The Anatomy of Melancholy

A fine morning turns into a gloomy afternoon. Brutus and Cassius were once renowned, both conspicuously fortunate; yet, says Paterculus, you will scarcely find two “whom fortune abandoned sooner”—whom fortune sooner forsook. Hannibal, a conqueror throughout his life, met his match and was defeated at last—

The strong man meets one who will prove stronger.

A man is brought home in triumph, like Caesar into Rome or Alcibiades into Athens, “rewarded with golden crowns”: crowned, honoured, admired. Soon his statues are demolished, and he is hissed out, massacred, and so on. The great Gonzalo, that famous Spaniard, was at first honoured and approved by prince and people, then confined and banished. “Great envy and bitter slanders commonly follow admirable deeds”: it is Polybius’s observation; grievous enmities and bitter accusations commonly follow renowned actions.

One is born rich and dies a beggar; healthy today, ill tomorrow; now flourishing, fortunate and happy, then stripped of his property by plundering enemies, robbed by thieves, despoiled, taken captive and impoverished—like the people of Rabbah, put under iron saws, iron harrows and iron axes, and thrown into the brick kiln.

Why did you so often proclaim me happy, my friends? The man who fell had never stood secure.

The man who once marched like Xerxes with countless armies, as rich as Croesus, now fends for himself in a wretched little boat, is bound in iron chains like Bayezid the Turk, or becomes a footstool like Aurelian for a tyrannical conqueror to trample upon.

So many disasters occur that, as Seneca said of a city destroyed by fire, “One day lies between a very great city and no city at all”—one day between a great city and none. So many troubles arise from outward events and from ourselves, our own folly and ungoverned desires: one day between a living man and no man.

Worse still, as though discontents and miseries did not come upon us quickly enough, “one person is another’s demon.” We batter and persecute one another, plotting how to sting, wound and trouble each other with mutual hatred, abuse and injuries; we prey upon and devour each other like ravenous birds, cheat one another like tricksters, procurers and pimps, or rage like wolves, tigers and devils, delighting in one another’s torment.

People are evil, wicked, malicious, treacherous and vicious. They do not love one another, or love only themselves; they are neither hospitable, charitable nor sociable as they ought to be, but false, deceitful and double-dealing, intent on their own ends, hard-hearted, merciless and pitiless. To benefit themselves, they care nothing for the harm they cause others.