Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction Part 4

4. In married persons who are accustomed to it; for nature pursues a different path, according as she is habituated to the reabsorption or the evacuation of this fluid.

5. With a beloved object; as the power animating the nerves and muscular fibres is in proportion to the pleasure received.

6. After a sound sleep, because then the body is more energetic; it is provided with a new stock of vital spirit, and the fluids are duly prepared;--hence the early morning appears to be designed by nature for the exercise of this function; as the body is then most vigorous, and being unemployed in any other pursuit, its natural propensity to this is the greater; besides, at this time a few hours sleep will, in a considerable degree restore the expended powers.

7. With an empty stomach; for the office of digestion, so material to the attainment of bodily vigour, is then uninterrupted. Lastly.

8. In the vernal months; as nature at this season in particular, incites all the lower animals to s.e.xual intercourse, as we are then most energetic and sprightly; and as the spring is not only the safest, but likewise the most proper time with respect to the consequences resulting from that intercourse. It is well ascertained by experience that children begotten in spring are of more solid fibres, and consequently more vigorous and robust, than those generated in the heat of summer or cold of winter.

It may be collected from the following circ.u.mstances, whether or not the gratification of the s.e.xual intercourse has been conducive to the well-being of the body; namely, if it be not succeeded by a peculiar la.s.situde; if the body do not feel heavy, and the mind averse to reflection, these are favourable symptoms, indicating that the various powers have sustained no essential loss, and that superfluous matter only has been evacuated.

Farther, the healthy appearance of the urine in this case, as well as cheerfulness and vivacity of mind, also prove a proper action of the fluids, and sufficiently evince an unimpaired state of the animal functions, a due perspiration, and a free circulation of the blood.

There are times, however, in which the gratification is the more pernicious to health, when it has been immoderate, and without the impulse of nature, but particularly in the following situations.

1. In all debilitated persons; as they do not possess sufficient vital spirits, and their strength after this venerating emission is consequently much exhausted. Their digestion necessarily suffers, perspiration is checked, and the body becomes languid and heavy.

2. In the aged; whose vital heat is diminished, whose frame is enfeebled by the most moderate enjoyment, and whose vigour, already reduced, suffers a still greater diminution from every loss that is accompanied with a violent convulsion of the whole body.

3. In persons not arrived at the age of maturity; by an easy intercourse with the other s.e.x, they become enervated and emaciated, and inevitably shorten their lives.

4. In dry, choleric and thin persons; these, even at a mature age, should seldom indulge in this pa.s.sion, as their bodies are already in want of moisture and pliability, both of which are much diminished by the s.e.xual intercourse, while the bile is violently agitated, to the great injury of the whole animal frame. Lean persons generally are of a hot temperament; and the more heat there is in the body the greater will be the subsequent dryness. Hence, likewise, to persons in a state of intoxication, this intercourse is extremely pernicious; because in such a state the increased circulation of the blood towards the head may be attended with dangerous consequences, such as bursting of blood-vessels, apoplexy, etc. The plethoric are particularly exposed to these dangers.

5. Immediately after meals; as the powers requisite to the digestion of food are thus diverted, consequently the aliment remains too long una.s.similated, and becomes burdensome to the stomach.

6. After violent exercise; in which case it is still more hurtful than in the preceding, where muscular strength was not consumed, but only required to the aid of another function. After bodily fatigue, on the contrary, the necessary energy is in a manner exhausted, so that every additional exertion of the body must be peculiarly injurious.

7. In the best of summer it is less to be indulged in than in spring and autumn; because the process of concoction and a.s.similation is effected less vigorously in summer than in the other seasons, and consequently the losses sustained are not so easily recovered. For a similar reason the s.e.xual commerce is more debilitating, and the capacity for it sooner extinguished in hot than in temperate climates. The same remark is applicable to very warm temperature combined with moisture, which is extremely apt to debilitate the solid part. Hence hatters, dyers, bakers, brewers, and all those exposed to steam, generally have relaxed fibres.

It is an unfavourable symptom if the rest after this intercourse be uneasy, which plainly indicates that more has been lost than could be repaired by sleep; but if, at the same time, it be productive of relaxation, so as to affect the insensible perspiration, it is a still stronger proof that it has been detrimental to the const.i.tution.[72]

ESSAY III.

APHRODISIACS, OR, EROTIC STIMULI, AND THEIR OPPOSITES, AS KNOWN TO, AND USED BY, THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

When it is considered how strongly the s.e.xual desire is implanted in man, and how much his self-love is interested in preserving or in recovering the power of gratifying it, his endeavours to infuse fresh vigour into his organs when they are temporarily exhausted by over-indulgence, or debilitated by age cannot appear surprising.

