The Anatomy of Melancholy

Callias, Thrasymachus, Polus, Aristophanes, or some other opponent or rival of his might perhaps object in this way. Yet neither they nor his bitter enemies Anytus and Meletus, who condemned him for teaching Critias tyranny, for impiously swearing by dogs and plane trees, for his deceptive sophistry and so forth, ever so much as reproached him with impure love or with writing or speaking on the subject. Therefore, he concludes, Socrates and Plato undoubtedly deserve to be acquitted on this point.

But suppose they had been a little indiscreet: should the divine Plato be defamed? No; rather, as someone said of Cato’s drunkenness, if Cato were drunk, drunkenness should be no vice at all. They therefore reproach Plato without reason, as Ficino argues, for all love is honourable and good, and those who speak well of love deserve to be loved.

“As I prepare to discuss this remarkable passion of love,” says Valleriola, “a vast philosophical field lies open to my discourse, through which many lovers come to madness. Let me leave my graver meditations, wander through these philosophical fields and look into the Muses’ pleasant groves. With their indescribable variety of flowers we may make ourselves garlands, not merely to adorn us, but, with their pleasant fragrance and juice, to nourish our souls and satisfy our minds’ desire for knowledge,” and so on.

After a harsh and unpleasant discussion of melancholy that has so far tried your patience and wearied the author, allow him, with Godefridus the lawyer and Laurentius, chapter 5, to refresh himself in this way after his laborious studies, since so many serious theologians and worthy men have willingly written about it, without offending against morality, to benefit themselves and others.

Heliodorus, a bishop, wrote the love story of Theagenes and Chariclea. When some Catos of his time reproached him for it, he chose, says Nicephorus, to give up his bishopric rather than his book.

Aeneas Sylvius, an elderly theologian over forty years old, as he himself admits—later Pope Pius II—composed that licentious story of Euryalus and Lucretia. And how many leading scholars could I list who have written on frivolous and fanciful subjects? Beroaldus, Erasmus, Alpheratius—printed twenty-four times in Spanish—and others.

Allow me, then, to refresh my muse a little, and my weary readers, by wandering freely in this delightful field—“this field of delights,” as Fonseca calls it—and to season a stern discourse with a more agreeable sprinkling of love matters. “It is fitting to sweeten life,” as the poet invites us, “and cares with trifles,” and so on: it is good to sweeten our life with a few pleasing trifles to give it flavour. And, as Pliny tells us, “most of us scholars seek pleasant things”: most of our students love such agreeable subjects.