The Amorous Heart

by Marilyn Yalom

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  Notes

  Introduction

  One Egyptian poet visualized his heart: Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of Love (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 10–11.

  Starting with the Bible, the heart was understood: William W. E. Slights, The Heart in the Age of Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 22.

  Among the Church fathers, the one most associated with the heart: Eric Jager, The Book of the Heart (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 28–29. Illustrations of Augustine holding his heart in his hand began to appear in the fourteenth century—for example, on the 1340 German altar panel now in Cologne’s Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and in late medieval French and Flemish manuscripts, such as the Morgan Library’s “Da Costa Book of Hours,” MS M. 399, f. 299v.

  Perhaps more than any other Church figure, Saint Augustine: Stephen Greenblatt, “The Invention of Sex: St. Augustine’s Carnal Knowledge,” New Yorker, June 19, 2017, 24–28.

  Chapter One: The Amorous Heart in Antiquity

  Yet in old age Sappho bemoaned: “Sappho. Selected Poems and Fragments,” trans. A. S. Kline © 2005, www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Sappho.htm#anchor_Toc76357048.

  When Antiochus fell in love with his stepmother: Plutarch, Parallel Lives: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. John Dryden (New York: The Modern Library, 1992), 1095.

  “drawing wide / apart with both hands”: Bruce S. Thornton, Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 15.

  In his Timaeus he established the reign: Robert A. Erickson, The Language of the Heart, 1600–1750 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 1.

  “You ask, Lesbia, how many kisses should”: This and the following are my loose translations of Catullus’s poem number 7.

  The second-century Greek physician Soranus suggested: John M. Riddle, Eve’s Herbs
: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1997), 44–46.

  “Love is a warfare: sluggards be dismissed”: This and the following quotations are from Ovid, The Love Poems, trans. A. D. Melville (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press: 1990), 114, 100, 126, 127.

  “When the human body is cut open”: Ackerman, A Natural History of Love, 36.

  In medieval Salisbury, England, the liturgy for the marriage service: Emilie Amt, ed., Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook (New York and London: Routledge, 1993), 86.

  The Roman wife who lived up to expectations: This and the following quotation are from Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), 304, 310.

  Because the Romans disapproved of public displays of grief: Anthony Everitt, Cicero (New York: Random House, 2003), 243–244.

  Catullus, when he was not writing about Lesbia, described: Catullus, “Epithalamium,” The Latin Poets, ed. Francis. R. B. Godolphin (New York: Modern Library, 1949), 25–31.

  Many of Ovid’s contemporaries shared his skepticism: Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (New York: Vintage, 2015).

  Some Greeks and Romans were probably fervent believers: Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind (New York: Harmony Books, 1991), 13.

  Helen, joined to Paris by the machinations of Aphrodite: Thornton, Eros, 4.

  Greek vases featured scenes of copulation: Eva C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

  Chapter Two: Arabic Songs from the Heart

  Arabic bards known as rawis memorized: Robert Mills, “Homosexuality: Specters of Sodom,” in A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Middle Ages, ed. Ruth Evans (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2011), 69.

  Afterward religion supplanted amorous love: Suheil Bushrui and James M. Malarkey, eds., “Introduction,” in Desert Songs of the Night: 1500 Years of Arabic Literature (London: SAQI, 2015).

  Thus, one poet, Ka’b Bin Zuhair, cried out”: This and the following quotations from Bushrui and Malarkey, Desert Songs, 17, 27, 22, and 4.

  These lines are “among the most licentious”: Raymond Farrin, Abundance from the Desert (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011), 10.

  Created by three different poets, these couples interest us: Gaston Wiet, Introduction à la Littérature Arabe (Paris: Editions G. P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1966), 43.

  Still, he continued to adore her, even in her married state: Farrin, Abundance from the Desert, 98.

  In On Love and Lovers Ibn Hazm set out to: This and the following quotations from Ibn Hazm, Le Collier de Pigeon ou de l’Amour et des Amants, trans. Léon Bercher (Algiers: Editions Carbonel, 1949), 5, 33, 68–69, 369, and 371–373 (my translations from the French).

  Chapter Three: The Heart Icon’s First Ancestors

  Perhaps they were related to wine, as this is a drinking vessel: Roman Ghirshman, Persian Art: The Parthian and Sassanian Dynasties, 249 BC–AD 651, trans. Stuart Gilbert and James Emmons (New York: Golden Press, 1962), 216.

  Was this small “heart” merely a fanciful shape: Le Monde, Science et Médicine, October 12, 2016, 4–5.

  The examples pictured in his book, The Shape of the Heart: Pierre Vinken, The Shape of the Heart (Amsterdam: Colophon, 2000), 17–18.

  Some of the most intriguing can be found: John Williams, The Illustrated Beatus, vols. I–V (London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 1998). See also Natasha O’Hear and Anthony O’Hear, Picturing the Apocalypse. The Book of Revelation in the Arts over Two Millennia, vols. I–V (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

  According to the medieval manuscript expert: Christopher de Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2016), 209. De Hamel, email to author.

  Perhaps the illuminator of the Morgan Beatus had seen: The relevant images in the Morgan Beatus are reproduced in Barbara Shailor and John Williams, A Spanish Apocalypse: The Morgan Beatus Manuscript (New York: George Braziller, 1991), f. 22v, f. 156, f. 157, f. 214, and 181v.

  Facundus placed “hearts” on animals in a few other illustrations: For the relevant Facundus hearts, see f. 109, f. 135, f. 160, f. 230v, and f. 240 reproduced in John Williams, The Illustrated Beatus, vol. III.

