“Vice, when successful, is called virtue.”
Category: Democritus Junior to the Reader
Anatomy of Melancholy, Squids in Socks – Our style betrawes us.
I drew another squid. “It is most true, stylus virum arguit,—our style bewrayes us.” — The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton
A of M, 119-123: /rant
At last we come to the end of “Democritus Junior to the Reader.” After over one hundred pages of introduction, what parting thoughts does Burton have for us before embarking on the real book? I have overshot myself, I have spoken foolishly, rashly, unadvisedly, absurdly, I have anatomized mine own folly. And now methinks upon a […]
A of M, 116-118: Mushroom men and Monsieur Nobody
So 118 pages into this diatribe against humanity, Burton unsurprisingly sums up his argument as follows: “They are all mad.” If you are “reading” along but have fallen 116-118 pages behind, all you really missed is: “They are all mad.” Or more specifically, somewhat, they are all “E fungis nati homines,” which roughly translated means men […]
A of M, 113-115: The idle rich
Nevisanus hath as hard an opinion of rich men, “wealth and wisdom cannot dwell together.” […] Sapientia non invenitur in terra suaviter viventium [wisdom is not found in the land of those who live at ease]. For beside a natural contempt of learning, which accompanies such kind of men, innate idleness (for they will take no pains), […]
A of M, 108-112: Poets and philosophers need hellebore too
Everyone is crazy according to Burton. I did not know that I would be drawing so much crazy when I started this project. On philosophers and scholars: You shall find that of Aristotle true, nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae [no great wit without some admixture of sorrow], they have a worm as well as […]
A of M, 105-107: Monopolies
I will have no monopolies, to enrich one man and beggar a multitude. (106) This post is part of a long, tedious, and illustrated read-along of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy – more info here and follow along on Facebook here.
A of M, 102-104: The more things change, the more they stay the same
“For I see no reason” (as [Aristotle] said) “why an epicure or idle drone, a rich glutton, a usurer, should live at ease, and do nothing, live in honour, in all manner of pleasures, and oppress others, when as in the meantime a poor labourer, a smith, a carpenter, an husbandman that hath spent his time […]
A of M, 99-101: We are not born ourselves alone
So it turns out that this whole public healthcare thing isn’t some new wackadoo idea dreamed up just yesterday by liberal ‘Merica. Burton’s utopia would have: Hospitals of all kinds, for children, orphans, old folks, sick men, mad men, soldiers, pest-houses, etc. not built precario, or by gouty benefactors, who, when by fraud and rapine […]
A of M, 95-98: You know what liberty poets ever had
Let them be rude, stupid, ignorant, incult, lapis super lapidem sedeat, and as the apologist will, resp. tussi, et graveolentia laboret, mundus vitio, let them be barbarous as they are, let them tyrannise, epicurise, oppress, luxuriate, consume themselves with factions, superstitions, lawsuits, wars and contentions, live in riot, poverty, want, misery; rebel, wallow as so […]
A of M, 91-94: I should have paid more attention
This section was really pretty dull, to be honest. It was four pages of stuff like this: Some, saith Acosta, would have a passage cut from Panama to Nombre de Dios in America; but Thuanus and Serres the French historians speak of a famous aqueduct in France, intended in Henry the Fourth’s time, from the […]
A of M, 87-90: England is pretty great, except for the thistles
Yet amongst many roses some thistles grow, some bad weeds and enormities, which much disturb the peace of this body politic, eclipse the honour and glory of it, fit to be rooted out, and with all speed to be reformed. (87-88) This post is part of a long, tedious, and illustrated read-along of Robert […]
A of M, 83-86: Robert Burton does not like lawyers
We may justly tax our wrangling lawyers, they do consenescere in litibus [grow old over a lawsuit], are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients’ causes hereafter, some of them in hell. (84) For the record, some of my best friends are lawyers and do awesome things like advocate […]
A of M, 79-82: Vegetals and sensibles
This melancholy extends itself not to men only, but even to vegetals and sensibles.
