Love Charms
Theocritus and Virgil both introduce women into their pastorals, using charms and incantations to recover the affections of their sweethearts. Shakespeare represents Othello as accused of winning Desdemona “by conjuration and mighty magic.” In Gay’s “Shepherd’s Week,” these are represented as country practices—
“Strait to the ’pothecary’s shop I went,
And in love-powder all my money spent,
Behap what will, next Sunday, after prayers,
When to the ale-house Lubberkin repairs,
These golden flies into his mug I’ll throw,
And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow.”
Throwing bay leaves into the fire, or bruising poppy flowers in the hands, was believed to influence the love of others. In Herrick’s “Hesperides” is given “a charm or an allay for love”—
“If so a toad be laid
In a sheep-skin newly flay’d,
And that ty’d to a man, ’twill sever
Him and his affections ever.”