Lives Uncovered: A Sourcebook of

Early Modern Europe Nicholas Terpstra

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/lives-uncovered-a-sourcebook-of-early-modern-europ
e-nicholas-terpstra/
 LIVES
UNCOVERED
A SOURCEBOOK OF
EARLY MODERN EUROPE
 LIVES
UNCOVERED
A SOURCEBOOK OF
EARLY MODERN EUROPE

EDITED BY NICHOLAS TERPSTRA

© University of Toronto Press 2019
Toronto Buffalo London
utorontopress.com
Printed in Canada

All rightsofreserved.
© University The2019
Toronto Press use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or
by any means,
Toronto electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval
Buffalo London
system, without prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying, a licence
utorontopress.com
from Access
Printed Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) 320–56 Wellesley Street West,
in Canada
Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2S3—is an infringement of the copyright law.
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval
Library
system, and Archives
without Canada
prior written consentCataloguing in Publication
of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying, a licence
from Access Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) 320–56 Wellesley Street West,
Title: Lives
Toronto, uncovered
Ontario, M5S 2S3—is: a sourcebook of early
an infringement of the modern
copyright Europe
law. / edited by Nicholas Terpstra.
Names: Terpstra, Nicholas, editor.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers:
Title: Canadiana
Global ecopolitics 20190091096
: crisis, governance,|and
ISBN 9781442607323
justice / Peter J. Stoett (softcover) | ISBN 9781487594510
with Shane Mulligan.
(hardcover)
Names: Stoett, Peter J. (Peter John), 1965–, author. | Mulligan, Shane, 1970–, author.
Description: Second Life
Subjects: LCSH: edition. | Includes
cycle, Human bibliographical
– History –references
Sources.and index. Europe – Social conditions –
| LCSH:
Identifiers:
Sources.Canadiana
| LCSH:20190049162 | ISBN 9781487587895
Europe – History – 1492–1648 –(softcover)
Sources.| ISBN 9781487587901
(hardcover)
Classification: LCC HN373 L58 2019 | DDC 306.094 – dc23
Subjects: LCSH: Environmental policy – Case studies. | LCSH: Environmental policy – International
cooperation – Case studies. | LCSH: Environmental justice – International cooperation – Case
We welcome comments and suggestions regarding any aspect of our publications—please feel free
studies. | LCSH: Political ecology – Case studies. | LCGFT: Case studies.
Classification:us
to contact at news@utorontopress.com
LCC JA75.8 .S76 2019 | DDC 304.2or– visit
dc23 our Internet site at utorontopress.com.

We welcome
North comments and suggestions regarding any aspect
America of our publications—please
UK, Ireland, and continental feel free
Europe
to contact
5201 us at news@utorontopress.com
Dufferin Street or visit our internet
NBN site at utorontopress.com.
International
North
North York, Ontario, Canada, M3H 5T8UK, Ireland,
America Estover Road, Plymouth,
and continental Europe PL6 7PY, UK
5201 Dufferin Street orders phone: 44 (0) 1752 202301
NBN International
2250 York,
North Military Road
Ontario, Canada, M3H 5T8 orders
Estover Road, fax:PL6
Plymouth, 44 (0)
7PY,1752
UK 202333
Tonawanda, New York, USA, 14150 orders
orders phone: e-mail
44 (0) 1752 202301
: enquiries@nbninternational.com
2250
ordersMilitary Road : 1–800–565–9523
phone orders fax: 44 (0) 1752 202333
Tonawanda, New York, USA,
orders fax: 1–800–221–9985 14150 orders e-mail: enquiries@nbninternational.com
orders phone: 1–800–565–9523
orders e-mail: utpbooks@utpress.utoronto.ca
orders fax: 1–800–221–9985
orders e-mail: utpbooks@utpress.utoronto.ca
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; in the event of an error or omission, please
Every
notifyeffort
the has been made to contact copyright holders; in the event of an error or omission, please
publisher.
notify the publisher.
University
This of Toronto
book is printed Press
on paper acknowledges
containing the financial
100% post-consumer assistance to its publishing program of
fibre.
the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of
University
Ontario. of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the
Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
 Contents
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgements xiii

I How to Read a Primary Source 1

II Lives Uncovered: Life Cycles in the Early Modern Period 5

III Body and Spirit, Sickness and Health 9

3.1 The Cosmic Human (1531) 9
3.2 The Human Animal (1561) 11
3.3 You Are What You Eat, or You Eat What You Are? (1656) 14
3.4 Cooking Comfort Foods (1570) 18
3.5 A Balanced Diet (1587) 19
3.6 New Food: Tomato (1692) 20
3.7 Depression as a Spiritual Imbalance (1643) 21
3.8 Combatting Inner Demons (1653) 22
3.9 Self-Medicating with Alcohol (1682) 23
3.10 A New Addiction: Coffee (1732–34) 25
3.11 A New Vice: Tobacco (1605) 27
Reading Questions 27

IV Conception, Contraception, and Birth 29

4.1 A Woman’s Advice on Conceiving a Child (1671) 29
4.2 A Man’s Advice on Conceiving a Child (1612) 30
4.3 Menstruation (1671) 32
4.4 How to Have a Healthy Childbirth (1513) 33
4.5 Boys and Girls in the Womb (1587; 1669) 35
4.6 One Sex or Two? Women and Men as Mirrors of Each Other (1671) 37
4.7 How to Prevent Miscarriage (1656; 1671) 37
4.8 Diary of a Dutch Midwife (1693–1702) 38
4.9 Diary of a Florentine Father (1404–31) 42

v
 Contents

4.10 Diary of an English Mother (1648–68) 44

4.11 Penalties for Abortion and Infanticide (1555) 45
4.12 Miscarriage and Abortion (1671) 46
4.13 Trials for Infanticide (1677; 1679) 47
4.14 Trying to Understand Birth Defects (1575) 48
4.15 The Business of Wet Nursing (1420s) 49
4.16 Wet Nursing Carnival Songs (1400s) 50
4.17 Breastfeeding Is Good, and Mother’s Milk Is Best (1622) 51
4.18 A Jewish Circumcision (1580–81) 52
Reading Questions 54

V Childhood and Adolescence 55

5.1 What Boys and Girls Need to Learn (c. 1654) 55
5.2 Bad Dreams and Bedwetting (1653) 57
5.3 Training of a Renaissance Feminist (1488) 58
5.4 A Man’s Idea of a School for Girls (1671) 60
5.5 A Woman’s Idea of a School for Girls (1694) 62
5.6 A Feminist Instructs Her Brothers (1485) 63
5.7 Raising Muslim and Jewish Children in Algiers—A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612) 64
5.8 Writing Home: An Obedient Son (1578) 66
5.9 Writing Home: A Wily Son (1629–36) 68
5.10 Youth Rules the Night (c. 1670) 72
5.11 Life of a University Student (1550s) 73
Reading Questions 77

VI Working Life 79
6.1 Instructions for the Ideal Servant—An Employer’s View (1681) 79
6.2 Learning a Trade on the Job (1525) 80
6.3 The Apprentice’s Overseer (1795) 82
6.4 Peasant Protest and Rebellion (1502; 1525) 83
6.5 Workers and Employers at Odds (c. 1465) 86
6.6 Women and the Guilds: Gold Spinners in Germany (1500s) 88
6.7 Apprenticeship Contract for a Daughter in France (1610) 89
6.8 Apprenticeship Contract for a Female Orphan (1700) 90
6.9 Protecting Local Industry (1687) 92
6.10 The Rural Woman’s Guide to Hard Work (1550) 93
Reading Questions 94

VII Marriage: Making and Ending It 95

7.1 A Contested Marriage in Court: Richard Tymond vs. Margery Sheppard (1487) 95
7.2 A Contested Marriage in Court: Alice Parker vs. Richard Tenwinter (1488) 96
7.3 Marrying Your Own (1540) 97
7.4 A Man Describes the Perfect Wife (1583) 98
7.5 Domestic Assault (1598) 99
7.6 Marrying to Breed (1654) 100
7.7 Italian Marriage Negotiations (1400s) 100

vi
 Contents

7.8 German Marriage Negotiations (1533) 104

7.9 English Marriage Negotiations (1680–81) 106
7.10 Marriage Night Conversation (1699) 107
7.11 Fertility Curses and Cures (1500s) 108
7.12 French Marriage Negotiations: Contract for a Second Marriage (1540) 109
7.13 A Woman’s Critique of Married Life (1600) 110
7.14 “Happy the Woman without a Man” (1500s) 112
7.15 A Man’s Critique of Married Life (1682) 114
7.16 Calculating Adultery (1700) 116
7.17 Marriage and Divorce in Muslim Spain (1438; 1474) 117
7.18 A Woman’s Response to Bigamy—Recovering Independence (1539) 119
7.19 Impotence and Divorce (1635) 120
7.20 Muslim Marriage Ceremonies in Algiers—A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612) 121
7.21 Marriage without Rituals—The Quaker Option (1685) 123
7.22 A Woman Reflects on Marriage (1703) 124
Reading Questions 125

VIII Sex, Gender, and Prostitution 127

8.1 A Morisca Prostitute in Valencia (1491) 127
8.2 A Catalogue of London Prostitutes (1691) 128
8.3 City Government Establishing a Brothel (1460) 131
8.4 Same-Sex Relations and Cross-Dressing (1477) 133
8.5 Warning Parents about Same-Sex Relations among Girls (1771) 134
8.6 A Transvestite Prostitute (1385) 134
8.7 Prosecuting a Priest for Same-Sex Relations (1651) 135
8.8 Socially Acceptable—and Unacceptable—Same-Sex Relations among Men (1509) 137
8.9 Sex and the Convent (1661) 138
8.10 Prosecuting Rape (1675) 140
Reading Questions 140

IX Poverty and Poor Relief 141

9.1 Rural Poverty in France (1484) 141
9.2 Poor Consumers Protesting Adulterated Food (1484; 1494) 143
9.3 Unworthy Poor and Worthy Rich (1524) 145
9.4 Chasing the Deadbeat Dad (1696) 146
9.5 Civic Help = Self Help (1526) 147
9.6 The Common Chest and the Common Good (1522) 149
9.7 Women in the Economy of Makeshifts (1600s) 150
9.8 Urban Poverty in France (1530s) 151
9.9 Sheltering and “Improving” Orphans and Abandoned Children (1686) 154
9.10 The Challenge of Keeping an Orphanage Open (1600s) 156
9.11 Better Schools for “Better” Children (1683–84) 156
9.12 Getting the Poor Out of Sight (1608) 158
Reading Questions 159

vii
 Contents

X Crime and Punishment 161

10.1 Selling Murder and Mayhem (1661) 161
10.2 Punishing Women Who Brawl (1690) 163
10.3 Deception, Social Climbing, ... and Death (1697) 163
10.4 Frustrated Lovers Separated by Convent Walls (1585) 165
10.5 Close Call: A Near-Execution for Sodomy (1667) 166
10.6 Preparing for Execution (1400s–1500s) 168
10.7 The Execution of Two Nobles (1568) 172
10.8 The Theater of Execution in Rome (1581) 174
10.9 Ritual Execution of an Alleged Rapist and Robber in Venice (1513) 175
10.10 A Burning for Heresy (1553) 175
10.11 The Galleys in Marseilles (late 1500s) 177
10.12 Appointment of an Executioner: Charles Sanson in Paris (1700s) 178
10.13 Diary of an Executioner: Franz Schmidt of Nuremberg (1500s) 180
10.14 Public Penance and Punishment in Spain—Heresy and Inquisition (1486) 182
10.15 Confessions on the Scaffold (1700) 183
Reading Questions 184

XI Holy and Unholy: Mystics, Nuns, and Witches 185

11.1 Men Enclosing Women behind Convent Walls (1654) 185
11.2 Nuns in the Reformation (1547) 186
11.3 Trials of an Educated Nun (1682) 188
11.4 Nuns Possessed in Loudon (1643) 188
11.5 Nuns and Demons: Possession or Pretension? (1643) 189
11.6 Authorizing the Witch Hunt (1484) 191
11.7 Why Become a Witch? (1486) 192
11.8 Husband and Wife Witch Team (c. 1437) 192
11.9 Judgment on the Witch Walpurga Hausmännin (1587) 194
11.10 Witchcraft as a Problem for Political Leaders (1580) 196
11.11 A Miller Faces the Inquisition (1584–86) 199
Reading Questions 203

XII Living Apart Together: Jews, Muslims, and Christians 205

12.1 Expelling the Jews from Spain: The Official Order (1492) 205
12.2 Going into Exile: Iberian Jews around the Mediterranean (1495) 208
12.3 A Jewish Ghetto in Southern France (late 1500s) 210
12.4 How to Be a Practicing Muslim in a Catholic Country (1400s) 211
12.5 Living Undercover (1504) 212
12.6 You Are What You Wear—Or Are You? (1567) 215
12.7 Conversion: A Jew in Italy Converts to Christianity (1569) 216
12.8 Doubting Conversion: The Spanish Inquisition Investigates a Morisco (1622) 217
12.9 A Jewish Woman in Germany (late 1600s– early 1700s) 221
12.10 Targeting Refugees: The Dutch Threat to London (1593) 222
12.11 Observing the Ottomans in Istanbul (1562) 223
12.12 In Awe and Fear of “The Great Turk” (1601) 225

viii
 Contents

12.13 Allowing the Jews to Return to England (1649) 226

12.14 Toleration—Or Conversion? (c. 1650) 228
12.15 The Jewish Community in Algiers—A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612) 229
Reading Questions 230

