Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

Reading language

Subsection 5 the Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have…

Suns can set and rise again; But once our brief light has set, We must sleep one everlasting night.

Suns that set may rise again; But once we lose this light, For us it is perpetual night.

“Time flies beyond recall”: time past cannot be brought back. But we need no such exhortation; generally we are all too eager. Yet if anyone goes astray and things are not as they should be—just as Diogenes struck the father when the son swore, because he had taught him no better—then, if a maiden or young man misconducts themselves, I think their parents, guardians, overseers and governors are often equally at fault and deserve punishment as severe as their children’s for not arranging their marriages sooner. “Nor will you escape punishment,” says Chrysostom, “if you do not bring them promptly to marriage,” and so on.

Now, for those who are free to choose their own spouses, I wish the good advice of the old man in the comedy were put into practice:

Let the richer men take poorer men’s daughters Home as wives, without dowries; Then the city will be far more harmonious, And we will meet with less envy than we do.

If rich men would marry some poor maidens And bring them home without a dowry, There would be much harmony in our city, Less envy and far more piety.

If they cared less about wealth, we should have far more contentment and peace in the commonwealth. Beauty and a good upbringing seem to me a sufficient dowry in themselves: “A maiden’s beauty is her dowry.” A man does well to accept such a wife.

Eubulides, in Aristaenetus, married a poor man’s daughter, “with a face not uncheerful,” a merry countenance and heavenly features, out of pity for her circumstances—and quickly, too.

Acontius, coming to Delos to sacrifice to Diana, fell in love with Cydippe, a girl of noble birth. Lacking any means of winning her love, he threw a golden apple into her lap with this inscription on it:

I solemnly swear to you by Diana’s sacred mysteries That I will come to be your companion and become your husband.

I swear by all the rites of Diana, I will come and be your husband if I may.

She considered it and, after a brief inquiry into his person and circumstances, married him.

Blessed is the wooing That is quickly done,

As the saying goes. When the parties know each other well enough, why so many scruples, so many formalities? Do you know her character and upbringing, and like her looks? Whatever her means, take her without further fuss.

Dido and Aeneas were driven by chance in a storm into the same cave, and made a marriage of it. Masinissa married the beautiful captive Sophonisba, King Scyphax’s wife, on the very day he first saw her, to forestall Scipio and Laelius, lest they decide her fate otherwise.

If you love the person, do the same: a good education and beauty are an adequate dowry; do not insist on money. “There were golden men in former times,” says Theocritus, “and those they loved loved them in return.” People acted so in the golden age—presumably in the reign of Ogyges, before drunken Ninus began to lord it over others—if everything reported is true. And a few nowadays will do as much, one here and another there. I think they do well, and may every happiness come to them for it.

Leontius, a philosopher of Athens, had a beautiful daughter called Athenais, “with great physical grace and charm,” as my author says, and a lovely bearing. He gave her no dowry except her upbringing, “through a secret presentiment inspired by her beauty,” through some hidden foreknowledge of her fortune, distributing what little he had among his other children.

But with these accomplishments she was recommended by friends for service to Pulcheria, the emperor’s sister, at Constantinople; through her she was baptized and named Eudocia. Before long the emperor Theodosius noticed her exceptional beauty and abilities, and soon afterwards, on his sister’s recommendation alone, made her his wife. It was nobly done by Theodosius.

Rodope was the most beautiful lady of her day in all Egypt. She went to bathe, and by chance, while her maids were carelessly watching her clothes, an eagle carried off one of her shoes and dropped it into the lap of Psammetichus, king of Egypt, at Memphis. He marvelled at the exquisite shoe and pretty foot, but still more at “the eagle’s deed,” the way it had been brought to him. He immediately had a proclamation issued that the shoe’s owner should come at once to court. The maiden came and was immediately married to the king.

I say this was nobly done, as became a prince. I commend him for it, and all those with means who will either do as he did themselves, or marry their children for love in the same way, and so on. If a man is rich, let him take a woman who lacks money, provided she is virtuous; for, as Sirach 7:19 advises, “Do not forgo a wife who is a good woman, for her grace is worth more than gold.” If a woman has a fortune of her own, let her establish a man in life.

Danaus of Lacedaemon had many daughters to marry and enough means for them all. He never bothered to seek grand matches as others usually do, but sent for a company of handsome young men to come to his house, and told each daughter to choose the one she liked best and take him for her husband, without further fuss. This action of his was much approved in those days.

