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.”


