Table Of Contents:
Introduction xxv(10)

Diane Ackerman
The Words We Love xxv(5)

Jeanne Mackin
The Book of Love xxx(5)
In the Beginning Empedocles Love and Strife xxxv
FICTION 3(272)

Anonymous

Ancient Egypt The King's Son 3(2)

Anonymous

Inscription in the tomb of Queen Ahmose, wife of Tuthmosis I 5(1)

Anonymous

from Gilgamesh 5(3)

Longus

from The Loves of Daphnis and Chloe 8(4)

Apuleius of Madaura

from The Metamorphoses or Golden Ass 12(7)

Heliodorus

from The Aethiopica 19(4)

Anonymous

from Aucassins and Nicolette 23(1)

Marie de France

The Lay of the Two Lovers 24(4)

Sir Thomas Malory

from Le Morte D'Arthur 28(5)

Margaret, Queen of Navarre

from The Heptameron 33(4)

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

from Don Quijote de la Mancha 37(4)

P'u Sung-ling

The Young Lady of the Tung-T'ing Lake 41(4)

Aphra Behn

from Love Letters Between a Noble-Man and His Sister 45(7)

Daniel Defoe

from Moll Flanders 52(6)

Samuel Richardson

from The History of Clarissa Harlowe 58(4)

Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

from Evelina, or A Young Lady's Entrance into the World 62(7)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

from Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus 69(6)

Jane Austen

from Pride and Prejudice 75(1)

Charlotte Bronte

from Jane Eyre 76(9)

William Makepeace Thackeray

from Vanity Fair 85(1)

Emily Bronte

from Wuthering Heights 86(1)

Nathaniel Hawthorne

from The Scarlet Letter 86(4)

Gustave Flaubert

from Madame Bovary 90(4)

Thomas Carlyle

from Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh 94(3)

Benjamin Disraeli

from Coningsby 97(1)

Charles Dickens

from David Copperfield 98(1)

Anthony Trollope

from An Old Man's Love 98(3)

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

from The Lifted Veil 101(3)

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

from The Diary of Adam and Eve 104(1)

Leo Tolstoy

from Anna Karenina and Resurrection 105(7)

Ivan Turgenev

from First Love 112(3)

Anton Chekhov

The Kiss 115(14)

Anatole France

from The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard 129(3)

Richard Burton

from The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night 132(4)

Guy de Maupassant

Love: Three Pages from a Sportsman's Book 136(5)

Thomas Hardy

from Under the Greenwood Tree and Tess of the D'Urbervilles 141(2)

Sarah Orne Jewett

from The Country of the Pointed Firs 143(4)

Henry James

from Daisy Miller: A Study 147(1)

Kate Chopin

Caline 148(2)

Willa Cather

A Resurrection 150(14)

Oscar Wilde

from The Importance of Being Earnest and The Nightingale and the Rose 164(7)

O. Henry

The Gift of the Magi 171(4)

Edith Wharton

from Summer 175(2)

Bruno Schulz

from Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass 177(1)

Philippe Thoby-Marcelin

Pierre Marcelin

from The Beast of the Haitian Hills 178(6)

Thomas Wolfe

from The Web and the Rock 184(3)

Alice Adams

Complicities 187(6)

Kim Addonizio

Survivors 193(1)

Anthony Caputi

from To Know the Wind Is Mortal 193(4)

Nicholas Delbanco

from Count Rumford: His Book 197(2)

E. L. Doctrow

Willi 199(6)

Lamar Herrin

from The Lies Boys Tell 205(5)

Edward Hower

Miriamu and the King 210(10)

William Kennedy

from Ironweed 220(5)

Milan Kundera

from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting 225(2)

Alison Lurie

Something Borrowed, Something Blue 227(3)

Jeanne Mackin

from The Wise and Foolish Virgins 230(5)

Robert Morgan

from The Truest Pleasure 235(3)

Bradford Morrow

from The Almanac Branch 238(5)

Stephen F. Poleskie

Love and Janus Zyvka 243(3)

Joanna Scott

from The Manikin 246(3)

Amy Tan

from The Hundred Secret Senses 249(3)

John Vernon

from All for Love: Baby Doe and Silver Dollar 252(3)

Paul West

from Life with Swan 255(10)

Hilma Wolitzer

Sundays 265(10)
POETRY 275(216)

Anonymous, Sanskrit

Charm to Quell a Rival 275(1)

