 Section 14 of the Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1 by Robert Burton. Section 14. Democratus Jr. to the Reader, Part 12 Tillianus in Phelonius, out of a charitable mind, no doubt, wished all his books were gold and silver, jewels and precious stones, to redeem captives, set free prisoners, and relieve all poor distressed souls that wanted means. Religiously done, I deny not, but to what purpose? Suppose this were so well done, within a little after, though a man had creases his wealth to bestow, there would be as many more. Wherefore I will suffer no beggars, rogues, vagabonds, or idle persons at all that cannot give an account of their lives, how they maintain themselves. If they be impotent, lame, blind, and single, they shall be sufficiently maintained in several hospitals, built for that purpose. If married and infirm, passed work, or by inevitable loss, or some such like misfortune cast behind, by distribution of corn, house rent free, annual pensions, or money, they shall be relieved, and highly rewarded for their good service they have formally done. If able, they shall be enforced to work. For I see no reason, as he said, why an epicure, or idle drone, a rich glutton, a usurer, should live at ease, and do nothing, live in honour, in all manner of pleasures, and oppress others, when, as in the meantime, a poor labourer, a smith, a carpenter, and husbandman, that hath spent his time in continual labour as an ass to carry burdens, to do the commonwealth good, and without whom we cannot live, shall be left in his old age to beg, or starve, and lead a miserable life worse than a dew-ment. As all conditions shall be tied to their task, so none shall be overtired, but have their set times of recreations and holidays, indulgera genio, feasts and merry meetings, even to the meanest artificer, or basest servant, once a week to sing or dance, though not all at once, or do whatsoever he shall please, like that saccharum festum amongst the Persians, those Saturnals in Rome, as well as his master. If any be drunk, he shall drink no more wine or strong drink in a twelve-month after. A bankrupt shall be catademiatus in Amphitheatro, publicly shamed, and he that cannot pay his debts, if by riot or negligence he may have been impoverished, shall be for a twelve-month imprisoned. If in that space his creditors be not satisfied, he shall be hanged. He that commits sacrilege shall lose his hands. He that bears false witness, or is of perjury convicted shall have his tongue cut out, except he redeem it with his head. Murder, adultery shall be punished by death, but not theft, except it be some more grievous offence, or notorious offenders, otherwise they shall be condemned to the galleys, mines, be his slaves whom they have offended during their lives. I hate all hereditary slaves, and that duram persarum legem, as Brysonius calls it, or as Amianus impendio formidatas et abominandas leges perquas obnoxam unius omnis propinquitas perit, hard life that wife and children, friends and allies should suffer for the father's offence. No man shall marry until he be twenty-five. No woman till she be twenty. Missy alitur dispensatum furit. If one die, the other party shall not marry till six months after, and because many families are compelled to live niggedly, exhaust and undone by great dower's, none shall be given at all, or very little, and that by supervisors rated, they that are foul shall have a greater portion. If fair, none at all, or very little. Howsoever, not to exceed such a rate as those supervisors shall think fit. And when once they come to those years poverty shall hinder no man from marriage or any other respect, but all shall be rather enforced than hindered, except they be dismembered or grievously deformed, infirm, or visited with some enormous hereditary disease in body or mind. In such cases, upon a great pain or mulked, man or woman shall not marry. Other order shall be taken from them to their content. If people overabound, they shall be eased by colonies. No man shall wear weapons in any city. The same attire shall be kept, and that proper to several callings by which they shall be distinguished. Luxus funerum shall be taken away, that intempestive expense moderated, and many others. Brokers, takers of pawns, biting usurers, I will not admit. Yet because heek kum hominibus, known kum dii sagitor, we converse here with men, not with gods, and for the hardness of men's hearts, I will tolerate some kind of usury. If we were honest, I confess, see probi e samos, we should have no use of it, but being as it is, we must necessarily admit it. Howsoever, most divines contradict it. Dikimus inficias said woks eia solo reperta est. It must be winked at by politicians. And yet some great doctors approve of it. Calvin, Buker, Zankius, Petrus Marta. Because by so many grand lawyers, decrees of emperors, princes statutes, customs of commonwealths, churches' approbations, it is permitted, et cetera, I will therefore allow it. But to no private persons, nor to every man that will, to orphans only, maids, widows, or such as by reason of their age, sex, education, ignorance of trading, know not otherwise how to employ it. And those so approved, not to let it out apart, but to bring their money to a common bank which shall be allowed in every city, as in Genoa, Geneva, Nuremberg, Venice, at five, six, seven, not above eight per centum, as the supervisors, or I rari e prefecti, shall think fit. And as it shall not be lawful for each man to be an usurer that will, so shall it not be lawful for all to take up money at use, not to prodigals and spend thrifts, but to merchants, young tradesmen, such as standing need, or know honestly how to employ it, whose necessity, cause, and condition the said supervisors shall approve all. I will have no private monopolies to enrich one man, and beg a multitude, multiplicity of offices of supplying by deputies, weights and measures the same throughout, and those rectified by the premium mobile and sun's motion, three score miles to a degree according to observation, one thousand geometrical paces to a mile, five foot to a pace, twelve inches to a foot et cetera, and from measures known, it is an easy matter to rectify weights, et cetera, to cast up all, and resolve bodies by algebra, stereometry. I hate wars if they be not ad populi salutem upon urgent occasion, odimus akipitrim quia semper vivitin armis. Offensive wars, except the cause be very just, I will not allow of. For I do highly magnify that saying of Hannibal to Scipio in Livy. It had been a blessed thing for you and us, if God had given that mind to our predecessors, that you had been content with Italy, we with Africa, for neither Sicily nor Sardinia are worth such costs and pains, so many fleets and armies, or so many famous captains' lives. Omnia prius tentanda. Fair means shall first be tried. Peragit tranquila potistas quad violenta necquit. I will have them proceed with all moderation. But hear you, Fabius my general, not minutius nam qui concilio nititur plus hostibus nocet quam qui sine animi ratione wiribus. And in such wars to abstain as much as is possible from depopulations, burning of towns, massacring of infants, etc. For defensive wars I shall have forces still ready at a small warning by land and sea, a prepared navy, soldiers in procinctu et quambon finius apud hungaro suos volt, virgam and money which is Nervei's belly still in a readiness, and a sufficient revenue, a third part as in old Rome and Egypt reserved for the commonwealth to avoid those heavy taxes and impositions as well to defray this charge of wars as also all other public defalcations, expenses, fees, pensions, reparations, chased sports, feasts, donaries, rewards and entertainments. All things in this nature especially I will have maturely done, and with great deliberation nae quid temere nae quid remisse actimide fiat said quo feror hospes To prosecute the rest would require a volume manum de tabella. I have been overtidious in this subject I could here have willingly ranged, but these straits wherein I am included will not permit. From commonwealths and cities I will descend to families which have as many courseives and molestations as frequent discontents as the rest. Great affinity there is betwixt a political and economical body. They differ only in magnitude and proportion of business. So Scaliga writes, as they have both likely the same period as Bodin and Pusa hold out of Plato six or seven hundred years. So many times they have the same means of their vexation and overthrows, as namely riot, a common ruin of both, riot in building, riot in profuse spending, riot in apparel, etc. Be it in what kind soever it produces the same effects. A choreographer of ours speaking obitair of ancient families, why they are so frequent in the north, continue so long, are so soon extinguished in the south, and so few, gives no other reason but this. Luxus omnia dissipawit, riot hath consumed all. Fine clothes and curious buildings came into this island, as he notes in his annals, not so many years since, known sinne dispendio hospitalitatis, to the decay of hospitality. How be it many times that word is mistaken, and under the name of bounty and hospitality is shrouded riot and prodigality, and that which is commendable in itself well used, hath been mistaken here to fore, is become by his abuse the bane and utter ruin of many a noble family. For some men live like the rich glutton consuming themselves and their substance by continual feasting and invitations, with axilon in Homer, keep open house for all comers, giving entertainment to such as visit them. Keeping a table beyond their means, and a company of idle servants though not so frequent as of old, are blown up on the sudden, and as Actaeon was by his hounds, devoured by their kinsmen, friends, and a multitude of followers. It is a wonder that Paulus Jovius relates of our northern countries, what an infinite deal of meat we consume on our tables. That I may truly say, it is not bounty, not hospitality as it is often abused, but riot and excess, gluttony and prodigality, a mere vice it brings in debt, want and beggary, hereditary diseases, consumes their fortunes, and overthrows the good temperature of their bodies. To this I might well add, their inordinate expense in building, those fantastical houses, turrets, walks, parks etc, gaming, excess of pleasure, and that prodigious riot in apparel, by which means they are compelled to break up house and creep into holes. Cercelius, in his commonwealth