Musick

[wolfinthewood]

Arrived back this evening after a damp and windswept but altogether delightful few days at the Beverley Early Music Festival.

Many and sundry are the means which Philosophers and Physicians have prescribed to exhilarate a sorrowful heart, to divert those fixed and intent cares and meditations, which in this malady so much offend; but in my judgment none so present, none so powerful, none so apposite as a cup of strong drink, mirth, musick, and merry company. Ecclus 40. 20, Wine and Musick rejoice the heart. ... Musica est mentis medicina moestae,* a Roaring Meg** against Melancholy, to rear and revive the languishing soul, affecting not only the ears, but the very arteries, the vital and animal spirits; it erects the mind, and makes it nimble. Lemnius instit. cap. 44. And this it will effect in the most dull, severe and sorrowful souls, expel grief with mirth, and if there be any clouds, or dust, or dregs of cares yet lurking in our thoughts, most powerfully it wipes them all away, Salisbur. polit. lib. 1. cap. 6. and that which is more, it will perform all this in an instant: cheer up the countenance, expel austerity, bring in hilarity, (Girald. Camb. cap. 12. Topog. Hiber.) inform our manners, mitigate anger; Athenaeus (Deipnosophist. lib. 14. cap. 10.) calleth it, an infinite treasure to such as are endowed with it. ... Many other properties Cassiodorus, epist. 4. reckons up of this our divine Musick, not only to expel the greatest griefs, but it doth extenuate fears and furies, appeaseth cruelty, abateth heaviness, and to such as are watchful it causeth quiet rest; it takes away spleen and hatred, and cures all irksomeness and heaviness of the soul. Labouring men that sing to their work, can tell as much, and so can soldiers when they go to fight, whom terror of death cannot so much affright, as the sound of trumpet, drum, fife, and such like musick, animates. ... It makes a child quiet, the nurse’s song, and many times the sound of a trumpet on a sudden, bells ringing, a carman’s whistle, a boy singing some Ballad tune early in the streets, alters, revives, recreates, a restless patient that cannot sleep in the night, &c. In a word, it is so powerful a thing that it ravisheth the soul, Regina sensuum, the queen of the senses, by sweet pleasure (which is an happy cure) ... and carries it beyond itself, helps, elevates, extends it. Scaliger, exercit. 302, gives a reason for these effects, because the spirits about the heart take in that trembling and dancing air into the body, and are moved together, and stirred up with it, or else the mind, as some suppose, harmonically composed, is roused up at the tunes of Musick.

*Music is the medicine of the gloomy mind.

**‘Roaring Meg’ was the name of a famous cannon

Robert Burton (1577–1640)

from The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621; corrected and slightly augmented from later editions)


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Comments

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you had a good time at the Festival!

Burton is excellent, and I'm glad to read him here. Also, I was successful in getting your book from Foyle's! I like it very much so far.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you are enjoying it.