The Anatomy of Melancholy

It is the common habit of all suitors to dress themselves up and spend extravagantly on clothes: “washed clean,” neat, combed and curled, their hair powdered, “groomed and curled with an iron,” with a long lovelock, a flower in the ear, scented gloves, rings, scarves, feathers, fastening cords and so forth—as if each were a prince’s Ganymede, wearing new suits every day as fashion changes, and walking as though he were treading on eggs.

And, as Heinsius wrote to Primierus, “Once he is infatuated with a girl, he must lie awake at night, give up his books, sigh and lament, sometimes weep over his hard luck, and above all observe what hats, collars, doublets and breeches are in fashion; how to trim his beard and wear his lovelock, turn up his moustaches and curl his hair, shape his pointed beard—or, if he wears it spread out, ensure that the east side matches the west.”

Otherwise he may be mocked, as Julian, the apostate emperor, was for wearing a long, shaggy, goat-like beard, fit for making ropes. In his Misopogon, the speech he made at Antioch in his own defence, he ironically admits that it hindered his kissing, “for it prevented me from pressing smooth lips to smooth lips, all the sweeter for their smoothness.” But he did not greatly care, as the following words show: “I do not trouble myself about receiving or giving kisses.” Yet, to follow my author, this may matter a great deal to a young lover. He must be more attentive in this respect, and on good terms with an excellent tailor and barber:

A young barber, but so skilled That Nero’s chambers never had his equal.

He must have neat shoe-ties, fastening cords and garters; speak with studied precision, walk with studied precision, eat and drink with studied precision—and, most essential of all, be mad with studied precision.

Among the other accomplishments with which an amorous fellow is endowed, he must learn to sing and dance and play some instrument—as he certainly will if he has truly felt the attraction of this magnet of love. For, as Erasmus puts it, “Love teaches music and poetry.” Love will make them musicians, make them compose ditties, madrigals, elegies and love sonnets, and sing them to various pretty tunes, acquiring every accomplishment they can.

Jupiter could tell that Mercury was in love with Philologia because he learned languages, polished speech—for Persuasion herself was Venus’s daughter, according to some writers—the arts and sciences, “to please the maiden”: all to win his mistress’s favour and delight her. Their chief concern is to sing and dance; and certainly so many gentlemen and gentlewomen would not be so accomplished in these things if love did not spur them on.