of France, gives three reasons why the French nobility were so frequently bankrupts. First because they had so many lawsuits and contentions, one upon another, which were tedious and costly, by which means it came to pass that commonly lawyers bought them out of their possessions. A second cause was their riot, they lived beyond their means, and were therefore swallowed up by merchants. La Nouve, a French writer, yields five reasons of his countryman's poverty, to the same effect almost, and thinks if the gentry of France were divided into ten parts, eight of them would be found much impaired by sales, mortgages and debts, or wholly sunk in their estates. The last was in moderate excess in apparel, which consumed their revenues. How this concerns, and agrees with our present state, look you, but of this elsewhere. As it is in a man's body, if either the head, heart, stomach, liver, spleen, or any one part be misaffected, all the rest suffer with it. So is it with this economical body. If the head be nought, a spendthrift, a drunkard, a whoremaster, a gamester, how shall the family live at ease? Ipsa si cupia, salut servare, prosos non potest hank familiam. As de Meier said in the comedy, safety herself cannot save it. A good, honest, painful man, many times hath a shrew to his wife, a sickly, dishonest, slothful, foolish, careless woman to his mate, a proud, peevish flirt, a liquorish prodigal queen, and by that means all goes to ruin. Or, if they differ in nature, he is thrifty, she spends all, he wise, she's soft. What agreement can there be? What friendship? Like that of the thrush and swallow in esoch. Instead of mutual love, kind, compilations, whore and thief is heard, they fling stools at one another's heads, quay in temperies, wexat hank familiam. All enforced marriages commonly produce such effects, or if on their behalves it be well, as to live and agree lovingly together, they may have disobedient and unruly children that take ill courses to disquiet them. Their son is a thief, a spendthrift, their daughter a whore, a step-mother or a daughter-in-law, distempers all. Or else for want of means, many torturers arise, debts, dues, fees, dowries, jointures, legacies to be paid, annuities issuing out by means of which they have not wear with all to maintain themselves in that pomp as their predecessors have done. Bring up or bestow their children to their callings, to their birth and quality, and will not descend to their present fortunes. Often times, too, to aggravate the rest, concur many other inconveniences, unthankful friends, decayed friends, bad neighbours, negligent servants, serui furakis, werecipeleis, calidi, occlusa cibi mille clavibus restaurant, furtimque, raptant consumunt liguriumt, casualties, taxes, mulks, chargeable offices, vain expenses, entertainments, loss of stock, enmities, emulations, frequent invitations, losses, surety ship, sickness, death of friends, and that which is the gulf of all. Improvidence, ill husbandry, disorder and confusion, by which means they are drenched on a sudden in their estates and that unawares precipitated insensibly into an inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent and melancholy itself. I have done with families and will now briefly run over some few sorts and conditions of men. The most secure, happy, jovial and merry in the world's esteem are princes and great men, free from melancholy. But for their cares, miseries, suspicions, jealousies, discontents, folly and madness, I refer you to Xenophon's Tyrannus, where King Hieron discourseeth at large with Simonides the poet of this subject. Of all others they are most troubled with perpetual fears, anxieties, in so much that as he said in Valerius, if thou newest with what cares and miseries this robe were stuffed, there would not stoop to take it up. Or put case they be secure and free from fears and discontents, yet they are void of reason too oft, and precipitate in their actions. Read all our histories, quote a stultis prodidere stulti, inedes anales, and what is the subject stultorum regum et populorum continet estus The giddy tumults and the foolish rage of kings and people, how mad they are, how furious and upon small occasions, rash and inconsiderate in their proceedings, how they don't, the page almost will witness. Delirante regues plec tuntur achiiwi, when doting monarchs urge, unsound resolves, their subjects feel the scourge. Next in place, next in miseries and discontents, in all manner of harebrain actions are great men, prokul are joe, prokul are fulminae, the nearer the worse. If they live in court they are up and down ebb and flow with their prince's favours, ingenium, wultul, statque, cadetque, soe. Now aloft, tomorrow down, as Polybius describes them, like so many cast encounters, now of gold, tomorrow of silver, that vary in worth as the computant will. Now they stand for units, tomorrow for thousands, now before all, and a non behind. Beside, they torment one another with mutual factions, emulations, one is ambitious, another enamoured, a third in debt, a prodigal, overruns his fortunes, a fourth solicitous with cares, gets nothing, etc. But for these men's discontents, anxieties, I refer you to Lucian's tract, de mercader conductis Inias Silvius, libidines et stulti i servos, he calls them, a gripper, and many others. Of philosophers and scholars, Prisci sapientii dictatores, I have already spoken in general terms, those superintendents of wit and learning, men above men, those refined men, minions of the muses, mentem que habere que spawnam et esse corculis datumst. These acuten subtle sophistas, so much honoured, have as much need of helibor as others. Oh, medici, mediam, pertundite weinam, read Lucian's Piscator, and tell how he esteemed them. A gripper's tract of the vanity of sciences, they read their own works, their absurd tenets, prodigious paradoxes, et risum teniatis amici. You shall find that, of Aristotle true, magnum ingenium cinem extura di mentii, they have a worm as well as others. You shall find a fantastical strain, a fustian, a bombast, a venglorious humour, an affected style, et cetera, like a prominent thread in an uneven woven cloth, run parallel throughout their works. And they that teach wisdom, patience, meekness, are the various desserts, their brains, and most discontent. In the multitude of wisdom is grief, and he that increaseeth wisdom increaseeth sorrow. I need not quote mine author, they that laugh and condemn others, condemn the world of folly, deserve to be mocked, are as giddy-headed, and lie as open as any other. Democritus, that common flouter of folly, was ridiculous himself, and the purpose scoffing Lucian, satirical Lucilius, Petronius, Varro, Perseus, et cetera, may be censured with the rest. L'orepidem rectus de reideat, iti opem albus. Bael, Erasmus, Hospinion, Vives, Chemnissius explode as a vast ocean of obs and soles, school divinity, a labyrinth of intricable questions, unprofitable contentions, incredibilem delirationem, one calls it. If school divinity be so censured, subtilis scotus lima veritatis, ocam irrefragabilis, cuius ingenium wetera omnia ingenia subvertit, et cetera, bacanthrope, Dr Resolutus, and corculum Theologiae. Thomas himself, Dr Seraphicus, Quedictawit Angulus, et cetera. What shall become of humanity? Ask Stulta, what can she plead, what can her followers say for themselves? Much learning. Quere diminuit brum, hath cracked their sconce, and taken such root, that tribus antichiris capud insarnabile. Helibor itself can do no good, nor that renowned lantern of epictetus, by which, if any man studied, he should be as wise as he was. But all will not serve. Retoricians in ostentatio nem loquacitatis multa agitant, out of their volubility of tongue will talk much to no purpose. Orators can persuade other men what they will, quowallunt undewallunt, move, pacify, et cetera, but cannot settle their own brains. What saith Tully Marlo indisertam prudentiam quam loquacem stultitiam, and, as Seneca seconds him, a wise man's aeration should not be polite or solicitous. Fabius esteems no better of most of them, either in speech, action, gesture, than as men beside themselves, insarnos declamatores. So doth Gregory, non mihi sapit qui sermone sed qui factis sapit. Make the best of him, a good orator is a turncoat, an evil man, bonus orator pestimus weir. His tongue is set to sail, he is a mere voice, as he said of a nightingale, dat sinemente sonum, an hyperbolical liar, a flatterer, a parasite, and, as Amianus Markelinus will, a corrupting cousin, one that doth more mischief by his fair speeches, than he that bribes by money. For a man may, with more facility, avoid him that circumvents by money, than him that deceives with glowsing terms, which made Socrates so much a bore, and explode them. Fracastorius, a famous poet, freely grants all poets to be mad. So doth Scaliga, and who doth not? Out insarnit homo, out weirsos clackit. He's mad, or making verses. Horus, Saturae septem liberduo. Insarnire lubet versus componere. Virgil, third eclog. So Cervius interprets it. All poets are mad, a company of bitter satirists, detractors, or else parasitical applauders. And what is poetry itself? Bartas Austin holds. Winum erroris ab ebre east doctoribus propinatum. You may give that censure of them in general, which Sir Thomas Moore once did of Germánus Bricsis' poems in particular. Wehontor in ratest o titiae silwam habitant furiae. Pudius, in an epistle of his to look satis, will have civil law to be the tower of wisdom. Another honours physics, the quintessence of nature, a third poem both down, and sets up the flag of his own peculiar science. Your supercilious critics, grammatical trifleurs, note-makers, curious antiquaries, find out all the ruins of wit, ineptiarum delicias, amongst the rubbish of old writers. Prostutis habent nisi alequid soficant in venire, quodinaliorum scriptis vertant witio. All falls with them that cannot find fault. They correct others, and are hot in a cold cause. Puzzle themselves to find out how many streets in Rome, houses, gates, towers, homers country, Ines' mother, Naiobis daughters, ansafo publica fuerit, olwum prius extiterit angalina, etc. et alia quidae discenda essen skire si skires, as Seneca holds. What clothes the Senators did wear in Rome, what shoes, how they sat, where they went to the close stall, how many dishes in a mess, what source, what for the present foreign historian to relate, according to Lodovicus Vives, is very ridiculous, is to them most precious elaborate stuff. They