The Anatomy of Melancholy

Fifty thousand Englishmen willingly lost their lives near Battle Abbey in defence of their country. Paolo Emilio, book 6, tells of six councillors of Calais who came to the king of England with nooses in their hands, to die for the rest. This love makes so many writers take such pains—so many historians, physicians and others—for the public safety and their country’s benefit, or so they claim.

“The name of friendship is sacred; the fellowship of companions is holy”: friendship is a holy name and a sacred communion of friends. “As the sun is in the heavens, so friendship is in the world,” a most divine and heavenly bond. As married love creates humankind, friendship perfects it; and, if you accept Cornelius Nepos’s judgement, it should be preferred to ties of marriage or blood: “in friendship, similarity of character has more power than relationship by marriage,” and so on.

The cords of love bind more firmly than any other bond. Take friendship away and you take all pleasure, joy, comfort, happiness and true contentment out of the world. It is the greatest tie, the surest contract, the strongest bond; and, as our modern Virgil decides, it is far to be preferred to the rest.

Hard is the question, difficult to judge, When all three kinds of love meet together And divide the heart with overwhelming power, Which will tip the balance: namely, The dear affection for beloved kindred, The raging fire of love for women, Or friends’ devotion, joined by matching virtues. But of them all, the bond of a virtuous mind, I think, should bind the noble heart most surely.

For natural affection soon dies down, Quenched by Cupid’s greater flame; But faithful friendship overcomes them both And tames them with its ruling discipline, Through thoughts aspiring to eternal fame. For as the soul rules the earthly body And orders all its service, So love of soul surpasses love of body As pure gold surpasses the poorest brass.

A faithful friend is better than gold, a remedy for misery, a possession beyond compare. Yet this love of friends, married love, passionate love, useful, pleasant and honourable love—all three kinds together—are worth little unless they come from a true Christian soul enlightened by God, unless they are practised “with reference to God,” for God’s sake.

“Though I had the gift of prophecy and spoke with the tongues of men and angels, though I fed the poor with all my goods and gave my body to be burned, without this love it profits me nothing,” 1 Corinthians 13:1, 3. Without charity it is “splendid sin.” This is an all-embracing love, a love that makes us godlike, a refined, pure, divine love, the essence of all love, the true philosopher’s stone.

“For no one,” as Augustine concludes, “can truly be a friend to another human being unless he is first a friend of truth itself”: he is no true friend who does not love God’s truth.