XIII Other Worlds: Migration and Emigration 231

13.1 Black and White Enslaved Peoples in Africa (1600) 231
13.2 Into India: Making Unfamiliar Worlds Familiar (1497) 234
13.3 Into America—Unfamiliar Worlds and Peoples (1497) 238
13.4 Tense Encounters: Early Portuguese Travellers in China (1500s) 241
13.5 Protesting Exploitation of Indigenous People (1552) 243
13.6 An Immigrant Writes Home (1574) 245
13.7 Encouraging Migration from New England to Jamaica (1656) 247
13.8 A Portuguese Missionary’s First Impressions of Japan (1549) 248
13.9 A Young Black Nobleman in the British Empire (1734) 251
Reading Questions 255

XIV Danger, Disease, and Death 257

14.1 Death on the Road: The Dangers of Travel (1550s) 257
14.2 How to Survive into Old Age (1683) 258
14.3 Death of a Jewish Rabbi (1509) 260
14.4 Fighting Plague (1541) 261
14.5 Stealing Bodies from the Grave (1554) 263
14.6 Visitors from Beyond Death (1572) 265
14.7 Muslim and Jewish Rituals around Death and Burial in Algiers—A Portuguese Priest’s View
(1612) 265
14.8 Popular Burial Customs in Spain (1500s) 268
Reading Questions 269

Sources 271
Index 277

ix
 Figures
3.1 Bloodletting Points 12
3.2 Cupping 13
3.3 Beer Drinking 24
4.1 Positions of the Foetus in the Womb 41
4.2 The Nursery 53
5.1 The Idle Apprentice 67
6.1 Ale Wife 85
6.2 Women Spinning Silk 91
7.1 The Marriage Balance 103
7.2 Signing a Marriage Contract 107
7.3 The Wandering Husband 118
8.1 Master of Anthony of Burgundy, German Bathhouse (c. 1470) 130
8.2 Venetian Public Prostitute 132
9.1 Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Beggar Boys Eating Grapes and Melon (c. 1650) 144
9.2 Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Young Beggar (c. 1650) 157
10.1 Seven Men on the Gallows 173
10.2 The Death of Thomas Cranmer at the Stake, Burned for Heresy in 1556 177
10.3 Executioner Franz Schmidt Executing Hans Fröschel on 18 May 1591 179
11.1 Renouncing Christ to Follow the Devil 190
11.2 Witches Roasting Babies 193
11.3 Witches Destroy a Town 198
12.1 A Morisca and Her Daughter (1529) 214
12.2 The Wandering Jew (1640) 227
13.1 King of Kongo Giving Audience to the Portuguese and His Subjects (1400s) 233
13.2 Portolan Chart (1492) 240
13.3 Job, Son of Solomon, High Priest of Bonda (1734) 250
14.1 The Dance of Death at Basle 262
14.2 The Dissection of the Body of Tom Nero 264

xi
 Acknowledgements
The readings here represent voices from the past that sometimes seem distant and some-
times strangely familiar. I’d like to acknowledge that these midwives, students, merchants,
nuns, philosophers, and sailors had no sense of how their words and lives might be pub-
lished in a distant future they could hardly imagine. We share their private letters and public
accounts so that students now can gain a deeper sense of a distant past and of frequently
difficult lives that many find equally hard to imagine. I’ve been privileged to see in many
classes what happens when voices past and present engage together—we’ve had intense
discussions, puzzled queries, and many “aha!” moments when things suddenly came in to
focus. My thanks to students in Regina, Toronto, Siena, Oxford, and Tours who shortened
the distance between past and present and who made the conversations live with their curi-
osity and excitement. Thanks as well to Allison Graham and Alexandra Logue for seeking
out some of these voices, to John Christopoulos and Kristina Francescutti for researching
their contexts, and to Sienna Lee-Coughlin, Spirit Rose Waite, and Sarah Patterson for
helping to organize them. The idea to turn an informal course reader into a more formal
published collection came from Natalie Fingerhut of University of Toronto Press, and I
would like to thank her for her ongoing support and above all for her great patience in a
journey that took a little longer than any of us anticipated.

xiii
 I

How to Read a
Primary Source
This section helps students recognize different kinds of primary sources—diaries, letters,
laws, poems, and so on—and think about how these sources are written for different
purposes and audiences. It introduces the idea of reading with a few critical questions in
mind: who wrote a piece, what it is, why it was written, who it was written to or for, when
it was written, and what it says. Students learn what kinds of information to expect from
different kinds of sources and how to read those sources critically.
Every time we write a note, a message, a list, or an essay, we have someone in mind that
we are writing to. It may be hundreds or thousands of friends on social media, or a couple
of teachers or professors for an essay, or an employer for a report, or a single person for a
private card or letter. We may even write to ourselves, with a quickly scrawled shopping
list, or a note reminding us of things we need to do today, or a diary of what we actually
did. Sometimes we write to persuade our reader, sometimes to record our likes or dislikes,
and sometimes to express private things we don’t want or expect anyone else to read. Our
writing may be “official” or personal; it may be public or private; it may be something we
want the world to remember or something we want everyone to forget.
We change the tone of what we write depending on who we are writing to, when we
are writing, and what we are writing for. With public writing, we know that readers will
get a sense of who we are through what we write, so we think more about the impact of
what we write: What do we want to tell our readers? What details have to be included? If
some group that we are part of appoints us to write something on behalf of the group—a
petition, a set of rules, minutes of a meeting, or a report on an event—then we may be less
personal and more formal in what we write. We may think more about reporting fairly and
clearly, and we may even have to include some views of the group that we don’t personally
share. When we write privately, that seldom happens—we are free to write what we think
and feel. But do we always do that? What we share with a parent or grandparent will be
different from what we share with someone we love in a more intimate way—or someone
we hate. We may hide some things we don’t want them to know, or exaggerate other things
if we want to please or impress them. Whether we write publicly or privately, we know that
those who read us will get some sense of who we are.
People living in Europe in the early modern period, roughly 1500–1700, wrote for much
the same purposes and in much the same way. They argued, boasted, and bragged. They
recorded details carefully or made them up entirely. They wrote what they believed to be
true or what they knew to be false. They wrote letters, diaries, rules, proposals, newspaper

1
 LIVES UNCOVERED

reports, stories, and poems. Reading what they wrote opens a window into what they
thought about—what worried them or excited them or amazed them about each other and
about their world. These are the people whose daily lives made up the history we study.
A letter from a woman in Peru to her brother in Spain trying to convince him to take the
long voyage to join her. A midwife giving advice on how to conceive a boy or girl and how
to have a healthy pregnancy. A young student on his way to university who has to think
quickly to avoid getting beaten up and robbed. A lawyer giving instructions to judges on
how to prosecute a witch. A mother telling her son who he must marry, or a son telling
his mother why he married the girl he loved instead. A dying father leaving instructions
on how he wants his children to be raised, or a guardian making promises on how he will
care for an orphan.
Reading these letters, wills, and diaries narrows the distance between early modern
people and ourselves, because we see that sometimes they expressed hopes and fears that
we can easily identify with. Sometimes it does the opposite, as when we read medical
advice about how to keep our bodies cool by eating chicken or hot by choosing cabbage.
We have to read carefully so that we don’t misunderstand things that seem very close to
our own experience or misinterpret things that seem very different.
If we read with a few questions in mind, we can get more out of reading documents
written a few hundred years ago:

• Who was writing it?

• Who was reading it?
• Why was it written?
• When was it written?
• What does it say?

As we play with these questions, and go back and forth from one to the other, we will
find that each casts a bit of light on the others. What may seem like simple words on a page
can take on different meaning if they are written by a woman or a man, if they are written
for a child or an adult, if they are written to persuade the reader to do something, or if
they are written to report on what others have done. And while today we avoid plagiarism,
many early moderns embraced it—some of the authors here borrowed freely from other
authors, and sometimes from other languages, often without acknowledgment. This makes
critical reading all the more complicated and all the more necessary.
Some sources offer advice, set down rules, or advocate a course of action; since they pre-
scribe actions, we often call these prescriptive. Medical treatises, laws, sermons, and advice
literature all count as prescriptive examples. Other sources offer accounts of events that
have taken place; since they describe actions, we often call these descriptive. Court records,
letters, diaries, and chronicles are examples of descriptive writings. But not all documents
fall neatly into these two categories: A mother writing a letter to her son will move back and
forth from description to prescription as she gives news about a sibling and advice about a
cold. A doctor writing a medical treatise may offer advice about childbirth that combines
dictates from the respected Islamic authority Avicenna with eye-witness experiences of
a local midwife. And even within these categories, we have to read critically with an eye
and an ear to who is writing and why. A court reporter’s transcript of an interrogation
may not overtly show how an illiterate peasant defendant is awed or cowed by the learned
magistrates posing their questions. The voice of the accused was filtered initially through
the learned judicial system and is filtered again in our modern translations. When we
read that transcript in modern English, we have to work to pick up the subtle differences
between questions asked in formal French, German, or Spanish (or Latin) and answers

2
 I H o w t o R e a d a P ri m a r y S o u rc e

given in the simple vernacular or local dialect of 500 years ago. And on it goes: Pamphlets
and chronicles that reported news from the period almost never presented facts objectively
but instead had propagandistic purposes. The more questions we ask about these passages,
the closer we come to understanding their different levels of meaning.
The more levels of meaning we recognize, the better we understand how these sources
uncover lives that were often quite different from—or surprisingly similar to—our own.
What foods we eat and why; how we fall in love and whether we marry; what reactions
we may have to those from other cultures, cities, or social classes, and how our views and
values will then shape whether we help, punish, embrace, or flee the other—all of these
experiences are also found in the sources here. Reading them challenges us to see with the
eyes of those who wrote them and to understand their world from the inside: Why did so
many people fear witches? How did men understand women, and vice versa? What was
fair, or just, or good? Looking at these issues as they looked at them helps us understand
the societies they built. Each document fits into a larger picture or view of the world.
That view of the world extended beyond sight and the other four senses. It extended
beyond birth and death. Early modern people had a strong sense of the universe as a place
powered by forces and spirits. They believed in a God who created and sustained this uni-
verse, who knew them, and who held them accountable both for what they did and for what
they let their neighbors do. The readings here aim to open windows onto Christian, Jewish,
and Muslim experiences, and to show how much of daily life was shaped by a strong sense
that all actions by individuals, families, and societies would either please or anger God.
Who, what, when, where, and why. One question informs another, and as you go back
and forth between them you may find that a document says the opposite of what you first
thought. Don’t be frustrated—take this as a challenge and maybe even a mystery. The more
carefully you train your ear with these questions, the more clearly you will hear the voices
of those behind these letters, diaries, laws, and treatises, and the better you will understand
the world that they made.

3
 II

Lives Uncovered:
Life Cycles in the Early
Modern Period
This reader is organized around the human life cycle, and it illustrates what realities and
concerns dominated at each stage of life from birth through youth and adulthood to death.
It offers overviews of the life cycles of males and females from different social classes and
different religious/racial groups in parts of Europe and notes the importance of other
themes such as sex and sexuality, poverty, crime and punishment, religious tension and
coexistence, and migration and emigration.
Our path from cradle to grave begins with some medical images about the body and
about health and illness. We then move through advice about conception, pregnancy, and
birth, and on through childhood, schooling, and adolescence before turning to marriage,
which most early modern people took to be the threshold into adult life. From here the path
diverges into some side areas. We’ll have already looked at work and workplaces by this
point, since most people began their working lives well before they reached their teenage
years. Many thought that they could not even consider marriage until they had developed
their skills, saved some money, and perhaps seen a bit of the world.
Their experiences as adults varied widely, and the readings aim to uncover many differ-
ent sides of life. Some may challenge our assumptions about early modern life, and others
may highlight unexpected similarities and differences between our life today and theirs
back then. We may suspect that gender roles were tightly defined, and that may in turn
make some of the practices around sex and prostitution a bit puzzling to us. The back-
ground for some of this was poverty: Most people could expect that they would spend at
least part of their lives in serious poverty, and often this followed the life cycle, too, with
childhood and old age being the most vulnerable times. All early modern societies aimed
to ease the way for children and the aged, whom they considered most deserving of care.
They could be quite harsh on others, like young men and women, who were thought to
have only themselves to blame if they didn’t have clothes, shelter, or a meal. It’s perhaps no
surprise that crime and violence were more common as a result, since some disadvantaged
men and women were forced to find by theft what they could not earn by work. Most
societies took a very hard view of crime and saw punishment as something that must give
lessons to more than just the one charged with a crime. They were far quicker to whip,