admired for it, and as proud as triumphant in the meantime for this discovery, as if they had won a city, or conquered a province, as rich as if they had found a mine of gold ore. Corsuis altores absurdis commentis suis per cacant et ster corant, one saith. They beray and daub a company of books and good authors, with their absurd comments. Correctorum sterquilinia, Skaliga calls them, and show their wit in censuring others, a company of foolish workers, humble bees, doors or beetles, interstercora ut plurimum were santur, they rake over all those rubbish and dung hills, and prefer a manuscript many times before the Gospel itself, tesaurum criticum, before any treasure, and with their deliaturs ale i legunt seek, maius codex seek habit, with their postremae additiones, annotations, castigations et cetera, make books dear, themselves ridiculous, and do nobody good. Yet, if any man dare oppose or contradict, they are mad, up in arms on a sudden. How many sheets are written in defence? How many bitter invectives? What apologies? Epifilides haisunt ut merai, nugai. But I dare say no more of, for, with, or against them, because I am liable to their lash, as well as others. Of these, and the rest of our artists and philosophers, I will generally conclude, they are a kind of madmen, as Seneca esteems of them, to make doubts and scruples, how to read them truly, to mend old authors, but will not mend their own lives, or teach us in genia sanare, memoriam o ficiorum ingerere, acfidem in rebus umanis retinere, to keep our wits in order, or rectify our manners. Num quid tibi dements wit etur, si istis opera min penderit. Is not he mad that draws lines with our comedies, whilst his house is ransacked, and his city besieged, when the whole world is in combustion, or we, whilst our souls are in danger, mor secritur wita fugit, to spend our time in toys, idle questions, and things of no worth. End of Section 14 Section 15 of the Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Morgan Scorpion The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1, by Robert Burton Section 15 Democritus Jr. to the reader, Part 13 That lovers are mad, I think no man will deny. Amare stimul et sapere, ipsi jovi non dator, Jupiter himself cannot intend both at once. Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede moranto, magestas et amor. Tully, when he was invited to a second marriage, replied, he could not simul amare et sapere, be wise and love both together. Et orcus ille, vis est imedicabilis, est rabies insana, love is madness, a hell, an incurable disease, impotentem et insanem libidinem. Seneca calls it, an impotent and raging lust. I shall delay this subject apart. In the meantime, let lovers sigh out the rest. Nevisanus, the lawyer, holds it for an axiom. Most women are fools. Consilium for feminists invalidum. Seneca, men, be they young or old, who doubts it. Youth is mad, as elias in Tully. Sturdi adolescent tully. Old age little better, deleri senes, et cetera. Theofrastes, in the hundred and seventh year of his age, said he then began to be wise. Turn sapere co-epit, and therefore lamented his departure. If wisdom comes so late, where shall we find a wise man? Our old ones doubted three score and ten. I would cite more proofs and a better author, but for the present let one fool point at another. Nevisanus hath as hard an opinion of rich men. Wealth and wisdom cannot dwell together. Stoltitium patiento orpes. And they do not commonly infatuare co-hominus, besot men. And as we see it, fools have fortune. Sapientia noninventitur interas raviter viventium. For besides the natural contempt of learning, which accompanies such kind of men, innate idleness, for they will take no pains, and which Aristotle observes, Ibi men's plurima, Ibi minima fortuna, Ubi plurima fortuna, Ibi men's peric sigua. Great wealth and little wit go commonly together. They have as much brains some of them in their heads as in their heels. Besides this inbred neglect of liberal sciences and all arts, which should excolere mentum, polish the mind, they have most part some gollish humour or other by which they are led. One is an epicure, an atheist, a second a game-ster, a third a whormaster, fit subjects, all for a satirist to work upon. Hic nubtarum insanit amoribus, hic prerorum. One burns to madness for the wedded dame, and natural lusts another's heart inflame. One is mad of hawking, hunting, cocking, another of carousing, horse-riding, spending, a fourth of building, fighting, etc. Insanit verteris statuus damasipus emendo. Damasipus have a humour of his own to be talked of. Heliodorus the Carthaginian another. In a word, as Scalga concludes, though for them all, they are statuari erecti stiltitii, the very statues or pillars of folly. Choose out of all stories him hath been most admired, you shall still find multa-adladum multa-advitu perationum magnifica, as peroses of Semiramis, omnes mortales militia triumfis, divitiis, etc. turn et luxo, kydei, kyteris grei, vitiiis antakesit. As she had some good, so had she many bad parts. Alexander a worthy man, but furious in his anger, overtaken in drink. Caesar and Scipio valiant and wise, but benglorious, ambitious. Vespasian a worthy prince but covetous. Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices. Un am virtutem mili vitia cometantor, as Machiavell of Cosmo de Medici. He had two distinct persons in him. I will determine of them all. They are like these double-or-turning pictures, stand before which you see a fair maid, on the one side an ape, on the other an owl. Look upon them at the first sight, all is well. But father examine, you shall find them wise on the one side and fools on the other, in some few things praiseworthy, in the rest incomparably faulty. I will say nothing of their diseases, emulations, discontents, wants, and such miseries. Let poverty plead the rest in Aristophanes Plutus. Covetous men, amongst others, are most mad. They have all the symptoms of melancholy, fear, sadness, suspicion, et cetera, as shall be proved in its proper place. Danderest hellebori multiplars maxima of virus. Mouses make Antichyra their own. It's hellbore reserved for them alone. And yet, methinks prodigals are much mader than they, be of what condition they will. They bear a public or private purse, as a Dutch writer censured Richard, the rich Duke of Cornwall, suing to be emperor for his profuse spending. Cui effordid pecuniam, ante pedes principium electorum, sicut acum. That's scattered money like water. I do censor them. Stulte angliar, say thee, cui tot denari is suonte est privita, stulte principes ale maniae, cui nobile just suum for pecunia vendida runt. Spent drifts, drivers, and dribtakers are fools, and so are all they that cannot keep, disperse, or spend their money as well. I might say the like of angli, pivish, envious, ambitious. Antichyrus milior sorbere meracus. Epicures, atheists, schismatics, heretics, ic omnis habent imagiati onem lysum, saith nimanus, and their madness shall be evident. Fabattus, an Italian, holds seafaring man all mad. The ship is mad, for it never stands still, the mariners are mad, to expose themselves to such imminent dangers, the waters are raging mad in perpetual motion, the winds are as mad as the rest, they know not whence they come, whither they would go, and most men are madest of all that go to sea, for one fall at home they find forty abroad. He was a madman that said it, and thou po'ed venture as mad to read it. Felix Platterus is of opinion all alchemists are mad, out of their wits. Athenius saith as much of vigorous, et musarum loscinius. Musicians, omnis tibikkines insaniunt, ubi semel efflant, avolat ilikormenz, in comes music at one ear, out goes wit at another. Proud and vain glorious persons are certainly mad, and so are the civius. I can feel their pulses beat hither, horn mad some of them, to let others lie with their wives, and wink at it. To insist in all particulars were an herculian task. To reckon up insanus substructiones, insanus labores, insanum luxum, mad labours, mad books, endeavours, carriages, gross ignorance, ridiculous actions, absurd gestures. Insanum gulam, insanum vilarum, insanum gergia, as Tully terms them. Madness of villages, stupend structures, as those Egyptian pyramids, labyrinths and sphinxes, with a company of crowned asses, ostentationum opum, vainly built, when neither the architect nor king that made them, or to what use and purpose are yet known, to insist in their hypocrisy, inconstancy, blindness, rashness, dementum temeritatum, fraud, cousinage, malice, anger, impudence, ingratitude, ambition, gross superstition, tempora infecta et adulatione sordida, as in Tiberius times, such base flattery, stupend, parasitical forning and colloging, et cetera, brawls, conflicts, desires, contentions. It would ask an expert for cellius to anatomise every member, shall I say, Jupiter himself, Apollo, Mars, et cetera, doted, and monster conquering Hercules that subdued the world and helped others could not relieve himself in this, but mad he was at last. And where shall a man walk, converse with whom, in what province, city, and not meet with Senor Delirio, or Hercules' furans, Mainets and Corribantes? Their speeches say no less. A fungus nati hominase, or else they fetched their pedigree from those that were struck by Samson with the jaw-bone of an ass. Or from Ducalion and Pyrrhus stones for Durum genus sumus mar morae sumus we are stony-hearted and sabre too much of the stock, as if they had all heard that enchanted horn of Astolfo, and Ariosto, who never sounded, but all his auditors were mad, and for fear ready to make away with themselves, or landed in the mad haven in the Uxin sea of Daphnis insana, which had a secret quality to dementate. They are company of giddy heads, afternoon men, it is mid-summer moon still, and the dog-days last all the year long. They are all mad. Whom then shall I accept? Ulricus hutanus lemur, nam lemur omnibus horis sapit, lemur nascatus sinevitius, crimane lemur caret, lemur sorte suravivit contentus, lemur inamore sapit, lemur bonus, lemur sapiens, lemur est ex omnipartibiatis, etc. And therefore, Nicholas Nemur, or Monsieur Nobody, shall go free. Quid valiat lemur, lemur refere protest. But whom shall I accept in the second place? Such as our silent, vir sapit, quiparca locutor. No better way to avoid folly and madness than by tack eternity. Whom in a third? All senators magistrates, for all fortunate men are wise and conquers valiant, and so are all great men, known est bonum ludere cum