[2372]At vos o duri miseram lugete parentes,
Si ferro aut laqueo laeva hac me exsolvere sorte
Sustineo:———
Hard hearted parents both lament my fate,
If self I kill or hang, to ease my state.
[2373]A young gentlewoman in Basil was married, saith Felix Plater,
observat. l. 1, to an ancient man against her will, whom she could not
affect; she was continually melancholy, and pined away for grief; and
though her husband did all he could possibly to give her content, in a
discontented humour at length she hanged herself. Many other stories he
relates in this kind. Thus men are plagued with women; they again with
men, when they are of divers humours and conditions; he a spendthrift,
she sparing; one honest, the other dishonest, &c. Parents many times
disquiet their children, and they their parents. [2374]A foolish son is
an heaviness to his mother. Injusta noverca: a stepmother often vexeth
a whole family, is matter of repentance, exercise of patience, fuel of
dissension, which made Cato's son expostulate with his father, why he
should offer to marry his client Solinius' daughter, a young wench,
Cujus causa novercam induceret; what offence had he done, that he
should marry again?
Unkind, unnatural friends, evil neighbours, bad servants, debts and
debates, &c., 'twas Chilon's sentence, comes aeris alieni et litis est
miseria, misery and usury do commonly together; suretyship is the bane
of many families, Sponde, praesto noxa est: he shall be sore vexed that
is surety for a stranger, Prov. xi. 15, and he that hateth suretyship
is sure. Contention, brawling, lawsuits, falling out of neighbours and
friends.—discordia demens (Virg. Aen. 6,) are equal to the first,
grieve many a man, and vex his soul. Nihil sane miserabilius eorum
mentibus, (as [2375]Boter holds) nothing so miserable as such men, full
of cares, griefs, anxieties, as if they were stabbed with a sharp
sword, fear, suspicion, desperation, sorrow, are their ordinary
companions. Our Welshmen are noted by some of their [2376]own writers,
to consume one another in this kind; but whosoever they are that use
it, these are their common symptoms, especially if they be convict or
overcome, [2377]cast in a suit. Arius put out of a bishopric by
Eustathius, turned heretic, and lived after discontented all his life.
[2378]Every repulse is of like nature; heu quanta de spe decidi!
Disgrace, infamy, detraction, will almost effect as much, and that a
long time after. Hipponax, a satirical poet, so vilified and lashed two
painters in his iambics, ut ambo laqueo se suffocarent, [2379]Pliny
saith, both hanged themselves. All oppositions, dangers, perplexities,
discontents, [2380]to live in any suspense, are of the same rank: potes
hoc sub casu ducere somnos? Who can be secure in such cases?
Ill-bestowed benefits, ingratitude, unthankful friends, much disquiet
and molest some. Unkind speeches trouble as many; uncivil carriage or
dogged answers, weak women above the rest, if they proceed from their
surly husbands, are as bitter as gall, and not to be digested. A
glassman's wife in Basil became melancholy because her husband said he
would marry again if she died. No cut to unkindness, as the saying is,
a frown and hard speech, ill respect, a browbeating, or bad look,
especially to courtiers, or such as attend upon great persons, is
present death: Ingenium vultu statque caditque suo, they ebb and flow
with their masters' favours. Some persons are at their wits' ends, if
by chance they overshoot themselves, in their ordinary speeches, or
actions, which may after turn to their disadvantage or disgrace, or
have any secret disclosed. Ronseus epist. miscel. 2, reports of a
gentlewoman 25 years old, that falling foul with one of her gossips,
was upbraided with a secret infirmity (no matter what) in public, and
so much grieved with it, that she did thereupon solitudines quaerere
omnes ab se ablegare, ac tandem in gravissimam incidens melancholiam,
contabescere, forsake all company, quite moped, and in a melancholy
humour pine away. Others are as much tortured to see themselves
rejected, contemned, scorned, disabled, defamed, detracted,
undervalued, or [2381]left behind their fellows. Lucian brings in
Aetamacles, a philosopher in his Lapith. convivio, much discontented
that he was not invited amongst the rest, expostulating the matter, in
a long epistle, with Aristenetus their host. Praetextatus, a robed
gentleman in Plutarch, would not sit down at a feast, because he might
not sit highest, but went his ways all in a chafe. We see the common
quarrelings, that are ordinary with us, for taking of the wall,
precedency, and the like, which though toys in themselves, and things
of no moment, yet they cause many distempers, much heart-burning
amongst us. Nothing pierceth deeper than a contempt or disgrace,
[2382]especially if they be generous spirits, scarce anything affects
them more than to be despised or vilified. Crato, consil. 16, l. 2,
exemplifies it, and common experience confirms it. Of the same nature
is oppression, Ecclus. 77, surely oppression makes a man mad, loss of
liberty, which made Brutus venture his life, Cato kill himself, and
[2383]Tully complain, Omnem hilaritatem in perpetuum amisi, mine
heart's broken, I shall never look up, or be merry again, [2384]haec
jactura intolerabilis, to some parties 'tis a most intolerable loss.
