Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

Reading language

Prognostics of Jealousy: Despair, Madness, Killing Themselves and Others.

Prognosticks of Jealousie, Despair, Madness, to make away themselves and others.

Those which are jealous, most part, if they be not otherwise relieved, proceed from suspition to hatred, from hatred to frenzie, madness, injurie, murder and despair.

A plague by whose most damnable effect, Divers in deep despair to die have sought, By which a man to madness neer is brought, As well with causlesse as with just suspect.

In their madness many times, saith Vives, they make away themselves and others. Which induceth Cyprian to call it Fœcundam & multiplicem perniciem, fontem cladium & seminarium delictorum, a fruitfull mischief, the seminary of offences, and fountain of murders.

Tragicall examples are too common in this kind, both new and old, in all ages, as of Cephalus and Procris, Phærus of Ægypt, Tereus, Atreus, and Thyestes. Alexander Phærus was murdered of his wife, ob pellicatus suspitionem, Tully saith. Antoninus Verus was so made away by Lucilla; Demetrius the son of Antigonus, and Nicanor, by their wives. Hercules poisoned by Deianira, Cæcinna murdered by Vespasian, Justina a Romane Lady by her husband.

Amestris, Xerxes wife, because she found her husbands cloak in Masista his house, cut off Masista his wives paps, and gave them to the dogs, flead her besides, and cut off her ears, lips, tongue, and slit the nose of Artaynta her daughter. Our late writers are full of such outrages.

Paulus Æmilius in his History of France, hath a Tragicall story of Chilpericus the first his death, made away by Ferdegunde his Queene. In a jealous humour he came from hunting, and stole behinde his wife, as she was dressing and combing her head in the sun, gave her a familiar touch with his wand, which she mistaking for her lover said, Ah Landre, a good Knight should strike before, and not behinde: but when she saw her self betrayed by his presence, she instantly took order to make him away.

Hierome Osorius in the eleventh book of the deeds of Emanuel King of Portugal, to this effect hath a tragicall narration of one Ferdinandus Chalderia, that wounded Gotherinus a noble countryman of his at Goa in the East Indies, and cut off one of his legs, for that he looked as he thought too familiarly upon his wife, which was afterwards a cause of many quarrels, and much bloodshed.

Guianerius cap.36. de ægritud. matr. speakes of a silly jealous fellow, that seeing his childe new born included in a kell, thought sure an Franciscan that used to come to his house, was the father of it, it was so like the Friers Coule, and thereupon threatned the Frier to kill him. Fulgosius of a woman in Narbone that cut off her husbands privities in the night, because she thought he plaid false with her.

The story of Jonuses Bassa, and fair Manto his wife, is well known to such as have read the Turkish History; and that of Ioane of Spaine, of which I treated in my former section. Her jealousie, saith Gomesius, was cause of both their deaths: King Philip died for grief a little after, as Martian his Physitian gave it out, and she for her part after a melancholy discontented life, mispent in lurking holes and corners, made an end of her miseries.

Felix Pater in the first book of his observations, hath many such instances, of a Physitian of his acquaintance, that was first mad through Jealousie, and afterwards desperate: of a Merchant that killed his wife in the same humour, and after precipitated himself: Of a Doctor of law that cut off his mans nose: of a Painters wife in Basil Anno 1600, that was mother of nine children, and had been 27 yeers married, yet afterwards jealous, and so impatient that she became desperate, and would neither eat nor drink in her own house, for fear her husband should poison her.

’Tis a common signe this; for when once the humours are stirred, and the imagination misaffected, it will vary it self in divers forms; and many such absurd symptomes will accompany, even madness it self. Skenkius observat. lib.4. cap. de Uter. hath an example of a jealous woman that by this means had many fits of the Mother: and in his first book of some that through jealousie ran mad: of a Baker that gelded himself to try his wives honesty, &c. Such examples are too common.

11686.BurtonSource page 613, d: “Animi dolores & zelotypia si diutius perseverent, dementes reddunt. Acak. comment. in par. art. Galeni.” “Mental pains and jealousy, if they persist too long, make people mad. Acakius, commentary on Galen’s Little Art.”

