The Anatomy of Melancholy

For some are so mildly melancholic that it can scarcely be detected in their behaviour or by anyone observing them, yet to them it is an intolerable burden, impossible to endure. “Some things are hidden, some evident”: some signs are plain and obvious to everyone at all times, some to only a few, or seldom, or barely perceived. If they keep their own counsel, no one will notice or suspect them.

They do not outwardly display their disordered imaginings, as Hercules de Saxonia observes, but keep them entirely to themselves, and are very wise people, as I have often seen. Some are afraid; some feel no fear at all, such as those who think themselves kings or dead. Some have more signs, some fewer; some severe, some less so. Some are troubled, fret, constantly fear, grieve, lament, suspect, laugh, sing, weep or rage, in fits—as I have said—or for longer, continuing periods. Some are deluded about one thing, are utterly childish and ridiculous in that respect and provoke astonishment, yet in everything else are very judicious and wise.

In some it is a disposition, in another an established habit; and, as writers describe degrees of heat and cold, we may say of this humour that one person is “melancholic to the eighth degree,” a second two degrees less, a third halfway. There are superparticular proportions of melancholy, one and a half and one and a third, and proportions exceeding unity by two thirds or two fifths, and so on. All those geometrical proportions are insufficient to express it.

For many it comes and goes in fits; for others it is continuous. Many, says Faventinus, are troubled only in spring and autumn, some once a year, like the Roman Galen mentions; one only at the conjunction of the Moon, or at certain unfavourable planetary aspects, at particular fixed hours and times, like the tides of the sea. Some women experience it only when pregnant, as Plater notes, and never otherwise. In others it is settled and fixed; in one person it is continually led astray and shifted about by that will-o’-the-wisp, imagination. Like arthritis or wandering gout, it is here and there and in every joint, always troubling one part or another; or, if the body is free, tormenting the mind in a myriad forms.

A second person has a most grievous fit perhaps once in his life, once in seven years or once in five, reaching the extremity of madness, death or mental derangement, brought on by some dreadful event or disturbance or terrifying sight. It lasts for a time, perhaps never experienced before and never afterwards. A third is affected by all such distressing things, adverse fortune, disaster and violent passions, but is otherwise free, troubled once in three or four years.

A fourth, if things are to his liking, or he is active, contented and in good company, is very cheerful and in good bodily condition. If idle or alone, he is utterly dejected or wholly carried away by pleasant dreams and fantasies; but once thwarted and displeased,

“He will conceive nothing but sorrow in his heart.”

His expression changes suddenly, his heart grows heavy, distressing thoughts torment his soul, and in an instant he is sunk in dejection or weary of life; he will kill himself. A fifth suffers in youth, a sixth in middle age, the last in old age.