The Anatomy of Melancholy - Robert Burton

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pedes vexant, (Seneca) nunc distillatio, nunc epatis morbus; nunc deest, nunc superest sanguis: now the head aches, then the feet, now the lungs, then the liver, &c. Huic sensus exuberat, sed est pudori degener sanguis, &c. He is rich, but base born; he is noble, but poor; a third hath means, but he wants health peradventure, or wit to manage his estate; children vex one, wife a second, &c. Nemo facile cum conditione sua concordat, no man is pleased with his fortune, a pound of sorrow is familiarly mixed with a dram of content, little or no joy, little comfort, but [1751]everywhere danger, contention, anxiety, in all places: go where thou wilt, and thou shalt find discontents, cares, woes, complaints, sickness, diseases, encumbrances, exclamations: "If thou look into the market, there" (saith [1752] Chrysostom) "is brawling and contention; if to the court, there knavery and flattery, &c.; if to a private man's house, there's cark and care, heaviness," &c. As he said of old,

      [1753] "Nil homine in terra spirat miserum magis alma?"

      No creature so miserable as man, so generally molested, [1754]"in miseries of body, in miseries of mind, miseries of heart, in miseries asleep, in miseries awake, in miseries wheresoever he turns," as Bernard found, Nunquid tentatio est vita humana super terram? A mere temptation is our life, (Austin, confess. lib. 10. cap. 28,) catena perpetuorum malorum, et quis potest molestias et difficultates pati? Who can endure the miseries of it? [1755]"In prosperity we are insolent and intolerable, dejected in adversity, in all fortunes foolish and miserable." [1756]"In adversity I wish for prosperity, and in prosperity I am afraid of adversity. What mediocrity may be found? Where is no temptation? What condition of life is free?" [1757]"Wisdom hath labour annexed to it, glory, envy; riches and cares, children and encumbrances, pleasure and diseases, rest and beggary, go together: as if a man were therefore born" (as the Platonists hold) "to be punished in this life for some precedent sins." Or that, as [1758]Pliny complains, "Nature may be rather accounted a stepmother, than a mother unto us, all things considered: no creature's life so brittle, so full of fear, so mad, so furious; only man is plagued with envy, discontent, griefs, covetousness, ambition, superstition." Our whole life is an Irish sea, wherein there is nought to be expected but tempestuous storms and troublesome waves, and those infinite,

      [1759] "Tantum malorum pelagus aspicio, Ut non sit inde enatandi copia,"

