The Anatomy of Melancholy

SUBSEC. 5. Melancholy in disposition, improperly so called, Æquivocations.

Melancholy, the subject of our present Discourse, is either in Disposition, or Habit. In Disposition, is that transitory Melancholy which goes and comes upon every smal occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, passion, or perturbation of the minde, any manner of care, discontent, or thought, which causeth anguish, dulness, heaviness and vexation of spirit, any wayes opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight, causing frowardness in us, or a dislike. In which equivocal & improper sense, we cal him melancholy, that is dull, sad, sowre, lumpish, ill disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased.

And from these Melancholy Dispositions, no man living is free, no Stoick, none so wise, none so happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine that can vindicate himself; so well composed, but more or less, sometime or other he feeles the smart of it. Melancholy in this sense is the character of Mortality. Man that is borne of a woman, is of short continuance, and full of trouble.

Zeno, Cato, Socrates himself, whom Ælian so highly commends for a moderate temper, that nothing could disturb him, but going out, and coming in, still Socrates kept the same serenity of countenance, what misery soever befell him, (if we may believe Plato his Disciple) was much tormented with it.

Q. Metellus, in whom Valerius gives instance of all happiness, the most fortunate man then living, borne in that most flourishing city of Rome, of noble parentage, a proper man of person, well qualified, healthful, rich, honourable, a Senatour, a Consul, happy in his wife, happy in his children, &c. yet this man was not void of Melancholy, he had his share of sorrow.

Polycrates Samius, that flung his ring into the sea, because he would participate of discontent with others, and had it miraculously restored to him again shortly after, by a fish taken as he angled, was not free from Melancholy dispositions.

No man can cure himself; the very gods had bitter pangs, & frequent passions, as their own Poets put upon them. In general, as the heaven, so is our life, sometimes fair, sometimes overcast, tempestuous, and serene; as in a rose, flowers and prickles; in the year it self, a temperate summer sometimes, a hard winter, a drowth, and then again pleasant showrs: so is our life intermixt with joyes, hopes, feares, sorrowes, calumnies: Invicem cedunt dolor & voluptas, there is a succession of pleasure and paine.