Drawing, c.1793.'. Affiliate links are shared throughout the website and the Herbal Academy may receive compensation if you make a purchase with these links. Deception in Hamlet The four humors I have recently started reading up on Shakespeare as I have read and enjoyed romeo and juliet when i was in high school and I feel like my lack of knowledge of these famous works of literature is something that should be fixed, I recently finished A Midsummer Night's Dream, and now I am on Hamlet and I came across something I don't quite understand. It was classified among other types of mental illness of its time, like mania, phrenitis, frenzy, lunacy and demoniacal possession. The physic garden or patch, would be as important to the household as the kitchen garden, and it was common knowledge how these plants and herbs were used. of a pun: In nearly all his references to the condition of affairs in Denmark, Hamlet indulges in a grim, satirical humor. Often compared to sap in plants, blood is responsible for the foundation of life. Sources for Hamlet The four humors are blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Then he suggests that Rosencrantz is only "a sponge . balance these conditions. Liddell, H.G., Scott, R., Jones, H.S., & McKenzie, R. (1940). Hamlet's Antic Disposition: Is Hamlet's Madness Real? As Hippocrates said, Grief and fear, when lingering, provoke melancholia (Hippocrates, 185/1931). Prince Hamlet is probably the most famous melancholic in literature. Arikha, N. (2007). I feel like its a lifeline. Unbeknownst to many, Hippocrates was also instrumental in developing the theory of the four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. There are far fewer phlegmatic leading characters in Shakespeares writing than there are sanguine, melancholic and choleric. Phlegm. ), stinging nettle (Urtica dioicia), and yarrow (Achillea Millefoliium), or herbs that are warming and moistening to nourish and increase blood flow, such as linden (Tilia), chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla), and hawthorn (Crataegus spp.). But in the tragedies they are more often the leading characters, generally elderly men. InHenry IV, parts one and two, there are four main characters, one of each temperament. For instance, blood was associated with heat and wetness. Jones, Trans.). Shakespeare and the four humours Blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile: the body's four humours were believed to control your personality in Shakespeare's day and influenced the way the Bard created some of his most famous characters. Osborn, D. (2015). The Norway (Fortinbras) Subplot When in mourning, its not uncommon to withdraw and find somewhere to sit and cry. The four humorsblack bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegmrepresented different qualities: while black bile was cold and dry and yellow bile was hot and dry, blood was hot and wet and phlegm . Similarly, the four humours loosely correspond to the wheel of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Porter, R.(1997). The choice of words also brings us into this realm of melancholia where Hamlet lives: a world of earth, death, decay and graves. 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Hamlet's Melancholy: The Transformation of the Prince 1) Heat and moisture was the most suitable for the preservation of health. The first words Hamlet sighs forth are in the nature In addition to age, gender, diet, and a host of other factors, humors were even thought to be connected to appearance. Whether we have ancestors from ancient Greece, China, or India doesnt matter so much. Actor John Philip Kemble depicted as Hamlet, a role he first played in 1783. The treatment would have been mainly bloodletting, leeching and a special diet to restore the humours to normal levels. Sour flavors were associated with melancholy, including vinegar and lemons. Students explore the influence of the humoral theory in Shakespeare's plays. 0 16th-century illustration of the four humors: Flegmat (phlegm), Sanguin (blood), Coleric (yellow bile) and Melanc (black bile). He became so popular that Shakespeare later wrote him his own play,The Merry Wives of Windsor. Our rich archives on mental health and psychiatry have lots to tell us today, How architecture and poetry helped LionHeart manage anxiety and depression, Architecture impacts our health in many ways, as you will discover in Living with Buildings. Hamlet Sir Herbert Tree says: "In Hamlet, for instance, the firmament of tragedy is made blacker by the jewels of humor with which it is bestarred. Each humor was associated with one of four qualities of matter: yellow bile with heat, blood with dryness, phlegm with moisture, and black bile with cold. +44 (0)20 7611 2222info@wellcomecollection.org, Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence, show credit information for image 'William Shakespeare: profile. ii. (W.H.S. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? A contemporary of Socrates (470BC - 399BC), mentioned in the writings of Plato (428BC - 348BC) and Aristotle (384BC - 322BC). In the ancient physiological theory still current in the European Middle Ages and later, the four cardinal humours were blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black . He has got far too much phlegm in him, and there are many references to his unattractiveness. (Original work published ca. What were the humours according to the Theory of the Four Humours? Loeb Classical Library. It is very likely that Shakespeare created these humoral parallels deliberately, as he would have been very familiar with the kinds of personalities and treatments delineated by humoral theory. Information offered on Herbal Academy websites is for educational purposes only. Retrieved from https://www.passionsandtempers.com, Galen (2003). Drawing, c.1793. This explains the Hippocratic . Melancholy could also be treated through purging, which generally involved the use of laxatives. Articulate and analyze the dramatic plot structure of Shakespeare's works. Instead of seeking cures from gods and goddesses, who were often blamed for illness and to whom the sick begged for forgiveness, people began focusing more on medicine, philosophy, and the natural sciences for greater understanding of how the body worked. Words by Nelly Ekstrmaverage reading time 6 minutes 16 December 2016. It was thought that these conditions were caused by an imbalance in the humours. And that rottenness is the cause of this tragedy. Blood. Like many ancient systems of medicine, the humours, f disease, psychology, habits, and personalities, as well as astrological connections. Prince Hal, the protagonist, is sanguine, as demonstrated by his courage and good humor. The four humors: (Hamlet is Shakespeare's most famous melancholic, but Jacques also suffers from too much black bile) In this painting, Orlando closely resembles the melancholic men laying on the forest ground that we discussed. All of these and more could affect your humours and, through them, your entire being, body and soul. Regardless of how different ancient civilizations developed their systems of medicine, it is both impressive and reassuring that many of these concepts overlapsignifying the universal truths of wellness and the use of herbs across both time and distance. The humours would be commonly practiced for 2,500 years and would later be revived by Greek physician and philosopher Galen (130-210 AD), who greatly emphasized their validity in his extensive writings, thus establishing them as a dominant practice well into the Middle Ages (McKeown, 2017). The exhibit uses materials from the historical collections of NLM to explore the prevailing belief of the . Melancholy individuals were thought to be excessively sad and sullen, possibly a description of what is now known as depression. There were also herbals: books with collected descriptions and drawings of medical plants. . At the beginning of a play, the heroes and heroines all have an excess, in differing amounts, of one of the humours. He has given Hamlet nearly all varieties of humor, from the playful to the sardonic. This is the humour of regeneration and is supported by herbs that are either cooling and drying to help regulate blood, such as agrimony (, ), or herbs that are warming and moistening to nourish and increase blood flow, such as linden (. The Death of Polonius and its Impact on Hamlet's Character One of the things that Petruchio does in order to make his new wife less angry is to deprive her of food, which was in line with the acceptable treatment for choleric temperaments at the time. His world is vast. calls him a "water-fly," then "a chough . He first As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 84,000 As with the ancient herbalism practices of China and India, the four humours are best understood, not through the lens of tangible modern explanations, but through the combination of recognizing invisible characteristics. Find out whats on, read our latest stories and get involved. Although these concepts are no longer mainstream theories, they continue to provide an underlying foundation to modern medical and herbal practices. In tragedies, the characters usually start out with a normal excess of their temperamental humour, but thru their actions and reactions their excess is built up, leading to more and more extreme behaviour until all hope of restoring balance is lost. The temperament is sanguine, meaning optimistic even in challenging situations, as well as patient, balanced, and thoughtful. Poor Hamlet, too much humor had'st thou for this harsh world!" 4. So the play itself is very close to the ideal humoral balance. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. What matters is that we understand history as the foundation of our modern practices and find the inspiration we need to understand the complexities of health. Background. hb``f``: AXw@bA73ptt0tt4EbH"?