+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. Posts. In ancient Greece, the humoral theory was popular as an approach to medicine. Phlegm was another important component of humorism. 185 BCE). Words by Nelly Ekstrmaverage reading time 4 minutes 11 December 2016. Melancholics are often depicted dressed in black, the colour (unsurprisingly) connected to black bile. 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. Retrieved from http://www.greekmedicine.net. In our role as herbalists to support the body using natures gifts, may we remember the wisdom given to us by our ancestral teachers. 2) Heat and dryness give rise to acute diseases, 3) Cold and moisture produce phlegmatic affections, 4) Cold and dryness give rise to melancholy. Regarded by many as the father of Western (and some say Islamic) medicine. The four humors. Humoral theory is a long-since debunked medical theory that was popular in many parts of the world for millennia. Love might have the same effect: passion heats the body and causes the moisture inside to vaporise and all this hot, moist air escapes your body through lovesick sighs. Shall I be frighted when a madman stares? (Arikha, 2007). Theres rue for you, and heres some for me. Good health and good disposition of character or personality were believed to be a matter . After being refused by Ophelia, Polonius explains that Hamlet: Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, Those unions result in the four humors: 1) melancholic. Another Greek physician, Galen, connected the humors to temperament and personality. Osborn, D. (2015). Find out whats on, read our latest stories and get involved. For information about how we handle your data, please read our privacy notice. To Polonius and the other spies he is playful and contemptuous. . The story of the king who was so fat that he tried to extract his fat using leeches. | Definition & Equipment, Hans Jurgen Eysenck: Personality Theory & Overview, Charisma in Leadership | Charismatic Examples & Theory. Hamlet's Melancholy: The Transformation of the Prince The Four Humours are Blood, Black Bile, Yellow Bile, and Phlegm. Loeb Classical Library. Humoral theory was popular for a long time, but what are the four humors? , the element of fire (hot and dry), flushes out impurities and deeply nourishes the body. Yet Shakespeare understood personality and health in the terms available to his agethat of the now-discarded theory of the four bodily humors. , . Nervine, carminative, and antispasmodic herbs, including lemon balm (. ) According to humoralism, four bodily fluidsblood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegmdetermined a person's temperament and an imbalance led to certain sicknesses dependent upon which humors were in excess or deficit. Air was the most important humor because it corresponded with blood. Black bile. Theres rosemary, thats for remembrance. Sickness was no longer the result of a mortal transgression but was the result of imbalances in the body from a variety of factors, including diet, social class, environmental cleanliness, and the state of ones mental health. | Melancholy Temperament. Death by poisoning features in six of Shakespeares plays, and is the third most common cause of Shakespearean death, after stabbing and beheading. lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Humor and madness do not travel the same road. Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? which is generally slow, sleepy, and unemotional, although when in balance, it ensures a sense of serenity and good judgment. Jones, Trans.). Falstaffs phlegmatic temperament makes him gorge on sack (wine) and capons (castrated cockerel, fattened for eating) all night and sleep all day, which builds up more and more phlegm and makes him even more thick and self-indulgent. 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). 3. Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, calls him a "water-fly," then "a chough . Black bile, the humour that dominated this temperament, was connected to the cold and dry element earth, to old age, and all things dying and rotting. Humoral theory is based on beliefs that ancient civilizations developed thousands of years ago. All diseases and disabilities resulted from an excess or deficit of one of these four humors. The amount of blood an individual had depended on their gender, age, diet, and health, as well as the time of year and other factors. is caustic and satirical. Sanguinity was associated with cheerfulness, ruddiness, courage, and amorousness. 