Bethink thee of my love,
And whence it came,
My Lady Moon!
In his De Sanitate Tuenda Praecepta, Advice on keeping Well, Plutarch, the Greek philosopher and biographer, comments on lust and potions:
While we loathe and detest women who contrive philtres and magic to use upon their husbands, we entrust our food and provisions to hirelings and slaves to be all but bewitched and drugged. If the saying of Arcesilaus, addressed to the adulterous and licentious, appears too bitter, to the effect that ‘it makes no difference whether a man practices lewdness in the front parlor or in the back hall,’ yet it is not without its application to our subject. For in very truth, what difference does it make whether a man employ aphrodisiacs to stir and excite licentiousness for the purpose of pleasure or whether he stimulate his taste by odors and sauces to require, like the itch, continual scratchings and ticklings.
(Loeb)
In Greek mythology, Andromache, the wife of the Trojan warrior Hector, was accused by Hermione, wife of Neoptolemus, of gaining his love by means of love-potions. Euripides, the tragic poet (c. 485–406 B.C.), refers to the situation in his drama Andromache:
Not of my philtres thy lord hateth thee,