Banishment a great misery, as Tyrteus describes it in an epigram of
his,
Nam miserum est patria amissa, laribusque vagari
Mendicum, et timida voce rogare cibos:
Omnibus invisus, quocunque accesserit exul
Semper erit, semper spretus egensque jacet, &c.
A miserable thing 'tis so to wander,
And like a beggar for to whine at door,
Contemn'd of all the world, an exile is,
Hated, rejected, needy still and poor.
Polynices in his conference with Jocasta in [2385]Euripides, reckons up
five miseries of a banished man, the least of which alone were enough
to deject some pusillanimous creatures. Oftentimes a too great feeling
of our own infirmities or imperfections of body or mind, will shrivel
us up; as if we be long sick:
O beata sanitas, te praesente, amaenum
Ver florit gratiis, absque te nemo beatus:
O blessed health! thou art above all gold and treasure, Ecclus. xxx.
15, the poor man's riches, the rich man's bliss, without thee there can
be no happiness: or visited with some loathsome disease, offensive to
others, or troublesome to ourselves; as a stinking breath, deformity of
our limbs, crookedness, loss of an eye, leg, hand, paleness, leanness,
redness, baldness, loss or want of hair, &c., hic ubi fluere caepit,
diros ictus cordi infert, saith [2386]Synesius, he himself troubled not
a little ob comae defectum, the loss of hair alone, strikes a cruel
stroke to the heart. Acco, an old woman, seeing by chance her face in a
true glass (for she used false flattering glasses belike at other
times, as most gentlewomen do,) animi dolore in insaniam delapsa est,
(Caelius Rhodiginus l. 17, c. 2,) ran mad. [2387]Brotheus, the son of
Vulcan, because he was ridiculous for his imperfections, flung himself
into the fire. Lais of Corinth, now grown old, gave up her glass to
Venus, for she could not abide to look upon it. [2388]Qualis sum nolo,
qualis eram nequeo. Generally to fair nice pieces, old age and foul
linen are two most odious things, a torment of torments, they may not
abide the thought of it,
[2389]———o deorum
Quisquis haec audis, utinam inter errem
Nuda leones,
Antequam turpis macies decentes
Occupet malas, teneraeque succus
Defluat praedae, speciosa quaerro
Pascere tigres.
Hear me, some gracious heavenly power,
Let lions dire this naked corse devour.
My cheeks ere hollow wrinkles seize.
Ere yet their rosy bloom decays:
While youth yet rolls its vital flood,
Let tigers friendly riot in my blood.
To be foul, ugly, and deformed, much better be buried alive. Some are
fair but barren, and that galls them. Hannah wept sore, did not eat,
and was troubled in spirit, and all for her barrenness, 1 Sam. 1. and
Gen. 30. Rachel said in the anguish of her soul, give me a child, or I
shall die: another hath too many: one was never married, and that's his
hell, another is, and that's his plague. Some are troubled in that they
are obscure; others by being traduced, slandered, abused, disgraced,
vilified, or any way injured: minime miror eos (as he said) qui
insanire occipiunt ex injuria, I marvel not at all if offences make men
mad. Seventeen particular causes of anger and offence Aristotle reckons
them up, which for brevity's sake I must omit. No tidings troubles one;
ill reports, rumours, bad tidings or news, hard hap, ill success, cast
in a suit, vain hopes, or hope deferred, another: expectation, adeo
omnibus in rebus molesta semper est expectatio, as [2390]Polybius
observes; one is too eminent, another too base born, and that alone
tortures him as much as the rest: one is out of action, company,
employment; another overcome and tormented with worldly cares, and
onerous business. But what [2391]tongue can suffice to speak of all?
