This is a play with six characters, written in 1556, by Louise Labe,
sometimes called the _Belle Cordiere_.
Love, at all periods of time, has served as an inexhaustible subject
of analysis and observation, not only to poets and novelists, but
also to moralists, and especially physicians. Psychologists have
always considered love, when excessive, as an evidence of insanity.
Esquirol says that “love has lost its empire in France, indifference
having captivated the hearts of our people, who, given over to amorous
passions, having neither purity nor exhaltation, engender attacks of
erotic lunacy.” This learned alienist has also discovered that out
of 323 cases of insanity among the poor, love figured as a cause in
forty-six cases; and out of 167 cases among the rich, twenty-five
persons went insane on account of love. These close relations between
“Lunacy and Love,” admitted since mankind _entered into society_, have
served as a text for the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by the title of
the play we have mentioned; a work the more curious, for reason of its
_finesse_, notwithstanding the jests employed by its author as the
following analysis will witness.
Love and Lunacy arrive at the same moment at a festival to which
Jupiter has convened all the Gods. Lunacy, full of arrogance, wishes
to enter the banquet-hall before Love, and in order to do so turns
everything topsy-turvy to secure his end. The vindictive Love, in
order to be avenged, discharges a flight of arrows from the historical
quiver; but Lunacy avoids these by becoming invisible, and in his wrath
pulls out Love’s eyes, but afterwards skilfully puts them back in place
with a bandage.
Love, in despair at being blinded, goes to implore the help of his
mother. The latter desires the boy to remove the bandages from his
eyes, but his efforts are useless; they are full of knots. Venus calls
on Jupiter for justice for the injury done her boy. The Father of Gods
accepts the position of arbitrator and cites the offender to appear
before his tribunal. Mercury acts as attorney for Lunacy and Apollo
does the special pleading for Love. In the cross-examination, Love
tries to inform Jupiter of the fashions of loving, and tells him if
he desires true affection and happiness to descend to earth, drop all
appearances of greatness, and, under the guise of a simple mortal, seek
to captivate some earthly beauty. Apollo, speaking for his client,
young Cupid, is so eloquent that all the assemblage of Gods is seduced
by his oratory, and condemns Lunacy without even giving him a hearing.
But Jupiter is impartial in his tribunal, and allows Mercury to argue
for the defense. The latter pleads, in turn, with such eloquence
that one-half the jury is ready to say that Lunacy is not guilty—at
least among Olympian jurors. Jupiter is undecided; he is very wise,
however, and makes the following decision. “Owing to the differences of
witnesses and the importance of the case, we have set the case for a
re-hearing in three times seven times nine centuries—18,900 years—until
which time Folly, or Lunacy, shall lead the Blind (Cupid) anywhere she
chooses to go; and, at the end of the time named, should Cupid’s eyes
be restored, the Fates may decree otherwise.”
Lunacy and Love are thus rendered inseparable and eternal on earth;
they are connected together for the happiness of humanity and the
delight of psychologists, philosophers and moralists, who will always
find in these subjects something new for meditation and study. Need we
add, also, that the alienists will secure any number of clients owing
to Jupiter’s decision?