From “The Anatomy of Melancholy.”

DISCONTENTS and grievances are either general or particular; general are wars, plagues, dearths, famine, fires, inundations, unseasonable weather, epidemical diseases which afflict whole kingdoms, territories, cities: or peculiar to private men, as cares, crosses, losses, death of friends, poverty, want, sickness, orbities, injuries, abuses, etc. Generally all discontent, homines quatimur fortunæ salo. No condition free, quisque suos patimur manes. Even in the midst of our mirth and jollity there is some grudging, some complaint; as he saith, our whole life is a glucupicron, a bitter-sweet passion, honey and gall mixed together; we are all miserable and discontent, who can deny it? If all, and that it be a common calamity, an inevitable necessity, all distressed, then, as Cardan infers, Who art thou that hopest to go free? Why dost thou not grieve thou art a mortal man, and not governor of the world? Ferre, quam sortem patiuntur omnes, nemo recuset. If it be common to all, why should one man be more disquieted than another? If thou alone wert distressed, it were indeed more irksome and less to be endured; but when the calamity is common, comfort thyself with this, thou hast more fellows, Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris, ’tis not thy sole case, and why shouldst thou be so impatient? Aye, but alas! we are more miserable than others, what shall we do? Besides private miseries we live in perpetual fear and danger of common enemies; we have Bellona’s whips, and pitiful outcries for epithalamiums; for pleasant music, that fearful noise of ordnance, drums, and warlike trumpets still sounding in our ears; instead of nuptial torches, we have firing of towns and cities; for triumphs, lamentations; for joy, tears. So it is, and so it was, and ever will be. He that refuseth to see and hear, to suffer this, is not fit to live in this world, and knows not the common condition of all men to whom, so long as they live, with a reciprocal course, joys and sorrows are annexed and succeed one another. It is inevitable, it may not be avoided, and why then shouldst thou be so much troubled? Grave nihil est homini quod fert necessitas, as Tully deems out of an old poet, that which is necessary cannot be grievous. If it be so, then comfort thyself with this that whether thou wilt or no, it must be endured; make a virtue of necessity, and conform thyself to undergo it. Si longa est, levis est; si gravis est, brevis est. If it be long, ’tis light; if grievous, it cannot last. It will away, dies dolorem minuit, and if naught else yet time will wear it out; custom will ease it; oblivion is a common medicine for all losses, injuries, griefs, and detriments whatsoever, and, when they are once past, this commodity comes of infelicity, it makes the rest of our life sweeter unto us. Atque hæc olim meminisse juvabit, the privation and want of a thing many times makes it more pleasant and delightsome than before it was. We must not think, the happiest of us all, to escape here without some misfortunes—

	“Usque adeô nulla est sincera voluptas,
	Solicitum aliquid lætis intervenit.”

Heaven and earth are much unlike; those heavenly bodies, indeed, are freely carried in their orbs without any impediment or interruption, to continue their course for innumerable ages, and make their conversions; but men are urged with many difficulties, and have divers hindrances, oppositions, still crossing, interrupting their endeavors and desires, and no mortal man is free from this law of nature. We must not, therefore, hope to have all things answer our own expectation, to have a continuance of good success and fortunes. Fortuna nunquam perpetuò est bona. And as Minutius Felix, the Roman consul, told that insulting Coriolanus, drunk with his good fortunes, look not for that success thou hast hitherto had. It never yet happened to any man since the beginning of the world, nor ever will, to have all things according to his desire, or to whom fortune was never opposite and adverse. Even so it fell out to him as he foretold. And so to others, even to that happiness of Augustus; though he were Jupiter’s almoner, Pluto’s treasurer, Neptune’s admiral, it could not secure him. Such was Alcibiades’s fortune, Narsetes, that great Gonsalvus, and most famous men’s, that, as Jovius concludes, it is almost fatal to great princes, through their own default or otherwise circumvented with envy and malice, to lose their honors and die contumeliously. ’Tis so, still hath been, and ever will be, Nihil est ab omni parte beatum,

	“Since no protection is so absolute,
	That some impurity doth not pollute.”