A of M, 72-78: A beast in likeness of a man
Shall I say thou art a man, that hast all the symptoms of a beast? How shall I know thee to be a man? By thy shape? That affrights me more, when I see a beast in likeness of a man. If the news this week has you feeling down, remember to look at photos […]
A of M, 68-71: Those dizzards and their hellebore
We accuse others of madness, of folly, and are the veriest dizzards ourselves. When all are mad, where all are like opprest, Who can discern one madman from the rest? Can all the hellebore in the Anticyrae cure these men? No, sure, “an acre of hellebore will not do it.” In the olden days, helleborus […]
A of M, 65-67: A parasite’s parasite’s parasite
To see the unhappy rivalry of our times, a man bend all his forces, means, time, fortunes, to be a favourite’s favourite’s favourite, etc., a parasite’s parasite’s parasite, that may scorn the servile world as having enough already. My daughter “helped” me with this one and asked for something pink. And it turns out that […]
A of M, 62-65: A shop of knavery
And today, the world is… A vast chaos, a confusion of manners, as fickle as the air, domicilium insanorum [a madhouse], a turbulent troop full of impurities, a mart of walking spirits, goblins, the theatre of of hypocrisy, a shop of knavery, flattery, a nursery of villainy, the scene of babbling, the school of giddiness, […]
A of M, 58-61: Vice and virtue
Vice, when successful, is called virtue. This post is part of a long, tedious, and illustrated read-along of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy – more info here and follow along on Facebook here.
A of M, 55-57: SHEEP!
Or had [Democritus] but observed the common people follow like so many sheep one of their fellows drawn by the horns over a gap, some for zeal, some for fear, quo se cunque rapit tempestas [wherever they are whirled along], to credit all, examine nothing, and yet ready to die before they will abjure any […]
A of M, 52-54: A parade of follies
If Democritus were alive now, he should see strange alterations, a new company of counterfeit vizards, whifflers, Cumane asses, maskers, mummers, painted puppets, outsides, fantastic shadows, gulls, monsters, giddy-heads, butterflies. And so many of them are indeed (if all be true that I have read). For when Jupiter and Juno’s wedding was solemnised of old, […]
A of M, 48-51: Democritus forgets Hippocrates’ name
Pretty much more of the same here, although Burton does give us some advice at last, speaking as “mad” Democritus: It were enough to make them wise, if they would but consider the mutability of this world, and how it wheels about, nothing being firm and sure… If men would attempt no more than what […]
A of M, 45-47: Sottish beetles
That is not a typo. Sottish, not Scottish, meaning like a sot – stupid, possibly intoxicated. Continuing with the uplifting topic of the world’s madness, Burton describes the various failings and hypocrisies of so-called “wise men.” He calls Pythagoras a half-wizard half-witch and that sort of thing, concluding: “If these men now, that held Zenodotus’ […]
A of M, 41-44: The Olympics!
Okay, so the world is a fool’s head, and now Robert Burton explains why: Shall I tell you the reason of it? Fortune and Virtue, Wisdom and Folly, their seconds, upon a time contended in the Olympics; every man thought that Fortune and Folly would have the worst, and pitied their cases; but it fell […]
A of M, 38-40: We are living in a fool’s head
The Anatomy of Melancholy may ameliorate your melancholy, but it may also make it worse, so watch out! The same goes for this blog, I suppose: Yet one caution let me give by the way to my present or future reader, who is actually melancholy, that he read not the symptoms or prognostics in this following […]
A of M, 35-37: This rock of melancholy
Wow, so once again I am finding that Burton’s tome is totally loaded with awesome metaphors that lend themselves very well to overly literal illustrations. It is hard to choose just one. But for today, a melancholic rock, or a rocky melancholy? Because I don’t know about you, but the news this week has me […]
A of M, 31-34: Confused lumps and winding rivers
I narrowed my picture ideas down to these two quotes from my reading today: I might indeed (had I wisely done), observed that precept of the poet, Nonumque premature in annum [keep back your work for nine years before printing], and have taken more care: or, as Alexander the physician would have done by lapis lazuli, […]
A of M, 27-30: Books play dress up
In these four pages, Burton criticizes readers and critics who evaluate books “not by the character but by the outer garb.” So I drew some books playing dress up. Also, “If you like not this, get you to another inn” is a useful insult fit for revival. “I resolve, if you like not my writing, […]
A of M, 24-26: Dunghills
This is a picture of a dunghill, because Burton just won’t shut up about them. It feels like there is at least one dunghill on every page. “And for those other faults of barbarism, Doric dialect, extemporanean style, tautologies, apish imitation, a rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and […]
A of M, 20-23: In which I learned new words
In the spirit of pages 20-23, in which writers are described as “all thieves” who “scrape Ennius’ dung-hills,” I will write less putid bloggery from here on: more pictures and fewer words – sometimes none at all – unless I have an imposthume that I needs must drain. A really great four pages here though, […]