”A strong imagination creates the event” say the clerics.
I am one of those who feel overwhelming strain on my imagination, galloping towards peril. Everyone is affected by these feelings sometimes, but my case takes steps beyond. The flood of feeling persists, and my art is to escape it, but not resist. My escape is healthy and cheerful people. Anxieties transfer to me. Mine feel like I caught them from other people.
Someone’s constant cough irritates my lungs and my throat. The more a sick person’s duty interests me, the more prone I am to stay away. I grasp the illness I am witnessing and lay it to rest within me. I do not find it strange that she gives both fever and death to those who surrender to her, I applaud that. Simon Thomas was a great doctor of his time. I remember that, meeting him one day at the home of a rich old man with pulmonary disease, and discussing with him the means of his recovery. He told the patient that it was one of the ways of pleasing me in his company, and that, fixing his eyes on the freshness of my face, and his thoughts on the joy and vigor that abounded in my adolescence, and filling all his senses with this flourishing state in which I was, the patient’s habit might improve. But he forgot to add that mine might also worsen.
Gallus Vibius so focused his soul on understanding the essence and movements of madness that he lost all reason and could never get it back. He could boast of having become mad through wisdom. There are those who, out of fear, anticipate the hand of the executioner. And the one who was paraded to be read his pardon, found himself stone dead on the scaffold from the executioner that was his imagination.
We tremble, we shake, we turn pale and blush at the jolts of our amorous imaginations and, enraptured in desire, feel our bodies agitated by their sway, sometimes to the point of expiring. Boiling youth also finds slumbering ardour in its dreams of amorous desire,
As if after all things are over, the huge waves of the river often deepen, and their clothes become stained with blood. (Lucretius)
And again, it is not unusual to see horns grow at night in those who did not have them when they went to bed. However, the event of Cyppus, King of Italy, is especially memorable. Having watched a bullfight with great affection during the day, and having had horns on his head all night in a dream, he sprouted them on his forehead through the power of imagination.
Passion gave the son of Croesus the voice that nature had denied him. And Antiochus caught the fever of Stratonice’s beauty, too vividly imprinted on his soul. Pliny said that he saw Lucius Cossitius change from a woman to a man on his wedding day. Pontanus and others tell of similar metamorphoses that occurred in Italy in past centuries. And by the vehement desire of him and his mother,
The boy fulfilled the vows that the woman had vowed to Iphis. (Ovid)
Passing through Victry le Françoys, I heard a local legend of a man whom the Bishop of Soissons had named Germain in confirmation, whom all the inhabitants there knew and saw as a girl, up to the age of twenty-two, named Marie. He was at that time very bearded, and old, and unmarried. Making, he said, some effort while jumping, his manly limbs appeared: and a song is still in use among the girls there, by which they warn each other not to take big strides, for fear of becoming boys, like MarieGermain. This sort of accidental inversion is not so much a marvel as it is a frequent occurrence. If the imagination could do such things, its vigorously attachment to the thoughts and harshness of desire could make it so. Maybe we are better off incorporating the virile part into girls once and for all, what do I know?
Some attribute the scars of King Dagobert and Saint Francis to the power of the their minds. It is said that bodies are sometimes lifted from their place. And Celsus recites of a priest, who ravished his soul in such ecstasy that the body remained catatonic for a long time, without breath and feeling.
St. Augustine mentions another. He only had to hear lamentable and plaintive cries before he would suddenly faint and be carried so vividly away by his emotions. In this state, it did not matter how much he was stormed and how much he was yelled at, pinched and grilled, until he was revived. Then he would say he had heard voices, but as if coming from afar, and would notice his burns and bruises. And to prove it was not mere obstinacy set against his feelings, he had neither pulse nor breath.
It is true that the main credit of miracles, visions, enchantments and such extraordinary effects comes from the power of the imagination acting mainly against the softer souls of the common people. They have been so strongly influenced by a belief that they are convinced they see what they do not see.
I am still of the opinion that our most pleasant liaisons, which our world finds tied up in so many knots so that nothing else is talked about, are willingly impressions of apprehension and fear. I know a man not subject to enchantment, and of whom I can vouch is without weakness, who experienced an extraordinary failure of desire at the least opportune moment due to hearing the story of another failing to impotence. The horror of this villainous memory affected him so deeply that, from then on, he was subject to its power. His only cure came from replacing this reverie with another. It was only by admitting to his soul and preempting the fear that the tension was relieved. By accepting this evil as expected, his obligation was reduced and it was less painful. Once his thought cleared and disbanded, his body repaid its debt and he healed completely.