  Chapter Four: French and German Songs from the Heart

  Fin’ amor is impossible to translate: Jean-Claude Marol, La Fin’ Amor: Chants de troubadours XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1998), 22.

  Bernart began one of his song-poems with the assertion: Christopher Lucken, “Chantars no pot gaire valer, si d’ins dal cor no mou lo chans: Subjectivé et Poésie Formelle,” in Micrologus, XI, Il cuore, The Heart (Florence: Sismel, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2003), 380.

  Bernart claimed he sang better than any other troubadour: Arnaud de la Croix, L’ érotisme au Moyen Age: Le corps, le désir l’amour (Paris: TEXTO, 2003), 47.

  Another troubadour, Arnaud Daniel, maintained: Andrea Hopkins, The Book of Courtly Love: The Passionate Code of the Troubadours (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 22.

  When she wrote, “I grant him my heart”: De la Croix, L’ érotisme au Moyen Age, 31.

  Thus, Gace Brulé, a prolific minstrel active around the turn: Samuel N. Rosenberg and Samuel Manon, eds., and trans., The Lyrics and Melodies of Gace Brulé (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1985). Quotations from Gace Brulé, RS 413, RS 643, RS 1690, RS 801, RS 1465, RS 1934, and RS 1757.

  He wrote, “He who has put all his heart and all his will”: This and the following quotation are from Thibaut de Champagne, Recueil de Chansons, trans. Alexandre Micha (Paris: Klincksieck, 1991), 23 and 25.

  “Love engraved / Your features in an image”: This and the following are from Jager, The Book of the Heart, 69–71.

  When this poem was anthologized: Pierpoint Morgan Library, MS M.819. fol. 59r.

  An anonymous trouvère was happy to offer his joyful heart: The references in this paragraph are from Samuel Rosenberg and Hans Tischler, Chansons des Trouvères (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1995), 132–133, 136–137, and 364–365.

  And in each region love staked out its place: René Nelli, Troubadours et trouvères (Paris: Hachette, 1979), 15–16.

  Locking love into one’s heart quickly became a common: For example, miniature in Le Roman de la Rose, British Museum Ms. 42133, f. 15.

  “Come, come, my heart’s loved one, / Full of longing I await you!”: H. G. Fiedler, ed., Das Oxforder Buch Deutscher Dichtung vom 12ten bis zum 20sten Jahrhundert (London: Oxford University Press, 1948), 1 (my translations).

  These songbooks and others written: Marisa Galvez, Songbook: How Lyrics Became Poetry in Medieval Europe (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

  Walther’s poems were miniguides to this high-minded approach: Maria Effinger, Carla Meyer, and Christian Schneider, eds., “Der Codex Manesse und die Entdeckung der Liebe,” Universitätsverlag (Winter 2010), in conjunction with the “Codex Manesse and the Discovery of Love” exhibition at the University of Heidelberg, 2010.

  Certainly the rise of queenship during: Marilyn Yalom, Birth of the Chess Queen: How Her Majesty Transformed the Game (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).

  Chapter Five: Romances of the Heart

  In her words, “I can expect no reward from God”: Héloïse and Abélard, Lettres et vies, ed. Yves Ferroul (Paris: GF-Flammarion, 1996), 103 (my translation).

  In a long monologue he takes up an old theory: Joseph J. Duggan, “Afterword,” Cligès, trans. Burton Raffel (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press), 215–229.

  “It’s not the eye that was hurt / But the heart”: This and the following quotations are from Cligès, trans. Raffel, lines 698–715, pp. 23–24; lines 458–459, p. 16; lines 2281–2283, p. 73; lines 2798–2835, pp. 89–90.

  These negative sentiments lodged in the heart: Begoña Aguiriano, “Le cœur dans Chrétien,” and Micheline de Combarieu du Gres, “Un coeur gros comme ça,” in
Le “Cuer” au Moyen Age, Senefiance, no. 30 (Aix: Centre Universitaire d’Etudes et de Recherches Médiévales d’Aix, 1991), 9–25, 77–105.

  As Chrétien de Troyes wrote in his masterful Lancelot: Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart, trans. Raffel (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1997), lines 1237–1239, p. 40.

  Similarly the chaplain Andreas Capellanus: Andreas Capellanus, On Love, trans. P. G. Walsh (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1982), 221.

  Here and elsewhere Capellanus echoed: De la Croix, L’ érotisme au Moyen Age, 73–76.

  Women of noble birth were constantly surrounded: Georges Duby, ed., A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World, vol. II, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard, Belknap Press, 1988), 77–83.

  Indeed, when asked her opinion, she answered unequivocally: This and the following quotation are from Capellanus, On Love, 157 and 283.

  “Holding him tight against / Her breast, making the knight”: Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot, trans. Raffel, 147.

  To quote only a few lines from this paean to love: Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, trans. A. T. Hatto (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967), 262–263.

  One modern critic, in commenting on Tristan: Ole M. Høystad, A History of the Heart (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), 118.

  One indication of their popular appeal: Michel Pastoureau, Une histoire symbolique du Moyen Age occidental (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2004), 340–341.

  Although the text itself does not constitute: Christine Marchello-Nizia, ed., Le Roman de la Poire par Tibaut (Paris: Société des anciens textes français, 1984).

  Medieval authorities, including the Persian philosopher Avicenna: Vinken, The Shape of the Heart, 13–16.

  At one point he finds a superb rose garden: This and the following quotations are from Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose, trans. Frances Horgan (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 26 and 27.

  Chapter Six: Exchanging Hearts with Jesus

  Pious individuals meditated upon the crucifix: Stephen Greenblatt, “Mutilation and Meaning,” in The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe, eds. David Hillman and Carla Mazzio (New York and London: Routledge, 1997), 223.