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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

Reading language

By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men And…

To beget children is most delightful; But, by Hercules, to be free is much more delightful.

Are you young? Then do not marry yet; if old, do not marry at all.

Do you wish to marry while young? The time has not yet come. As age advances, the time has already passed.

And so, like that philosopher, always answer your friends who press you to marry, “It is still untimely”: it is not yet the right time, and never will be.

Consider, too, how free, how happy, how secure, how heavenly by comparison is a single man’s condition. As he said in the comedy, “And what those people think a piece of good fortune: I have never had a wife.” And what all my neighbours admire and applaud me for, what they account so great a blessing: I have never had a wife.

Consider how contentedly, peacefully, neatly, abundantly, pleasantly and merrily he lives! He has no one to care for but himself, no one to please, no dependants, no one to control him. He is bound to no residence, has no charge to attend to, may come and go when and where he wishes, live wherever he chooses, be his own master and do whatever he pleases.

Consider the excellence of virgins: “The virgin has merited heaven.” Marriage fills the earth, but virginity Paradise. Elijah, Elisha and John the Baptist were bachelors. Virginity is a precious jewel, a beautiful garland, a flower that never fades. For why was Daphne changed into a green laurel tree, except to show that virginity is immortal?

As a flower grows secluded in enclosed gardens, Unknown to cattle, bruised by no plough, Caressed by breezes, strengthened by the sun, nourished by rain, etc., So a maiden, while she remains untouched, while dear to her own; but When she has lost her chaste flower, etc.

Virginity is a beautiful picture, as Bonaventure calls it, a blessed thing in itself, and, if you will believe a Papist, meritorious.

And although such people suffer some inconveniences—boredom, loneliness, etc.—and lack those comforts, “a woman to sit beside the sick man, tend him in his illness, prepare a soothing application, send for the doctor, etc.,” embraces, dalliance, kisses, caresses, etc., those passionate stirrings and sensual pleasures a newly married wife generally enjoys, yet these are trifles by comparison, easily endured when set against the frequent burdens of marriage.

Loneliness may be avoided in other ways: with merriment, music, good company, business and occupation. In a word, “He will rejoice less and grieve less.” In exchange for their good nights, he will have good days.

And it seems to me that, sooner or later, among so many rich bachelors a benefactor ought to be found to build a monastic college where unmarried women who are old, impoverished, disfigured or unhappy could live together—women who have lost their first loves or met with other misfortunes, or who, for whatever reason, wish to lead a single life.

The rest, I say, are trifles by comparison, amply compensated by the countless satisfactions and incomparable privileges of virginity. Think about these things; compare the two ways of life; and consider, last of all, these advantageous privileges a bachelor enjoys: how highly he is esteemed, how warmly all his friends welcome him, “with what feigned attentions,” as Tertullian observes—what counterfeit courtesies they will use to adore him, follow him and present him with gifts, “gifts with hooks in them.”

It is incredible, says Ammianus, with what humble service he will be worshipped, how loved and respected. If he has no children—and has money—he will be frequently invited out, waited on by princes, and have advocates to plead his case for nothing, as Plutarch adds. Do you wish, then, to be revered and highly esteemed?

But if you wish to become a master and your master’s king, Let no little Aeneas have played in your hall, Nor a daughter sweeter than she; A barren wife makes a pleasant and cherished friend of you.

Live as a single man, do not marry, and you will soon see how those legacy hunters—for that was their name in antiquity—will seek you out, bribe and flatter you for your favour, to become your heir or executor. Aruntius and Aterius, those famous parasites of this kind recorded by Tacitus and Seneca, will not surpass them.

Periplectomines, that fine old man in the play, “a delight of an old fellow,” understood this well in Plautus. When Pleusides urged him to marry so that he might have children of his own, he readily answered as follows:

When I have many relatives, what need have I of children? Now I live well and happily, just as I please. At my death I will direct that they share my property among my relatives. They eat at my house, care for me, visit to see how I am and what I want, Send me gifts, and invite me to lunch and dinner.

While I have kin, what need have I of brats? Now I live well, as I please, in splendid style. And when I die, I will give my goods away To those who invite me every day, Who visit me and send me pretty gifts, And vie to show me the most kindness.

You will receive the same respect if you live as he did, a single man. But once you marry, “consider that you will be a slave throughout your life.” Think what slavery it is, what a heavy burden you undertake, what a hard task you are bound to; for, as Jerome puts it, “He who has a wife is a debtor, bound as his wife’s slave.”

