Cure of Love-Melancholy, by Labour, Dyet, Physick, Fasting, &c.

Although it be controverted by some, whether Love Melancholy may be cured, because it is so irresistible and violent a passion, for as you know,

—— facilis descensus Averni; Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras; Hic labor, hoc opus est. ——

It is an easie passage down to hell, But to come back once there you cannot well.

Yet without question, if it be taken in time, it may be helped, and by many good remedies amended. Avicenna lib. 3. Fen. cap. 23. & 24. sets down seven compendious ways how this malady may be eased, altered and expelled. Savanarola 9. principal observations, Iason Pratensis prescribes eight rules besides Physick, how this passion may be tamed, Laurentius 2. main precepts, Arnoldus, Valleriola, Montaltus, Hildesheim, Langius, and others enform us otherwaies, and yet all tending to the same purpose.

The sum of which I will briefly Epitomize, (for I light my Candle from their Torches,) and enlarge again upon occasion, as shall seem best to me, and that after mine own method. The first rule to be observed in this stubborn and unbridled passion, is exercise and diet. It is an old and well known sentence, Sine Cerere & Baccho friget Venus; As an idle sedentary life, liberall feeding, are great causes of it, so the opposite, labour, slender and sparing diet, with continual business, are the best and most ordinary means to prevent it.

Otia si tollas, periêre Cupidinis artes, Contemptæque jacent, & sine luce faces.

Take idleness away, and put to flight Are Cupids Arts, his Torches give no light.

Minerva, Diana, Vesta, and the nine Muses were not enamoured at all, because they never were idle.

Frustra blanditiæ appulistis ad has, Frustra nequitiæ venistis ad has, Frustra delitiæ obsidebitis has, Frustra has illecebræ, & procacitates, Et suspiria, & oscula, & susurri, Et quisquis male sana corda amantum Blandis ebria fascinat venenis.

In vain are all your flatteries, In vain are all your knaveries, Delights, deceipts, procacities, Sighs, kisses, and conspiracies, And what e’re is done by Art, To bewitch a Lovers heart.

’Tis in vain to set upon those that are busie. ’Tis Savanarola’s third rule, Occupari in multis & magnis negotiis, and Avicenna’s precept, cap. 24.

Cedit amor rebus: res age tutus eris.

To be busie still, and as Guianerius injoyns, about matters of great moment, if it may be. Magninus adds, Never to be idle, but at the hours of sleep.

—— & ni Poscas ante diem librum cum lumine, si non Intendas animum studiis, & rebus honestis, Invidia vel amore miser torquebere. ——

For if thou dost not ply thy book, By candle-light to study bent, Imploy’d about some honest thing, Envy or Love shall thee torment.

No better Physick then to be alwaies occupied, seriously intent.

Cur in penates rariùs tenues subit, Hæc delicatas eligens pestis domus, Mediumque sanos vulgus affectus tenet? &c.

Why dost thou ask, poor folks are often free, And dainty places still molested be?

Because poor people fare coursly, work hard, go wollward and bare. Non habet unde suum paupertas pascat amorem, Guianerius therefore prescribes his patient to go with hair-cloth next his skin, to go bare-footed, and bare-legged in cold weather, to whip himself now and then, as Monks do, but above all, to fast. Not with sweet wine, mutton and pottage, as many of those Tenterbellies do, howsoever they put on Lenten faces, and whatsoever they pretend, but from all manner of meat.

Fasting is an all-sufficient remedy of it self; for as Iason Pratensis holds, the bodies of such persons that feed liberally, and live at ease, are full of bad spirits and Divels, divelish thoughts; no better Physick for such parties, then to fast. Hildesheim spicel. 2. to this of hunger, adds often baths, much exercise and sweat, but hunger and fasting he prescribes before the rest. And ’tis indeed our Saviours Oracle, This kind of divell is not cast out but by fasting and prayer; which makes the Fathers so immoderate in commendation of fasting.

As Hunger, saith Ambrose, is a friend of Virginity, so is it an enemy to lasciviousness, but fulness overthrowes chastity, and fostereth all manner of provocations. If thine horse be too lusty, Hierome adviseth thee to take away some of his provender; by this means those Pauls, Hilaries, Antonies, and famous Anchorites subdued the lusts of the flesh; by this means Hilarion made his Asse, as he called his own body, leave kicking, (so Hierome relates of him in his life) when the Divel tempted him to any such foule offence.

By this means those Indian Brachmani kept themselves continent, they lay upon the ground covered with skins, as the Redshanks do on Hadder, and dieted themselves sparingly on one dish, which Guianerius would have all young men put in practise; and if that will not serve, Gordonius would have them soundly whipped, or to cool their courage, kept in prison, and there fed with bread and water, till they acknowledge their errour, and become of another mind.

If imprisonment and hunger will not take them down, according to the direction of that Theban Crates, time must wear it out; if time will not, the last refuge is an halter. But this you will say is comically spoken. However Fasting by all means must be still used; and as they must refrain from such meats formerly mentioned, which cause venery, or provoke lust, so they must use an opposite diet.

Wine must be altogether avoided of the younger sort. So Plato prescribes, and would have the Magistrates themselves abstain from it, for examples sake, highly commending the Carthaginians for their temperance in this kind. And ’twas a good edict, a commendable thing, so that it were not done for some sinister respect, as those old Ægyptians abstained from Wine, because some fabulous Poets had given out, Wine sprang first from the blood of the Gyants, or out of superstition as our modern Turks, but for temperance, it being animæ virus & vitiorum fomes, a plague it self if immoderately taken.

Women of old for that cause, in hot Countries were forbid the use of it; as severely punished for drinking of wine, as for adultery; and young folks, as Leonicus hath recorded, Var. hist. l. 3. cap. 87, 88. out of Atheneus and others; and is still practised in Italy and some other Countries of Europe, and Asia, as Claudius Minoes hath well illustrated in his Comment on the 23. Embleme of Alciat. So choyce is to be made of other diet.

Nec minus erucas aptum est vitare salaces, Et quicquid Veneri corpora nostra parat.

Eringo’s are not good for to be taken, And all lascivious meats must be forsaken.

Those opposite meats which ought to be used, are, Cowcumbers, Mellons, Purslan, water Lillies, Rue, Woodbine, Ammi, Lettice, which Lemnius so much commends, lib. 2. cap. 42. and Mizaldus hort. med. to this purpose; Vitex, or Agnus castus before the rest, which saith Magninus, hath a wonderful vertue in it.

Those Athenian women, in their solemn feasts called Thesmopheries, were to abstain nine dayes from the company of men, during which time, saith Ælian, they laid a certain hearb named Hanea, in their beds, which asswaged those ardent flames of love, and freed them from the torments of that violent passion. See more in Porta, Matthiolus, Crescentius lib. 5. &c. and what every Herbalist almost and Physitian hath written, cap. de Satyriasi & Priapismo; Rhasis amongst the rest.

In some cases again, if they be much dejected and brought low in body, and now ready to despair through anguish, grief, and too sensible a feeling of their misery, a cup of wine and full diet is not amiss, and as Valescus adviseth, cum aliâ honestâ venerem sæpè exercendo, which Langius Epist. med. lib. 1. epist. 24. approves out of Rhasis (ad assiduationem coitus invitat) and Guianerius seconds it, cap. 16, tract. 16. as a very profitable remedie,

—— tument tibi quum inguina, cum si Ancilla, aut verna præsto est, tentigine rumpi Malis? non ego namque, &c. ——