Betrayal and Disappointment

Marcela loved me during fifteen months and three thousand dollars; nothing more.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

Love . . . dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source, it dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illnesses and wounds, it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings, but never a natural death. Every lover should be brought to trial as the murderer of his own love.

withdrew into a corner of the gorgeous room and one told the other a lie.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Latet anguis in herba.

And still she cried, and still the world pursues,

They shift the moving toyshop of their heart.

Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love: Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent.

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! My tables—meet it is I set it down, That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark.

From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents.—Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.

John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done.

Is always so to women; one sole bond Awaits them, treachery is all their trust; Taught to conceal, their bursting hearts despond Over their idol, till some wealthier lust Buys them in marriage—and what rests beyond? A thankless husband, next a faithless lover, Then dressing, nursing, praying, and all’s over.

An inconstant woman, tho’ she has no chance to be very happy, can never be very unhappy.

… La belle dame sans merci

It was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily.

The memory of benefits is a frail defense against ingratitude.

That sir which serves and seeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the storm.

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden.

The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom, is—to die.

Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offense returning, to regain Love once possess’d.

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never.

An open foe may prove a curse,