Once one becomes capable of something, one is no longer incapable, except through weakness. Misfortune arises when our soul is excessively filled with desire and respect, and especially if the conveniences encountered are improved and pressing. There is no single known way to recover from this trouble. I know of those to whom it has served to bring the body itself, which has moreover begun to suffer, to allay the ardour of this fury, and who through age find themselves less powerless than they are less potent. And there was another to whom it also served that an friend assured him he was provided with a counter-battery of enchantments certain to preserve him. It is better that I tell how it was.
A count of very good standing was marrying a beautiful lady who had been pursued by another who attended the celebration. This distressed his friends, particularly an old lady, his relative, who was in charge of the wedding and was hosting it at her home. She became fearful that witchcraft would strike the groom with impotence. I begged her to leave it to me. I told her that I happened to have in my chests a certain small flat gold coin, engraved with a few celestial figures, that had already proven effective against sunstroke and headaches. I convinced her to place it precisely on the seam of the groom’s scalp and keep it affixed there, sewn with a ribbon so that it could be tied under the chin.
Jacques Peletier had made me this strange gift. I told the count that he could try his luck like the others: there were men there who wanted to lend him one; but that he should boldly go to bed. I decided to finish the cure by playing a trick on him; spared of my access to a miracle, which was in my power, if absolutely necessary. On his honor, he promised to keep it a very secret and pretend that I was there only to bring his midnight snack. If unwell, we agreed to a sign he would give me. By the time of his post wedding obligation, his mind and ears had been so rattled that he was troubled by his imagination, and he made me his sign.
I then told him to get up as if to chase us, and playfully take the night-robe I had on (we were very similar in height) and dress in it, until he had carried out my order, which was: when we would have gone out, that he would first urinate; then say his prayers three times, then begin a ritual. Each time, he would gird the ribbon that I would put in his hand, and would carefully lay the medal that was attached to it, on his back, the figure in such a posture. That done, having tightly squeezed the ribbon so that it could neither be undone nor moved from its place, he would then confidently returned his prize and not forget to throw my robe back on his bed, so that it would cover them both. The randomness of these activities are entirely the point. Our thoughts cannot be disengaged unless strange means disrupt what the mind expects. Their inanity gives them weight and reverence.
In short, it was certain that my characters were more Venerian than Solar, more in action than in prohibition. It was a prompt and curious mood that led me to such an effect, far from my nature. I am an enemy of subtle and feigned actions and hate finesse, in my hands, not only recreational, but also profitable. If the action is not vicious, the route is.
King of Egypt, married Laodice, a very beautiful Greek girl: and he, who showed himself to be a kind companion everywhere else, found himself unable to enjoy her and threatened to kill her, believing that it was some kind of sorcery. As with things that consist of fantasy, she rejected him in devotion, and, having made his vows and promises to Venus, he found himself divinely restored from the first night on, and immediately began his offerings and sacrifices.
Now, they are wrong to gather us from these petty, quarrelsome and fleeing faces, which extinguish us while lighting us. Pythagoras’ daughter-in-law said that the woman who lies with a man must also leave shame with her cotta, and take it back with the cotillion. The assailant’s soul, troubled by various alarms, is easily lost: and to whom imagination has once caused this shame to be suffered (and it only causes it to be suffered during the first acquaintances, especially as they are more heated and bitter, and also because in this first acquaintance, one is much more afraid of failing) having got off to a bad start, it enters into a fever and despite this accident which lasts for the following occasions.
Married couples, with all the time in the world, should neither rush nor test their undertaking if they are not ready; and it is better to fail indecently to leave the bridal bed, full of agitation and fever, waiting for another more private and less alarming opportunity, than to fall into perpetual misery, to be astonished and desperate at the first refusal.
Before taking possession, the patient must try and offer himself at various times and in various ways, without being stubborn and insisting on definitively convincing himself of his own self. Those who know their members to be docile by nature, should take care only to counter-patter their fantasy. One is right to notice the unruly freedom of this limb, interfering so importunately when we have no need of it, and failing so importunately when we have the most need of it, and challenging authority so imperiously with our will, refusing with such pride and obstinacy our mental and manual solicitations.
