The Anatomy of Melancholy

In our own time we lack neither sacred churches nor good men to settle such disputes, if only we made use of them. Some say that the precious stone called beryl, others a diamond, has excellent power “against injuries inflicted by enemies, and to reconcile married people to one another”: to reconcile husbands and wives and preserve harmony and love. You may try this whenever you wish, and as you see fit.

If none of these measures and precautions has any effect, I do not know what remedy to prescribe or where such people can go for relief, unless they can enter that Turkish paradise, “where they will have as many beautiful wives as they wish, with clear eyes that look at no one except their own husbands”: no fear, no danger of being cuckolded. Otherwise, I would have them follow Alphonsus’s strict rule: marry a deaf man who cannot speak to a blind woman.

If this does not help, let them consult an astrologer to prevent the worst, and see whether the significators in her horoscope agree with his: that they are not “in signs and degrees that regard one another with hostility or command one another, but in mutually friendly antiscial and obedient positions”; otherwise, as the astrologers maintain, there will be intolerable hostility between them.

Or else let him obtain “the seal of Venus,” a seal bearing magical characters, stamped on Venus’s day and hour when she is favourably placed, with prescribed words and charms such as Villanovanus and Leo Suavius recommend, “from the magical seals of Solomon, Hermes, Raguel, and so on,” together with many similar things that Alexis, Albertus and some of our natural magicians foist upon us: “So that a woman cannot commit adultery with anyone, cut off some of her hair, and so on.” He will assuredly find favour in every woman’s eyes, and never suspect or quarrel with his own wife, so long as he wears it.

If this course is unacceptable and no other remedies are available, they must, as a last resort, seek a divorce. But that is somewhat difficult to obtain, and not altogether suitable. For, as Felisacus argues in his treatise On a Lawful Wife, if that law of Constantine the Great, or that of Theodosius and Valentinian concerning divorce, were in force in our time, “we would have almost innumerable unmarried women and unmarried men”: we would have almost no married couples left.

Try those earlier remedies, then. Or, as Tertullian reports of Democritus, who put out his eyes because he could not look at a woman without lust and was greatly troubled to see what he could not enjoy, let him make himself blind: then he will escape the care and trouble of watching his wife.