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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse The…

But these are Epicurean doctrines, tending towards loose living, sensual indulgence and atheism, upheld only by certain pagans, dissolute Arabs and irreligious Christians. They are rejected by Rabbi Moses, treatise 4, Gulielmus Placentinus, book 1, chapter 8, and Valescus de Taranta, and examined with the greatest care by Joannes Sylvaticus, a recent writer and physician of Milan, Medical Controversies, chapter 14, where you will find this doctrine extensively refuted.

However, you say, if it is true that wine and strong drink have such power to drive out fear and sorrow and enliven the mind, then from now on let us drink and be merry.

Brisk Lyde, bring out the stored Caecuban wine; Boy, bring larger cups here, And wine from Chios or Lesbos.

Come, lively Lyda, fill us a cup of sack, And you, wine-server, we need larger pots, And wines from Chios with their excellent flavour.

I say with the writer in Aulus Gellius: let us sustain the vigour of our souls with a moderate cup of wine, “with cups made for joy,” and drink to refresh our minds. If there is any cold sorrow in the mind, or paralysing shyness, let us wash it all away. “Now drive away your cares with wine”: so says Horace; so says Anacreon,

For it is much better that I should lie here drunk Than dead.

Let us drown care with a cup of wine. And so say I too, though I drink none myself, for all this may be done provided wine is used moderately, soberly and at the right time; provided people are not “drunk with wine, in which there is excess,” as our Apostle warns.

For, as Chrysostom aptly comments on that passage, “wine was given for cheerfulness, not for drunkenness”: wine is for merriment, not madness. Would you know where, when and how to understand this? “Do you wish to learn where wine is good? Hear what Scripture says.” Listen to the Scriptures: give wine to those in sorrow; or, as Paul told Timothy, drink wine for your stomach’s sake—for digestion, health or some similarly proper reason.

Otherwise, as Pliny tells us, without exceptional moderation nothing is so harmful: it is mere vinegar, “a coaxing demon,” poison itself.

But hear a more terrible judgment, Habakkuk 2:15–16: “Woe to the man who makes his neighbour drunk; shameful vomiting shall cover his glory.”

“Let drinking companions not rejoice,” therefore says Mattioli, “because I have praised wine so highly. If taken immoderately, instead of bringing gladness it ruins both body and soul, producing a dizzy head and a sorrowful heart.”

And the ancient poet put it well: “The vine causes mirth and grief.” Nothing is so good for some people and so bad for others, especially, as one author observes, those “who suffer from a hot cause”—those who are hot or inflamed. The same applies to spices: as I have shown, they can by themselves cause head melancholy. Such people must not use wine as an everyday drink or as part of their diet.

But to conclude with Laurentius, chapter 8, On Melancholy: wine is bad for mad people and for those troubled by heat in their internal organs or brains; but for melancholy that is cold, as most melancholy is, wine used soberly may be very good.

I may say the same of a decoction of China roots, sassafras, sarsaparilla and guaiacum. China root, says Manardus, gives the face a healthy colour, takes away melancholy and all disorders arising from cold; similarly, sarsaparilla powerfully stimulates sweating, and guaiacum dries. Claudinus, consultations 89 and 46, Montanus, and Capivaccius, consultation 188 in Scoltzius’ collection, make frequent and effective use of guaiacum and China root, provided the liver is not inflamed. They are good for people of a cold constitution, as most melancholic people are, but are by no means to be considered for those of a hot constitution.

The Turks have a drink called coffee—for they drink no wine—named after a berry as black as soot and just as bitter, like the black drink once used among the Spartans, and perhaps the same. They keep sipping it, and drink it as hot as they can bear. They spend much time in these coffee houses, which are somewhat like our alehouses or taverns, sitting there chatting and drinking to pass the time and enjoy themselves together, because experience shows them that this kind of drink, used in this way, helps digestion and brings cheerfulness. Some of them take opium for this purpose.

I have spoken of borage, balm, saffron and gold. Montaltus, chapter 23, recommends preserved scorzonera roots. Garcius ab Horto, History of Plants, book 2, chapter 25, mentions a herb called datura which, if eaten, takes away all sense of pain for the next twenty-four hours and inclines people to laughter and merriment; and another called bhang, similar in effect to opium, which puts them for a time into a kind of trance and makes them laugh gently. One of the Roman emperors had a seed that he regularly ate to cheer himself up.

Christophorus Ayrerus prefers bezoar stone and the confection of alkermes to other cordials, and amber in some cases. Alkermes strengthens the internal organs, and bezoar stone has a special power against all melancholic disorders: it refreshes the heart and strengthens the whole body. Amber stimulates urination, helps the body, dispels wind and so on.

7898.“Epicureall” is a hostile moral label here; it does not establish an accurate account of Epicurus’ philosophy. “Luxury” means sensual excess; “exploded” means repudiated; “ventilated” means thoroughly examined. The religious and ethnic judgments belong to Burton’s polemic and are retained as such. His medical counter-authorities remain for bibliographic collation.