But before we condemn the accused member of this crime against nature, allow me to plead his case., If it pleases the court, I would suggest that our other members, his companions in body, having learned much from his example and out of a fine envy of the importance and gentleness of his use, have risen against him by conspiracy. They are malignantly blaming him alone for the body’s common fault. For I beseech the court,: if there is a single part of our body that does not often refuse to act according to our will, and that often acts against our will.
Our body parts each have their own passions, which awaken and lull them, without our permission. I ask of the face, how often have your forced revealed the thoughts we kept secret, betraying us to those around us? And I ask of the heart, lungs and pulse, dare you claim immunity from the same cause that animates our most pliable member? Does beauty not kindle the flame of your feverish emotion? And are the veins and tissue of this member the only things that rise and fall without our consent, will, and thoughts? We cannot make our hair stand on end or our skin tremble with desire or fear. The hand often goes where we do not send it. The tongue moves, and the voice freezes in time.
And as for you, stomach and taste buds, even absent food and drink in your presence, do you not stir and abandon our will? The tools used to empty the stomach have their own dilations and contractions, in addition to and contrary to our advice, like those intended to empty our bowels. And what, to authorize the omnipotence of our will, Saint Augustine alleges having seen someone who commanded his rear to fart as many times as he wanted, and that Vives, his glossator, enriched with another example of his time, of farts organized according to the tone of the verses that are pronounced to them, does not suppose the obedience of this member to be pure either.
For it is usually more indiscreet and tumultuous. I know of one so turbulent and rebellious that for forty years he has kept his master in constant and unremitting breathless and forced exhalation, and is thus leading him to his death. But our will, for the rights of whom we put forward this reproach, how much more likely even can we brand it with rebellion and sedition through its lawlessness and disobedience. Does it always want what we would like it to want? Does it not often want what we forbid it to want: and to our evident detriment? Does it not allow itself to be led to the conclusions of our reason?
In short, I would say for my part, that it pleases you to consider that, in this case, his cause being inseparably linked to a consort and indistinctly, we are nevertheless addressing only him, and with such arguments and charges, given the condition of the parties, that they can in no way belong to or concern his said consort. Hence the animosity and manifest illegality of the accusers is clear.
Be that as it may, protesting that lawyers and judges may well quarrel and sentence, nature will nevertheless have her way: who would have done anything but right, when she had endowed this member with some particular privilege, author of the only immortal work of mortals. For all that, Socrates’s generation is divine. Love, the desire for immortality, and the immortal Daemon are his. Such, perhaps, through this effect of the imagination, he leaves here the scrofula, which his companion brings back to Spain. This is why, in such matters, it has been customary to ask for a prepared soul. Why do doctors first of all whet their patient’s belief with so many false promises of his recovery, if not so that the effect of the imagination may conceal the imposture of their art? They know that one of the masters of this trade has left it in writing that there have been men to whom the mere sight of medicine would do the trick.
And all this whim has just come to me, based on the story that an apothecary servant of my late father, a simple and Souysse man, from a nation not very vain and deceitful, told me of having known for a long time about a merchant in Toulouse, sickly and subject to kidney stones, who often needed enemas. He had them prescribed to him by doctors in various ways, depending on the occurrence of his ailment. When they were administered, none of the usual procedures were omitted: he would often feel if they were too hot. There he was, lying down, turned over, and all the approaches made, except that no injections were given. The apothecary withdrew after this ceremony, the patient accommodated, as if he had truly taken the enema, he felt the same effect as those who take them. And if the doctor did not find the operation sufficient, he gave him two or three others, in the same form. My witness swears that, to save money (because he paid for them as if he had received them), the wife of this patient sometimes tried to get only warm water put in them, the effect of which revealed the deception, and having found these useless, he had them returned to the first method.
A woman, thinking she had swallowed a fishbone with her bread, screamed and writhed as if she had unbearable pain in her throat, where she thought she could feel it stuck. But as there was no swelling or alteration on the outside, a wise man, having judged that it was only fantasy and opinion, took a piece of bread that had pricked her as she passed, made her vomit it and secretly threw into it what she returned, a tortoise-shell spoon. This woman, thinking she had returned it, suddenly felt relieved of her pain.