5
 LIVES UNCOVERED

brand, and execute criminals, and most thought that these actions had to be carried out
publicly if young and old were to learn anything from them.
Religion played a large role in shaping not only people’s sense of larger issues, like the
meaning of life and the universe, but also a host of day-to-day questions about where and
how to live and about who was inside the community and who was outside. Many saw those
of other religious faiths not simply as different but as threatening. As a result, there was
more effort to forcibly convert, expel, or punish those of other faiths. Finding a way to live
together could be complicated, since every religion believed that the health of individuals
and communities lay in following the will of God completely, and most believed that God
favoured their religion above all others. As a result, the religious refugee became a mass
phenomenon in the early modern period. For a few centuries Europe no longer had the
numerous communities of Muslims and widespread communities of Jews common in the
Middle Ages. Some of those forced on the road moved to other shores around the Medi-
terranean, and some moved across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. It’s because Europeans
spread so widely across the globe in this period, and because they wrote so voluminously
about where they went and who they encountered, that this collection includes readings
about North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. Imperialism and colonialism
were still in their earliest phases, but we can see both of them emerging in the sense of
wonder, ownership, fear, and opportunity that comes out in the letters and accounts that
Europeans wrote to each other about these different parts of the world.
These readings also deal with the period known as the Renaissance and Reformation in
Europe, a time known for major developments like the growth of the state, the development
of capitalism, the rupture in the Catholic Church, and the voyages of Europeans around
the globe. Survey histories will focus on those larger movements and on major figures
like humanists Erasmus and Moderata Fonte, artists Artemisia Gentileschi and Peter Paul
Rubens, or monarchs Henry VIII and Isabella of Castile. Historians often associate these
famous people with major events, but in their own daily lives they were preoccupied with
more ordinary concerns: Is that stomach ache a sign of serious illness? What should I eat
for dinner? What do my friends think of me? How can I get my children (or parents!) to
listen to me? These readings aim to pull back a curtain on how humanists, artists, and
monarchs—as well as midwives, cooks, servants, and criminals—went about their daily
lives. Uncovering their lives is a critically important way for us to understand the world
they lived in and the hopes, fears, and convictions that informed their books, plays, and
paintings or their decrees and public actions. No one experienced the “growth of the
state” in anything but immediate and personal forms: changes in marriage law, expanding
criminal prosecutions, greater regulation of workplaces and of trade, or expulsion from a
homeland because of religious difference. Following the early modern life cycle gives us
an immediate and deeper understanding of the social structures, the individual choices,
and the cultural values that made the early modern period so revolutionary. What job
does capitalism give me? What is the Reformation this Sunday in this church? What does
the growth of the state look like in my village? We understand these major movements so
much better when we see their impacts on the daily lives of a wide range of people.
If we read primary sources to hear the voices of the past, we must remember that these
are always in a conversation that was frequently lively and heated. Women experienced
many things differently than men. Where one sat on the social scale made an enormous
difference to how one experienced childhood, poverty, or crime. Classical learning and
cultural traditions always opened gaps between advice given and actions taken. For most
people, religion was more about following rituals and forming communities than about
believing particular ideas or theologies—they did not reject these, but their languages of
faith were more often expressed by actions than by words. This could make their actions

6
 II L i v e s U n c o v e r e d : L i f e C y cl e s i n t h e E a rl y M o d e r n P e ri o d

more reflexive than reflective. We need to remember that we are reading words written in
a culture where many people, often the majority, were illiterate. The greatest challenge for
us is not only to understand how to read these letters, diaries, treatises, and laws, but also
to use primary sources to hear the voices of those who could not write.

7
 III

Body and Spirit,

Sickness and Health
We begin by looking at how early modern medical authorities thought about the body
and about health and sickness. Some of their ideas seem remarkably current. In order to
be healthy, you had to follow two principles: moderation and balance. Watch what you eat
and drink, get enough sleep, exercise regularly, get fresh air, keep your emotional health
in balance, and be regular in your bowel movements and urination.
This practical advice was put into a framework that we might find harder to swallow.
Following the ancient Greeks and Romans, medical authorities thought that your individual
makeup, or “constitution,” was set by the balance of four fluids (or “humors”) within your
body: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. These were associated with the values of hot
and cold, dry and wet, making for a complex and sophisticated diagnostic system that knew
nothing about germs, viruses, neurological conditions, or genetics. Your gender, age, class,
diet, and even geography and the seasons all played a part in setting the balance or imbalance.
The first step to health was finding out what your individual balance was and sticking to it,
either by building up positive fluids or purging excess and bad ones. Spiritual forces that
might be linked to God, to the natural order, or to powers in the universe could also play
a role in determining your physical and emotional health. As Europeans came across new
foods and drinks, they aimed to fit them into this system, sometimes with comical results.

3.1 The Cosmic Human (1531)

Early modern people, ranging from peasants to philosophers, believed that the physical
world and everything in it was shaped to some extent by supernatural and cosmic forces.
The German soldier, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist Cornelius Agrippa
(1486–1535) wrote De occulta philosophia (1531) to describe how planets and stars controlled
the different parts of the human body and governed emotions, character, and health. Nat-
ural, celestial, and ceremonial magic offered ways to understand this complex and divinely
created order and the place of humans in it. Agrippa’s occult interests brought charges of
heresy, though he continued to argue that they were consistent with divine revelation.

Source: Cornelius Agrippa, De occulta philosophia (1531). In P.G. Maxwell-Stuart (Ed. and Trans.), The
Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1999), pp. 96–97.

9
 LIVES UNCOVERED
It is clear that all inferior things are subject to higher and
(as Proclus says) in a certain fashion each is present inside
the other, i.e., the highest is in the lowest and the lowest
in the highest. Thus, terrestrial things are in heaven, but
in a causal and celestial way; and celestial things are on
earth, but in a terrestrial way, that is to say, consistent
with their intention. So we say that here on earth there
exist certain things which pertain to the Sun and some
which pertain to the Moon, because in them the Sun and
Moon give rise to something of their own power. This
is why things of this kind receive more workings and
properties like those of the stars and signs under which
they exist. Thus, we find out that things pertaining to the
Sun have a relationship with the heart and head because
of Leo (the house of the Sun) and Aries (in which the
Sun is exalted). Things pertaining to Mars are ascribed
to the head and testicles because of Aries and Scorpio;
which is why people whose senses are staggering and who
have a pain in the head because they are drunk with wine
find immediate relief by plunging their testicles into cold
water, or washing them thoroughly with vinegar.
But with regard to these inter-relationships, one must
know how the human body is allotted to the planets and
their signs. According to Arabic tradition, the Sun rules
the brain, heart, thigh, marrow, right eye and vital spirit.
Mercury governs the tongue, mouth, the other instru-
ments or organs of the sense (internal as well as external),
the hands, feet, legs, nerves and power of imagination.
Saturn rules the spleen, stomach, bladder, womb, right
ear and the power of making connections between things.
Jupiter rules the liver and the fleshier part of the stomach,
the belly and navel, which is why ancient authors tell us
that a replica of the navel was deposited in the Temple
of Jupiter Ammon. Some writers also attribute to Jupiter
the ribs, pubic bone, intestines, blood, arms, right hand,
left ear and the power of the genitals. Others, however,
set Mars in charge of the blood, veins, kidneys, gall-bag,
nostrils, back, descent of the sperm and the power to be
angry. Venus (some say) governs the kidneys, testicles,
vulva, uterus, sperm and lust, along with the flesh, body-
fat, stomach, pubic area, umbilical cord and everything
10
such as that, serving the sexual act; and she is said to rule,
in addition, the ossacrum, backbone, loins, head and the
mouth which gives a kiss as a pledge of love. The Moon,
even though she may lay claim to the whole body and
its individual parts because of the variety of her signs,
nevertheless has ascribed to her in particular the brain,
lungs, marrow of the backbone, stomach, the menstrual
fluids and all the waste matters of the body, the left eye
and the power to grow.
Hermes says there are seven openings in the head of
a living creature and that these are assigned to the seven
planets: namely, the right ear to Saturn, the left to Jupiter,
the right nostril to Mars, the left to Venus, the right eye to
the Sun, the left to the Moon and the mouth to Mercury.
Individual signs of the zodiac look after their spe-
cial parts of the body. So, Aries rules the head and face;
Taurus the neck; Gemini the arms and shoulders; Can-
cer the chest, lungs, stomach and upper arms; Leo the
heart, stomach, liver and back; Virgo the intestines and
the bottom of the stomach; Libra the kidneys, thighs and
buttocks; Scorpio the genitals, the vulva and the uterus;
Sagittarius the thigh and groins; Capricorn the knees;
Aquarius the legs and shins; and Pisces the feet.…
Those things relating to Saturn cause sadness and
depression; those relating to Jupiter are conducive to hap-
piness and excellence; those relating to Mars to boldness,
contention and anger; those relating to Venus grant love,
lust and ardent desire; those relating to Mercury grant
eloquence; those relating to the Moon bring a conven-
tional life. People’s skills and characters are also allotted
according to the planets. Saturn governs old men, monks,
those given to depression, hidden treasures and those
things which one acquires with difficulty and by means
of long journeys. Jupiter has control over members of
religious Orders, prelates, Kings, Dukes and material
profit lawfully gained. Mars governs barbers, surgeons,
doctors, executioners, butchers, provisioners, bakers,
millers, soldiers and those who are everywhere called
“the sons of Mars.”
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h

3.2 The Human Animal (1561)

A buildup of toxic elements in the blood, the stomach, or the organs would certainly make
you sick. Purgation was the path to health, whether by vomiting out the contents of your
stomach, emptying the bowels, or drawing excess blood from your veins. The Bolognese
doctor Leonardo Fioravanti (1517–83) believed that all diseases went back to corrupt agents
in either the blood or the stomach, and that health could be restored only if the blood was
purified and the stomach purged. He was the prince of purgators, and here he uses the
example of how animals heal themselves in order to make his case. Fioravanti travelled
the length of Italy selling his remedies and books, disputing opponents, serving as chief
physician to the Spanish Army, and attracting followers through public healings.

Source: Leonardo Fioravanti, Capricci medicinali (Venice, 1561). In William Eamon, Science and the Secrets
of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1994), pp. 185 and 187.

It’s quite true that nature gave all the animals a very great
gift, which was that each animal, all by itself, without
aid or counsel from anyone, knew how to cure its infir-
mity.… The dog, when it feels sick, goes to the forest and
finds there a certain sort of herb, which it recognizes
by natural instinct, and eats it, and that herb immedi-
ately makes it vomit or evacuate from behind; and it is
cured at once. The ox, horse, and mule, when they feel
themselves aggravated by some infirmity, bite the end of
their tongue until blood flows out, and are healed. Hens,
when they are sick, take out a certain membrane under
the tongue, and the blood flows from it, and immedi-
ately they are healed. And many other animals do sim-
ilar things to cure various infirmities.… The animals
therefore really know how to doctor themselves, and
haven’t previously studied medicine. They don’t have it
by science, but by experience and the gift of nature.…
And so each time men saw these things they observed
it, and in this way came to know that evacuation and
bloodletting were very useful.
… to be committed out in succession. Thus the stomach is
The first cause of all infirmities is the indisposed and
corrupt stomach, from which follows the corruption of
the entire body, and by reason of this cause the blood
along with all the interior parts suffers, and for this rea-
son it follows that to be able to liberate the body from all
kinds of infirmities it is necessary to evacuate it of these
corrupt humors, whether by vomiting or by purgation.
And the truth of this is verified every day by experience,
which shows that those medicines which provoke vom-
iting, evacuating a great deal, cause much better effects
than any other for the health of the sick body.
…
[First], it is seen that the animals of the earth don’t
ever treat themselves of any infirmity, except of the stom-
ach, and when they seek to heal themselves, they eat
herbs that cause them to vomit. This teaches us that they
do not suffer from any other infirmity than the aforesaid.
By the experience of animals I prove that illnesses have
their causes in the stomach. [Second], all medicines … as
soon as they arrive in the stomach, attract to themselves
all the evil humors of the stomach, and of the entire body,
and embrace them together, and nature condemns them
emptied of all such material, and the body remains free
of every impediment of infirmity.…

11
 LIVES UNCOVERED

Figure 3.1 Bloodletting Points

An anatomical diagram of a man’s vascular system and corresponding
bloodletting points. Though only skilled surgeons drew blood, diagrams like
these showed what the main points were for successful treatments.

12
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h

Figure 3.2 Cupping

Like bloodletting by means of leeches and small incisions, cupping
was a form of purgation intended to balance the humors. The cups
were heated in order to increase the flow from the incision.

13
 LIVES UNCOVERED

3.3 You Are What You Eat, or You Eat What You Are? (1656)
Should you eat brown or white bread? Take an extra helping? Eat garlic? Rules for healthy
eating in the early modern period were as complicated as they are now. Recipes and menus
were driven by the doctrine of the humors and by the belief that you should vary what
and how much you ate according to your gender, your class, your constitution, and your
temperament. A finely tuned diet and appetite would allow you to be as healthy as a horse
without visiting a doctor. It’s not for nothing that Nicholas Culpeper (1616–54), author of
this piece, advertised himself as a student of physic (i.e., medicine) and astrology, because
the whole universe came together around the kitchen and the table. In this piece, he rec-
ommends what students in particular should eat.

Source: Nicholas Culpepper, Health for the Rich and Poor by Dyet without Physick (London, 1656).

