Again, in the same play, there is an enumeration of alchemical items, many of which were, both in ancient and in medieval times, used in amatory brews:
A number of herbs, some of which were reputed to produce amatory benefits, are mentioned in Ben Jonson’s Volpone:
In Ben Jonson’s Volpone Nano the Dwarf sings some verses, in Act 2, scene 2, extolling an elixir that has remarkable medicinal and amatory properties:
An amatory appeal is made in a scene from Bussy D’Ambois, a drama by the English playwright George Chapman (c. 1559–c. 1634). Monsieur, brother of King Henry III of France, addresses the Countess Tamyra:
The love charm in the form of a spell was a belief current in the Elizabethan age. In the drama Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, by Robert Greene, Bacon, conceived as a thaumaturgist, declares:
Fast-fancied is an Elizabethan expression meaning bound by love.
The Elizabethan Fair, and all such traditional occasions for barter, commercial interchange, and public gossip were also and always an opportunity for amorous interludes. This is the view expressed in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, by Robert Greene (c. 1560–1592). Margaret, the fair maid of Fressingfield, enters:
In a scene from the Elizabethan dramatist George Peele’s The Old Wives Tale, Zantippa is in search of a husband. She and her ugly sister Celanta go to a well for water. A Head, speaking from the well, promises her a love charm, ‘some cockell-bread’:
Zantippa: Now for a husband, house, and home: God send a good one or none, I pray God! My father hath sent me to the well for the water of life, and tells me, if I give fair words, I shall have a husband. But here comes Celanta, my sweet sister. I’ll stand by and hear what she says.
Enter Celanta, the foul wench, to the well for water with a pot in her hand.
Celanta: My father hath sent me to the well for water, and he tells me, if I speak fair, I shall have a husband and none of the worst. Well, though I am black, I am sure all the world will not forsake me; and, as the old proverb is, though I am black, I am not the devil.
Zantippa: Marry-gup with a murrain. I know wherefore thou speakest that: but go thy ways home as wise as thou camest, or I’ll set thee home with a wanion.
Here she strikes her pitcher against her sister’s, and breaks them both, and then exit.
Celanta: I think this be the curstest quean in the world. You see what she is, a little fair, but as proud as the devil, and the veriest vixen that lives upon God’s earth. Well, I’ll let her alone, and go home and get another pitcher, and, for all this, get me to the well for water. Exit.
Enter two Furies out of the Conjurer’s cell and lay Huanebango by the Well of Life and then exeunt.
Re-enter Zantippa with a pitcher to the well.
Zantippa: Once again for a husband; and, in faith, Celanta, I have got the start of you; belike husbands grow by the well-side. Now my father says I must rule my tongue. Why, alas, what am I, then? A woman without a tongue is as a soldier without his weapon. But I’ll have my water, and be gone.
Here she offers to dip her pitcher in, and a Head speaks in the well.
In an old Elizabethan play there is reference to lunary or moonwort as a contributory factor in amatory thoughts:
I have heard of an herb called Lunary that being bound to the pulse of the sick causes nothing but dreams of weddings and dances.
In Endymion, a drama by the Elizabethan playwright John Lyly (c. 1554–c. 1606), Endymion soliloquizes:
As ebony, which no fire can scorch, is yet consumed with sweet savors, so my heart which cannot be bent by the hardness of fortune, may be bruised by amorous desires.
In the drama The Old Wives Tale, by George Peele, the Elizabethan playwright, Frolic and Fantastic sing an erotic chant:
In Endymion, the Elizabethan drama by John Lyly, Sir Tophas describes a desirable woman:
Sir Tophas: I love no grissels; they are so brittle they will crack like glass, or so dainty that if they be touched they are straight of the fashion of wax: animus maioribus instat. I desire old matrons. What a sight would it be to embrace one whose hair were as orient as the pearl, whose teeth shall be so pure a watchet that they shall stain the truest turquoise, whose nose shall throw more beams from it than the fiery carbuncle, whose eyes shall be environ’d about with redness exceeding the deepest coral, and whose lips might compare with silver for the paleness! Such a one if you can help me to, I will by piecemeal curtail my affections towards Dipsas, and walk my swelling thoughts till they be cold.
In Philaster, a drama by Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–1625), Megra, a Lascivious Lady, is thus described:
Dion: Faith, I think she is one whom the state keeps for the agents of our confederate princes; she’ll cog and lie with a whole army, before the league shall break. Her name is common through the kingdom, and the trophies of her dishonor advanced beyond Hercules’ Pillars. She loves to try the several constitutions of men’s bodies; and, indeed, has destroyed the worth of her own body by making experiment upon it for the good of the commonwealth.