diis. They are wise by authority, good by their office and place. His liket impune pesimus esse, some say. We must not speak of them. Neither is it fit. Per me sent omnia protius alba. I will not think amiss of them. Whom next? Stoics? Sapiens stoicus. And he alone is subject to no perturbations, as Plutarch scoffs at him. He is not vexed with torments, or burnt with fire, foiled by his adversary, sold of his enemy, though he be wrinkled, sand-blind, toothless and deformed. Yet he is most beautiful and like a god, a king in conceit, though not worth a groat. He never dotes, never mad, never sad, drunk, because virtue cannot be taken away, as Zeno holds, by reason of strong apprehension. But he was mad to say so. Antichyri Kylo Huix est opus at Dolabra. He had need to be bored, and so had all his fellows, as wise as they would seem to be. Chrysippus himself liberally grants them to be fools as well as others, at certain times, upon some occasions, amity virtutum, aet per every etatum, at atribilarium morbum. It may be lost by drunkenness or melancholy. He may be sometimes crazed as well as the rest. Ad sumum sapiens, nisi cuum pituita molesta. I should here accept some cynics, menipus, deogenes, that sieben crates, or to descend to these times, that omnisius, only wise fraternity of the Rosicrucians, those great theologues, politicians, philosophers, physicians, philologers, artists, etc., of whom St. Brigitte, albostio archimus, like Envergius, and such divine spirits have prophesied and made promise to the world. If at least there be any such, Henricus new Hesius makes a doubt of it. Valentinus Andreas and others own elius artefacts, their theophrastian master, whom though yet some will have to be the renewer of all arts and sciences, reformer of the world, and now living, for so Johannus Montanus Trigoniensis, that great patron of Paracelsus, contends, and certainly averse a most divine man, and the quintessence of wisdom wheresoever he is, for he, his fraternity, friends, etc., are all betrothed to wisdom, if we may believe their disciples and followers. I must need accept Lipsius and the Pope, and expunge their name out of the catalogue of fools. For besides that parasitical testimony of D'Arthur, a sole exoriente meotidus uscre paludes nemo es cre justo se equipi rare create. Lipsius says of himself, that he was humani, generous, quidum, pedagogus, vocae et steelo, a grand senior, a master, a tutor of us all, and for 13 years he brags how he saw wisdom in the Low Countries, as Amonius the philosopher sometimes did in Alexandria, com humanitate liturus et sapientiam cum prudentia, and tistis sapientii, he shall be sapientium octavas. The Pope is more than a man, as his parrots often make him, a demigod, and besides, his holiness cannot err in cathedra, be like, and yet some of them have been magicians, heretics, atheists, children, as Platina says of John 22, et sivir lituratus, mortus stoliditatum et levitatum prisifarentia eget, stolidit et succordis bir engenii, a scholar sufficient, yet many things he did foolishly, likely, I can say no more than in particular, but in general terms to the rest, they are all mad, their wits are evaporated, and, as Ariosto Faines, Libor 34, kept in jars above the moon. Some lose their wits with love, some with ambition, some following lords and men of high condition, some in fair jewels rich and costly set, others in poetry their wits forget, another thinks to be an alchemist, till all be spent, and that his numbers missed. Convicted fools they are, madmen upon record, and I am afraid past cure many of them, crepent in greener, the symptoms are manifest, they are all of gotham parish, cuam furor how dubious, cuam sid manifesto frenthesis, since madness is indisputable, since frenzy is obvious. What remains then, but to send for Lorarius, those officers to carry them all together for company to bedlam, and set Ravallee to be their physician. If any man shall ask in the mean time, who I am that so boldly sent to others, to Nulane Habesvitia, have I no faults? Yes, more than thou hast, whosoever thou art, nos numerous sumos, I confess it again, I am as foolish as mad as any one, insanas verbis video, non deprecor ipsae, crominus insanas. I do not deny it, demons depopulo demator, my comfort is, I have more fellows, and those of excellent note, and though I be not so right or so discreet as I should be, yet not so mad, so bad neither, as thou perhaps takest me to be. To conclude this being granted, that all the world is melancholy, or mad, dotes, and every member of it, I have ended my task and sufficiently illustrated that which I took upon me to demonstrate at first. At this present I have no more to say. His sanum mentum democritus, I can but wish myself and them a good physician, and all of us a better mind. And although for the above-named reasons I had a just cause to undertake this subject, to point at these particular species of dotage, that so men might acknowledge their imperfections and seek to reform what is amiss, yet I have a more serious intent at this time, and to admit all impertinent digressions, to say no more of such as are improperly melancholy, or metaphorically mad, likely mad, or in disposition, as stupid, angry, drunken, silly, sortish, solemn, proud, vanglorious, ridiculous, beastly, peevish, obstinate, impudent, extravagant, dry, doting, dull, desperate, hair-brain, etc., mad, frantic, foolish, discourse to enastomize this humour of melancholy through all its parts and species as it is an habit, or an ordinary disease, and that philosophically, medicinally, to show the causes, symptoms, and several cures of it, that it may be the better avoided. Moved there unto for the generality of it, and to do good it being a disease so frequent as mercurialis observes, in these are days so often happening, say Florentius, in our miserable times, as few there are that feel not the smart of it. Of the same mind is alien Montaltus, Balancson, and others, Julius Caesar Claudinas, calls it a fountain of all other diseases, and so common in this crazed age of ours that scarce one of a thousand is free from it, and that splenetic hyperchondriacal wind especially, which proceeds from the spleen and short ribs. Being then a disease so grievous, so common, I know not wherein to do a more general service, and spend my time better than to prescribe means how to prevent and cure so universal a malady, an epidemical disease that so often so much crucifies the body and mind. If I have overshot myself in this which have been hitherto said, or that it is which I am sure some will object, too fantastical, too light and comical for a divine, too satirical for one of my profession, I will presume to answer with Erasmus, in like case. Tis not I, but Democritus. Democritus dicks it. You must consider what it is to speak in one's own or another's person, an assumed habit and name, a difference betwixt him that affects or acts of princes, a philosopher's and magistrates a fool's part, and him that it is so indeed and what liberty those old satirists have had, it is a cento collected from others, not I, but they that say it. Dixero secret forte diacosius Hoc mehidurus convenia dubis. Yet some indulgence I may justly claim, if I too familiar with another's fame. Take heed, you mistake me not, if I do a little forget myself, I hope you will pardon it, and to say truth, why should any man be offended or take exceptions at it? L'curete s'impercre l'iccavit, par caree personis d'caree devitiis. It lawful was of old, and still will be, to speak of vice, but let the name go free. I hate their vices, not their persons. If any be displeased or take ought unto himself, let him not expostulate or cavel with him that said it. So did Erasmus excuse himself to d'opius, sipava l'iccait componere magnis, and so do I, but let him be angry with himself, that so betrayed and opened his own faults in applying it to himself. If he be guilty and deserve it, let him amend whoever he is and not be angry. He that hate us correction is a fool, for verbs twelve, one. If he be not guilty, it concerns him not. It is not my freeness of speech, but a guilty conscience, a gold bag of his own that makes him wince. Suspicione, si chris irabit sura, et rapiette ad sé, cod erit comnine omnium, stulte nudabit animi conscientium. I deny not this which I have said sabers a little d'emocritus. Cromvis, redentem, d'ecare, verum quid velat. One may speak ingest, and yet speak truth. It is somewhat tart, I grant it. Acreola, orexum, excitant, embermata, as he said. Sharp sources increase appetite. Necquibus ipse duvat morso for datus archeti. Object, then, and caval, what thou wilt. I ward all with d'emocritus' buckler. His medicine shall solve it. Strike where thou wilt, and when. D'emocritus dixit. D'emocritus will answer it. It was written by an idle fellow at idle times about our Saturnalian or Dionysian feasts when, as he said, nulum libertati periculum est. Servants in old Rome had liberty to say and do what them list. When our countrymen sacrificed to their goddess Facuna and sat tipping by their Facunal fires, I writ this and published this Hautus helican. It is Niminus nihil. The time, place, persons and all circumstances apologize for me. And why may not I then be idle with others? Speak my mind freely. If you deny me this liberty upon these presumptions I will take it. I say again I will take it. Cicris est criticum in se inclementius. Existimavit estae. Cic existiment. If any man take exceptions let him turn the buckle of his girdle. I care not. I owe thee nothing, reader. I look for no favour at thy hands. I am independent. I fear not. No, I recant. I will not. I care. I fear. I confess my fault. Acknowledge a great offence. Mautus priestat componere fluctus. Let's first assuage the troubled waves. I have overshot myself. I have spoken foolishly, rashly, unadvisably, absurdly. I have anatomized my own folly and now me thinks upon a sudden I am awaked as it were out of a dream. I have had a raving fit, a fantastical fit, ranged up and down in and out. I have insulted over the most kind of men, abused some, offended others, wronged myself and now being recovered and perceiving myself and now being recovered and perceiving my error, cry with Orlando, solvete me, pardon, oboni, that which is past and I will make you amends in that which is to come. I promise you a more sober discourse in my following treaties. If through weakness, folly, passion, discontent, ignorance I have said amiss, let it be forgotten and forgiven. I acknowledge