The Anatomy of Melancholy

Many poor men, younger sons, and so on, are driven to beg or steal by bad government and an idle upbringing, since they are generally trained for no occupation, and then hanged for theft. What could be more disgraceful? “Many executions are no less shameful to a ruler than many funerals to a physician.” The fault lies with the governors. “They beat more readily than they teach,” like schoolmasters who would rather punish pupils than teach them when they go wrong. They should take far greater care, through good government, to prevent theft and begging and remove their causes, instead of letting people continue to their destruction, as they do. They should likewise root out the causes of wrangling—the multitude of lawyers—and settle disputes, “lawsuits that last five years or a century,” by some shorter method.

As it is, they go to law over every toy and trifle. “The maddened court bellows with lawsuits, and the fury of the disputants rages against each other.” They are ready to tear one another’s throats out, and, for profit, “to squeeze blood,” as Jerome says, “from their brother’s heart”; to slander, lie, disgrace, backbite, abuse, bear false witness, swear oaths and break them, fight and wrangle, spend their possessions, lives, fortunes, and friendships, and ruin one another. All to enrich some harpy of a lawyer who preys on both sides and cries, “Go on, Socrates! Go on, Xanthippe!” Or some corrupt judge who, like the kite in Aesop, carries off both the mouse and the frog while they fight.

In general, they prey on one another like ravenous birds, savage beasts, or voracious fish. “There is no middle course: everyone here is either hunted or a hunter, either a corpse being torn apart or a raven doing the tearing.” Deceive or be deceived; tear others apart or be torn apart yourself. Like buckets in a well: as one rises, another falls; one is empty, another full. One man’s ruin is a ladder for a third. Such is our ordinary way of doing things.

What is the marketplace? A place, according to Anacharsis, where people cheat one another—a trap. Indeed, what is the world itself? A vast chaos, a confusion of conduct, as changeable as the air, “a dwelling place of madmen,” a disorderly crowd full of corruption, a market of wandering spirits and goblins, a theatre of hypocrisy, a shop of knavery and flattery, a nursery of villainy, a stage for babbling, a school of fickleness, an academy of vice; a war “in which you must fight, willing or unwilling, and either conquer or succumb”—kill or be killed; where everyone pursues his own private ends and stands on guard for himself.

No charity, love, friendship, fear of God, alliance, marriage tie, blood relationship, or Christian faith can restrain them. If they are offended in any way, or their self-interest is touched, they turn vicious. Old friends suddenly become bitter enemies over trifles and small offences. Those who once willingly performed every mutual act of love and kindness now abuse and persecute one another to death, with more than Vatinian hatred, and refuse reconciliation.