J'ai puis vu soudre en France Par grant dérision, La racine et la branche De toute abusion. Chef de l'orgueil du monde Et de lubricité; Femme où tel mal habonde Rend povre utilité.[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 asserts "qu'il vaut, peut être mieux que toutes les pièces 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, à séduire sa maitresse et à faire tomber son mari dans un piège ridicule. On se moque tout le long de la pièce, de la religion que toute l'Europe professe, dont Rome est le centre et dont le siège papal est le trone."[86]
Callimaco, one of the dramatis-personæ of this comedy, thus eulogizes the plant in question, "Voi avete a intendere che non è cosa più certa a ingravidare, d'una pozione fatta di Mandragola. Questa è 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 noble 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, entitled "Della Commissione del maleficio" says, Statuimo etiamdio che se alcun homo o femina harra fatto maleficii, iguali so dimandono volgarmente amatorie, o veramente alcuni altri maleficii, che alcun homo 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 assent of the Lords of this land, and also by sorcery and witchcraft committed by the said Elizabeth and her mother Jaquet Duchesse 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 Dudaïm 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.
Liebentantz,[90] in 1660; the younger Rudbeck,[91] in 1733, and Celsius,[92] in 1745, have displayed much erudition and research in their inquiries; but the first of these writers arrived at the conclusion that nothing certain could be come to on the subject; while the second proposed raspberries as the Dudaïm; and the third maintained that they were the fruit of the Zizyphus, the Spina Christi of the disciples of Linnæus.