Heroical love

Use in the book

Burton first locates love melancholy among disorders commonly included in head melancholy, then reserves it and several related kinds for the Third Partition. His syntax puts “this last” after lycanthropy, but the names Amoreos and knight melancholy and the promised Third Partition discussion identify the return to love melancholy. The synopsis distinguishes love before marriage, called heroical melancholy, from jealousy after marriage. This is an organizing distinction. When introducing jealousy later, Burton says heroical love commonly precedes marriage and jealousy usually follows it, retaining ordinary rather than exceptionless application.

The detailed section initially explains the title through those who are said to suffer: gallants, noblemen and generous, meaning noble, spirits. Its placement of the affected part in the liver belongs to the inherited physiology. Burton subsequently interrupts any easy praise. The name is too honourable, he says; burning lust would be more fitting for the disordered passion. Yet the immediately following concession admits honourable natural attraction, and his praise of married love allows tranquillity, contentment and lasting affection when the spouses live lovingly. It is therefore the excessive, wandering love newly specified that becomes the subject of the pathological discussion, not every form of love between men and women.

Social rank explains the name without limiting the sufferers to a class. Burton says love rages among all ranks and conditions, while being especially evident among the young, vigorous, richly fed and idle. He then attributes “Amor nobilis,” noble love, to Savonarola because noble men and women are commonly affected. The distinction is between general reach and marked frequency, not between an illness confined to nobles and a different experience for everyone else. The physicians’ flattering name and the theologians’ burning lust expose competing ways to characterize the same subject.

The medical definitions themselves are not unanimous. Avicenna’s Ilishi is reported as melancholy distress or anguish in which a man persistently considers his mistress’s beauty, bearing and manners. Savonarola’s separately identified addition emphasizes the eager wish to obtain or enjoy her; hunters occupied by their sport and misers by wealth provide analogies for the preoccupation. Arnald’s definition then combines “continuall cogitation” with confidence or hope of obtaining the desired object. The commentator’s objection is crucial: continual thought is a symptom rather than the defining genus, because hatred can also occupy the mind, and desire may continue without hope. A summary that defines lovesickness simply as hopeful preoccupation would erase the explicit dispute.

“An amor sit morbus,” whether love is a disease, introduces another question rather than a settled assertion. Burton reports Pollux affirming sickness, Arnald questioning the name and favouring bodily over mental disorder, and other authorities calling it a raging disease of mind, madness or a melancholic passion. He chooses to follow the physicians who treat it separately as a kind of melancholy and investigate causes, symptoms and cures. The historical category is assembled through that decision amid disagreement; it should not be equated without qualification with a present-day diagnosis.

The parts affected are also disputed, so the early liver account is not the final word. Arnald places the disorder in the front of the head through lack of moisture, but his commentator rejects that view. Lange connects eyes, spirits, imagination, liver and heart; Bernard of Gordon distinguishes an immediate seat or cause in the testicles from an antecedent liver cause. Ficino favours blood, while Freitag allows heart, liver, brain and blood. Burton’s own preference is the brain, through impaired imagination, supported by Jason Pratensis. “Imaginatio læsa” names that impaired faculty. The following sentence qualifies the joint disorder of imagination and reason: if the passion is violent or long established, both are affected, first one and then the other. These rival causes, principal seat and sequence belong to historical physiology.

The signs likewise require their qualifications. Bodily paleness, thinness, dryness and hollow eyes draw support from poets and physicians, including an Ilishi citation. Stories of changed pulse and blushing when a beloved appears or is named lead to the disputed “pulsus amatorius,” lover’s pulse: Vallés denies that love has such a distinctive diagnostic pulse, while Avicenna, Gordon and Struś support the inference. Mental symptoms vary between joy and distress. Burton calls them almost endless, allows occasions of intense happiness and says suffering predominates; later he acknowledges that love can also produce courage, liberality and courtesy, reporting that it is difficult to decide whether its total harm exceeds its good. The catalogue cannot be reduced to a uniform pathological profile.

