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Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy

SUBSECTION 6 Poverty and want as causes of melancholy

Poverty and want are such violent assailants, such unwelcome guests, so detested by everyone, that I must discuss them separately. Poverty, properly considered by a wise, discerning, truly regenerate and contented person, is “God’s gift”: a blessed condition, the way to heaven, as Chrysostom calls it, God’s gift, the mother of modesty, and much to be preferred to wealth, as will be shown in its proper place. Yet in the world’s judgement it is a most hateful condition, vile and base, a severe torture, “the greatest crime,” a most intolerable burden.

We all shun it, “worse than a dog or a snake”; we detest its very name. “Poverty is shunned and arraigned throughout the world”: it is regarded as the source of every other misery, care, sorrow, toil and grievance.

To escape it we will undertake any labour: “the merchant runs to the farthest Indians.” We will leave no harbour, coast or creek in the world unexplored, even at the risk of our lives. We will dive to the sea’s bottom and into the earth’s bowels, five, six, seven, eight or nine hundred fathoms deep, travel through all five zones and both extremes of heat and cold. We will become parasites and slaves, sell ourselves, swear and lie, damn our bodies and souls, forsake God, renounce religion, steal, rob and murder rather than endure this unbearable yoke of poverty, which so tyrannises over us, torments us and weighs us all down.

Look at the world, and you will see people valued mostly according to their means, and considered happy in proportion to their wealth: “Everywhere each person was worth as much as he possessed.” If a man is likely to prosper and is on the way to advancement, who matters but him?

In common opinion, if a man is wealthy, it does not matter how he acquired it, who his parents were, what abilities he has, what virtues he possesses or what villainies he inclines to. Let him be a procurer, a miser, a usurer, a villain, a pagan, a barbarian, a wretch, Lucian’s tyrant, whom it is less safe to look at than the sun: provided he is rich—and generous too—he will be honoured, admired, adored, revered and highly praised.

“The rich man is respected because of his possessions,” Ecclesiasticus 10:31. He will be befriended, for “riches gather many friends,” Proverbs 19:4; “he will count many friends.” All happiness ebbs and flows with his money. He will be considered a gracious lord, a Maecenas, a benefactor, a wise, judicious, handsome, brave and fortunate man of noble spirit; “Jupiter’s chick, the son of a white hen”: a promising man, a good man, a virtuous and honest man.

“When I called you Juno’s boy, your mother’s truly golden child,” as Cicero said of Octavian when he had been adopted by Caesar and was heir apparent to so great a monarchy: he was a golden child. Every honour, office, acclamation, grand title and inflated epithet is bestowed upon him; “everyone said every good thing.” Everyone’s eyes are on him: God bless his worship, his honour! Everyone speaks well of him, gives him gifts, seeks him out and petitions him for love, favour and protection, to serve him and belong to his household. Everyone rises to honour him, as they did for Themistocles at the Olympic Games. If he speaks, they say, as they did of Herod, “the voice of a god, not of a man”: the voice of God, not of man.

All the Graces, the charms of Venus, pleasures and refinements attend him. Golden Fortune accompanies him and lodges with him, placed in his chamber as she was in those Roman emperors’ chambers.

Let him sail on a favourable breeze, And shape his fortune as he pleases.

He may sail wherever he wishes and manage his affairs as he pleases. Merry days, splendour and magnificence, sweet music, delicate food, the good things and abundance of the land, fine clothes, rich dress, soft beds and down pillows are all at his command. The whole world works for him; thousands of craftsmen are his slaves, to toil for him, run, ride and hurry on his errands.

Clergymen—for “the Pythia takes Philip’s side”—lawyers, physicians, philosophers and scholars belong to him, wholly devoted to his service. Everyone wants to know him, be related to him or marry into his family, though he be a fool, a ninny, a monster or a simpleton. “Let him marry Danaë,” whenever and whomever he wishes; “the king and queen desire him as a son-in-law.” He is an excellent match for my son, daughter, niece and so on.

“Whatever he treads on will become a rose.” Let him go where he wishes: trumpets sound, bells ring and so on. Every happiness attends him, everyone is ready to entertain him, and wherever he goes he dines in Apollo. What preparations are made for his reception! Fish and fowl, spices and perfumes, everything sea and land can supply. What cooking, masques and merriment to cheer him!

“Give it to Trebius; set it before Trebius. Brother, would you like Some of those choice cuts?” What dish would your worship like?

Sweet fruit, And whatever bounty your cultivated farm will yield you, Let the rich man taste before the household god, for he is more revered.

Sweet apples, and whatever your fields afford, Before your gods are served, let them serve your lord.

3831.Oppugners are assailants or adversaries; regenerate has its Christian sense of spiritually reborn. His place means its appropriate place in the book; the marginal reference points forward to Part 2, section 3, member 3. Burton distinguishes a religious valuation of poverty from the world’s contempt for it. Calling here is a condition or station, not a chosen profession. Chrysostom’s exact passage remains for collation.

