The most potent philtre or potion is the instinctive, natural, physiological desire. This maxim has been postulated by many erotologists and sexologists. It is forcefully so asserted by Robert Burton, the seventeenth century encyclopedist who, while searching for a clue to the cure of melancholy, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, simultaneously searched through all the chronicles, histories, and treatises of his predecessors.
Philtres, he asserts, and charms, amulets and figurines, periapts and unguents are basically unlawful means: they are, actually, the last resort in the amatory quest. Panders and bawds and the attendants on erotic provocations give some meagre aid in this respect. Beyond that, there is nothing but magic enchantments, Satanic assistance. ‘I know,’ confesses Burton, ‘that there be those that denye the devil can do any such things, and that there is no other fascination than that which comes by the eyes.’ He then quotes from Pietro Aretino, the Italian erotic poet, in relation to Lucretia’s amatory power:
One accent from thy lips the blood more warmes,
Than all their philtres, exorcisms, and charms.
Lucretia’s erotic faculty was such that she could accomplish, merely by kissing and embracing, her sole philtre, as she admitted, more than all the philosophers, astrologers, alchemists, necromancers, and witches.
Lucretia used neither potions nor herbs. With all my science, she said, I could never stir the hearts of men: only by my embraces, the warmth of my lips. I forced men to rave like wild beasts, and countless among them I drove into bestial stupefaction, with the result that they adored me and my love like an idol.
In the weird and confused history of human mores, there are noteworthy episodes and anecdotes, some apocryphal and traditional, others warranted by authenticity and verifiable historicity, relating to amatory experiences and their effects. Many of such anecdotes, prevalent in Oriental and classical literature, describe the amazing consequences of the consumption of love-potions and similar concoctions.
There is the story of the wayward and untrustworthy but brilliant Alcibiades, the fifth century B.C. political leader in Greece. His amorous bouts, his erotic intrigues, were so frequent, so forceful, and so indiscriminate that, as personal insignia, he bore the design of Eros, the god of love and son of Aphrodite. Eros was, in this instance, depicted as hurling lightning bolts. Of this same Alcibiades the tale ran, according to a later chronicler, that as a young man Alcibiades had the faculty of diverting wives from their husbands.