The Anatomy of Melancholy

Jason Pratensis endorses this advice from the poet, “for discharge either removes the affliction altogether or eases it,” as it did Ahasuerus’s raging lust, “who, to relieve love’s impatience, deflowered new girls almost every night.” Getting drunk from time to time is also advised; but this is mad medicine, if it is to be allowed at all.

If not, some pleasure must still be allowed, such as Vives describes in book 3 of On the Soul: “A lover who has, as it were, lost himself through lack of self-control and impatience must be brought home like a traveller: by music, feasting, good wine—even, if need be, drunkenness itself, which many so highly commend for relieving the mind; every kind of sport and merriment; looking at fine pictures, tapestries and buildings, pleasant fields, orchards, gardens, groves, ponds, pools and rivers; fishing, bird-catching, falconry and hunting; hearing merry tales and pleasant conversation; reading; exercising until he sweats, so that fresh spirits may take their place;

or diverting him through some powerful emotion or contrary passion, until he is entirely weaned from anger, suspicion, cares, fears and the rest, and accustomed to a different course.” “Always have someone with you,” as Sempronius advises his lovesick master Calisto, “to start amusing conversations, recite ridiculous speeches, invented jests, pleasing histories and charming tales, and play before you.” Always have an agreeable companion to sing, tell merry tales and witty stories, and offer pleasant conversation.

And just as melodious music, merriment, singing and dancing increase some lovers’ passion, as Avicenna observes, so they drive it out in others and do much good. These things must be applied cautiously, according to the patients’ differing symptoms and states of mind.

If medicine is needed because the humours have changed or fresh matter has accumulated, they must be treated as sufferers from melancholy. Among the questions Charles de Lorme discussed for his degree at Montpellier in France was this: “Are lovers and mad people cured by the same remedies?” He affirms that they are, for love carried to excess is sheer madness. The treatment prescribed is therefore either internal or external, as discussed earlier in the preceding partition on the cure of melancholy.

For particular prescriptions, consult Valleriola, Observations, book 2, observation 7; Luis Mercado, On the Diseases of Women, book 2, chapter 4; Daniel Sennert, book 1, part 2, chapter 10; the Frenchman Jacques Ferrand in his treatise On Erotic Love; Forestus, book 10, observations 29 and 30; Jason Pratensis and others. Amatus Lusitanus cured a young Jewish man, almost mad with love, with hellebore syrup and the other evacuations and purges usually prescribed for black bile.

Avicenna likewise approves this if necessary, and especially bloodletting, which ensures that “lovers are not madmen,” bringing them to themselves and keeping them in their right minds. The School of Salerno, Jason Pratensis, Hildesheim and others similarly prescribe bloodletting as a principal remedy.