This remark particularly applied to natives of southern and eastern climes, with whom the erotic ardour makes itself more intensely felt; since it is there that man's imagination, as burning as the sky beneath which he first drew breath, re-awakens desires his organs may have long lost the power of satisfying, and consequently it is there more especially that, notwithstanding the continual disappointment of his hopes, he still pertinaciously persists in searching for means whereby to stimulate his appet.i.te for s.e.xual delights. Accordingly it will be found that in the remotest ages, even the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms have been ransacked for the purpose of discovering remedies capable of strengthening the genital apparatus, and exciting it to action.

But however eager men might be in the above enquiry, their helpmates were equally desirous of finding a means whereby they might escape the reproach of barrenness,--a reproach than which none was more dreaded by eastern women. Such means was at last discovered, or supposed to be so, in the mandrake,[73] a plant which thenceforth became, as the following quotation proves, of inestimable value in female eyes.

"And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes.

"And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to-night for thy son's mandrakes.

"And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me, for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night.

"And G.o.d harkened unto Leah, and she conceived and bare Jacob the fifth son."[74]

There is only one other pa.s.sage in the Bible in which this plant is alluded to, and that is in Solomon's song:

"The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved."[75]

All that can be gathered from the former of the above quotations is that these plants were found in the fields during the wheat harvests and that, either for their rarity, flavour, or, more probably, for their supposed quality of removing barrenness in women, as well as for the stimulating powers attributed to them, were greatly valued by the female s.e.x. In the quotation from Solomon's Song, the Hebrew word _Dudaim_ expresses some fruit or flowers exhaling a sweet and agreeable odour, and which were in great request among the male s.e.x.[76]

According to Calmet, the word _Dudaim_ may be properly deduced from _Dudim_ (pleasures of love); and the translators of the Septuagint and the Vulgate render it by words equivalent to the English one--mandrake.

The word _Dudaim_ is rendered in our authorized version by the word _mandrake_--a translation sanctioned by the Septuagint, which, in this place, translates _Dudaim_ by [Greek: mela mandragoron], _mandrake_--apples, and in Solomon's Song by [Greek: oi mandraorai]

(_mandrakes_). With this, Onkelos[77] and the Syrian version agree; and this concurrence of authorities, with the fact that the mandrake (_atropa mandragora_) combines in itself all the circ.u.mstances and traditions required for the Dudaim, has given to the current interpretation, its present prevalence.

Pythagoras was the first (followed by Plutarch) who gave to this plant the name of [Greek: anthropomorphos] (man-likeness), an appellation which became very generally used; but why he gave it is not precisely known: Calmet, however, suggests as a reason the partial resemblance it bears to the human form, from the circ.u.mstance of its root being parted from the middle, downwards.

The opinion respecting the peculiar property of the mandrake was not confined to the Jews, but was also entertained by the Greeks and Romans, the former of whom called its fruit--love-apples, and bestowed the name of _Mandragorilis_ upon Venus. Dioscorides knew it by that of [Greek: Mandragoras], and remarks that the root is supposed to be used in philters or love-potions;[78] and another writer lauds it as exciting the amorous propensity, remedying female sterility, facilitating conception and prolificness, adding the singular fact that female elephants, after eating its leaves, are seized with so irresistible a desire for copulation, as to run eagerly, in every direction, in quest of the male.[79]

Speaking of the plant Eryngium, the elder Pliny says: "The whole variety of the Eryngium known in our (the Latin) language as the _centum capita_ has some marvellous facts recorded of it. It is said to bear a striking likeness to the organs of generation of either s.e.x; it is rarely met with, but if a root resembling the male organ of the human species be found by a man, it will ensure him woman's love; hence it is that Phaon, the Lesbian, was so pa.s.sionately beloved of Sappho."[80] If it be true, as is a.s.serted by medical writers, that the above root contains an essential oil of peculiarly stimulating qualities, the fact would account, not only for Sappho's pa.s.sion for Phaon, but also for the high value set upon it by the rival wives of Jacob.

For the same reason as that suggested by Calmet, Columella calls the mandrake _semih.o.m.o_:

"Quamvis _semihominis_ vesano gramine fta Mandragorae pariat flores."[81]

"Let it not vex thee if thy teeming field The half-man Mandrake's madd'ning seed should yield;"

and qualifies its seed by the epithet _vesa.n.u.s_, because in his time (the first century after Christ) it was still supposed to form one of the ingredients of philters or love-potions. The superst.i.tious ideas attached to the mandrake were indeed so current throughout Europe during the middle ages, that one of the accusations brought against the Knights Templars was that of adoring, in Palestine, an idol to which was given the name of Mandragora.[82] Even, comparatively, not very long ago, there might be seen in many of the continental towns quacks and mountebanks exhibiting little rudely-carved figures, which they declared to be genuine mandrakes, a.s.suring their gaping auditors, at the same time, that they were produced from the urine of a gibbeted thief, and seriously warning those who might have to pull any out of the ground to stop their ears first, for otherwise the piercing shrieks of these plants would infallibly strike them with deafness. Wier thus describes the manufacture of these interesting little gentlemen: "Impostors carve upon these plants while yet green the male and female forms, inserting millet or barley seeds in such parts as they desire the likeness of human hair to grow on; then, digging a hole in the ground, they place the said plants therein, covering them with sand till such time as the little seeds have stricken root, which, it is said, would be perfectly effected within twenty days at furthest. After this, disinterring the plants, these impostors, with a sharp cutting knife, so dexterously carve, pare, and slip the little filaments of the seeds as to make them resemble the hair which grows upon the various parts of the human body."[83]

