The Anatomy of Melancholy

Wine gives a troubled soul its rest, Though fetters weigh upon the feet.

Demetrius, in Plutarch, when he fell into Seleucus’ hands and was held prisoner in Syria, spent his time at dice and drinking, to relieve his unhappy mind and escape the incessant thoughts of his present condition that tormented him.

Therefore Solomon, Proverbs 31:6, directs that wine be given to someone near death and to someone whose heart is grieving: let him drink, forget his poverty and remember his misery no more. “It lifts the burden from anxious minds”: it relieves a burdened soul; nothing works faster, nothing better. The prophet Zechariah recognized this when he said that, in the Messiah’s time, the people of Ephraim would be glad and their hearts rejoice as through wine.

All this makes me warmly approve of that charming description of a feast in Bartholomew the Englishman. When grace had been said, their hands washed, and the guests sufficiently enlivened by good conversation, sweet music and delicious food, “cups are offered again and again to promote cheerfulness.” As a final addition to close the feast and prolong their merriment, a grace cup was brought in to cheer their hearts, and they repeatedly drank one another’s health.

This, as I. Fredericus Matenesius reports in Christian Criticism, book 2, chapters 5, 6 and 7, was an ancient custom in every age and every commonwealth—provided people were not forced “to drink under compulsion,” but drank as at Ahasuerus’ royal feast, which lasted 180 days. There, by command, they drank without compulsion from golden vessels, when and what they themselves wished.

Drink is a very easy remedy to obtain: common, cheap and always at hand against fear, sorrow and the troublesome thoughts that torment the mind. Like sulphur touched by fire, the spirits are suddenly lit up by it. “There is no better medicine,” says Rhazes, “for a melancholic person; someone who can keep company and carouse needs no other medicines: this is enough.”

His countryman Avicenna, 31, doctrine 2, chapter 8, goes further still: he would have someone troubled in mind or melancholic not only drink but occasionally get drunk, considering it excellent medicine for this and many other diseases. Magninus, Regimen of Health, part 3, chapter 31, would have them do so at least once a month. He gives as his reason that vomiting, urination and sweating scour the body of every kind of excess and keep it clean.

The philosopher Seneca takes the same view in his book On Tranquillity, book 1, chapter 15: “Sometimes, as in other illnesses, one must go as far as drunkenness: it presses down cares and cures sadness.” It is good sometimes to get drunk; it relieves sorrow and suppresses cares. And so he ends his treatise with a cup of wine: “You have, dearest Serenus, the things that concern tranquillity of soul.”