“Prognosticks of Love Melancholy” concerns expected outcomes. Poetic claims that herbs cannot cure love are first reported as some people’s opinion; Burton then reserves the question of cure for its own discussion. The ensuing predictions of madness and death are qualified: if passion continues, if relief is not obtained, or “nisi succurratur,” unless help is given. When the cure section begins, Burton explicitly replies that the condition can be helped if taken in time and describes the different rules supplied by his authorities. The condition, the named speaker and the later answer prevent literary incurability from becoming his final medical verdict.

Treatment references preserve a similarly varied account. Music, merriment, singing and dancing may intensify one lover’s passion while relieving another’s, so Burton requires attention to the person’s differing symptoms. The later Elishi citation belongs to an attributed aversion treatment, instructing old women to repeat sordid stories; the preceding passage’s insults and menstrual-cloth tactic are part of that historical prescription. Elsewhere the Avicennian cure is lawful union according to the parties’ desires. Burton’s own conclusion calls marriage the last and best refuge once doubts and obstacles are removed and both people wish it. These passages describe his historical therapeutic argument, including coercive and demeaning assumptions in some cited methods; they are not medical advice.

Related entries

Melancholy: the broader historical medical category

Love: the wider natural, rational and divine senses

Jealousy: the associated passion commonly following marriage

Mistress: the beloved as the object of sustained thought

Music and harmony: the variable effects of music on passion

Dancing: entertainment that may intensify or relieve love melancholy

Green sickness: the adjacent historical category named in the earlier article

Places to read

1. Subsection 4. The Species or Kinds of Melancholy · paragraphs 51–53early medical classification; Ilishi, Amoreos and knight melancholy; the subject reserved for the Third Partition
2. Love and Love Melancholy, Member 1, Section 1 · paragraphs 5–7the branches for pleasurable and honourable objects, with heroical melancholy before marriage and jealousy after it
3. Section 2 Member 1, Subsection 1 Love Melancholy: Its Ancestry, Power and Reach · paragraphs 1–2the section title, liver physiology and noble-rank explanation of heroical
4. Subsection 2 How Love Tyrannizes Over Human Beings. Love, or Heroical Melancholy: Its Definition and the Part Affected · paragraphs 1–25criticism of the title, sustained concession to natural and married love, and the return to excessive passion
5. Subsection 2 How Love Tyrannizes Over Human Beings. Love, or Heroical Melancholy: Its Definition and the Part Affected · paragraphs 47–64general reach, the noble title, Avicenna and Arnald, the commentator’s objections, disagreement about disease, competing affected parts and the qualified brain account
6. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 20–22bodily signs, poetry and the Avicennian Ilishi citation
7. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 49–52pulse case-stories and the explicitly disputed diagnostic inference
8. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 35–37alternation of joy and distress in the catalogue of mental symptoms
9. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 50–52favourable changes and the harm-versus-good question
10. The Prognosis of Love Melancholy · paragraphs 29–30, 40, 45–48reported incurability, conditional outcomes and need for help
11. The Cure of Love Melancholy by Work, Diet, Medicine, Fasting and Other Means · paragraphs 5–7the explicit timely-treatment answer and opening regimen
12. The Cure of Love Melancholy by Work, Diet, Medicine, Fasting and Other Means · paragraph 37the same entertainments can intensify or relieve passion in different sufferers
13. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraphs 54–56the aversion-treatment context of Elishi and its cited authorities
14. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 11the attributed Avicennian cure by lawful union according to the parties’ wishes
15. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 48Burton’s concluding proposal of marriage, qualified by both desires and cleared obstacles
16. Jealousy: Its Different Meanings, Name, Definition, Extent and Various Kinds; Among Rulers, Parents and Friends; in Animals and Human Beings; Before Marriage, as Rivals, or Afterwards, as Discussed Here · paragraph 7commonly and usually qualify the temporal relation between heroical love and jealousy

