By counsel and persuasion, the foulness of the deed, the faults of men and women, the miseries of marriage, the consequences of lust, and so forth

As there are various causes of this burning lust, or heroic love, so there are many good remedies to relieve and help it. Among them, good counsel and persuasion, which I should have discussed first, are of great importance and must not be omitted. Many believe that counsel can do no good in this blind, headstrong passion.

For a thing that has neither reason nor measure in itself You cannot govern by any counsel.

A thing with neither judgment nor a limit— How should advice or counsel put it right?

For what limit can there be to love?

Yet good counsel and advice must undoubtedly have great power, especially when they come from a wise, fatherly, venerable and prudent person, someone of authority whom the people concerned respect and stand in awe of, or from a friend of sound judgment. By itself, it can turn them aside and be sufficient.

The physician Gordonius gives it such weight that he insists it should be used first. “Let him be turned away from her by the counsel of a man he fears, who shows him the dangers of this world, the judgment of hell and the joys of Paradise.”

He would have prudent men dissuade them after the passion’s fury is somewhat spent or softened by absence. At first, giving counsel is as ill-timed as comforting parents at the very moment their children have died. It is useless to prescribe narcotics, cordials, nectar-like draughts, potions, Homer’s nepenthe or Helen’s bowl: “she will not stop beating her breast.” She will lament and howl for a time.

Let passion run its course for a while; then he may proceed by setting out the miserable consequences and dangers that will surely follow, the pains of hell, the joys of Paradise and the like, which their perverse conduct will make them forfeit or incur. This is a fitting method, a very good means. For what Seneca said of vice I say of love: “It is learned without a teacher, but scarcely abandoned without one.” It is learned by itself, but hardly left behind without a tutor.

It is therefore useful to have such a supervisor to reason with them and show them the absurdities, troubles, imperfections and discontents that usually follow. In their blindness, fury and madness they cannot apply these to themselves, or through weakness will not acknowledge them. It is good for them to disclose their feelings and listen to friendly warnings.

“Tell me, sweetheart,” says Tryphaena to the lovesick Charmides in Lucian, “what is troubling you. Perhaps I can ease your mind and help you in your courtship.” Undoubtedly she could, and so can you, if the patient is receptive to good advice and will at least hear what can be said.

If he loves at all, she is either a chaste woman or a whore. If she is unchaste, let him read, or have impressed upon him, the fifth chapter of Solomon’s Proverbs; Ecclesiasticus 26; Ambrose, book 1, chapter 4 of Abel and Cain; Philo the Jew, On the Hire of a Prostitute; Platina’s dialogue On Loves; Espencaeus; the three books of Petrus Haedus On Despising Loves; and Aeneas Sylvius’s sharp letter to his friend Nicholas of Warthurge, which he calls “a remedy for illicit love,” and so forth.

“For what is a whore,” as he says, “but a plunderer of youth, the ruin of men, a destroyer, a devourer of inheritances, the downfall of honour, fodder for the devil, the gate of death and a recruit for hell?” “Such love is a snare for the soul,” and so forth: bitter honey, sweet poison, delicious destruction, a willingly chosen evil, “a mixture of filth, a dunghill.”

And, as Lucretia, a notorious whore in Pietro Aretino, confesses: “Gluttony, anger, envy, pride, sacrilege, theft and slaughter were all born on the day a whore began her profession.” As she goes on, “Her pride is greater than a rich miser’s; she is more envious than the pox, as malicious as melancholy and as covetous as hell. If, from the beginning of the world, anyone has been bad, worse, worst—bad in the superlative degree—it is a whore. How many have I ruined, caused to be wounded or killed! O Antonia, you see what I am outwardly, but God knows what I am within: a puddle of iniquity, a sink of sin, a pox-ridden whore.”

Let the man who is so infatuated now reflect on this. Let him look at what happened to others—Samson, Hercules, Holofernes and the rest—and the countless evils that attend it. If the woman he loves is another man’s wife, it is abominable in the sight of God and men. Adultery is expressly forbidden by God’s commandment, a mortal sin that can endanger his soul. If he fears God or has any religion, he will avoid it and abhor the foulness of his own deed.

If he loves a chaste maiden, it is either to dishonour her or to marry her. If to dishonour her, it is fornication, a foul deed, though some make light of it, and almost equal to adultery itself. If to marry her, let him seriously consider what he undertakes: look before he leaps, as the proverb says, or fixes his affections. First examine the woman and the condition of his circumstances and hers: whether they are a suitable match in wealth, age, family and other such matters, “whether she is suited to his love,” and whether it is likely to go ahead. If not, let him wisely hold himself back at the outset, curb his excessive passion and moderate his desire by turning his thoughts to another subject.

Or, if it is not for his good, let him act as Aeneas did: warned by Mercury in a dream, he left Dido’s love and hurried out to sea.

He calls Mnestheus, Surgestus and brave Cloanthus, And orders them to make the fleet ready in silence—

And although she opposed him with vows, tears, prayers and curses,

No tears move him, Nor does he listen to those words with a yielding heart.