The Anatomy of Melancholy

Even those who were just now close and dear to us—our loving friends of long standing, neighbours, relatives and connections—with whom we have associated and lived for years like so many Geryons, always striving to please and entertain one another through invitations, feasts, recreations and services; people for whom we would ride, run and spend ourselves, of whom we have spoken so freely and honourably, bestowing all those swollen titles and magnificent praises—most excellent, most noble, worthy, wise, dignified, learned, brave and so on—and exalting them beyond measure:

If any dispute arises between us—some trespass, injury or abuse, some of our property withheld, a piece of land brought into litigation—if they oppose our claim or touch the string of our self-interest, we suddenly detest and disparage them. Neither marriage ties, blood relationship nor old acquaintance can restrain us; instead, “the wild fig tree bursts out through the ruptured liver.” A golden apple sets everyone fighting, as if a marrowbone or honeycomb had been thrown among bears. Father and son, brother and sister, relatives are at odds.

Whatever malice and deadly hatred can devise will be done: “terrible, dreadful, deadly, savage, brutal” acts. Mutual injuries, the desire for revenge, and ways to harm them—a man and his family—occupy all our thoughts. If our pleasures are interrupted, we can tolerate it; if our bodies are hurt, we can bear it and be reconciled.

But touch our interests, and we lose all patience. Beauty becomes ugliness, the Graces become Harpies, friendly greetings turn into bitter curses, mutual feasts into plots of villainy, schemes and counter-schemes; kind words become satires and invective. We answer praise with abuse; we see nothing but his faults. He is a base rogue, a devil, a monster, a devouring pest, a viper, a boor, and so on.

A woman beautiful above ends below in a fish.

The scene changes suddenly: love turns to hatred, cheerfulness to melancholy. So furiously are most of us bent upon material advantage and money, with our affections fixed on them; excessive desire for money is greed. Ambition tyrannizes over our souls, as I have shown; and deficiency torments us just as much. If through negligence, bad management, lack of foresight or extravagance a man wastes and consumes his possessions and fortune, poverty follows, and melancholy. He becomes an outcast, “hateful and worse than an unbeliever, in failing to provide for his family.”