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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents

For this reason the republic of Ragusa, the Swiss, and the United Provinces, in all their aristocracies or democratic monarchies, if I may call them that, exclude these degrees of hereditary honour. They allow only the learned, wise, discerning, and well-educated to hold office, like the Athenian Areopagites. The Chinese follow the same customs: no one among them is noble by birth. They choose magistrates from their philosophers and doctors; their civic nobles are drawn from those who are “morally noble,” noble in virtue. “Nobility, as formerly, comes from office, not from nature,” as in ancient Israel. Their office was to defend and govern their country in war and peace, not merely to hawk, hunt, eat, drink, and gamble, as too many do.

Their Loysii, mandarins, scholars, licentiates, and those who have risen through their own merit are their only noblemen, the people thought fit to govern a state. Why, then, should anyone who has worth in other respects be ashamed of his birth? Why should a man who leaves noble descendants not be respected as much as one who had noble ancestors? Indeed, why not more? For “more people worship the rising sun”: we mostly adore the sun as it rises. How much better to say, “In virtue I outshone my ancestors,” and boast of one’s virtues rather than one’s birth!

Cathesbeius, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, was a slave by condition, but second to no king in worth, valour, and courage; for that reason, as Giovio writes, he was elected emperor of the Mamluks. That poor Spaniard Pizarro was made Marquis of Anatillo by Charles V for his valour. The Turkish pashas are all such men.

Pertinax, Philip the Arab, Maximinus, Probus, Aurelius, and others rose from common soldiers to emperors. Cato, Cincinnatus, and others became consuls; Pius II, Sixtus V, John II, Nicholas V, and others, popes. Socrates, Virgil, Horace—“born of a freedman father.” The kings of Denmark, some say, trace their pedigree to one Ulfo, the son of a bear. “A great man often comes from a humble cottage”: many a worthy man comes out of a poor cottage.

Hercules, Romulus, Alexander—by Olympias’s confession—Themistocles, Jugurtha, King Arthur, William the Conqueror, Homer, Demosthenes, Peter Lombard, Peter Comestor, Bartolus, Pope Adrian IV, and others were born outside marriage. In almost every kingdom, the oldest families began with princes’ illegitimate children. Our annals’ worthiest commanders, finest minds, great scholars, and boldest spirits have been of low birth. In his Subtleties, Cardano gives a reason why they are usually more capable than others in body and mind, and consequently more fortunate.

Castruccio Castracani, a poor child found in a field and exposed to misery, became prince of Lucca and Siena in Italy, a thoroughly accomplished soldier and a worthy commander. Machiavelli compares him to Scipio or Alexander. It is a wonderful thing, he says, for anyone who considers it, that all those, or most of them, who have performed the greatest exploits on earth and surpassed the other great men of their time have invariably been born in some lowly, obscure place, or to poor, obscure, lowly parents.

Scaliger considers it a most memorable observation: “Nor should we pass over the fact that most of the greatest men had unknown fathers and unchaste mothers.” I could list a vast catalogue of them: every kingdom, every province will supply countless examples. Why, then, should anyone have his low birth held against him?

Who thinks worse of Cicero for being a man from Arpinum, an upstart? Or of Agathocles, that Sicilian king, for being a potter’s son? Iphicrates and Marius were of humble birth. What wise man thinks better of anyone because of his noble ancestry? As the speaker in Machiavelli said, “All born of the same father”: sons of Adam, all conceived and born in sin, and so on. By nature we are all one, all alike, if you see us naked. Let us wear their clothes and them ours, and what is the difference?

To speak the truth, as Bale did of P. Schalichius: I value your merit, learning, and integrity more than your nobility. I honour you more for being a writer and a doctor of divinity than for being Earl of the Huns, Baron of Skradine, or having a claim to this or that province, and so on.

You are more fortunate and greater for your virtues, so Giovio writes to Cosimo de’ Medici, then Duke of Florence, than for your lovely wife and fortunate children, your friends, your wealth, or your great duchy of Tuscany. That is how I judge you; and who, indeed, does not? Abdolominus was a gardener, yet Alexander made him king of Syria for his virtues.

How much better to be born of humble parents and excel in merit: to be morally noble, which theologians, philosophers, and political writers prefer to nobility by birth; to be learned, honest, judicious, and capable, fit for any employment in one’s country and commonwealth, in war and peace; than to be “degenerate Neoptolemuses,” as so many splendid nobles are, accounted wise only because they are rich, but otherwise fools, illiterate, and unfit for any service?

