Anatomy of Melancholy, 300-330 — Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. III, Subsect. 15 — Love of Learning, or overmuch Study. With a Digression of the Misery of Scholars, and why the Muses are Melancholy (Overmuch Study)

This subsection is the longest subsection. Marsilius Ficinus de sanit. tuend. lib. 1, cap. 1, 3, 4, and lib. 2, cap. 16, gives many reasons, “why students dote more often than others.” The first is their negligence; “other men look to their tools, a painter will wash his pencils, a smith will look to his hammer, anvil, […]

Anatomy of Melancholy, 282-285 — Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. III, Subsect. 12 — Covetousness, φιλαργυρίαν, a Cause

Well, if you don’t have a pile of “money-bags” to sleep on “open-mouthed” (“Congestis undique saccis indormit inhians”) this section will make you feel better about yourself, because at least now you know how to insult Jeff Bezos in Latin. Apparently all those Uncle Scrooges are in actual fact miserable “dust worms” and “fools, dizzards, […]

Anatomy of Melancholy, 259-261 — Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. III, Subsect. 4 — Sorrow a Cause of Melancholy

Note to self: You skipped Subsection 3, a “Division of Perturbations” because it seemed to make more sense to draw individual perturbations before drawing the catalogue. I guess? Subsection 3 didn’t make much sense, really. Sometimes Burton says there are four perturbations but goes on to name three, and then sometimes there are seven or […]

Anatomy of Melancholy, 223-224 – Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. II, Subs. 1 – Bad Diet a Cause. Substance. Quality of Meats (continued EVEN MORE)

Today I read the drinkable liquids section. You know what else is bad for you? WATER. Especially if it is from a moat. Don’t drink the moat water. And then there’s this: All black wines, over-hot, compound, strong thick drinks, as Muscadine, Malmsey, Alicant, Rumney, Brownbastard, Metheglen, and the like, of which they have thirty […]

Anatomy of Melancholy, 221-222 – Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. II, Subs. 1 – Bad Diet a Cause. Substance. Quality of Meats (continued again)

Hey look, I’m back at work on the read-along! I picked up where I left off: reading the parts of The Anatomy of Melancholy that have not been read in approximately four hundred years. It has been a rough reentry. Today, I read about fruits and vegetables, also known as vegetals. All classical, Medieval, and […]