The Anatomy of Melancholy

Suspicion and jealousy are general symptoms. They are commonly distrustful, fearful, apt to misunderstand and exaggerate, “easily angered,” irritable, petulant, ill-tempered and ready to snap at the slightest occasion, “at their dearest friends,” and without a cause: “whether given or not,” there will be “offence taken.”

If people speak in jest, he takes it in earnest. If they are not greeted, invited, consulted, called to give advice, and so on, or if any mark of respect, small courtesy or ceremony is omitted, they think themselves neglected and despised; for a time this tortures them. If two people talk together, converse, whisper, joke or tell a story in general terms, he immediately thinks they mean him and applies everything to himself: “he thinks it is all said about him.”

Or if they talk to him, he is ready to misconstrue every word and give it the worst meaning. He cannot bear anyone to look steadily at him, scarcely even to speak to him, to laugh, joke, act familiarly, clear the throat, point, cough, spit or sometimes make any noise at all. He thinks they are laughing or pointing at him, doing it to shame him, plotting against him or despising him. Everyone is looking at him; he turns pale, turns red, sweats with fear and anger lest someone notice him.

He broods over it, and long afterwards this mistaken idea of an insult troubles him. Montanus, consultation 22, gives the example of a melancholic Jew who was “angrier than the Adriatic,” so waspish and suspicious, “so easily angered,” that no one knew how to behave in his company.

They are inconstant in all their actions, giddy, restless, unable to decide on any business. They will and will not, swayed back and forth by every slight occasion or spoken word. Yet once they have made up their minds, they are obstinate and hard to reconcile. If they abhor, dislike or take offence, once fixed in it they cannot be moved by any advice or persuasion, even towards something far better.

Yet in most things they waver, cannot decide or think matters through, because of fear. “They act, and soon regret their action” (Aretaeus), “miserly, and shortly afterwards extravagant.” Now extravagant and then covetous, they act and soon repent of what they have done, so that they are troubled either way: whether they act or do not, lack or possess, succeed or fail. Disturbed on every side, soon tired and always seeking change—restless, I say, fickle, forever fleeing—they cannot bear to stay long in one place.

“At Rome, longing for the country; in the country, He praises the distant city to the skies——”

Nor can they bear any company for long, or persevere in any action or business.

“And like the children of the rich, he asks For finely chopped pap, and angrily refuses his nurse’s lullaby.”

Pleased one moment, displeased the next: as someone bitten by fleas, or unable to sleep, turns back and forth in bed, so their restless minds are tossed about and change. They have no patience to read a book through, finish a game or two, walk a mile, sit for an hour, and so on; elated and cast down in an instant, encouraged to undertake something and discouraged again by a spoken word.