The Anatomy of Melancholy

and in such wars they shall refrain as far as possible from laying waste to inhabited lands, burning towns, massacring infants, and the like. For defensive wars, I will have forces on land and sea always ready at short notice: a fleet prepared, soldiers equipped for action, and that iron rod which Bonfini wishes for among his Hungarians; money too, the sinew of war, shall always be ready;

and sufficient revenue shall be reserved for the commonwealth—a third part, as in ancient Rome and Egypt—to avoid heavy taxes and levies. It shall cover the cost of war and every other public disbursement: expenses, fees, pensions, repairs, innocent sports, feasts, gifts, rewards, and hospitality.

Above all, I will have matters of this kind carried out with due consideration and great deliberation, so that nothing is done rashly, nothing slackly or timidly. But where am I being carried, a stranger here? To pursue the rest would take a whole volume. Take your hand from the picture: I have dwelt too long on this subject. I would gladly have wandered further here, but the narrow limits within which I am confined will not allow it.

From commonwealths and cities I will come down to households, which have as many corrosive troubles and vexations, and discontents as frequent, as the rest. A political body and a household body are closely akin: they differ only in size and the scale of their affairs, as Scaliger writes. Just as both apparently have the same lifespan—six or seven hundred years, according to Bodin and Peucer, drawing on Plato—so they often suffer distress and ruin from the same causes;

extravagance, for example, ruins both alike: extravagance in building, lavish expenditure, clothing, and so on. Whatever form it takes, it produces the same effects. One of our writers on regional geography, speaking in passing of old families and asking why they are so numerous and long-lasting in the north, yet so few and so quickly extinguished in the south, gives only this explanation: luxury has squandered everything; extravagance has consumed it all.

Fine clothes and elaborate buildings came to this island, as he observes in his Annals, not many years ago, at no small cost to hospitality: hospitality declined. Yet that word is often misunderstood. Extravagance and waste shelter under the names of generosity and hospitality; what is commendable in itself when properly practised has long been misconceived, and through its abuse has become the bane and complete ruin of many noble families.

Some men live like the rich glutton, consuming themselves and their wealth in ceaseless feasting and invitations. Like Axylus in Homer, they keep open house for all comers and entertain everyone who visits. Maintaining a table beyond their means and a retinue of idle servants, though this is less common than formerly, they are suddenly ruined: their relations, friends, and numerous dependants devour them, as Actaeon was devoured by his hounds.