20 Aug. 2009. Principles of treatment [Blog Post]. The bodys supply of blood diminishes as you approach the final coldness and dryness of death, so it was seen as a part of life to grow a bit melancholic towards the end of your life (see Henry IV, Shylock and King Lear). All rights reserved. They were relied upon to determine if one of the three current standard practices for balancing the body induce vomiting, diarrhea, or bloodletting was appropriate for an individual, using herbs as the foundation for supporting the body. The four "humours" were bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) and . Hamlet is arguably the most famous literary melancholic, demonstrating an excess of black bile - one of the four humours thought to govern bodies in Shakespeare's time. Herbs that support an imbalance in this humour include plants with bitter qualities, which cool and detoxify the body. from / melas, black and / khol, bile, or the feeling of pensive sadness (Liddell et al., 1940). Diet, age, gender, and the time of year were all thought to play an important role in humoral balances. (III. This explains the Hippocratic . This is the humour of regeneration and is supported by herbs that are either cooling and drying to help regulate blood, such as agrimony (Agrimonia spp. These four humours are best described as semi-imaginary. Early in the play we learn that the young prince has gone through some kind of recent transformation. Find out more in the Living with Buildings exhibition. Theres a daisy. Just as we now believe that mental illnesses may in part be due to an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, Elizabethan doctors similarly believed that certain personality traits stemmed . Retrieved from, (O. Powell, Trans.). (V. Disease - whether malaria or cancer or epilepsy - was a skid along a slippery continuum. Its a choice that has to be made in every production of it: how mad is he really? 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. He is working on his PhD. (2.2.555-612), Soliloquy Hamlets sanity is one of the major themes in the play. Blank Verse and Diction in Shakespeare's Hamlet Hamlet, the melancholic Prince of Denmark Hamlet is arguably the most famous literary melancholic, demonstrating an excess of black bile - one of the four humours thought to govern bodies in Shakespeare's time. Today, the well-recognized ancient traditions of Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine remain instrumental as effective herbal practices. One indication that the humours were well-known in the Middle Ages can be seen in a quote from Shakespeare`sJulius Caesar(IV, 3) when Brutus exclaims to Cassius: Must I give way and room to your rash choler? Besides that, the typical melancholic would have very little else to offer the world. English Review, November, 1916. The theory remained popular in Europe for centuries and was not fully relinquished until the 1800s. Find out whats on, read our latest stories and get involved. We use a third party provider, dotdigital, to deliver our newsletters. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. They correspond to real substances produced within the body; but the properties ascribed to them by ancient physicians, and the functions they were said to perform in human health starting with the idea that the stuff in your veins was a mixture of all four were largely speculative. The four humors are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Ill touch my point/With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly/It may be death.. Mary McMahon. (Original work published ca. squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. Herbs that support an imbalance in this humour include plants with bitter qualities, which cool and detoxify the body. There are many famous melancholics - the author of Ecclesiastes was one, so was Hamlet (Shakespeare probably had read an . The Herbal Academy makes neither medical claim, nor intends to diagnose or treat medical conditions. Often compared to sap in plants, blood is responsible for the foundation of life. Optimistic, red-cheeked, corpulent, irresponsible (compare Falstaff). The Theory of the Four Humours was that these four liquids in your body could affect your physical and mental health through imbalance. . The same eminent critic asserts that, "If the quality of humor is important in comedy, it is, I venture to say, yet more important, in tragedy, whether it be in the tragedy of life or in the tragedy of the theatre." The characters around Hamlet are worried by his melancholia. The Norway (Fortinbras) Subplot Hippocrates (1931). . Sanity is humor." Affiliate links are shared throughout the website and the Herbal Academy may receive compensation if you make a purchase with these links. 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. Arikha, N. (2007). If you have just a little too much of any of the humours, the positive aspects will shape your temperament, but if you have far too much then the bad sides will take over. You can unsubscribe at any time using links in the emails you receive. On Whether we have ancestors from ancient Greece, China, or India doesnt matter so much. The key to good health (and being a good person) is to keep your humours in balance. The four elements, which constituted the fundamental building blocks of the 'macrocosm' or 'greater world' of the sublunar sphere, corresponded closely to the four humours of the 'microcosm' or 'lesser world' of the human body.. Each of the humours originated in a different bodily organ.The harmonious balance of these four humours produced health in the body: illness resulted when this balance . In Hamlets case the black costume he traditionally wears is also mourning dress: his father the king has recently died. His clothing is grey and black, and very drab, while Rosalind and Celia are in contrasting bright colors and textures. These four humours, from the Greek word. 