A STORY CONCERNING CUPID WHICH NOT ONE READER IN TEN THOUSAND HAS EVER
HEARD BEFORE; A DEFENCE OF LOVE WHICH WILL BE VERY SATISFACTORY TO THE
LADIES.
They do lie,
Lie grossly who say Love is blind,—by him
And Heaven they lie! he has a sight can pierce
Thro' ivory, as clear as it were horn,
And reach his object.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
The Stoics who called our good affections eupathies, did not manage
those affections as well as they understood them. They kept them under
too severe a discipline, and erroneously believed that the best way to
strengthen the heart was by hardening it. The Monks carried this error
to its utmost extent, falling indeed into the impious absurdity that
our eupathies are sinful in themselves. The Monks have been called the
Stoics of Christianity; but the philosophy of the Cloister can no more
bear comparison with that of the Porch, than Stoicism itself with
Christianity pure and undefiled. Van Helmont compares even the
Franciscans with the Stoics, “_paucis mutatis_,” he says, “_videbam
Capucinum esse Stoicum Christianum_.” He might have found a closer
parallel for them in the Cynics both for their filth and their
extravagance. And here I will relate a Rabbinical tradition.
On a time the chiefs of the Synagogue, being mighty in prayer,
obtained of the Lord that the Evil Spirit who had seduced the Jews to
commit idolatry, and had brought other nations against them to
overthrow their city and destroy the Temple, should be delivered into
their hands for punishment; when by advice of Zachariah the prophet
they put him in a leaden vessel, and secured him there with a weight
of lead upon his face. By this sort of _peine forte et dure_, they
laid him so effectually that he has never appeared since. Pursuing
then their supplications while the ear of Heaven was open, they
entreated that another Evil Spirit by whom the people had continually
been led astray, might in like manner be put into their power. This
prayer also was granted; and the Demon with whom Poets, Lovers and
Ladies are familiar, by his heathen name of Cupid, was delivered up to
them.
_————folle per lui
Tutto il mondo si fa. Perisca Amore,
E saggio ognun sarà._[1]
The prophet Zachariah warned them not to be too hasty in putting him
to death, for fear of the consequences;
——You shall see
A fine confusion in the country; mark it!
But the prophet's counsel was as vain as the wise courtier's in
Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy, who remonstrated against the decree
for demolishing Cupid's altars. They disregarded his advice; because
they were determined upon destroying the enemy now that they had him
in their power; and they bound their prisoner fast in chains, while
they deliberated by what death he should die. These deliberations
lasted three days; on the third day it happened that a new-laid egg
was wanted for a sick person, and behold! no such thing was to be
found throughout the kingdom of Israel, for since this Evil Spirit was
in durance not an egg had been laid; and it appeared upon enquiry,
that the whole course of kind was suspended. The chiefs of the
Synagogue perceived then that not without reason Zachariah had warned
them; they saw that if they put their prisoner to death, the world
must come to an end; and therefore they contented themselves with
putting out his eyes, that he might not see to do so much mischief,
and let him go.
[Footnote 1: METASTASIO.]
Thus it was that Cupid became blind,—a fact unknown to the Greek and
Roman Poets and to all the rhymesters who have succeeded them.
The Rabbis are coarse fablers. Take away love, and not physical nature
only, but the heart of the moral world would be palsied;
This is the salt unto Humanity
And keeps it sweet.[2]
_Senza di lui
Che diverrian le sfere,
Il mar, la terra? Alla sua chiara face
Si coloran le stelle; ordine e lume
Ei lor ministra; egli mantiene in pace
Gli' elemente discordi; unisce insieme
Gli opposti eccessi; e con eterno giro,
Che sembra caso, ed è saper profondo,
Forma, scompone, e riproduce il mondo._[3]
[Footnote 2: BEAUMONT & FLETCHER.]
[Footnote 3: METASTASIO.]
It is with this passion as with the Amreeta in Southey's Hindoo tale,
the most original of his poems; its effects are beneficial or
malignant according to the subject on which it acts. In this respect
Love may also be likened to the Sun, under whose influence one plant
elaborates nutriment for man, and another poison; and which while it
draws up pestilence from the marsh and jungle, and sets the simoom in
motion over the desert, diffuses light, life, and happiness over the
healthy and cultivated regions of the earth.