      no halcyonian times, wherein a man can hold himself secure, or agree with his present estate; but as Boethius infers, [1760]"there is something in every one of us which before trial we seek, and having tried abhor: [1761] we earnestly wish, and eagerly covet, and are eftsoons weary of it." Thus between hope and fear, suspicions, angers, [1762]Inter spemque metumque, timores inter et iras, betwixt falling in, falling out, &c., we bangle away our best days, befool out our times, we lead a contentious, discontent, tumultuous, melancholy, miserable life; insomuch, that if we could foretell what was to come, and it put to our choice, we should rather refuse than accept of this painful life. In a word, the world itself is a maze, a labyrinth of errors, a desert, a wilderness, a den of thieves, cheaters, &c., full of filthy puddles, horrid rocks, precipitiums, an ocean of adversity, an heavy yoke, wherein infirmities and calamities overtake, and follow one another, as the sea waves; and if we scape Scylla, we fall foul on Charybdis, and so in perpetual fear, labour, anguish, we run from one plague, one mischief, one burden to another, duram servientes servitutem, and you may as soon separate weight from lead, heat from fire, moistness from water, brightness from the sun, as misery, discontent, care, calamity, danger, from a man. Our towns and cities are but so many dwellings of human misery. "In which grief and sorrow" ([1763]as he right well observes out of Solon) "innumerable troubles, labours of mortal men, and all manner of vices, are included, as in so many pens." Our villages are like molehills, and men as so many emmets, busy, busy still, going to and fro, in and out, and crossing one another's projects, as the lines of several sea-cards cut each other in a globe or map. "Now light and merry," but ([1764]as one follows it) "by-and-by sorrowful and heavy; now hoping, then distrusting; now patient, tomorrow crying out; now pale, then red; running, sitting, sweating, trembling, halting," &c. Some few amongst the rest, or perhaps one of a thousand, may be Pullus Jovis, in the world's esteem, Gallinae filius albae, an happy and fortunate man, ad invidiam felix, because rich, fair, well allied, in honour and office; yet peradventure ask himself, and he will say, that of all others [1765]he is most miserable and unhappy. A fair shoe, Hic soccus novus, elegans, as he [1766]said, sed nescis ubi urat, but thou knowest not where it pincheth. It is not another man's opinion can make me happy: but as [1767]Seneca well hath it, "He is a miserable wretch that doth not account himself happy, though he be sovereign lord of a world: he is not happy, if he think himself not to be so; for what availeth it what thine estate is, or seem to others, if thou thyself dislike it?" A common humour it is of all men to think well of other men's fortunes, and dislike their own: [1768]Cui placet alterius, sua nimirum est odio sors; but [1769]qui fit Mecoenas, &c., how comes it to pass, what's the cause of it? Many men are of such a perverse nature, they are well pleased with nothing, (saith [1770] Theodoret,) "neither with riches nor poverty, they complain when they are well and when they are sick, grumble at all fortunes, prosperity and adversity; they are troubled in a cheap year, in a barren, plenty or not plenty, nothing pleaseth them, war nor peace, with children, nor without." This for the most part is the humour of us all, to be discontent, miserable, and most unhappy, as we think at least; and show me him that is not so, or that ever was otherwise. Quintus Metellus his felicity is infinitely admired amongst the Romans, insomuch that as [1771]Paterculus mentioneth of him, you can scarce find of any nation, order, age, sex, one for happiness to be compared unto him: he had, in a word, Bona animi, corporis et fortunae, goods of mind, body, and fortune, so had P. Mutianus, [1772]Crassus. Lampsaca, that Lacedaemonian lady, was such another in [1773]Pliny's conceit, a king's wife, a king's mother, a king's daughter: and all the world esteemed as much of Polycrates of Samos. The Greeks brag of their Socrates, Phocion, Aristides; the Psophidians in particular of their Aglaus, Omni vita felix, ab omni periculo immunis (which by the way Pausanias held impossible;) the Romans of their [1774] Cato, Curius, Fabricius, for their composed fortunes, and retired estates, government of passions, and contempt of the world: yet none of all these were happy, or free from discontent, neither Metellus, Crassus, nor Polycrates, for he died a violent death, and so did Cato; and how much evil doth Lactantius and Theodoret speak of Socrates, a weak man, and so of the rest. There is no content in this life, but as [1775]he said, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit;" lame and imperfect. Hadst thou Sampson's hair, Milo's strength, Scanderbeg's arm, Solomon's wisdom, Absalom's beauty, Croesus' wealth, Pasetis obulum, Caesar's valour, Alexander's spirit, Tully's or Demosthenes' eloquence, Gyges' ring, Perseus' Pegasus, and Gorgon's head, Nestor's years to come, all this would not make thee absolute; give thee content, and true happiness in this life, or so continue it. Even in the midst of all our mirth, jollity, and laughter, is sorrow and grief, or if there be true happiness amongst us, 'tis but for a time,

      [1776] "Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne:"

      "A handsome woman with a fish's tail,"

      a fair morning turns to a lowering afternoon. Brutus and Cassius, once renowned, both eminently happy, yet you shall scarce find two (saith Paterculus) quos fortuna maturius destiturit, whom fortune sooner forsook. Hannibal, a conqueror all his life, met with his match, and was subdued at last, Occurrit forti, qui mage fortis erit. One is brought in triumph, as Caesar into Rome, Alcibiades into Athens, coronis aureis donatus, crowned, honoured, admired; by-and-by his statues demolished, he hissed out, massacred, &c. [1777]Magnus Gonsalva, that famous Spaniard, was of the prince and people at first honoured, approved; forthwith confined and banished. Admirandas actiones; graves plerunque sequuntur invidiae, et acres calumniae: 'tis Polybius his observation, grievous enmities, and bitter calumnies, commonly follow renowned actions. One is born rich, dies a beggar; sound today, sick tomorrow; now in most flourishing estate, fortunate and happy, by-and-by deprived of his goods by foreign enemies, robbed by thieves, spoiled, captivated, impoverished, as they of [1778]"Rabbah put under iron saws, and under iron harrows, and under axes of iron, and cast into the tile kiln,"

      [1779] "Quid me felicem toties jactastis amici, Qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu."

      He that erst marched like Xerxes with innumerable armies, as rich as Croesus, now shifts for himself in a poor cock-boat,

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