The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.

The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.
head, and then to be persuaded by his judicious friends, to give ear to their good counsel and advice, and wisely to consider, how much he discredits himself, his friends, dishonours his children, disgraceth his family, publisheth his shame, and as a trumpeter of his own misery, divulgeth, macerates, grieves himself and others; what an argument of weakness it is, how absurd a thing in its own nature, how ridiculous, how brutish a passion, how sottish, how odious; for as [6172]Hierome well hath it, Odium sui facit, et ipse novissime sibi odio est, others hate him, and at last he hates himself for it; how harebrain a disease, mad and furious.  If he will but hear them speak, no doubt he may be cured. [6173]Joan, queen of Spain, of whom I have formerly spoken, under pretence of changing air was sent to Complutum, or Alcada de las Heneras, where Ximenius the archbishop of Toledo then lived, that by his good counsel (as for the present she was) she might be eased. [6174]"For a disease of the soul, if concealed, tortures and overturns it, and by no physic can sooner be removed than by a discreet man’s comfortable speeches.”  I will not here insert any consolatory sentences to this purpose, or forestall any man’s invention, but leave it every one to dilate and amplify as he shall think fit in his own judgment:  let him advise with Siracides cap. 9. 1. “Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosom;” read that comfortable and pithy speech to this purpose of Ximenius, in the author himself, as it is recorded by Gomesius; consult with Chaloner lib. 9. de repub.  Anglor. or Caelia in her epistles, &c.  Only this I will add, that if it be considered aright, which causeth this jealous passion, be it just or unjust, whether with or without cause, true or false, it ought not so heinously to be taken; ’tis no such real or capital matter, that it should make so deep a wound.  ’Tis a blow that hurts not, an insensible smart, grounded many times upon false suspicion alone, and so fostered by a sinister conceit.  If she be not dishonest, he troubles and macerates himself without a cause; or put case which is the worst, he be a cuckold, it cannot be helped, the more he stirs in it, the more he aggravates his own misery.  How much better were it in such a case to dissemble or contemn it? why should that be feared which cannot be redressed? multae tandem deposuerunt (saith [6175]Vives) quum flecti maritos non posse vident, many women, when they see there is no remedy, have been pacified; and shall men be more jealous than women?  ’Tis some comfort in such a case to have companions, Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris; Who can say he is free?  Who can assure himself he is not one de praeterito, or secure himself de futuro?  If it were his case alone, it were hard; but being as it is almost a common calamity, ’tis not so grievously to be taken.  If a man have a lock, which every man’s key will open, as well as his own, why should he think to keep
Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Anatomy of Melancholy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.