that of taketers to be true. By faquetti I ubinimis ex vero traxere acrom sre memoriam rel incurant. A bitter jest leaves a sting behind it and, as an honorable man observes, they fear a satirist's wit, he their memories. I may justly suspect the worst and although I hope I have wronged no man yet in Medea's words I will crave pardon. Il ud yam quroque extrema peito, nisi quai nostre dubius effudit dolor, maniant in animal verbal, sed melio tibi memoria nostre subiat, haic irai data obliterentor. And in my last words this I do desire, that what in passion I have said or I may be forgotten and a better mind be had of us hereafter as you find. I earnestly request every private man, as Scalga did carden, not take offence, I will conclude in his lines simi caldnitum habereis non solum donareis novis has facetia nostras sed etiam indignum duceras tam humanum animum lenae in genium vel minimam suspecionem de fecari opotere. If thou newest my modesty and simplicity thou wouldst easily pardon and forgive what is here amiss or by thee misconceit if hereafter anatomising this surly humour my hand slip and as unskillful prentice I lance too deep and cut through skin and all at unawares make it smart or cut a rye pardon a rude hand an unskillful knife. It is a most difficult thing to keep an even tone a perpetual tenor and not sometimes to lash out l'a est satiram non scriberei there be so many objects to divert ingrid perturbations to molest and the very best may sometimes air alequando bonus dormitat humeris sometimes that excellent humour takes a nap it is impossible not in so much to overshoot or peri in longo faas est obre peri sumum but what needs all this I hope there will no such cause of offence be given if there be nimo alequid recognoscat nos mentimo omnia I'll deny all my last refuge recant all renounce all I have said if any man accept and with as much facility excuse as he can accuse but I presume of thy good favour and gracious acceptance gentle reader out of an assured hope and confidence thereof I will begin to the reader at leisure whoever you may be I caution you against rashly defaming the author of this work or caveling ingest against him nay, do not silently reproach him in consequence of others censure nor employ your wit in foolish disapproval or false accusation for should democratus junior prove to be what he professes even a kinsman of his elder namesake or be ever so little of the same kidney it is all over with you he will become both accuser and judge of you in your spleen will dissipate you in jests pulverise you into salt and sacrifice you, I can promise you to the god of mirth I further advise you not to espouse or calaminate or slander democratus junior who possibly does not think ill of you lest you may hear from some discreet friend the same remark the people of Abdera did from Hippocrates of their meritorious and popular fellow-citizen whom they had looked on as a madman it is not that you, democratus that art wise but that the people of Abdera are fools and madmen you have yourself an abderity and soul and having just given you, gentle reader these few words of admonition farewell weep, O Heraclitus it suits the age unless you see nothing base nothing sad laugh, O democratus as much as you please nothing either vain or foolish let one rejoice in smiles the other in tears let the same labour or pain be the office of both now for alas how foolish the world has become a thousand Heraclitus a thousand democratus are required now so much does madness prevail all the world must be sent to Antiquira to graze on Helebor end of section 15 section 16 of the Anatomy of Melancholy volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Morgan Scorpion the Anatomy of Melancholy volume 1 by Robert Burton section 16 partition 1 section 1, member 1 subsection 1 fall, miseries, infirmities the causes of them man's excellency man, the most excellent and noble creature of the world the principal and mighty work of God wonder of nature as Zoroaster calls him or darkest natural eye miraculous, the marvel of marvels as Plato the abridgment and epitome of the world as Pliny microcosmos a model of the world sovereign lord of the earth viceroy of the world sole commander and governor of all the creatures in it to whose empire they are subject in particular and yield obedience far surpassing all the rest not in body only but in soul Imaganis Imago created to God's own image to that immortal and incorporeal substance with all the faculties and powers belonging unto it was at first pure divine, perfect, happy created after God in true holiness and righteousness they are congruence free from all manner of infirmities and put in paradise to know God, to praise and glorify him to do his will Ode deus consimilis parteriat deus as an old poet saith to propagate the church man's fall and misery but this most noble creature heutristis et lacrimosa comutatio one exclaims O pitiful change is fallen from that he was and forfeited his estate become miserabilis homuncio a castaway, a catith one of the most miserable creatures of the world if he reconsidered in his own nature an unregenerate man and so much obscured by his fall that some few relics accepted he is inferior to a beast man in honor that understand us not is like unto beasts that perish so David esteems him a monster by stupend metamorphosis a fox, a dog, a hog what not quantum mutatis abilog how much altered from that he was before blessed and happy now miserable and accursed he must eat his meat in soil subject to death and all manner of infirmities all kind of calamities a description of melancholy great travail is created for all men and an heavy yoke on the sons of Adam from the day that they go out of their mother's womb unto that day they return to the mother of all things namely their thoughts and fear of their hearts and their imagination of things they wait for and the day of death from him that sitteth in the glorious throne to him that sitteth beneath in the earth and ashes to him that is clothed in blue silk and weareth a crown to him that is clothed in simple linen wrath, envy trouble and unquietness and fear of death and rigor and strife and such things come to both man and beast but sevenfold to the ungodly all this befalls him in this life and peradventure eternal misery in the life to come impulsive cause of man's misery and infirmities the impulsive cause of these miseries in man this privation or destruction of God's image the cause of death and diseases of all temple and eternal punishments was the sin of our first parent Adam in eating of the forbidden fruit by the devil's instigation and allurement his disobedience, pride, ambition in temperance, incredulity curiosity from whence preceded original sin and that general corruption of mankind as from a fountain flowed all bad inclinations and actual transgressions which cause our several calamities inflicted upon us for our sins and this be like is that which our fabulous poets have shadowed unto us in the tale of Pandora's box which being opened through her curiosity filled the world with all manner of diseases it is not curiosity alone but those other crying sins of ours which pull these several plagues and miseries upon our heads for Ubi Pekatim Ibi Prokila as Cressa Stonewell observes falls by reason of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted fear cometh like sudden desolation and destruction like a whirlwind affliction and anguish because they did not fear God are you shaken with wars as Cyprian well urges to Demetrius are you molested with death and famine is your health crushed with raging diseases is mankind generally tormented with epidemical maladies it is all for your sins Haggai 1 9 10 Amos 1 Jeremiah 7 God is angry punisheth and threateneth because of their obstinacy and stubbornness they will not turn unto him if the earth be barren then for want of rain if dry and squalid it yield no fruit if your fountains be dried up your wine, corn and oil blasted if the air be corrupted and men trouble with diseases tis by reason of their sins which like the blood of Abel cry loud to heaven for vengeance Lamentations 5 15 that we have sinned therefore our hearts are heavy Isaiah 59 11 12 we roar like bears and mourn like doves and want health etc we are sins and trespasses but this we cannot endure to hear or to take notice of Jeremiah 2 30 we are smitten in vain and receive no correction and chapter 5 3 thou hast stricken them but they have not sorrowed they have refused to receive correction they have not returned pestilence he hath sent but they have not turned to him Amos 4 to abide John Baptist nor do mission endure Apollonius to tell the causes of the plague at Ephesus his injustice incest adultery and the like to punish therefore this blindness and obstinacy of ours as a concomitant cause and principal agent is God's just judgment in bringing these calamities upon us to chastise us I say for our sins and to satisfy God's wrath for the law requires obedience or punishment and we need at large Deuteronomy 28 15 if they will not obey the Lord and keep his commandments and ordinances then all these curses shall come upon them cursed in the town and in the field etc cursed in the fruit of the body etc the Lord shall send thee trouble and shame because of thy wickedness and a little after the Lord shall smite thee with the botch of Egypt and with emeralds and scab and itch and they can't not be healed with madness, blindness and astonishing of heart this Paul seconds Romans 2 9 tribulation and anguish on the soul of every man that doeth evil or else these chastisements are inflicted upon us for our humiliation to exercise and try our patience here in this life to bring us home and make us to know God ourselves to inform and teach us wisdom therefore is my people gone into captivity because they had no knowledge therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people and he hath stretched out his hand upon them he is desirous of our salvation nostris saladis avidus safe lemnus and for that cause Paul's us by the ear many times to put us in mind of our duties that they which aired might have understanding as Isaiah speaks 29 24 I am afflicted and at the point of death so David confesseth of himself Psalm 58 verse 15 verse 9 my eyes are sorrowful through my affliction and that made him turn unto God great Alexander in the midst of all his prosperity by a company of parasites deified and now made a God when he saw one of his wounds bleed remembered that he was but a man and remitted