“I adore Melibea,” says lovesick Calisto. “I believe in Melibea; I honour, admire and love my Melibea.” His soul was steeped in his lady, placed in paradise in her, imprisoned in her. When Thais took her leave of Phaedria:

My Phaedria, is there anything else you wish?

“Sweetheart,” she said, “is there any further service you require of me?” He readily replied with these instructions:

What do I wish? Love me day and night; long for me, Dream of me, wait for me, think of me, Hope for me, delight in me, be wholly with me; In short, be my very soul, since I am yours.

Do you ask, my dear, what service I desire? To love me day and night is all I ask; To dream of me, await me, think of me, Depend on me and hope, still long to see me; Delight in me, be wholly mine, For know, my love, that I am wholly yours.

But none of this was needed, you will say: once she falls in love, she will be his and fix her love on him alone:

Though apart, she hears And sees him in his absence.

She can—she must—think and dream of nothing else but him, constantly of him, as Orpheus did of his Eurydice:

Of you, sweet wife, of you upon the lonely shore, I sang to myself; Of you at the coming of day, of you at its departure.

Of you, sweet wife, was all my song, Morning, evening and throughout the day.

And Dido of her Aeneas:

And what dreams terrify me! The man’s great excellence, and his image again and again, run through my mind.

Again and again she thinks of the man Who was so fine, so handsome, so cheerful, so gracious.

In the first book of Achilles Tatius, Clitophon complains that his mistress Leucippe tormented him much more by night than by day. During the day he had one object or another to distract his senses, but at night everything centred on her. He lay awake all night, unable to think of anything else or put her out of his mind. Towards morning, sleep took a little pity on him: he slumbered for a while, but all his dreams were of her.

In the dark night I speak to you, Embrace you, and in the false image of a dream Fleeting joys caress my anxious mind.

In the dark night I speak, embrace, and find That fleeting joys deceive my anxious mind.

Euryalus makes the same complaint to his Lucretia: “Day and night I think of you, wish for you, speak of you, call upon you, look for you, hope for you and delight in you; day and night I love you.”

My love does not depart When evening rises, Nor when it flees the swift sun.

Morning and evening are alike to me; my thoughts find no rest:

Waking, I seek you with my eyes; at night, with my mind.

I think of you constantly. “The soul is not where it gives life, but where it loves.” I live and breathe in you; I long for you.

Oh, the radiant light that can restore you to me! Oh, the day that will be three and four times happy for me!

Oh, happy day that will restore you to my sight! Meanwhile he raves about her. Her sweet face, eyes, actions, gestures, hands, feet and speech, her length, breadth, height, depth and every other dimension are so surveyed, measured and recorded by that astrolabe of imagination—sometimes with such intensity, earnestness, eagerness and persistence, with so powerful an imagination—that at last he thinks he truly sees her. He speaks with her and embraces her: like Ixion, he takes “a cloud for Juno,” as the saying goes. “I see nothing but Leucippe; Leucippe is always before my eyes and in my mind.” I see and contemplate nothing but Leucippe. Present or absent, it is all the same:

And although the presence of her gentle beauty was absent, The love that her beauty had inspired while present remained.

The impression of her beauty remains fixed in his mind:

Her features remain firmly imprinted in his heart.

Just as a person bitten by a mad dog thinks everything he sees is dogs—dogs in his food, dogs in his dish, dogs in his drink—so his mistress is in his eyes, ears and heart, in every sense. Valleriola had a merchant as a patient in the same condition. Ulrich Molitor, drawing on Augustine, tells of a man who, through the force of his passion, constantly thought he saw his mistress beside him, talking to him: “While awake, he seemed to have intercourse with her,” as she continually embraced him.

Now if love can produce such effects when its course is pleasant, what bitter torments must it breed when, as is usual, it is constantly accompanied by fear and unending sorrow, suspicion, anxiety and agony? What intolerable pain it must be!

Gargara bears no such multitude Of tall stalks as the cares in a sunken Heart, linked in a long, unbroken Chain, or the wounds that deep within Cruel love intermingles.

Mount Gargarus has fewer stalks Than a lover’s breast has grievous wounds And linked cares that love combines.

When the king of Babylon wished to punish one of his courtiers for loving a young woman of royal blood, far above his station, Apollonius, who was present, urged him by every means to leave the man alone. To love without fulfilment was an unspeakable torment; no tyrant could invent such a punishment. Like a gnat at a candle, he would soon consume himself.

For love is a perpetual flow, “anguish of mind,” a warfare: “every lover serves as a soldier.” Love is always a grievous wound, and a lover’s heart is Cupid’s quiver; it is a consuming fire—“approach this fire”—an unquenchable fire.

The evil is fed and grows, And burns within, like the heat That pours from Etna’s cavern.

As Etna rages, so does love—and more fiercely than Etna or any physical fire:

For love often kindles a flame Hotter than Vulcan’s fire at Lipara.