Many men catch this malady by eating certain meats, herbs, roots, at
unawares; as henbane, nightshade, cicuta, mandrakes, &c. [2392]A
company of young men at Agrigentum in Sicily, came into a tavern; where
after they had freely taken their liquor, whether it were the wine
itself, or something mixed with it 'tis not yet known, [2393]but upon a
sudden they began to be so troubled in their brains, and their phantasy
so crazed, that they thought they were in a ship at sea, and now ready
to be cast away by reason of a tempest. Wherefore to avoid shipwreck
and present drowning, they flung all the goods in the house out at the
windows into the street, or into the sea, as they supposed; thus they
continued mad a pretty season, and being brought before the magistrate
to give an account of this their fact, they told him (not yet recovered
of their madness) that what was done they did for fear of death, and to
avoid imminent danger: the spectators were all amazed at this their
stupidity, and gazed on them still, whilst one of the ancientest of the
company, in a grave tone, excused himself to the magistrate upon his
knees, O viri Tritones, ego in imo jacui, I beseech your deities, &c.
for I was in the bottom of the ship all the while: another besought
them as so many sea gods to be good unto them, and if ever he and his
fellows came to land again, [2394]he would build an altar to their
service. The magistrate could not sufficiently laugh at this their
madness, bid them sleep it out, and so went his ways. Many such
accidents frequently happen, upon these unknown occasions. Some are so
caused by philters, wandering in the sun, biting of a mad dog, a blow
on the head, stinging with that kind of spider called tarantula, an
ordinary thing if we may believe Skeuck. l. 6. de Venenis, in Calabria
and Apulia in Italy, Cardan, subtil. l. 9. Scaliger exercitat. 185.
Their symptoms are merrily described by Jovianus Pontanus, Ant. dial.
how they dance altogether, and are cured by music. [2395]Cardan speaks
of certain stones, if they be carried about one, which will cause
melancholy and madness; he calls them unhappy, as an [2396]adamant,
selenites, &c. which dry up the body, increase cares, diminish sleep:
Ctesias in Persicis, makes mention of a well in those parts, of which
if any man drink, [2397]he is mad for 24 hours. Some lose their wits by
terrible objects (as elsewhere I have more [2398]copiously dilated) and
life itself many times, as Hippolitus affrighted by Neptune's
seahorses, Athemas by Juno's furies: but these relations are common in
all writers.
[2399]Hic alias poteram, et plures subnectere causas,
Sed jumenta vocant, et Sol inclinat, Eundum est.
Many such causes, much more could I say,
But that for provender my cattle stay:
The sun declines, and I must needs away.
These causes if they be considered, and come alone, I do easily yield,
can do little of themselves, seldom, or apart (an old oak is not felled
at a blow) though many times they are all sufficient every one: yet if
they concur, as often they do, vis unita fortior; et quae non obsunt
singula, multa nocent, they may batter a strong constitution; as
[2400]Austin said, many grains and small sands sink a ship, many small
drops make a flood, &c., often reiterated; many dispositions produce an
habit.
MEMB. V.
SUBSECT. I.—_Continent, inward, antecedent, next causes and how the
body works on the mind_.
As a purlieu hunter, I have hitherto beaten about the circuit of the
forest of this microcosm, and followed only those outward adventitious
causes. I will now break into the inner rooms, and rip up the
antecedent immediate causes which are there to be found. For as the
distraction of the mind, amongst other outward causes and
perturbations, alters the temperature of the body, so the distraction
and distemper of the body will cause a distemperature of the soul, and
'tis hard to decide which of these two do more harm to the other.
Plato, Cyprian, and some others, as I have formerly said, lay the
greatest fault upon the soul, excusing the body; others again accusing
the body, excuse the soul, as a principal agent. Their reasons are,
because [2401]the manners do follow the temperature of the body, as
Galen proves in his book of that subject, Prosper Calenius de Atra
bile, Jason Pratensis c. de Mania, Lemnius l. 4. c. 16. and many
others. And that which Gualter hath commented, hom. 10. in epist.
