The Anatomy of Melancholy

Subsection 2. Symptoms or signs in the mind.

Arculanus, in his commentary on book 9 of Rhazes’ work for Almansor, chapter 16, holds these symptoms to be infinite, as indeed they are, varying with the individual: scarcely one in a thousand is deranged in the same way, says Laurentius, chapter 16.

I will point out a few of the more notable ones, and among them fear and sorrow. Just as these are frequent causes, so, if they persist for a long time, according to Hippocrates and Galen’s aphorisms, they are the surest signs, inseparable companions and distinguishing marks of melancholy: of melancholy as a present condition and as an established habit, says Montaltus, chapter 11, and common to all sufferers, as Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna and all the more recent writers maintain.

But just as hounds often run off baying on a false scent, never realizing they have lost the trail, so do these writers. For Diocles in antiquity, whom Galen refutes, and among the later writers Hercules de Saxonia, with Ludovicus Mercatus, book 1, chapter 17 on melancholy, raise reasonable objections to this aphorism of Hippocrates. It is not always true, or to be understood so universally: fear and sorrow are not symptoms common to every melancholic person.

“On more serious consideration,” he says, “I find some who are not like this at all. Some are indeed sad but not fearful; some fearful but not sad; some neither fearful nor sad; some both.” He excepts four kinds: people seized by prophetic frenzy, such as Cassandra, Manto, Nicostrata, Mopsus, Proteus and the Sibyls, whom Aristotle acknowledges to have been deeply melancholic.

Baptista Porta supports him, Physiognomy, book 1, chapter 8: they were “stirred by black bile.” People possessed by demons, and those who speak unfamiliar languages, belong to this class; some poets; and those who laugh all the time and imagine themselves kings, cardinals, and so on. They are sanguine, usually cheerful in disposition, and remain so.

Baptista Porta restricts fear and sorrow to those whose temperament is cold; he excludes lovers, Sibyls and people seized by inspiration altogether. So I think I may rightly conclude that they are not always sad and fearful, but usually are, and that without a cause: “they fear things that need not be feared” (Gordonius), “and things of no importance.” Although not all in the same way, says Altomarus, yet all tend to fear, some with an extraordinary and overwhelming fear: Aretaeus.

Many fear death and yet, in a contrary mood, take their own lives: Galen, On the Affected Parts, book 3, chapter 7. Some fear the heavens will fall on their heads; some that they are damned or will be. They are troubled by scruples of conscience, distrust God’s mercies, think they will certainly go to hell and the Devil will have them, and lament greatly: Jason Pratensis.

Fear of devils, death, becoming terribly ill with this or that disease; ready to tremble at everything they encounter; certain that they themselves will die immediately, or that some dear friend or close relative is already dead. Imminent danger, loss and disgrace continually torment others, and so on.