In this edition

“Knight melancholy” → “knight’s melancholy”; “Heroical” → “heroic” within the synopsis’s phrase “heroic melancholy”; “Heroicall Love” → “heroic love”; “Ilishi” → “Ilishi”; “Elishi” → “Elishi”; “Heroicall love causing Melancholy” → “Love melancholy” in the section heading. The heading condenses the explicit causal formulation into the subject-name. In the synopsis, Mel. supplies melancholy, so the whole two-word modern name must not be assigned to Heroical alone. Where the prose disputes the title, retaining heroic preserves that dispute.

The unchanged Avicennian spellings record the supplied text’s transmission, not a verified reconstruction of Avicenna’s terminology. “Amor nobilis” → “noble love” assigns love to amor and noble to nobilis; the social explanation comes from the following sentence. “An amor sit morbus” → “whether love is a disease” retains the question’s force. The modern text also keeps the objection to hopeful continual thought instead of converting an attributed definition into Burton’s final conclusion.

Amoreos

Printed “Amoreos” (Latinized medical designation; lemma).

A printed medical designation for love melancholy.

Here: Burton attributes this name to Gerardus de Solo alongside the other names for the subject postponed to the Third Partition.

Context: Burton reports a medical author’s terminology; this is not the designation for lycanthropy despite the nearby this last.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: Amoreos

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The supplied modern text retains the name without translating or normalizing it.

Uncertainty: Its textual form and source history have not been independently collated.

continual cogitation

Printed “continuall cogitation” (English; phrase).

Persistent thought about the desired object.

Here: The definition attributed to Arnald combines persistent thought with confidence or hope of obtaining the object; the next unit contests both its logical class and its requirement of hope.

Context: Burton reports a definition and immediately a commentator’s objection; persistent thought is not accepted as an adequate definition of love.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a continuall cogitation of that which he desires, with a confidence or hope of compassing it

Modern rendering: continual thought of what one desires, with confidence or hope of obtaining it

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Cogitation supplies thought; continuall its persistence; compassing means obtaining. The entire construction retains both the desired object and hope.

cure of heroical love

Printed “cure of Heroicall love” (English; phrase).

Treatment or resolution of the historical category of love melancholy.

Here: Burton’s concluding refuge is marriage after obstacles are removed and according to both people’s desires.

Context: Burton concludes his historical treatment argument; the mutual desires and cleared impediments qualify the proposal.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: cure of Heroicall love

Modern rendering: cure for love melancholy

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Cure retains treatment; Heroicall love is made explicit as love melancholy in the modern rendering.

Qualification: This account describes Burton’s proposed remedy within historical medical and social assumptions; it is not a current clinical prescription.

Elishi

Printed “Elishi” (Latinized medical designation in a Latin phrase; lemma).

The printed designation for lovesickness in this later Avicenna citation.

Here: It occurs in a citation prescribing repeated disgusting stories as an aversion tactic.

Context: Burton quotes an attributed historical treatment, following the far more explicit example from Bernard of Gordon; these methods are not endorsed as present-day care.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: de cura Elishi

Modern rendering: on the treatment of Elishi

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: De cura contributes on the treatment of; Elishi is the unchanged name of the condition.

Uncertainty: The edition retains Elishi separately from the earlier Ilishi; the underlying Latin medical editions and spelling relationship remain uncollated.

heroical love

Printed “Heroicall Love” (English; family).

Erotic love treated as a frequent cause of melancholy.

Here: The narrator regards burning lust as a more fitting name for the disordered passion than the honourable title heroical.

Context: Burton’s direct assessment is immediately followed by a concession to honourable natural love.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Heroicall Love

Modern rendering: heroic love

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Heroic preserves the contested honorific sound of the original adjective.

heroical love causing melancholy

Printed “Heroicall love causing Melancholy” (English; phrase).

