spurred by a discussion of the word "erotics" in class, I went to Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, and found this
Even in the midst of laughing there is sorrow, . . . even in the midst of all our feasting and Jollity . . . there is griefe and discontent. . . . for a pint of hony thou shalt here likely finde a gallon of gaul, for a dramme of pleasure a pound of paine, for an inch of mirth an ell of mone, as Ivy doth an oke these miseries encompasse our life. And 'tis most absurd and ridiculous, for any mortall man to looke for a perpetuall tenor of happinesse in this life. Nothing so prosperous and pleasant, but it hath some bitternesse in it, some complaining, some grudging, 'tis all a . . . mixt passion, and like a Chequer table black and white, men, families, cities, have their falls & wanes, now trines, sextiles, then quartiles and oppositions. We are not here as those Angells, celestiall powers and Bodies, Sunne and Moone, to finish our course without all offence, with such constancy, to continue for so many ages: but subject to infirmities, miseries, interrupt, tossed and tumbled up and downe, carried about with every small blast, often molested and disquieted upon each slender occasion, uncertaine, brittle, and so is all we trust unto. And he that knowes not this, and is not armed to indure it, is not fit to live in this world . . . he knows not the condition of it, where with a reciprocall tye, pleasure and paine are still united, and succeed one another in a ring.
And I find this not only helpful in understanding the word "erotics," but also quite comforting in general.