Philters

Use in the book

Altered affections and disturbed minds

In the witchcraft subsection, philters are credited with turning friends into enemies and enemies into friends and with enforcing love. Burton places them within an account of human practitioners acting through the Devil. Later in the same subsection, a Bohemian baron’s melancholy is attributed to a philter he has taken. The body says that the listed means generally make their recipients melancholy; the Monavius quotation in the margin makes the stronger claim that all philters, however different, share that effect. The difference between the body’s generalization and the margin’s universal statement should remain visible.

The result feared here is not always the successful production of love. A philter may be suspected as the cause of mental disturbance. Burton elsewhere lists philters among miscellaneous causes of such states, alongside sun exposure, a blow to the head and other reported causes. The catalogue does not make all these causes the same kind, or give them one mechanism.

The merchant at Nördlingen provides a particularly useful counterexample to reading a suspicion as a diagnosis. He believes his money has been stolen and cannot be persuaded otherwise. His friends suspect that he has been given a Philtrum. The physician, however, finds constipation alone to be the cause, treats it and reports a rapid recovery. Burton places the case in his discussion of retention and evacuation, where it illustrates a bodily explanation. A summary ending with the friends’ suspicion would reverse the point of the story. The case is reported through Burton’s medical sources, not independently diagnosed by this lexicon.

A further use concerns capacity for sexual activity rather than the choice of a beloved. In his discussion of moderation, Burton includes philters and stimulating foods among the means used to increase that capacity. The surrounding argument insists that neither extreme is good and that the appropriate middle differs with constitution and strength. The catalogue therefore does not prescribe a universal stimulant or confuse sexual vigour with enforced affection.

Potions in social life

The metaphorical philter need not concern sexual love. In the general discussion of love’s objects, flatterers use agreeable speech and apparent friendliness to insinuate themselves into the favour of great men. These are “such like philters”: social inducements that win confidence, honours and office. Burton’s account is hostile because the affection is obtained through counterfeit worth. The potion image helps explain the patron’s misplaced attachment and the damage that follows in public life.

The next paragraph returns to literal disputed means. Burton notes disagreement over whether love and hatred can be compelled through philters or characters, stones or amulets, or astrologically chosen times, and promises to discuss the matter later. The movement from metaphor to controversy is explicit. Figurative use does not settle his judgment about literal magic.

The continuation gives the figure a positive counterpart. Genuine honourable love has virtue, wisdom, integrity and real worth as its object; Burton says this love cannot deceive or be compelled. “Love it self is the most potent philtrum”: affection and inward worth supply what the flattering pretence merely counterfeits. The accompanying maxim, “to be loved, be lovable,” turns the search for an irresistible preparation toward the person’s own character. The same word can expose a deceitful inducement and praise an affection that resists compulsion.

The disputed siege engines of love

The dedicated discussion calls philters, amulets, spells, charms and images the last “battering engins” of courtship. The image continues a campaign of attempted persuasion and procurement: when other means fail, the pursuer seeks help from the Devil. Burton labels the means unlawful at the outset, but his subsequent inquiry also asks what, if anything, they can accomplish and how.

One account displaces magic with attraction. Crato and some theologians are said to deny the Devil’s power in this matter and to recognize no fascination beyond that proceeding through the eyes. In the anecdote that follows, Queen Olympia meets the woman said to have bewitched King Philip. Her beauty, good upbringing and accomplishments are the real philters. Drayton’s lover then praises a sound from his beloved’s lips above the supposed preparations, while Lucretia in Aretino boasts that her only philter was kissing and embracing. The latter is a character’s literary boast, not Burton’s personal experience. These examples let the magical term name familiar powers of attraction.

Burton next assembles reports offered for literal magical power. Witches claim the ability to force love and hatred; cited stories describe madness, seduction and ruin. The account of Charlemagne’s enchanted ring moves his passionate attachment from a woman to her corpse, then to a bishop, and finally to a place. Its object is a ring, not a potion, and its place in the chapter shows how broadly the topic gathers supposed means of redirecting desire. Other examples are explicitly accusations, including the charge that Apuleius bewitched the wealthy Pudentilla into marriage. Accusation, legend and claimed medical observation are different kinds of testimony, even when Burton places them in one catalogue.

Another position grants the effects but disputes the agency. Erastus, Weyer and others are said to allow that such things may be done, while insisting that the Devil acts directly: the effects are not produced by charms, incantations or philters themselves. This is not Crato’s earlier denial that the Devil can do the thing at all. Burton’s connecting “But” introduces a disagreement over the causal explanation of the preceding examples.