of his wounds and he was a man who was but a man and remitted of his pride in marble the colleague it say animus as Pliny well perceived in sickness the mind reflects upon itself with judgments surveys itself and abhors its former courses in so much that he concludes to his friend Marius that it were the period of all philosophy if we could so continue sound or perform but a part of that which we promised to do being sick as wise then will consider these things as David did Psalms 144 verse last and whatsoever fortune before him make use of it if he be in sorrow need sickness or any other adversity seriously to account with himself why this or that malady misery this or that incurable disease is inflicted upon him it may be for his good sick expedit as Peter said he was ague bodily sickness is for his soul health had he not been visited he had utterly perished for the Lord corrected him whom he loveth even as a father dealt his child in whom he delighteth if he be safe and sound on the other side and free from all manner of infirmity at Cui Gratia forma valetudo contingat abundae non deficiente crumena and that he have grace beauty, favour, health a cleanly diet and abound in wealth yet in the midst of his prosperity let him remember that caveat of Moses beware that he do not forget the Lord his God that he be not puffed up but acknowledge them to be his good gifts and benefits and the more he hath to be more thankful as Agapetianus advises instrumental courses of our infirmities now the instrumental courses of these are infirmities are as diverse as the infirmities themselves stars, heavens, elements, etc and all those creatures which God hath made are armed against sinners they were indeed once good in themselves and that they are now many of them pernicious unto us is not in their nature but our corruption which hath caused it all of our first parent Adam they have been changed the earth accursed the influence of stars altered the four elements beasts, birds, plants are now ready to offend us the principal things for the use of man are water, fire, iron, salt meal, wheat, honey milk, oil, wine clothing good to the godly to the sinners turned to evil earth 3926 fire and hail and famine and death all these are created for vengeance ecclesiasticus 3929 the heavens threaten us with their comets, stars, planets with their great conjunctions eclipses, oppositions quartiles and such unfriendly aspects the air with his meteors, thunder and lightning intemperate heat and cold mighty winds, tempests unseasonable weather from which proceed, earth, famine plague and all sorts of epidemical diseases, consuming infinite myriads of men at Cairo in Egypt every third year as it is related by Brotois and others 300,000 die of the plague and 200,000 in Constantinople every fifth or seventh at the utmost how doth the earth try and oppress us with terrible earthquakes which are most frequent in China Japan and those eastern climes swallowing up sometimes six cities at once how doth the water rage with his inundations eruptions, flinging down towns cities, villages, bridges etc besides shipwrecks whole islands are sometimes suddenly overwhelmed with all their inhabitants in Zealand, Holland and many parts of the continent drowned as the lake urn in Ireland Nihil quay praetor archium cadavra patente curnimus froto in the fens of Friesland 1230 by reason of tempests the sea drowned multahominum milia et gementa sine numero all the country almost men and cattle in it how doth the fire rage that merciless element consuming in an instant whole cities what town of any antiquity or note has not been once again by the fury of this merciless element defaced, runeated and left desolate in a word igdus perpokit, unda murgit eris vis pestilentis aiquari eruptum nekat bello superstes, tabidus morbo perit whom fire spares, sea doth drown whom sea pestilent air doth send to clay whom warscapes, sickness takes away to descend to more particulars how many creatures are at deadly feud with men lions, wolves, bears, et cetera some with hooves, horns, tusks, teeth, nails how many noxious serpents and venerous creatures ready to offend us with stings, breath, sight, or quite kill us how many pernicious fishes, plants, gums, fruits seeds, flowers, et cetera could I reckon up on a sudden which by their very smell many of them touch, taste, cause some grievous malady if not death itself some make mention of a thousand several poisons but these are but tribals in respect the greatest enemy to man is man who by the devil's instigation is still ready to do mischief his own executioner a wolf, a devil to himself and others we are all brethren in Christ or at least should be members of one body servants of one Lord and yet no fiend can so torment insult over, tyrannize, vex as one man doth another let me not fall therefore, says David when wars plague famine were offered into the hands of men, merciless and wicked men vix sunt hominés hock nominé digny quancue lupai, scivi pus ferritatis habent we can most part foresee these epidemical diseases and most likely avoid them girths, tempests, plagues, our astrologers foretell us earthquakes, inundations, ruins of houses consuming fires, come by little and little or make some noise beforehand but the neighbouries, imposters, injuries and villainies of men no art can avoid we can keep our professed armies from our cities by gates, walls and towers defend ourselves from thieves and robbers by watchfulness and weapons by the malice of men and their pernicious endeavours no caution can divert, no vigilancy foresee we have so many secret plots and devices to mischief one another sometimes by the devil's help as magicians witches sometimes by imposters, mixtures, poisons stratagems, single combats, wars we hack and hew as if we were at internecquionem nati like Cadmus's soldiers born to consume one another tis an ordinary thing to read of a hundred and two hundred thousand men slain in a battle besides all manner of tortures brazen bulls, racks, wheels strapados, guns, engines, etc ad unum corpus humanum suppliquia plura quam membra we have invented more torturing instruments than there be several members in a man's body as Cyprian well observes to come nearer yet our own parents by their offences indiscretion and intemperance are our mortal enemies the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge they cause our grief many times and put upon us hereditary diseases inevitable infirmities they torment us and we are ready to injure our posterity magstaturib progenium vitiosiorum and yet with crimes to us unknown our sons shall mark the coming age their own and the latter end of the world as Paul foretold is still like to be the worst we are thus bad by nature bad by kind but far worse by art every man the greatest enemy unto himself we study many times to undo ourselves abusing those good gifts which God has bestowed upon us health wealth strength wit learning art memory to our own destruction today as Judas Maccabeus killed Apollonius with his own weapons we arm ourselves to our own overthrows and use reason, art, judgment all that should help us as so many instruments to undo us Hector gave Ajax a sword which so long as he fought against enemies served for his help and defence but after he began to hurt harmless creatures with it turned to his own hurtless bowels those excellent means God has bestowed on us while employed cannot but much avail us but if otherwise perverted they ruin and confound us and so by reason of our indiscretion and weakness they commonly do we have too many instances this St. Austen acknowledges of himself in his humble confessions promptness of wit, memory, eloquence they were God's good gifts but he did not use them to his glory if you will particularly know how and by what means consult physicians and they will tell you that it is an offending in some of those six non-natural things of which I shall dilate more at large they are the cause of our infirmities our serpentine and drunkenness our immoderate insatiable lust and prodigious riot Plurais crepula cram gladius is a true saying the board consumes more than the sword our intemperance it is that pulls so many several incurable diseases upon our heads that hastens old age perverts our temperature and brings upon us sudden death and last of all that which crucifies us most is our own folly, madness cross Jupiter perdit, dementat by subtraction of his assisting grace God permits it weakness, want of government our facility and proneness in yielding to several lusts in giving way to every passion and perturbation of the mind by which means we metamorphose ourselves and degenerate into beasts all which that prince of poets observed of Agamemnon that when he was well pleased and could moderate his passion he was Osoculoscre Jobipar like Jupiter in feature Mars in valor Palace in wisdom another God but when he became angry he was a lion a tiger a dog etc there appeared no sign or likeness of Jupiter in him so as long as we are ruled by reason correct our inordinate appetite and conform ourselves to God's word are as so many saints but if we give reigns to lust anger ambition pride and follow our own ways we degenerate into beasts transform ourselves overthrow our constitutions provoke God to anger and heap upon us this of melancholy and all kinds of incurable diseases as a just and deserved punishment of our sins End of Section 16 Section 17 of the Anatomy of Melancholy Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Morgan Scorpion The Anatomy of Melancholy Volume 1 by Robert Burton Section 17 Partition 1 Section 1 Member 1 Subsections 2-5 Subsection 2 The definition, number, division of diseases What a disease is almost every physician defines Phonilias calleth it an affection of the body contrary to nature Fucius and Kratos and Hindrens hurt or alteration of any action of the body or part of it Tholosanus a dissolution of that league which is between body and soul and a perturbation of it of affection and makes to the preservation of it Labeo in Agellius an ill habit of the body opposite to nature hindering the use of it others otherwise all to this effect Number of Diseases How many diseases there are is a question not yet determined Pliny reckons up 300 from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot elsewhere he saith Morborum infinita multitudo Their number is infinite Howsoever it was in those times it boots not In our days I am sure the number is much augmented Machias et nova febrium teris incubit cohors For besides many