Anonymous, Egyptian

Stand Fast, O My Heart 275(1)

from The Crossing 276(1)

The Bible

from The Song of Solomon 277(1)

Ono no Yoshiki

My Love 278(1)

Ts'ao Chih

Sorrow, in Seven 278(1)

Drifting Duckweed 279(1)

Tu Fu

Restless Night 279(1)

Liu Hsiao-wei

For My Wife 280(1)

Kamal ud-Din

O Love, Thy Hair! 281(1)

Sophocles

from Antigone 281(1)

Homer

from The Odyssey 282(4)

Lucretius

The Posture 286(1)

Virgil

from The Aeneid 287(3)

Petronius

Doing, a Filthy Pleasure Is, and Short 290(1)

Ovid

To His Mistress 291(2)

Elegy 5 293(1)

Catullus

Let Us Live and Love 294(1)

Sappho

Sonnet XXVII 295(1)

Petrarch

Sonnet CCXXIV 295(1)

Hafiz

Ode 147 296(1)

Ode 173 297(1)

Elizabeth I

On Monsieur's Departure 298(1)

William Shakespeare

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" 298(1)

"When my love swears that she is made of truth" 299(1)

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" 299(1)

"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes" 300(1)

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds" 300(1)

from Antony and Cleopatra 301(1)

from The Merchant of Venice 302(1)

from Romeo and Juliet 303(1)

Ben Jonson

Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes 304(1)

Clement Robinson

Greensleeves 305(1)

John Donne

The Flea 306(1)

The Sun Rising 307(1)

Song 308(1)

The Ecstasy 309(2)

Anonymous, Scottish

Barbara Allen 311(1)

John Gay

To a Young Lady, with Some Lampreys 312(2)

Andrew Marvell

To His Coy Mistress 314(1)

The Definition of Love 315(1)

William Cartwright

No Platonic Love 316(1)

Robert Herrick

The Vine 317(1)

Kisses Loathsome 318(1)

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 318(1)

Upon Julia's Clothes 319(1)

Delight in Disorder 319(1)

Be My Mistress Short or Tall 319(1)

John Clare

First Love 320(1)

John Milton

from Paradise Lost 321(1)

Abraham Cowley

from Anacreon 321(1)

Thomas Carew

Mediocrity in Love Rejected 321(1)

Fear Not, Dear Love 322(1)

Thomas Wyatt

They Flee from Me 322(1)

Sir Philip Sidney

Heart Exchange 323(1)

Christopher Marlowe

The Passionate Shephered to His Love 324(1)

Sir Walter Ralegh

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd 325(1)

George Herbert

Love 326(1)

John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester

Written in a Lady's Prayer Book 326(1)

The Imperfect Enjoyment 327(2)

Anne Bradstreet

To My Dear and Loving Husband 329(1)

John Keats

Modern Love 329(1)

"I cry your mercy" 330(1)

Lord Byron

She Walks in Beauty 331(1)

When We Two Parted 331(1)

We'll Go No More A-Roving 332(1)

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Love's Philosophy 333(1)

William Blake

Song 333(1)

A. C. Swinburne

Before Parting 334(1)

Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach 335(2)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Desire 337(1)

Love 337(1)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Summer Night 338(1)

William Wordsworth

Perfect Woman 339(1)

The Cottager to Her Infant 340(1)

Robert Burns

Ye Flowery Banks 340(1)

Sweet Afton 341(1)

Edgar Allan Poe

To Helen 342(1)

Annabel Lee 342(2)

Emily Dickinson

"My life closed twice" 344(1)

"I cannot live with You" 344(2)

"Wild Nights" 346(1)

"It's such a little thing to weep--" 346(1)

"The Rose did caper" 346(1)

Ho Xuan Huong

On Sharing a Husband 347(1)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How Do I Love Thee? 348(1)

Sonnets from the Portuguese, XIII 348(1)

Robert Browning

Meeting at Night 349(1)

The Lost Mistress 349(1)

Oscar Wilde

In the Gold Room 350(1)

Gerard Manley Hopkins

At the Wedding March 351(1)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Give All to Love 351(2)

Walt Whitman

Press Close Bare-Bosom'd Night 353(1)

From Pent-up, Aching Rivers 353(2)

When I Heard at the Close of the Day 355(1)

We Two Boys Together Clinging 356(1)

Thomas Hardy

Neutral Tones 357(1)

Leigh Hunt

Jenny Kissed Me 357(1)

