The Anatomy of Melancholy: Philosophy Classic. Robert Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ was buried, spirits haunted, and the house where he died, [1207]Nulla nox sine terrore transacta, donec incendio consumpta; every night this happened, there was no quietness, till the house was burned. About Hecla, in Iceland, ghosts commonly walk, animas mortuorum simulantes, saith Joh. Anan, lib. 3. de nat. daem. Olaus. lib. 2. cap. 2. Natal Tallopid. lib. de apparit. spir. Kornmannus de mirac. mort. part. 1. cap. 44. such sights are frequently seen circa sepulchra et monasteria, saith Lavat. lib. 1. cap. 19. in monasteries and about churchyards, loca paludinosa, ampla aedificia, solitaria, et caede hominum notata, &c. (marshes, great buildings, solitary places, or remarkable as the scene of some murder.) Thyreus adds, ubi gravius peccatum est commissum, impii, pauperum oppressores et nequiter insignes habitant (where some very heinous crime was committed, there the impious and infamous generally dwell). These spirits often foretell men's deaths by several signs, as knocking, groanings, &c. [1208]though Rich. Argentine, c. 18. de praestigiis daemonum, will ascribe these predictions to good angels, out of the authority of Ficinus and others; prodigia in obitu principum saepius contingunt, &c. (prodigies frequently occur at the deaths of illustrious men), as in the Lateran church in [1209]Rome, the popes' deaths are foretold by Sylvester's tomb. Near Rupes Nova in Finland, in the kingdom of Sweden, there is a lake, in which, before the governor of the castle dies, a spectrum, in the habit of Arion with his harp, appears, and makes excellent music, like those blocks in Cheshire, which (they say) presage death to the master of the family; or that [1210]oak in Lanthadran park in Cornwall, which foreshows as much. Many families in Europe are so put in mind of their last by such predictions, and many men are forewarned (if we may believe Paracelsus) by familiar spirits in divers shapes, as cocks, crows, owls, which often hover about sick men's chambers, vel quia morientium foeditatem sentiunt, as [1211]Baracellus conjectures, et ideo super tectum infirmorum crocitant, because they smell a corse; or for that (as [1212]Bernardinus de Bustis thinketh) God permits the devil to appear in the form of crows, and such like creatures, to scare such as live wickedly here on earth. A little before Tully's death (saith Plutarch) the crows made a mighty noise about him, tumultuose perstrepentes, they pulled the pillow from under his head. Rob. Gaguinus, hist. Franc. lib. 8, telleth such another wonderful story at the death of Johannes de Monteforti, a French lord, anno 1345, tanta corvorum multitudo aedibus morientis insedit, quantam esse in Gallia nemo judicasset (a multitude of crows alighted on the house of the dying man, such as no one imagined existed in France). Such prodigies are very frequent in authors. See more of these in the said Lavater, Thyreus de locis infestis, part 3, cap. 58. Pictorius, Delrio, Cicogna, lib. 3, cap. 9. Necromancers take upon them to raise and lay them at their pleasures: and so likewise, those which Mizaldus calls ambulones, that walk about midnight on great heaths and desert places, which (saith [1213]Lavater) "draw men out of the way, and lead them all night a byway, or quite bar them of their way;" these have several names in several places; we commonly call them Pucks. In the deserts of Lop, in Asia, such illusions of walking spirits are often perceived, as you may read in M. Paulus the Venetian his travels; if one lose his company by chance, these devils will call him by his name, and counterfeit voices of his companions to seduce him. Hieronym. Pauli, in his book of the hills of Spain, relates of a great [1214]mount in Cantabria, where such spectrums are to be seen; Lavater and Cicogna have variety of examples of spirits and walking devils in this kind. Sometimes they sit by the highway side, to give men falls, and make their horses stumble and start as they ride (if you will believe the relation of that holy man Ketellus in [1215]Nubrigensis), that had an especial grace to see devils, Gratiam divinitus collatam, and talk with them, Et impavidus cum spiritibus sermonem miscere, without offence, and if a man curse or spur his horse for stumbling, they do heartily rejoice at it; with many such pretty feats.