Chap. 1.
What is meant by a sober Life.
1. By a sober Life, I intend such an exact quantity of meat
and drink, as the Constitution of the Body allows of, in
reference to the Services of the mind.
2. I add [in reference to the Services of the kind] because
such as lead a studious Life, ought not to eat so much, as
such as lead a laborious Life, their digestion being not so
good, therefore their Meat ought to be less in quantity,
and light of digestion.…
10. The measure of Food, ought to be (as much as possibly
may be) exactly proportional to the quality and condition
of the Stomach, because it is the Office of the Stomach
to digest it.
11. And that quantity is exactly proportional to the Stom-
ach, which the Stomach is able perfectly to concoct and
digest.…
13. In such as exercise bodily Labors, the Faculties of
the Body, are chiefly exercised, and a greater mea-
sure is required for them, than for such as only live
studious lives, and exercise the Faculties of the Mind
only.
Chap. 2.
Rules to find out the fit measure of Meat and Drink.
Rule I.
1. If thou takest so much Food at Meals as makes thee
unfit for study, and other Duties of the Mind, it is evident
thou exceedest the due measure thou oughtest in Reason
to keep.…
3. Now this is clear, That all the offence that proceeds
to the Brain (by way of Food I mean) ariseth from the
abundance of Vapors that are sent up to the head; which
either would not be at all, or else be pure, and not crude,
if excess in Diet were avoided.
4. Neither are those Vapors only, and immediately sent
up from the Stomach, which if that were all, it were bad
enough; but also from the Liver and Spleen, which being
overcloyed, in Concoction send up abundance of fuligi-
nous sooty vapors to the head.
5. A sober Diet doth by little and little, diminish these
Vapors, and in short time, reduceth them to their due
proportion, both in quantity, and in quality.
6. For when Nature is not burdened, she governs the
Body perfectly, and so wisely orders and dispenseth
all things, that neither Diseases arise in the Body, nor
impediments in the Mind.…
Rule II.
1. If thou find a dullness, heaviness, and weariness after
meat, it is a sign thou has exceeded the due measure.
2. For Meat and Drink ought to refresh the Body, and
make it more cheerful, and not to dull and oppress it.
3. If then thou findest these ill Symptoms, consider dili-
gently whether it come through superabundance of Meat
or Drink, or both, and subtract accordingly: and do this
by degrees also, till by little and little thou findest no
longer any such inconveniences.…
Rule III.
1. We must not pass immediately from a disordered kind
of life, to a strict and precise life; but subtract from the
excess by little and little.…
Rule IV.
1. Touching the Quality of the Food, there is no great care
to be had, so that the Body be of a healthful Constitution,
and find the Meat he eats do him no harm.…

14
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h
4. It is best for Students to use a good quantity of Bread
with their Meat, for the damage it brings may thereby in
a great part be avoided; and indeed to have a great care
of all Meats which they find to offend; for such cause
Crudities, and by Crudities, cloudiness and dizziness
of the Brain, Catarrhs, and distillations on the Lungs,
Wind, Gripings, Gnawings, and Frettings of the Guts;
and what a mad thing is it to buy these vile and fading
pleasures to Gluttony, at the rate of so many, so great
Inconveniences; and to please a liquorish appetite, enter
into such a thraldom with Gluttony, as spoils both Spirit,
Soul, and Body.
5. Only take this Caution: When I say, Students ought
carefully to avoid all Meats that offend, I do not intend,
but that they may now and then eat a little of any Meats
they desire; for oftentimes that which offends Nature,
being taken in large quantities, benefits Nature, being
taken in less proportions.…
Rule V.
1. Beware a variety of Meats, and such as are seriously
and daintily dressed.…
Rule VI.
1. Keep as much as may be from the view of dainty Feasts
and Banquets.…
3. It is far more difficult to restrain in the Appetite from
good cheer when it is present, than from the desire of it
when it is away.…
Chap. 3.
Certain Objections Answered.
Objection I.
Whether this Measure and stint being once found out,
ought to be altered, or not?
Answ. 1.
Winter requires something of a larger quality of Meat
than Summer.
2. Hot and dry Meats agree best with Winter, cold and
moist with Summer.
Objection 2.
Whether the daily Measure ought to be taken at one, or
more times?
15
Answ. 1.
The Ancients, who lived in hot Countries, took it
all together, and that about three of the clock in the
afternoon.
2. Weak Persons, and aged People, had better take it at
twice, because small quantities suit better with weak
digestions.
Chap. 4.
A Temperate Diet frees from Diseases.…
3. Where there is an agreeable proportionableness
amongst those things which are commonly called
Humours, there is no matter for a sickness to work upon;
for the ground of Health lies in this, That the Humours be
rightly and proportionally tempered in the Body.
4. Experience teacheth, That such as keep a sober Diet,
are very seldom, or never molested with Diseases; and if
at any time they are surprised with a sickness, they bear
it better, and recover it sooner than such whose Bodies
are as full of ill Humours, as an egg is Full of Meat.
5. The Reason is, Because all Diseases have their original
from Repletion, viz. Taking more Meat and Drink than
Nature requires, or the Stomach can welcome.…
8. [Consequences for] the Stomach, either through the
over great quantities of Meats, or of their malignant qual-
ity, or of the variety of them taken at one time, or not a
due space taken between Meals:
1. It fills the Brain with Choleric and Phlegmatic
Excrements
2. It breeds Obstructions
3. It corrupts the temper of the whole Body
4. It fills the Veins with putrefied Humours …
15. We deny not but Exercise may, nay, ought to be used in
due time, and in due measure, a quarter of an hour before
Meals, or so, to swing a weight, or swing your Arms about
with a small weight in each hand, to leap, or the like; for
this stirs the Muscles of the Breast.
Chap. 6.
A temperate Diet resists Epidemical Diseases.
1. All Epidemical Diseases, as such as are real Physicians
know, proceed from the Air corrupted by planetary
influence.…
 LIVES UNCOVERED
3. If then your Bodies be kept clear from corruption, by a
temperate Diet, there is nothing for the Disease to work
upon.
Chap. 7.
A sober Diet makes Men’s Bodies fit for any Employment.
1. It makes the Body lightsome, fresh and Expedite to all
the motions thereunto appertaining.
2. For, heaviness, dullness, and the like oppressions of
nature, proceed from ill Humours, and ill Humours from
ill Diet, whereby the Joints and Ventricles of the Body are
filled full of superfluous moisture.…
4. Hence it is clear that in him that keeps a sober Diet,
the concoction is perfect, good Blood bred; and of
good Blood, good Spirits, free, lightsome, and clear: so
that both agility of body and vigor of mind is thereby
acquired.…
Chap. 8.
A sober Diet makes Men live long.
1. A sober Diet, not only brings health of Body, and vigor
of mind, both which are very desirable things … but also
it gives long life to them that follow it, and glorify God
by it.
2. Infinite examples might be brought of this, I shall only
quote one, which is Galen, who by keeping an orderly
Diet, lived one hundred and twenty years, which in that
hot Country, where he lived, was a great wonder, as if he
had lived two hundred years here.…
12. But some will say, there are in the world which live to
extreme Old Age, yet keep no such Diet, but stuff them-
selves every day to the full with meat and drink. To this
I answer.
13.
1. This is most rare: most Gluttons die before their time.
And one Swallow makes not a Summer.
14.
2. If Irregular eaters and drinkers would observe a mod-
eration, they would questionless live much longer and
in better health.…
18.
They that are of weakly Constitutions, if they live tem-
perately are more secure touching health and prolonging
of their lives, than those of the strongest constitutions or
can be, if they live intemperately.
Chap. 10.
A sober Diet maintains the senses in Vigor.
16
1. Having shown what benefits it brings to the Body; let
us now rise a little higher, and show some advantages it
brings to the mind.…
3. The sight in ancient Men is chiefly clouded, because the
Optick Nerves are clouded with superfluous Humours
and Vapors, whereby the Animals Spirits, which are Sub-
servient to the sight, are either darkened or choked in
their progress.
4. This impediment is taken away by sobriety in Diet, and
avoiding such things as fill the head with fumes, strong
Wines, thick Beer &c.…
Chap. 11.
A sober Diet Mitigates the Violence of Passions and
Affections.…
5. Such as are full of Choleric Humours, are always angry
and rash, those that are full of Melancholy Humours are
sad, pensive, full of griefs and fears; and these Humours
propagate in the Brain; there follows frenzies and mad-
ness, therefore the fault lies in the Humours.
6. The affection of the mind follows the apprehension of
the fancy is conformable to the disposition of the Body,
and the predominate Humours therein … Therefore
consider:
1. Choleric Men dream of Fire, Burning, Fighting, Kill-
ings &tc.
2. Melancholy Men dream of Darkness, Fear, Funerals,
evil Spirits, whatever they dream of, be sure Fear is
at one end.
3. Phlegmatic Men, dream of Rains, great Waters,
Drownings, Shipwreck &tc.
4. Sanguine Men dream of … Banqueting, Songs, and
love matters.
7. Dreams are nothing but the apprehensions of the
Fancy, when the senses are asleep, so that it follows; that
in waking, as well as sleeping, the Fancy apprehends
things according to the predominant Humours, till it be
corrected or otherwise directed by reason.…
9. Choler, in-as-much as it is extreme Bitter and therefore
contrary to Nature, causeth other Men’s words or Deeds
to seem to proceed from bitterness of Spirit against him;
as though whatsoever was said or done, was intended
against him with despite and injury.
10. Because Choler is fiery and Impetuous, it makes the
Apprehension swift and violent, and drives a Man to a
speedy revenge of the evil, which he doth but suppose
was done against him.
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h
11. The Melancholy Humour is heavy, cold and dry,
Lumpish and sour, and always (it abounding) Obnoxious
to the ear: now by reason or its coldness and heaviness, it
cannot incite a Man to the repulse of evil, as Choler doth,
which is light and active, but polluteth a Man with fear
and care, and desire of revenge.…
13. Choler abounding makes Men angry, Rash, hasty,
bold, quarrelsome, peevish, swearers, cursers, brawlers:
hence comes fighting, killing, wounding, one another &c.
For drunken frays come from the fury of Choler inflamed
and set on fire by the Wine.
14. Melancholy makes Men sad, faint-hearted, solitary,
fearful, subject to despair, and Madness, it pollutes
the Brain, and sends up such filthy vapors from the
Hypochondria to the Brain, that it unfits a Man for any
business.
15. Phlegm makes Men slow, sleepy, fearful, forgetful,
unfit for any matter of consequence: for although this
Humour be not so hurtful to the body as Choler and
Melancholy; yet it is more hurtful to the mind; for it dulls
the vigor of the Spirits, but its moisture, cloying the Brain
and stopping their Passages.
16. Now a sober Diet doth in great part Remedy all these
evil, abating them by little and little; Nature either con-
suming them within or drying them out by degrees; espe-
cially if she be helped a little by some proper Medicine.
17. Besides all this, the whole temper of the Body much
corrected, there being a supply of pure and well tempered
Blood without any crudities, or superfluous Humours, so
that such as keep a sober Diet are calm, affable, courte-
ous, cheerful, and moderate in all things, for this being
Nourishment, which Nature works upon, causeth Benign
affections throughout the body.…
19. A Choleric Man when he is angry, at a supposed injury,
his anger so enflames the Humour, and the Humours so
increaseth his anger that he will not suffer a friend to
speak to him, though he loved him never so deeply.
Chap. 12.
A sober Diet preserveth the Memory.
1. There is scarce anything more desirable to a student
than a good memory.
2. Memory is most commonly impeached by a cold
Humour polluting the Brain, stopping the narrow pas-
sages of the Spirits, benumbing the Spirits themselves,
whereby they become slow, weak and inconstant, and
oftentimes fail a Man in the midst of his discourse; so
that he knows not, what he said last, nor what he intended
17
to say, but is fain to ask the standers by what the matter
treated about was.…
4. Now this great and apparent evil is wonderfully both
prevented before it come, and cure when it is come, by a
sober and temperate Diet.
5. Let such as are so troubled, avoid excess of hot drinks
and Wines which send up unwholesome Vapors to the
Brain, or if the coldness of their Stomachs require them,
let them drink them in small quantities and presently
after meals.
6. For although the Wine itself be hot yet it breeds cold
Diseases viz. Distillations on the lungs, Coughs, Apoplex-
ies, Palsies &tc. And the reason is, because it fills the Head
with Vapors which the Brain cools and congeals into cold
Phlegm which is the cause of these evils.
Chap. 13.
A sober Diet helps the Understanding.
1. O yes! Every one that delight in Vigor of wit, in study-
ing, reasoning, finding out and judging of things, as also
to Lead such a life, as be may be fit for communication
with holy Angels, let him read diligently this Chapter.
2. Would you be watchful, provident, circumspect, of a
good forecast, of a sound Judgment, able to give good
counsel, able to comprehend any study, to grow excellent
in what you undertake, come hither this way.…
7. For a Spiritual progress depends much upon the use
of the understanding, we cannot love any good thing
nor profit in the love of it, nor hate any evil thing, nor
increase in the hatred of it, unless it be proposed to be
good or evil by the understanding, that so it may make
the affections, so that corruption of the understanding is
many times the reason why men call good evil, and evil,
good, at all times the reason of mistaking an apparent
good for a real evil.…
10. Neither doth a sober diet only take away the imped-
iments of speculation, but also administers very many
necessary helps to it, viz.
1. Good Blood
2. Pure and well tempered Spirits.
3. An equal and well tempered Brain
Chap. 14.
A sober Diet allayeth the heat of Lust.
1. Lust is the Mother of sin, the Devil the father, and man’s
heart the Womb, in which it is conceived.…
 LIVES UNCOVERED
5. A sober Diet much allays the temptations of the Flesh
and brings much tranquility both to Flesh and Spirit.…
7. The matter of lust is the abundance of Seed. The impul-
sive cause is the store of animal Spirits, whereby the Seed
is expelled. The exciting cause is the imagination of lust-
ful matters.…
9. Now a sober Diet doth subtract both from the matter
and from the impulsive cause, for it maketh an abatement
by degrees both of the quantity and heat of the Seed and
diminisheth the store and fieriness of the Spirits, and
3.4 Cooking Comfort Foods (1570)
This Italian cookbook emphasizes freshness in ingredients and shows how to gain the most
goodness out of meats meant for those of high and ordinary stations in life.
Source: Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera dell’arte del cucinare (1570). In Terence Scully (Ed. and Trans.), The
Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): L’arte et prudenza d’un maestro cuoco (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2008), pp. 263, 343, 357, 593, and 597.
Broccoli.
Get broccoli between February and the end of March,
with its leaves removed. Take the tenderest part of it that
has not flowered. Boil salted water. With the broccoli
done up into little bunches, put it into that boiling water.
Do not overcook it but take it out and put it into dishes.
Then get boiling oil and drip it hot with a spoon over
the broccoli, adding orange juice, pepper and a little of
the broth in which it was cooked. Serve it hot because
otherwise it is no good. You can also sauté a crushed clove
of garlic in the oil to flavour the broccoli.
Whenever you need to hold it back for an hour or two,
put it into cold water after it has parboiled and leave it
there until you want to recook it. Green broccoli is kept
the same way and it will not take on a bad smell. It is
served in the above way.
Fried eggs.
Get fresh eggs. Have fresh butter that is strained so that no
sediment remains, and heat it up in a frying pan; hold the
pan’s handle up so the butter runs together and the eggs
take on a good shape. Put the eggs into the butter when it
is warm and let them cook slowly, splashing hot butter over
the yolks with a spoon so they cover over. With a sharp
spoon take them out without breaking them. Serve them
hot with orange juice and sugar over them.
18
when the Seed and Spirits are abated, and tempered,
lustful imaginations cease of their own accord, or if they
do rise, they are easily quelled.…
17. Yet once more let me acquaint you with this truth:
much expense of Seed, causeth much exhaustion of the
Spirits, and therefore of necessity dulls the mind much.…
19. Abstinence plucks up the cause of all these by the
Roots, and by degrees reduceth the natural temper to a
mediocrity; a happy Remedie for all such as are vexed
with lust or lustful thoughts.
You can do it with melted capon or goose fat. And
with the same liquids you can cook them in a small sauce-
pan of tinned copper or silver, or else in silver dishes, and
serve them in those vessels.
A dainty pottage of deboned frogs.
Get eviscerated frogs from June throughout the fall and
boil them in plain, lightly salted water. Take them out of
the broth and put them into cold water. Take the meat
and sauté it gently in oil or butter in a small pan, add-
ing in water and enough salt, peeled and seeded verjuice
grapes, mint, marjoram, burnet and parsley, those herbs
beaten with a few ground almonds or grated bread to
thicken the broth. Cook it all. Colour it with a little cin-
namon and saffron. Instead of almonds and grated bread,
you can thicken the broth with egg yolks, depending on
the day. You can also beat the meat small after it is boiled,
though because frog’s legs are very small and by nature
separate from one another, they are rarely beaten. Serve
them hot.
Chicken Soup.
Get two capons, killed that day, to make only a single
bowl of broth. Beat one and a half of them with knives,
along with their bones. The remaining half you divide
into several pieces and boil them in a pot with a litre
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h