A further group assigns the feats entirely to natural causes. Its examples belong to early chemical and occult theories of sympathy, including preparations of blood and a long catalogue of supposed materials. Natural here is a historical explanatory category. It does not mean that the proposed mechanism or efficacy has been established by modern science. The argument must also be kept attached to the writers whose views Burton reports.

The subsection ends with comparisons to the waters of Salmacis and Aachen and to Venus’s enchanted girdle. The girdle’s contents mingle caresses, sweetness, persuasion, cunning and enchantment. Burton says the preceding remedies have “happily” as much power: happily here means perhaps. The comparison with poetic and mythical attractions invites caution about the catalogue, but it is not a clear, universal declaration that every preceding report is false. The passage leaves different explanations and kinds of evidence in view.

Cures and fidelity

Philters return among proposed cures for love melancholy, after persuasion and other remedies have failed. Burton first calls the magical means unlawful. He then reports the argument that a condition caused through incantation must be relieved in the same manner, using the image of Achilles’ spear causing and curing a wound. His following statement reiterates that the practice is not permitted, though often attempted. This sequence reports a proposed treatment without granting permission to use it. The marginal claim about extinguished virility is related to, but distinct from, the body’s account of love.

The jealousy section gives the intended effect a further turn: philters, spells and charms are proposed to keep spouses faithful. Burton reproduces an incomplete recipe and directs readers to collections containing more, only to call these devices mostly pagan, impious, irreligious, absurd and ridiculous. Here the sought result is exclusive fidelity rather than the creation of a new affair. The local wording “most part” should not disappear, even though the judgment is emphatically hostile. The historical recipe is evidence of a belief and a controversy, not practical advice or proof of efficacy.

Related entries

Melancholy, for a potion’s alleged harmful aftermath and competing bodily causes; Imagination, for belief, perception and disputed effects; Spirits, for claims of direct demonic agency; Witchcraft, for human practitioners and their attributed powers; Charms, for formulas, signs and questions of efficacy; Jealousy, for magical fidelity remedies.

Related articles and topics: Flattery; Fascination; Characters; Amulet; Sympathy; Occult; Virtue.

Places to read

1. Witches and magicians · paragraph 41Philters allegedly change friendship into hostility and compel love.
2. Witches and magiciansA reported philter-induced melancholy, the body’s “generally” and the margin’s Omnia Philtra, followed by the separate denial of power to spells and signs.
3. Retention and evacuationFocus on paragraph 07. Friends suspect a Philtrum, but the physician explains the merchant’s condition through constipation and reports relief after treatment.
4. Miscellaneous causesPhilters appear in a list of different alleged causes of disturbed states.
5. Lawful and unlawful curesPhilters form one part of the broader question about magical treatment and its permissibility. For the argument’s conclusion, continue through THE SECOND PARTITION. THE CURE OF MELANCHOLY. SECTION 1. MEMBER 1. SUBSECTION… · paragraphs 45–51.
6. Moderation in sexual activityFocus on paragraph 10. Philters as reputed aids to sexual capacity, within a discussion that makes moderation depend on constitution and strength.
7. Love and its objectsFlattery as a social philter, the question of literal magical compulsion, and love itself as the most powerful philtrum, directed toward real rather than counterfeit worth.
8. Dress and displayCleopatra’s philters appear among her words, beauty and attire; the modern rendering uses “love-charms” in this catalogue of attractions.
9. Philters and other unlawful meansRead the full movement through ordinary attraction, reported magic, direct demonic agency, natural-cause theories and the concluding mythical comparisons.
10. Cures for love melancholyThe catalogue of magical cures remains framed by a prohibition.
11. Prevention of jealousyPhilters intended to enforce fidelity are reported and mostly condemned as impious and absurd.

In this edition

The modern column renders philters as “love potions,” the singular Philtrum as “love potion,” and “such like philters” as “similar love potions.” The number and construction matter, as does the speaker. In the merchant’s case the suspected potion belongs to the friends’ abandoned explanation; in the flatterers’ passage it remains a metaphor. At the passage, Cleopatra’s philters, listed with sweet speech, beauty and dress, become “love-charms.” This contextual rendering leaves room for the wider attraction vocabulary rather than insisting that every use denotes a drink. In Olympia’s response, human qualities expressly replace the alleged potion as the cause of attraction.

