Member 8 Against melancholy itself

“Everyone,” says Seneca, “thinks his own burden the heaviest,” and a melancholy man complains more than anyone else. Weariness of life, aversion to all company and light, fear, sorrow, suspicion, anguish of mind, shyness and those other dreadful symptoms of body and mind must necessarily aggravate this misery. Yet, compared with other ailments, they are not as grievous as people suppose.

First, this illness exists either as an established condition or as a passing disposition; it is either curable or incurable. If recent and a passing disposition, it is commonly pleasant and can be relieved. If longstanding or established, sufferers nevertheless have “lucid intervals,” sometimes well and sometimes ill. Or, if it is more continuous, it resembles the people of Veii in their struggle with Rome: “an enemy more persistent than formidable”—more enduring than dangerous. Among its many disadvantages, some comforts accompany it.

First, it is not contagious. Erasmus comforted himself in the same way when he was grievously ill with the stone: though it caused him great distress and intolerable pain, it was not at all offensive to other people, nor repulsive, ghastly, disgusting or terrifying to onlookers, as plague, apoplexy, leprosy, wounds, sores, skin eruptions, pox and pestilential fevers are. These either permit no company or frighten or disgust those present.

In this illness, whatever suffering there is belongs entirely to the sufferers themselves; and its symptoms are not so dreadful when compared with the opposite extremes. Most are shy, suspicious and solitary; they are therefore not the ambitious, shameless intruders that some people are—not swindlers, confidence tricksters, prowlers, dinner-hunters, babblers, procurers, flatterers, bawds, drunkards or whoremongers. Necessity and lack of means compel them to be honest, as Micio told Demea in the comedy:

If neither you nor I have done these things, Poverty does not allow us to do them.

If we are honest, poverty made us so; if we melancholy men are not as bad as the worst of them, our lady Melancholy has kept us that way:

The will was not lacking, but the means were.

Besides, through this they are spared many other weaknesses. Solitude makes them more inclined to contemplation; suspicion makes them wary, a necessary disposition in these times. “For, by Pollux, even the man who takes the greatest care is often caught in spite of his caution”: the most watchful man is often outwitted and trapped.

Fear and sorrow keep them moderate and sober, and spare them many dissolute acts into which high spirits and boldness drive people. They are therefore no cutthroats, swaggering ruffians, thieves or assassins. As they are quickly cast down, so gentle words and kindly persuasion quickly raise them again. Weariness of life keeps them from being so infatuated with the world’s fleeting, empty pleasures. If they are deluded on one subject, they are wise and sensible on most others.

If it is longstanding, they are “without understanding,” mostly deluded or entirely mad, unaware of any wrongs done to them, ridiculous to others but, to themselves, perfectly happy and free from care. Many greatly extol and praise such a state of delusion, as they do simplicity and folly. As the poet said, “O gods above, may this madness be mine for ever.”

Some think fools and simpletons live the merriest lives, as Ajax says in Sophocles: “To know nothing is the pleasantest life”—ignorance makes life most pleasant. “Ignorance is an effortless remedy for troubles”: ignorance is a downright remedy for evils.

Some think these intricate arts and laborious sciences—our Galens, Ciceros, Aristotles and Justinians—merely trouble the world. We might live better, they say, with the unlettered simplicity and complete ignorance they attribute to the people of Virginia. Those wholly without understanding fare best: they are not worn away by cares or tormented with fears and anxiety, as other, wiser people are.

For, as someone said, if folly were painful, you would hear people howl, roar and cry out in every house as you passed along the street. Instead, they are entirely carefree, cheerful and merry; and in some countries, as among the Turks, they are honoured as saints and generously supported from the common fund.

They are no dissemblers, liars or hypocrites, for fools and mad people generally tell the truth. In a word, as they suffer distress, so they receive pity—which some think better than being envied: better to be sad than merry, better to be foolish and at peace “than to be wise and fret”—wise and perpetually vexed; better to be miserable than happy. Of the two extremes, this is the better.