and a third of water until it is well reduced. Then take
the beaten capon and put it into a basin, stirring into it
a little salt and ground cinnamon. Put everything into a
well tinned tourte pan, giving it a gentle heat from below
and above the way tourtes are baked, stirring it from time
to time and putting in the reduced broth from the half
capon. Let it braise until the beaten meat is cooked, then
strain it and, in a fine receptacle, reboil it with a little
sugar and orange juice or a little verjuice. With egg yolks
that broth can be used to make thick broths and soups.

3.5 A Balanced Diet (1587)

Eating a balanced diet never went out of style, and when the Toledo doctor Oliva Sabuco
de Nantes Barrera (1562–1622) published The True Medicine in Madrid in 1587, she aimed
as well to balance the ancient authorities Galen and Hippocrates. Spanish readers took her
as their bible: Barrera’s review of “the natural causes of life, death, and disease” continued
to be reprinted through the early modern period and into the nineteenth century

Source: Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera, The True Medicine (1587). In Gianna Pomata (Ed. and Trans.),
The True Medicine (Toronto: Iter, 2010), pp. 84, 186, and 188.

Comparison: On Food and Drink
Hippocrates said, “One must administer gruel in the
morning, but in the evening one can give solid food.”
As to Galen, “[he] teaches that those who are weakened
by disease should eat more at supper than at dinner,
saying that one should always try to follow the rule we
recommended when we argued that in the evening more
nutritious food should be given.” On which, Mr. Doctor,
I’d like to give you my opinion, which is the following:
Those who need the help of the true medicine (because
their brain tends easily to make flux, as is the case with
invalids, or those with little heat in their stomach, and
the old) but even those who are healthy, in order not to
need medical help, should eat more, “at dinner,” than at
supper, because at supper two things combine to make
the meal’s juice watery and prone to fall, namely, rest and
sleep. If there is a lot of juice, the flux is also great, even
if the triggering occasion may be small, and therefore
suppers may be very harmful, so that it is best at supper,
if one has an appetite, to eat just a little food, of good
quality, and not to gorge oneself. Old people should eat
a little food, of moist quality, such as good goat-milk,
or almond-milk, new-laid eggs drunk raw, and, “similar
things,” and at the end of the waning moon they should
cut down on their food, as does the bird Ibis.
Doctor: How should they cut down on their food?
Antonio: By adopting the said diet, plus herbs and
olive oil. As a rule, what is more easily digestible should
be eaten first, followed by what is harder to digest, and
at the end of the meal one should have what they call the
seal of the stomach, such as a morsel of quince, or some
quince jelly, or two olives, or a pippin apple, etc. As to
drink, if one can get used to it, it is better to drink just
once after the major part of the meal, and immediately
after to finish the rest of the meal. Old people should
drink two or three times during the meal, and no more,
because with a lot of drink the chyle turns watery, and so
does the brain. This is why it is wonderfully beneficial to
put up with thirst after eating.
Comparison: On Anger
Hippocrates and Galen argued that nobody could die of
anger, Galen saying, “Nobody ever died of anger, neither
from the chilling of the heat nor from the debilitation of
the bodily strength.” And Hippocrates said, “Irascibility,
in itself, contracts heart and lungs and attracts heat and
moisture to the head.” He also said, “One should act so
as to excite anger, for the sake of restoring heat and mois-
ture.” And Galen said, “Grief, anxiety, and anger hurt in
the same way as a protracted lack of sleep, because they
weaken the strength of the body, and [cause] a thousand
other things.” And Aristotle said, “Anger is a longing for
revenge, accompanied by pain.” On the contrary, Galen
said, “The desire for vengeance is only an accidental part
of wrath, not its essence.”
…

19
 LIVES UNCOVERED

Anger is the feeling of having been injured unfairly
by somebody and hoping for revenge. Vexation, or grief,
occurs when the injury was not due to the unfair action
of somebody, and one cannot revenge oneself. Vexation
and grief do damage as anger does, in the same way it
has been already described. Anger does not kill if there is
hope of revenge; but if that hope is gone, then anger does
indeed kill. As to the heat excited by anger, I would never
wish for that help in order to recover heat and moisture!
The ancients only looked at the outside of things, at what
appears externally. The heat they called fervor sanguinis,
“a boiling of blood,” is caused by damage done by the
brain’s flux, exactly like the heat of fever.
You will recall that fever is a flight of the innate heat of
the heart, which runs away from its opposite, the moist
and cold spirits falling from the brain. This heat spreads
around through the skin and the head, and in thus mov-
ing around it heats up, like the sunray when it flees the
cloud. Fever occurs when the heart’s heat has room and
time for fleeing; if there is no room or time for the heat
to flee, death comes instantly. The ancients spoke of fer-
vor sanguinis, a “boiling of the blood,” also because the
humor that falls as a result of the feeling of anger is the
yellow or green choler, which is hot, and per se, by itself,
can set the body on fire. This hot humor is the predom-
inant cause and peccant matter in hot diseases, whereas
the phlegm is predominant in cold diseases. One can
often see this yellow or green choler coming out of the
nose in filaments. It is also discharged from the eyes, as
can be seen from the fact that many tears or rheum from
the eyes scorch the face. The urge to revenge is the desire
to retaliate for the injury received.

3.6 New Food: Tomato (1692)

While many associate the tomato with Italian cuisine, Italians recognized it as a Spanish
import. This author emphasizes tastiness as much as whether the food is easily digestible.

Source: “Antonio Latini’s Recipes for Tomatoes” (1692). In David Gentilcore, Pomodoro! A History of the
Tomato in Italy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), p. 52.

Tomato Sauce, Spanish style. Tomato Casserole.

Take half a dozen ripe tomatoes and roast them in embers,
and when they are charred, carefully remove the skin, and
mince them finely with a knife. Add as many onions,
finely minced, as desired; chilies, also finely minced;
and a small amount of thyme. After mixing everything
together, add a little salt, oil, and vinegar as needed. It
is a very tasty sauce, for boiled dishes or anything else.
Eggplant Dish.
Cut [the eggplants] into small pieces; add minced onions
and squash, likewise cut small; and diced tomatoes.
Lightly sauté everything together with aromatic herbs,
with sour grapes if they are in season, and with the usual
spices. You will produce a very good dish, Spanish style.
Fill the pot with pieces of pigeon, veal breast, and stuffed
chicken necks. Stew well in some good broth, with suit-
able aromatic herbs and spices, together with cocks-
combs and testicles. When the stew is cooked through,
roast some tomatoes in embers, peel them, cut them
into four pieces, and add them to the soup along with
the rest of the ingredients, making sure not to overcook
them, as they require little cooking. Then add some fresh
eggs and a little lemon juice, and allow the mixture to
thicken, covering it with a lid and applying heat both
above and below.

20
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h

3.7 Depression as a Spiritual Imbalance (1643)

The sixteenth-century Italian exorcist Zacharias Vicecomes recognized some of the same
symptoms of alienation, anxiety, and sadness associated with melancholy. He suspected
that in extreme cases that resulted in individuals cutting themselves and attempting suicide,
they came from supernatural rather than natural causes—the patient was possessed by
an evil spirit. In such instances, the cure lay not in restoring an inner balance of humors
by regulating diet and rest, but in calling for an exorcist who could cast out the “inner
demons” who were controlling the patient.

Source: Zacharias Vicecomes, Complementum artis exorcistae (1643). In P.G. Maxwell-Stuart (Ed. and
Trans.), The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History (London: Macmillan Press Ltd.,
1999), pp. 46–48.

Signs of someone possessed by an evil spirit:
(1) Very often the demoniac sticks out a tongue unnat-
urally black and swollen; his throat is either inflated or
narrowly constricted so that he seems to wish to be stran-
gled. It returns, however, to its former state.
(2) Demoniacs weep aloud and do not know why they
are weeping.
(3) They answer questions angrily in a loud, quarrel-
some voice.
(4) When pressed to speak, they do not wish to do so.
(5) They grit their teeth and do not wish to eat.
(6) They pursue people with hatred.
(7) They say many things whose meaning is impossible
to decipher.
(8) They are oppressed by heavy torpor.
(9) They remain as if deprived of their senses.
(10) They cut themselves with knives and slash their
clothes and hair.
(11) They have frightening, dreadful eyes.
(12) They are afflicted by a sudden terror which imme-
diately goes away.
(13) They imitate the voices of various animals and so
one hears the roaring of lions, the bleating of sheep, the
lowing of oxen, the barking of dogs, the grunting of pigs,
and so on.
(14) They hiss through their teeth, froth at the mouth
and show other signs like rabid dogs.
(15) Very often they jump from a great height.
(16) Sometimes a fiery or ice-cold vapour runs through
their bodies.
(17) They feel as though ants are running over their
body; or frogs jumping; vipers, snakes, and fish swim-
ming; flies flying, and so forth.
(18) They see and hear things beyond what is natural.
(19) They feel scared of things when these are placed on
top of their head.…
(20) They cry out when one places any saints’ relics on
their head, even if one does so secretly, and say: “Take
them away. They mean me harm,” or “They are too heavy.”
They blow heavily or turn their head round or make an
effort to throw the relics off or display anger against the
minister and bystanders.
(21) They have a hatred for all spiritual things. They run
away at the sight of priests, especially exorcists, and are
unwilling to enter a church. If they do go in, they try to
run out at once.… They are unwilling to look at or kiss
any blessed object, the images of the saints, and especially
the crucifix. Indeed, they throw them down and spit on
them all.
(22) They make no effort to speak sacred words … and
if they do pronounce them, they try to stutter, or corrupt
the words, and demonstrate extreme boredom. At length
they cannot say them at all. This is how they show clearly
they are possessed by evil spirits.

21
 LIVES UNCOVERED

3.8 Combatting Inner Demons (1653)

A Catholic priest could relieve someone suffering from “inner demons” by employing a
wide range of spiritual tools like relics and rituals. Protestants rejected these as the super-
stitious magic of power-hungry priests. Here the French protestant preacher François
Perreaud (1577–1657) recommends using the purely spiritual tools of prayer and fasting
in order to draw God into the cure, as He is the only one who can truly remove demons.

Source: François Perreaud, Demonologie (1653). In P.G. Maxwell-Stuart (Ed. and Trans.), The Occult in
Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1999), pp. 48–49.

There are those who … believe that these spirits can be
driven away with the help of certain physical remedies,
by using the innate power of some earthly material …
But there is no doubt at all that today the Devil does not
even pretend to be constrained by such remedies—espe-
cially by superstitious remedies as the cross, holy water,
touching with relics, amulets, written characters and
other similar methods which confirm people more and
more in their idolatry and superstition. Others admit that
although, according to the laws of nature, incorporeal
things do not respond to the action of physical things,
nevertheless demons … fear physical weapons. They
are particularly afraid of the sword, partly because of
its flashing brilliance at which they cannot look without
blinking, and partly because of its cutting edge by which
they are cut, sliced and divided into pieces. After they
have been dismembered, they collect themselves together
and suddenly join themselves up completely …
One would do better to follow the advice of the
Apostle Paul: “For the weapons of our warfare are not
carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of
strongholds” [2 Corinthians 10.4]. It is true that among
those weapons he mentions especially the sword, but
this sword he qualifies in particular terms, “the sword
of the spirit” … and it is with this sword of the word of
God that Jesus Christ himself repulsed three assaults
which Satan made against him.… In addition to this
remedy we also have prayer which really is like a piece
of weaponry, well sharpened to parry all the blows of
evil spirits and weaken their power, entrusting ourselves
to God evening and morning in the name of his son
Jesus Christ, when we get up, go to bed, come and go,
stay where we are, eat and drink, and in all other cir-
cumstances.… As for fasting, which Jesus Christ con-
joins with prayer, one should note that he does not at all
prescribe thereby a particular time for the body to fast
and abstain from certain kinds of food, since the Devil
is always awake and never sleeps, and so he fasts (so to
speak), or rather he does not eat. Yet he does not cease
to be the Devil and continue to do evil. This is why, when
Jesus Christ says, “this kind of devil does not come out
save by fasting and prayer” …
If we avail ourselves of these remedies, as true weap-
ons both offensive and defensive, against these foes of
ours, let us have no doubt that … God will remove the
Devil from us and at the same time will cause his holy
angels to draw near us to minister to us and defend us
against all evil.

22
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h

3.9 Self-Medicating with Alcohol (1682)

In this variant on classical thought, the author argues that distillation destroys the balance
in all foods between the healthy “balsamic” spirits and the fiery “brimstony” spirits. Dis-
tilling leaves only the clear fire of the “brimstony” spirits, and those who drink too much
of these wreck the natural heat that fuels their digestion. They become dependent on the
more dangerous “dark fire” that offers no genuine warmth but only consumes the drinker.
Women and those in warm climates are particularly vulnerable to these effects.

Source: Thomas Tryon, Health’s Grand Preservative; or, The Women’s Best Doctor, A Treatise, Shewing the
Nature and Operation of Brandy, Rumm, Rack, and Other Distilled Spirits, and the Ill Consequences of
Men’s, but Especially of Women’s Drinking Such Pernicious Liquors and Smoaking Tobacco (London, 1682).

Brandy, Rumm, Rack, and other distilled Spirits, are all
very perfidious and hurtful to the Health of the Body, if
not sparingly taken on extraordinary occasions … for the
Intention of all such Chymical preparations, when first
Invented, was for Medicinal uses, and not to be used as
Common drink, as of late years indiscretly they are, to
the destruction of many Thousands, the frequent use of
them contracting such grievous and stubborn Diseases,
as for the most part are incurable.
… in all such Liquors or Spirits.
Therefore all such Spirits so drawn, do lose their Bal-
samick body with all their Cordial Vertues and Tinctures,
put what Herbs or Liquores you will into such Furnaces,
they are presently Plundered of their Natural Colour,
and run off white; whereby it appears, that this common
way of Distillation destroys the pure Natural Vertues and
Tincture, for from the Tincture proceeds all the Variety
of Colours, both in Vegetables, Minerals, and Animals,
so that such Spirits do only contain a harsh fierce Fiery
Nature and for that reason, if they be frequently Drunk,
do Prey upon the Natural Heat, and by degrees weaken it,
destroying the very Life of Nature … whence it comes to
pass that in those who addict themselves to the Drinking
of these high Fiery or Brimstony Spirits, their Natural
heat grows cold and Feeble, and their Appetites are weak-
ened, destroying the Power of the Digestive Faculty of
the Stomach, so that many such People after Eating are
forced to Drink a Dram to help concoction; all other
Drinks proving too cold for them, which constrains them
to continue seeping of such Liquor; … for before the Sack
or any Balsamick Liquor, was put into the Still and drawn
off, those very same Fiery harsh sulphurous Spirits were
essentially in the Wine, or whatever else it be, for it is
the Root of Nature, and the Original to every Life, but
being mixed or incorporated with the Balsamick body
and pure spirit, the fiery fierce sulphurous spirit is thereby
swallowed up, and as it were hid and moderated … but
as soon as this Essential Spirit and Balsamick body are
separated or destroyed, this dark Fiery Brimstonie Spirit
appears in its own form, and becomes like a Mad furious
Devil in Nature, its clothing being the Dark-Fire … so
that there doth remain no true Life nor Light in it, but
being set on Fire, its Flame is of a dim Brimstone colour,
which demonstrates that the dark wrathful Properties of
Saturn and Maris, and their Fierce Fires are predominant
…
Such spirits being frequently Drunk do generate var-
ious Diseases, according to each Man’s Nature and Con-
stitution, and the Climate whether hot or cold, for they
do powerfully Prey upon the Natural Heat, confirming
the sweet Oyl and pure Spirits … and for this cause such
Liquors cannot Administer any Propper or Agreeable
Nourishment to the Body, or to the pure Spirits, it can-
not give that which it hath not, it hath only power to
awaken the Central Heat or Fire, which ought not to have
been kindled … Meats and Drinks ought to be equal in
their parts, the Spirit ought not to be Separated from the
Body, nor the Body from the Spirit, but both ought to be
Administered together; for the Body without the Spirit is
of a gross heavy dull or dead Nature, and the Spirit with-
out the Body is too Violent and Fiery, but the Health of
Man’s Body and Mind, doth chiefly consist in the equality
of both; do not all Meats and Drinks wherein any Qual-
ity or Property of Nature is extream (whether it be in
Vertue, or harmfulness) is not sparingly taken, certainly
discompose the Harmony of both the Body and Mind?
…
… most Diseases are generated through surplusage
of Nourishment. For unto weak heats there ought to be
administered a proportionable Food, but stronger heats
will admit of stronger Foods of greater quantity, which

23
 LIves unCoveRed

all persons might know, if they would but observe the
operation of their own Natures;
… ately Superfluous [who] can lye a Bed or sit by the Fire.
If Men and Women were but sensible of the danger,
and terrible Diseases that are contracted by the frequent
eating and drinking of those things that are unequal
in themselves, as Brandy, Rumm and other Spirituous
Drinks and highly prepared Foods, they would not so
eagerly desire them. Do not all or most that do accustome
themselves to such things quickly spoil their Healths?
Nature is Simple and Innocent, and the Simplicity there-
fore cannot be continued, but by Sobriety and Temper-
ance in Meats and Drinks that are Simple and Harmless
which will not only gratify Nature, but contribute both
due and moyst Nourishment …
Many hundreds of Poor People who are constrained
by pure necessity … to Live for the most part on Simple
Food and mean Drinks, their Labour hard, cloathing
thin, open Air cold Houses, small Fires, hard Beds, stand-
ing on Earthen Floors; by all which means, they are not
only preserv’d in better Health, but also enabled to endure
Labour with more ease and pleasure, than the Intemper-
O then how excellent are the ways of Temperance and
Sobriety! they free the Body from pain, and the mind
from perturbations, sweetning all Gods Blessings.…
Brandy, Rumm and all strong Spirituous Drinks are
far more dangerous in hot Climates and Countries than
they are in cold, and do sooner there destroy the Health,
tho they be bad in both … for in hot Climates the Natu-
ral Heat is not so strong by reason of the forcible Influ-
ences of the Sun, which do powerfully exhale the Radical
moisture, open the pores, and too violently evaporate the
Spirits by continual Sweatings, which dulls the edge of the
Appetite, weakening the Digestive Faculty of the Stom-
ach, whereby the Inclination to Drink is increased, for
which reason many desire hot Spiritual Drinks, because
they find a present refreshment, for all such Drinks do
powerfully awaken the Internal Spirits by Simile, and
make Men quick, lively and brisk …

Figure 3.3 Beer Drinking

A group of northern Europeans drinking beer. The size of the tankards
and mugs, together with the fumes/flames that emanate from the mugs
around the drinkers’ heads, is likely intended to demonstrate excess.

24
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h

3.10 A New Addiction: Coffee (1732–34)

J.S. Bach (1685–1750) was a leading Baroque composer of both religious and secular music.
In this piece, Mister Schlendrian and his daughter Liesgen argue about her three-cup-a-day
coffee habit. He wants her to stop, but she finds coffee “sweeter than a thousand kisses.”
His threats to lock her up in the house and stop buying her clothes or other luxuries don’t
bother her a bit. She relents only when he says he won’t find her a husband, but she then
secretly plans to make her suitors promise to write a “coffee clause” into the marriage
contract.

Source: Johann Sebastian Bach, Coffee Cantata (BWV 211) (1732–34). Trans. Z. Philip Ambrose.

Coffee Cantata I’ll turn indeed to my distress

Into a dried-up goat for roasting.
Specific location unknown, probably in
Zimmermann’s Coffee House. 4. Liesgen

Liesgen, Narrator, Schlendrian Ah! How sweet the coffee’s taste is,
Sweeter than a thousand kisses,
1. Narrator Milder than sweet muscatel.

Be quiet, chatter not, Coffee, coffee, I must have it,

Give ear to what will now transpire: And if someone wants to treat me,
Now Mister Schlendrian Ah, my cup with coffee fill!
Comes with his daughter Liesgen here
And rumbles like a honey bear; 5. Schlendrian, Liesgen
Now listen what she’s done to him!
(Schlendrian)
2. Schlendrian If thou for me not coffee quit,
Thou shalt attend no wedding feast,
Don’t we have with our own children Nor ever take a stroll.
Hundred thousand woes to see!
(Liesgen)
What I’m ever daily saying, Agreed!
To my daughter Liesgen praying, But here to me my coffee leave!
Passeth fruitless on its way.
(Schlendrian)
3. Schlendrian and Liesgen Here now I’ve got the little monkey!
I will most sure a whalebone dress of latest girth refuse
(Schlendrian) thee.
Thou naughty child, thou wanton hussy,
Ah, when will I achieve my way? (Liesgen)
For me, off coffee lay! I can with ease learn this to bear.

(Liesgen) (Schlendrian)
Dear Father, do not be so strict! Thou shalt not to the window venture
For if I may not thrice each day And no one see who walks beneath it!
My little cup of coffee drink,

25
 LIVES UNCOVERED

(Liesgen)
This also; but heed my petition
And grant that I my coffee keep!
(Schlendrian)
Thou shalt as well not from my hand
A silver or a golden band
Upon thy bonnet gain thee!
(Liesgen)
Yes, yes! But leave to me my pleasure!
(Schlendrian)
Thou wanton Liesgen thou,
Then dost thou yield me ev’rything?
6. Schlendrian
Maidens who are steely-hearted
Are not easily persuaded.
But just hit the proper spot,
Oh, ye’ll have a happy lot.
7. Schlendrian, Liesgen
(Schlendrian)
Now, follow what thy father bids!
(Liesgen)
In all things, only coffee not!
(Schlendrian)
Go on, thou must then be contented
To lack as well a husband ever.
(Liesgen)
O yes! Dear Father, please, a man!
(Schlendrian)
I swear it, it will never be.
(Liesgen)
Until from coffee I abstain?
Well! Coffee, be forever conquered!
Dear Father, mark, I’ll never drink a bit.
(Schlendrian)
And thou in turn at last shalt get him.
8. Liesgen
This day, still,
O dear Father, do it, please!
Ah, a man!
Truly, he would suit me fine!
If it only soon might happen
That at last in coffee’s stead,
Ere I yet shall go to bed,
I a gallant lover find me!
9. Narrator
Old Mister Schlendrian now goes to seek
How he for this his daughter Liesgen
Soon may a husband here procure;
But Liesgen secretly makes known:
No suitor come into my house
Unless he’s made to me the promise
And put it in the marriage contract, too,
That I shall be allowed to brew,
Whenever I desire, my coffee.
10. Chorus
A cat its mousing never quits,
A girl remains a coffee-nurser.
The mothers love to use the brew,
The grandmas fondly drank it too,
So who would now the daughters censure?

