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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…

He wants to please his mistress, me and her attendant, The servants, the maids too, and my little dog.

He strives to please his mistress and her maid, Her servants and her dog, and is well content.

If he obtains any little thing of hers—a bodice lace, a feather from her fan, a shoelace, a ribbon, a ring or a bracelet of hair—

A token snatched from her arms, Or from a finger that hardly resists,

He wears it as a love-token on his arm, in his hat, on his finger or beside his heart. He worships her portrait twice a day and will gaze at it for two hours together without looking away, as Laodamia did when Protesilaus went to war: “Sit at home with his image before her.” A garter or bracelet of hers is more precious than any saint’s relic. He stores it in his casket—O blessed relic!—and kisses it every day. In her presence his eyes never leave her; he will drink where she drank, if possible at the very same spot, and so on.

If she is absent, he will walk along the path she walked, sit beneath the tree where she used to sit, in that bower, on that very seat,

And, wretched man, he presses kisses on the doors.

Sometimes many years afterwards, although she is far away and lives many miles off, he still loves to walk that way and have his chamber window face that direction. He loves to walk beside the river that, though far away, runs past the house where she lives; he loves the wind that blows towards that region.

Oh, how often I have said to the west winds hurrying there: “Happy winds, you will see beautiful Amaryllis!”

O happy western winds that blow that way, For you will see my love’s fair face today.

He will send her a message by the wind:

You Alpine breezes, breezes from the peaceful mountains, Carry these words to her.

He longs to speak with one of her acquaintances, for his heart is always with her; to talk about her, admiring and praising her, lamenting and moaning, wishing himself anything for her sake, if only it would give him a chance to see her. Oh, if he could only enjoy her presence! So Philostratus addressed his mistress: “O happy ground on which she treads! And happy would I be if she would tread on me. I think her face could make rivers stand still; and when she comes out, birds will sing and gather round her.”

The valleys will laugh; Tempe will laugh to meet her; The green earth will burst at once into flower.

The fields will laugh, the pleasant valleys burn, And all the grass will turn into flowers.

Every breeze will breathe ambrosia.

“When she is in the meadow, she is fairer than any flower, for that lasts only a day. The river is pleasing, but it suddenly vanishes; yet your flower does not fade, your stream is greater than the sea. If I look at heaven, I seem to see the sun fallen down to shine below, and you, whom I desire, shining in its place. If I look at the night, I seem to see two more glorious stars: Hesperus and yourself.”

A little later he courts his mistress in these words: “If you leave the city, the protecting gods who guard the town will run after you to gaze at you. If you sail on the seas, they will follow you like so many small boats. What river would not run into the sea?”

Another sighs and sobs, swears he has “a heart torn apart,” a heart crushed to powder, dissolved and melted within him—or gone from him altogether, into his mistress’s bosom, presumably. He is in an oven, a salamander in the fire, so scorched is he by love’s heat. He wishes himself a saddle for her to sit on, a posy for her to smell; he would not mind being hanged if he could be strangled in her garters. He would willingly die tomorrow if she might kill him with her own hands.

Ovid would be a flea, a gnat, a ring; Catullus, a sparrow:

Oh, if I could play with you as she does, And ease the sorrowful cares of my heart!

Anacreon would be a mirror, a gown, a necklace—anything:

But let me become a mirror, So you may always look at me, your own; And let me become a garment, So you may always wear me, your own. I wish, too, to be changed into water, So that I may wash your limbs. Let me become spikenard, girl, So that I may anoint you yourself; Let me be the band about your breasts, And a necklace on your neck; And let me become a shoe, so that At least you may always tread on me.

But I would be a looking-glass, For you to gaze upon always; Or, my love, I would be your gown, For you to wear wherever you go; Or a pure well filled to the brim, That I might wash your purer limbs; Or precious balm, to anoint Each lovely joint with choicest care; Or, if I could, I would gladly be The happy necklace round your neck; Or would it were my blessed luck To be the fine linen on your fair breast; Or would I were your shoe, to be Trodden on by you each day.

O thrice-happy man who will possess her! So said those who saw Hero in Musaeus, and Salmacis to Hermaphroditus:

Happy the mother, and so forth; happy the nurse— But far, far happier than them all is he Whom you will deem worthy of the joys of marriage and a shared bed.

The same passion made the woman in the comedy exclaim:

How fortunate the women who sleep with him!

Happy are his bedfellows. And, as she said of Cyrus, “Blessed is the woman who will become his wife”: happy is the woman who will marry him; indeed, thrice happy she who will enjoy him for even one night.