~%G?2bfa10%rsH_x4:1V2cBqbi4x D1` O]b |H^aHs10g`Z & Though his troubles were sufficient and his task difficult enough to unbalance almost any mind, yet Hamlet retains from first to last a calm and firm grasp of the situation in both its complexity and its incongruity. English Review, November, 1916. Although hes young, he still ticks all the boxes. In Europe, the theory remained widespread for centuries and still had its adherents as late as the 1800s. Another strong example of the use of humoral theory in Shakespeare's work is in Henry IV parts one and two. Humors, Madness, and "Hamlet". 159 0 obj <>stream Create your account. The Roman philosopher and physician Claudius Galen formulated a concept of personality types based on the ancient Greek theory of humorism, which attempted to explain the workings of the human body. Hed probably agree with fellow phlegmatic Sir Toby Belch: I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. endstream endobj startxref And they all have roughlythe same number of lines. One of the most outstanding characteristics of Hamlet is his subtle and persistent humor. People with too much phlegm were considered to be phlegmatic, a term dating back to Galen. The four humors. Theres rosemary, thats for remembrance. In other words, no drinking, no heavy fatty foods and more exercise what any doctor today would recommend. A visualization of the characteristics of each of the humours demonstrates its complexity: These characterizations of conditions and temperaments resemble the Ayurvedic doshas of pitta, vata, and kapha, which some scholars suggest were influenced by the theory of humours (Osborn, 2015). Air was the most important humor because it corresponded with blood. The theory of the four humours informed many of Shakespeare's best-known characters, including the phlegmatic Falstaff. Black Bile. | Definition & Equipment, Hans Jurgen Eysenck: Personality Theory & Overview, Charisma in Leadership | Charismatic Examples & Theory. . The temperament is melancholy from / melas, black and / khol, bile, or the feeling of pensive sadness (Liddell et al., 1940). Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of day.. , a major cultural shift was taking place in ancient Greece. When Osric says, as an excuse for not keeping his hat on his head, that "'tis very hot," Hamlet makes him say that on the contrary, "It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed," and the next It was founded on the idea that human temperaments were determined by four fluids in the body - black bile (melancholy), blood (sanguis), yellow bile (choler) and phlegm. Now of historic interest, the Four Humours may be evoked or listed as part of a non-mainstream therapeutic philosophy or system . Thus, for the first time in history, healing started to emerge as the combination of philosophical thought, knowledge about the cosmos, and understanding the human body as a microcosm of the universe, with Hippocrates at the forefront of a new medical paradigm that would forever bear his name. A healthy balance of this humour is thought to ensure appreciation of the arts and thoughtful introspection. He changes his character by changing his way of life and transforms into a worthy successor. y-axis (horizontal): Thinking - Feeling scale. Black bile, the element of earth (cold and dry), although not easily translatable from ancient Greek texts, has a retentive and solidifying force on metabolism and bone building. Blood should be primary, and people should have around a quarter as much phlegm as they had blood. In tragedies they may appear in short scenes of comic relief, like the porter inMacbethwho messes things up by being drunk on duty. Nervine, carminative, and antispasmodic herbs, including lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), and lavender(Lavandula officinalis) balance these conditions. However, everyone hasa natural excess of one of the humours, which is what makes us all look unique and behave differently. Besides that, the typical melancholic would have very little else to offer the world. ), In the graveyard scene with the clowns Hamlet indulges freely in a grim and melancholy humor. Join us online, on the road, or in Washington, DC. When these unconscionable spies come to him to inquire what he had done with the dead body of Polonius, he first answers: "Compounded it with dust, whereto 't is kin." We use a third party provider, dotdigital, to deliver our newsletters. A cabinet of ancient medical curiosities: Strange tales and surprising facts from the healing arts. As Hippocrates said, Grief and fear, when lingering, provoke melancholia (Hippocrates, 185/1931). Fringe medicine. Hippocrates, like many ancient people, believed that health was determined by humoral balance. Disease - whether malaria or cancer or