26
 III B o d y a n d Spiri t , Sic k n e s s a n d H e a l t h

3.11 A New Vice: Tobacco (1605)

Tobacco was one of those American products that Europeans tried desperately to fit into
their existing food systems based on humors and qualities. Or not always desperately—this
anonymous author’s serenade to tobacco joked that it was as powerful as love in its ability
to move men to action. And women?

Source: Anonymous, “Tobacco, Tobacco.” In Tobias Hume (composer), The First Part of Ayres, Frensh,
Pollish, and Others (London: John Windet, 1605).

Tobacco, Tobacco Tis fond love often makes men poor

Sing sweetly for Tobacco, So doth Tobacco,
Tobacco is like love, O love it, Love makes men scorne all Coward feares,
For you see I will prove it. So doth Tobacco,
Love maketh leane the fatte men’s tumor, Love often sets men by the eares,
So doth Tobacco, So doth Tobacco.
Love still dries uppe the wanton humor, Tobacco, Tobacco
So doth Tobacco, sing sweetely for Tobacco,
Love makes men sayle from shore to shore, Tobacco is like love, O love it.
So doth Tobacco, For you see I have prove it.

Reading Questions
1. Early modern people often thought of the body as a container of hot and cold fluids,
using the classical Greek and Roman concepts of the humors (blood, phlegm, black
bile, and yellow bile). The healthy body had these fluids in balance. How might
people fall out of balance, and how could they restore a healthy balance?

2. A person’s balance of humors (called their “constitution”) varied by gender and by

age. How did social class also figure into the balance?

3. How did early moderns balance physical and spiritual causes in their ideas about
mental illness?

4. Early modern Europeans had many chances to eat “new” foods, like tomatoes,
chocolate, and coffee, and to try other luxuries, too, like tobacco. Do they seem
suspicious of them? Enthusiastic? Why might they try and fit them into the system of
the humors?

27
 IV

Conception, Contraception,
and Birth
Views about moderation, balance, the humors, and each individual’s distinct constitution
all shaped what early moderns thought about the processes of conception and contra-
ception, and about having a healthy pregnancy and birth. Our authors here include an
English midwife, a German family doctor, and the French king’s personal physician. We
see how conception takes place and how a pregnant woman can ensure that she has a safe
and easy delivery. Yet a French proverb warned that “A pregnant woman has one foot in
the grave,” and indeed many women and infants died in childbirth. Diaries of a Dutch
midwife, an Italian father, and an English mother give some idea of how childbirth could
be dangerous. In some cases abortion and infanticide were practiced. Nursing children
posed an early life challenge, and there were many debates about whether it was better for
mothers or for wet nurses to suckle infants.

4.1 A Woman’s Advice on Conceiving a Child (1671)

Jane Sharp was a midwife who practiced in London for three decades. She was the first
English woman to publish a book on midwifery, and in it she showed her familiarity with
both classical and modern authors. Sharp offered practical advice for mothers, fathers, and
midwives, drawing on religious precepts, classical morality, and common sense. Her book
was a commercial success, and with its guidelines on nutrition, childrearing, and care for
various diseases, it became a common household item in the eighteenth century. Sharp
was critical of male doctors’ inexperience, and she encouraged midwives to seek training
and techniques from each other rather than relying on the medical profession.

Source: “Of True Conception.” In Jane Sharp, The Midwives Book (London: Printed for Simon Miller, 1671).

Of true conception.
True Conception is then, when the seed of both sexes is
good, and duly prepared and cast into the womb as into
fruitful ground, and is there so fitly and equally mingled,
the Man’s seed with the woman’s, that a perfect Child is
by degrees framed; for first small threads as it were of the
solid and substantial parts are formed out, and the wom-
an’s blood flowes into them, to make the bowels and to
supply all parts of the infant with food and nourishment.

29
 LIVES UNCOVERED

Conception is the proper action of the womb after
fruitful seed cast in by both sexes, and this Conception
is performed in less than seven hours after the seed is
mingled, for nature is not a minute idle in her work, but
acts to the utmost of her power; it is not copulation, but
the mixture of both seeds is called conception, when
the heat of the womb fastens them; if the woman con-
ceives not, the seed will fall out of the womb in seven
days, and abortion and caption are reckoned upon the
same time.
The Seeds of both must be first perfectly mixed, and
when that is done, the Matrix contracts it self and so
closely embraceth it, being greedy to perfect this work,
that by sucession of time she stirs up the formative fac-
ulty which lieth hid in the seed and brings it into act,
which was before but in possibility, this is the natural
property of the womb to make prolifick Seed fruitful, it
is not all the art of man that setting the womb aside can
form a living child.
To conceive with child is the earnest desire if not of
all yet of most women, Nature having put into all a will
to effect and produce their like. Some there are who hold
conception to be a curse, because God laid it upon Eve
for tasting of the forbidden fruit, I will greatly multiply
thy conception: but forasmuch as increase and multiply,
was the blessing of God, it is not the conception, but the
sorrow to bring forth that was laid as a curse.

4.2 A Man’s Advice on Conceiving a Child (1612)

Jacques Guillemeau (1550–1613) was a doctor to the French royal family who made pio-
neering contributions to obstetrics and pediatrics while also drawing heavily on classical
authors and reports of Aboriginal customs. In this translation of his work The Nursing of
Children (1612), he describes how to determine whether a woman has conceived a male
or female child, how a pregnant woman should care for herself, and what can go wrong
in pregnancy.

Source: Jacques Guillemeau, Child Birth, or the Happy Delivery of Women (London: A. Hatfield, 1635).

The signes whereby to know whether a woman be with child
of a boy or a wench.
As it is very hard to know at the first whether the woman
be with child or no, so by great reason must it needs
be farre more difficult to discerne, and distinguish the
difference of the sexe, and to determine whether it will
be a boy or a wench.
I know there are some that boast they can certainly do
it, but for the most part it hapneth rather by chance, then
through either arte or skill. Nevertheless, to distinguish
the Male from the Female, we will presently shew all the
marks which we ever knew, or could observe, either out
of the ancient, or modern writers.
And first of all, young women commonly are with
child rather of a boy then of a wench, because they be
hotter then elder women, which was observed by Aristo-
tle, who saith farther, that if an aged woman which never
had children before, chance to conceive, one may be sure
it will be a wench. The like hapneth (as some write) to
women, which conceive when the wind is in the South,
who for the most part bring forth daughters, and when
the Northwind bloweth, sons.
Hippocrates saith, that a woman which goeth with a
boy hath a good colour, for a woman in her case, but if it
be of a wench, she will have a worse complexion. Like-
wise if the right breast be harder and firmer, the nipple
hard, red, and more eminent, the milk white and thick,
which being milked or spirtled against a slecke-stone,
or some such smooth thing, continues in a round form
like a pearl, and being cast even into water it dissolveth
not, but sinks directly to the bottom: and if you make a
cake with the said milk and flower, and in the baking it
continues firm, and close, it is a sign the woman is with
child of a boy. Again, she that goeth with a boy, hath the
right side of her belly bigger, and more copped, and there
the child stirreth oftenest. This motion commonly at six
weeks is scarce sensible, but at two months and a half
more manifest. The Male child lyeth high above the Navel
by reason of his heat, and the Female at the bottom of the

30
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 All learning is valuable; all history is useful. By knowing what has
been we can better judge the future; by knowing how men have
acted heretofore we can understand how they will act again in similar
circumstances.

Place the stress in the following exercises:

It is a compliment to a public speaker that the audience should
discuss what he says rather than his manner of saying it; more
complimentary that they should remember his arguments, than that
they should praise his rhetoric. The speaker should seek to conceal
himself behind his subject.
Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies
are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining
to be free, and Heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you
depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important
questions on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet
unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. The faltering tongue of hoary age
calls on you to support your country. The lisping infant raises its
suppliant hands, imploring defense against the monster, slavery.
—Joseph Warren, “Boston Massacre.”

Thou know’st, great son,

The end of war’s uncertain, but this certain,
That if thou conquer Rome, the benefit
Which thou shalt thereby reap in such a name
Whose repetition will be dogg’d with curses;
Whose chronicle thus writ: “The man was noble,
But with his last attempt he wiped it out,
Destroy’d his country, and his name remains
To the ensuing age abhorred.”

—Shakespeare, “Coriolanus.”
We say to you (our opponents) that you have made the definition
of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is
employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the
attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the
corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-
roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New
York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, who
begins in the spring and toils all summer, and who by application of
brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates
wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the
Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go
down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb 2,000 feet upon the
cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding-places the precious metals to
be poured into the channels of trade, are as much business men as
the few financial magnates who in a back room corner the money of
the world. We come to speak for this broader class of business men.
Oh do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not
pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for power equal to your
tasks; then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall
be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness
of life, which has come to you by the grace of God.
—Phillips Brooks.

There is so much good in the worst of us,

And so much bad in the best of us,
That it hardly behooves any of us,
To talk about the rest of us.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you
would know and not be known, live in a city.
—Colton.
No man is inspired by the occasion; I never was.
—Webster.
(Does stress fall upon “I,” or upon “never”?)

In men whom men condemn as ill,

I find so much of goodness still;
In men whom men account divine,
I find so much of sin and blot,
I hesitate to draw the line between the two,
Where God has not.

—Joaquin Miller.

ALL IN THE EMPHASIS

By Edwin Markham
Written expressly for Delight and Power in Speech

The crows flew over my field at morn,

Shouting disdain: “Such corn, such corn!”
Hearing this, I said, “My corn is safe;
When crows deride, the corn is safe.”

But the next hour I looked indeed,

And they were digging up the seed,
And shouting still—not now in scorn
But in delight—“Such corn, such corn!”

A Study of the Pause

When we pause we suspend our speech, but continue our
thought. It is a resting place for us better to conceive of the
importance either of the thought just expressed or of the one that
follows. The mind is busy re-creating a new idea for the one who is
listening. Pausing gives time for the speaker to get the new idea and
it also gives time for the auditor to hear the new idea. It often occurs
that we are more impressive during the interval of pausing than
during the interval of speech. The majority of people in ordinary
conversation do not use the pause enough. One result is that they
are uninteresting and monotonous in speech.
 In the following excerpt, taken from an address by Henry Ward
Beecher, indicate the frequency of pauses and then tell fully, in your
own words, what the successive ideas are upon which the mind is
concentrating:

Now, a living force that brings to itself all the resources of

the imagination, all the inspirations of feeling, all that is
influential in body, in voice, in eye, in gesture, in posture, in
the whole animated man, is in strict analogy with the divine
thought and the divine arrangement; and there is no
misconception more utterly untrue and fatal than this: that
oratory is an artificial thing, which deals with baubles and
trifles, for the sake of making bubbles of pleasure for transient
effect on mercurial audiences. So far from that, it is the
consecration of the whole man to the noblest purposes to
which one can address himself—the education and inspiration
of his fellow-men by all that there is in learning, by all that
there is in thought, by all that there is in feeling, by all that
there is in all of them, sent home through the channels of
taste and beauty. And so regarded, oratory should take its
place among the highest departments of education.

In reading the following of what value is pause? Does it indicate

distance? Make selections from your own reading which illustrate the
importance of the pause.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going;
O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

—Tennyson.

What is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence

For the fullness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue
thence?
Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized?
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe;
But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;
The rest may reason and welcome; ’tis we musicians know.

—Browning.

O well for the fisherman’s boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor-lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill:
But oh! for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

—Tennyson.

Kind of Pauses
Pauses may be long or short, frequent or seldom.
In the following exercises indicate where and what kind of pauses
you would naturally have:

Woman without her man is a brute

Speech is a jewel silence must form its setting
 Silas Marner decided to keep the child who was frozen one
evening outside his house in the snow
We will hang together or we will hang separately
Pausing is to speaking what shading is to drawing
The perfection of art is to conceal art
Henry wrote the book
What do you think I’ll shave you for nothing and give you
plenty to eat and something to drink

Study of the Importance of Tone

When we are speaking in ordinary conversation, or in public
address, the tones we use have much to do in making our meaning
clear. How often a person, merely by the tone of his voice, conveys
an entirely different meaning than was intended. He is accused of
being sarcastic when he had no intention that his remark should be
so regarded.
Let us remember that in whatever state of mind we may be it is
unconsciously reflected in our voice. If we feel timid, embarrassed or
self-conscious it is registered in our tone when we speak. On the
other hand, if we feel gay, optimistic, earnest and confident these
moods are likewise revealed in our speech. Thus we find tone to be
an index to character.
The function of tone-color is most important. It reveals the subtle
changes of our thoughts and feelings. It can make the hearer see
more clearly and feel more deeply what you say. Nothing so quickly
reveals your sincerity of purpose as the tone of your voice. It is the
source of the greatest pleasure to the hearer. It marks you as a
cultured person. And best of all it cannot be regulated by rule. If you
can express the tone admiration in colloquial language, there is no
reason why you cannot express it in the language of a Browning or a
Shakespeare.

