The Anatomy of Melancholy

Unkind, unnatural friends, wicked neighbours, bad servants, debts and disputes, and so on. It was Chilon’s saying: “Misery is the companion of debt and litigation.” Misery and moneylending at interest commonly go together. Standing surety is the ruin of many families: “Give a guarantee, and harm is at hand.” He who stands surety for a stranger will suffer sorely, Proverbs 11:15; and he who hates giving guarantees is safe.

Contention, brawling, lawsuits, quarrels between neighbours and friends—“maddened Discord” (Virgil, Aeneid 6)—are equal to the former troubles: they grieve many a man and torment his soul. “Surely nothing is more wretched than their minds,” as Botero maintains. Nothing is so miserable as such men, full of cares, griefs and anxieties, as though stabbed with a sharp sword; fear, suspicion, despair and sorrow are their constant companions.

Some of their own writers remark that our Welshmen ruin one another in this way. But whoever engages in it, these are their usual symptoms, especially when found guilty or defeated—when they lose a lawsuit. Arius, deprived of a bishopric by Eustathius, became a heretic and afterwards lived discontentedly all his life.

Every rejection has the same effect: “Alas, from what great hopes have I fallen!” Disgrace, dishonour and slander will do almost as much, and their effects last long afterwards. Hipponax, a satirical poet, so vilified and scourged two painters in his iambic verses “that both strangled themselves with a noose,” Pliny says: both hanged themselves.

All opposition, dangers, perplexities, discontents, and living in any uncertainty belong to the same class: “Can you sleep in such a crisis?” Who can feel secure in such circumstances? Benefits bestowed on the undeserving, ingratitude and unthankful friends greatly disturb and distress some people.

Unkind words trouble just as many. Rude behaviour or surly answers—especially for frail women, when these come from their ill-tempered husbands—are as bitter as gall and cannot be digested. A glassworker’s wife in Basel became melancholy because her husband said he would marry again if she died.

No wound cuts like unkindness, as the saying goes. A frown or harsh word, discourtesy, browbeating or an angry look is instant death, especially to courtiers or those who serve the great.

Talent rises and falls with his expression.

They ebb and flow with their masters’ favour. Some people are at their wits’ end if they happen to go too far in their ordinary words or actions, in a way that may later bring them disadvantage or disgrace, or if some secret of theirs is revealed.