epidemical diseases unheard of and altogether unknown to Galen and Hippocrates as Scorbutum, smallpox pleca, sweating sickness morbus gallicus etc we have many proper and peculiar almost to every part No man free from some disease or other No man amongst us so sound of so good a constitution that has not some impediment of body or mind Quiscle source patimum manes We have all our infirmities first or last, more or less There will be peradventure in an age or one of a thousand like Xenophilus the musician in Pliny that may happily live 105 years without any manner of impediment a polio romulus that can preserve himself with wine and oil a man as fortunate as Cuma Telus of whom Valerius so much brags a man as healthy as Otto Herwardus a senator of Augsburg in Germany whom Leovitius the astrologer brings in for an example an instance of certainty in his art who because he had the significators in his geniture of fortunate and free from the hostile aspects of human Mars being a very cold man could not remember that ever he was sick Paracelsus may brag that he could make a man live 400 years or more if he might bring him up from his infancy and diet him as he list and some physicians hold that there is no certain period of man's life but it may still by temperance and physique be prolonged refined in the meantime by common experience that no man can escape but that of Hesiod is true play in men gargaya cacon plain dithalasta nusoid anthropoi ein effhemere ed epi nikti automatoi voitosi the earth's full of maladies and full the sea which set upon us both by night and day division of diseases if you require a more exact division of these ordinary diseases which are incident to men I'll refer you to physicians they will tell you of acute and chronic first and secondary lethals, salutaries, errant fixed, simple, compound connexed or consequent belonging to parts or the whole inhabit or in disposition etc my division at this time as most befitting my purpose shall be into those of the body and mind for them of the body a brief catalogue of which Pugius has made I'll refer you to the voluminous tomes of Galen, Aretas Varsus Avikenna Alexander Paulus Aetius Gondodonarius and those exact neoterics Savonorola Capivacius Donatus Altomaurus Hercules disaxonia Mercurialis Victorious ferventines Vecca Piso etc. that have methodically and elaborately ridden of them all those of the mind and head I will briefly handle and depart subsection 3 Division of the diseases of the head these diseases of the mind for as much as they have their chief seat and organs in the head which are commonly repeated amongst the diseases of the head which are diverse and very much according to their sight for in the head as there be several parts so there be diverse grievances which according to that division of hernius which he takes out of Arculanus are inward or outward to omit all others which pertain to eyes and ears nostrils gums teeth mouth palate tongue weasel chops face etc. belong properly to the brain as baldness falling of hair furfer lice etc. inward belonging to the skins next to the brain called Dua and Piamata as all headaches etc. or to the ventricles callus cals tunicles creaks as caro vertigo incubus apoplexy falling sickness the diseases of the nerves cramps stupa convulsion tremor palsy or belonging to the excrement of the brain guitars sneezing rooms distillations or else those that pertain to the substance of the brain itself in which are conceived frenzy lethargy melancholy madness weak memory sopo gilia edvidial coma out of these again I will single such as properly belong to the fantasy or imagination or reason itself which Laurentius calls the disease of the mind and Hildesheim morbos imaginationes odrationes licei diseases of the imagination or of injured reason which are three or four in number frenzy madness melancholy dotage and their kinds as hydrophobia lycanthropia chorus sanctiviti morbidemoniaci stvitus's dance possession of devils which I will briefly touch and point at insisting especially in this of melancholy as more eminent than the rest and that through all his kinds causes, symptoms, prognostics cures as Lonicharis have done depoplexia and many other of such particular diseases not that I find fault with those which have ridden of this subject before as Jason fratensis Laurentius Montaltus T. Bright, etc. they have done very well in their several kinds and methods yet that which one omits another may happily see that which one contracts another may enlarge to conclude with Scribanius that which they had neglected or perfunctorily handled we may more thoroughly examine that which is obscurely delivered in them may be perspicuously dilated and amplified by us and so made more familiar and easy for every man's capacity and the common good which is the chief end of my discourse subsection 4 dotage, frenzy, madness hydrophobia, lycanthropia coos sanctiviti, ecstasis delirium, dotage dotage, fatuity or folly is a common name to all the following species as some will have it Laurentius and Altomyrus comprehended madness, melancholy and the rest under this name and called it the summum genus of the more if it be distinguished from them it is natural or ingenite which comes by some defect of the organs and over much brain as we see in our common fools and is for the most part intended or omitted in particular men and thereupon some are wiser than others or else it is acquisit an appendix or symptom of some other disease which comes or goes or if it continue a sign of melancholy itself frenzy, frenitis which the Greeks derive from the word fren is a disease of the mind with a continual madness or dotage which have an acute fever annexed or else an inflammation of the brain or the membranes or kels of it with an acute fever which causes madness and dotage it differs from melancholy and madness because their dotage is without an ague this continual with waking or memory decayed etc melancholy is most part silent this clamours and many such like differences are assigned by physicians madness madness, frenzy and melancholy are confounded by kelsus and many writers others leave out frenzy and make madness and melancholy which jason pretenses especially labours and that they differ only secundum magis or minus in quantity alone the one being a degree to the other and both proceeding from one cause they differ in tenso et remisto gradu ses codonius as the humour is intended or remitted of the same mind is erratus alexander tertulianus guianarius savannorola hernius and Galen himself writes promiscuously of them both by reason of their affinity but most of our neoterics do handle them apart whom I will follow in this treatise madness is therefore defined to be a vehement dotage or waving without a fever far more violent than melancholy full of anger and clamour horrible looks actions gestures troubling the patients with far greater vehementy both of body and mind without all fear and sorrow with such impetuous force and boldness that sometimes three or four men cannot hold them differing only in this from frenzy that it is without a fever and their memory is most part better it hath the same causes as the other as cola adressed and blood incensed brains inflamed etc fracastorius adds a due time and full age to this definition to distinguish it from children and will have it confirmed impotency to separate it from such as accidentally come and go again as by taking henbane nightshade wine etc of this fury there be diverse kinds ecstasy which is familiar with some persons as cardon sayeth of himself he could be in one when he list in which the Indian priests deliver their oracles and the witches in Lapland as Olos Magnus writes ecstasy omnia predicare answer all questions in ecstasis you will ask what your friends do where they are how they fare etc the other species of this fury are enthusiasm revelations and visions so often mentioned by Gregory and Bede in their works obsession or possession of devils Sibyline prophets and poetical furies such as come by eating noxious herbs tarantulas stinging etc which some reduced to this the most known of these are lycanthropia hydrophobia chorus sancti vitae lycanthropia lycanthropia which avikenna calls cuckabrooth others lupinum insanium or wolf magnus when men run howling about graves and fields in the night and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves or some such beasts Aetius and Paulus call it a kind of melancholy but I should rather refer it to magnus as most do some make a doubt of it whether there be any such disease Donut Ab al-Tomari sayeth that he saw two of them in his time Weiris tells a story of such a one at Padua 1541 that would not believe to the contrary but that he was a wolf he hath another instance of a Spaniard who thought himself a bear Forrestas confirms as much by many examples one amongst the rest of which he was an eyewitness at Alcmer in Holland a poor husbandman that still hunted about graves and kept in church-yards of a pale, black, ugly and fearful look such be like or little better were King Prytus' daughters that thought themselves kind and Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel as some interpreters hold was only troubled with this kind of madness This disease perhaps gave occasion to that bold assertion of Pliny some men were turned into wolves in his time and from wolves to men again and to that fable of poscenius of a man that was ten years a wolf and afterwards turned to his former shape to Ovid's tale of Lycaon, etc He that is desirous to hear of this disease or more examples let him read Austen in his eighteenth book Decivitate Dei, chapter 5 Miseldas, Skencius, Hildesheim Forrestas, book 10 of De Morbus Carrebri Olas Magnus Vincentius Belavikensis Pieris Baudin Zwinga Zilga Puka Weerus Spranger, etc This malady, Seith Avicenna Troubleth men most in February and is nowadays frequent in Bohemia and Hungary according to hernias Cheretius will have it common in Livonia They lie hid most part all day and go abroad in the night barking, howling at graves and deserts They have usually hollow eyes, scarbed legs and thighs very dry and pale, says Ultimaris He gives a reason there of all the symptoms and sets down a brief cure of them Hydrophobia is a kind of madness well known in every village which comes by the biting of a mad dog or scratching, Seith Aurelianus touching or smelling alone sometimes as Skencius proves and is instant to many other creatures as well as men They are called because the parties affected cannot endure the sight