E. E. Cummings

i like my body when it is with your 358(1)

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond 358(1)

love's function is to fabricate unknownness 359(1)

the mind is its own beautiful prisoner 359(1)

Samuel Beckett

Cascando 360(1)

William Butler Yeats

A Drinking Song 361(1)

When You Are Old 362(1)

James Wright

A Blessing 362(1)

To the Muse 363(1)

John Berryman

from The Dream Songs 364(1)

Stephen Spender

Daybreak 365(1)

Edna St. Vincent Millay

"What lips my lips have kissed" 366(1)

"Love is not all" 366(1)

Kenneth Fearing

Love 20XXX the First Quarter Mile 367(1)

W. H. Auden

"Lay your sleeping head, my love" 368(1)

T. S. Eliot

A Dedication to My Wife 369(1)

Dylan Thomas

If I Were Tickled by the Rub of Love 370(1)

Robinson Jeffers

Granddaughter 371(1)

George Barker

To My Mother 372(1)

John Ciardi

Men Marry What They Need 372(1)

Theodore Roethke

I Knew a Woman 373(1)

Phyllis McGinley

Launcelot with Bicycle 374(1)

A. E. Housman

When I Was One-and-Twenty 375(1)

Anne Sexton

The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator 376(1)

Sara Teasdale

Barter 377(1)

May Swenson

In Love Made Visible 378(1)

Richard Wilbur

For C. 379(1)

The Writer 380(1)

Mark Strand

Our Masterpiece Is the Private Life 381(1)

The Coming of Light 382(1)

Maxine Kumin

We Are 383(1)

Relearning the Language of April 383(1)

James Tate

My Felisberto 384(1)

A Dangerous Adventure 385(1)

Philip Appleman

A Priest Forever 386(4)

Crystal Anniversary 390(1)

Marjorie Appleman

Love 390(1)

Another Beginning 391(1)

John Updike

Report of Health 392(1)

Donald Justice

Women in Love 393(1)

On an Anniversary 394(1)

Philip Levine

In the Dark 395(1)

February 14th 396(1)

Anthony Hecht

A Birthday Poem 396(3)

Peripeteia 399(2)

Garrett Kaoru Hongo

A Restless Night 401(1)

Wendell Berry

The Country of Marriage 402(3)

Air and Fire 405(1)

Siv Cedering

Country Music 405(2)

Ukiyo-E 407(1)

Crossing the Sound by Ferry One Night During the Gulf War 408(1)

William Meredith

The Ghosts of the House 409(1)

Poem 410(1)

Crossing Over 411(1)

Richard Harteis

Einsteinian Love 412(1)

Winter Lesson 412(2)

Star Trek III 414(1)

Galway Kinnell

Telephoning in Mexican Sunlight 415(1)

Rapture 416(1)

Charles Simic

Marked Playing Cards 417(1)

At the Cookout 418(1)

Linda Hogan

The Origins of Corn 419(1)

Nothing 420(1)

Laurence Goldstein

Aubade 421(1)

Eros in Long Beach 421(2)

Jorie Graham

Studies in Secrecy 423(2)

Mona Van Duyn

Late Loving 425(1)

Earth Tremors Felt in Missouri 426(1)

W. S. Merwin

Late Spring 426(1)

Before Us 427(2)

Richard Howard

L'Invitation au Voyage 429(2)

The Lover Showeth Wherefore He Is Abandoned of the Beloved He Sometime Enjoyed, Even in Sleep 431(1)

Heather McHugh

Dry Time 432(1)

Untitled 433(1)

Robert Pinsky

The Time of Year, the Time of Day 434(1)

The Want Bone 435(1)

Linda Pastan

Wildflowers 435(1)

Late Love Songs 436(1)

David Wagoner

At the Mouth of a Creek 437(1)

A Woman Photographing Holsteins 438(1)

Lonnie Balaban

The Poet's Wife Sends Him a Poem 439(1)

John Balaban

His Reply 440(1)

Louis Simpson

Birch 441(1)

Dvonya 441(1)

John Hollander

Heat of Snow 442(1)

White Above Green 443(1)

Phyllis Janowitz

Fisherman's Wife 444(1)

Reunion with Jake at Still Pond Creek 445(1)

Nicholas Christopher

Rice Wine 445(2)

Sleep 447(1)

Diane Ackerman

Beija-Flor 448(1)

Ode to the Alien 449(2)

