The Anatomy of Melancholy

Oh, what fingers, what hands she has!

Her pretty foot, pretty garlands, her sweet bearing, sweet voice, tone—oh, that pretty tone!—her divine and lovely looks, everything about her: lovely, sweet, lovable and pretty, pretty, pretty. Her very name, whatever it may be, is the prettiest, most pleasing name. Now I believe there is some secret power and virtue in names! He admires every action, sight of her, dress and gesture. Whether she plays, sings or dances, whatever finery she wears, how excellent it was, how well it suited her! Nothing like it was ever seen or heard.

She has a thousand adornments, and wears a thousand becomingly.

Let her wear what she will, do what she will, say what she will:

For whatever she says or does, everything becomes her.

He applauds and admires everything she wears, says or does:

Whatever she does, wherever she turns her steps, Grace has secretly arrayed her and follows behind; If she unbinds her hair, loose locks become her; If she arranges it, her dressed hair commands reverence.

Whatever she does, wherever she goes, A sweet and pleasing grace attends her, indeed; Whether she loosens, binds or combs up her hair, She deserves honour in whatever she does.

“She puts on a garment: she is beautiful; she takes it off: she is beauty itself.” Dressed or undressed, it is all the same: she is always excellent, beautiful, fair and lovely to behold. Women do as much for men—indeed, more, being much more foolish and weak, by many leagues.

“Come to me, my dear Lycias,” says Musarium in Aristaenetus. “Come quickly, sweetheart. All other men are satyrs, mere boors and blockheads beside you, nobodies beside you. Your looks, words, gestures and actions are incomparably beyond everyone else’s.” Venus was never so infatuated with her Adonis, Phaedra so delighted with Hippolytus, Ariadne with Theseus or Thisbe with her Pyramus, as this woman is in love with her Mopsus.

You be the marigold, and I will be the sun; You be the friar, and I will be the nun.

I could repeat hundreds of such examples. Now tell me: what greater infatuation or blindness can there be than this, in both sexes? Yet their servitude is more striking still, a greater sign of their folly than all the rest.

They are commonly slaves, captives and willing servants: “the lover is his beloved’s property,” as Castiglione calls him—his mistress’s servant, her drudge, prisoner, bondsman, and what else? “He adapts himself entirely to her inclinations, to please her; and, as Emilia said, makes himself her lackey. All his concerns, actions and thoughts are subject to her will and command”: her most devoted, obedient, affectionate servant and vassal. “For love,” as Cyrus rightly observed in Xenophon, “is absolute tyranny, worse than any disease. Those afflicted by it desire freedom but cannot obtain it; they are bound more tightly than if they were in iron chains.”