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Robert Burton's Geography of MelancholyAuthor(s): Anne S. ChappleSource: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 33, No. 1, The English Renaissance(Winter, 1993), pp. 99-130Published by: Rice UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/450847 .

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SEL

33

(1993)

ISSN 0039-3657

Robert Burton's

Geography

of

Melancholy

ANNE

S.

CHAPPLE

Observing map

collectors in

1570,

Dr.

John

Dee

wrote, "Some,

to

beautify

their

Halls,

Parlors, Chambers,

Galeries, Studies,

or

Libraries...

liketh,

loveth,

getteth,

and

useth,

Maps,

Charts,

and

Geographicall

Globes."' Dee was

writing

at a time

when

only

the

wealthy

could afford to

own

maps,

curious artifacts that resemble

works of art

more than

they

do the

mathematically precise

productions

of our own time. But

despite

their

relative

scarcity

and

prohibitive

cost,

maps

became

increasingly

accessible in

university settings;

to some

extent,

maps

were even accessible to

the

general public.

Thomas Blundeville's

1589

treatise,

A

Briefe

Description of

Universal

Mappes

and

Cardes

and

of

Their

Use,

dedicated

to

Francis

Windam,

a

judge

in the Court of Common

Pleas,

gives

clear

evidence that the

public

had been

exposed

to

maps

and

showed an eager interest in them. In an address "To the Reader"

that

begins

his

treatise,

Blundeville documents

the

rising popularity

of

the

beautifully

crafted

maps

and charts that

were

appearing

with

increasing frequency

toward the end of the

century:

"I

daylie

see

many

that

delight

to looke on

Mappes,

and

can

point

to

England,

France,

Germanie,

and

to

the East

and

West

Indies,

and

to divers

other

places

therein

described."

He

argues

a

need to

"instruct" those

who "looke on

Mappes.

. .

but

yet

for want of

skill

in

Geography, they

knowe

not

with

what maner

of

lines

they

are traced, nor what those lines do signifie, nor yet the true use of

Mappes

in deed."2

The

proliferation

of

maps

and charts

during

the late

1500s

and

early

1600s

affected

many

Renaissance writers of note. This

was

Anne

S.

Chapple

is

completing

a doctoral

degree

at

the

University

of

Chicago.

She teaches at

the

University

of

Michigan

in Ann

Arbor.







BURTON' S G EOGRAPHY

the

period

in

history

when Robert

Burton,

renowned author of

The

Anatomy of Melancholy

(1621),

began

to anatomize the

melancholic

"diseases" that

plagued

the men

of his

day.

Burton

was

embarking

on his

exploration

of melancholia

at a time when

the

image

of

the

world on

maps

was

changing

with

unprecedented

rapidity

under the

pressure

of new

geographical

discoveries;

the

surprising

connections

between these two

pursuits

for Burton

is

fruitful

ground

for

exploration.3

That Robert Burton made a

pioneering

attempt

to anatomize the causes

and

effects of

melancholy

is well

known,

but that he was well

acquainted

with

contemporary literature on cartography and geography has only

recently

been documented.4 Burton's

familiarity

with the

exquisite

new

maps

of the world

that were

printed

in such

unprecedented

numbers

during

his lifetime is

conspicuously

evident in his

Anatomy

of Melancholy,

but the

impact

of

the one on the other has

gone

virtually unrecognized.

I will

argue

that

mapping

and

charting

enterprises

had a

profound

influence on

both the

shape

and

content of The

Anatomy of Melancholy.

Like

Georg

Braun,

Burton

was

"drawne

by

a naturall love of Pictures

and

Mappes, Prospective

and Chorographical delights"; we can imagine that, "when at

Oxford,"

he "used

to love to visit the bookseller's

shops,

there

to

lye gaping

on

maps."5

In

fact,

he was one

of the serious collectors

of his

day.

When

we

ask ourselves how

the world

might

have looked

to

Burton

and

his

contemporaries, living

in an era of

such

astronomical

growth,

we

arrive

at

some

surprising

answers. Because

the

exciting

new

geographic

discoveries

were assimilated

into the

culture

through

a

filter of

traditional

beliefs in the

vanity

of human

existence, the brave New World that was being mapped out in

ever

sharper

outlines

simply

did not

appear

to Renaissance

observers

the

way

it

might

to

us

today.

