The Anatomy of Melancholy

He must become a rogue and a villain, for, as the saying goes, “necessity drives people to shameful acts.” Poverty alone makes people thieves, rebels, murderers, traitors and assassins: “because of poverty we have sinned,” Ecclesiasticus 27:1. They swear and perjure themselves, bear false witness, lie and practise any deceit, as I say, to gain an advantage and relieve their needs. “It is the teacher of wrongdoing and crime.” When a man is driven to desperate expedients, what will he not do?

If fortune has made Sinon wretched, Wicked as she is, she will also make him false and a liar.

He will betray his father, his prince and his country, turn Turk, forsake religion, renounce God and everything: “there is no treachery so dreadful that they would be unwilling to commit it for gain,” says Leo Africanus. Plato therefore calls poverty thievish, sacrilegious, filthy, wicked and destructive; and well he might.

For it makes many a man who would otherwise have been upright, had he not been in want, accept bribes, become corrupt, act against his conscience and sell his tongue, heart and hand; become churlish, hard, merciless and uncivil, and use dishonest means to improve his circumstances. It makes princes extort from their subjects, great men tyrannise and landlords oppress; makes justice mercenary, lawyers vultures, physicians harpies, friends importunate, tradesmen liars, honest men thieves and the devout assassins. It makes great men prostitute their wives, daughters and themselves, the middle ranks repine, the common people mutiny, and everyone resent, grumble and complain.

A great temptation to every kind of wrongdoing, it compels some miserable people to feign various diseases, mutilate themselves or make themselves blind or lame to have a more convincing reason to beg, losing their limbs to relieve their immediate needs. Joos de Damhouder, a lawyer of Bruges, gives some striking examples of such sham invalids in his Practice of Criminal Matters, chapter 112. Almost every village among us can offer abundant testimony: we have people who pretend to be mute, Abraham men and so on.

And, at the furthest extreme of misery, anguish and weariness with life drive them to kill themselves. They would rather be hanged or drowned, and so on, than live without means.

Into the whale-filled sea, lest harsh poverty crush you, Leap, Cyrnus, and fall from the lofty heights.

Far better to break your neck Or drown yourself in the sea Than endure distressing poverty: Go and put an end to yourself.

An ancient Sybarite, as I find recorded in Athenaeus, was dining at the common messes in Sparta. Seeing their meagre fare, he said it was no wonder the Spartans were brave: for his part, he would rather run onto a sword point—as would anyone in his right mind—than live on such poor food or lead so wretched a life. In Japan, it is common to suffocate their children if they are poor, or procure an abortion, which Aristotle commends.