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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind…

Once in love, therefore, he will walk, run or ride many miles to meet her, by day or night, even in pitch darkness; endure scorching heat and cold; wait in frost, snow, rain and storms until his teeth chatter. Those northern winds and showers cannot cool or quench the flames of his love. “He is not deterred by the dead of night.” Take my word for it: he will endure hunger and thirst. “He will penetrate everything, break through everything”: love will find a way. Through thick and thin he will reach her. “Mountains seem easily traversed, rivers swimmable.” He will swim an ocean, ride post-haste over the Alps, Apennines or Pyrenees,

He is ready to pass through fire, the waves of the sea, And whirlwinds—

Even if it rains daggers point-downwards, light or dark makes no difference: “Faunus came through the darkness to the dewy cave.” For her sweet sake he will undertake Hercules’s twelve labours, endure anything and risk everything: he feels none of it.

“What shall I say,” asks Haedus, “of the great dangers they face, the single combats they undertake, how they risk their lives, creep through windows and gutters, climb over walls to reach their sweethearts”—oiling doors and hinges to prevent creaking, treading softly, swimming, wading, keeping watch and so on—“and, if surprised, leap out of windows and throw themselves headlong down, bruising or breaking their legs or arms, sometimes losing life itself?” So Calisto did for his lovely Melibea.

Hear some of their own confessions, declarations, complaints, offers, protests, wishes, brutish attempts and efforts of this kind. Hercules served Omphale, put on an apron, took up a distaff and spun. The soldier Thraso was so submissive to Thais that he resolved to do whatever she commanded: “I shall surrender myself to Thais and do what she orders.” I am at her service.

Philostratus, in a letter to his mistress: “I am ready to die, sweetheart, if that is your wish. Quench the thirst of the man your star has scorched and ruined. Springs and rivers refuse drink to no one who comes. The spring does not say, ‘You shall not drink’; the apple, ‘You shall not eat’; the beautiful meadow, ‘Do not walk in me.’ Yet you alone will not let me approach or see you. Scorned and despised, I die of grief.”

In Petronius, when his mistress Circe merely frowned at him, Polyaenus drew his sword and told her to kill him, stab him or whip him to death: he would strip naked and offer no resistance. Another will journey to Japan, “disregarding the hardships of a long voyage.” A third, if she says so, will not speak a word for twelve months: her command will be kept absolutely. A fourth will take Hercules’s club from him and, like that Centurio in the Spanish Celestina, kill ten men for his mistress Areusa at a word from her. He will slice shields in two like apples and strike men down like flies: “Choose what kind of death you want me to kill him by.”

Galeatus of Mantua went a little further. When he was almost mad with love for a beautiful girl in the city, she told him in jest to leap into the River Po if he loved her—presumably to test what he would do for her sake. He immediately jumped headlong from the bridge and drowned. Another, at Ficinum, was similarly in love. When his mistress happened to tell him to go and hang himself—intending no harm, I dare swear—he hanged himself at her door the following night.

“Money,” says Xenophon, “is a very welcome and pleasing guest; yet I would rather give it to my dear Clinias than receive it from others. I would rather serve him than command others, be his drudge than take my ease, face any danger for his sake than live in safety. For I would rather see Clinias than all the rest of the world, and lose the sight of everything else rather than of him alone. I resent night and sleep because I cannot see him, and thank the daylight and sun because they show me my Clinias. I will run into the fire for his sake; and if you merely saw him, I know you too would run with me.”

So Philostratus writes to his mistress: “Command whatever you wish: I will do it. Tell me to go to sea: I am gone at once. To take so many lashes: I am ready. To run through fire and lay down my life and soul at your feet: it is done.” So Aeolus answered Juno:

Your task, O queen, is to determine what you wish; My duty is to carry out your commands.

O queen, your task is always to command me, And I am bound to carry out your will.

And Phaedra to Hippolytus:

Call me your sister, Hippolytus, or your servant— Your servant, rather: I will bear every kind of servitude.

Call me sister or servant, as you choose; Rather, your servant: I am yours to use.

If you command me to go through deep snow, I would not shrink from climbing the frozen ridges of Pindus, Nor hesitate to pass through fire or hostile ranks, Ready to offer my breast to their swords. It is for you then to command, and for me to obey.

I shall not mind climbing straightaway To snowy hills or frozen Pindus’s peaks, Or running through fire or through an army. Only say the word, for I am always yours.

Callicratidas in Lucian bursts into this passionate speech: “O God of heaven, grant me this life for ever: to sit opposite my mistress and hear her sweet voice, to go in and out with her, to share every other occupation with her. I would work when she works and sail when she sails. Whoever hates her should hate me. If a tyrant kills her, he should kill me. If she dies, I would not live; one grave should hold us both.”

