The Anatomy of Melancholy

In Franconia, a province of Germany, says Johannes Boemus, the old people went to the alehouse after evening prayer, and the young went dancing. To speak truly with John of Salisbury, “it would have been better to be idle in this way than to be more shamefully employed”—better this than something worse, which many would undoubtedly otherwise do, such is the corruption of human nature.

For that reason, plays, masques, jesters, gladiators, acrobats, jugglers, and all that crew are admitted and tolerated: “The whole stage of entertainers comes forward; spectacles and countless schools of frivolity are therefore admitted, so that people who usually spend their leisure more harmfully may be occupied by them”—so that those who would otherwise be harmfully idle may busy themselves with such trifles.

Thus we may say of them what Tacitus said of the astrologers in Rome: “They are a class of people who will always be shunned in our state and always retained.” Most are a dissolute company, continually condemned—as some of them thoroughly deserve, for I judge and distinguish between them as between mere fiddlers and musicians—and yet always kept on.

I admit that evil must not be done so that good may come of it. But this is evil only incidentally and in a qualified sense, and may rightly be tolerated to avoid a greater harm.

Sir Thomas More, in his Utopian commonwealth, will have no one idle, but neither will he have anyone labour too hard, worn out like a horse—a misery worse than slavery, the life of most of our hired servants and tradespeople elsewhere, apart from his Utopians. Half the day is allotted to work, and half to innocent recreation or whatever occupation people themselves think suitable.

If their harsh masters allowed our household servants one half-day a week for cheerful gatherings, or some annual feasts like the Roman Saturnalia, I think they would work harder the rest of the time, and both parties would be better pleased. But this is unnecessary, you will say, because some of them do nothing but loiter all week.

What I am aiming at is relief for those who are “broken in spirit,” troubled in mind: to refresh the overworked on the one hand, and to keep the excessively idle occupied on the other. For this purpose, as any labour or occupation will serve one group, any innocent recreation will help the other, provided it is moderate and sparing, like food and drink. The aim is not to spend a whole life gambling, playing, and pursuing amusement, as too many gentlemen do, but to revive our bodies and refresh our souls with innocent pastimes.