Chastity is the shadow of love, and the most enthusiastic among the
adorers of the sun seeks always the friendly shade of a tree where,
among the labyrinths of the knotty roots, or on the soft carpet of a
meadow, he can slowly drink in the light of which he went in search; he,
too, must love a tranquil shade from which to contemplate without injury
the distant splendors of the supreme father of every energy and every
heat. Even in the desert of sand called the Sahara, or in the desert of
grass called the Pampas, man feels the necessity of resting in the
shadow of his camel, or of his horse, to brood voluptuously over the
long and fiery suns absorbed. Repose you, also, then in the shadow of
the hair, of the eyebrows of your sweetheart to relish the long memories
of the lightning flashes of love.
Chastity is not only repose, but also a wise and powerful creation of
new energies and infinite poetry. Voluptuousness is a hurricane or
thunderbolt, but always a superior force which brutally rends and
brutally bends the tree of life, dashing the leaves against the ground
that nourishes them. Chastity is a boundless temple, in which the fresh
and silent atmosphere dries the sweat of the struggles, refreshes the
sultry air of the battle and restores calm to every turbulent and
stormy brow. The chastity of two lovers is a real temple in which the
animal man collects himself, prays and invokes an unknown god that he
may make him an angel; and love is purified, cleansed of all mire, and
soars on its wings to the highest regions of the ideal. Desire, when
subdued without violence but without hesitation by chastity, lowers its
eyes, bows its head and kneels before the statue of love, and, quivering
but subdued, caresses with its long neck and warm hair the soft knees,
like an enamored swan fondled by the gentle hand of a nude but chaste
woman.
Have you ever noticed two lovers who, sitting on one chair, read the
same book together, while a little child, the fruit of their first
loves, sits at their feet, chattering and prattling? When that little
angel raises its head too petulantly or screams too boisterously, the
fondling hand of the mother or that of the father will silence him. Thus
must desire long remain under restraint at the feet of the two lovers,
obeying an amorous voice and not the rod of the schoolmaster of old.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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