11688.BurtonSource page 613, e: “Ariosto lib. 31 staff. 6.” “Ariosto, book 31, stanza 6.”

11690.BurtonSource page 613, f: “3. de anima, c. 3. de zelotyp. transit in rabiem & odium, & sibi & aliis violentas sæpe manus injiciunt.” “On the Soul, book 3, chapter 3, on jealousy: it passes into rage and hatred, and they often lay violent hands on themselves and others.”

11692.BurtonSource page 613, *: “Higinus cap. 189. Ovid. &c.” “Hyginus, chapter 189; Ovid; and so on.”

11693.BurtonSource page 613, g: “Phærus Ægypti rex de cæcitate oraculum consulens, visum ei rediturum accepit, si oculos abluisset lotio mulieris quæ aliorum virorum esset expers; uxoris urinam expertus nihil profecit, & aliarum frustra, eas omnes (ea excepta per quam curatus fuit) unum in locum coactas concremavit. Herod. Euterp.” “Phaerus, king of Egypt, consulting an oracle about his blindness, was told that his sight would return if he washed his eyes with the urine of a woman who had known no other men. Trying his wife’s urine achieved nothing, and others’ were tried in vain. He gathered all these women in one place—except the one through whom he was cured—and burned them. Herodotus, Euterpe.”

11694.BurtonSource page 613, h: “Offic. lib. 2.” “On Duties, book 2.”

11695.BurtonSource page 613, i: “Aurelius Victor.”

11697.BurtonSource page 613, k: “Herod. lib. 9. in Calliope. Masistæ uxorem excarnificat, mammillas præscindit, easque canibus abjicit, filiæ nares præscidit, labia, linguam, &c.” “Herodotus, book 9, Calliope. She flays Masista’s wife, cuts off her breasts and throws them to the dogs; she cuts off the daughter’s nose, lips, tongue, and so on.”

11699.BurtonSource page 614, l: “Lib. 1. Dum formæ curandæ intenta capillum in sole pectit, à marito per lusum leviter percussa furtim superveniente virga, Risu suborto, mi Landrice dixit, frontem vir fortis petet &c. Marito conspecto attonita, cum Landrico mox in ejus mortem conspirat, & statim inter venandum efficit.” “Book 1. While intent on her appearance, combing her hair in the sun, she was lightly struck in play with a rod by her husband, who had crept up behind her. Laughing, she said, “My Landric, a brave man will aim at the front,” and so on. Stunned at seeing her husband, she soon conspired with Landric to kill him and immediately accomplished it while he was hunting.”

11701.BurtonSource page 614, m: “Qui Goæ uxorem habens, Gotherinum principem quendam virum quod uxori suæ oculos adjecisset, ingenti vulnere deformavit in facie, & tibiam abscidit, unde mutuæ cædes.” “Having a wife at Goa, he disfigured the face of a certain nobleman, Gotherinus, with a great wound and cut off his leg because he had cast his eyes on his wife; hence killings on both sides.”

11703.BurtonSource page 614, n: “Eo quod infans natus involutus esset panniculo, credebat eum filium fratris Francisci, &c.” “Because the newborn child was wrapped in a little membrane, he thought it was the son of Brother Francis, and so on.”

11705.BurtonSource page 614, p: “Zelotypia reginæ regis mortem acceleravit paulo post, ut Martianus medicus mihi retulit. Illa autem atra bile inde exagitata in latebras se subducens præ ægritudine animi reliquum tempus consumpsit.” “The queen’s jealousy hastened the king’s death shortly afterwards, as the physician Martian reported to me. But she, tormented thereafter by black bile, withdrew into hiding and spent the rest of her time in anguish of mind.”

11707.BurtonSource page 614, q: “A zelotypia redactus ad insaniam & desperationem.” “Reduced by jealousy to madness and despair.”

11708.BurtonSource page 614, r: “Uxorem interemit, inde desperabundus ex alto se præcipitavit.” “He killed his wife, then in despair threw himself from a height.”