The Anatomy of Melancholy. Robert Burton

      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 sanam mentem 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 omit all impertinent digressions, to say no more of such as are improperly melancholy, or metaphorically mad, lightly mad, or in disposition, as stupid, angry, drunken, silly, sottish, sullen, proud, vainglorious, ridiculous, beastly, peevish, obstinate, impudent, extravagant, dry, doting, dull, desperate, harebrain, &c. mad, frantic, foolish, heteroclites, which no new [795] hospital can hold, no physic help; my purpose and endeavour is, in the following discourse to anatomise 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 thereunto for the generality of it, and to do good, it being a disease so frequent, as [796] Mercurialis observes, "in these our days; so often happening," saith [797] Laurentius, "in our miserable times," as few there are that feel not the smart of it. Of the same mind is Aelian Montaltus, [798]Melancthon, and others; [799]Julius Caesar Claudinus calls it the "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 hypochondriacal 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 hath 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 [800]Erasmus, in like case, 'tis not I, but Democritus, Democritus dixit: 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 a prince's, a philosopher's, a magistrate's, a fool's part, and him that 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.

      [801] "Dixero si quid forte jocosius, hoc mihi juris

       Cum venia, dabis"———

      "Yet some indulgence I may justly claim,

       If 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?

      "Licuit, semperque licebit,

       Parcere personis, dicere de vitiis."

      "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 aught unto himself, let him not expostulate or cavil with him that said it (so did [802]Erasmus excuse himself to Dorpius, si parva licet 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:" [803]"if he be guilty and deserve it, let him amend, whoever he is, and not be angry." "He that hateth correction is a fool," Prov. xii. 1. If he be not guilty, it concerns him not; it is not my freeness of speech, but a guilty conscience, a galled back of his own that makes him wince.

      "Suspicione si quis errabit sua,

       Et rapiet ad se, quod erit commune omnium,

       Stulte nudabit animi conscientiam."[804]

      I deny not this which I have said savours a little of Democritus; [805] Quamvis ridentem dicere verum quid velat; one may speak in jest, and yet speak truth. It is somewhat tart, I grant it; acriora orexim excitant embammata, as he said, sharp sauces increase appetite, [806]nec cibus ipse juvat morsu fraudatus aceti. Object then and cavil what thou wilt, I ward all with [807]Democritus's buckler, his medicine shall salve it; strike where thou wilt, and when: Democritus dixit, Democritus will answer it. It was written by an idle fellow, at idle times, about our Saturnalian or Dionysian feasts, when as he said, nullum libertati periculum est, servants in old Rome had liberty to say and do what them list. When our countrymen sacrificed to their goddess [808]Vacuna, and sat tippling by their Vacunal fires. I writ this, and published this [Greek: houtis helegen], it is neminis nihil. The time, place, persons, and all circumstances apologise 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.

      [809] "Si quis est qui dictum in se inclementius Existimavit esse, sic existimet."

      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,

      ———"motos praestat componere fluctus."

      ———"let's first assuage the troubled waves"

      I have overshot myself, I have spoken foolishly, rashly, unadvisedly, absurdly, I have anatomised mine own folly. And now methinks 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 mine error, cry with [810]Orlando, Solvite me, pardon (o boni) 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 treatise.

      If through weakness, folly, passion, [811]discontent, ignorance, I have said amiss, let it be forgotten and forgiven. I acknowledge that of [812] Tacitus to be true, Asperae facetiae, ubi nimis ex vero traxere, acrem sui memoriam relinquunt, a bitter jest leaves a sting behind it: and as an honourable man observes, [813]"They fear a satirist's wit, he their memories." I may justly suspect the worst; and though I hope I have wronged no man, yet in Medea's words I will crave pardon,

      ———"Illud jam voce extrema peto,

       Ne si qua noster dubius effudit dolor,

       Maneant in animo verba, sed melior tibi

       Memoria nostri subeat, haec irae data

       Obliterentur"———

      "And in my last words this I do desire,

       That what in passion I have said, or ire,

       May be forgotten, and a better mind,

       Be had of us, hereafter as you find."

      I earnestly request every private man, as Scaliger did Cardan, not to take offence. I will conclude in his lines, Si me cognitum haberes, non solum donares nobis has facetias nostras, sed etiam indignum duceres, tam humanum aninum, lene ingenium, vel minimam suspicionem deprecari oportere. If thou knewest my [814]modesty and simplicity, thou wouldst easily pardon and forgive what is here amiss, or by thee misconceived. If hereafter anatomizing this surly humour, my hand slip, as an unskilful 'prentice I lance too deep, and cut through skin and all at unawares, make it smart, or cut awry, [815]pardon a rude hand, an unskilful knife, 'tis a most difficult thing to keep an even tone, a perpetual tenor, and not sometimes to lash out; difficile est Satyram non scribere, there be so many objects to divert, inward perturbations to molest, and the very best may sometimes err; aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus (some times that excellent Homer takes a nap), it is impossible not in so much to overshoot;—opere in longo fas est obrepere, summum. But what needs all this? I hope there will no such cause of offence be given; if there be, [816]Nemo aliquid recognoscat, nos mentimur omnia. I'll deny