It would

be inaccurate

to

claim

that

the world

presented

itself

to Burton

and his

peers

as

a

panorama

of

unalloyed hope

and

possibility.

In Burton's

writing

we feel

the

spirit

of

adventure

that

characterized

the

age,

a

delight

in the

growth

and

change

around

him;

but

mapped images

of the

world

might just

as

often

represent

a

geography

of

melancholy.

In

spite

of the

exciting

new

images

of

the world

that

were

increasingly

available,

Burton's

taste

ran

to

conservative

cartographical

literature.

The

maps

that

caught

and held

his interest tended

to

represent

the

world

in

terms

of

traditional

values

and beliefs.

One

such

map

in

particular played

a

large part

in

shaping

the

prefatory

chapter

to

The

Anatomy

of

Melancholy,

entitled

"Democritus

Jr.

to

the

Reader";

this

was the

anonymous foolscap

world

map

commonly

attributed

to

Epichthonius Cosmopolites.

Other

100







ANNE S. CHAPPLE

examples

include the

anthropomorphic geographical

literature of

the

Greeks.

Burton's

treatment of these

maps gives

us new

insights

into

the

Preface,

in

which Burton

develops

the

persona

that he

will

maintain

throughout

his vast work. I will

argue

that Burton's

use of

cartographical

literature

helps

us to understand his own

world view and to

grasp

the broader

meaning

and

significance-

quite

different from our

own-that

specific maps

could have

both

for

him and

for his

contemporaries.

To Burton's

way

of

thinking,

his

exploration

of the

"melancholy

humour" in all its various and

sundry

forms in The

Anatomy of

Melancholy was an undertaking that paralleled the efforts made by

some of the

greatest explorers

and adventurers of his time. In the

Preface,

Burton states that he

"doubt[s]

not but that in the end

[the

reader]

wil

say

with

[him],

that to anatomize this humour

aright,

through

all the Members of this our

Microcosmos,

is as

great

a

taske,

as to

...

finde out

the

Quadrature

of a

Circle,

the Creekes

and Sounds of the

North-East,

or North-West

passages,

&

all out

as

good

a

discoverie,

as that

hungry Spaniards

[Ferdinando

de

Quir,

Anno

1612]

of Terra Australis

Incognita."6

He

justifies

his

undertaking with yet another cartographical analogy: "in

undertaking

this

taske,

I

hope

I shall commit no

great

errour or

indecorum, if

all be considered

aright,

I can vindicate

my

selfe with

Georgius Braunus,

and

Hieronymus Hemingius,

those two

learned

Divines;

who

(to

borrow

a

line or

two

of

mine elder

Brother)

drawne

by

a

naturall

love,

the one

of

Pictures and

Mappes, Prospectives

and

Corographicall delights,

writ that

ample

Theater

of Citties;

the other

to the

study of Genealogies, penned

Theatrum

Genealogicum" (1:22).7

The fact

that he

compares

his

monumental

task to the intricacies

of mapping, and justifies it in those terms, is significant. The

parallel

he is

drawing

between

the two endeavors is

essentially

metaphorical-both

are acts of

discovery

and

courage-but

it is

also

more

than that. The two activities are

analogous

in

the

sense

that,

for

Burton, mapping

and

anatomizing

both are carried out

from a

superior vantage point

and both

imply

a similar

global

perspective

on

the world.

In

keeping

with the

cartographical

theme that runs

through

the

Preface, the metaphors

Burton uses to describe

the

reader's

perusal

of

his "treatise"

are also

drawn from travel and

exploration.

To

read his

work,

he

promises

the

reader,

will be like

taking

a

journey

through

a

varied

landscape:

"And

if thou vouchsafe to

read this

Treatise,

it shall seeme

no otherwise

to

thee,

then the

way

to an

ordinary Traveller,

sometimes

faire,

sometimes

foule;

here

champion,

there

inclosed;

barren

in one

place,

better

soyle

in

another:

by Woods, Groves, Hills, Dales, Plaines,

&c.

I shall lead

101







BURTON'

S GEOGRAPHY

thee

per

ardua

montium,

&

lubrica

vallium,

& roscida

cespitum,

&

glebosa camporum, through variety of objects, that which thou shalt

like and

surely

dislike"

(1:18).

He invites his reader to

adopt

a

global

perspective

like his own

on the

journey through

the

bewildering

landscape

he has laid out.

