The Anatomy of Melancholy

The eighth pleaded great losses and sufferings for the Church, and the labour he had undertaken at home and abroad; besides, he brought letters from noblemen. The ninth had married a kinswoman and sent his wife to petition for him. The tenth was a foreign doctor, recently converted, who lacked an income. The eleventh wanted an exchange: he disliked the location of his present post, could not get along with his neighbours and colleagues on any terms, and wanted to leave.

The twelfth and last was an applicant only in his imagination: a thoroughly honest, courteous, sober man, an excellent scholar who lived privately at the university. He had neither influence nor money to obtain the post; besides, he detested all such methods. He could not speak for himself and had no friends to advance his case. He therefore made no application, could expect nothing, and neither hoped for nor pursued it.

The good bishop, perplexed among this jury of competitors and still undecided what to do or whom to appoint, finally acted entirely on his own initiative and from his generous nature: he freely gave it to the university scholar, whom he knew only by reputation. To be brief, the academic had the prebend sent to him as a gift.

No sooner did the news spread than all good scholars rejoiced and took great encouragement from it. Some would not believe it; others, astonished, called it a miracle. One among them thanked God and said, “Now at last it is a joy to be a scholar and to serve God with an undivided heart.”

You have heard my tale. Alas, it is only a tale, pure fiction: it never happened, never is likely to happen, and there let it rest. Well, let it be so, then: they have wealth and honour, fortune and advancement; everyone must scramble as best he may and fend for himself as best he can—there is no help for it. Yet Cardan comforted himself with the thought that the star Fomahant would make him immortal, and that after his death his books would be found in ladies’ studies.

The Muse forbids a man worthy of praise to die.

But why should you take being neglected and tossed aside so much to heart? Perhaps you are unfit. Like a child putting on his father’s shoes, hat, helmet, breastplate and breeches, or holding his spear, although unable to wield the weapon or wear the clothes, you would be out of your depth in such an office, position or magistracy. You are unfit. As Salvian says, what is dignity in an unworthy man but a gold ring in a pig’s snout? You are a brute.

Like a bad actor in a tragedy—Plutarch’s comparison for such men—“he wears a diadem, but his voice cannot be heard.” You would play a king, but act a clown and speak like an ass. “You ask great things, Phaethon, beyond those powers of yours,” and so on: like James and John, Zebedee’s sons, you ask for what you do not understand. “You do not know, rash one, you do not know.” Like another Suffenus, you overrate yourself: wise in your own estimation, but in another, more mature judgement wholly unfit to manage such affairs.