Zoe 451(2)

Robert Bly

Listening to the Koln Concert 453(1)

A Third Body 453(1)

Erica Jong

Sentient 454(1)

We Learned 455(2)

William Matthews

Cooking for C. 457(1)

The Cloister 457(1)

Joyce Carol Oates

Public Love 458(1)

You / Your 459(1)

Carolyn Kizer

The Light 460(1)

The Gift 460(1)

Rod Jellema

Because I Never Learned the Names of Flowers 461(1)

Note to Marina Marquez of El Paso, Who Sublet My Apartment for the Summer 462(1)

Albert Goldbarth

Seriema Song 462(2)

The Two Parts of the Day Are, 464(1)

Pattiann Rogers

Love Song 465(1)

The Hummingbird: A Seduction 466(1)

Marvin Bell

The Last Thing I Say 467(1)

Sounds of the Resurrected Dead Man's Footsteps #9 467(1)

Roald Hoffmann

How It Grows 468(1)

Gerald Stern

Both of Them Were Sixty-five 469(1)

June First 470(1)

Donald Hall

Weeds and Peonies 471(1)

Gold 472(1)

Rita Dove

His Shirt 473(1)

Jill Bialosky

Without 474(1)

Gary Snyder

Cross-Legg'd 475(1)

David Ignatow

The Men You've Loved 476(1)

The Principle 476(1)

John Gill

6/16/94 476(1)

Louise Gluck

The White Lilies 477(1)

Happiness 478(1)

Dara Wier

Dreamland 478(2)

Nude Descending a Staircase 480(1)

John Ashbery

Just Walking Around 481(1)

A Blessing in Disguise 482(1)

Agha Shahid Ali

Ghazal 483(1)

Josephine Jacobsen

The Edge 484(1)

The Wind in the Sunporch 485(1)

It Is the Season 486(5)
ESSAYS 491(134)

Anonymous

A Father's Advice to His Daughter, from the Aztec Codices 491(1)

Plato

from Phaedrus 492(3)

Aristotle

from Ethica Nicomachea 495(3)

The Bible

from Proverbs and Corinthians 498(1)

Seneca

On Grief for Lost Friends 499(1)

Plutarch

from The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans 500(3)

Vatsyayana

from The Kama Sutra 503(2)

Boethius

from The Consolation of Philosophy 505(1)

Hugh of Saint Victor

from Of the Nature of Love 506(2)

Andreas Capellanus

from The Art of Courtly Love 508(3)

Michel de Montaigne

That Our Desires Are Increased by Difficulty 511(6)

Johannes Secundus

from The Kisses 517(6)

Count Baldesar Castiglione

from The Book of the Courtier 523(2)

Thomas Dekker

from The Bachelor's Banquet 525(1)

Francis Bacon

The Myth of Cupid and Of Love 526(4)

Sir Thomas Overbury

An Amorist 530(1)

Robert Burton

from The Anatomy of Melancholy 531(1)

John Donne

That Women Ought to Paint 532(1)

Sir Richard Steele

Conversations on Marriage 533(4)

Benjamin Franklin

Advising a Young Man as to the Selection of a Mistress 537(1)

Joseph Addison

History of the Lover's Leap 538(3)

George Colman

Bonnel Thornton

On Superstitions in Love 541(4)

Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet)

from A Philosophical Dictionary 545(3)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Passion and Order 548(2)

Charles Lamb

A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behavior of Married People 550(5)

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Love Is a Powerful Attraction 555(2)

Washington Irving

The Broken Heart 557(4)

Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle)

from Of Love 561(1)

William Hazlitt

from Liber Amoris 562(1)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love 563(10)

Robert Louis Stevenson

On Falling in Love 573(7)

Thomas Bulfinch

from Age of Fable 580(9)

William James

from The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience 589(3)

Henry Adams

from Mont Saint-Michel 592(7)

G. K. Chesterton

Romantic Love 599(3)

Havelock Ellis

from Studies in the Psychology of Sex 602(4)

Sigmund Freud

from Delusion and Dream 606(4)

H. L. Mencken

The Wedding: A Stage Direction 610(4)

Denis de Rougemont

from Love in the Western World 614(2)

Frank Gonzalez-Crussi

from The Remedies of Love 616(1)

Albert Camus

Losing a Loved One 617(2)

Muriel Spark

Love 619(6)
MEMORIS AND LETTERS 625(168)