The modern rendering also preserves the source’s compression. Burton’s story attributed to Jerome says that a young man used a philter to make a girl mad with love. The supplied editor identifies the corresponding Hilarion episode as one involving buried magical inscriptions, rather than a drink. Likewise, the note distinguishes the drug-related loss of reason in the Lucullus report from Burton’s compressed statement about death, and identifies the Lucretius tradition with Jerome’s continuation of Eusebius. These are apparatus qualifications, not silently substituted versions of Burton’s text. Their external witnesses have not been newly collated for this entry.

The modern column usefully makes the argumentative object explicit: Erastus and Weyer “oppose this explanation,” while granting the alleged events. It renders happily as “perhaps.” Both choices help preserve a difference that can disappear in a summary: accepting a reported effect does not determine its cause, and a tentative comparison does not become a settled conclusion.

Battering engines

Printed “battering engins” (English). Citation key: battering engines.

Printed form, Source wording: battering engins

Siege machines, figuratively the last means used to overcome resistance in courtship: philters and related unlawful practices.

Source: original body

Cleopatra’s philters

Printed “philters” (English). Citation key: philter.

Printed form, Source wording: philters

Love-charms or potions, included with speech, beauty and dress among Cleopatra’s attractions.

Source: original body

Flattery as philters

Printed “such like philters” (English). Citation key: philter.

Printed form, Source wording: such like philters

Deceptive inducements compared to love potions, through which flatterers obtain powerful people’s favour and office.

Source: original body

Happily

Printed “happily” (English). Citation key: happily.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: happily

Perhaps, rather than fortunately. It qualifies the comparison between supposed remedies and mythical instruments of attraction.

Source: original body

Love as philtrum

Printed “philtrum” (Latin). Citation key: philtrum.

Love itself as the most powerful figurative love potion, directed toward genuine virtue and worth; Burton distinguishes this love from deceit and compulsion.

Source: original body

Source wording: love it self is the most potent philtrum

Modern rendering: love potion

Layer: paired modern body

Natural (natural causes)

Printed “natural” (English). Citation key: natural.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: natural

Attributed to powers of substances or properties in nature, including early chemical and occult sympathies. Burton reports others’ opinion that the supposed feats of love charms arise entirely from such causes; Burgravius supplies the chemical-blood example. This is an attributed historical explanation, not established efficacy.

Context: Others are of opinion introduces a reported position, not Burton’s unqualified conclusion. Burgravius is cited for the ensuing blood preparation. The preceding position assigns agency directly to the Devil; the catalogue continues, and the passage ends with a perhaps-qualified mythical comparison.

Grammar: Adjective modifying causes; exact printed lowercase retained.

Source: original body

Source wording: Others are of opinion that these feats, which most suppose to be done by Charms and Philters, are meerly effected by natural causes,

Edition note: component-to-component alignment checked within natural causes in both complete paired passages

Layer: paired modern body

Qualification: The adjective natural modifies causes in both columns. It does not by itself translate either the causal construction or the quantifier meerly; meerly belongs to the claim that the feats result entirely from these causes. Article display Natural normalizes capitalization only. The nearby natural-melancholy and natural-spirits records concern different senses.

Supporting source notes: the accompanying note

Philter

Printed “philters” (English). Citation key: philter.

Printed form, Source wording: philters

A love potion credited with compelling or changing affection. The present catalogue includes changes between friendship and hostility.

Source: original body

Philter and melancholy

Printed “Philter” (English). Citation key: philter.

Printed form, Source wording: Philter

A love potion taken by the baron in a reported case of melancholy; the context treats such preparations as alleged causes of disturbed states.

Source: original body

Philters for sexual capacity

Printed “Philters” (English). Citation key: philter.

Printed form, Source wording: Philters

Preparations reputed to increase the ability to sustain sexual activity, listed with stimulating foods within an argument for moderation.

Source: original body

Philtra

Printed “Philtra” (Latin). Citation key: philtrum.

Latin plural, love potions. The quoted margin says all have the effect of making recipients melancholy, a stronger quantifier than the body’s generally.

Source: Burton marginal quotation

Source wording: Omnia Philtra etsi inter se differant

Modern rendering: love potions

Layer: editorial translation of Burton marginal quotation

Philtrum as a suspected cause

Printed “Philtrum” (Latin). Citation key: philtrum.

Printed form, Source wording: Philtrum

Latin singular for a love potion. The merchant’s friends suspect one, but the physician’s account instead gives constipation alone as the cause.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: love potion

Layer: paired modern body