The Anatomy of Melancholy

He is an utter craven, a coward, a blockhead and a beast who will not do as much. But surely they will—they will! These lovers of our own time commonly say and do still more: stab their arms, drink toasts in blood, or act like that Thessalian Thero, who bit off his own thumb, “challenging his rival to match the deed,” to make his competitor do the same. They frequently issue challenges to combat for their lady and mistress, and charge in a joust,

So that each knocks the other down Beneath the horses’ feet—so furiously they meet.

Then up and at it again:

And both rain down such heavy blows with their axes That neither plate nor chainmail withstands the onslaught, But crumples and breaks apart like rotten wood, And fire flashes like lightning after thunder.

And to fight in her cause until “their helmets and shields are all broken, and their swords notched like so many saws.” They cannot bear to see her insulted in any way: to speak against her is blasphemy; to name her without every mark of respect is dishonour. These creatures commonly kneel on their bare knees to drink toasts; though the cup were a mile deep, whatever the mixture, down it goes.

If she orders it, they will go barefoot to Jerusalem, to the Great Khan’s court, to the East Indies to fetch her a bird to wear in her hat. They will sail around the world with Drake and Cavendish for her sweet sake, “against contrary winds”; serve twice seven years, as Jacob did for Rachel; do as much as Ghismonda, daughter of Tancred, prince of Salerno, who ate the heart of her true love Guiscardo when he died; or as Artemisia, who drank her husband’s powdered bones and so buried him within herself; and endure more torments than Theseus or Paris. “Venus is worshipped more by these things than by incense and sacrificial victims”: such sacrifices, as Aristaenetus maintains, please Venus well.

In general, they undertake any hardship, labour or toil for their mistress’s sake. They love and admire, acting as servants not only to her but to all her friends and attendants, whom they hug and embrace for her sake. Her dog, her portrait, everything she wears—they worship it as a relic. If anyone comes from her, they feast him, reward him, will not leave his company and do him every service, always remembering her, always talking of her:

For if the one you love is absent, images are still at hand, And that sweet name keeps hovering about your ears.

Even the messenger who comes from him to her is a most welcome guest. If he brings a letter, she will read it twenty times over and, as Lucretia did with Euryalus’s, “kiss the letter a thousand times in succession, and then read it.” And Chelidonia, receiving Philonius’s letter, put it in her bosom after many sweet kisses,

And kiss it again, and often look at it, And detain the messenger who wishes to leave.

And ask many little questions over and over again: how did he look, what did he do, what did he say? In a word: