Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, who conqueredAnchiale and Tarsus on a single day. Eat! DrinkLove! For all else is naught.
Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, who conqueredAnchiale and Tarsus on a single day. Eat! DrinkLove! For all else is naught.
Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, who conqueredAnchiale and Tarsus on a single day. Eat! DrinkLove! For all else is naught.
Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, who conquered
Anchiale and Tarsus on a single day. Eat! Drink
Love! For all else is naught.
In Hindu erotology, there are legends concerning magic devices for overcoming sterility.
King Brihadratha, ruler of Magadha, was sensual and libidinous. But his great regret was the lack of an heir. He therefore consulted a holy ascetic, a certain Candakaucika. The latter presented the king with a juicy mango that had just fallen from its tree. The mango was given to the king’s two wives. Each wife gave birth to half a child. The two parts, being brought together, thus produced a complete heir.
The Emperor Heliogabalus, according to the Historia Augusta, a Latin collection of the biographies of thirty Roman emperors, was notorious for his unsavory conduct: It was said that in one day he visited all the harlots inthe circus, the theatre, the amphitheatre, and every spot in the city. He would cover his head with a muleteer’s hood, in order to avoid recognition. After bestowing on all the prostitutes pieces of gold, without consummating his lusts, he would add: Let nobody know that the Emperor gave you this.
The association of an Emperor and a harlot is described in the Latin collection of imperial biographies known as the Historia Augusta. The story concerns the Emperor Verus, who reigned in the second century A.D. At the instigation of a public harlot, he shaved off his beard while in Syria, an act that created much hostile talk in Syria itself.
In the same Historia Augusta, the wild performances of the Emperor Heliogabalus are retailed:
He usually coaxed his friends into a state of drunkenness and suddenly at night let loose among them lions, leopards, and bears. When they woke up in the same chamber as the animals, and found lions, bears, and leopards around them, in the morning, or, what was worse, at night, they died of fright.
The Emperor would buy up harlots from all the pimps and then set them free. He gathered together all the prostitutes from the circus, the theatre, the stadium, and from everywhere, and brought them into the public buildings, and delivered military harangues, as it were, calling them fellow-soldiers.
At similar gatherings he addressed ex-pimps that he assembled from every quarter, as well as the most depraved boys and youths. When he went to the prostitutes, he dressed as a woman. At his banquets he and his friends performed with women.
The story went that he bought a well-known and very beautiful harlot for one hundred thousand sesterces.
In balneis semper cum muliebribus fuit, ita ut eas ipse psilothro curaret: ipse quoque barbam psilothro adcurans: quodque pudendum dictu est, eodem, quo mulieres adcurabantur, et eadem hora, rasit et virilia subactoribus suis, novacula manu sua, qua postea barbam fecit.
The Historia Augusta makes many revelations about the intimate personal life of the Roman Emperors and their erotic mores. Among the later rulers, Commodus, who belongs in the second century A.D., defiled the temples of the gods with fornication and human blood.
Of the Emperor Severus, who flourished in the second century A.D., the Historia Augusta says:
Domestically, he was indifferent, and kept his wife Julia, although she was a notorious adulteress and an accomplice in the conspiracy against his own life.
Heliogabalus, whose biography appears in the Historia Augusta and who ruled in the third century A.D., discovered certain kinds of lustful pleasures, as the chronicle states, to supersede the male prostitutes.
The younger Gordianus, the Roman Emperor who ruled in the third century A.D., was particularly fond of wine, and also of gastronomic delights. He had a great attachment to women, and was said to have twenty-two concubines assigned to him. He was called the Priam of his day, but the popular name for him was the Priapus of his times.
The Roman general Lucullus, who belongs in the firstcentury B.C., was also a renowned gourmet, and held lavish and exotic banquets for his friends. The Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch, and the Roman historian Cornelius Nepos both relate that Lucullus consumed love-potions, that made him unconscious.
The increase of libidinous inclinations, along with the physiological stimulus, was not invariably the sole, exclusive, and predictable effect of the love-potion. There were circumstances in which the potion might produce, for instance, temporary conditions of insanity. Such was the case, according to historical records, of the notable Roman administrator Gallus, who belongs in the first century B.C. He was driven mad through the excessive use of aphrodisiac philtres. Again, there is a tradition that Titus Lucretius Carus, the Roman poet who produced the remarkable epic entitledThe Nature of Things, was the occasional victim of a potion administered by his wife with the intention of producing temporary insanity. So, too, with Lucullus, the Roman general and noted gourmet, who dates in the first century B.C. He succumbed to a poison that was contained as an ingredient in a love philtre.
In the Orient, the almond becomes an amatory agent: either eaten whole, or ground into a powder, or mixed with other ingredients. Powdered almonds with cream and egg yolks and chicken stock act presumably as a stimulant. So with honey taken with almonds and pine tree grains.
Minerals, precious stones have been constituents in exciting preparations. The medieval centuries in particular placed profound credence in their virtues. The agate was thus reputed to promote genesiac activity. So with molten gold taken in an infusion.
All sorts of brews are known and experimented with inthe East. A stimulant that, although credited with amatory effects, produced at the same time violent reactions, was a Chinese concoction of opium and other ingredients, called affion.
Herbs were always a contribution in love drinks. An aromatic herb that was called by the Romans Venus’ plant was known in the Middle Ages as Sweet Flag and was considered an erotic excitation.
Animal flesh and organs have immemorially formed part of the amatory apparatus. In the second century A.D. a physician of Alexandria recommended the flesh of lizard as a genesiac agent.
Cheese and cherries, dried shrimp and scallops, fried spinach and noodles: chestnuts boiled with pistachio nuts, pine kernels, sugar, rocket seed and cinnamon: chicken gizzard: a compound of juice of powdered onion and ghee, heated and then cooled and mixed with chick-peas and water: a cider drink: cinchona bark: a liqueur distilled from cinnamon: civet-perfumed candy: cod liver, and cod roe: cockles: all these disparate items, some centuries ago, others in our own contemporary times, East and West, have been in use as generative provocations: sometimes traditionally and hopefully: at other times, merely traditionally.
In the Hindu manuals there are enumerated and described such varied potions and unguents and drugs that masculine activity, according to legend, can be prolonged continuously to the extent of hundreds of individual and successive occasions.
In the South Seas a stimulating drink, consumed after wedding ceremonies and other notable occasions, is made from the roots of the plant kava piperaceae. The root ischewed and then the juice extruded into a bowl: the liquid is then strained and served.
In the Orient, from the bird known as King’s Crow, the extracted bile is compounded into an amatory philtre.
A certain perfume popular among Arabs for amatory stimulus is known as dufz.
All sorts of drugs, both in their natural state and in synthetic preparations, dangerous in their application and fatal in their effects, have frantically been enlisted as erotic attendants. The venereal passion has thus frequently transcended health, sanity, and the continuance of life itself. Among such drugs, draughts, and preparations are: damiana, absinthe, yohimbine, adrenaline, brucine, aphrodisin, amanita muscaria, belladonna, borax, hashish, cocaine, bhang, mescaline, bufotenin, rauwiloid, harmine.
Among gruesome items used for libidinous purposes was human dried liver. The Romans were familiar with this ingredient, and Horace, the first century B.C. poet, makes mention of it in describing the dark operations of a witch.
Formerly used as a love charm was dragon’s blood: a red resin extracted from the fruit of a palm tree called botanically calamus draco. Cast into a fire, dragon’s blood was believed, when accompanied by a binding spell in the form of a rhyming couplet, to induce an errant lover to return to the object of his passion.
Dog-stones, tubers of the orchis species, are shaped like the testiculi canis, and hence are so called. At one time this plant was assumed to have an amatory virtue.
In the case of women, darnel grass was considered an amatory provocation, when mixed with barley meal, myrrh, and frankincense.
The comparatively innocuous cucumber, used domestically in salads, has sometimes been credited, mainly for its phallic shape, with venereal properties.
In the Orient, the aromatic plant cumin, which is used as a condiment, is also considered aphrodisiacally. So with the pungent berry cubeb, native to Java, and used in cooking and medicinally.
In the East, cubebs are chewed, sometimes powdered and mixed with honey: sometimes made into an infusion with cubeb leaves. The provocative virtues of cubeb peppers are widely known and esteemed, from Arabia to China, and have been used erotically since at least the thirteenth century.
Periapts and amulets of various types, both inanimate and organic, have been used with amatory prospects. Thus, in the Orient, betel nuts were so used. Or a lock of woman’s hair, over which a spell had been uttered. Or the human liver, as in ancient Greece, was considered the source of all desire and hence became a fetish. Or, in the East, a hyena’s udder, tied on the left arm, would induce the longed-for passion.
The aromatic plant basil, used as a condiment, was also credited with exciting reactions. So much so, in fact, that in Italy the herb was used by maidens as a love charm.
Beans, too, were thought at all times to be highly amatory in their results. Hence the Church Father St. Jerome forbade the use of beans to nuns.
Carrots, turnips, wild cabbage, and beets have alsobeen included at various times in this category. Pliny the Elder, the Roman author of the Historia Naturalis, states that white beets are an amatory aid.
There was a long accepted tradition in the efficacy of certain fish, especially the barbel, which is mentioned by the Roman poet Ausonius in a poem dealing with various species of fish.
The fat of a camel’s hump, melted down, and also camel’s milk taken with honey are, in Oriental erotological literature, considered of marked venereal value.
The brains of certain animals were at various periods considered, apart from their food value, to possess erotic effects. So with the brains of sheep, pig, and calf. In some countries, notably in the Mediterranean area, animal brains are prepared as a gastronomic delicacy.
At one time the milk of a chameleon was treated as a generative excitation. The thirteenth century Arab physician and philosopher Avicenna so recommended it.
Rhubarb and cinnamon, ginger and vanilla, mixed in wine, produce a recipe that was prevalent in Italy, So with curaçao, mixed with madeira wine: to which were added pieces of sugar.
An old collection of unique recipes, entitled the Golden Cabinet of Secrets, was formerly but incorrectly included among the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. The collection itself was long popular for its putative authority. An amatory powder, described in the Cabinet, is compounded thus: Flowers of seeds of elecampane, vervain, mistletoe berries are crushed together and dried thoroughlyin an oven. The powder is taken in a glass of wine, and the effects, it was urged, would be most gratifying.
Usually, amatory concoctions were prepared individually, for each suppliant. In the seventeenth century, however, an Englishman by the name of Burton, an apothecary, established a factory in the town of Colchester. Here he produced on a large scale aphrodisiacs compounded of the roots of sea holly.
There were for sale, in Rome, in the market place, in booths and emporia, and in quarters where people of all ranks and all ethnic origins congregated, philtres and brews, and articles putatively endowed with provocative and generative properties. Dried human marrow, and the sucking-fish, star-fish and intimate genital secretions, both male and female, were used in these concoctions. And over the preparations arose supplications and invocations and incantations directed to the divinities of the underworld, entreating efficacy in the purchased potions.
Among plants that have both culinary uses and at least presumed amatory implications are the artichoke and asparagus. In France, artichokes were sold by vendors who, in their street cries, added forthrightly that artichokes aroused the genital areas.
Similarly, in the Orient, asparagus, fried with egg yolks, and sprinkled with spices, constituted a decidedly amatory dish.
The egg plant, too, split and boiled with a flour paste, vanilla beans, pimentos, chives, and pepper-corns, and a concoction known as bois bandé or tightening wood, containing strychnine and hence highly dangerous, was commonly in use in the West Indies, where it was credited with excitant qualities.
In China, again, bamboo shoots, usually an appetizing culinary ingredient, are believed to have an aphrodisiac value.
A shrub that, since Roman times, was used for inciting desire was birthwort. In this respect it was quite familiar to the Middle Ages.
Bitter sweet, too, like many herbs, was at one time credited with erotic virtues.
The berry of the caper plant, that is, caperberry, belongs in the same category. Its potency was reputedly so great that the plant is equated, in Ecclesiastes, with erotic desire itself.
Paprika, which is Hungarian red pepper, is prepared from the plant capsicum annuum, and is both a spice and a traditionally credited amatory aid.
A plant similar to the artichoke, and equally prickly, is cardoon, considered a stimulating agent. In France, the fleshy parts of the inner leaves are consumed with this intent.
Caraway seeds, in the East, are valued erotically.
Stewed in milk sauce, carrots are endowed, in Oriental manuals, with stimulating characteristics. In ancient Greece the carrot, used as a venereal medicine, was called a philtron.
Rosemary, the aromatic shrub, has leaves that are used in perfumery, medicinally, and in cookery. Among the Romans, it has an amatory virtue.
Some amatory doses are of such a nature that excess may prove fatal. An urgent young man, invited to a dinner prepared by a courtesan, ate too heartily. He died on the following day, as all the dishes had been spiced with a potent stimulus.
Ferdinand of Castile, too, died from an administration of the same drug that had spiced the courses at the banquet.
A medieval powder that was an energizing potential, rejuvenating and refreshing, is described by the English dramatist Ben Jonson (c. 1573–1637) in his comedy Volpone. Volpone himself offers the beautifying powder thus:
Here is a powder concealed in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word; so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price? Why, the whole world is but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse to the purchase of it. I will only tell you; it is the powder that made Venus a goddess (given her by Apollo), that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, colored her hair; from her derived to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost, till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the court of France (but much sophisticated), wherewith the ladies there, now, color their hair.
The innocuous cress, that is regularly used in salads, was formerly consumed, either raw or boiled or as a juice, for its invigorating value. Cress was prescribed, in Roman times, in recipes intended to cure incapacity. In the Orient, this property of cress as an aphrodisiac is stressed in the erotic manuals.
Among many other herbs and plants that induce amatory conditions are valerian and coriander and violet: these are mentioned in this respect by Albertus Magnus, the medieval philosopher.
Another plant, botanically known as melampryum pratense and commonly called cow wheat, was given as fodder to cows. But it had also a reputation, according to Pliny the Elder and the Greek physician Dioscorides, as a rousing stimulus of passion.
The dried seeds of the Cola Nitida, a nut indigenous to Africa, furnishes a drink called cola. This beverage is also known as bichy. The cola nut itself, which is chewed, is credited, among the Africans, with promoting vigor.
A brew compounded of the Indian root called galanga, and cardamoms, laurel seeds, sparrow wort, nutmeg, cubebs, cloves, in a fowl or pigeon broth, was held to be a powerful stimulant, especially among Arabs.
Women esteemed, as an amatory incitement, the brains of the mustela piscis.
To a plant with a root shaped like a claw, called lycopodium, was formerly attributed the quality of inducing desire.
In Eastern countries, the fruit of the mastic-tree, pounded with oil and honey, makes a drink that is highly esteemed among Arabs as a venereal provocation.
The Arab erotologist Umar ibn Muhammed al-Nefzawi, author ofThe Perfumed Garden, a survey in amatory practices, discusses the entire range of erotic experiences and procedures among men and women. He treats of genital conditions, medical problems, potions, sexual ceremonials, circumstances favorable to amatory consummations, manipulations and contrivances and preparations that affect amatory potentialities. With all this mass of detail and particularizationof venereal topics, the author emphasizes that his work is not an exposition directed toward lewd and libidinous ends, but a virtual glorification of the gifts bestowed upon men by divine graciousness and indulgent beneficence.
Plutarch, the Greek historian and philosopher, in hisDe Sanitate Tuenda Praecepta, Advice on Keeping Well, tells of an amatory incident:
When the young men described by Menander were, as they were drinking, insidiously beset by the pimp, who introduced some handsome and high-priced concubines, each one of them (as he says),
Bent down his head and munched his own dessert, being on his guard and afraid to look at them.
The inventive genius of man has included in the preparation of love philtres the most heterogeneous items, such as: human fingers, hoopee brains, tobacco, human excrement, snake bones, toads, skulls and intestinal fluids and organs. Horace and Catullus, Pliny the Elder and Apuleius, among the Romans, have frequent occasion to refer to philtres and their ingredients and effects.
So too the medieval and later physicians and demonographers have much to say on the subject: Martin Delrio and Sprenger, Reginald Scott and Bodin, Johannes Muller and Sinibaldus. A Roman recipe, composed by a witch, runs as follows:
Bring the eggs and plumage foulOf a midnight shrieking owl,Be they well besmear’d with bloodOf the blackest venom’d toad,Bring the choicest drugs of Spain,Produce of the poisonous plain,Then into the charm be thrown,Snatch’d from famish’d bitch, a bone,Burn them all with magic flame,Kindled first by Colchian dame.
Bring the eggs and plumage foulOf a midnight shrieking owl,Be they well besmear’d with bloodOf the blackest venom’d toad,Bring the choicest drugs of Spain,Produce of the poisonous plain,Then into the charm be thrown,Snatch’d from famish’d bitch, a bone,Burn them all with magic flame,Kindled first by Colchian dame.
Bring the eggs and plumage foulOf a midnight shrieking owl,Be they well besmear’d with bloodOf the blackest venom’d toad,Bring the choicest drugs of Spain,Produce of the poisonous plain,Then into the charm be thrown,Snatch’d from famish’d bitch, a bone,Burn them all with magic flame,Kindled first by Colchian dame.
Bring the eggs and plumage foul
Of a midnight shrieking owl,
Be they well besmear’d with blood
Of the blackest venom’d toad,
Bring the choicest drugs of Spain,
Produce of the poisonous plain,
Then into the charm be thrown,
Snatch’d from famish’d bitch, a bone,
Burn them all with magic flame,
Kindled first by Colchian dame.
John Gay, the eighteenth century playwright, inThe Shepherd’s Week, has one of the characters refer to a philtre in a casual and incidental manner, implying that the practice of this usage was in common vogue:
And in love powder all my money spent;Behap what will, next Sunday after prayers,When to the ale house Lupperkin repairs,These golden flies into his mug I’ll throw,And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow.
And in love powder all my money spent;Behap what will, next Sunday after prayers,When to the ale house Lupperkin repairs,These golden flies into his mug I’ll throw,And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow.
And in love powder all my money spent;Behap what will, next Sunday after prayers,When to the ale house Lupperkin repairs,These golden flies into his mug I’ll throw,And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow.
And in love powder all my money spent;
Behap what will, next Sunday after prayers,
When to the ale house Lupperkin repairs,
These golden flies into his mug I’ll throw,
And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow.
Shakespeare, too, inA Midsummer Night’s Dream, alludes to the love philtre:
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell,It fell upon a little western flower,Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,And maidens call it Love-in-Idleness.Fetch me that flower; the herb I show’d thee once,The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laidWill make or man or woman madly doteUpon the next live creature that it sees.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell,It fell upon a little western flower,Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,And maidens call it Love-in-Idleness.Fetch me that flower; the herb I show’d thee once,The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laidWill make or man or woman madly doteUpon the next live creature that it sees.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell,It fell upon a little western flower,Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,And maidens call it Love-in-Idleness.Fetch me that flower; the herb I show’d thee once,The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laidWill make or man or woman madly doteUpon the next live creature that it sees.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell,
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it Love-in-Idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I show’d thee once,
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Again:
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,And drop the liquor of it in her eyes,The next thing then she waking looks upon,Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,And drop the liquor of it in her eyes,The next thing then she waking looks upon,Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,And drop the liquor of it in her eyes,The next thing then she waking looks upon,Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes,
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
Perfumes of all kinds, used on the person, on the genitalia, on clothes, in beds, in foods, were considered arousing stimulants. This procedure was in vogue both among the ancient Greeks and Romans, in the Orient, and during the Middle Ages: and is, of course, far from obsolescent these days.
The Greek playwright Aristophanes mentions perfumes in his comedyLysistratain connection with sexual enticements. Horace the Roman lyric poet tells of an old lecher ‘scented with nard.’
Ambergris and civet were immensely popular. An ointment, extracted from spikenard, was known as foliatum: another, as nicerotiana. Cinnamon, sweet marjoram, myrrh, were in use. So with aromatic oils. Perfumes, in fact, are regularly mentioned in erotic and sexual situations and contexts. The corpus of theArabian Nightscontains many episodes involving the use and impact of scents. The BiblicalSong of Songstoo makes apposite reference to the subject:
a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me ...ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart ...perfumes and sweet spices ...beds of aromatic spices ...
a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me ...ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart ...perfumes and sweet spices ...beds of aromatic spices ...
a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me ...ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart ...perfumes and sweet spices ...beds of aromatic spices ...
a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me ...
ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart ...
perfumes and sweet spices ...
beds of aromatic spices ...
Ben Jonson, the English dramatist, has Volpone, in the comedy of that name, offer Celia perfumed baths:
The milk of unicorns, and panthers’ breathGathered in bags, and mixed with Cretan wines.Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber.
The milk of unicorns, and panthers’ breathGathered in bags, and mixed with Cretan wines.Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber.
The milk of unicorns, and panthers’ breathGathered in bags, and mixed with Cretan wines.Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber.
The milk of unicorns, and panthers’ breath
Gathered in bags, and mixed with Cretan wines.
Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber.
Onions in particular have for centuries possessed an aphrodisiac reputation. Onion is recommended for such intentions by the Greek and Roman poets. Ovid and Martial, and the later bucolic poet Columella urgently stress the eating of plenty of onions as both a rejuvenating and an animating agent. The Greek physician Galen also considered onions as having stimulating virtues.
In the East, onion seed is pounded, mixed with honey, and taken while one is fasting, in the hope of physiological urgency.
Among Arabs, onions boiled with spices, then fried in oil with egg yolks, are, if taken successively on a number of days, considered of high potency.
The seat of amorous passion was traditionally the liver. This concept is exemplified inThe Faithful Shepherdess, by John Fletcher:
Amoret: Dear friend, you must not blame me, if I makeA doubt of what the silent night may do,Coupled with this day’s heat, to move your blood.Maids must be fearful. Sure you have not beenWash’d white enough, for yet I see a stainStick in your liver: go and purge again.Perigot: Oh, do not wrong my honest simple truth!Myself and my affections are as pureAs those chaste flames that burn before the shrineOf the great Dian; only my intentTo drag you thither was to plight our troths,With interchange of mutual chaste embraces,And ceremonious tying of our souls.For to that holy wood is consecrateA virtuous well, about whose flowery banksThe nimble-footed fairies dance their roundsBy the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimesTheir stolen children, so to make them freeFrom dying flesh and dull mortality.By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn,And given away his freedom, many a trothBeen plight, which neither envy nor old timeCould ever break, with many a chaste kiss givenIn hope of coming happiness; by thisFresh fountain many a blushing maidHath crown’d the head of her long-loved shepherdWith gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sungLays of his love and dear captivity.There grow all herbs fit to cool looser flamesOur sensual parts provoke, chiding our bloods,And quenching by their power those hidden sparksThat else would break out, and provoke our senseTo open fires; so virtuous is that place.Then, gentle shepherdess, believe and grant.In troth, it fits not with that face to scantYour faithful shepherd of those chaste desiresHe ever aim’d at, and ...Amoret: Thou hast prevail’d; farewell. This coming nightShall crown thy chaste hopes with long-wish’d delight.Perigot: Our great god Pan reward thee for that goodThou hast given thy poor shepherd!
Amoret: Dear friend, you must not blame me, if I makeA doubt of what the silent night may do,Coupled with this day’s heat, to move your blood.Maids must be fearful. Sure you have not beenWash’d white enough, for yet I see a stainStick in your liver: go and purge again.Perigot: Oh, do not wrong my honest simple truth!Myself and my affections are as pureAs those chaste flames that burn before the shrineOf the great Dian; only my intentTo drag you thither was to plight our troths,With interchange of mutual chaste embraces,And ceremonious tying of our souls.For to that holy wood is consecrateA virtuous well, about whose flowery banksThe nimble-footed fairies dance their roundsBy the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimesTheir stolen children, so to make them freeFrom dying flesh and dull mortality.By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn,And given away his freedom, many a trothBeen plight, which neither envy nor old timeCould ever break, with many a chaste kiss givenIn hope of coming happiness; by thisFresh fountain many a blushing maidHath crown’d the head of her long-loved shepherdWith gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sungLays of his love and dear captivity.There grow all herbs fit to cool looser flamesOur sensual parts provoke, chiding our bloods,And quenching by their power those hidden sparksThat else would break out, and provoke our senseTo open fires; so virtuous is that place.Then, gentle shepherdess, believe and grant.In troth, it fits not with that face to scantYour faithful shepherd of those chaste desiresHe ever aim’d at, and ...Amoret: Thou hast prevail’d; farewell. This coming nightShall crown thy chaste hopes with long-wish’d delight.Perigot: Our great god Pan reward thee for that goodThou hast given thy poor shepherd!
Amoret: Dear friend, you must not blame me, if I makeA doubt of what the silent night may do,Coupled with this day’s heat, to move your blood.Maids must be fearful. Sure you have not beenWash’d white enough, for yet I see a stainStick in your liver: go and purge again.
Amoret: Dear friend, you must not blame me, if I make
A doubt of what the silent night may do,
Coupled with this day’s heat, to move your blood.
Maids must be fearful. Sure you have not been
Wash’d white enough, for yet I see a stain
Stick in your liver: go and purge again.
Perigot: Oh, do not wrong my honest simple truth!Myself and my affections are as pureAs those chaste flames that burn before the shrineOf the great Dian; only my intentTo drag you thither was to plight our troths,With interchange of mutual chaste embraces,And ceremonious tying of our souls.For to that holy wood is consecrateA virtuous well, about whose flowery banksThe nimble-footed fairies dance their roundsBy the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimesTheir stolen children, so to make them freeFrom dying flesh and dull mortality.By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn,And given away his freedom, many a trothBeen plight, which neither envy nor old timeCould ever break, with many a chaste kiss givenIn hope of coming happiness; by thisFresh fountain many a blushing maidHath crown’d the head of her long-loved shepherdWith gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sungLays of his love and dear captivity.There grow all herbs fit to cool looser flamesOur sensual parts provoke, chiding our bloods,And quenching by their power those hidden sparksThat else would break out, and provoke our senseTo open fires; so virtuous is that place.Then, gentle shepherdess, believe and grant.In troth, it fits not with that face to scantYour faithful shepherd of those chaste desiresHe ever aim’d at, and ...
Perigot: Oh, do not wrong my honest simple truth!
Myself and my affections are as pure
As those chaste flames that burn before the shrine
Of the great Dian; only my intent
To drag you thither was to plight our troths,
With interchange of mutual chaste embraces,
And ceremonious tying of our souls.
For to that holy wood is consecrate
A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality.
By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn,
And given away his freedom, many a troth
Been plight, which neither envy nor old time
Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given
In hope of coming happiness; by this
Fresh fountain many a blushing maid
Hath crown’d the head of her long-loved shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung
Lays of his love and dear captivity.
There grow all herbs fit to cool looser flames
Our sensual parts provoke, chiding our bloods,
And quenching by their power those hidden sparks
That else would break out, and provoke our sense
To open fires; so virtuous is that place.
Then, gentle shepherdess, believe and grant.
In troth, it fits not with that face to scant
Your faithful shepherd of those chaste desires
He ever aim’d at, and ...
Amoret: Thou hast prevail’d; farewell. This coming nightShall crown thy chaste hopes with long-wish’d delight.
Amoret: Thou hast prevail’d; farewell. This coming night
Shall crown thy chaste hopes with long-wish’d delight.
Perigot: Our great god Pan reward thee for that goodThou hast given thy poor shepherd!
Perigot: Our great god Pan reward thee for that good
Thou hast given thy poor shepherd!
A medieval song, that appears inThe Maid’s Tragedy, by Beaumont and Fletcher, suggests that restraint in lust may occasionally be a desideratum:
I could never have the powerTo love one above an hour,But my heart would prompt mine eyeOn some other man to fly.Venus, fix mine eyes fast,Or, if not, give me all that I shall see at last!
I could never have the powerTo love one above an hour,But my heart would prompt mine eyeOn some other man to fly.Venus, fix mine eyes fast,Or, if not, give me all that I shall see at last!
I could never have the powerTo love one above an hour,But my heart would prompt mine eyeOn some other man to fly.Venus, fix mine eyes fast,Or, if not, give me all that I shall see at last!
I could never have the power
To love one above an hour,
But my heart would prompt mine eye
On some other man to fly.
Venus, fix mine eyes fast,
Or, if not, give me all that I shall see at last!
InPhilaster, a play by Beaumont and Fletcher, mention is made of an amatory provocative that was in common use in the Middle Ages and later:
Cleremont: Sure this lady has a good turn done her against her will; before she was common talk, now none dare say cantharides can stir her. Her face looks like a warrant, willing and commanding all tongues, as they will answer it, to be tied up and bolted when this lady means to let herself loose. As I live, she has got her a goodly protection and a gracious; and may use her body discreetly for her health’s sake, once a week, excepting Lent and dog-days. Oh, if they were to be got for money, what a great sum would come out of the city for these licenses!
Foods and herbs that have a gastronomic appeal are often empirically credited with amatory traits as well. For instance, eel soup and preserves and sundry pies have been brought into the field of such beneficial stimulants. Also the herb eryngium maritimum or Sea Holly, whose fleshy roots were candied and served hot in Elizabethan and later days. Figs and fennel soup: tunny fish and plovers’ eggs, halibut, plaice, mackerel and mullet. So with apples and potatoes and garlic. Horseradish and sesame seeds, vanilla and turmeric, frangipane cream and purslane: frogs’ legs and peaches. Ghee, ginger-fruit jam. Goose-tongues and grapes and guinea fowl. Hare soup and haricot beans. Soup seasoned with thyme, pimento, cloves, and laurel. Lentils and pomegranates and dates. Mutton, lamb, and rice. Mallows boiled in goat milk. Or the sap of mallows. Aromatic marjoram and marrow. Mint and onions, pineapple and mushrooms. Peas, and pastries kneaded into phallic and genital forms. All things, it appears, that are edible or potable come at some time or other under the classification of anticipatory amatory aids.
Messalina, the wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius, was infamous for her licentiousness, her intrigues, and her obscene amours. Historical testimony relates that she had amorous encounters with fourteen athletes, and in consequence assumed the honorific ofInvincible. In commemoration of the episode she also dedicated fourteen wreaths to the Priapic god.
Apuleius, the Roman novelist who flourished in the second century A.D., alludes to an ancient Roman list of ingredients in the preparation of love-potions:
They dig out all kinds of philtresfrom everywhere:they search for the agent thatarouses mutual love:pills and nails and threads,roots and herbs and shoots,the two-tailed lizard,and charms from mares.
They dig out all kinds of philtresfrom everywhere:they search for the agent thatarouses mutual love:pills and nails and threads,roots and herbs and shoots,the two-tailed lizard,and charms from mares.
They dig out all kinds of philtresfrom everywhere:they search for the agent thatarouses mutual love:pills and nails and threads,roots and herbs and shoots,the two-tailed lizard,and charms from mares.
They dig out all kinds of philtres
from everywhere:
they search for the agent that
arouses mutual love:
pills and nails and threads,
roots and herbs and shoots,
the two-tailed lizard,
and charms from mares.
A certain philtre, according to the testimony of Girolamo Folengo in hisMaccaronea, published in 1519, was composed of black dust from a tomb, the venom of a toad, the flesh of a brigand, the lung of an ass, the blood of a blind infant, the bile of an ox, and corpses rifled from graves.
It is unusual to discover a decided anti-aphrodisiac, recommended as an antidote, for banishing lust. The following prescription appears in theSecrets of Albertus Magnus, a medieval magic manual:
Turtur, a Turtle, is a birde very well knowne. It is called Merlon of the Chaldees, of the Greeks Pilax. If the heart of this foule be borne in a Wolves skin, hethat weareth it shall never have an appetite to commit lechery from henceforth.
In the same magic manual attributed to Albertus Magnus the medieval philosopher, there is a description of a philtre that has a number of properties, both medicinal and amatory:
The seventh is the herb of the planet Venus, and is called Pisterion, of some Hierobotane,id est, Sterbo columbaria et Verbena, Vervin.
The root of this herb put upon the neck healeth the swine pockes, apostumus behinde the eares, and botches of the neck, and such as cannot keepe their water. It healeth cuts also, and swelling of the evil, or fundament, proceeding of an inflammation which groweth in the fundament.
It is also of great strength in veneriall pastimes. If any man put it into his house or vineyard, or in the ground, he shal have great store of increase.
Another love charm, from Albertus Magnus’Book of the Marvels of the World, is designed to stabilize a woman’s affection:
If thou wilt that a woman bee not visious nor desire men, take the private members of a Woolfe, and the haires which doe grow on the cheekes or eyebrowes of him, and the haires which bee under his beard, and burne it all, and give it to her to drinke, when she knoweth not, and she shal desire no other man.
Macrobius, a Roman writer who flourished c. 400 A.D., is the author of a symposium entitledSaturnalia, in whichhe states that hot drinks, particularly wine, are provocative of amatory exercise:deinde omnia calida Venerem provocant et semen excitant et generationi favent. Hausto autem mero plurimo fiunt viri ad coitum pigriores.That is, a long draught of unmixed wine is a decided stimulant to genesiac activity. On the other hand, like many of the ancient erotic poets, Macrobius adds that excessive and cold wine is a deterrent:vini nimietas ut frigidi facit semen exile vel debile.
The plant verbena officinalis was known to Hippocrates and later on to Pliny the Elder as an effective means of inducing virile potency.
An Indian plant named Datroa, the juice of which was used in a drink, was given as a physiological stimulant
In the eighteenth century an erotic concoction known as Diavolini was popular in Italy. In France, these Diavolini became equally popular under the name of diablotins—devil-pastilles.
The nettle, urtica urens, was a legendary and traditional stimulus, credited with promoting decisive potency.
Ocimum Basilicum is a plant with labiate flowers. It was known to the Egyptians and is mentioned by the Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder. It was used as an aphrodisiac as well as for other medicinal purposes.
Lycopodium Clavatum, a plant known by a variety of other names, was formerly used in amatory practices.
The amethyst was anciently considered a stone whose contact was a stimulus to passion.
In the Middle Ages there was in Germany a kind of humorous folk legend that was called the Old Wives’ Mill. This legend extended into the eighteenth century. The theme was the rejuvenation of old women into young maidens and young women. There is an old print depicting the Mill, with elderly females being carried into the Mill and coming out young and comely.
The means of arousing erotic sensations and the devices contrived for the furtherance of weird or furtive amatory conditions have varied all the way from forthright bestialities, sacrificial blood rituals, as described by the poet Horace with reference to the witch Canidia’s practices, down to more or less innocuous or ineffectual concoctions.
As far as ritual killing is concerned, and the extraction of human organs for amatory purposes, such methods were in vogue in Europe until far into the seventeenth century, notably in France.
A French preparation, that promised a renewal of physiological vigor, was known asEssence à l’usage des monstres.
Certain ancient Greek papyri contain suggestions and recipes intended to promote physiological vigor and by means of magic formulas to correct amatory deficiencies. These papyri now belong in the Louvre, in Paris, and in the British Museum.
Diagrams and symbols appear in the papyri. There are invocations, magic ritualistic prescriptions. There are, also, invocations and supplications to strange deities: among them, Sabazios, a Thracian-Phrygian god who had affinities with Dionysus, the god of wine, of fertility, and of procreation. He was also equated with the deity called Curios Sabaoth, mentioned in the Septuagint, and also Theos Hypsistos.
The Greek writer Lucian’sLover of Liesconsists of a collection of sketches on various contemporary superstitionsand practices. There are descriptions of magic statues endowed with animation, awesome apparitions, and also charms for bringing back a lover who has strayed.
The River Scamander, in Greece, was reputed to be such a potent amatory stimulus that maidens hopefully bathed in its waters. On one occasion, according to the testimony of the orator Aeschines, the beautiful Callirhoë, on her way to bathing in the sacred Scamander, was met by a young man who represented himself as an aide to the river god. The young man then substituted himself for the god and performed his divine function.
The medieval demonographer Martin Delrio, in his Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex, discusses love charms, brews of all kinds, and other amatory inducements used by practitioners in the Black Arts. He mentions formulas and incantations, spells and alluring chants such as the seductive croonings of the ancient sirens, as well as the hypnotic music produced by Orpheus: also concoctions compounded of viscera and blood and other more intimate secretions.
Amatory inducements may be merely sensuous, or bodily proximity, as in dancing. Or excitation may be provoked by listening to an appealing voice, or visually observing a theatrical spectacle. Or recalling a fragment of song, a forgotten melody.
Particularly in the Orient, amatory preparations often run the gamut from oddities or puerilities to items that are monstrous in themselves, or so rare as to preclude the possibility of securing them: as, the scale of a tortoise, or the secretions of a stag, or a corpse, or a hyena’s brains or whiskers.
Yet, in the East, these ingredients might well be furtively whispered to the love-sick suppliant by some agedcrone who is the repository of legendary remedies, or by an obscure apothecary, whose pharmacopoeia is medieval, or by some wandering minstrel or trader.
Certain plants are associated with erotic consequences and have been resorted to by those in restless quest of amatory contentments. Among these plants are: the root of narcissus, vervain, water lilies, and bamboo.
In one Hindu erotic manual, a kind of Rake’s Progress entitled The Harlot’s Guide, certain ingredients are enumerated as contributing to the potency of philtres. Included in the items are fish soup, ghee, and indigenous herbs.
In former times, in France, a dish of the testes of a kid or a bull or a fox or a hare would be set before a man who intended to embark on amatory ventures.
Love stimulants may be both material and psychic. They may have physiological impacts that result in amatory capacity, or they may heighten and arouse the emotional awareness and sensitivity, with similar results.
Among the medieval investigators, philosophers, and alchemists and occultists, Albertus Magnus held a dominant position. He had a perception of scientific method, yet he also dealt in unwarranted and legendary fantasies. He wrote on physiology and astronomy. He investigated plant and animal life. He equated the characteristics and properties of certain stones, certain metals, certain creatures, with corresponding human traits and faculties. He felt that such stones, or the extraction of certain animal organs, would be conducive to the realization of the virtues of these minerals or viscera in relation to the human being. The lion’s bravery resides in the lion’s heart. Hence the eating of the heart, by a kind of sympathetic transference, will renderthe human consumer equally courageous. So the procedure extends throughout the entire amatory field. Certain animals and birds, as the pigeon and the ass and the goat and the bull, are known for their lubricity. The testes, therefore, and the genitalia of such animals will correspondingly endow the man who consumes them with equally intense capacity. Certain formulas, particular invocations and ritualistic procedures, diagrams and symbols and periapts will all contribute to the efficacy of the rite.
Thus, to stimulate desire in either sex, the genitalia of the animals of the opposite sex are consumed.
In the nests of eagles are found stones called echites. Worn on the left arm, these stones promote erotic sensations.
To ensure erotic continuance, the marrow of a wolf’s left foot is advised. This is mixed with chypre and ambergris and the resultant unguent is rubbed on the object of affection.
Like a culinary direction, but usually with less promptness or ease, one is enjoined to take the liver of a sparrow, a swallow’s womb, a hare’s kidney, a pigeon’s heart. Dry and crush into a powder. Add equal weight of one’s own blood. Dry and mix in soup as an infallible potion.
For reinvigorating purposes, an ointment composed of ash of star-lizard, civet oil, St. John’s wort oil is prepared. This is smeared on the toe of the left foot and the loins.
The fat of a young buck, together with civet and ambergris, is equally efficacious.
Goose testes and the stomach of a hare, well seasoned with spices, are amatory aids.
Also: a salad made of satyrion, rocket, and celery, soaked in oil and rose vinegar.
As, in rarer cases, an anaphrodisiac, on the other hand, the powdered genitals of a mild bull are recommended, in a soup containing veal, purslain, and lettuce.
The medieval grimoires, those manuals dedicated to sorcery, also treated of philtres and amatory brews.
Take two new knives. On a Friday morning—the day that is consecrated to Aphrodite—go to a spot where you can find earthworms. Take two, join the two knives together, then cut the two heads and the two tails of the worms. Keep the bodies. On returning home, smear them with sperm: dry, and pulverize them.
Again: Pull out three pubic hairs and three from the left armpit. Burn them on a hot shovel. Pulverize, and insert in a piece of bread, that will be dipped in soup.
Or: With the left hand pluck a bunch of vervain and repeat: I pluck you by the power of Lucifer, Prince of the Infernal Regions, and of Beelzebub, mother of three demons. Let her send Attos, Effeton, and Canabo to torment X so that, within twenty-four hours, she may do my will.
There is a prescription against cuckoldry, involving the organs, the skin, and the eyes of a wolf: pounded and calcined and composed into a drink.
Another prescription, designed for amatory purposes, involves a loaf of warm bread into which nine drops of blood are distilled. The bread is then dried, pulverized, and taken with coffee.
Another recipe requires the fat and the bile of a goat, dried, and mixed with oil. Its use will ensure faithful and continuous attachment to the person loved.
Another device for maintaining enduring love requires two turtle doves, male and female. After they are strangled, the blood is poured into a cup never before used. One’s own blood is added, together with some hair of the woman. On the first white page of a new Bible there is now written with a gold pen dipped in the turtle doves’ blood: Where you go, I shall go. Where you stay, I shall stay. Your people are my people and your god is my god. I shall die where you die. Only death shall separate us. The document is sprinkled with incense and placed under the nuptial pillow. The brew is poured into another cup, neverbefore used, and mixed with wine. Each of the two persons concerned in the ceremony now takes a drink.
An elaborate potion, that involves many ingredients, much time, and careful and scrupulous preparation, is as follows:
On the first Friday after a summer new moon, go at noon and look for a snake. Cut its head off, and carry it away in a new silk bag. Once home, throw the stick used for killing the snake toward the East, and hang the bag in a dark, warm corner. The following night, go barefooted to a meadow. Before midnight, gather two leaves of white clover, two of red clover, and six stems of spurge. Bring them back in a new basket. Then take a white bud from two rose bushes, a red bud and a young leaf of each, wrap in virgin parchment on which you write: Revarin myrtol her kulbata with a new goose quill dipped in your own blood.
The leaves, their contents, and the basket are set at the head of the bed, on a table on which a lamp burns for at least three hours. On waking up, spray the flowers and leaves with cold well water and set them in the place where the snake’s head is drying. Wait until night. About eleven p.m. stretch out, on a table in the room, virgin parchment, draw thereon with a fresh heated point a six-branched star, by the light of an old church taper placed in a silver holder.
Procure a new chopper, two new knives, a new porcelain bowl, a new, well rinsed bottle, a black glass, a carafe of cold water, a stick of new wax, a seal, a mortar, and a new cork.
At midnight, make the sign of the cross three times. Then put the snake’s head in the mortar with the leaves and flowers crushed into a paste. Heap up into a consistent mixture. Put the mortar on the flame until the contents are dry: then pulverize, while the mortar is heating.
With the new knives, let six drops of your blood fall into the cup: add water, pour the contents of the mortar into the cup, stir, and boil. Take three of your hairs, calcine them and throw into the cup. Do likewise with the parchment and the bag. Pour into the bottle, add water until it overflows. Cork it and seal it, place it in the bed, put out the light, pray and go to sleep.
After three days, after leaving it in the dark, by the window, on the third midnight the brew will be ready. Five drops for men, three for women, mixed with drink or food.
This elixir was reputed to be highly effective.