Johannis, is most true, concupiscence and originals in, inclinations,
and bad humours, are [2402]radical in every one of us, causing these
perturbations, affections, and several distempers, offering many times
violence unto the soul. Every man is tempted by his own concupiscence
(James i. 14), the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and
rebelleth against the spirit, as our [2403]apostle teacheth us: that
methinks the soul hath the better plea against the body, which so
forcibly inclines us, that we cannot resist, Nec nos obniti contra, nec
tendere tantum sufficimus. How the body being material, worketh upon
the immaterial soul, by mediation of humours and spirits, which
participate of both, and ill-disposed organs, Cornelius Agrippa hath
discoursed lib. 1. de occult. Philos. cap. 63, 64, 65. Levinus Lemnius
lib. 1. de occult. nat. mir. cap. 12. et 16. et 21. institut. ad opt.
vit. Perkins lib. 1. Cases of Cons. cap. 12. T. Bright c. 10, 11, 12.
in his treatise of melancholy, for as, [2404] anger, fear, sorrow,
obtrectation, emulation, &c. si mentis intimos recessus occuparint,
saith [2405]Lemnius, corpori quoque infesta sunt, et illi teterrimos
morbos inferunt, cause grievous diseases in the body, so bodily
diseases affect the soul by consent. Now the chiefest causes proceed
from the [2406]heart, humours, spirits: as they are purer, or impurer,
so is the mind, and equally suffers, as a lute out of tune, if one
string or one organ be distempered, all the rest miscarry, [2407]corpus
onustum hesternis vitiis, animum quoque praegravat una. The body is
domicilium animae, her house, abode, and stay; and as a torch gives a
better light, a sweeter smell, according to the matter it is made of;
so doth our soul perform all her actions, better or worse, as her
organs are disposed; or as wine savours of the cask wherein it is kept;
the soul receives a tincture from the body, through which it works. We
see this in old men, children, Europeans; Asians, hot and cold climes;
sanguine are merry, melancholy sad, phlegmatic dull, by reason of
abundance of those humours, and they cannot resist such passions which
are inflicted by them. For in this infirmity of human nature, as
Melancthon declares, the understanding is so tied to, and captivated by
his inferior senses, that without their help he cannot exercise his
functions, and the will being weakened, hath but a small power to
restrain those outward parts, but suffers herself to be overruled by
them; that I must needs conclude with Lemnius, spiritus et humores
maximum nocumentum obtinent, spirits and humours do most harm in
[2408]troubling the soul. How should a man choose but be choleric and
angry, that hath his body so clogged with abundance of gross humours?
or melancholy, that is so inwardly disposed? That thence comes then
this malady, madness, apoplexies, lethargies, &c. it may not be denied.
Now this body of ours is most part distempered by some precedent
diseases, which molest his inward organs and instruments, and so per
consequens cause melancholy, according to the consent of the most
approved physicians. [2409]This humour (as Avicenna l. 3. Fen. 1.
Tract. 4. c. 18. Arnoldus breviar. l. 1. c. 18. Jacchinus comment. in 9
Rhasis, c. 15. Montaltus, c. 10. Nicholas Piso c. de Melan. &c.
suppose) is begotten by the distemperature of some inward part, innate,
or left after some inflammation, or else included in the blood after an
[2410]ague, or some other malignant disease. This opinion of theirs
concurs with that of Galen, l. 3. c. 6. de locis affect. Guianerius
gives an instance in one so caused by a quartan ague, and Montanus
consil. 32. in a young man of twenty-eight years of age, so distempered
after a quartan, which had molested him five years together; Hildesheim
spicel. 2. de Mania, relates of a Dutch baron, grievously tormented
with melancholy after a long [2411]ague: Galen, l. de atra bile, c. 4.
puts the plague a cause. Botaldus in his book de lue vener. c. 2. the
French pox for a cause, others, frenzy, epilepsy, apoplexy, because
those diseases do often degenerate into this. Of suppression of
haemorrhoids, haemorrhagia, or bleeding at the nose, menstruous
retentions, (although they deserve a larger explication, as being the
sole cause of a proper kind of melancholy, in more ancient maids, nuns
and widows, handled apart by Rodericus a Castro, and Mercatus, as I
have elsewhere signified,) or any other evacuation stopped, I have
already spoken. Only this I will add, that this melancholy which shall
be caused by such infirmities, deserves to be pitied of all men, and to
be respected with a more tender compassion, according to Laurentius, as
coming from a more inevitable cause.
SUBSECT. II.—_Distemperature of particular Parts, causes_.
