Volume 3

The anatomy of melancholy / edited by Rev. A.R. Shilleto.

  • Burton, Robert, 1941-
Date:
Reprint 1896 (3 vol set)
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of melancholy / edited by Rev. A.R. Shilleto. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    17/598 (page 7)
    I am of Catullus1 opinion, and make the same apology in mine own behalf: hoc etiam quod scribo, pendet plerumque ex aliorum sententia et auctoritate; nee ipse forsan insanio, sed insanientes sequor. Atqui detur hoc insamre me; semel insanivimus omnes,1 et tute ipse opinor insanis aliquando, et is, et ille, et ego scilicet.2 Homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum puto :3 [I am a man and deem in human nature Nothing unworthy of my sympathy.] And, which he urgeth for himself, accused of the like fault, I as justly plead, 4Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba est; howsoever my lines err, my life is honest, 5 Vita verecunda est, Musa jocosa mihi. But I presume I need no such apologies. I need not, as Socrates in Plato,0 cover his face when he spake of Love, or blush and hide mine eyes, as Pallas did in her hood, when she was consulted by Jupiter about Mercury's marriage, quod super nuptiis virgo consulitur, it is no such lascivious, obscene, or wanton discourse ; I have not offended your chaster ears with any thing that is here written, as many French and Italian Authors in their modern language of late have done, nay some of our Latin Pontificial writers, Zanchius, Asorius, Abulensis, Burchardus, &°c. whom Rivet accuseth to be more lascivious than Virgil in Priapeiis, Petronius in Catalectis, Aristophanes in lysistrata, Martial, or any other Pagan profane writer, qui tani atrociter (8 one notes) hoc genere peccarunt, ut multa ingeniosissime scripta obscce?iitatum gratia castce mentes abhoz'reant? Tis not scurrile this, but chaste, honest, most part serious, and even of religion itself. lc) Incensed (as he said) with the love of finding love, we have sought it, and found it. More yet, I have augmented and added something to this light Treatise (if light) which was not p Baptista Mantuanus, Eel. i.] [2 This that I write depends sometimes upon the opinion and authority of others : nor perhaps am I mad, I only follow madmen. But thus far I may be deranged : we have all been so at some one time, and your- self, I think, art sometimes insane, and this man, and that man, and I also.] [3 Ter. Heautontimorumenos, i. i. 25.] 4 Mart. [i. 4. 8.] 5 Ovid. [Tristia, ii. 354.J [6 Phsedrus, p. 237 A.] 7 Isago. ad sac. scrip, cap. 13. 8 Barthius, notis in Ccelestinam, ludum Hisp. [9 Who have so atrociously sinned in this class of writing that chaste minds abhor for their obscenities many most ingenious works.] 10 Ficinus, Comment, c. 17. Amore incensi inveniendi amoris, araorem quaesivimus et invenimus.