Anatomy of Melancholy, 287-292 — Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. III, Subsect. 13 — Love of Gaming, etc., and Pleasures Immoderate, Causes (Hawking, Hunting, Gaming)

“They do persecute beasts so long, till in the end they themselves degenerate into beasts.” Once again, I was about to move on from this section and make some goddamned progress, but then I didn’t because I drew another goddamned picture. Maybe “immoderate desire of hawking and hunting” is an archaic source of melancholic debauchery, […]

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, 241-244 – Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. II, Subs. 6 – Immoderate Exercise a Cause, and how. Solitariness, Idleness

  I didn’t draw “immoderate exercise” because who is ever melancholy from exercising too much? I really can’t identify with that at all. All I got from that bit was a good quote to whip out the next time your marathon-addict friend is espousing the joys of running until you feel like you are going […]

Anatomy of Melancholy, 202-204 – Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. I, Subs. 3: Of Witches and Magicians, how they cause Melancholy

There are a lot more witches in this book than I thought there would be. Some witchy quotes: Erricus, King of Sweden, had an enchanted cap, by virtue of which, and some magical murmur or whispering terms, he could command spirits, trouble the air, and make the wind stand which way he would, insomuch that when […]

Anatomy of Melancholy, 174-177: Pt. I, Sec. I, Mem. III, Subs. 4 – Of the Species or Kinds of Melancholy

  When the matter is diverse and confused, how should it otherwise be but that the species should be diverse and confused?   This post is part of a long, tedious, and very illustrated read-along of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. More info here and follow along on Facebook here. Illustrations posted via devon_isadevon on Instagram.

Anatomy of Melancholy, 170-172: Memb. III, Subsect. II – Of the Part Affected. Affection. Parties Affected.

  Were you born under Saturn? Do you live in a climate that is too cold? Too hot? Too moist? Are you too moist generally? Is your head unusually small? These are just a few of the many sources of a saturnine temperament. Here Burton also addresses the hotly debated topic of whether melancholy affects […]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 148: The four humours, melancholy

Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, sour, begotten of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen, is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones. These four humours have some analogy with the four elements, and to the four ages of man.

A of M, 143-146: Melancholy in Disposition, improperly so called. Equivocations

This little section is about sinking into a transient melancholy due to, say, a fleabite versus the “continuate disease” of melancholy. Burton does not have much patience for “errant,” or transient, melancholy, and he would prefer people stop calling “oops I stubbed my toe and it sucks” melancholy at all: Melancholy in this sense is the character […]

A of M, 139-143: Dotage, Madness, Frenzy, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropia, Chorus Sancti Viti, Ecstasis

Lycanthropia, which Avicenna calls cucubuth, others lupinam insaniam, or wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves, or some such beasts. Aetius and Paulus call it a kind of melancholy; but I should rather refer it to madness, as most do. […]

Read with me!

When a giant angry turnip was elected president of the United States in the apocalyptic year that was 2016, I started to feel a little down. Naturally my response was to buy an unabridged copy of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. My get-out-of-bed-without-crying-plan is to read a little piece of this gargantuan lump of knowledge daily, and I will illustrate it as I go.