ABSTRACT
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 my-self with phantasms sweet, Methinks the time runs very fleet. All my joys to this are folly, Naught so sweet as Melancholy… I’ll change my state with any wretch, Thou canst from gaol or dunghill fetch. My pain’s past cure, another Hell, I may not in this torment dwell, Now desperate I hate my life, Lend me a halter or a knife. All my griefs to this are jolly, Naught so damn’d as Melancholy. —Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621 (pp. 8, 10) 1
