The King of Love (Mmm… Marginalia #61)

Hey kids, remember, Valentine’s Day is less than a week away. In honor of that most romantic of holidays, I present you the most romantic of marginal images, the King of Love from the Maastricht Hours*:

According to Andreas the Chaplain (or Andreas Cappellanus, if you prefer), thirty-one rules have been handed down by the God of Love. They are as follows**:

1. Love is greedy.
2. Love is jealous.
3. Love is always growing or fading; it is never still.
4. If love fades, it dies quickly and rarely revives.
5. Jealousy makes love grow.
6. It should take nothing at all to cause you to suspect your love might leave.
7. If you could never suspect your lover of leaving you, then you are not in love.
8. To love is to be controlled by love.
9. Everything the lover does is done out of love.
10. The lover thinks nothing good that would not please their beloved.
11. Secret loves endure; the public rarely do.
12. Easy love fades easily; the more difficult the love, the sweeter.
13. If you desire another, then you are no longer in love.
14. There is no sweetness when love is forced.
15. No one should be denied love.
16. Good character alone makes a person worthy of love.
17. The young do not love, though they think they do.
18. No one can love two people at the same time.
19. A new love puts to flight the old.
20. And yet nothing prevents two people loving the same person.
21. Even married people may fall in love.
22. But unless you could marry your lover without shame, you are not in love.
23. It takes two years a widow to mourn a true love lost.
24. If you can see your beloved without going pale, you are no longer in love.
25. If you can see your beloved without your heart skipping, you are no longer in love.
26. If you do not fear losing your beloved, you are no longer in love.
27. True love makes you restless, kills your appetite, and keeps you up at night.
28. Love can deny nothing to love.
29. You can never get enough of your beloved, if love is true.
30. If loving too much worries you, you will rarely love.
31. If you are truly in love, you will think always of your love, without ceasing.

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*The same manuscript in which you may find “To Arms, My Monkey Brethren.”
**Paraphrased (in some cases substantially) and re-ordered for modern eyes and ears by moi.