The Anatomy of Melancholy

They do so by examining the seventh house, its almutens, rulers and planets, and by calculations from the Moon and the Sun, and so on; and by particular rules: “If the ruler of the seventh is in the seventh or second house, it indicates a wife of noble birth; a servant or a woman of low birth if in the twelfth. If Venus is in the twelfth,” and so on—with many similar rules too tedious to relate.

Yet let no one be troubled or distressed by such predictions. As Hieronymus Wolf well says in his Astrological Dialogue, “They are not a magistrate’s decrees”; they are only conjectures. The stars incline us, but do not compel us.

Heavenly stars rule over our bodies, For these are fashioned from humble clay; But they cannot compel the mind endowed with reason, For it is subject to God alone.

Wisdom, diligence and judgement may soften, if not entirely change, such decrees. “Each person’s fortune is shaped by his own conduct”; “those who are cautious and prudent attain their wishes,” and so on. Let no one, then, be terrified or troubled by such astrological rules, or greatly moved by such predictions either to vain hope or fear. Let everyone follow his own free will in this matter, and act as he sees fit.

For the health of their souls, it is indeed better to marry than to burn; but for their present worldly circumstances, it is better to calm themselves by some other means and divert the course of this fiery torrent, to remain as they are and be content, “lamenting that the flower of virginity has thus withered.” Since there is no help or remedy, they must deplore their misery with that eunuch in Libanius, and with Jephthah’s daughter mourn their virginity.

Superstition is of a similar nature—those rash vows of monks, friars and members of religious orders—but is far more tyrannical and much worse. Nature, youth and this furious passion exert a powerful pull and rage on one side, while their order and their vow restrain them on the other.

And her own beauty conflicts with her vow.

What merits and indulgences they accumulate for themselves by it, what benefits, I do not know; but I am sure that from such rash vows and such an inhuman way of life arise many troubles, many diseases, many vices: masturbation, satyriasis, priapism, melancholy, madness, fornication, adultery, buggery, sodomy, theft, murder and every sort of wrongdoing.

Only read Bale’s Catalogue of Sodomites, concerning the visitation of abbeys here in England; Henri Estienne’s Defence of Herodotus; or what Ulricus writes in one of his letters: when Pope Gregory saw six hundred skulls and bones of infants taken out of a fishpond near a nunnery, he thereupon revoked that decree concerning priests’ marriages which had caused such slaughter, grieved deeply over it, and cleansed himself by repentance.