The Anatomy of Melancholy

But why should I now recount the spectacles mounted with magnificent preparations, The splendour of games that would not yield To ancient Quirinus? And so forth.

In Italy they have formal declamations by selected young gentlemen in Florence, like those reciters in ancient Rome, and public theatres in most of their cities, where actors and others can practise and enjoy themselves.

Almost every season and every place has its own pastimes: some in summer, some in winter; some outdoors, some indoors; some for the body, some for the mind. Different people have different recreations and exercises.

The emperor Domitian took great delight in catching flies; Augustus in playing games with nuts among children; Alexander Severus was often pleased to play with puppies and piglets. Hadrian was so thoroughly devoted to dogs and horses that he gave them monuments and tombs and buried them in graves.

In bad weather, or when the season prevents other suitable sports, we use cock-fighting, I suppose to avoid idleness, though some take it more seriously, spend much time and money on it, and become too absorbed in it. Severus used partridges and quails, as many Frenchmen still do, and kept caged birds, which pleased him greatly whenever he had leisure from public cares and business. He had, says Lampridius, tame pheasants, ducks, partridges, peacocks, and some twenty thousand ringdoves and pigeons.

Busbecq, the emperor’s ambassador, while staying in Constantinople and unable to go out much, kept almost every kind of exotic bird and beast for recreation, occupying himself by watching them being fed. This served some purpose: though it did not exercise his body, it refreshed his mind. Conrad Gesner at Zurich in Switzerland likewise kept many wild animals for his pleasure and, as he says, greatly enjoyed watching them eat their food.

Turkish gentlewomen, who are perpetual prisoners, always shut away according to the country’s custom, have little besides household business or playing with their children to pass the time, except to play with their cats, which they keep “as favourites,” just as many of our ladies and gentlewomen keep monkeys and little dogs.

Our usual winter recreations, with which we occupy our minds in our most solitary hours, are cards, backgammon, dice, shove-board, chess, the Philosophers’ Game, small trunks, shuttlecock, billiards, music, masques, singing, dancing, Christmas games, frolics, jokes, riddles, catches, games of purposes, questions and commands, and merry tales of wandering kings, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, swindlers, witches, fairies, goblins, friars, and so forth.

Such are the stories the old woman told Psyche in Apuleius, Boccaccio’s tales, and the rest, “which children enjoy hearing and old people telling”: some delight in hearing them, others in telling them; everyone is pleased with them.