Burton

employs

an almost

identical

perspective

as a

unifying

device later in his

work,

in a Member of the Second Partition

of

The

Anatomy

entitled

"Ayre

Rectified.

With a

Digression of

the

Ayre"

(2:33-67).

In this

Member,

he uses the aerial

vantage point

of

"a

long-winged

Hawke"

(2:33)

in

flight

to

explore

the

wonders

of

the

world: "As a long-winged Hawke when hee is first whistled off the

fist,

mounts

aloft,

and

for his

pleasure

fetcheth

many

a

circuit

in

the

Ayre,

still

soaring higher

and

higher,

till hee bee come

to his

full

pitch;

and in the end.

. . comes downe amaine

..

so will

I,

having

now come at

last into these

ample

fields of

Ayre,

wherein

I

may freely expatiate

and

exercise

my

selfe,

for

my

recreation

a

while

rove,

wander

round about

the

world,

mount aloft to

those

aethereall

orbes and celestiall

spheres,

and so descend

to

my

former elements

againe"

(2:33).

Many

of these marvels

are

geographical; Burton amasses data on lunar geography, astronomy,

the natural wonders

of the world, curiosities

reported in

travel

accounts,

etc. He states that he wishes to confirm

the reports

he

has heard: "I will first see whether

that relation

of the Frier

of

Oxford be true, concerning

those Northerne parts

under

the

Pole . . . whether there

be such 4. Euripes,

and a great rocke

of

Loadstones, which

may cause

the needle in the compasse still

to

bend that way"

(2:33).

Burton's aerial adventures

are located in the Second

Partition

of the book which is devoted to the cure of melancholy. As that is

true,

Burton seems to be implying that

a

change

of perspective

is

good for the soul. This part of The Anatomy

would seem

to

support

E. Patricia Vicari's

thesis: "geographical learning-indeed,

any

knowledge of the natural

world-is

not

pursued

for its own

sake

but for

its

usefulness

in curing melancholy."8

would add,

however,

that geography also had

a

great

symbolic weight

and

significance

for Burton.

The global perspective that Burton had to offer the reader was

an

exceptionally

well-informed

one. We are fortunate to

know

exactly what cartographical literature

Burton

read, because

he

documented

his browsing through the work

of many

of the more

important mapmakers

of his

day in the passage

entitled

"Exercise

Rectified of Body and Minde" in The Anatomy

of Melancholy.9

The

following

quotation from

that chapter details

the extent of

his

familiarity

with both foreign and domestic

maps:

102







ANNE

S. CHAPPLE

Me thinkes

it

would

well

please

any

man to look

upon

a

Geographicall Map, suavi animum delectatione allicere, ob

incredibilemrerum

varietatem

&

jucunditatem,

&

ad

pleniorem

sui

cognitionem

excitare,

Chorographicall, Topographicall

delineations,

to

behold,

as it

were,

all the remote

Provinces,

Townes,

Citties of the

World,

and

never

to

goe

forth of the

limits

of his

study,

to

measure

by

the

Scale

and

Compasse,

their

extent, distance,

examine their site. Charlesthe

great

as

Platina

writes,

had

three

faire silver

tables,

in one of

which

superficies

was a

large map

of Constantinople,in the second

Romeneatly engraved, in the third an exquisite description of

the whole

world,

and much

delight

he tooke

in them. What

greater

pleasure

can there now

bee,

then to view

those

elaborate

Maps,

of

Ortelius, Mercator,

Hondius,

8cc.

To

peruse

those bookes of

Citties,

put

out

by

Braunus,

and

Hogenbergius?

To read

those

exquisite descriptions

of

Maginus,

Munster,

Herrera, Laet, Merula, Boterus,

Leander

Albertus,Camden,

Leo

Afer,

Adricomius,

Nic.

Gerbelius,

&c.

?

Those famous

expeditions

of

Christoph.

Columbus,

Americus

Vesputius,

Marcus Polus the

Venetian, Lod. Vertomannus,

Aloysius

Cadamustus,&c.? Those

acurate diaries of

Portugals, Hollanders, of Bartison,

Oliver

a

Nort

&c. Hacluits

voyages,

Pet.