It acts terribly upon Poets. Poor creatures, nothing in the whole
details of the Ten Persecutions, or the history of the Spanish
Inquisition, is more shocking than what they have suffered from Love,
according to the statements which they have given of their own
sufferings. They have endured scorching, frying, roasting, burning,
sometimes by a slow fire, sometimes by a quick one; and melting,—and
this too from a fire, which while it thus affects the heart and liver,
raises not a blister upon the skin; resembling in this respect that
penal fire which certain theological writers describe as being more
intense because it is invisible,—existing not in form, but in essence,
and acting therefore upon spirit as material and visible fire acts
upon the body. Sometimes they have undergone from the same cause all
the horrors of freezing and petrifaction. Very frequently the brain is
affected; and one peculiar symptom of the insanity arising from this
cause, is that the patients are sensible of it, and appear to boast of
their misfortune.
Hear how it operated upon Lord Brooke, who is called the most
thoughtful of poets, by the most bookful of Laureates. The said Lord
Brooke in his love, and in his thoughtfulness, confesseth thus;
I sigh; I sorrow; _I do play the fool!_
Hear how the grave—the learned Pasquier describes its terrible effects
upon himself!
_Ja je sens en mes os une flamme nouvelle
Qui me mine, qui m'ard, qui brusle ma möuelle._
Hear its worse moral consequences, which Euphues avowed in his wicked
days! “He that cannot dissemble in love is not worthy to live. I am of
this mind, that both might and malice, deceit and treachery, all
perjury and impiety, may lawfully be committed in love, which is
lawless.”
Hear too how Ben Jonson makes the Lady Frampul express her feelings!
My fires and fears are met: I burn and freeze;
My liver's one great coal, my heart shrunk up
With all the fibres; and the mass of blood
Within me, is a standing lake of fire,
Curl'd with the cold wind of my gelid sighs,
That drive a drift of sleet through all my body,
And shoot a February through my veins.
And hear how Artemidorus, not the oneirologist, but the great
philosopher at the Court of the Emperor Sferamond, describes the
appearances which he had observed in dissecting some of those
unfortunate persons, who had died of love. “_Quant à mon regard_,”
says he, “_j'en ay veu faire anatomie de quelques uns qui estoient
morts de cette maladie, qui avoient leurs entrailles toutes retirées,
leur pauvre cœur tout bruslé, leur foye toute enfumé, leurs poulmons
tout rostis, les ventricules de leurs cerveaux tous endommagez; et je
croy que leur pauvre ame etoit cuite et arse à petite feu, pour la
vehemence et excessif chaleur et ardeur inextinguible qu'ils
enduroient lors que la fievre d'amour les avoit surprins._”[4]
[Footnote 4: AMADIS DE GAULE. Liv. 23.]
But the most awful description of its dangerous operation upon persons
of his own class is given by the Prince of the French Poets, not
undeservedly so called in his own times. Describing the effect of love
upon himself when he is in the presence of his mistress, Ronsard says,
_Tant s'en faut que je sois alors maistre de moy,
Que je ni'rois les Dieux, et trahirois mon Roy,
Je vendrois mon pay, je meurtrirois mon pere;
Telle rage me tient après que j'ay tasté
A longs traits amoureux de la poison amère
Qui sort de ces beaux yeux dont je suis enchanté._
Mercy on us! neither Petrarch, nor poor Abel Shufflebottom himself was
so far gone as this!
In a diseased heart it loses its nature, and combining with the morbid
affection which it finds produces a new disease.
When it gets into an empty heart, it works there like quicksilver in
an apple dumpling, while the astonished cook ignorant of the roguery
which has been played her, thinks that there is not Death, but the
Devil in the pot.
In a full heart, which is tantamount to saying a virtuous one, (for in
every other, conscience keeps a void place for itself, and the hollow
is always felt;) it is sedative, sanative, and preservative: a drop of
the true elixir, no mithridate so effectual against the infection of
vice.
How then did this passion act upon Leonard and Margaret? In a manner
which you will not find described in any of Mr. Thomas Moore's poems;
and which Lord Byron is as incapable of understanding, or even
believing in another, as he is of feeling it in himself.