The Anatomy of Melancholy

Symptoms of jealousy: fear, sorrow, suspicion, strange actions, gestures, outrages, confinement, oaths, trials, laws, and so on.

Of all passions, as I have already shown, love is the most violent; and of the bitter potions that this love-melancholy supplies, its bastard offspring jealousy is the strongest, as appears from the extraordinary symptoms it has and produces. Besides fear and sorrow, which are common to all melancholy, anxiety of mind, suspicion, exaggeration, restless thoughts, paleness, wasting, neglect of business and the like, these people are afflicted still further, and to a greater degree.

It is a more vehement passion, a more furious disturbance, a bitter pain, a fire, a destructive inquisitiveness, gall spoiling the honey of our life, madness, dizziness, plague, hell. They are troubled beyond the ordinary measure; they lose “the blessing of peace,” as Chrysostom observes. Although they are rich, dine sumptuously and have noble family connections, “they are the most miserable of all”: they are utterly miserable, more than ordinarily discontented, sadder—“nothing is sadder”—and more than ordinarily suspicious.

Jealousy, says Vives, “breeds unrest in the mind, night and day: he hunts after every word he hears, every whisper, and magnifies it to himself”—as all melancholy people do in other matters—“with the most unjust accusations against others. He misinterprets everything said or done, all too ready to misunderstand or misconstrue.” He pries into every corner, follows closely, observes to a hair’s breadth. It is characteristic of jealousy to act so,

Pale hag, infernal fury, pleasure’s torment, Envy’s watcher, prying everywhere.

Besides those strange gestures: staring, frowning, grimacing, rolling the eyes, threatening, ghastly looks, an uneven gait, interrupted, hasty half-turns. Sometimes he will sigh, weep and sob with anger,

Indeed, even these thunderclaps pour down their showers,

swear and tell lies about people, slander anyone, curse, threaten, brawl, scold and fight. At other times he will flatter her and speak kindly, ask forgiveness, kiss and embrace her, condemn his rashness and folly, vow, protest and swear that he will never do so again. Then, soon afterwards, unable to restrain himself, he will rave, roar and strike out like a madman, punch her in the sides, perhaps drag her about, drive her out of doors and send her home. He will have a divorce at once; she is a whore, and so on.

Before long he treats her kindly with every submissive compliment and brings her in again. He loves her dearly; she is his sweet, kindest, most loving wife; he would not exchange her or leave her for a kingdom. So he goes on, back and forth, as the whim takes him or something stirs him; but for the most part he is quarrelsome, fretful and restless, accusing and suspecting not only strangers but brothers and sisters, father and mother, his nearest and dearest friends. He thinks with those Italians,

Who does not touch his kin Touches never, or rarely.