10210.Plautus, Asinaria 183–185 in the consulted numbering: the bawd Cleareta describes a suitor’s efforts to please her daughter and the whole household. Thus “me” in the Latin is the mother, not the poet. Burton compresses the lines, and his accompanying English couplet omits that distinction. “Well apaid” means well satisfied.

10211.A “busk-point” is a fastening lace associated with the stiffened front of a bodice. A “favour” is a token worn to declare attachment to a lady. The catalogue moves from fashionable accessories to objects treated as sacred relics.

10213.Horace, Odes 1.9.23–24: a token playfully taken from an arm or resisting finger. Burton prints direptum where the consulted text has dereptum. The weak resistance belongs to the poem’s representation of courtship; “hardly resists” preserves the force of malè pertinaci.

10215.Laodamia and Protesilaus are the legendary couple separated by the Trojan War. “Picture” can mean an image or likeness, rather than specifically an oil painting. The precise source of the Latin marginal sentence remains unlocated. “Casket” means a small box; drinking in the same place suggests touching the same spot on the vessel with the lips.

10216.Lucretius, De rerum natura 4.1179: the excluded lover kisses the beloved’s doors. The opening continues the preceding account of places and objects treasured for their association with her. A bower is a shaded garden retreat.

10218.Buchanan, Sylvae, Desiderium Lutetiae 28–29, printed page 93 in the consulted scan. Daphnis addresses the west winds that will see Amaryllis; the next lines ask them to tell her of his passion. Buchanan has quoties, “how often,” where Burton prints quotes. That printed form remains on the left; the modern column gives its evident sense. Burton’s separate English couplet follows.

10220.Burton cites Girolamo Fracastoro addressing Andrea Navagero (Latin Naugerius). The precise poem locator remains unverified. The carried message is supplied by hæc, “these things/words.”

10224.The p and o marginal entries are printed out of alphabetical order; their body anchors are preserved. Philostratus is the author cited for these extravagant love letters; their exact numbering and Burton’s Latin intermediary require collation. “Still” means always.

10225.Tempe is the Thessalian vale, conventionally a lovely landscape. The English couplet’s “burn” is retained as Burton prints it; it does not reproduce the Latin’s second “laugh.” Ambrosia evokes divine sweetness or fragrance. Exact sources of these unassigned verses remain unverified.

10227.Hesperus is the evening star. These are extravagant comparisons within the Philostratus passage, not geographical or astronomical claims. Burton moves between third-person “she” and direct address; the modern column preserves those shifts.

10229.The salamander was traditionally imagined as able to live in fire. A posy is a small bunch of flowers. The fanciful transformations and wishes for death belong to Burton’s catalogue of erotic exaggeration.

10231.Ovid, Amores 2.15, wishes to become the ring sent to his beloved; the flea and gnat attributions require separate verification. Catullus 2.9–10 addresses the beloved’s sparrow: he wishes to play with it as she does, rather than explicitly wishing to become it. Burton supplies that interpretation and adds O to the quoted opening.

10233.A Latin rendering of an Anacreontic poem, cited as poem 30 in Burton’s edition. The exact edition and modern numbering remain unverified. Nard is a fragrant ointment; fascia a breast-band. The print reads masculine teipsum, “you yourself,” after puella, “girl.” The translation keeps the emphasis on the person addressed, while following the female addressee indicated by the context.

10235.Barten Holyday’s Technogamia, act 1, scene 7, supplies the English rendering, printed here separately from the Latin. “Lawn” is fine linen; “pap” means breast; “hap” means fortune or chance. Burton’s Holliday spelling remains in his marginal note.

10238.The passage blends the admiration of Hero in Musaeus with Salmacis’s address to Hermaphroditus in Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.320–328. Ovid blesses the young man’s family, nurse and especially his bride; Burton’s masculine ille/quem instead praises the man who will share the beloved’s bed. The scan reads fructu sponsi. The Xenophon reference is anchored within these verses although it does not identify their Ovidian wording; its placement is retained.

10240.Plautus, Miles gloriosus 65. Artotrogus, the soldier’s flattering dependant, reports women praising Pyrgopolynices; a woman does not speak the line directly on stage. The preceding exchange exposes Artotrogus’s interest in being fed. Burton moves sunt, “are,” after fortunatae and changes isto to illo, both rendered here as “him.” His quotation and separate English gloss remain distinct.

10242.The scan clearly reads Cyrus. The adjacent Lucian citation and the earlier Xenophon, Cyropaedia 5, citation do not provide a secure locator for this sentence; the attribution and anchor placement remain to be collated. The paraphrase follows Burton without silently assigning the quotation to another speaker.