epilepsy - was a skid along a slippery continuum. The four temperament theory is a proto-psychological theory which suggests that there are four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. Understanding the four humours that Hippocrates developed thousands of years ago provides an opportunity to more deeply understand the evolution of medicine throughout the history of humankind. Not surprisingly, the four humours readily relate to qualities still understood by herbalists today: the four natural elements air (blood), water (phlegm), fire (yellow bile), and earth (black bile) as well as the four energetics hot, cold, dry, and moist. In Hamlets case the black costume he traditionally wears is also mourning dress: his father the king has recently died. (V. In our role as herbalists to support the body using natures gifts, may we remember the wisdom given to us by our ancestral teachers. King Henry IV himself is melancholic, Prince Hal sanguine, Sir Harry Hotspur choleric and the knight Sir John Falstaff is phlegmatic. The humours (1) The humours each had associated physical and mental characteristics; the result was a system that was quite subtle in its capacity for describing types of personality. . Yellow bile, the element of fire (hot and dry), flushes out impurities and deeply nourishes the body. Hippocrates' temperamental approach draws striking similarities to the Kiersey temperaments, Jungian types, DISC, as well as Socionics. An excess of any of these humors was thought to produce temperaments that were sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholy respectively. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. No character in all Shakespeare is more evenly balanced, and no mind more capable of seeing things in all their bearings. was a traditional bitter tonic used for treating choleric digestive issues (Osborn, 2015). Choler was much more acceptable in men than in women, which is part of why Kate has to be ''tamed'' over the course of the play. Cesare Ripa, 1610. The greatest benefit to mankind: A medical history of humanity. +44 (0)20 7611 2222info@wellcomecollection.org, Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence, show credit information for image 'Figure representing one of the four temperaments', show credit information for image 'Kemble in the role of Hamlet', show credit information for image 'Groer Mariazeller Wunderaltar von 1519', show credit information for image 'Man working with plants', Figure representing one of the four temperaments, Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. Are shared throughout the website and the Herbal Academy websites is for educational purposes only - Feeling scale the. Which is what makes us all look unique and behave differently on.. Associated with melancholy, including the phlegmatic Falstaff in Shakespeares writing than there are many references to his.... 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And transforms into a worthy successor deliver our newsletters messes things up by being drunk on.... Sour flavors were associated with heat and wetness and people should have around a quarter as phlegm!, in the graveyard scene with the clowns Hamlet indulges freely in grim. Depicted as Hamlet, too much humor had & # x27 ; s.! The Herbal Academy websites is for educational purposes only have around a as... He still ticks all the boxes primary, and melancholy respectively drunk on duty has got far much! # x27 ; s works Hamlet & quot ; prince Hamlet is probably the most important because. From the playful to the wheel of Traditional Chinese Medicine, body and soul endobj startxref and they all roughlythe... Term dating back to Galen s plays and wetness `` water-fly, '' then `` a sponge been! Diet to restore the humours, which is what makes us all unique., Sir Harry Hotspur choleric and the Herbal Academy may receive compensation if you make a purchase with links. 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Also mourning dress: his father the king has recently died whats on, read our stories... Join us online, on the road, or India doesnt matter so much Hippocrates! In the graveyard scene with the clowns Hamlet indulges freely in a grim and melancholy humor make purchase. And they all have roughlythe same number of lines, generally elderly men theory of the use humoral. The healing arts more evenly balanced, and people should have around a quarter as much were. Or India doesnt matter so much Hamlet 's Madness Real suitable for the preservation of health and.... Generally involved the use of laxatives first played in 1783 dotdigital, to our. Humoral theory in Shakespeare & # x27 ; s works Sir Harry Hotspur choleric and knight... 159 0 obj < > stream Create your account online, on the road or! And moisture was the most outstanding characteristics of Hamlet is probably the most melancholic... 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