There is almost no part of the body, which being distempered, doth not
cause this malady, as the brain and his parts, heart, liver, spleen,
stomach, matrix or womb, pylorus, mirach, mesentery, hypochondries,
mesaraic veins; and in a word, saith [2412]Arculanus, there is no part
which causeth not melancholy, either because it is adust, or doth not
expel the superfluity of the nutriment. Savanarola Pract. major.
rubric. 11. Tract. 6. cap. 1. is of the same opinion, that melancholy
is engendered in each particular part, and [2413]Crato in consil. 17.
lib. 2. Gordonius, who is instar omnium, lib. med. partic. 2. cap. 19.
confirms as much, putting the [2414]matter of melancholy, sometimes in
the stomach, liver, heart, brain, spleen, mirach, hypochondries, when
as the melancholy humour resides there, or the liver is not well
cleansed from melancholy blood.
The brain is a familiar and frequent cause, too hot, or too cold,
[2415] through adust blood so caused, as Mercurialis will have it,
within or without the head, the brain itself being distempered. Those
are most apt to this disease, [2416]that have a hot heart and moist
brain, which Montaltus cap. 11. de Melanch. approves out of Halyabbas,
Rhasis, and Avicenna. Mercurialis consil. 11. assigns the coldness of
the brain a cause, and Salustius Salvianus med. lect. l. 2. c. 1.
[2417]will have it arise from a cold and dry distemperature of the
brain. Piso, Benedictus Victorius Faventinus, will have it proceed from
a [2418]hot distemperature of the brain; and [2419]Montaltus cap. 10.
from the brain's heat, scorching the blood. The brain is still
distempered by himself, or by consent: by himself or his proper
affection, as Faventinus calls it, [2420]or by vapours which arise from
the other parts, and fume up into the head, altering the animal
facilities.
Hildesheim spicel. 2. de Mania, thinks it may be caused from a [2421]
distemperature of the heart; sometimes hot; sometimes cold. A hot
liver, and a cold stomach, are put for usual causes of melancholy:
Mercurialis consil. 11. et consil. 6. consil. 86. assigns a hot liver
and cold stomach for ordinary causes. [2422]Monavius, in an epistle of
his to Crato in Scoltzius, is of opinion, that hypochondriacal
melancholy may proceed from a cold liver; the question is there
discussed. Most agree that a hot liver is in fault; [2423]the liver is
the shop of humours, and especially causeth melancholy by his hot and
dry distemperature. [2424]The stomach and mesaraic veins do often
concur, by reason of their obstructions, and thence their heat cannot
be avoided, and many times the matter is so adust and inflamed in those
parts, that it degenerates into hypochondriacal melancholy. Guianerius
c. 2. Tract. 15. holds the mesaraic veins to be a sufficient
[2425]cause alone. The spleen concurs to this malady, by all their
consents, and suppression of haemorrhoids, dum non expurget alter a
causa lien, saith Montaltus, if it be [2426]too cold and dry, and do
not purge the other parts as it ought, consil. 23. Montanus puts the
[2427] spleen stopped for a great cause. [2428]Christophorus a Vega
reports of his knowledge, that he hath known melancholy caused from
putrefied blood in those seed-veins and womb; [2429]Arculanus, from
that menstruous blood turned into melancholy, and seed too long
detained (as I have already declared) by putrefaction or adustion.
The mesenterium, or midriff, diaphragma, is a cause which the
[2430]Greeks called φρένας: because by his inflammation, the mind is
much troubled with convulsions and dotage. All these, most part, offend
by inflammation, corrupting humours and spirits, in this non-natural
melancholy: for from these are engendered fuliginous and black spirits.
And for that reason [2431]Montaltus cap. 10. de causis melan. will have
the efficient cause of melancholy to be hot and dry, not a cold and dry
distemperature, as some hold, from the heat of the brain, roasting the
blood, immoderate heat of the liver and bowels, and inflammation of the
pylorus. And so much the rather, because that, as Galen holds, all
spices inflame the blood, solitariness, waking, agues, study,
meditation, all which heat: and therefore he concludes that this
distemperature causing adventitious melancholy is not cold and dry, but
hot and dry. But of this I have sufficiently treated in the matter of
melancholy, and hold that this may be true in non-natural melancholy,
which produceth madness, but not in that natural, which is more cold,
and being immoderate, produceth a gentle dotage. [2432]Which opinion
Geraldus de Solo maintains in his comment upon Rhasis.
SUBSECT. III.—_Causes of Head-Melancholy_.