“When I go musing all alone
Thinking of divers things fore-known.
When I build castles in the air,
Void of sorrow and void of fear,
Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet,
Methinks the time runs very fleet.
All my joys to this are folly,
Naught so sweet as melancholy."
― Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
Painting: Heinrich Vogeler Sehnsucht "Träumerei" 1900.
one of the fun things about the Anatomy is that Burton self identifies as a shitty poet, a writer of doggerel, but he does it pretty much constantly. in a way it does kind of remind me of the 1001 nights, which also tends to section off passages with what is widely considered doggerel
La mia unica peste è essere solo,
Sono una bestia diventato e un mostro,
Fuggo la luce e ogni compagnia,
Trovo che questa è la disgrazia mia,
Cambia la scena. Non c’è più la gioia
Ma timore, scontento e sofferenza.
Tutti i dolori sono al confronto gioia,
Niente è feroce come la melanconia.
Kahlil Gibran. Mark Twain. Christa Wolf. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. George Eliot. Jhumpa Lahiri. Sappho. Robert Burton. Victor Hugo. William Hope Hodgson. Mark Z. Danielewiski. H.G. Wells.
The last refuge and surest remedy, to be put in practice in the utmost place, when no other means will take effect, is, to let them go together and enjoy one another . . . Aesculapius himself, to this malady, cannot invent a better remedy . . . than that a Lover have his desire.