|
All Madness is not Misfortune
And here again do those frogs of the Stoics croak at me and say
that nothing is more miserable than madness. But folly is the next
degree, if not the very thing. For what else is madness than for a man
to be out of his wits? But to let them see how they are clean out of
the way, with the Muses' good favor we'll take this syllogism in
pieces. Subtly argued, I must confess, but as Socrates in Plato
teaches us how by splitting one Venus and one Cupid to make two of
either, in like manner should those logicians have done and
distinguished madness from madness, if at least they would be
thought to be well in their wits themselves. For all madness is not
miserable, or Horace had never called his poetical fury a beloved
madness; nor Plato placed the raptures of poets, prophets, and
lovers among the chiefest blessings of this life; nor that sibyl in
Virgil called Aeneas' travels mad labors.
But there are two sorts of madness, the one that which the
revengeful Furies send privily from hell, as often as they let loose
their snakes and put into men's breasts either the desire of war, or
an insatiate thirst after gold, or some dishonest love, or
parricide, or incest, or sacrilege, or the like plagues, or when
they terrify some guilty soul with the conscience of his crimes; the
other, but nothing like this, that which comes from me and is of all
other things the most desirable; which happens as often as some
pleasing dotage not only clears the mind of its troublesome cares
but renders it more jocund. And this was that which, as a special
blessing of the gods, Cicero, writing to his friend Atticus, wished to
himself, that he might be the less sensible of those miseries that
then hung over the commonwealth.
Nor was that Grecian in Horace much wide of it, who was so far
mad that he would sit by himself whole days in the theatre laughing
and clapping his hands, as if he had seen some tragedy acting, whereas
in truth there was nothing presented; yet in other things a man well
enough, pleasant among his friends, kind to his wife, and so good a
master to his servants that if they had broken the seal of his bottle,
he would not have run mad for it. But at last, when by the care of his
friends and physic he was freed from his distemper and become his
own man again, he thus expostulates with them, "Now, by Pollux, my
friends, you have rather killed than preserved me in thus forcing me
from my pleasure." By which you see he liked it so well that he lost
it against his will. And trust me, I think they were the madder of the
two, and had the greater need of hellebore, that should offer to
look upon so pleasant a madness as an evil to be removed by physic;
though yet I have not determined whether every distemper of the
sense or understanding be to be called madness.
For neither he that having weak eyes should take a mule for an ass,
nor he that should admire an insipid poem as excellent would be
presently thought mad; but he that not only errs in his senses but
is deceived also in his judgment, and that too more than ordinary
and upon all occasions- he, I must confess, would be thought to come
very near to it. As if anyone hearing an ass bray should take it for
excellent music, or a beggar conceive himself a king.
And yet this kind of madness, if, as it commonly happens, it turn
to pleasure, it brings a great delight not only to them that are
possessed with it but to those also that behold it, though perhaps
they may not be altogether so mad as the other, for the species of
this madness is much larger than the people take it to be. For one mad
man laughs at another, and beget themselves a mutual pleasure. Nor
does it seldom happen that he that is the more mad, laughs at him that
is less mad. And in this every man is the more happy in how many
respects the more he is mad; and if I were judge in the case, he
should be ranged in that class of folly that is peculiarly mine, which
in truth is so large and universal that I scarce know anyone in all
mankind that is wise at all hours, or has not some tang or other of
madness.
And to this class do they appertain that slight everything in
comparison of hunting and protest they take an unimaginable pleasure
to hear the yell of the horns and the yelps of the hounds, and I
believe could pick somewhat extraordinary out of their very excrement.
And then what pleasure they take to see a buck or the like unlaced?
Let ordinary fellows cut up an ox or a wether, 'twere a crime to
have this done by anything less than a gentleman! who with his hat
off, on his bare knees, and a couteau for that purpose (for every
sword or knife is not allowable), with a curious superstition and
certain postures, lays open the several parts in their respective
order; while they that hem him in admire it with silence, as some
new religious ceremony, though perhaps they have seen it a hundred
times before. And if any of them chance to get the least piece of
it, he presently thinks himself no small gentleman. In all which
they drive at nothing more than to become beasts themselves, while yet
they imagine they live the life of princes.
And next these may be reckoned those that have such an itch of
building; one while changing rounds into squares, and presently
again squares into rounds, never knowing either measure or end, till
at last, reduced to the utmost poverty, there remains not to them so
much as a place where they may lay their head, or wherewith to fill
their bellies. And why all this? but that they may pass over a few
years in feeding their foolish fancies.
And, in my opinion, next these may be reckoned such as with their
new inventions and occult arts undertake to change the forms of things
and hunt all about after a certain fifth essence; men so bewitched
with this present hope that it never repents them of their pains or
expense, but are ever contriving how they may cheat themselves,
till, having spent all, there is not enough left them to provide
another furnace. And yet they have not done dreaming these their
pleasant dreams but encourage others, as much as in them lies, to
the same happiness. And at last, when they are quite lost in all their
expectations, they cheer up themselves with this sentence, "In great
things the very attempt is enough," and then complain of the shortness
of man's life that is not sufficient for so great an understanding.
And then for gamesters, I am a little doubtful whether they are
to be admitted into our college; and yet 'tis a foolish and ridiculous
sight to see some addicted so to it that they can no sooner hear the
rattling of the dice but their heart leaps and dances again. And
then when time after time they are so far drawn on with the hopes of
winning that they have made shipwreck of all, and having split their
ship on that rock of dice, no less terrible than the bishop and his
clerks, scarce got alive to shore, they choose rather to cheat any man
of their just debts than not pay the money they lost, lest
otherwise, forsooth, they be thought no men of their words. Again what
is it, I pray, to see old fellows and half blind to play with
spectacles? Nay, and when a justly deserved gout has knotted their
knuckles, to hire a caster, or one that may put the dice in the box
for them? A pleasant thing, I must confess, did it not for the most
part end in quarrels, and therefore belongs rather to the Furies
than me.
|