Anonymous

Tomb inscription, Ancient Egypt 625(1)

Sappho to Anactoria 625(1)

Anonymous

The Alexandrian Erotic Fragment 626(1)

Propertius

from The Elegies 626(4)

Pliny to Calpurnia and Paulinus 630(1)

Marcus Aurelius to Fronto 631(1)

St. Augustine

from The Confessions 632(1)

Heloise to Abelard 633(8)

Abelard to Bernard and Heloise 641(1)

Dante Alighieri

from The New Life 642(2)

Margery Brews to John Paston 644(1)

Pietro Bembo to Lucrezia Borgia 645(2)

Lucrezia Borgia to Pietro Bembo 647(1)

King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn 648(1)

John Donne

In Kindness to an Absent Friend 649(1)

Maximilien de Bethune

Duc de Sully

from Memoirs 650(3)

Ann Hamilton and Barbara Villiers to Lord Chesterfield 653(1)

Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle

from The Life of Newcastle 653(1)

Samuel Pepys

from The Diary 654(3)

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, to Mrs. Barry 657(2)

William Congreve to Arabella Hunt 659(1)

George Farquhar to Anne Oldfield 660(3)

Alexander Pope to Teresa Blount 663(1)

Esther Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) to Jonathan Swift 663(2)

Jonathan Swift

To Love 665(1)

Francoise Athenais

Marquise de Montespan

from Memoirs 666(5)

Emilie du Chatelet to Duc de Richelieu 671(1)

The Earl of Chesterfield

from On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman 672(3)

Jacques Casanova

from The Memoirs 675(8)

Lawrence Sterne to Catherine de Fourmantel, Lady Percy, and Mrs. H. 683(3)

Ninon de l'Enclos to the Marquis de Sevigne 686(1)

Edward Gibbon

from Memoirs of My Life 687(1)

Benjamin Franklin

from The Autobiography and a letter to Madame Helvetius 688(3)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to his wife 691(2)

James Boswell

from Life of Samuel Johnson 693(1)

Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton 693(1)

Sir William Hamilton to Lady Hamilton 694(1)

Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine Bonaparte 695(2)

John Keats to Fanny Brawne 697(1)

Stendhal (Henri Beyle) to Madame Dembowski 698(3)

Jane Clairmont to Lord Byron 701(1)

Lord Byron to the Countess Guiccioli 702(1)

Thomas Medwin

from Conversations of Lord Byron 703(3)

George Sand to Alfred de Musset 706(2)

Black Elk

High Horse's Courting 708(5)

Nathaniel Hawthorne to Sophia Hawthorne 713(2)

Sophia Hawthorne to Nathaniel Hawthorne 715(1)

Queen Victoria

journal entries and letters to King Leopold 716(2)

Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett 718(2)

Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning 720(2)

Sarah Margaret Fuller

Marchioness D'Ossoli

from letters and memoirs 722(4)

Harriet Beecher Stowe to Calvin Stowe 726(2)

John Ruskin to Effie Gray and Lady Mount-Temple 728(2)

Kwei-li to her husband 730(4)

Charlotte Bronte to Constantine Heger 734(2)

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) to Herbert Spencer and John Cross 736(2)

Charles Baudelaire to Apollonie Sabatier 738(2)

Walt Whitman to Anne Gilchrist 740(1)

Emily Dickinson to "Master" 740(2)

Sullivan Ballou to Sarah Ballou 742(1)

George Sand to Gustave Flaubert 743(1)

Lewis Carroll to Gertrude 744(1)

Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Fields 745(1)

Samuel Butler

from The Notebooks 746(2)

Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas 748(2)

Jack London to Charmian Kittredge 750(2)

Rainer Marie Rilke

from Letters to a Young Poet 752(4)

Colette

from Earthly Paradise and letters to Marguerite and Pierre Moreno 756(5)

Agnes von Kurowsky to Ernest Hemingway 761(1)

Aline Bernstein to Thomas Wolfe 762(2)

Katherine Anne Porter to Matthew Josephson 764(2)

Henry Miller to Anais Nin 766(1)

Anais Nin

from The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. Two, 1934-1939 767(3)

Vladimir Nabokov

First Love 770(8)

Brenda Petersen

Sex as Compassion--A New Eros in a Time of AIDS 778(2)

James McConkey

Idyll 780(8)

Jan Morris

God, Love and Abysinnian Cats 788(5)
Permissions 793(12)
Index 805