Dying, she will end my love, as I too die.

Abrocomus in Aristaenetus makes the same petition for his Delphia:

I would love to live with you, and gladly die with you.

It is the same refrain Theagenes used to his Chariclea: “If only I may enjoy your love, let me die at once.” So too Leander, for his Hero, when he begged the sea’s waves to let him reach his beloved undisturbed and kill him on the return journey:

10146.“Ride post”: travel rapidly, using the posting system and relays of horses. Burton’s catalogue of obstacles alternates English and Latin variations on love’s supposed invincibility. The unattributed Latin phrases are translated without supplying conjectural authors.

10148.Plutarch, Dialogue on Love 17, describes the lover’s readiness to go through fire, water and whirlwinds for his beloved. Burton’s fire, sea and winds match this passage in the consulted English translation. His particular Latin verse version remains unidentified.

10149.Ovid, Fasti 2.332, in the story of Faunus, Omphale and Hercules. The surrounding episode concerns Faunus’s attempted sexual assault, frustrated when exchanged clothing leads him to Hercules. Burton detaches the line as an image of nocturnal pursuit. Hercules’s twelve labours are the hero’s traditional cycle of extraordinary tasks.

10151.Pietro Haedus’s work on love is cited under the abbreviated title De contemnendo amore. Calisto and Melibea belong to Celestina, the Spanish tragicomedy associated with Fernando de Rojas; Burton uses Calisto’s fatal fall as an example of the risks of clandestine courtship. The quoted Haedus passage still requires edition-level collation.

10153.Terence, Eunuchus 1026–1027, where Thraso declares his submission to Thais and immediately compares himself with Hercules serving Omphale. The consulted text labels the scene 5.7; Burton gives 5.8 and recasts the wording. A distaff holds the fibre being spun.

10155.The attributed Philostratus letter turns springs, fruit and meadow into contrasts with the woman’s refusal. “Star” evokes the beloved as a celestial influence that burns or ruins the lover. Its exact place within the letter collection remains unverified.

10158.Petronius, Satyricon 130: Polyaenus writes to Circe after sexual failure. The source offers future submission in a letter; Burton turns it into an enacted gesture, drawing a sword, and understates the cause as a frown. Centurio is the boastful character’s name in Celestina; it is not a military rank here. “Pippins” are apples.

10160.These are anecdotes attributed to Gaspar Ens, presented as extreme consequences of lovers’ obedience. Burton’s “thinking no harm I dare swear” is his conjecture about the woman’s intention. The Ens work and the place printed Ficinum (Ficino in the margin) remain unidentified; the uncertain name is retained.

10162.Xenophon, Symposium 4.12–16: the speaker is Critobulus, praising his male beloved Clinias. Burton freely rearranges the speech. In the source, Critobulus’s final boast is that his own beauty would persuade others to follow him through fire; Burton instead makes seeing Clinias the inducement. The male pronouns are retained.

10164.Virgil, Aeneid 1.76–77: Aeolus accepts Juno’s command to unleash the winds against the Trojans. This is obedience between divine powers, repurposed here as a parallel for lovers’ service. Burton prints quod optas and capescere; the consulted text reads quid optes and capessere. His separate English couplet follows.

10165.Seneca, Phaedra 611–612, also known as Hippolytus: Phaedra offers herself as servant to her stepson. Burton has aut where the consulted text has vel in the first line. The Latin and Burton’s own English version are retained as distinct verse units.

10168.Seneca, Phaedra 613–618, abridged and altered. Burton prints masculine paratus where the consulted text has paratis agreeing with “swords”; his final line also rewrites Seneca. Pindus is a Greek mountain range. The accompanying Propertius quotations are from 2.15.36 and 2.28.42; Burton changes vivet/cadet to vivat/cadat in the latter. His separate English paraphrase follows.

10170.The speech occurs in Amores 46, transmitted under Lucian’s name but of uncertain authorship. Callicratidas there addresses love for a male youth; Burton’s English and Latin marginal rendering make the beloved female. He also changes shared illness to shared labour and a tyrant’s imprisonment to killing. The modern column follows Burton while this note records the changed context.

10172.Burton attributes the line to George Buchanan, without a work or poem number. Its precise location remains unverified. The future Finiet and the repeated dying of beloved and speaker are retained in the rendering.

10175.Aristaenetus’s fictional love letters supply Abrocomus and Delphia (Delphis in the Latin margin); the exact letter passage requires collation. The following verse is Horace, Odes 3.9.24, spoken by Lydia at the close of a lovers’ dialogue.