Erotic love considered as a cause of melancholy.

Here: The heading introduces the ancestry, power and reach of the passion that follows.

Context: This is Burton’s section heading, not a modern diagnostic label.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Heroicall love causing Melancholy

Modern rendering: Love melancholy

Alignment scope: Whole heading-subject alignment; the modern compound is more compressed than the original causal construction.

Word and construction: The modern title compresses the source’s causal phrase into the conventional subject-name; it does not render heroical as a separate word.

Translation layer: Heading-level compression: causing is implicit in the compound title, not separately translated.

heroical melancholy

Printed “Heroical” (English; family).

Heroic or noble: the adjective used in the historical name of erotic melancholy.

Here: The branch on love of women divides into heroic melancholy before marriage and jealousy after it.

Context: Burton’s synopsis organizes the work; the later prose uses commonly and usually for the temporal division.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Before marriage, as Heroical, Mel.

Modern rendering: Before marriage, as heroic melancholy

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Heroical contributes heroic; the abbreviation Mel. supplies melancholy. The full phrase is aligned rather than assigning both words to the adjective alone.

Ilishi

Printed “Ilishi” (Latinized medical designation; lemma).

The printed Avicennian designation for lovesickness.

Here: A man continually dwells on the beloved woman’s beauty, bearing and manners; Savonarola adds the eager desire to obtain or enjoy her.

Context: Burton reports Avicenna’s definition and separately labels Savonarola’s addition, then compares hunters and misers to illustrate persistent concern.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: Ilishi

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The modern column retains the transmitted name unchanged.

Uncertainty: The Latin Avicennian form and cited editions remain uncollated. The spelling is not silently changed to Elishi.

Attestation page note: The typed body locator is 446. The adjoining marginal notes identify the printed leaf as 446 [misprinted 246].

impaired imagination

Printed “imaginatio læsa” (Latin; phrase).

An impaired imagination or image-forming faculty.

Here: The phrase summarizes the brain-based account after competing anatomical claims; the continuation qualifies joint disorder of imagination and reason by violence or long duration.

Context: Burton prefers the brain as principal seat at 115-60; the conditional 115-63 specifies both faculties affected, first one and then the other.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: imaginatio læsa

Modern rendering: an impaired imagination

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Imaginatio is imagination; læsa means injured or impaired. It does not simply mean immoral thinking.

knight melancholy

Printed “Knight melancholy” (English; phrase).

A historical name for love melancholy.

Here: The phrase belongs to the erotic category reserved for separate treatment in the Third Partition.

Context: Burton reports a common designation; the ambiguous this last is clarified by the surrounding names and announced division.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Knight melancholy

Modern rendering: knight’s melancholy

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The modern possessive makes the historical designation easier to read without establishing its derivation.

Uncertainty: The precise source history of the designation remains unverified in this edition.

lovers’ varied mental symptoms

Printed “Symptomes of the mind in Lovers” (English; phrase).

Mental signs and experiences attributed to lovers.

Here: The range is almost infinite: occasional joy coexists with a predominance of distress in Burton’s account.

Context: Burton retains sometimes and most part, rather than making misery every lover’s unvarying state.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the Symptomes of the mind in Lovers, are almost infinite

Modern rendering: lovers’ mental symptoms are almost endless

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Symptoms denotes the attributed mental manifestations; almost qualifies the claim of endless variety.

lover’s pulse

Printed “pulsus amatorius” (Latin; phrase).

A lover’s pulse, a supposed pulse characteristic of erotic attachment.

Here: Vallés denies such a diagnostic pulse, while Avicenna and Gordon confirm reports of irregular rapid pulse when the beloved passes.

Context: The passage expressly disputes the inference, setting named deniers against named supporters and case reports.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: pulsus amatorius

Modern rendering: lover’s pulse

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Pulsus is pulse; amatorius describes its supposed relation to a lover. The quoted noun phrase is the object of Vallés’s denial.

Qualification: The case stories and pulse claims are historical reports, not evidence that a person’s attachment can reliably be diagnosed by pulse.

love’s good and harmful changes

Printed “whether love do mortal men more harm then good” (English; phrase).

Whether love causes humans more harm than benefit.

Here: The reported uncertainty follows a list of favourable changes, including courage, generosity, courtesy and energy.

Context: Burton attributes the assessment to Plutarch while retaining both the harms and the potentially improving effects of the passion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: whether love do mortal men more harm then good

Modern rendering: whether love does mortals more harm than good

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The comparative question concerns relative harm and benefit, not a denial of either.

noble love

Printed “Amor nobilis” (Latin; phrase).

Noble love: a title linked here to the social rank of those affected.

Here: The title is reported as Savonarola’s and explained by the frequency of the passion among noble men and women.

Context: Burton distinguishes physicians’ naming from theologians’ burning lust and from his own criticism of the honourable title.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Amor nobilis

Modern rendering: noble love

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Amor is love; nobilis means noble. The following explanation gives social rank, not a proof of moral excellence.

prognostics of love melancholy

Printed “Prognosticks of Love Melancholy” (English; phrase).

Predictions of the course and outcome of the historical disorder.

Here: The prognosis section first reports poetic incurability, then qualifies threatened consequences by absence of help or continuing passion.

Context: Burton distinguishes some people’s opinion from his deferred discussion of cure and later affirms help when treatment is timely.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Prognosticks of Love Melancholy

Modern rendering: The prognosis of love melancholy

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Prognosticks supplies prediction of outcome; Love Melancholy supplies the condition under discussion.

symptoms of love melancholy

Printed “paleness, leanness, driness” (English; phrase).

Pale appearance, thinness and dryness, listed as bodily signs.

Here: The conventional wasted-lover picture combines poetic examples and medical reports; Avicenna’s cited Ilishi account also names hollow eyes and absorbed smiling.

Context: Burton attributes signs to named physicians and quotes poetry; the list is not a modern diagnostic test or an assertion that every lover has all signs.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: paleness, leanness, driness

Modern rendering: paleness, thinness, dryness

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Each noun supplies its corresponding bodily sign; the surrounding text distinguishes bodily from mental signs.

timely help for love melancholy

Printed “if it be taken in time, it may be helped” (English; phrase).

If addressed promptly, the condition can be relieved.

Here: Burton explicitly counters the preceding incurability rhetoric by affirming that timely remedies may improve the condition.

Context: This is Burton’s own confident turn towards the treatment section, qualified by timely intervention.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: if it be taken in time, it may be helped

Modern rendering: if treated in time, it can be relieved

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Taken in time contributes timely treatment; may be helped supplies possibility of relief, not a guarantee of cure for every case.

unless help is given

Printed “nisi succurratur” (Latin; phrase).

Unless help is given.

Here: The condition limits the dire prognosis of wasting, madness and death attributed to medical authorities.

Context: Burton reports Arnald and Valescus, retaining the explicit condition of prompt help; the following treatment section answers claims of incurability.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: nisi succurratur

Modern rendering: unless help is given

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Nisi supplies unless; succurratur is an impersonal passive subjunctive expressing assistance being given.

Qualification: The prognosis belongs to historical medical argument; its predicted outcomes are not present-day clinical findings.

whether love is a disease

Printed “An amor sit morbus” (Latin; phrase).

Whether love is a disease.

Here: The interrogative introduces disagreement over literal disease, body and mind, and classification as melancholy.

Context: Burton attributes the question to Charles de Lorme, then juxtaposes answers from Pollux, Arnald and other authorities.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: An amor sit morbus

Modern rendering: whether love is a disease

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: An introduces whether; amor is the subject love; sit supplies is in an indirect question; morbus is the predicate disease.

Grammar: Indirect question with present subjunctive sit; it is not the assertion love is a disease.