The Anatomy of Melancholy

For this reason, perhaps, our ancient poets, “the senate and people of poets,” made Mercury the gentleman usher to the Graces, the captain of eloquence, and those Graces the daughters of Jupiter and Eurymone, descended from above.

Though people may otherwise be misshapen, crooked and ugly to look at, these good qualities of mind entitle them to be called beautiful. Plato praises Socrates’ beauty; yet who had a grimmer face or looked more stern and frightful? Many great philosophers are and have been like this: as Gregory of Nazianzus observes, “for the most part misshapen in what the eyes can see, but most beautiful in what cannot be seen.”

“Wisdom often lies hidden beneath a worn garment.” Aesop, Democritus, Aristotle, Poliziano, Melanchthon, Gesner and others: shrivelled old men, “the Sileni of Alcibiades,” very rough and unpolished to the eye. Yet who were so refined, cultivated, eloquent, widely learned, temperate and modest?

No man living then was as beautiful as Alcibiades, so lovely “on the surface,” to the eye, as Boethius observes; yet he had “a body most hideous within,” a most deformed soul. Integrity, virtue and good character strongly attract those who are well disposed, and do much to gain people’s favour and goodwill.

Abdolominus, in Curtius, was a poor man—though, as my author notes, “his integrity was the cause of his poverty.” For his modesty and self-restraint he was raised from private life—they found him digging in his garden—and hailed as king, preferred to all the great men of his time. “A robe adorned with purple and gold was thrown over him”: a purple embroidered garment was put upon him, “and they told him to wash himself and, being worthy, to assume the title and spirit of a king,” while maintaining his self-restraint and other good qualities.

Titus Pomponius Atticus, that noble citizen of Rome, had such a good character and gracious manner that he was generally beloved by all good men—Caesar, Pompey, Antony and Cicero, men of different parties and so on. As Cornelius Nepos writes, he “obtained many inheritances through goodness alone.”

“It is worth hearing,” and so on. It deserves your attention, Livy cries, “you who scorn everything but riches and esteem no one’s virtue unless he is also wealthy: Quintus Cincinnatus had only four acres, yet by the Senate’s consent was chosen dictator of Rome.”

Cato, Fabricius, Aristides, Antonius and Probus were held in such esteem for their outstanding worth; so were Caesar, Trajan and Alexander, admired for courage. Hephaestion loved Alexander, but Parmenio loved the king. Titus was “the delight of humankind”; Vespasian, as Aurelius Victor says, was the darling of his age, as Edgar Atheling was in England, for his excellent virtues. Their memory is still fresh and sweet, and we love them many ages later, though they are dead. “He left a sweet memory of himself,” Lipsius says of his friend: living or dead, they are all the same.