And how unceasing it is, what squalor attends it, what drudgery, what expense! For a wife and children are a perpetual bill of expenses, besides a myriad cares, miseries and troubles. As the comic poet Plautus said, merrily and truly, anyone who lacks trouble must become master of a ship or marry a wife. And as another supports him, wife and children have ruined me. So many, such endless burdens accompany this way of life.

Furthermore, “the wife has swollen up,” etc.; or, as he said in the comedy:

I married a wife: what misery I experienced there! Children were born: another worry.

10921.Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 682–683, adapted: liberos, “children,” plays against liberum, “free.” The Latin in the play is an exchange between Palaestrio and Periplectomenus.

10923.The paradox that it is first too early and then too late to marry is cited through Stobaeus and Alexander ab Alexandro. Burton leaves “that Philosopher” unnamed here; no identification is supplied without collation.

10925.Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, in Periplectomenus’s praise of his independence; Burton supplies his own expanded English gloss, preserved separately. The nearby marginal appeal to Revelation 14 concerns the undefiled followers of the Lamb, not the comic speaker.

10926.“Cure” is a charge or responsibility, with a possible echo of pastoral care and clerical residence. The passage describes the supposed freedom of the bachelor, not an assertion that all unmarried people have no obligations.

10929.Burton moves between unmarried life and consecrated virginity. Elias and Eliseus are Elijah and Elisha. Daphne’s laurel is interpreted allegorically here: the explanation is Burton’s moral reading of the transformation.

10931.Catullus 62.39–47, shortened and altered. Burton omits intervening lines, prints Quam where the consulted text has quem, and leaves the last line incomplete. “Flower” in the translation supplies the understood noun from the comparison and from Catullus’s full line; the omissions remain visible.

10933.“Papist” is Burton’s polemical term for a Roman Catholic. “Meritorious” concerns religious merit, not simply something praiseworthy. The Dieta salutis citation is reproduced as Burton attributes it; authorship and edition remain to be collated.

10934.“Colling” means embracing, especially about the neck; “furious motives” are intense impulses or stirrings of passion. The source explicitly says “wife,” retained here. The Latin describes a woman’s attendance during illness; its precise source is not identified in the margin.

10936.Martial 12.34.11 reads Gaudebis, “you will rejoice,” where Burton has Gaudebit, “he will rejoice.” The poem concerns friendship; Burton applies its concluding caution to unmarried life. “Their good nights” contrasts married sexual pleasures with the bachelor’s tranquil days.

10937.“Decayed” can mean reduced in means or circumstances; “miscarried” here means met with misfortune or failed in one’s hopes, not specifically suffered pregnancy loss. Burton proposes a communal residence for women who are unwilling or unable to marry.

10938.The praise turns satirical: counterfeit attentions and gifts with hooks imply that the rich bachelor is courted for his estate. Burton cites Tertullian without a location; the exact passage remains unverified.

10941.The references to Ammianus, book 24, and Plutarch’s On Love of Offspring are retained as printed; the precise passages and numbering remain to be collated. The claim depends on the man being both childless and wealthy.

10942.Juvenal, Satire 5.137–140, adapted. The consulted text has illo, “him,” referring to little Aeneas; Burton prints illa, “her,” retained in the translation despite its uncertain reference. Aeneas here stands for a son. Childlessness makes the rich patron vulnerable to fortune-hunters. The printed asterisk has no corresponding marginal entry on this page.

10945.Hæredipetæ means people hunting inheritances. The Tacitus margin is printed at the foot of the preceding page and is anchored here to his name. Burton gives Aruntius and Aterius, Annals 11 and On Benefits 6.38; the names and exact reference relationship remain to be checked.

10946.Plautus’s characters are normally named Periplectomenus and Pleusicles; Burton’s printed forms remain in both columns. “Personat” means represented as a character. The unusual delitium senis is rendered idiomatically; it is not silently rewritten in the original.

10947.Miles Gloriosus 705–715 supplies the context. Burton compresses 705–712 into five lines, omitting the dawn visits and sacrificial portions. His irregular dicam interpartiant corresponds to didam, inter eos partiam, division among relatives. The ensuing play makes their motive explicit: they covet his property. Burton’s wording and separate English verse remain; his immediate edition is unidentified.

10949.The margin labels the slavery maxim “From the Greek,” without identifying a writer. “Debtor” in Jerome’s saying invokes the obligations of marriage. The exact Jerome passage remains to be collated.

10950.Uxor intumuit means literally “the wife has swollen.” In this sequence of childbirth and expense, pregnancy is the likely implication, though swelling with anger is also possible; the translation keeps the image open.

10952.Terence, Adelphoe 867–868: Demea recalls marriage and children in a speech comparing his own harsh, laborious life with his brother’s more agreeable one. Burton presents the words as a compact complaint.