Reading Robert Buton - Part III
From The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621 – 1651)
Burton, a most Ciceronian of stylists, tries to convince us otherwise: I am aqua potor [a water drinker], drink no wine at all, which so much improved our modern wits, a loose, plain rude wri-ter, ficum voco ficum, & ligonem ligonem [I call a spade a spade]… As a river runs sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow; now direct, then per ambages [windingly]; now deep, then shallow; now muddy, then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow: now serious, then light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then remiss, as the present subject required.
There be many other subjects, I do easily grant… I was fatally driven upon this rock of melancholy, and carried away by this by-stream, which as a rillet, is deducted from the main channel of my studies, in which I have pleased and busied myself at idle hours.
‘Tis the common tenet of the world, that learning dulls and diminisheth the spirits, and so produceth melancholy… [Students] live a sedentary, solitary life, subbi & musis [to themselves and letters], free from bodily exercise… Only scholars neglect that instrument, their brain and spirits (I mean) which they daily use, and by which they range over all the world, which by much study is consumed… [Contemplation] dries the brain, and extinguisheth natural heat; for whilst the spirits are intent to meditation above in the head, the stomach and liver are left destitute… Students are commonly troubled with gouts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradiopepsia, bad eyes, stone and colic, crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, cramps, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by overmuch sitting; they are most part lean, dry, ill coloured, spend their fortunes, lose their wits, and many times their lives and all through immoderate pains, and extraordinary studies… How many poor scholars have lost their wits, or become dizards, neglecting all worldly affairs, and their own health, wealth, esse and benne esse, to gain knowledge? for which, after all their pains in the world’s esteem they are accounted ridiculous and silly fools, idiots, asses, and (as oft they are) rejected, contemned, derided, dotting, and mad… Go to Bedlam and ask.
No labour in the world like unto study… To say truth, ‘tis the common fortune of most scholars, to be servile and poor, to complain pitifully, and lay open their wants to their respectless patrons… Poverty is the Muses’ patrimony, and as that poetical divinity teacheth us, when Jupiter’s daughters were each of them married to the Gods, the muses alone were left solitary… Ever since all their followers are poor, forsaken and left unto themselves… Let us give over our books, and betake ourselves to some other course of life. To what end should we study? … I say, let’s turn soldiers, sell our books, and buy swords, guns, and pikes… leave all, and rather betake ourselves to any other course of life, than to continue longer in this misery. It would be better to make toothpicks, than by literary labours to try and get the favour of the great.
. . . . .
Burton, a most Ciceronian of stylists, tries to convince us otherwise: I am aqua potor [a water drinker], drink no wine at all, which so much improved our modern wits, a loose, plain rude wri-ter, ficum voco ficum, & ligonem ligonem [I call a spade a spade]… As a river runs sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow; now direct, then per ambages [windingly]; now deep, then shallow; now muddy, then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow: now serious, then light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then remiss, as the present subject required.
There be many other subjects, I do easily grant… I was fatally driven upon this rock of melancholy, and carried away by this by-stream, which as a rillet, is deducted from the main channel of my studies, in which I have pleased and busied myself at idle hours.
‘Tis the common tenet of the world, that learning dulls and diminisheth the spirits, and so produceth melancholy… [Students] live a sedentary, solitary life, subbi & musis [to themselves and letters], free from bodily exercise… Only scholars neglect that instrument, their brain and spirits (I mean) which they daily use, and by which they range over all the world, which by much study is consumed… [Contemplation] dries the brain, and extinguisheth natural heat; for whilst the spirits are intent to meditation above in the head, the stomach and liver are left destitute… Students are commonly troubled with gouts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradiopepsia, bad eyes, stone and colic, crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, cramps, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by overmuch sitting; they are most part lean, dry, ill coloured, spend their fortunes, lose their wits, and many times their lives and all through immoderate pains, and extraordinary studies… How many poor scholars have lost their wits, or become dizards, neglecting all worldly affairs, and their own health, wealth, esse and benne esse, to gain knowledge? for which, after all their pains in the world’s esteem they are accounted ridiculous and silly fools, idiots, asses, and (as oft they are) rejected, contemned, derided, dotting, and mad… Go to Bedlam and ask.
No labour in the world like unto study… To say truth, ‘tis the common fortune of most scholars, to be servile and poor, to complain pitifully, and lay open their wants to their respectless patrons… Poverty is the Muses’ patrimony, and as that poetical divinity teacheth us, when Jupiter’s daughters were each of them married to the Gods, the muses alone were left solitary… Ever since all their followers are poor, forsaken and left unto themselves… Let us give over our books, and betake ourselves to some other course of life. To what end should we study? … I say, let’s turn soldiers, sell our books, and buy swords, guns, and pikes… leave all, and rather betake ourselves to any other course of life, than to continue longer in this misery. It would be better to make toothpicks, than by literary labours to try and get the favour of the great.
. . . . .
posted by J. R. Carpenter at
11:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home