"I have seen," says the Abbe Rosier, "mandrakes tolerably well representing the male and female parts of generation, a resemblance which they owe, almost entirely, to manual dexterity. For the intended object, a mandrake is chosen having a strong root, which, at the end of a few inches, bifurcates into two branches. As the root is soft, it easily takes the desired form, which it preserves on becoming dry."[84]

The author then describes the process of producing the resemblance of human hair, and which is similar to that given above.

In the year 1429, a Cordelier by name Brother Richard, fulminated from the pulpit a vigorous sermon against the amulette then much in vogue, and called "Mandragora." He convinced his auditors, both male and female, of its impiety and inutility, and caused hundreds of those pretended charms which, upon that occasion, were voluntarily delivered up to him, to be publicly burnt. It is no doubt, to these mandragoras that an old chronicler alludes in the following strophe:

J'ai puis vu soudre en France Par grant derision, La racine et la branche De toute abusion.

Chef de l'orgueil du monde Et de lubricite; Femme ou tel mal habonde Rend povre utilite.[85]

In the 15th century the mandrake enjoyed in Italy so great a reputation as an erotic stimulant, that the celebrated Macchiavelli wrote a much admired comedy upon it, called "_La Mandragora_." The subject of this piece, according to Voltaire, who a.s.serts "qu'il vaut, peut etre mieux que toutes les pieces d'Aristophane, est un jeune homme adroit qui veut coucher avec la femme de son voisin. Il engage, avec de l'argent, un moine, un _Fa tutto_ ou un _Fa molto_, a seduire sa maitresse et a faire tomber son mari dans un piege ridicule. On se moque tout le long de la piece, de la religion que toute l'Europe professe, dont Rome est le centre et dont le siege papal est le trone."[86]

Callimaco, one of the dramatis-personae of this comedy, thus eulogizes the plant in question, "Voi avete a intendere che non e cosa piu certa a ingravidare, _d'una pozione fatta di Mandragola_. Questa e una cosi sperimentata da me due para di volte, e se non era questa, la Reina di Francia sarebbe sterile, ed infinite altre principesse in quello Stato."[87]

"You must know that nothing is so sure to make women conceive, as a draught composed of Mandragola. That is a fact which I have verified upon four occasions, and had it not been for the virtues of this plant, the queen of France, as well as many n.o.ble ladies of that kingdom, would have proved barren."

By the Venetian law the administering of love-potions was accounted highly criminal. Thus the law "_Dei maleficii et herbarie_." Cap. XVI.

of the code, ent.i.tled "Della Commissione del maleficio" says, "Statuimo etiamdio che se alcun h.o.m.o o femina harra fatto maleficii, iguali so dimandono volgarmente _amatorie_, o veramente alcuni altri maleficii, che alcun h.o.m.o o femina se havesson in odio, sia frusta et bollade, et che hara consigliato, patisca simile pena."[88]

The notion of the efficacy of love powders was also so prevalent in the 15th century in our own country that in the Parliament summoned by King Richard III., on his usurping the throne, it was publicly urged as a charge against Lady Grey, that she had bewitched King Edward IV. by strange potions and amorous charms.

"And here also we considered how that the said pretended marriage betwixt the abovenamed King Edward and Elizabeth Grey, was made of great presumption, without the knowing and a.s.sent of the Lords of this land, and also by sorcery and witchcraft committed by the said Elizabeth and her mother Jaquet d.u.c.h.esse of Bedford, as the common opinion of the people and the public voice and fame is thorow all this land." (From the "Address of Parliament to the high and mightie Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.")[89]

Modern writers, as might be expected, have taken a very wide range in their inquiries as to what kind of plant the Dudam really was, some regarding it as lilies, roses, violets, snowdrops, and jasmine; others, as melons, plantain fruits, whirtleberries, dwarf brambles, the berries of the physalis or winter cherry, grapes of some peculiar kinds, or even underground fungi, as truffles, &c. Many have supposed the word to mean the ingredients, whatever they might have been, of a charm or love potion, and hence have recurred to the mandrake, celebrated, as already said, throughout antiquity, for its supposed virtues, and whose history has been tricked out with all the traditionary nonsense that might be imagined to confirm that report of such qualities.