The Anatomy of Melancholy. Robert Burton
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chains, with Bajazet the Turk, and a footstool with Aurelian, for a tyrannising conqueror to trample on. So many casualties there are, that as Seneca said of a city consumed with fire, Una dies interest inter maximum civitatem et nullam, one day betwixt a great city and none: so many grievances from outward accidents, and from ourselves, our own indiscretion, inordinate appetite, one day betwixt a man and no man. And which is worse, as if discontents and miseries would not come fast enough upon us: homo homini daemon, we maul, persecute, and study how to sting, gall, and vex one another with mutual hatred, abuses, injuries; preying upon and devouring as so many, [1780]ravenous birds; and as jugglers, panders, bawds, cozening one another; or raging as [1781]wolves, tigers, and devils, we take a delight to torment one another; men are evil, wicked, malicious, treacherous, and [1782]naught, not loving one another, or loving themselves, not hospitable, charitable, nor sociable as they ought to be, but counterfeit, dissemblers, ambidexters, all for their own ends, hard-hearted, merciless, pitiless, and to benefit themselves, they care not what mischief they procure to others. [1783]Praxinoe and Gorgo in the poet, when they had got in to see those costly sights, they then cried bene est, and would thrust out all the rest: when they are rich themselves, in honour, preferred, full, and have even that they would, they debar others of those pleasures which youth requires, and they formerly have enjoyed. He sits at table in a soft chair at ease, but he doth remember in the mean time that a tired waiter stands behind him, "an hungry fellow ministers to him full, he is athirst that gives him drink" (saith [1784]Epictetus) "and is silent whilst he speaks his pleasure: pensive, sad, when he laughs." Pleno se proluit auro: he feasts, revels, and profusely spends, hath variety of robes, sweet music, ease, and all the pleasure the world can afford, whilst many an hunger-starved poor creature pines in the street, wants clothes to cover him, labours hard all day long, runs, rides for a trifle, fights peradventure from sun to sun, sick and ill, weary, full of pain and grief, is in great distress and sorrow of heart. He loathes and scorns his inferior, hates or emulates his equal, envies his superior, insults over all such as are under him, as if he were of another species, a demigod, not subject to any fall, or human infirmities. Generally they love not, are not beloved again: they tire out others' bodies with continual labour, they themselves living at ease, caring for none else, sibi nati; and are so far many times from putting to their helping hand, that they seek all means to depress, even most worthy and well deserving, better than themselves, those whom they are by the laws of nature bound to relieve and help, as much as in them lies, they will let them caterwaul, starve, beg, and hang, before they will any ways (though it be in their power) assist or ease: [1785]so unnatural are they for the most part, so unregardful; so hard-hearted, so churlish, proud, insolent, so dogged, of so bad a disposition. And being so brutish, so devilishly bent one towards another, how is it possible but that we should be discontent of all sides, full of cares, woes, and miseries?
If this be not a sufficient proof of their discontent and misery, examine every condition and calling apart. Kings, princes, monarchs, and magistrates seem to be most happy, but look into their estate, you shall [1786]find them to be most encumbered with cares, in perpetual fear, agony, suspicion, jealousy: that, as [1787]he said of a crown, if they knew but the discontents that accompany it, they would not stoop to take it up. Quem mihi regent dabis (saith Chrysostom) non curis plenum? What king canst thou show me, not full of cares? [1788]"Look not on his crown, but consider his afflictions; attend not his number of servants, but multitude of crosses." Nihil aliud potestas culminis, quam tempestas mentis, as Gregory seconds him; sovereignty is a tempest of the soul: Sylla like they have brave titles, but terrible fits: splendorem titulo, cruciatum animo: which made [1789]Demosthenes vow, si vel ad tribunal, vel ad interitum duceretur: if to be a judge, or to be condemned, were put to his choice, he would be condemned. Rich men are in the same predicament; what their pains are, stulti nesciunt, ipsi sentiunt: they feel, fools perceive not, as I shall prove elsewhere, and their wealth is brittle, like children's rattles: they come and go, there is no certainty in them: those whom they elevate, they do as suddenly depress, and leave in a vale of misery. The middle sort of men are as so many asses to bear burdens; or if they be free, and live at ease, they spend themselves, and consume their bodies and fortunes with luxury and riot, contention, emulation, &c. The poor I reserve for another [1790]place and their discontents.