It is not so much what you say,

 As the manner in which you say it;
It is not so much the language you use,
As the tones in which you convey it.

“Come here!” I sharply said,

And the baby cowered and wept;
“Come here!” I cooed and he looked and smiled,
And straight to my lap he crept.

The words may be mild and fair,

And the tones may pierce like a dart;
The words may be soft as the summer air,
And the tones may break the heart.

For words but come from the mind,

And grow by study and art;
But the tones leap forth from the inner self,
And reveal the state of the heart.

Whether you know it or not—

Whether you mean or care,
Gentleness, kindness, love and hate,
Envy and anger are there.

Then would you quarrels avoid,

And in peace and love rejoice,
Keep anger not only out of your words,
But keep it out of your voice.

—Sarah Edwards Henshaw.

In Part II instructions were given in word analysis and thought-

grouping. Let the student analyze the words, outline the thought-
groups and determine just where the pause naturally falls, and
whether the interval of rest is long or short, in the following
selections. He should also be able to explain just why certain groups
are separated by a long, and others by a short, pause.
 A MESSAGE TO GARCIA
By Elbert Hubbard
(Extract from The Philistine for March, 1899.)
When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was
necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents.
Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba—no one
knew where. No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The
President must secure his coöperation, and quickly.
What to do!
Some one said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of
Rowan will find Garcia for you if anybody can.” Rowan was sent for
and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by the
name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch,
strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast
of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three
weeks came out on the other side of the island, having traversed a
hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I
have no special desire now to tell in detail.
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to
be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask “Where
is he at?” By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast
in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the
land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instructions about
this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebræ which will cause them
to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do
the thing—“Carry a message to Garcia!”
The following is a one-minute composition by a student, illustrating
the power of tone and also of mood suspense:
The lion crept stealthily onward, ever onward, with his eyes fixedly
staring at the unfortunate boy who cowered before him. The boy,
trembling from head to foot, backed slowly toward a yawning
precipice. He was on the edge! The loose earth was slowly
crumbling under his feet! He was falling! The earth was coming up to
meet him at a terrific rate. Another second, and he would be dashed
to death on those rocks below!
Then a sweet voice called to him: “Time to get up, Johnnie.”
A most striking example of the power of suspense is Mark Twain’s
story of “The Golden Arm.”
Once ’pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man, ’en he live ’way
out in de prairie all ’lone by hisself, ’cep’n he had a wife. En bimeby
she died, en he tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en buried
her. Well, she had a golden arm—all solid gold, fum de shoulder
down. He wuz pow’ful mean—pow’ful; en dat night he couldn’t sleep,
caze he want dat golden arm so bad.
When it come midnight he couldn’t stan’ it no mo; so he git up, he
did, en tuck his lantern en shoved out throo de storm en dug her up
en got de golden arm; en he bent his head down ’gin de win’, en
plowed, en plowed, en plowed throo de snow. Den all on a sudden
he stop (make a considerable pause here, and look startled, and
take a listening attitude) en say: “My lan’, what’s dat!”
En he listen—en listen—en de win’ say (set your teeth together
and imitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the wind), “Bzzz-z-
zzz”—en den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a voice!—
he hear a voice all mix’ up in de win’—can’t hardly tell ’em ’part
—“Bzzz-zzz—W-h-o—g-o-t—m-y—g-o-l-d-e-n Arm?—zzz-zzz—W-
H-O G-O-T M-Y G-O-L-D-E-N ARM?” (You must begin to shiver
violently now.)
En he begin to shiver en shake, en say, “Oh, my! Oh, my lan’! en
de win’ blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en
’mos’ choke him, en he start a-plowin’ knee-deep towards home
mos’ dead, he so sk’yerd—en pooty soon he hear de voice agin, en
(pause) it is comin’ after him! Bzzz-zzz-zzz—W-h-o—G-o-t—M-y—
G-o-l-d-e-n arm?”
When he git in de pasture he hear it agin—closter now, en a-
comin’!—a-comin’ back dah in de dark en de storm—(repeat the
wind and the voice). When he git to de house he rush upstairs en
jump in de bed en kiver up, head and years, en lay dah shiverin’ en
shakin’—en den way out dah he hear it ag’in!—en a-comin’! En
bimeby he hear (pause—awed, listening attitude)—pat—pat—pat—
hit’s a-comin’ upstairs! Den he hear de latch, en he know it’s in de
room!
Den pooty soon he know it’s a-standin’ by his bed! (Pause.) Den—
he know it’s a-bendin’ down over him—en he cain’t skasely git his
breath! Den—den—he seem to feel somethin’ c-o-l-d, right down
’most agin his head! (Pause.)
Den de voice say, right at his ear—“W-h-o—g-o-t—m-y—g-o-l-d-e-
n arm?” (You must wail it out plaintively and accusingly; then you
stare steadily and impressively into the face of the farthest-gone
auditor—a girl preferably—and let that awe-inspiring pause begin to
build itself in the deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right
length, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, “You’ve got it!” If you’ve
got the pause right, she’ll fetch a dear little yelp and spring right out
of her shoes. But you must get the pause right; and you will find it
the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain thing you ever
undertook.)

The student may give himself fine exercise by choosing any one of
the following moods and writing a one-minute composition upon it.
Then let him read it aloud with the appropriate tone:

Admiration, Appeal, Argument, Comparison, Challenge,

Command, Excitement, Geniality, Solemnity, Reproof,
Modesty, Contempt, Encouragement, Determination,
Affection, Pity, Joy, Gloom, Hate, Friendliness, Aspiration,
Warning, Meditation, Horror, Belittlement, Exultation, Despair,
Confusion, Calmness, Indifference, Suspense, Fear, Awe,
Haste.

A wonderful illustration of “Mood” is afforded in a marvelous poem

written by Bartholomew Dowling, at one time the editor of The Mirror,
in San Francisco, California. It depicts the “heroism of despair,” as,
perhaps, it was never presented before or since in all literature.
Without commending the sentiment expressed, the authors give this
poem a place in their volume as an incomparable example, well
worthy of prolonged study, of the power of words to express “mood.”
One of the greatest dramatists the world has ever known used to
read this poem aloud, daily, for years.

HURRAH FOR THE NEXT THAT DIES![10]

By Bartholomew Dowling

We meet ’neath the sounding rafter,

And the walls around are bare:
As they shout back our peals of laughter,
It seems as the dead were there.
Then stand to your glasses!—steady!
We drink ’fore our comrades’ eyes;
One cup to the dead already:
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Not here are the goblets glowing,

Not here is the vintage sweet;
’Tis cold as our hearts are growing,
And dark as the doom we meet.
But stand to your glasses!—steady!
And soon shall our pulses rise.
One cup to the dead already:
Hurrah for the next that dies!

There’s many a hand that’s shaking,

And many a cheek that’s sunk;
But soon, though our hearts are breaking,
They’ll burn with the wine we’ve drunk.
Then stand to your glasses!—steady!
’Tis here the revival lies;
Quaff a cup to the dead already:
Hurrah for the next that dies!
Time was when we laughed at others;
We thought we were wiser then.
Ha! Ha! let them think of their mothers,
Who hope to see them again.
No! Stand to your glasses!—steady!
The thoughtless is here the wise;
One cup to the dead already:
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Not a sigh for the lot that darkles,

Not a tear for the friends that sink;
We’ll fall ’mid the wine-cup’s sparkles,
As mute as the wine we drink.
Come! Stand to your glasses!—steady!
’Tis this that the respite buys;
One cup to the dead already:
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Who dreads to the dust returning?

Who shrinks from the sable shore,
Where the high and haughty yearning
Of the soul can sting no more?
No! Stand to your glasses!—steady!
This world is a world of lies;
One cup to the dead already:
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Cut off from the land that bore us,

Betray’d by the land we find,
When the brightest are gone before us,
And the dullest are left behind.
Stand!—stand to your glasses!—steady!
’Tis all we have left to prize;
One cup to the dead already:
Hurrah for the next that dies!
 CHAPTER XI
HOW TO READ POETRY

In order to avoid the “singsong” habit, common to so many while

reading poetry, let us remember to make but a very delicate pause at
the end of each line. Of course, if the sense requires a decided
pause, one should not fail to make it. Browning’s “My Star” is a
splendid example of where but a very slight swelling of the voice is
necessary to indicate the end of each line.

All that I know

Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

To illustrate the contrary to this let us refer to a few lines from

Riley’s “The South Wind and the Sun,” noting that the poise of the
tone is considerably longer at the end of each line.

And the humming-bird that hung

Like a jewel up among
The tilted honeysuckle-horns,
They mesmerized and swung
In the palpitating air,
Drowsed with odors strange and rare,
And, with whispered laughter, slipped away
And left him hanging there.

We can hardly overestimate the value of a careful study of the lyric

to the student of expressive speech. It demands superior powers to
render a lyric adequately. Bertha Kuntz Baker, the great American
reader, thus suggestively writes on this subject:

To clarify the diction, go over the poem, word by word,

conform each word carefully, repeatedly to your ideal of that
word, giving the vowel its fullest possible value, tucking in the
consonants as clear, light envelopes around and between the
vowels.

PISGAH-SIGHT
By Robert Browning

Good, to forgive:
Best, to forget!
Living, we fret;
Dying, we live.
Fretless and free,
Soul, clap thy pinion!
Earth have dominion,
Body, o’er thee!

Wander at will,
Day after day,—
Wander away,
Wandering still—
Soul that canst soar!
Body may slumber:
Body shall cumber
Soul-flight no more.

Waft of soul’s wing!

What lies above?
 Sunshine and Love,
Skyblue and Spring!
Body hides—where?
Ferns of all feather,
Mosses and heather,
Yours be the care!

DAWN
By Paul Laurence Dunbar

An angel, robed in spotless white,

Bent down and kissed the sleeping night.
Night woke to blush: the sprite was gone;
Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.

FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL

By Lord Tennyson

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

THE WORKER’S GUERDON

By Frank Preston Smart

Expect nor fame, nor gold, nor any praise—

The world puts not its meed in every hand;
Work on and still be thankful all thy days
If even one shall see and understand!
 MY HEART LEAPS UP
By William Wordsworth

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

When we think of melody in speech, we immediately think of the

lyric. In form and in spirit it approaches nearest towards music, for it
is “emotion all compact.” When we have stimulated within us a noble
emotion, we begin at once to respond in some rhythmic action, a
beat of our foot, sway of the body, or humming in a tuneful way.
There is melody in prose as well as in poetry, only it is not so
pronounced. Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” is a splendid example of
prose-poetry. We are under obligation to James Raymond Perry in
the North American Review for metrically dividing this oration:

Four score and seven years ago

Our fathers brought forth upon this continent
A new nation conceived in liberty
And dedicated to the proposition
That all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
Testing whether that nation, or any nation
So conceived and so dedicated
Can long endure. We are met
On a great battle field of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of
That field as a final resting place
For those who here gave their lives
That this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper
That we should do this
But in a larger sense
We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate,
We cannot hallow this ground. The brave men,
Living and dead, who struggled here,
Have consecrated it far above our power
To add or detract. The world will little note
Nor long remember what we say here,
But it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here
To the unfinished work which they who fought here
Have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated
To the great task remaining before us;
That from these honored dead we take
Increased devotion to that cause for which
They gave the last full measure of devotion;
That we here highly resolve that these dead
Shall not have died in vain, that this nation,
Under God, shall have a new birth of freedom;
And that the government of the people,
By the people, and for the people,
Shall not perish from the earth.

Channing’s “Symphony” is another interesting illustration of

musical prose:

To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather

than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy,
not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think
quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds,
babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all
bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the
spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the
common. This is to be my symphony.
 The most striking example of all is the following excerpt taken from
Ingersoll’s oration entitled “A Vision of War”:

These heroes are dead. They died for liberty—they died for
us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free,
under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn
pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the
embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the
clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the
windowless palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other
wars: they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of
conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one
sentiment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living;
tears for the dead.
 POETICAL SELECTIONS
Colloquial
Humorous
Humorous Dialect
Pathetic
Dramatic
Sublime
Lyric
Poetry is the highest, most beautiful and perfect verbal expression
of thought allowed to man. The higher the poetry the more is it
permeated with elevating human emotion.
 COLLOQUIAL SELECTIONS IN POETRY

THE PESSIMIST
By Ben King

Nothing to do but work,

Nothing to eat but food,
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from going nude.

Nothing to breathe but air;

Quick as a flash ’tis gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on.

Nothing to comb but hair,

Nowhere to sleep but in bed,
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead.

Nothing to sing but songs,

Ah, well, alas! alack!
Nowhere to go but out,
Nowhere to come but back.

Nothing to see but sights,

Nothing to quench but thirst,
Nothing to have but what we’ve got;
Thus through life we are cursed.

Nothing to strike but a gait;

Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand these woes.