The Anatomy of Melancholy

Antonius Lodovicus, in his book On Shame, holds that this fine blood rises in the face not so much from reverence in the presence of our superiors, but from joy and pleasure, or if something escapes us unawares, or at a sudden accident, encounter or meeting—as Disarius in Macrobius confirms—or at anything heard or seen. For blind people never blush, as Dandinus observes; night and darkness make people shameless. Or if we are detained before our superiors, or in company we dislike, or something troubles and offends us, “the act of blushing turns to redness”: blushing becomes a lasting flush.

Sometimes the tips of the ears tingle and redden, sometimes the whole face, “even if you have done nothing wrong,” as Lodovicus holds; although Aristotle’s opinion is that “all shame comes from a fault committed”: all shame from some offence. But we find otherwise. It may come as readily from fear, force and inexperience, as Dandinus holds, as from wrongdoing; from a hot liver, says Duretus in his notes on Hollerius; from a hot brain, wind, heated lungs, or after drinking wine or strong drink, from emotional disturbances, and so on.

What laughter is, says Cicero, how and where it is caused, and how it bursts out so suddenly that we cannot stop it though we wish to; how it comes to seize and stir our face, veins, eyes, countenance, mouth and sides—let Democritus determine. Gomesius, On Festive Wit, book 3, chapter 18, explains why it often affects melancholy people so strongly: an abundance of pleasant vapours, especially in sanguine melancholy, breaks out from the heart and tickles the diaphragm because it lies across the body and is full of nerves. This tickling moves the sense and stretches or pulls the arteries; the spirits then move into and take possession of the sides, veins, face and eyes. See further Jossius, On Laughter and Weeping, and Vives, On the Soul, book 3. Tears, as Scaliger defines them, proceed from grief and pity, or from the heating of a moist brain, for a dry one cannot weep.

As Fienus discusses at length in his book on imagination, and Lavater in On Spectres, part 1, chapters 2, 3 and 4, their disordered imagination makes them see and hear so many phantasms, chimeras, noises, visions and the like: things that in reality are neither heard nor seen. “Those who fast much or pass sleepless nights”—those who fast a great deal or lack sleep, as melancholy or sick people commonly do—see visions; so do people with weak eyesight, those very timid by nature, mad, distracted, or searching eagerly. “The Sabines dream what they wish”: as the saying goes, they dream of what they desire.

Like Sarmiento the Spaniard, who was sent by the viceroy of Peru to explore the Straits of Magellan and neighbouring places. Standing on a hilltop, “he thought he looked down upon a most delightful plain, magnificent buildings, very many villages, lofty towers and splendid temples,” and fine cities built like ours in Europe. Not, says my author, that any such things existed, but that he was “utterly fanciful and excessively credulous” and very much wanted it to be so.