But in our iron age we value wealth alone—for a maiden must now buy her husband with a large dowry if she wants him. Greed and filthy gain, or some such ulterior consideration, spoil all good marriages.

11110.Catullus 5.4–6. Burton prints “perpetuò” where the usual text has “perpetua”; the translation preserves the sense of an unending sleep. The Latin and the following English adaptation are separate units in the source.

11112.Ben Jonson’s “Come, my Celia, let us prove,” in Volpone, draws on Catullus. Burton’s “M. B. Johnson” means Master Ben Jonson. His quoted English version is kept separately from the new rendering of the Latin.

11114.“Escape” is a lapse and “miscarry” means misconduct, not pregnancy loss. Compare Chrysostom, Homily 5 on 1 Thessalonians, for parental responsibility and early marriage. The Diogenes anecdote and the exact wording of the time maxim remain to be located; no source line is invented.

11116.Plautus, Aulularia 479–482, spoken by Megadorus. Burton adapts the grammar and order. His English version adds “much more piety,” absent from these Latin lines; that addition is preserved.

11118.The margin attributes the maxim to Ovid. Garzoni’s Piazza universale, Discorso primo, likewise quotes these words under Ovid’s name after praising beauty as a sufficient dowry. This establishes an early modern parallel, not an Ovidian location or Burton’s direct dependence on Garzoni; both remain unconfirmed.

11120.Aristaenetus 2.12 presents a husband who married a poor woman from pity, then complains that she became domineering and extravagant. Burton extracts the initial act as a favourable example. “Non illætabili” is a restrained negative, expanded much more warmly in his English.

11121.Compare Ovid, Heroides 20–21. There Cydippe unwittingly binds herself by reading an inscribed oath aloud in Diana’s temple. Burton instead gives a promise in the man’s voice and abbreviates the obstacles to their marriage. The couplet’s exact source remains unlocated; the difference is retained.

11122.“Conditions” means character or disposition; “circumstances” here includes the formalities and preliminaries of courtship. The proverb advocates a short courtship once the parties know one another.

11124.Virgil, Aeneid 4.160–172, describes the cave union, which Dido calls marriage; Aeneas later disputes a marriage compact (4.338–339). Compare Livy 30.12–15 for Masinissa and Sophonisba, wife of Syphax, Burton’s “Scyphax.” The sequel ends in her death, an outcome omitted from this brief recommendation.

11126.Theocritus, Idyll 12, imagines lovers whose mutual affection will be praised as belonging to a golden age; the poem addresses a male beloved. Burton applies it to marriage without dowries. Ogyges and Ninus evoke remote legendary antiquity. “Staggering” suggests drunkenness; the particular Fabius Pictor attribution has not been collated.

11128.The Latin links the father’s foreknowledge to her beauty; “Venere” means charm. Cats, quoting Lipsius’s Monita et exempla politica, chapter 5, gives Athenais a hundred crowns and her brothers the rest, unlike Burton’s no dowry beyond upbringing. This Dutch parallel does not establish Burton’s immediate source; Lipsius’s Latin and Mayer remain uncollated.

11129.Theodosius II’s wife Eudocia was originally Athenais. Socrates, Church History 7.21, names her father Leontius and says the bishop Atticus baptized her before her marriage. Burton’s wording may mean baptism through Pulcheria’s agency; it should not be taken as evidence that she administered it. The detailed inheritance story belongs to the later narrative tradition.

11131.Aelian, Various History 13.33, tells the shoe story of Rhodopis, whom he calls a courtesan. Burton’s “Rodope” and “virgin” are preserved. Aelian likewise records the king’s admiration for the shoe and the eagle’s act; the tale is not independently authenticated here.

11132.Sirach 7:19 commends a wise and good wife above gold; Burton prints “a wife and good woman,” omitting “wise.” “Make a man” means establish his fortune or social position. His recommendation allows a wealthy woman to support a poorer husband.

11134.Pausanias 3.12.2 differs materially: the suitors choose Danaus’s daughters in the order of a foot-race, after his daughters’ crimes made them difficult to marry. Burton makes the daughters choose. His location “of Lacedaemon” also appears to blend Danaus with the Spartan setting of Icarius’s similar race. Both the body and margin retain Burton’s account.

11135.The iron age is the conventional opposite of the golden age: an age of greed and moral decline. “By-respects” means ulterior or secondary motives, here financial and social advantages.