Accidents d'amor: 1. De la malautia que l'amic ha per amor
The Sickness of Love and the Physician
The friend, sick with love, sends Desire to call the physician of love to heal him.
The friend was sick with love—the love that had already made him sick through too much sighing, weeping, and fear—and he told Love, who is the mother of his loving, to send a message by12 one3 Desire to the physician of love, that he would come and heal and cure him of his sickness. Love sent Desire to the physician of love, who came to heal the friend of lesser love with greater love. That physician was accustomed to healing with the concordance of love, without opposing greater love, and the medicines he gave multiplied love with greatness of goodness, duration, and the others.4
The Healing Chamber and Bed of Love
The physician places the lover in a chamber painted with reminders of the Beloved and a bed that prevents forgetfulness, yet the lover’s distress only increases.
2. The physician of love had the lover lie down in a beautiful chamber of love, painted with figures that reminded the lover of his Beloved and of His noble qualities and worth—figures like beautiful, great trees heavy with leaves, flowers, and fruits that gave off a wonderful fragrance, along with images of birds, beasts, handsome men, and beautiful women. These figures reminded the lover that his Beloved is beautiful and great in goodness, having created so many, such great, and such beautiful creatures.✦ 3. The bed where the friend was placed to rest and sleep was a bed of love, and it had this property and power: no one who lay in it could sleep or forget the beauties and noble qualities of the Beloved.5 4. When the lover was put into the chamber of love and laid in the bed of love, he thought he would sleep and find rest; but from seeing the beautiful figures in the chamber and from the nature of the bed of love, he felt even greater distress for love than he had before. So he told his servants to lift him from that bed and take him out of that chamber, because the longer he stayed there, the more his love multiplied and his sickness grew.6
The Medicine and the Flight
The physician administers a medicine that makes the lover frantic, and after further failed remedies, the lover resolves to flee to a forest to escape thoughts of his Beloved.
5. The physician felt the Lover's pulse and examined his urine, and he saw that the Lover needed j. A medicine that would make him frantic, so that he would speak like a madman for love; for those who speak of love without measure have greater health through love.7 The physician made the medicine from the roots of love, leaving out contrariety and the littleness of love so that it would be stronger, and gave it to the Lover to drink for love of his Beloved.8 The Lover drank the medicine of love and felt more fiercely tormented by love than before; and he told his squires of love, who served him, that the physician had put love's poison in the medicine so as to kill him by love, and he told the squires to get him another physician, another bed, and another room, and to bring him a theriac that would cure him of love's poison.9 The squires went to j. an apothecary that sold a theriac made of love and of goodness, greatness, and virtue—one that made those who didn't love begin to love, and made those who were sleeping stay awake.10 The squires gave the lover the theriac of love to drink, and it intensified his frenzy and his lovesickness. The lover cursed the physician and his squires, resolved to run from the bad physician and bad servants, and to go stay and be healed in11 a12 a forest where he wouldn't hear talk of his Beloved, nor see any figures that would make him remember or love his Beloved, because he couldn't bear the sickness he had from his love. 6. All that day the lover remained in great distress and in great sickness from love, until the night when he fled while the physician and the squires were sleeping; and he was accompanied by smallness and contrariety of love.13
Read the original Catalan
Malaute estava l amic per amor, la qual amor Jí l avia fet malaute per trop suspirar plorar e temor; e dix a l amor, qui es mare de son amar, que trameses missatge, per . j. desir, al metge damor, quel vengués sanar e garir de sa malautia. Tramès amor lo desir al metge damor, lo qual venc per guarir lamic de menor amor ab major amor. Aquel metge avia en costuma que sanava ab concordansa damor sens contrarietat de major amor, e les medicines que donava montiplicaven amor ab granea de bontat duració, e les altres.
2. Lo metge damor feu jàer lamic en una bela cambra damor, pintada de beles figures qui al amic remembraven son amat e les sues noblees e valors, axí com figures de bels e grans arbres carregats de fuyles flors e fruyts, dels quals ix gran odor, e figures daucels bèsties e de bels homens e beles dones; e aqueles figures fan remembrar al amic que son amat es bel e gran en bontat, qui tantes, tan grans, e tan beles creatures ha creades.