      Subterranean devils are as common as the rest, and do as much harm. Olaus Magnus, lib. 6, cap. 19, make six kinds of them; some bigger, some less. These (saith [1216]Munster) are commonly seen about mines of metals, and are some of them noxious; some again do no harm. The metal-men in many places account it good luck, a sign of treasure and rich ore when they see them. Georgius Agricola, in his book de subterraneis animantibus, cap. 37, reckons two more notable kinds of them, which he calls [1217]getuli and cobali, both "are clothed after the manner of metal-men, and will many times imitate their works." Their office, as Pictorius and Paracelsus think, is to keep treasure in the earth, that it be not all at once revealed; and besides, [1218]Cicogna avers that they are the frequent causes of those horrible earthquakes "which often swallow up, not only houses, but whole islands and cities;" in his third book, cap. 11, he gives many instances.

      The last are conversant about the centre of the earth to torture the souls of damned men to the day of judgment; their egress and regress some suppose to be about Etna, Lipari, Mons Hecla in Iceland, Vesuvius, Terra del Fuego, &c., because many shrieks and fearful cries are continually heard thereabouts, and familiar apparitions of dead men, ghosts and goblins.

      Their Offices, Operations, Study.] Thus the devil reigns, and in a thousand several shapes, "as a roaring lion still seeks whom he may devour," 1 Pet. v., by sea, land, air, as yet unconfined, though [1219] some will have his proper place the air; all that space between us and the moon for them that transgressed least, and hell for the wickedest of them, Hic velut in carcere ad finem mundi, tunc in locum funestiorum trudendi, as Austin holds de Civit. Dei, c. 22, lib. 14, cap. 3 et 23; but be where he will, he rageth while he may to comfort himself, as [1220] Lactantius thinks, with other men's falls, he labours all he can to bring them into the same pit of perdition with him. For [1221]"men's miseries, calamities, and ruins are the devil's banqueting dishes." By many temptations and several engines, he seeks to captivate our souls. The Lord of Lies, saith [1222]Austin, "as he was deceived himself, he seeks to deceive others," the ringleader to all naughtiness, as he did by Eve and Cain, Sodom and Gomorrah, so would he do by all the world. Sometimes he tempts by covetousness, drunkenness, pleasure, pride, &c., errs, dejects, saves, kills, protects, and rides some men, as they do their horses. He studies our overthrow, and generally seeks our destruction; and although he pretend many times human good, and vindicate himself for a god by curing of several diseases, aegris sanitatem, et caecis luminis usum restituendo, as Austin declares, lib. 10, de civit Dei, cap. 6, as Apollo, Aesculapius, Isis, of old have done; divert plagues, assist them in wars, pretend their happiness, yet nihil his impurius, scelestius, nihil humano generi infestius, nothing so impure, nothing so pernicious, as may well appear by their tyrannical and bloody sacrifices of men to Saturn and Moloch, which are still in use among those barbarous Indians, their several deceits and cozenings to keep men in obedience, their false oracles, sacrifices, their superstitious impositions of fasts, penury, &c. Heresies, superstitious observations of meats, times, &c., by which they [1223] crucify the souls of mortal men, as shall be showed in our Treatise of Religious Melancholy. Modico adhuc tempore sinitur malignari, as [1224] Bernard expresseth it, by God's permission he rageth a while, hereafter to be confined to hell and darkness, "which is prepared for him and his angels," Mat. xxv.

      How far their power doth extend it is hard to determine; what the ancients held of their effects, force and operations, I will briefly show you: Plato in Critias, and after him his followers, gave out that these spirits or devils, "were men's governors and keepers, our lords and masters, as we are of our cattle." [1225]"They govern provinces and kingdoms by oracles, auguries," dreams, rewards and punishments, prophecies, inspirations, sacrifices, and religious superstitions, varied in as many forms as there be diversity of spirits; they send wars, plagues, peace, sickness, health, dearth, plenty, [1226]Adstantes hic jam nobis, spectantes, et arbitrantes, &c. as appears by those histories of Thucydides, Livius, Dionysius Halicarnassus, with many others that are full of their wonderful stratagems, and were therefore by those Roman and Greek commonwealths adored and worshipped for gods with prayers and sacrifices, &c. [1227]In a word, Nihil magis quaerunt quam metum et admirationem hominum; [1228]and as another hath it, Dici non potest, quam impotenti ardore in homines dominium, et Divinos cultus maligni spiritus affectent. [1229]Tritemius in his book de septem secundis, assigns names to such angels as are governors of particular provinces, by what authority I know not, and gives them several jurisdictions. Asclepiades a Grecian, Rabbi Achiba the Jew, СКАЧАТЬ