Note 268 — TALE OF KAMAR AL-ZAMAN,
Richard Francis Burton translation
Lit. "my liver;" which viscus, and not the heart, is held the seat of passion; a fancy dating from the oldest days. Theocritus says of Hercules, "In his liver Love had fixed a wound" (Idyl. xiii). In the Anthologia "Cease, Love, to wound my liver and my heart" (lib. vii.) So Horace (Odes, i. 2); his Latin Jecur and the Persian "Jigar" being evident congeners. The idea was long prevalent and we find in Shakespeare:—
Alas, then Love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver but the palate.