The Anatomy of Melancholy

SUBSECTION 5 The last and best cure for love melancholy is to let lovers have their desire.

The last refuge and surest remedy, to be tried as a final resort when no other means will work, is to let them come together and enjoy one another: “The most effective cure is for the lovesick man to possess his beloved,” says Guianerius, chapter 15, treatise 15.

Aesculapius himself can invent no better remedy for this malady “than that the beloved yield to the lover”—Jason Pratensis—than that a lover have his desire.

And let the two be joined together in one little bed, And let Lavinia be given as wife to handsome Aeneas.

And let them both be joined in a bed, And let Aeneas wed fair Lavinia.

The specific cure is to let them bleed in “Hymen’s vein,” for love is a pleurisy; and if possible, let it be so:

And let them enjoy the pleasures they desire.

Arculanus holds it the quickest and best cure. It is Savonarola’s last instruction, a principal and infallible remedy, the last, only and safest refuge.

Julia, you alone can extinguish my flames, Not with snow or ice, but with an equal fire.

Julian alone can quench my desire, With neither ice nor snow, but with a matching fire.

When all else has been tried, says Avicenna, there is no quicker or safer course than to unite the parties according to their desires and wishes, and the custom and form of law. We have thus seen a man who had wasted away to skin and bones quickly restored to his former health. Once his desire was satisfied, his distress ceased, and we thought it remarkable. Our opinion, therefore, is that in such cases nature should be obeyed.

Aretaeus, an ancient author, in book 3, chapter 3, gives an example of a young man who, when no other means could help, was quickly relieved in this way. What remains, then, but to join them in marriage?

Then they may secretly exchange Kisses and little bites, cherish one another’s Embraces, and take their pleasure.

They may then kiss and embrace, lie gazing at their tiny reflections in one another’s eyes, as their fathers did before them; they may then satisfy themselves with love’s pleasures, which they have so long desired and awaited.

And let them rest together in one bed, Kiss with their mouths joined together, And sleep together in one peaceful rest.

Yes, but “here is the labour, here the task”: this cannot readily be done, because of many different obstacles. Sometimes the parties themselves are not agreed. Parents, tutors, masters and guardians will not consent; laws, customs and statutes stand in the way; poverty, superstition, fear and suspicion. Many men dote on one woman “all at the same time.” She dotes just as much on him, or them, yet in modesty she must not, cannot woo, as reluctant to confess as she is willing to love. She dares not make it known, show her affection or speak her mind.