EXHIBITS

Common melancholy is what is now known as depression. Depression is defined as "a sign of psychiatric disorder or a component of various psychoses, with symptoms of misery, anguish, or guilt accompanied by headache, insomnia, etc" [1]. As with most ailments in the Renaissance era, diagnosed causes were quite different from what is currently diagnosed.

Back in the era of the Renaissance, causes for most diseases were attributed to divine and magical means. As Robert Burton explains, "[g]eneral causes, are either supernatural, or natural" [2]. Those in the Renaissance believed that God was a main cause of common melancholy. This line of reasoning grew from Biblical rhetoric, which contained many accounts of God cursing those who disobeyed His will. 

Along with God serving as a cause of melancholy, the belief in divine cause branched out to evil spirits and devils. Renaissance folklore pointed that they were "appointed by those higher powers to keep men from their nativity, and to protect or punish them as they see cause" [3]. Burton describes a variety of devils and references ancient literature in order to show how they cause melancholy, such as manipulating the weather, diverting travelers from their courses, and torturing the souls of the damned.

In The Anatomy of Melancholy, Burton describes in great detail the effects of being emotionally unbalanced and how it causes melancholy. In summary, Burton described this emotional imbalance as "fear, sorrow, &c.,which are ordinary symptoms of this disease: so on the other side, the mind most effectually works upon the body, producing by his passions and perturbations miraculous alterations, as melancholy, despair, cruel diseases, and sometimes death itself" [4].

A final cause of melancholy that is worth mentioning is those tragic experiences that are beyond one's control. On the subject of the death of a loved one, Burton writes, "[i]f parting of friends, absence alone can work such violent effects, what shall death do, when they must eternally be separated, never in this world to meet again. This is so grievous a torment for the time, that it takes away their appetite, desire of life, extinguisheth all delights, it causeth deep sighs and groans, tears, exclamations... howling, roaring, many bitter pangs" [5]. Continuing on that subject, Burton wrote that "[t]hey that are most staid and patient, are so furiously carried headlong by the passion of sorrow in this case, that brave discreet men otherwise, oftentimes forget themselves, and weep like children many months together, 'as if that they to water would,' and will not be comforted. They are gone, they are gone; what shall do?" [6].