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. It reflects the principle of digestion and transformation. 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 . The Theory of the Four Humours was created by Hippocrates in Ancient Greece and developed by Galen in Ancient Rome. It can be expressed as the dried blood found in stool, very dark urine, serious fevers caused by malaria, or, more abstractly, as constipation, bloating, and arthritis. And they all have roughlythe same number of lines. 359-365.) This is how Laertes prepares to revenge his fathers murder in a duel with Hamlet: I will dot./And for that purpose Ill anoint my sword./I bought an unction of a mountebank,/So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,/Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,/Collected from all simples that have virtue/Under the moon, can save the thing from death/That is but scratched withal. At the beginning of the play, Falstaff and Prince Hal are great friends. A natural excess of black bile could make you cautious and analytical. 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. 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.. one that would circumvent God, might it not?" Lean and pale, moving slowly, sad and brooding, perhaps suspiciously looking around for enemies. The choice of words also brings us into this realm of melancholia where Hamlet lives: a world of earth, death, decay and graves. Directly after the warm greetings between the friends the following conversation takes place: Again, on the occasion when Polonius comes to summon him to the queen's presence, Hamlet pokes fun at Badger, 1916. It crops out at every turn, and indicates the essential soundness of his mind. Nervine, carminative, and antispasmodic herbs, including lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), and lavender(Lavandula officinalis) balance these conditions. 255 lessons. Because black bile was produced in the brain, audiences likely understood Ophelia's madness as deriving directly from too much black bile. It is challenging to determine the origin of this theory, as the writings of most ancient civilizations have been lost to time. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. (2019). Ageing was in itself seen as a process of gradual drying of the flesh and cooling of bodily humours. Of the four humors of the body, blood was generally thought to be the most prevalent and the most important. Choleric people were quick to anger and highly irritable. These humors represented different aspects of a human, connected to the four elements (wind, air, earth and fire) and the four seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter). The first words Hamlet sighs forth are in the nature Blood was thought to be generated in the heart and was primarily associated with the spring, as well as with heat and wetness. We use a third party provider, dotdigital, to deliver our newsletters. He believed that a humoral imbalance could result in illness. - Definition & Examples, Public Broadcast Service (PBS): Definition, Origin & Funding, Satellite Television: Definition & History, Microcasting: Definition, Example & Impact, Communications Act of 1934: Purpose & Impact, Working Scholars Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community. Lived on the island of Kos (Cos) and his . I feel like its a lifeline. Come explore. Carried by the bloodstream, the four humors bred the core passions of anger, grief, hope, and fearthe emotions conveyed so powerfully in Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies. A 2 x 2 table of Hippocrates' four (4) temperaments: Melancholic. Black Bile. 2. Blood was hot and wet, and related to spring and air. The four humors were blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. 1. Hamlet is a play. hb``f``: AXw@bA73ptt0tt4EbH"?~%G?2bfa10%rsH_x4:1V2cBqbi4x D1` O]b |H^aHs10g`Z & Phlegm was cold and wet, and related to winter and water. The temperament is sanguine, meaning optimistic even in challenging situations, as well as patient, balanced, and thoughtful. These fluidsproduced by the body's organs and tissueswere black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. We may call it herb of grace o Sundays. Article in The Understanding the concepts of each humour helped ancient herbalists categorize sickness and identify the proper herbs for the individual, much like we do today. Revenge in Hamlet Hippocrates: Volume IV (W.H.S. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.. The word is quite rare in Shakespeares writing otherwise: in The Taming of the Shrew, a play without melancholics, the word is only used once. 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