It takes a lot of effort to fall in love. Staying in love can be much more difficult. Instead of submitting to the tyranny of dating apps or arduous couples therapy, what if there was a pill or potion that could take you to a happily ever after?
We’ve been trying to figure out how to hack love for as long as people have experienced it, inventing potions that aim to turn the riddle of love into a definitive science.
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- What happened in history with love potions?
- Another famous example of love potions.
What happened in history with love potions?
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A love potion provided by his own wife, Lucilia, is said to have driven the ancient Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius mad and ultimately to death. Although it is unknown what substances Lucilia may have used, the so-called Spanish fly (which is neither Spanish nor a fly) was a typical element of the love potions of ancient Greece.
When ingested, the crushed insect or beetle generates a warm, fuzzy sensation throughout the body, which Roman gladiators and empresses mistook for the ardor of a new desire.
In truth, the sensation was most likely produced by inflammation: the species contains a lethal toxin that, when ingested in large enough quantities, can blister the skin and cause death.
Another famous example of love potions.
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According to Eleanor Herman’s bestselling story, Sex with Kings, the “voraciously beautiful and poisonously cunning” Madame de Montespan added to King Louis XIV’s meat and wine “disgusting concoctions made from the blood, bones and intestines of dead babies, along with parts of toads and bats” to gain and keep their love.
Born into one of the oldest noble families in France, Madame de Montespan was eager to court the notoriously womanizing king. Montespan was King Louis XIV’s “reigning beauty” and a royal flirt. Despite her beauty and Louis’s infamous womanizing, she was unable to gain the king’s attention. “She tries so hard,” she told her brother, “but I don’t care about her.”
The legendary magician Catherine Monvoisin, imprisoned in connection with a series of Parisian poisonings in 1679, revealed the secret of Montespan’s seduction.
Many murmured during her trial that she had a particularly prominent client, but Monvoisin kept her mouth shut for the rest of her brief life: she was burned at the stake in 1680.
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The connection with the king’s most famous lover was revealed by the (alleged!) witch’s own daughter. According to Herman, “Louis finally understood why, for 13 years, he had woken up with a headache every morning” after dining with his beloved mistress.
Montespan was allowed to stay at Versailles, but the king’s visits became less and less common and he never ate or drank with her.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn