The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.

The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.
her husband.  Sycinius Aemilianus summoned [5230]Apuleius to come before Cneius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, that he being a poor fellow, “had bewitched by philters Pudentilla, an ancient rich matron, to love him,” and, being worth so many thousand sesterces, to be his wife.  Agrippa, lib. 1. cap. 48. occult. philos. attributes much in this kind to philters, amulets, images:  and Salmutz com. in Pancirol.  Tit. 10. de Horol. Leo Afer, lib. 3, saith, ’tis an ordinary practice at Fez in Africa, Praestigiatores ibi plures, qui cogunt amores et concubitus:  as skilful all out as that hyperborean magician, of whom Cleodemus, in [5231] Lucian, tells so many fine feats performed in this kind.  But Erastus, Wierus, and others are against it; they grant indeed such things may be done, but (as Wierus discourseth, lib. 3. de Lamiis. cap. 37.) not by charms, incantations, philters, but the devil himself; lib. 5. cap. 2. he contends as much; so doth Freitagius, noc. med. cap. 74. Andreas Cisalpinus, cap. 5; and so much Sigismundus Scheretzius, cap. 9. de hirco nocturno, proves at large. [5232]"Unchaste women by the help of these witches, the devil’s kitchen maids, have their loves brought to them in the night, and carried back again by a phantasm flying in the air in the likeness of a goat.  I have heard” (saith he) “divers confess, that they have been so carried on a goat’s back to their sweethearts, many miles in a night.”  Others are of opinion that these feats, which most suppose to be done by charms and philters, are merely effected by natural causes, as by man’s blood chemically prepared, which much avails, saith Ernestus Burgravius, in Lucerna vitae et mortis Indice, ad amorem conciliandum et odium, (so huntsmen make their dogs love them, and farmers their pullen,) ’tis an excellent philter, as he holds, sed vulgo prodere grande nefas, but not fit to be made common:  and so be Mala insana, mandrake roots, mandrake [5233]apples, precious stones, dead men’s clothes, candles, mala Bacchica, panis porcinus, Hyppomanes, a certain hair in a [5234]wolf’s tail, &c., of which Rhasis, Dioscorides, Porta, Wecker, Rubeus, Mizaldus, Albertus, treat:  a swallow’s heart, dust of a dove’s heart, multum valent linguae viperarum, cerebella asinorum, tela equina, palliola quibus infantes obvoluti nascuntur, funis strangulati hominis, lapis de nido Aquilae, &c.  See more in Sckenkius observat. medicinal, lib. 4. &c., which are as forcible and of as much virtue as that fountain Salmacis in [5235] Vitruvius, Ovid, Strabo, that made all such mad for love that drank of it, or that hot bath at [5236]Aix in Germany, wherein Cupid once dipped his arrows, which ever since hath a peculiar virtue to make them lovers all that wash in it.  But hear the poet’s own description of it,

[5237] “Unde hic fervor aquis terra erumpentibus uda? 
          Tela olim hic ludens ignea tinxit amor;
        Et gaudens stridore novo, fervete perennes
          Inquit, et haec pharetrae sint monumenta meae. 
        Ex illo fervet, rarusque hic mergitur hospes,
          Cui non titillet pectora blandus amor.”

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The Anatomy of Melancholy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.