For particular professions, I hold as of the rest, there's no content or security in any; on what course will you pitch, how resolve? to be a divine, 'tis contemptible in the world's esteem; to be a lawyer, 'tis to be a wrangler; to be a physician, [1791]pudet lotii, 'tis loathed; a philosopher, a madman; an alchemist, a beggar; a poet, esurit, an hungry jack; a musician, a player; a schoolmaster, a drudge; an husbandman, an emmet; a merchant, his gains are uncertain; a mechanician, base; a chirurgeon, fulsome; a tradesman, a [1792]liar; a tailor, a thief; a serving-man, a slave; a soldier, a butcher; a smith, or a metalman, the pot's never from his nose; a courtier a parasite, as he could find no tree in the wood to hang himself; I can show no state of life to give content. The like you may say of all ages; children live in a perpetual slavery, still under that tyrannical government of masters; young men, and of riper years, subject to labour, and a thousand cares of the world, to treachery, falsehood, and cozenage,
[1793]———"Incedit per ignes,
Suppositos cineri doloso,"
———"you incautious tread
On fires, with faithless ashes overhead."
[1794]old are full of aches in their bones, cramps and convulsions, silicernia, dull of hearing, weak sighted, hoary, wrinkled, harsh, so much altered as that they cannot know their own face in a glass, a burthen to themselves and others, after 70 years, "all is sorrow" (as David hath it), they do not live but linger. If they be sound, they fear diseases; if sick, weary of their lives: Non est vivere, sed valere vita. One complains of want, a second of servitude, [1795]another of a secret or incurable disease; of some deformity of body, of some loss, danger, death of friends, shipwreck, persecution, imprisonment, disgrace, repulse, [1796] contumely, calumny, abuse, injury, contempt, ingratitude, unkindness, scoffs, flouts, unfortunate marriage, single life, too many children, no children, false servants, unhappy children, barrenness, banishment, oppression, frustrate hopes and ill-success, &c.
[1797] "Talia de genere hoc adeo sunt multa, loquacem ut
Delassare valent Fabium."———
"But, every various instance to repeat,
Would tire even Fabius of incessant prate."
Talking Fabius will be tired before he can tell half of them; they are the subject of whole volumes, and shall (some of them) be more opportunely dilated elsewhere. In the meantime thus much I may say of them, that generally they crucify the soul of man, [1798]attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them as so many anatomies ([1799]ossa atque pellis est totus, ita curis macet) they cause tempus foedum et squalidum, cumbersome days, ingrataque tempora, slow, dull, and heavy times: make us howl, roar, and tear our hairs, as sorrow did in [1800]Cebes' table, and groan for the very anguish of our souls. Our hearts fail us as David's did, Psal. xl. 12, "for innumerable troubles that compassed him;" and we are ready to confess with Hezekiah, Isaiah lviii. 17, "behold, for felicity I had bitter grief;" to weep with Heraclitus, to curse the day of our birth with Jeremy, xx. 14, and our stars with Job: to hold that axiom of Silenus, [1801]"better never to have been born, and the best next of all, to die quickly:" or if we must live, to abandon the world, as Timon did; creep into caves and holes, as our anchorites; cast all into the sea, as Crates Thebanus; or as Theombrotus Ambrociato's 400 auditors, precipitate ourselves to be rid of these miseries.
SUBSECT. XI.—Concupiscible Appetite, as Desires, Ambition, Causes.
These concupiscible and irascible appetites are as the two twists of a rope, mutually mixed one with the other, and both twining about the heart: both good, as Austin, holds, l. 14. c. 9. de civ. Dei, [1802]"if they be moderate; both pernicious if they be exorbitant." This concupiscible appetite, howsoever it may seem to carry with it a show of pleasure and delight, and our concupiscences most part affect us with content and a pleasing object, yet if they be in extremes, they rack and wring us on the other side. A true saying it is, "Desire hath no rest;" is infinite in itself, endless; and as [1803]one