Martyresdecades, Benzo, Lerius,

Linschotens

relations,

those

Hodaeporicons

of

Jod.

a

Meggen,

Brocard

the

Monke, Bredenbachius, o. Dublinius, Sands, &c.,

to

Jerusalem,AEgypt,

and other remote

places

of the world: those

pleasant

Itineraries

of

Paulus

Hentznerus, odocus Sincerus,

Dux

Polonus,

&c. to

read

Bellonius

observations,

P.

Gillius his

survaies;

Those

parts

of

America,

set

out,

and

curiously

cut in

Pictures

by

Fratres

a

Bry.

(2:86-87)

These are

interesting observations, coming

from

a

man who

himself

was "never

to

go

forth of the limits of his

study," who,

from

1599 until his death

forty years

later

in

1640,

lived

a

lonely

life

in his bachelor

quarters

at Christ

Church,

Oxford.10

By

his

own

admission,

he

"liv'd

a

silent, sedentary, solitary, private life,

mihi & musis, in the University as long almost as Xenocrates in

Athens,

ad senectam

fere,

to learne

wisdome

as

he

did"

(1:3).

"I

never

travelled,"

Burton

admits,

"but in

Mappe

or

Card,

in

which

my

unconfined

thoughts

have

freely expatiated,

as

having

ever

beene

especially delighted

with

the

study

of

Cosmography" (1:4).

We

discover somewhat

surprisingly, then,

that

Burton's interest in

maps

was

not a

consequence

of first-hand

experience

of

the

world,

nor

did it

imply

a love

of

the world. E. Patricia

Vicari

has

argued

103







BURTON' S GEOGRAPHY

that Burton

actually

denounced "the

study

of

geography

and even

travel as vain curiosity and weariness of the flesh."1' She cites

Burton's

opinion

in this context: a

person

"travels into

Europe,

Africke,

Asia,

searcheth

every

Creeke, Sea,

Citty,

Mountaine, Gulfe,

to what end? See one

Promontory

(said

Socrates of

old),

one

Mountaine,

one

Sea,

one

River,

and see all"

(1:364).

Elsewhere

in

The

Anatomy

Burton indicates his belief that

only

an

irrational

restlessness makes men want to travel: "The world it

selfe

to some

men is

a

prison,

our

narrow seas as

so

many

ditches,

and when

they

have

compassed

the Globe of the

earth,

they

would faine

goe

see what's done in the Moone" (2:173-74).

We will have to

look elsewhere

to understand the

appeal

that

maps

had

for

Burton,

then. I think

we

come

closer

to

the truth

when

we

observe that

maps

provided

Burton

with a convenient

overview of the

world,

a

vantage

point

from which to view the

world at a comfortable

remove,

from a

height,

as it

were,

as an

aloof and

superior

observer. Another

way

to

interpret

his interest

is to observe that

maps provided

Burton with a vicarious

way

of

traveling.

More

precisly,

Burton's love of

maps

demonstrates his

preference

for the

perspective

that

maps

offered him. In

essence,

maps

facilitated

Burton's renunciation

of the actual world

in favor

of

a

less immediate

engagement

with

it.

In his

pose

as Democritus

Jr.,

he

says

as much:

"I

live

still

a

Collegiat Student,

as Democritus

in his

Garden,

and

lead

a

Monastique life, ipse

mihi

Theatrum,

sequestered

from those

tumults

and trobles of the

world,

Et

tanquam

in

specula positus (as

he

[Hensius] said),

and in some

high

place

above

you all,

like Stoicus

Sapiens,

omnia

saecula, praeterita

presentiaque videns, uno velut intuitu, I heare and see what is done

abroad,

how others

run, ride, turmoile,

& macerate themselves in

Court and

Countrey,

far from those

wrangling

Law

suits,

aulae

vanitatem,

fort

ambitionem,

ridere mecum soleo: I

laugh

at all"

(1:4).

12

Like

laughing Democritus,

the

melancholy philosopher

of Abdera

with

whom Burton

identified,

he seems convinced of

the

incurable

folly

of mankind. His desire to observe from "some

high place,"

I

think,

was related to the

darkness

of his vision of

the human

condition and to

the

unparalleled pessimism

of

his world

view.

But his preference for detached observation did not imply a

personal passivity

toward

the

world.

Apparently

it was not

enough

to live

quietly

with his beliefs in relative

obscurity.

He had a

pressing

need

to

persuade

his readers to

adopt

his

viewpoint; his

efforts to

"prove"

to

the reader the

implacable folly

of all

men in

all

times and

places,

as well

as

to

"prove"

the

urgent

need for a

"cure,"

is

the burden of "Democritus

Jr.

to the

Reader."

