The Anatomy of Melancholy: Philosophy Classic. Robert Burton
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by it. This hatred, malice, faction, and desire of revenge, invented first all those racks and wheels, strappadoes, brazen bulls, feral engines, prisons, inquisitions, severe laws to macerate and torment one another. How happy might we be, and end our time with blessed days and sweet content, if we could contain ourselves, and, as we ought to do, put up injuries, learn humility, meekness, patience, forget and forgive, as in [1726]God's word we are enjoined, compose such final controversies amongst ourselves, moderate our passions in this kind, "and think better of others," as [1727]Paul would have us, "than of ourselves: be of like affection one towards another, and not avenge ourselves, but have peace with all men." But being that we are so peevish and perverse, insolent and proud, so factious and seditious, so malicious and envious; we do invicem angariare, maul and vex one another, torture, disquiet, and precipitate ourselves into that gulf of woes and cares, aggravate our misery and melancholy, heap upon us hell and eternal damnation.
SUBSECT. IX.—Anger, a Cause.
Anger, a perturbation, which carries the spirits outwards, preparing the body to melancholy, and madness itself: Ira furor brevis est, "anger is temporary madness;" and as [1728]Picolomineus accounts it, one of the three most violent passions. [1729]Areteus sets it down for an especial cause (so doth Seneca, ep. 18. l. 1,) of this malady. [1730]Magninus gives the reason, Ex frequenti ira supra modum calefiunt; it overheats their bodies, and if it be too frequent, it breaks out into manifest madness, saith St. Ambrose. 'Tis a known saying, Furor fit Iaesa saepius palienlia, the most patient spirit that is, if he be often provoked, will be incensed to madness; it will make a devil of a saint: and therefore Basil (belike) in his Homily de Ira, calls it tenebras rationis, morbum animae, et daemonem pessimum; the darkening of our understanding, and a bad angel. [1731]Lucian, in Abdicato, tom. 1, will have this passion to work this effect, especially in old men and women. "Anger and calumny" (saith he) "trouble them at first, and after a while break out into madness: many things cause fury in women, especially if they love or hate overmuch, or envy, be much grieved or angry; these things by little and little lead them on to this malady." From a disposition they proceed to an habit, for there is no difference between a mad man, and an angry man, in the time of his fit; anger, as Lactantius describes it, L. de Ira Dei, ad Donatum, c. 5, is [1732]saeva animi tempestas, &c., a cruel tempest of the mind; "making his eye sparkle fire, and stare, teeth gnash in his head, his tongue stutter, his face pale, or red, and what more filthy imitation can be of a mad man?"
[1733] "Ora tument ira, fervescunt sanguine venae, Lumina Gorgonio saevius angue micant."
They are void of reason, inexorable, blind, like beasts and monsters for the time, say and do they know not what, curse, swear, rail, fight, and what not? How can a mad man do more? as he said in the comedy, [1734] Iracundia non sum apud me, I am not mine own man. If these fits be immoderate, continue long, or be frequent, without doubt they provoke madness. Montanus, consil. 21, had a melancholy Jew to his patient, he ascribes this for a principal cause: Irascebatur levibus de causis, he was easily moved to anger. Ajax had no other beginning of his madness; and Charles the Sixth, that lunatic French king, fell into this misery, out of the extremity of his passion, desire of revenge and malice, [1735]incensed against the duke of Britain, he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep for some days together, and in the end, about the calends of July, 1392, he became mad upon his horseback, drawing his sword, striking such as came near him promiscuously, and so continued all the days of his life, Aemil., lib. 10. Gal. hist. Aegesippus de exid. urbis Hieros, l. 1. c. 37, hath such a story of Herod, that out of an angry fit, became mad, [1736]leaping out of his bed, he killed Jossippus, and played many such bedlam pranks, the whole court could not rule him for a long time after: sometimes he was sorry and repented, much grieved for that he had done, Postquam deferbuit ira, by and by outrageous again. In hot choleric bodies, nothing so soon causeth madness, as this passion of anger, besides many other diseases, as Pelesius observes, cap. 21. l. 1. de hum. affect. causis; Sanguinem imminuit, fel auget: and as [1737]Valesius controverts, Med. controv., lib. 5. contro. 8, many times kills them quite out. If this were the worst of this passion, it were more tolerable, [1738]"but it ruins and subverts whole towns, [1739]cities, families, and kingdoms;" Nulla pestis humano generi pluris stetit, saith Seneca, de Ira, lib. 1. No plague hath done mankind so much harm. Look into our histories, and you shall almost meet with no other subject, but what a company [1740]of harebrains have done in their rage. We may do well therefore to put this in our procession amongst the rest; "From all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred and malice, anger, and all such pestiferous perturbations, good Lord deliver us."