I know that a gentleman, having treated a good company at his house, boasted three or four days later in a kind of game (for it was nothing of the sort) of having given them a cat in paste to eat: whereupon a young lady of the troupe was so horrified that she fell into a great disorder of the stomach and fever, from which it was impossible to save her.
Even animals are subject to the power of the imagination, as we see. Witness the dogs, who allow themselves to die of grief at the loss of their masters. We also see them yapping and trembling in their sleep, the horses whinnying and struggling. But all this can be attributed to the close connection between the mind and the body, with each communicating its fortunes to the other. It is something else when the imagination acts sometimes, not only against one’s own body, but against the body of others. And just as one body rejects its illness to its neighbor, as seen in the plague, in the smallpox and in the disease of the eyes, which are passed from one to the other:
While the eyes look at the injured, they are injured themselves: And they harm many bodies by passing. (Ovid)
Similarly the imagination, shaken with vehemence, casts out features that can offend the foreign object. Antiquity has heard of certain women in Scythia who, when animated and angered against someone, killed them with a single glance. Tortoises and ostriches brood their eggs at a single glance, a sign that they have some ejaculatory virtue. And as for sorcerers, they are said to have offensive and harmful eyes,
I don’t know whose tender eyes fascinate me with lambs. (Virgil)
They are for me bad respondents, those magicians. So much so that we see from experience that women send to the bodies of the children they are carrying in their bellies the marks of their fantasies. Witness the one who gave birth to the Moor. And a girl from Pisa was presented to Charles, King of Bohemia and Emperor of Germany, who was all hairy and bristly, and whose mother said that she had been conceived in this way because of an image of St. John the Baptist hanging on her bed.
The same is true of animals, as witnessed by Jacob’s sheep, and the partridges and hares, which the snow whitens in the mountains. I recently saw a cat at my place catching a bird at the top of a tree, and, having fixed their eyes on one another for some time, the bird let itself fall like a dead thing between the cat’s paws, either intoxicated by its own imagination, or attracted by some attractive force of the cat.
Those who love falconry have heard the tale of the falconer who, stubbornly fixing his gaze on a kite in the air, bet on the strength of his gaze alone to bring it back down: and he did it, so they say. For the stories that I borrow, I return them on the conscience of those from whom I take them. The speeches are mine, and are held by the proof of reason, not of experience. Everyone can add their examples. Whoever has none, let them not fail to believe that there are some, given the number and variety of accidents. It has not happened in Paris or Rome, to John or Peter. It is always a tour of human capacity, of which I am usefully advised. I see it and profit from it in body as well as in soul.
And of the various lessons that stories often have, I choose to make use of the rarest and most memorable. There are authors whose purpose is to relate events. Mine, if I could manage it, would be to tell of what may happen. It is permissible for schools to assume similarities when they have none. I do not do so, however, and in this respect I surpass in superstitious religion all historical faith. In the examples I draw from what I have heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the slightest and most useless circumstances.
My conscience does not falsify one iota. As for my knowledge, I do not know. On this point, I sometimes think that it may be quite suitable for a theologian, a philosopher, and such people of exquisite and exact conscience and prudence, to write history. How can they commit their faith to what is popular? How can they vouch for the thoughts of unknown persons and turn conjectures into hard cash? They would refuse to testify before a judge about actions done by various members in their presence, and they have no man so familiar whose intentions they undertake to vouch for fully. I consider it less hazardous to write about past events than present ones, especially since the writer has only to report borrowed truth.
Some have suggested that I write about our turbulent era, thinking that my perspective is less clouded by passion and that my position grants me proximity to leaders of different factions. But I would not enjoy the toil, given how I am a sworn enemy of obligation, assiduity, and constancy. There is nothing is so contrary to my style as an extended narrative. I often lapse for lack of breath and have neither composition nor explanation worth mentioning.
I am ignorant beyond a child of the modern phrases and words used for the most common things. Yet, I have taken to saying what I know how to say, adapting the subject to my strength. If I took on a subject that guided me, my measure might fail to match it. My freedom, being so free, I would inevitably publish judgments illegitimate and punishable. Plutarch’s work is focused on virtue and because of that, he would gladly tell us that he writes the work of others, and that his examples are true in every respect, because they are useful to posterity and present a luster that enlightens. With such an aim in mind, there is no danger, as in a medicinal drug, if the story is not followed exactly as prescribed.