104







ANNE S.

CHAPPLE

Let

us take some time

to

examine his

efforts

along

these

lines.

One of his "chiefe motives" in the Preface is to establish, beyond

the shadow

of

a

doubt,

the

"generalitie

of

the

Disease,"

and

this

he

proceeds

to do with

great energy

(1:23).

He

makes

his

case

as

would a

lawyer assembling

evidence

to

establish

guilt;

he

uses

the

amassed

evidence to

"proove

my

former

speeches"

(1:36).

Burton

builds

a

convincing

case,

for he

proceeds

to

"anatomize

this

humour

aright, through

all the Members

of

this

our Microcosmos,"

and

not

only

in

his

own

society,

but

in

ancient

societies

as

well

(1:23).

So far as I can

tell,

no one-ancient

or

modern,

living

or

dead-escapes Burton's censure, not even himself. To prove "That

men are

so

mis-affected,

melancholy,

mad,

giddy-headed,"

he

presents

the

reader

with "the

testimony

of

Solomon,

Eccl.2.

12.

And

I turned

to behold

wisdome,

madnesse

andfolly,

&c.,"

but

then

subjects

him to

the same

censure,

since Solomon himself

admits

that

he

is

"more

oolish

then

any

man,

&

[has]

not the

understanding

of

a man

in

me,

Prov.

30.2."

(1:25-26).

Another

witness called to

testify

in

support

of

Burton's

viewpoint

is

Socrates, who,

after

taking "great

paines

to

finde

out

a

wise

man," finally concluded that "all men were fools" (1:31). But then

"Socrates,

whom

though

that

Oracle of

Apollo

confirmed

to

be

the

wisest man then

living.

. whom

2,000

yeeres

have

admired,

of

whom

some

will

as

soone

speake

evill

as of

Christ,"

was in reality,

by differing

accounts,

"an illiterate

Idiot,"

"a

pot

companion,"

"an

opinative

Asse,

a

Caviller,

a kind

of

Pedant,"

etc.

(1:29).

In

fact,

according

to

Burton,

all of the

great

thinkers of

ancient times,

"even

all those

great

Philosophers,

the world hath

ever had

in

admiration,

whose

Workes

we doe so much

esteeme,

that gave

Precepts

of wisdome to others"

(1:27),

including

Socrates, Aristotle,

Longinus,

are,

as "Lactantius

in his

booke of

Wisdome,

proves

them

to

be

...

Dizards, Fooles,

Asses,

mad-men,

so

full of absurd

and ridiculous

tenents and

braine-sicke

positions,

that to

his

thinking

never

any

old woman

or

sicke

person

doted worse" (1:28-

29).

St. Paul

corroborates

Burton's

view

that "The

hearts

of

the sons

of

men are

evill,

&

madnes

is

in their

hearts

while

they

live,

Eccl.9.3"

(1:25-26).

But then

St. Paul

himself

is no more

exempt

from

Burton's

proposition

than Solomon

was,

since

Paul "accuseth

himselfe

in like

sort,"

saying

"I

speake

oolishly"

(1:26).

"Our Artists

and

Philosophers

. .

.

are a

kind

of

mad men"

and of course

"Lovers

are mad"

(1:103).

"Most

women are

fooles,

consilium

faeminis

invalidum"

(1:103).

"Covetous

men

amongst

others,

are

most

madde"

(1:105).

In

short,

Burton

asks

the

reader,

"who is not

a

Foole,

Melancholy,

Mad?

-Qui

nil molitur

inepte,

who is

not

brain-sick?

105







B U R T O N S GEO GRAPHY

Folly,

Melancholy,

Madnesse,

are but one

disease,

Delirium is a

common name to all" (1:25). Folly characterizes all human action:

"All

our

actions,

as

Pliny

told

Trajan,

up-braid

us

offolly,

our whole

course

of life is but

matter of

laughter:

wee are not

soberly

wise,

and the world

it

selfe,

which

ought

at least

to be

wise

by

reason

of

its

antiquity,

as

Hugo

de Prato

Florido will

have

it,

semper

stultizat,

is

every

day

more

oolish

then

other,

the more it

is

whipped

the worse it

is,

and as

a

child will

still be crowned with

roses andflowres. We are

apish

in

it,

asini

bipedes,

and

every

place

is full

inversorum

Apuleiorum,

of

metamorphised

and

two-legged

Asses,

inversorum

Silenorum,

childish, pueri instar bimuli, tremulapatris dormientis in ulna" (1:30).