In Endymion, John Lyly’s drama, Epiton and Sir Tophas have a verbal bout on love:
Epiton: Sir, will you give over wars and play with that bauble called love?
Tophas: Give over wars? No, Epi, Militat omnis amans, et habet sua castra Cupido.
Epiton: Love hate made you very eloquent, but your face is nothing fair.
Tophas: Non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulysses.
Epiton: Nay, I must seek a new master if you can speak nothing but verses.
Tophas: Quicquid conabar dicere, versus erat. Epi, I feel all Ovid De Arte Amandi lie as heavy at my heart as a load of logs.
In The Lady of Pleasure, a play by the English dramatist James Shirley, Lady Bornwell is rebuked for her amorous diversions by her husband Sir Thomas:
Amatory enticement is illustrated in a scene in The Lady of Pleasure, by James Shirley:
In A New Way to Pay Old Debts, by the English dramatist Philip Massinger (1583–1640), there appears a description of a love philtre:
Later, in Act 3 of the same play, Allworth, the young page, describes the amatory lure of Margaret:
In another scene, between Sir Giles Overreach, an extortioner, and his daughter Margaret, the father gives his daughter amatory but sinister advice that is tantamount to the prescriptions of the Kama Sutra and similar manuals:
As late as the eighteenth century, in Italy, phallic amulets, in the form of the fascinum itself and the obscene digital gesture called in French la figue, were in common use. They were worn by children as protective periapts. Chapels too were decorated with wax images of phalli, dedicated by devout women worshippers.
An esoteric club existed in England in the eighteenth century that was associated with the British Navy. It was called The Very Ancient and Very Powerful Order of Beggars Benison and Merryland. On the seal of this Society, among other and naval designs, was a phallic symbol. The intent of the Society is still obscure, especially the relation between naval matters and the phallus.
Amulets in the form of the male mandrake came into vogue in the Middle Ages, especially in Central Europe, for apotropaic and amatory purposes. These charms were associated with incantations and magic formulas and recitatives.
The phallus or fascinum, too, especially in France, was used, as a meaningful protective agent, on buildings and even on churches.
Phallic and other genital forms were also used for cakes and breads: and are still so used, especially in Germany and France.
In the Middle Ages Priapus assumed Christian characteristics and in time was even endowed with sanctity, although he still retained his functional properties. In many cities of Southern France, for instance, Saint Foutin was virtually a transferred Priapus. He aided sterile women and renewed the amatory vigor of men. Images of genitalia were included among the sacrificial objects dedicated to this saint.
In medieval France a certain Saint Greluchon was a cryptic Priapus, venerated among the members of the saintly canon. When women made supplication to this saint, they scraped off minute particles from the stone genitalia and compounded these scrapings into an amatory potion, and also as an aid to counteract sterility.
Other saints to whom were attributed the virtues and functions of Priapus were: Saint Guignolet, Saint Regnaud, Saint Gilles.
In Belgium, Priapus became Ters, equally venerated by women. Ters, in Antwerp, was actually a synonym for fascinum.
Among the gods of Northern Europe was Frikko, who may be equated with Priapus, the phallic deity. The Saxons had a similar god, called Frisco, endowed with the same functions. An analogous deity was Frigga, goddess of voluptuousness. Before the worship of this symbolic or actual phallus was the worship of the sun, represented by the phallus as the creator of cosmic and human fecundity.
Clauder
A German medieval scholar presented for his doctoral thesis a brief monograph on Philtres, their essential characteristics, the dangers involved in their use, the contents, the purpose of their employment. The thesis, in Latin, is entitled De Philtris, and was published in Leipzig in 1661. The author is Johannes Clauder.
Although philtres were frequently used for erotic purposes, the author asserts, the result rarely corresponded to the intention. The reason for this was that the philtre was concocted under evil auspices, without appeal to divine aid and protection. Another reason for the inefficacy of the potions was improper and defective preparation. The result, he declares categorically, was very often madness for the victim, or even death itself.
Some philtres are associated with Satanic and magic practices, and are essentially poisons. Whores and panders resort to such philtres, although some use what might be termed natural remedies.
The best philtre, however, according to Clauder, is love itself. In this regard, he quotes confirmatory statements from the Romans. Seneca the philosopher, in one of his 124 Epistles, advises: I shall show you a love philtre, without medicaments, without herbs, without a witch’s incantations. It is this: If you want to be loved, love. Martial, the Roman epigrammatist, has something similar to say: Marcus, in order to be loved, love.
And Ovid had already advised: Banish every evil, be lovable, in order to be loved.
Paracelsus, the medieval scholar and alchemist, is quoted in relation to the philtre and its content. Or, as Clauder suggests, the amatory inducement may take the form of a magic inscription on a key, or a ring, or a necklace, or an armlet. As for herbs, the Romans preferred the laurel and the olive, in infusions. Vegetable and mineral and organic matter is also in use; perspiration, urine, spittle. But there is a sinister and hazardous element in such practices. Prostitutes in particular, Clauder threatens, use philtres that rob the victim of mind and soul and leave him a shallow husk. So corroborates Paracelsus. There is one potion, however, called Charisia, that may be innocuous. It has not been identified. But possibly the name may have been invented etymologically on the basis of the Greek charis, which means grace or gratitude: and hence the nomenclature is wishfully proleptic in significance.
With respect to a variety of lustful and amatory circumstances, the Middle Ages were marked by strange social mores, by monstrous obscenities and erotic barbarities. There were practices designed primarily to preserve chastity and marital and domestic purity, but they actually resulted in greater indecencies than the circumstances that induced these inventive prophylaxes. There was, first of all, the girdle of chastity, a mechanical device to prevent indiscriminate and unlawful lustful consummations in the absence of the husband. The putative inventor of the device was Francesco da Carrara, Provost of Padua, who belongs in the latter part of the fourteenth century. He himself, it was said, met with a miserable death, being strangled on the scaffold for his many cruelties, in 1405, by order of the Senate of Venice.
There was, too, the Congress, a kind of judicial body that determined marital questions, quarrels, incompatibility, by viewing the two participants in actu sexuali.
Men and women taken in adultery were compelled to march through the public streets naked, sometimes mounted on an ass, for centuries the bestial symbol of lust.
There was the libidinous ius primae noctis, the droit de cuisse, exercised by the lord of the manor, and on occasion by monks and prelates, in the case of a newly wedded couple.
In France, in the city of Toulouse, there was a notorious brothel called The Great Abbey. There were, dispersed through France, many such pseudo-abbeys, the madame of which, in each case, was called Abbess. Such terms and such practices, of course, heightened the lewd obscenity. There was a similar type of dissolute haven that had an infamous reputation in England.
This perversion, in which devout elements are linked with the extremes of lust, to heighten the amatory impulse, is described in abundant and salacious detail in the novels of the Marquis de Sade and in other instances of erotic literature.
Prostitution reached such a social importance, and the practitioners acquired such influence in various directions, that, in Paris, a kind of trade union was formed, to which the practicing prostitutes prescribed. They established their own procedures, their working hours, and similar regulations.
At many royal banquets, public entertainments, and processional ceremonials, in Italy and in France, prostitutes were prominent participants, some half-naked, often entirely so.
There were, of course, fulminations against such and similar indecencies, but without much immediate or effective results. Preachers thundered, to no avail, against the erotic provocations to adultery and fornication engendered by the sight of women who, by the subtlety of their dress, exposed various parts of their person. There was public debauchery. There were genesiac performances in the presence of the children in a household. There were poems and tales, called fabliaux, that, reflecting the mores of the age, dealt with nothing but cuckoldry and fornication, adultery, sodomy, bestiality, and all the multiple varieties of physiological perversions.
Furthermore, houses, manors, large estates were decorated with tapestries, paintings, sculpture, all depicting the greatest obscenities. Even churches and chapels and abbeys contained scenes, figures, statues of the utmost lewdness in posture, presentation, and implication.
Among the barbarities of the medieval centuries, many performances, processions, and rites contained an amazing mingling of ecclesiastical elements and dissolute blasphemies and libertinage: just as the Greek satyr plays and the comedies of fifth century Athens were composites of functional representations by human actors of the libidinous and irreverent actions of the deities themselves.
The medieval scene contained secular and monastic lubricity, and processions and rites in which the performers, under the guise of nuns and prelates, presented shameless and unspeakable obscenities. In addition, flagellation was inflicted on penitents. In Germany, France, England, and Italy, all ranks, of all ages, underwent phallic castigation as an act of devotion.
In Girolamo Folengo’s Maccaronea, published in 1519, there is mention of manuals that provide magic instruction and prescriptions favorable in inducing or diverting erotic urges:
He opens the manuals, or reads all that are open: