The Anatomy of Melancholy

As a tree heavily laden with fruit breaks its own boughs, they ruin themselves by their own greatness. Joachim Camerarius has elegantly expressed this in emblem 13 of his first century: “Its abundance made it poor.” Their means are their misery. Though they adapt themselves to the times, lie, dissemble, cajole and flatter their sovereign, obeying and supporting his will and commands as far as possible, all too often they come to grief. They fatten themselves like so many hogs, as Aeneas Sylvius observes, so that, once well fed, they may be devoured by their princes, as Nero dealt with Seneca, Tiberius with Sejanus, and Ahasuerus with Haman.

I conclude with Gregory: “Power at the summit is a tempest of the mind; and the higher the dignity, the heavier the fall.” Honour is a tempest: the higher they are raised, the more grievously they are cast down.

As for the other advantages his wealth affords, the more he has, the greater his expenses. “When goods increase, so do those who consume them; and what benefit do their owners receive except the sight of them?” Ecclesiastes 4:10.

Your threshing floor may have threshed a hundred thousand measures of grain; Your stomach will take no more from it than mine.

Solomon calls it “a grievous sickness,” wealth “kept by its owners to their harm,” verse 12. “Those who want to be rich fall into many fears and temptations, into many foolish and harmful desires, which drown men in destruction.” 1 Timothy 6:9. “Gold and silver have destroyed many,” Ecclesiasticus 8:2. “The riches of this world are the devil’s snares,” writes Bernard: worldly wealth is the devil’s bait. And just as the moon is always farthest from the sun when it is fullest of light, the more wealth people have, the farther they commonly are from God.

If I had said this on my own authority, rich men would have torn me to pieces. But listen to who says it, and who supports it: an apostle. Saint James therefore tells them to “weep and howl for the miseries that will come upon them”; their gold will rust and corrode, and eat their flesh like fire, James 5:1–3.

I may then confidently conclude with Theodoret, “Whenever you see someone abounding in riches,” and so on: whenever you see a man overflowing with wealth, “who drinks from jewelled cups and sleeps in Tyrian purple,” yet is wicked, I beg you not to call him happy. Reckon him unfortunate, because he has so many opportunities to live unjustly. Conversely, a poor man is not miserable if he is good, but happy precisely because those opportunities for wrongdoing have been taken from him.

You cannot rightly call a man happy for owning much; More rightly does he bear The name of happy who knows How to use the gods’ gifts wisely, How to endure harsh poverty, And fears disgrace more than death.

The happy man is not the rich man Who has the world at his command, But the man who can wisely possess And always use God’s gifts; Who suffers and patiently Endures harsh poverty, And chooses death rather Than commit such wickedness.

Where, then, does his happiness lie? What advantages does he have over other men? Or rather, what miseries, cares, and discontents does he not have in greater measure than others?