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

Democritus Junior to the Reader

It is somewhat sharp, I admit. Pungent sauces stimulate the appetite, as someone said: sharp sauces increase appetite. Even food gives no pleasure without vinegar’s bite. Object and quibble as you please: I fend it all off with Democritus’s shield; his medicine will heal the wound. Strike wherever and whenever you like: Democritus said it, and Democritus will answer for it.

It was written by an idle fellow in idle hours, around the time of our Saturnalian or Dionysian feasts, when, as someone said, freedom is in no danger: servants in ancient Rome were free to say and do whatever they pleased.

While our countrymen sacrificed to their goddess Vacuna and sat drinking by their Vacunalian fires, I wrote and published this: Nobody was speaking; it is nothing by Nobody. The time, place, people, and every circumstance speak in my defence. Why, then, may I not be idle with the rest and speak my mind freely? If you deny me this liberty, I shall take it on these grounds. I say again: I shall take it.

If anyone thinks that I have spoken Too harshly against him, let him think so. If anyone objects, let him turn his belt buckle around; I do not care. I owe you nothing, reader. I look for no favour from you. I depend on no one. I am not afraid.

No, I take it back; I will not. I do care, I am afraid. I confess my fault and acknowledge a great offence: better to calm the troubled waves. I have gone too far. I have spoken foolishly, rashly, thoughtlessly, absurdly. I have dissected my own folly.

And now, suddenly, I seem to have woken from a dream. I have had a raving fit, a fit of wild fancy, wandered up and down, in and out, jeered at most kinds of people, abused some, offended others, and done myself harm;

and now, recovered and aware of my error, I cry with Orlando, “Untie me!” Good people, pardon what is past, and I will make amends in what follows. I promise you a more sober discussion in the treatise to come.

If weakness, folly, passion, discontent, or ignorance has made me say anything wrong, let it be forgotten and forgiven. I acknowledge the truth of Tacitus’s observation: biting jokes, when they come too close to the truth, leave an acrid memory behind. A bitter jest leaves a sting; and, as an honourable man observes, people fear a satirist’s wit, while he fears their memories.

I have good reason to fear the worst. Though I hope I have wronged no one, I shall ask forgiveness in Medea’s words: This I ask in my final words: If my troubled grief has poured out anything, Do not let those words remain in your mind. Let a kinder memory of me take their place; Let these words, given to anger, be erased.

And in my final words I ask That what I said in passion or in anger Be forgotten, and that you think better of me As you judge what follows. I earnestly ask every individual reader, as Scaliger asked Cardan, not to take offence.

I shall conclude with his words: if you knew me, you would not only forgive these jests of mine; you would even think it unworthy that so humane a spirit, so gentle a nature, should have to plead against the slightest suspicion. If you knew my modesty and plain dealing, you would readily pardon and forgive whatever is wrong here, or whatever you have misunderstood.

If, as I go on dissecting this surly humour, my hand slips—if, like an unskilled apprentice, I make too deep an incision, cut through skin and all unawares, cause pain, or cut crookedly—forgive a clumsy hand and an unskilled knife. It is extremely difficult to keep an even tone, a constant course, without sometimes lashing out;

It is difficult not to write satire. There are so many things to distract us, so many inner disturbances to trouble us, and even the best may sometimes err: good Homer nods occasionally. In so much writing, some lapses are inevitable: In a long work, sleep may be allowed to creep in.

But why is all this necessary? I hope no such cause for offence will arise. If it does, let no one recognize anything: we are making it all up. I shall deny everything—my last refuge—take everything back, disown everything I have said if anyone objects, and defend myself as easily as he can accuse me;

but I count on your goodwill and gracious reception, gentle reader. With firm hope and confidence in that, I shall begin.

1297.The Saturnalia and festivals of Dionysus stand for licensed festivity and temporary freedom of speech. Burton applies their names to “our” celebrations. The passage is a literary excuse for frankness, not a securely dated account of when these pages were composed.

1299.Vacuna is represented in the margin as a rural goddess of leisure. The Greek οὖτις ἔλεγεν means “Nobody was speaking”; neminis nihil means “nothing of Nobody.” These phrases resume the earlier joke about Nemo, or Nobody, and let the author play at disclaiming authorship. Greek accents are regularized in the transcription.

1301.Turning the buckle of one’s girdle is a dismissive expression: the offended person can do as he pleases. The physical image is retained. Burton’s truncated Terence quotation is followed by a declaration of independence that the very next sentence overturns.

1302.Virgil, Aeneid 1.135: Neptune interrupts his threat against the winds to calm the sea first. Burton borrows the self-interruption for his own sudden retreat. “Anatomized mine own folly” turns his whole examination back upon its author.

1307.“Their memories” means the offended people’s lasting recollection of an injury, with the possibility of revenge. The long Latin quotation and Burton’s shorter English explanation are both retained. His apparent confession remains entangled with the wish to avoid retaliation.

1308.Compare Seneca, Medea 553–557. Burton’s Latin differs in several words from the consulted text. In the tragedy Medea’s conciliatory speech conceals her intentions, which makes this a pointedly unstable model for an apology. The modern version translates Burton’s wording, then preserves his English verse restatement.

1310.Scaliger and Cardan are Julius Caesar Scaliger and Girolamo Cardano. The exact source of the quoted appeal remains unlocated. “Simplicity” means plain or unassuming conduct here; it does not mean lack of intelligence.

1312.The dissection metaphor becomes an apology for verbal injury. “Humour” is both the melancholy under examination and, in “surly,” a difficult temperament. Burton presents the book’s possible faults as a novice anatomist’s slips of the knife.

1313.“It is difficult not to write satire” is Juvenal, Satire 1.30. The last two quotations adapt Horace, Art of Poetry 359–360. Burton writes aliquando for quandoque and opere in longo for operi longo; his forms are preserved on the left. The first names Homer as an example of occasional failure, the second excuses lapses in a long work.