now he really did want to leave so as not to put them into effect."
Did you get all that?
The lust of men "gratification is its sole aim"
The lust of men drives them to "give her his word of marriage"
The lust of men "ceases to exist as soon as it is satisfied"
The lust of men looks like love, but "what had looked like love turns back" as soon as it is satisfied.
The lust of men is "abated" and "cooled" as soon as it is satisfied.
Men are naturally inclined to burn for women, so much so that he would sacrifice anything to have her, even marry her. Marriage during the writing of Don Quixote and throughout most of history meant for a man that he was bound to provide for her and her children for the rest of his life.
But, once he has had her... the desire that drives him to make that sacrifice is "abated" and "cooled" and "what had looked like love turns back".
Once a man has had a woman, she is left with nothing to offer him that would secure her protection and provision, and he is left with a desire that is not for her, but instead a desire to avoid her.
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