“Our villages are like molehills, and men as so many emmets.”
Tag: read-along
Anatomy of Melancholy, 264-266 — Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. III, Subsect. 7 — Envy, Malice, Hatred, Causes
“‘Other sins last but for a while; the gut may be satisfied, anger remits, hatred hath an end, envy never ceaseth.'” (Cardan, lib. 2 de sap.)
Anatomy of Melancholy, 210-211 – Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. I, Subs. 5: Old Age a Cause
Burton does not have a lot of good things to say about old people: Full of ache, sorrow and grief, children again, dizzards, they carl many times as they sit, and talk to themselves, they are angry, waspish, displeased with every thing, suspicious of all, wayward, covetous, hard (saith Tully,) self-willed, superstitious, self-conceited, braggers and admirers of themselves, as […]
Anatomy of Melancholy, 179: Pt. I, Sec. 2, Mem. I, Subsect. 2: A Digression of the Nature of Spirits, Bad Angels, or Devils, and how they cause Melancholy
Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken, may rejoice.
The Anatomy of Melancholy, 184: Pt. I, Sec. II, Subsect. II. – A Digression of the Nature of Spirits, Bad Angels, or Devils, and how they cause Melancholy
So… I was going to wait a bit to get back into this whole drawing, Anatomy of Melancholy, thinking, writing thing – wait until life settled down – but I dunno, I missed it. So here is today’s quote: [Facius Cardan] asked them many questions, and they made ready answer, that they were aerial devils, that […]
Anatomy of Melancholy, 167-169 – Pt. I, Sec. 1, Memb. II, Subs. 9 – Of the will
Those natural and vegetal powers are not commanded by will at all; for “who can add one cubit to his stature?” These other may, but are not: and thence come all those headstrong passions, violent perturbations of the mind; and many times vicious habits, customs, feral diseases; because we give so much way to our […]
Anatomy of Melancholy, 165-166: Subsect. X – Of the Understanding
In this subsection I learned that there are fourteen “species” of understanding, so I drew fourteen things: Now these notions are twofold, actions or habits: actions, by which we take notions of, and perceive things; habits, which are durable lights and notions, which we may use when we will. Some reckon up eight kinds of […]
Anatomy of Melancholy, 159-160: Subsect. VII – Of the Inward Senses, cont.
Seriously, I am never going to finish this project if The Anatomy of Melancholy keeps making me have so many ideas. Given that I have exactly eight and a half hours of free time per week to work on this, I would say we are looking at approximately ten years until completion if I keep […]
Anatomy of Melancholy, 159-160: Subsect. VII – Of the Inward Senses
In this section Burton discourses on common sense, phantasy (or imagination), and memory. On imagination he writes: In melancholy men this faculty is most powerful and strong, and often hurts, producing many monstrous and prodigious things, especially if it be stirred up by some terrible object, presented to it from common sense or memory. In […]
Anatomy of Melancholy, 157-159 — Pt. I, Sec. 1, Mem. III, Subsect. 6 — Of the Sensible Soul
Hey look, I’m back! Welcome back, me. In this section, Burton describes the body’s five senses: vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. It really is not very interesting. Burton mentions “Scaliger’s sixth sense of titillation,” which would be interesting, but unfortunately he seems icked out by it and doesn’t have any fun quotes for us. […]
Taking a few weeks off
See? This is me reading. I am really doing it. But I am also so terribly sleepy, and that makes me bad at art. I have both kids home for the summer, and it has been tiring. But not tiresome, that’s for sure. So, I am going to take a few weeks off. After that […]
Anatomy of Melancholy, 154-157: Of the Soul and her Faculties
Well, I could have drawn more anatomical pictures for the last section, but probably no one needs to see me get into membranes and ventricles. So I am moving on to spirits and souls, because I really prefer ghosts to blood and guts. And I may be reading too much into this, but wow, look […]
Anatomy of Melancholy, 148: Spirit
Yup, I drew another snail. Maybe tomorrow I will read past page 148. My daughter really likes snails, ghosts, and pink and purple, so maybe I will hang this on her wall. Is this a weird thing to hang in a child’s bedroom? I think this is a weird thing to hang in a child’s […]
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.