Date: 25 B.C.

"But, Venus, my devoted heart is ever at your service [your slave]. / Have mercy. Why in rancour burn the harvest that is yours?"

— Tibullus, Abius (c. 54-19 B.C.)

Date: 1390

"Minerve for the hed thei soghten, / For sche was wys, and of a man / The wit and reson which he can / Is in the celles of the brayn, / Wherof thei made hire soverain."

— Gower, John (c. 1330-1408)

Date: 1588

"My mind to me a kingdom is; / Such perfect joy therein I find / That it excels all other bliss / Which God or nature hath assign'd."

— Dyer, Sir Edward (1543-1607)

Date: 1609

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past, / I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, / And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1635

"Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, / But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue."

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1653

"If flattering Language all the Passions rule, / Then Sense, I feare, will be a meere dull Foole."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1653

"A Poet I am neither borne, nor bred,/ But to a witty Poet married: / Whose Braine is Fresh, and Pleasant, as the Spring, / Where Fancies grow, and where the Muses sing."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1658

In "Man's head ... madam Reason is enthron'd, her grace / Reignes like an Empress in the highest place."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"My lady Will, resideth in the brain; / The Judgment there, there doth Minerva raigne"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1661

"[Y]et is my Will / Free, as the Conquerour's: and Rome shall finde, / I still retain the Empire of my Minde, / That stands above her reach, where I alone / Will rule, and scorn to live, but on a Throne."

— Ross, Thomas (bap. 1620, d. 1675)