In the slow progression of time this oral corpus of knowledge and these secretive means of amorous enchantment and invigorating processes were coordinated. They became imprinted in the written word. They were now established, durable. These compilations, that were in essence erotic handbooks, were primarily intended for all the love-sick, the yearning youth, the disappointed and effete libertine, the persistent aged debauchee, the warped, distorted, and maleficent pursuers of Eros in his most naked identity, of Priapus exultant and self-perpetuating. Nor was this search for the remedial elixir delimited by time or circumstances. It has, on the contrary, been continuous, and has flowed down from shadowy ancientness through the complexities of the Middle Ages, the tumultuous era of the Renaissance, which made life and letters complementary concomitants, down into these very present days, when the search is no less unending, in the laboratories, in mystic and pseudo-mystic cults, in fantastic devices in the Chinese hinterland, in the steaming Congo, in Haiti and in scattered and sundered islands in the Pacific wastes. In the misty ages, the formula for recovering or stimulating sexual vigor was comparatively simple. In Accadian and Chaldean, in Hittite and Sumerian rituals there was the spell, the enchantment involving mystic terms, a sacred logos, a philtre of recognized potency, a particular herb or food enwrapped in entreaty and threats and injunctions to the impalpable controlling forces and agencies. Under the impact and influence of the esoteric science of the lands of Asia Minor and of Egypt, the prescriptions were extended, and assumed a variety of forms and ultimately were collected and embodied in corpora of relevant matter, destined for consultation, for succeeding ages. Most of this matter, inscribed on papyrus, dates in the fourth century A.D., and is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris. A characteristic prescription gives directions for winning and ensuring a girl’s love. Hecate is the motivating force: Hecate, the triple goddess, the sorceress, equated with the moon-goddess Selene, with Artemis, and with Persephone, the goddess of the Underworld. The goddess Hecate then is invoked with a plea: to ensnare the girl’s love by means of torture, so that she will ultimately succumb to the urgencies of the panting lover.