3. Lo lit en que l amic fo posat per sejornar e dormir, eraVdamor, e avia propietat e vertut que negun home quiy jagués no podia dormir ni ublidar les belees e noblees de lamat.
4. Can lamic fo mes en la cambra d amor, e en lo lit d amor fo posat, cuydà durmir e aver repòs; e per veer les beles figures de la cambra, e per la natura del lit d amor, ac major trebayl per amor, que d abans no avia; e dix a sos servidors quel levassen daquel lit e lo traguessen daquela cambra, car on mais hi estava, sa amor montiplicava e sa malautia crexia.
5. Tastà lo metge a lamic son pols e guardà en sa urina, e conec que lamic avia necessitat de . j. medicina quil feés frenètic, per so que parlàs com a fol per amor; car aquels an major sanitat per amor qui parlen seins manera damor. Lo metge feu la medicina de les rails damor, enfora contrarietat e menoritat d amor, per so que fos pus forts, e donàla al amic que la begués per amor de son amat. Bec lamic la medicina damor, e sentís pus fortment trebaylat per amor, que dabans; e dix a sos donsels damor, quil servien, que lo metge avia mes túxec damor en la medicina, per so quel auciés per amor, e dix als donsels que li aguessen altre metge, altre lit, e altra cambra, e que li aportassen triaga quil guarís del verí damor. Anaren los donsels a . j.
apotecaria on hom venia triaga feta damor e de bonea granea e vertut, qui fahia amar aquels qui no amaven, e fahia vetlar aquels qui dormien. Los donsels donaren a beure al amic la triaga damor, e montiplicà sa frenesia e sa malautia damor. Blastomà lamic lo metge e sos donsels, e preposà fugir a mal metge e a mals servidors, e anar estar e guarir en . j. aforest on no ois parlar de son amat, ni veés negunes figures que li fecssen membrar ni amar son amat, car no podia sostenir la malautia que avia per sa amor.
6. Tot aquel dia estec lamic en gran trebayl e en gran malautia per amor, tro a la nit que fugi dementre quel metge e los donsels durmien; e fo acompanyat per menoritat e contrarietat damor.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rom.1.20 — For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes have been clearly perceived, being understood through the things that have been made: both his eternal power and divine nature. So they are without excuse.
Notes
- 1 ↩Reading corrupt source "Jí" as Old Catalan "ja" (already): "la qual amor ja l'avia fet malaute."
- 2 ↩Sentence is truncated mid-phrase at "per"; continuous witness reads "per .j. desir, al metge d'amor..." across s1–s3.
- 3 ↩Standalone "j." is the medieval numeral ".j." (= one/a) segmented out of "per .j. desir" (= by Desire / by one Desire).
- 4 ↩"sens contrarietat de major amor": rendered as "without opposition to greater love," taking Llull's "contrarietat" as the opposing principle that would work against love's increase. "e les altres" points to the remaining Lullian dignities beyond goodness and duration.
- 5 ↩Normalized reading treats the corrupt surface "eraVdamor" as "era d'amor" ("was of love" / "was a bed of love"), matching neighboring "lit d amor" in 1.75.4.
- 6 ↩Source "ac" is Old Catalan hac ("he had"), not an additive connective; the supplied gloss mislabeled it.
- 7 ↩Old Catalan 'seins manera' read as 'sens manera' ('without measure/restraint').
- 8 ↩'contrarietat' and 'menoritat' are Llullian Art terms: opposition to love and love's lesser degree; rendered as 'contrariety' and 'littleness'.
- 9 ↩'triaga' is theriac, the traditional antidote compound; kept as 'theriac' rather than flattened to 'antidote' alone.
- 10 ↩triaga: medieval theriac (compound antidote/panacea); kept as theriac.
- 11 ↩Source ends mid-preposition ('en .'); continuation is the numeral j. plus 'aforest' in the following sentences.
- 12 ↩Medieval numeral/article 'j.' (i/one), linking prior 'en' to following 'aforest' (= in a forest).
- 13 ↩'menoritat' and 'contrarietat d'amor' are Llullian Art terms (love's lesser degree and opposition to love); rendered as 'littleness' and 'contrariety' to match LlullArbreAmor.1.75.5.s5. Neighboring 1.76 personifies them as the squires Menorificar and Contrariejar.
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