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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy

Pieter van Foreest tells a story of two melancholy brothers who killed themselves and for so terrible a deed were accordingly sentenced to a dishonourable burial, as is customary in such cases, to frighten others, as it did the maidens of Miletus long ago. But after further investigation of their suffering and madness, the judgment was revoked and they were solemnly buried, as Saul was by David, 2 Samuel 2:4. And Seneca gives good advice: “Be angry with the killer, but pity the one killed.” Be justly offended with him as a murderer, but pity him now as a dead man.

In this way we can dispose of their property and bodies; but what will become of their souls, God alone can tell. His mercy may come “between bridge and stream, between sword and throat”—between the bridge and the brook, the knife and the throat. “What has happened to anyone can happen to anyone”: who knows how he may be tempted? It is his case; it may be yours. “The fate that is his today may be yours tomorrow.” We ought not to be as rash and severe in our judgments as some are. Charity will judge and hope for the best. God be merciful to us all.

4926.Forestus is Pieter van Foreest. “Fact” means deed; “infamously” dishonourably; “solemnly” with proper ceremony. In 2 Samuel 2:4–5, David learns that the men of Jabesh-gilead buried Saul and blesses them; he did not himself perform the burial. Burton’s wording is retained. The burial rule and appeal to pity come from Seneca the Elder, Controversies 8.4, a rhetorical debate about denying burial to a man who killed himself. Its opposing speeches are not a simple declaration of Roman law. Foreest’s brothers, the Milesian story and the other Senecan marginal case remain uncollated.

4928.“Goods” means property. The bridge and blade images leave open the possibility of last-moment divine mercy. The two Latin maxims express shared vulnerability; the precise Buchanan elegy and the source of Quod cuiquam contigit, cuivis potest remain unverified. The final FINIS closes the First Partition, not the book. The next leaf begins the synopsis of the Second Partition, on treatment.