The Anatomy of Melancholy

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.