The Anatomy of Melancholy

Whoever loves is a slave, follows the lover as a captive, And bears the yoke upon a subdued neck.

Samson, David, Solomon, Hercules, Socrates and others are rightly charged with imprudence in this respect. Those of middling ability are caught between one thing and another; although they perceive and acknowledge their own infatuation, weakness and frenzy, they cannot resist it. Dido’s protests and confessions in Virgil bear witness:

She begins to speak, and stops in the middle of her utterance.

Phaedra, in Seneca:

Whatever reason can achieve, passion conquers and reigns, And the mighty god rules over the whole mind.

Myrrha, in Ovid:

She indeed understands, and struggles against her shameful love, Saying to herself, “Where is my mind carrying me? What am I attempting? Gods, I pray, and reverence for family ties…”

She sees and knows her fault, and resists, Struggling against her filthy lust. “Where am I going? What am I doing? God forbid!” Yet in the end she does it.

Again:

An unceasing, untamed fire Consumes her; she returns to her frenzied desires, Now despairs, now wishes to attempt them; she is ashamed And longs for them, and cannot discover what to do.

She burns with raging lust, now recalls Her vow, then despairs; when that has passed, She will hasten to pursue her former thoughts, And finally does not know what to do.

She wills it and refuses it, abhors it, yet does it, as Medea did:

A strange new force drags me against my will; desire urges one thing, Reason another. I see the better course and approve it; I follow the worse.

Reason pulls one way, burning lust another; She sees and knows what is good, but does not do it.

O deceit, and love, and frenzy of a disordered mind, Where have you carried me?

Most lovers are carried headlong like so many brute beasts. Reason counsels one course: consider your friends, your fortunes, shame, disgrace, danger and the ocean of cares that will certainly follow. Yet this furious lust hurls them forward, counterbalances all this and outweighs it on the other side. Though it means their utter ruin, lasting disgrace and loss, they will do it. At last they become “senseless,” devoid of judgement, and degenerate into dogs, pigs, asses and beasts: as Jupiter became a bull, Apuleius an ass, Lycaon a wolf, Tereus a lapwing, Callisto a bear, and Elpenor and Gryllus were turned into pigs by Circe.

For what else can we think those ingenious poets intended to represent in their clever fictions and poems, except that someone once surrendered to lust is no better than a beast? So Fulgentius interprets the story in Apuleius, and Alciato that of Tereus.