Ulrich, Earl of Cilia, reproached John Hunyadi with his low birth, but Hunyadi replied, “In you the earldom of Cilia dies shamefully; in me that of Bistritz rises gloriously”: your earldom is consumed by dissipation; mine begins with honour and renown.

You have had so many noble ancestors: what is that to you? “I can scarcely call those things our own,” when you yourself are a fool. “What good is it, Ponticus, to be reckoned by a long pedigree?” And so on.

I conclude: have you a sound body and a good soul, a good upbringing? Are you virtuous, honest, learned, capable, religious, and of good character? Then you are a true nobleman, perfectly noble, though born of Thersites, “provided that you yourself resemble the descendant of Aeacus”: not born noble, but made so, noble in the fullest sense. For neither sword, fire, water, sickness, outward violence, nor the devil himself can take your good qualities from you.

6556.Areopagites are members of the Athenian council of the Areopagus. “Politick” here means civic or belonging to government. Burton’s comparison groups different constitutions under his own phrase “democratic monarchies”; it should not be read as a precise account of their institutions. The Ricci reference concerns the recruitment of learned officials.

6557.Literati and licentiati denote scholars and holders of academic qualifications; Loysii is retained pending identification of Burton’s form. The passage argues that founding a worthy family deserves at least as much honour as inheriting one. His fragment about the rising sun is expanded only to express its implied act of worship.

6559.Cathesbeius and Anatillo are the names printed in 1651 and are retained pending a precise check of the Giovio passage and Pizarro’s title. “Bassa” is pasha, an Ottoman title. Burton uses these examples to argue for advancement from humble or enslaved origins, not to provide complete biographies.

6562.The catalogue compresses distinct and sometimes questionable origin stories; Aurelius and John II remain as printed. “Born of a freedman father” echoes Horace, Satires 1.6. The Danish bear ancestry is explicitly reported as hearsay. Seneca, Letter 66.3, gives the cottage comparison in different wording.

6564.“Base” moves between low rank and birth outside marriage. The catalogue includes legendary as well as historical figures; Burton’s parentage claims require individual checking. Cardano’s marginal explanation belongs to early modern theories of generation and does not establish the abilities of children born outside marriage.

6566.Compare the opening of Machiavelli’s Life of Castruccio Castracani, which supplies the account of obscure origins and the foundling narrative. Burton’s Luke and Senes are rendered Lucca and Siena. His account is retained as a literary exemplum; its claims about parentage and dominion are not independently confirmed here.

6568.The transition from the Latin statement to “I could recite” is not clearly delimited in the print. The preceding Machiavelli marginal note itself ends with an equivalent claim about an endless catalogue. Scaliger’s Exercises 265 remains to be collated before attributing each clause more precisely.

6570.Tully is Marcus Tullius Cicero; Arpinas means a man of Arpinum. Burton resumes his catalogue of humble origins. The equality-and-clothing argument occurs in the unnamed insurgent’s speech in Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories 3.13; it is a character’s speech, not an unqualified statement of the historian’s own position.

6572.John Bale’s praise contrasts Paul Schalichius’s learning with his claimed titles. Both the titles and the abbreviated bibliographical reference are retained pending collation. “Honesty” means integrity; “century” in the margin denotes a group of a hundred writers, not a hundred years.

6575.Jovius is Paolo Giovio; Cosmus Medices is Cosimo de’ Medici. Burton’s formulation of the Tuscan title remains as printed. Curtius 4.1.15–26 tells of Abdalonymus’s appointment at Sidon and also gives him royal ancestry, a qualification omitted here. Burton prints Abdolominus and calls his kingdom Syria.

6577.Neoptolemus is a heroic name used here as an ironic type of the unworthy heir. “Brave” means splendid or showy, not necessarily courageous; “politicians” means writers on government. Moral nobility denotes worth acquired through character and conduct.

6579.The reply contrasts inherited rank brought to a disgraceful end with a new earldom founded honourably. Cilia and Bistricensis are rendered Cilia and Bistritz; the exact source and historical circumstances of the Hunyadi anecdote remain to be collated. Burton’s Latin and separate English gloss are both retained.

6581.“Disard” means fool. Vix ea nostra voco comes from Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.140–141, where ancestry and deeds not done by oneself scarcely count as one’s own. The question adapts Juvenal 8.1–2: Burton prints quod and stemmate where the consulted text has quid and sanguine.

6583.The Thersites comparison adapts Juvenal 8.269–271: better a contemptible father and an Achilles-like son than the reverse. The descendant of Aeacus is Achilles. The Greek means pre-eminently or in the fullest sense. “Conditions” means character; Burton’s claim that inner worth cannot be lost is consolatory argument.