SUBSECT. X.—Discontents, Cares, Miseries, &c. Causes.
Discontents, cares, crosses, miseries, or whatsoever it is, that shall cause any molestation of spirits, grief, anguish, and perplexity, may well be reduced to this head, (preposterously placed here in some men's judgments they may seem,) yet in that Aristotle in his [1741]Rhetoric defines these cares, as he doth envy, emulation, &c. still by grief, I think I may well rank them in this irascible row; being that they are as the rest, both causes and symptoms of this disease, producing the like inconveniences, and are most part accompanied with anguish and pain. The common etymology will evince it, Cura quasi cor uro, Dementes curae, insomnes curae, damnosae curae, tristes, mordaces, carnifices, &c. biting, eating, gnawing, cruel, bitter, sick, sad, unquiet, pale, tetric, miserable, intolerable cares, as the poets [1742]call them, worldly cares, and are as many in number as the sea sands. [1743]Galen, Fernelius, Felix Plater, Valescus de Taranta, &c., reckon afflictions, miseries, even all these contentions, and vexations of the mind, as principal causes, in that they take away sleep, hinder concoction, dry up the body, and consume the substance of it. They are not so many in number, but their causes be as divers, and not one of a thousand free from them, or that can vindicate himself, whom that Ate dea,
[1744] "Per hominum capita molliter ambulans,
Plantas pedum teneras habens:"
"Over men's heads walking aloft,
With tender feet treading so soft,"
Homer's Goddess Ate hath not involved into this discontented [1745]rank, or plagued with some misery or other. Hyginus, fab. 220, to this purpose hath a pleasant tale. Dame Cura by chance went over a brook, and taking up some of the dirty slime, made an image of it; Jupiter eftsoons coming by, put life to it, but Cura and Jupiter could not agree what name to give him, or who should own him; the matter was referred to Saturn as judge; he gave this arbitrement: his name shall be Homo ab humo, Cura eum possideat quamdiu vivat, Care shall have him whilst he lives, Jupiter his soul, and Tellus his body when he dies. But to leave tales. A general cause, a continuate cause, an inseparable accident, to all men, is discontent, care, misery; were there no other particular affliction (which who is free from?) to molest a man in this life, the very cogitation of that common misery were enough to macerate, and make him weary of his life; to think that he can never be secure, but still in danger, sorrow, grief, and persecution. For to begin at the hour of his birth, as [1746]Pliny doth elegantly describe it, "he is born naked, and falls [1747]a whining at the very first: he is swaddled, and bound up like a prisoner, cannot help himself, and so he continues to his life's end." Cujusque ferae pabulum, saith [1748]Seneca, impatient of heat and cold, impatient of labour, impatient of idleness, exposed to fortune's contumelies. To a naked mariner Lucretius compares him, cast on shore by shipwreck, cold and comfortless in an unknown land: [1749]no estate, age, sex, can secure himself from this common misery. "A man that is born of a woman is of short continuance, and full of trouble," Job xiv. 1, 22. "And while his flesh is upon him he shall be sorrowful, and while his soul is in him it shall mourn. All his days are sorrow and his travels griefs: his heart also taketh not rest in the night." Eccles. ii. 23, and ii. 11. "All that is in it is sorrow and vexation of spirit. [1750]Ingress, progress, regress, egress, much alike: blindness seizeth on us in the beginning, labour in the middle, grief in the end, error in all. What day ariseth to us without some grief, care, or anguish? Or what so secure and pleasing a morning have we seen, that hath not been overcast before the evening?" One is miserable, another ridiculous, a third odious. One complains of this grievance, another of that. Aliquando nervi, aliquando pedes vexant, (Seneca) nunc distillatio, nunc epatis morbus; nunc deest,