The Rules of Courtly Love

[hardwork]

I ran across this, and I thought it'd be interesting to see what some quasi-like-minded folks took from it.

Taken from The Art of Courtly Love, by Andreas Cappellanus translated from its original French by John Jay Perry, page 177:

1. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.
   
2. He who is not jealous cannot love.
   
3. No one can be bound by a double love.
   
4. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.
   
5. That which a love takes against the will of his beloved has no relish.
   
6. Boys do not love until they arrive at the age of maturity.
   
7. When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required.
   
8. No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.
   
9. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love.
   
10. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.
    
11. It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to marry.
    
12. A true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.
    
13. When made public, love rarely endures.
    
14. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.
    
15. Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
    
16. When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved, his heart palpitates.
    
17. A new love puts to flight an old one.
    
18. Good character alone makes any [...] worthy of love.
    
19. If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.
    
20. A man in love is always apprehensive.
    
21. Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.
    
22. Jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.
    
23. He whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very little.
    
24. Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.
    
25. A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.
    
26. Love can deny nothing to love.
    
27. A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.
    
28. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.
    
29. A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.
    
30. A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved.
    
31. Nothing fobids one woman from being loved by two men or one man by two women.

 

[chlywly]

Who ever wrote that has love mixed up with a severe case of infatuation and fear... total b.s. What you have a description of is also a severe case of AFC

 

[hardwork]

Originally posted by chlywly
Who ever wrote that has love mixed up with a severe case of infatuation and fear... total b.s. What you have a description of is also a severe case of AFC

Yet, oddly enough, if you take nearly every case of reference to a male and replace with a reference to a female (IE, "boys" into "girls" and "he" into "she", etc.), you get a very accurate description of certain stages of female love. Hmmm...

 

[lynx]

I read that book. It's actually a great book from a historical and literary point of view. It's a great conversation piece with chicks who are into literature. I know it sounds like the guy who wrote it was an AFC, but you must keep in mind that the writer was simply voicing the ideals of medieval times. Most marriages were arranged in those days. In the cases where men could pursue women, the men had to praise these courtly ideals because those were the ideals that little girls grew up with in those days. Even nowadays, women dream of being swept off their feet by a modern version of a knight in shining armor. As you have often heard, women want to meet their prince. In essence, women are yearning for a modern version of the medieval man. They're tired of the girly and wimpy guys they meet. Keep on reading great literature.