It is his considered

opinion

that

"we

are

ad unum omnes all

mad,

semel

insanivimus

omnes,

not

once,

but

alway

so ...

young

and

old,

all dote

.

.

. no difference

betwixt us and

children,

saving

that. .

they play

with babies of

clouts and

such

toyes,

we

sport

with

greater

babies"

(1:31).

Given

such

sweeping

claims,

it

is

perhaps

not

surprising

that Burton's

work has earned him

a

prominent

place

in the

history

of

"malcontent"

literature.'s

I can

think

of no better illustration of

Samuel

Johnson's

observation

that

the

melancholy

man hears the sad

song

of

the

nightingale

than Burton's extraordinary

receptivity

to messages

about

the folly

and madness of all

human beings.

But

it

would be a mistake

to assume

that Burton

is assembling

his vast catalogue of fools

and mad-men

out of

some perverse

desire

to overwhelm the reader

with despair. He

is establishing

the scope of the problem

that he has chosen

to treat,

setting the

stage

for his "anatomy" of

the disease, and

for the

"cures" he has

to offer to the reader. As I mentioned earlier, Vicari has argued

that

Burton

pursues

geographical

learning not for

its own

sake

but

precisely

for its usefulness

in

curing melancholy.'4

But

I think

it

is more accurate to claim, especially as

regards

the Preface to

The Anatomy, that Burton

employs

geography and

cartography

as

"proof' of

his assertion

that men

are incurably foolish.

The

maps

which had special

appeal

for him served

as emblems

of man's

folly,

writ large. In themselves,

they

have no curative

function;

rather

they

serve to underscore

Burton's

own pessimistic

world

view.

The

Anatomy of

Melancholy, we

might

observe, was at

least as

much an

attempt

to cure

Burton himself

as it was an attempt

to

cure

the ills

of

the

world

around

him. As he admits

early

in the

Preface:

When I first tooke

this taske

in hand . .

.

this

I aymed

at, ... to

ease

my minde by

writing, for

I had ... a kind

of Imposthume

106







ANNE S.

CHAPPLE

in

my

head,

which I

was

very

desirous to

be unladen

of,

and

could imagine no fitter evacuation then this. Besides I might

not well

refraine,

for ubi

dolor,

ibi

digitus,

one must

needs

scratch where it itcheth. I was not

a

little offended with this

maladie,

shall I

say my

Mistris

Melancholy,

my AEgeria,

or

my

malus

Genius,

& for that

cause as he that is

stung

with

a

Scorpion,

I would

expell

clavum

clavo,

comfort one sorrow

with

another,

idlenes with

idlenes,

.

. .

make an Antidote out

of that which was the

prime

cause of

my

disease.

(1:7)

Burton's attention turns to cure

on

many

occasions in the

Preface,

though

he often seems

to

despair

of

finding any.

"From the

highest

to the

lowest,

have

need of

Physicke,"

Burton

writes in his address

to the reader

(1:25).

The

ancient Greek

remedy

for

insanity,

a

plant

known as

"hellebore,"

is the cure

he mentions most

often;

he

uses it

ironically

as a

metaphor

for

cure in

general.

A

subsequent

footnote

in Burton's

Anatomy enlightens

us further about

hellebore:

"Several towns in Greece were

named

Anticyra,

and all

were famed for their black hellebore, a

plant

which was used

by

physicians

to

'purge

the head.' To

say

'Go

to

Anticyra'

was a

way

of

saying

'You

are mad.'"'5

The

ancient

Greek

geographer

Strabo

gave

his

own

exposition

on

Anticyra

and

the several kinds of

hellebore that

were said

to

grow there;

Strabo's

Geography

was

probably

the locus classicus

from

which

Burton

got

his

information.

16

Burton's

many

references

to hellebore

in

the

Preface

are ironic

comments

on the

pressing

need for

a cure

for the

pervasive

madness

and

melancholy

of

his

age.

For

instance,

hellebore

appears

in

the context

of

contemporary pilgrimages

where it is

given pride

of

place.

Given

that "most

men are

mad,"

Burton

writes, "they

had

as

much

need to

goe

a

pilgrimage

to the

Anticyrae (as

in Strabo's

time

they did)

as in our

daies

they

run

to

Compostella,

our

Lady

of

Sichem,

or

Lauretta,

to

seeke

for

helpe;

that

it is like

to be as

prosperous

a

voyage

as that

of

Guiana,

and

that there is

much

more

need of Hellebor

then

of Tobacco"

1:25).

Burton's subtle and

ironic treatment of overseas travel here adds support to my

assertion

that

Burton

was a

rather conservative

thinker. He seems

convinced

of the

folly

of such

ventures.'7

His

ironic reference

to

"Anticyrae"

is

interesting, too,

because

it links hellebore

to the

time

of the

Greek

geographer

Strabo

(about

63

B.C.-20

A.D.).

Hellebore

was

clearly

not a common

remedy

for

madness

when

Burton

was

writing;

it

was used

primarily

in

ancient Greece.

Again,

Burton

was

drawing

on Greek

sources

for his

central

metaphors.

107







BURTON'S

GEOGRAPHY

The link between Strabo and hellebore will be

important

for

deciphering the maps that Burton examined, especially the

foolscap

map.

Time

and

again

Burton reveals his

preference

for

dismissive

judgments

on human

life,

pronounced

from a removed

and

superior vantage

point,

as in the

following

anecdote

from Lucian:

Charon in

Lucian,

as he

wittily faignes,

was conducted

by

Mercury

to such a

place,

where he

might

see all the World at

once,

after hee had

sufficiently

viewed and looked

about,

Mercurywould needs knowe of him what he had observed: He

told

him,

that hee saw a vast multitude and a

promiscuous,

their habitations like

Mole-hills,

the men as

Emmets,

hee could

discerneCitties like so

many

Hives

of

Bees,

wherein

every

Bee had a

sting,

and

they

did

nought

else but

sting

one another,

some

domineering

like

Hornets,

bigger

then the

rest,

some like

filching

Wasps,

others as Drones. Over their heads were

hovering

a

confused

company

of

perturbations, Hope,

Feare,

Anger,

Avarice,

Ignorance,

&c. and a multitude of diseases

hanging,

which

they

still

pulled

on their

pates.

Some were

brawling,

some

fighting, riding, running,

sollicite

ambientes,

callide

litigantes,

for

toyes,

&

trifles,

and such momentanie

things.

Their Townes and Provinces meere

factions,

rich

against

poore, poore against rich,

Nobles

against Artificers, they

against Nobles,

and so the rest. In conclusion hee condemned

them

all,

for

Mad-men, Fooles, Idiots,

Asses.

0

stulti, quaenam

haec

est

amentia?

0

Fooles,

0

Mad-Men he

exclaimes,

insana

studia, insani labores,&c. Mad endeavours, mad actions, mad,

mad,

mad.

0

seclum

insipiens

&

infacetum

a

giddy-headed age.

Heraclitus the

Philosopher,

out of a serious meditation of

mens

lives,

fell a

weeping,

and with continuall

teares

bewailed

their

miserie, madnesse,

and

folly.

(1:32)

The

"place,

where he

might

see all the

World at once" offered

Charon a

vantage point

much

like that

which

maps

made available

to Burton. And, once again, the distanced perspective is employed

to confirm

Burton's thesis:

all the world

is full

of

fools and mad-

men. Heraclitus

appears

in his

prose

here

to

voice Burton's own

sentiment.

To

summarize, then,

the world of the Preface

is a world full of

fools and madmen with

a

pressing

need

for a cure. This idea finds

visual

representation

in several

places

in the

Preface-specifically

in the

form of

maps.

Burton's

geography replicates

his

melancholy

108







ANNE

S.

CHAPPLE

beliefs

about

mankind,

perhaps

inevitably, given

the

depth

of his

pessimism. The privileged vantage point that maps offered to

Burton,

and even the

maps themselves,

served to confirm

Burton's

convictions about the

folly

of men and the

vanity

of human wishes.

Far

from

opening

the world to him in new

ways,

the

maps

that

caught

Burton's attention served to

reinvigorate

an

existing

world

view

and

to reinforce

traditional

values and beliefs.