3834.The dog-and-snake phrase recalls Horace, Epistles 1.17.30. Lucan, Civil War 1.166, supplies the next Latin line. In Lucan, the sentence continues into line 167: people reject poverty and import from everywhere what ruins nations. Burton cuts off that continuation; in his context arcessitur is rendered in its judicial sense, arraigned, fitting the preceding greatest crime. This is an interpretive choice, not a claim that the detached line reproduces Lucan’s full meaning.

3836.The merchant phrase adapts Horace, Epistles 1.1.45. The five zones are the traditional division into one torrid, two temperate and two frigid zones. A fathom is a unit of depth; the extreme mine depths are Burton’s transmitted figures, not independently verified measurements. Parasites here are dependants who flatter for support; prostitute our selves means sell or degrade ourselves, not necessarily sexual activity.

3838.Means are financial resources; preferment is advancement. The marginal attribution to Euripides has no work or line and remains unresolved. The translation keeps the Latin sentence as printed. Burton’s following catalogue satirises the conversion of money into supposed virtue.

3841.A bawd procures sexual partners; a gripe is a grasping miser. Lucian’s comparison occurs in The Downward Journey or The Tyrant, section 26: Cyniscus condemns Megapenthes’s insolence and cruelty after he grows rich through confiscation. The sun comparison is accusatory, not admiration. Burton’s Latin intermediary remains unverified. The Horace quotations are Satires 2.3.94–96 and a compression of 2.3.97–98, satirical valuations recruited for Burton’s argument.

3842.Eccl. means Ecclesiasticus or Sirach, not Ecclesiastes. Burton’s 10.31 corresponds to 10:30 in the versions consulted. Proverbs 19:4 follows; multos numerabit amicos adapts Ovid, Tristia 1.9.5. Maecenas’s name denotes a patron of learning. The white hen’s son is Juvenal 13.141: the satirist mocks a claim to exemption from common misfortunes, contrasting it with ill-fated chicks. Burton uses the image for a rich favourite. Jupiter’s chick similarly suggests good fortune; its precise source remains open.

3848.The adjoining quotations are Horace, Epistles 1.6.37, and Juvenal 5.136. The golden-child phrase belongs to the pseudonymous Letter to Octavian, located in Le Clerc’s translation and note 5, which quotes Junonium puerum and partum aureum. His introduction records its rejection as genuine Cicero. Burton’s last-letter-to-Atticus citation remains, but should not be taken as authentication; his full Latin and its edition history still need collation. Plautus, Pseudolus 679–682, says good fortune makes a man seem wise; Burton rearranges this and applies it to wealth. Turgent means inflated; worship and honour are titles. Themistocles’s acclaim is Plutarch, Themistocles 17.4; Herod’s, Acts 12:22.

3850.Veneres is the plural of Venus, here charms or attractions. The golden Fortune appears in Historia Augusta, Antoninus Pius 12.5, traditionally ascribed to Julius Capitolinus: the dying emperor orders the image, customarily kept in the imperial bedchamber, transferred to Marcus. Burton adapts this sign of imperial succession into an image of the rich man’s good fortune.

3852.Petronius, Satyricon 137.9. This is the beginning of a poem about the power of money, whose later lines recur below. Burton starts after Quisquis habet nummos, whoever has money, and follows the verse with his own English restatement.

3853.Temper his estate means manage or regulate his condition and resources. Artificers are skilled workers or craftsmen; post means travel or carry messages with speed. The expanded modern wording preserves Burton’s catalogue of comforts and service.

3857.Divines are theologians or clergymen. Pythia Philippisat means that the Delphic priestess favours Philip; the phrase makes religious authority serve a patron. Aufe and goos-cap are terms for a fool. Danaë is the woman visited by Jupiter as a shower of gold; the phrase is from Petronius, Satyricon 137.9. The royal son-in-law line adapts Persius, Satire 2.38. The margin’s Multi illum line adapts Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.353, on Narcissus: Burton prints petiere where the consulted text has cupiere. The second marginal marriage quotation remains for exact collation.

3860.Plutarch, Lucullus 41.3–5, describes Apollo as the name of a dining room whose name told the servants the scale of dinner required. Masques were elaborate entertainments with costume, music and performance. The rose wish adapts Persius, Satire 2.38–39, where a nurse prays extravagantly for a child. Panis pane melior remains unassigned to a precise source.

3862.Juvenal, Satire 5.135–136. The host would speak so generously to Trebius if he suddenly became rich. Burton prints ab illis where the consulted text has ab ipsis. Ilibus means flanks or portions cut from the sides; choice cuts renders the offer of meat. Burton’s English question follows his Latin quotation and is separately retained.

3864.Horace, Satires 2.5.12–14. In this satire on legacy hunting, the rich man is fed before the household god, the Lar. Burton’s following English couplet is his separate verse rendering and remains distinct from the fresh translation.