7899.“You say” introduces an imagined reader’s response, temporarily turning the preceding praise into an invitation to perpetual merriment. This change of voice matters: Burton will answer it with restrictions and his own declaration that he abstains from wine.

7901.The first line combines words from Horace, Odes 3.28.2–3; the next two adapt Epodes 9.33–34. Caecuban is an Italian wine, while Chios and Lesbos name Greek island wines. Burton’s arrangement and word order are preserved. See Horace 3 and the Epodes below.

7902.“Fill’s” means fill us; a “drawer” draws and serves wine; “sack” names a historical class of wines. Scio is Chios. Burton’s English version introduces sack and omits the Latin alternative of Lesbian wine. The two verse units remain separate, with neither adjusted to match the other.

7906.Gellius, Attic Nights 15.2.8, says moderate drinking should preserve temperance and self-control; Burton’s Latin instead makes vigour of mind the object of preservation. The rest closely adapts the passage, in a discussion of Plato and controlled drinking. Horace’s fragments are Odes 1.27.1 and 1.7.30, the latter spoken by Teucer before the voyage. Each Latin fragment is translated in the modern prose.

7908.Burton attributes these lines to Anacreon and the margin numbers them 26. They occur as Anacreontea 48.9–10 in the compared Greek collection. Their meaning is that lying drunk is better than lying dead, as Burton’s Latin margin also says. The next English sentence about driving away care is retained separately. The original’s Greek ligature for gar is expanded mechanically. See the Anacreontea Greek text below.

7910.Burton’s assertion that he drinks no wine belongs in the modern text as part of his personal voice. His three qualifications precede the warning from Ephesians 5:18. The paragraph permits bounded use while rejecting intoxication; it does not endorse the imagined reader’s unrestricted conclusion.

7911.Chrysostom, Homily 19 on Ephesians, connects Ephesians 5:18 with Proverbs 31:6 and Paul’s counsel to Timothy, 1 Timothy 5:23. The Latin uses “drunkenness,” while Burton’s English develops the opposition as mirth and madness. Both are kept. “Honest occasion” means a proper or legitimate reason. See Chrysostom below.

7913.Pliny, Natural History 14.58, contrasts usefulness to bodily strength with the danger of unmoderated enjoyment. Burton’s marginal summary combines these into harm to strength; it is an adaptation, not an exact quotation. His book 14, chapter 5 and spelling pernitiosus remain. The coaxing demon image belongs to Burton’s surrounding warning.

7914.Burton draws together Habakkuk 2:15–16. The humiliating reversal of glory into vomiting gives the warning both a moral and bodily force. “Doom” means judgment, and the second clause refers back to the person who makes a neighbour drunk.

7915.“Good fellows” here means drinking companions. The first-person defence belongs to Mattioli, whose praise Burton has quoted, not to a new assertion about Burton’s own drinking. The warning crosses the source page break and is kept complete in one aligned unit.

7920.The Theocritus margin is printed on the preceding page; its idyll number 13 has not been independently reconciled with the saying. The body’s Vine is retained as “the vine.” The margin narrows the contraindication to fierce melancholy, while the body emphasizes heat. The references to spices and ordinary diet continue that constitutional distinction.

7921.Burton ends the wine discussion by distinguishing cold melancholy from conditions thought hot or inflamed. “Mad” and “melancholy” retain his broad historical categories. This is the natural boundary chosen for the block; Subsection 5 continues next with China roots, sassafras, sarsaparilla and guaiacum.

7923.China root is a medicinal root imported under that name; guaiacum is medicinal wood. A decoction is made by boiling. Cold, heat and dryness here describe humoral qualities, while incensed means heated or inflamed. The references to Claudinus, Montanus and Capivaccius are kept in their printed order; their precise allocation awaits bibliographical collation.

7924.Coffa is coffee. Burton presents Ottoman practice in broad terms. His proposed connection with Sparta’s black drink is conjecture: Plutarch, Lycurgus 12.6–7, describes black broth served as food at the communal mess. The suggestion that it was coffee is preserved as Burton’s suggestion.

7926.Balm is lemon balm; condite means preserved, usually with sugar. Bange is bhang, a cannabis preparation; extasis means an altered state. Orta’s Colloquies 8 and 20, in Markham’s 1913 translation, distinguish bhang from opium and describe datura-induced laughter with impaired judgment, exploited by thieves. Burton’s Latin intermediary remains uncollated. Grief is rendered as pain from dolor. The unnamed emperor and seed remain unidentified.

7931.Cordials were medicines believed to strengthen the heart and vital powers. Bezoars are concretions formed in animals’ digestive tracts and historically used against poison and disease; compare the Science Museum’s specimen A642502. Alkermes is a compound cordial associated with kermes colouring. The white amber named in the margin is distinct from the ambergris mentioned below.