Seven Ages of Man, take 3, the Lover

and then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad“… And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad,
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow”
(As You Like It, act 3, sc. 2))

Tips for use. Sighs and ballads dedicated to the mistress’ eyebrow are but two of a multitude of symptoms attributable to love. Robert Burton (1577 – 1640), a contemporary of William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) wrote the monumental “The Anatomy of Melancholy”, described as the greatest medical treatise written by a layman. In the book, Burton dedicates… 3 very long chapters respectively to the symptoms of love, the prognosis of the love sickness and the cure of love melancholy. The chapter on the symptoms of love begins as follows, “Symptoms are either of body or mind; of body paleness, leanness, dryness etc. Pallidus omnis amans, color hic est aptus amanti (pale is every lover, this hue beseemeth love, as Ovid describes lovers; fecit amor maciem, love causeth leanness (incidentally suggesting love as a remedy against overweightness). Avicenna (in De Ilishi, chapter 33) makes hollow eyes, dryness, symptoms of this disease, “to go smiling to themselves, or acting as if they saw or heard some delectable object.”
If you like this website why not subscribe (see last menu item to the right)? You will get automatically any new blog as well as any other information and novelty that will be forthcoming, including a system to effortlessly (yes) remember hundreds of Shakespearean quotes by heart and having fun in the process. You can also chat with me – please go to the chat-page. And I promise, no sales calls, trade leads, venomous schemes, hidden plots, Machiavellian conspiracies, commercial ploys, psychological tricks, leads exchanges, barter proposals, suggestions or offers of any kind imaginable (and unimaginable).

In the play. Jacques – a forerunner of a certain type of Voltairean character, philosophizes on the main chapters of everyone’s life

Image Source: http://www.moshloops.com/aboutus

This entry was posted in After Dinner Quotes, Best Shakespeare Quotes, Elegant Shakespearean Quotes, Medicine in Shakespeare, Presentation Ideas, Romantic Shakespearean Quotes, Sayings about Life, Social Exchanges Shakespeare style, William Shakespeare Love Quotes and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.