MEMB. 4. SUBSECT. 1. Symptomes or signs of Love Melancholy, in Body, Mind, good, bad, &c.

Symptomes are either of Body or Mind; of body, paleness, leanness, driness, &c. Pallidus omnis amans, color hic est aptus amanti, as the Poet describes lovers: fecit amor maciem, love causeth leanness. Avicenna de Ilishi c. 33. makes hollow eys, driness, Symptomes of this disease, to go smiling to themselves, or acting as if they saw or heard some delectable object.

Valleriola lib. 3. observat. cap. 7. Laurentius cap. 10. Ælianus Montaltus de Her. amore. Langius epist. 24. lib. 1. epist. med. deliver as much, corpus exangue pallet, corpus gracile, oculi cavi, lean, pale,

—— ut nudis qui pressit calcibus anguem,

hollow-eyd, their eys are hidden in their heads,

Tenerque nitidi corporis cecidit decor ——

They pine away, and look ill with waking, cares, sighs,

Et qui tenebant signa Phœbeæ facis oculi, nil gentile nec patrium micant.

With groans, griefs, sadness, dulness,

—— Nulla jam Cereris subit Cura aut salutis ——

want of appetite, &c. A reason of all this, Jason Pratensis gives, because of the distraction of the spirits, the Liver doth not perform his part, nor turns the aliment into blood as it ought, and for that cause the members are weak for want of sustenance, they are lean and pine, as the hearbs of my garden do this month of May, for want of rain. The green sickness therefore often happeneth to yong women, a Cacexia or an evil habit to men, besides their ordinary sighs, complaints, and lamentations, which are too frequent. As drops from a still,

—— ut occluso stillat ab igne liquor,

doth Cupids fire provoke tears from a true Lovers eys.

The mighty Mars did oft for Venus shreek, Privily moistning his horrid cheek With womanish tears, ——

—— ignis distillat in undas, Testis erit largus qui rigat ora liquor,

with many such like passions. When Chariclia was enamored on Theagines, as Heliodorus sets her out, she was half distracted, and spake she knew not what, sighed to her self, lay much awake and was lean upon a sudden: and when she was besotted on her son in law, pallor deformis, marcentes oculi, &c. she had ugly paleness, hollow eys, restless thoughts, short wind, &c.

Eurialus in an Epistle sent to Lucretia his Mistress, complains amongst other grievances, tu mihi & somni & cibi usum abstulisti, thou hast taken my stomack and my sleep from me. So he describes it aright;

His sleep, his meat, his drink, is him bereft, That lean he waxeth, and dry as a shaft, His eys hollow and grisly to behold, His hew pale and ashen to unfold, And solitary he was ever alone, And waking all the night making mone?

Theocritus Edyl. 2. makes a fair maid of Delphis in love with a yong man of Minda, confess as much,

Ut vidi ut insanii, ut animus mihi male affectus est, Miseræ mihi forma tabescebat, neque amplius pompam Ullam curabam, aut quando domum redituram Novi, sed me ardens quidam morbus consumebat, Decubui in lecto dies decem, & noctes decem, Defluebant capite capilli, ipsaque sola reliqua Ossa & cutis. ——

No sooner seen I had, but mad I was, My beauty fail’d, and I no more did care For any pomp, I knew not where I was, But sick I was, and evil I did fare; I lay upon my bed ten days and nights, A Sceleton I was in all mens sights.

All these passions are well expressed by that Heroical Poet in the person of Dido;

At non infelix animi Phœnissa, nec unquam Solvitur in somnos, oculisque ac pectore amorem Accipit; ingeminant curæ, rursusque resurgens Sævit amor, &c. ——

Unhappy Dido could not sleep at all, But lies awake, and takes no rest: And up she gets again, whilst care and grief, And raging love torments her brest.

Accius Sannazarius Egloga 2. de Galatea, in the same manner fains his Lychoris tormenting her self for want of sleep, sighing, sobbing, and lamenting. And Eustathius in his Ismenias much troubled, and panting at heart, at the sight of his mistress, he could not sleep, his bed was thorns. All make leanness, want of appetite, want of sleep ordinary Symptomes, and by that means they are brought often so low, so much altered and changed, that as he jested in the Comœdy, one can scarce know them to be the same men.

Attenuant juvenum vigilatæ corpora noctes, Curaque & immenso qui fit amore dolor.

Many such Symptomes there are of the Body to discern lovers by, —— quis enim bene celat amorem? Can a man saith Solomon, Prov. 6.27. carry fire in his bosome and not burn? it will hardly be hid, though they do all they can to hide it, it must out, plus quam mille notis —— it may be described,

Quoque magis tegitur, tectus magis æstuat ignis.

’Twas Antiphanes the Comœdians observation of old, Love and drunkenness cannot be concealed, Celare alia possis, hæc præter duo, vini potum, &c. words, looks, gestures, all will betray them: but two of the most notable signs are observed by the pulse and Countenance.

When Antiochus the son of Seleucus was sick for Stratonice his Mother-in-law, and would not confess his grief, or the cause of his disease, Erasistratus the Physitian found him by his Pulse and Countenance, to be in love with her, because that when she came in presence, or was named, his pulse varied, and he blushed besides. In this very sort was the love of Callicles, the son of Polycles, discovered by Panacæus the Physitian, as you may read the story at large in Aristenætus.