of water or any liquor supposing still they see a mad dog in it and which is more wonderful though they be very dry as in this malady they are they will rather die than drink do Vananis, Cailus Aurelianus an ancient writer makes a doubt whether this hydrophobia be a passion of the body or the mind The part affected is the brain the cause, poison that comes from the mad dog that it consumes all the moisture in the body Hildesheim relates of some that died so mad and being cut up had no water, scarce blood or any moisture left in them to such as are so affected the fear of water begins at 14 days after they are bitten to some again not till 40 or 60 days after Commonly, Seith Aurelianus they begin to rave fly water and glasses to look red and swell in the face about 20 days after if some remedy be not taken in the meantime to lie awake, to be pensive sad, to see strange visions to bark and howl to fall into a swoon and sometimes fits of the falling sickness some say little things like welps will be seen in their urine if any of these signs appear they are past recovery many times these symptoms will not appear till 6 or 7 months after Seith Cadronchus and sometimes not till 7 or 8 years as Guionarius 12 as Albertus 6 or 8 months after as Galen holds Baldus the great lawyer died of it an Augustine friar and a woman in Delft that were foresters patients were miserably consumed with it the common cure in the country for such at least as well near the seaside is to duck them over the head and ears in seawater some use charms to describe medicines but the best cure to be had in such cases is from the most approved physicians they that will read of them may consult with Dioroscorodes Hernius, Hildesheim Capivachius, Forestus Schenckius and before all others Cadronchus and Italian who have lately written two exquisite books on the subject Chorus Sancti Vitii or Saint Vitus's dance the lascivious dance as Paracelsus calls it because they that are taken from it can do nothing but dance till they be dead or cured it is so called for that the parties so troubled will want to go to Saint Vitus for help and after they had danced there a while they were certainly freed it is strange to hear how long they will dance and in what manner over stools, forms, tables even great bellied women sometimes and yet never hurt their children will dance so long that they can stir neither hand nor foot but seem to be quite dead one in red clothes they cannot abide music above all things they love and therefore magistrates in Germany will hire musicians to play to them and some lusty, sturdy companions to dance with them this disease have been very common in Germany as appears by those relations of Schenckius and Paracelsus in his book of madness who brags how many several persons he have cured of it the Explaterus Dementis alienationibus chapter 3 reports of a woman in Basil whom he saw that danced a whole month together the Arabians call it a kind of palsy Bodin in his fifth book the Republica chapter 1 speaks of this infirmity Monabius in his last epistle to Scoltisius and in another to Deutethus where you may read more of it the last kind of madness or melancholy is demoniacal, if I may so call it obsession or possession of devils which Plataeus and others would have to be preternatural stupid things are said of them their actions, gestures, contortions fasting, prophesying speaking languages they were never taught etc. many strange stories are related of them which because some will not allow for Deacon and Dowl have written large volumes on this subject pro and con I voluntarily omit Fuchsius, Felix Plataeus, Laurentius add to these another fury that proceeds from love and another from study another divine or religious fury but these more properly belong to melancholy all of which I will speak apart intending to write a whole book of them subsection 5 melancholy in disposition improperly so called equivocations melancholy the subject of our present discourse is either in disposition or habit in disposition is that transitory melancholy which goes and comes upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble fear, grief, passion or perturbation of the mind any manner of care, discontent or thought which cause with anguish dullness, heaviness and vexation of spirit any ways opposite to pleasure mirth, joy, delight causing forwardness in us or a dislike in which equivocal and improper sense we call him melancholy that is dull, sad, sore, lumpish ill-disposed, solitary any way moved or displeased and from these melancholy dispositions no man living is free no steric, none so wise none so happy none so patient, so generous so godly, so divine that can vindicate himself so well composed but more or less some time other he feels the smart of it melancholy in this sense is the character of mortality man that is born of a woman is short of continuance and full of trouble Zeno, Cato, Socrates himself whom alien so highly commends for a moderate temper that nothing could disturb him but going out and coming in still Socrates kept the same serenity of countenance what misery so ever befell him if we may believe Plato his disciple was much tormented with it Quintus Metellus in whom Beleriis gives instance of all happiness the most fortunate man then living born in that most flourishing city of Rome of noble parentage a proper man of person well qualified, healthful, rich honourable, a senator a consul, happy in his wife happy in his children etc yet this man was not void of melancholy he had his share of sorrow Polycratus Samius that flung his ring into the sea because he would participate of discontent with others and had it miraculously restored to him again shortly after by a fish taken as he angled was not free from melancholy dispositions no man can cure himself the very gods had bitter pangs and frequent passions as their own poets put upon them in general as the heaven so is our life sometimes fair sometimes overcast tempestuous and serene as in a rose, flowers and prickles in the year itself a temperate summer sometimes a hard winter, a drought and then again pleasant showers so is our life intermixed with joys, hopes fears, sorrows, columnies in Vicum Kedent Dolla et Voluptus there is a succession of pleasure and pain Mediol de Fonte Le Porum Sogret Amari Aliquid in Ipsis Floribus Angat even in the midst of laughing there is sorrow as Solomon holds even in the midst of all our feasting and jollity as Austen infers in his commentary on the 41st Psalm there is grief and discontent interdelicious temper Aliquid Savi no strangulat for a pint of honey thou shalt here likely find a gallon of gore for a drum of pleasure a pound of pain for an inch of mirth and L of moan as Ivy doth an oak these miseries encompass our life and it is most absurd and ridiculous for any mortal man to look for a perpetual tenure of happiness in his life nothing so prosperous and pleasant but it has some bitterness in it some complaining, some grudging it is all blicca picon, a mixed passion and like a checker table black and white men, families, cities have their falls and wanes now trines, sex styles then quartiles and oppositions we are not here as those angels celestial powers and bodies sun and moon to finish our course without all offence with such constancy to continue for so many ages but subject to infirmities miseries, interrupted tossed and tumbled up and down carried about with every small blast often molested and disquieted upon each slender occasion uncertain, brittle and so is all that we trust unto and he that knows not this is not armed to enjoy it is not fit to live in this world as one condols our time he knows not the condition of it where with a reciprocality pleasure and pain are still united and succeed one another in a ring exce a mundo get thee gone hence if thou canst not brook it there is no way to avoid it but to arm thyself with patience with magnanimity to oppose thyself unto it to suffer affliction as a good soldier of Christ as Paul advises constantly to bear it but for as much as so few can embrace this good counsel of his or use it to write but rather as so many brute beasts give away to their passion voluntarily subject and precipitate themselves into a labyrinth of cares, woes miseries, and suffer their souls to be overcome by them cannot arm themselves with that patience as they ought to do it falls out often times that these dispositions become habits and many affects contend as Seneca notes make a disease even as one distillation not yet grown to custom makes a cough but continual and inveterate cause earth a consumption of the lungs so do these our melancholy provocations and according as the humour itself is intended or remitted in men as their temperature of body or rational soul is better able to make resistance so are they more or less affected for that which is but a flea biting to one causes insufferable torment to another and which one by his singular moderation and well composed courage can happily overcome a second is no wit able to sustain but upon every small occasion of misconceived abuse injury, grief, disgrace, loss cross, humour etc if solitary or idle yield so far to passion that his complexion is altered his digestion hindered his sleep gone, his spirits obscured and his heart heavy his hypochondries misaffected wind, crudity on a sudden overtake him and he himself overcome with melancholy as it is with a man imprisoned for debt if once in the jail every creditor will bring his action against him and there likely hold him if any discontent sees upon a patient in an instant all other perturbations for cordata porta ruente will set upon him and then like a lame dog or broken winged goose he dropes and pines away and is brought at last to that ill habit or malady of melancholy itself so that as the philosophers make 8 degrees of heat and cold we may make 88 of melancholy as the parts affected are diversely seized with it or have been plunged more or less into this infernal gulf or waded deeper into it but all these melancholy fits however pleasing at first or displeasing, violent and tyrannising over those whom they seize on for the time yet these fits I say or men affected are but improperly so called because they continue not but come and go as by some objects removed this melancholy of which we are to treat is a habit or chronic a chronic or continuate disease a settled humour not errant but fixed and as it was long increasing so now being pleasant or painful grown to inhabit it will hardly be removed End of section 17