The Anatomy of Melancholy

Symptoms of despair: fear, sorrow, suspicion, anxiety, horror of conscience, terrifying dreams and visions.

As shoemakers, whenever they deliver shoes, keep crying that leather grows dearer and dearer, so I may justly speak of these symptoms of melancholy. Those of despair are the most violent, tragic and grievous, far beyond the rest. They can be expressed only negatively, as the loss of all happiness, and are unbearable: for who can bear a wounded spirit? Proverbs 18:19.

Consider what Timanthes did in his picture of Iphigenia about to be sacrificed. Having painted Calchas mourning, Ulysses sad and Menelaus most sorrowful of all, and displayed all his skill in expressing different emotions, he covered the head of the maiden’s father, Agamemnon, with a veil and left each spectator to imagine his feelings. Such true emotion and sorrow in their highest degree, as his were, could not be portrayed by any art.

What he did in his picture, I will do in describing the symptoms of despair. Imagine whatever you can: fear, sorrow, furies, grief, pain, terror, anger; all that is dismal, ghastly, wearisome and distressing. It is not enough; it falls far short. No tongue can tell it, no heart conceive it. It is hell in miniature, an extract, a pure essence, a compound, a mixture of every deadly affliction, cruel torture, plague and bewilderment.

There is scarcely an illness for which medicine offers no remedy; for every wound, surgery will provide a salve. Friendship helps poverty; hope of freedom eases imprisonment; petitions and influence reverse banishment; authority and time wear away disgrace. But what medicine, surgery, wealth, favour or authority can relieve, sustain, soothe or dispel a troubled conscience? A peaceful mind cures all those troubles, but all of them together cannot comfort a distressed soul. Who can silence the voice of despair?

Everything found separately in other forms of melancholy—the horrible, dreadful, pestilential, cruel and savage—comes together in this. It exceeds even melancholy in its highest degree: a burning fever of the soul. They are driven mad by this misery, says Jacchinus, who lists fear, sorrow and despair among melancholy’s ordinary symptoms. They suffer great mental pain and horror, disturbance of soul and restlessness, full of unceasing fears, cares, torments and anxieties. These prevent them from eating, drinking or sleeping; they find no rest,

Unceasing impiety does not stop even at mealtime; Frenzied rest and raging dreams torment them.

Neither in bed nor at the table Will despair allow any rest.

Fear takes away their contentment, dries their blood, wastes their marrow and changes their appearance. Even amid their greatest pleasures—singing, dancing and lovemaking—their souls remain tormented, says Lemnius.

It consumes them entirely. I am like a pelican in the wilderness, says David of himself in temporary distress, an owl because of your indignation. Psalm 102, verses 8 and 10; and Psalm 55:4: My heart trembles within me, and the terrors of death have come upon me; fear and trembling have come upon me, and so on. At death’s door, Psalm 107:18: Their soul loathes every kind of food.