In a short

passage

that

precedes

his reference to the

foolscap

map

and

to the

anthropomorphic

geography

of the

Greeks,

Burton

establishes

the distanced

perspective

from

which he

will

"prove"

the melancholy nature of human affairs. This passage repays our

careful

scrutiny

with its richness of allusion and

implication,

and

the

insight

it

gives

us into the

prefatory chapter,

"Democritus

Jr.

to the

Reader":

Of the necessitie and

generalitie

of this

[that

the world

is

full

of

melancholy,

madness,

disease,

corruption,

etc.]

which

I

have

said,

if

any

man

doubt,

I shall desire

him to make a

briefe

survey

of the

world,

as

Cyprian

advised

Donat,

supposing

himselfe

to be

transported

o the

top of

somehigh Mountaine, and

thence

to

beholdthe tumults

&

chances

of

this

wavering

world,

he

cannot chuse but either

laugh at,

or

pitty

it.

S.

Hierome out of

a

strong

imagination,

being

in the

Wildernesse,

conceived with

himselfe,

that he then

saw them

dauncing

in

Rome,

and

if

thou shalt either

conceive,

or

climbe

to

see,

thou shalt soone

perceive

that all

the world is mad.

(1:24)

The choice

that

Cyprian

offers

to

Donatus-having

climbed

to

some

superior vantage point

from

which to

view the world-is

either

to

laugh

at

or to

pity

the

world. This

scene

is

strongly

reminiscent

of the

pose

that Burton

adopts early

in the

Preface,

where from

"some

high place"

above the rest

of the world he

"laughs

at

all" the tumult

of the world.

But the

above lines

require

further

explication

for

clarity.

The choice

of

laughter

or

pity

that

Cyprian

offers

to Donatus is

the

key

to the

process

of associative

thinking that leads Burton into his treatment of the foolscap map.

For,

the

spokesmen

for the

foolscap map-Democritus

of Abdera

and Heraclitus-offer

the

reader

the same

choice

of attitudes

toward the

world: Democritus

laughs

at

it,

and Heraclitus

pities

it.

These

are,

of

course,

Burton's

attitudes

as well.

I

have

said

that,

far from

opening

the world

to Burton in

new

ways,

the

maps

that seem

to have

captured

his attention

were

those that reinforced

his withdrawal

from

the

world at the

same

109







BURTON'

S

GEOGRAPHY

time that

they reinvigorated

an

existing

world view. One

map

in

particular, among the many maps that caught Burton's eye, serves

to

bring

this fact into

high

relief,

and it is this

map

that we

will

focus

our attention on here.

Perhaps

the most

peculiar

of

all

of

the

maps

that

Burton examined-one

that seems to have

appealed

strongly

to his

melancholy

imagination-is

the

"foolscap map"

of

the

world that Burton attributes to

"Epichthonius Cosmopolites."

The

map

underscores,

in

a

particularly

vivid and memorable

fashion,

Burton's

own

judgment

on

the

vanity

of

human effort.

It

was

this

map

that

helped

him to

integrate

all of the elements of

his

own world view. Further, it helped him by providing a vivid image

of

the

persona

he

had

adopted

from

Democritus.

The

reference

to this

map

comes

early

in the

prefatory

chapter

to

The

Anatomy.

The relevant

passage begins:

"thou shalt

soone

perceive

that all the world

is

mad,

that

it is

melancholy,

dotes:

that

it is

(which

Epichthonius

Cosmopolites expressed

not

many

yeeres

since

in a

Map)

made like

a

Fooles

head

(with

that

Motto,

Caput

Helleboro

dignum)

a

erased

head,

cavea

stultorum,

a Fooles

paradise,

or

as

Apollonius,

a common

prison

of

Guiles,

Cheaters, Flatterers,

&c.

&

needs

to be reformed"

(1:24;

see

Appendix).

These lines are

embedded

in

a

much

longer passage to be

examined.18

Burton

is referring here to a curious

map of the world

framed

by

a

jester's

cap (see Figure

I).19

The "foolscap map," as it

is

known

among

cartographers,

measures 360 mm x 480 mm and

is

printed

from

a finely executed copper-plate engraving.

The

map

was

published

separately and anonymously, with

no

information

as

to

the

date

or

place of publication

on it. It is believed to

have

been published

in Antwerp,

ca. 1590. The geographical

details

on

the

small,

oval

map that takes the place of the fool's face

identify

it

as

a

copy

of

one of Ortelius's

latest plates; we can date the

map

with

some

certainty

as being post-1587,

since "the prominent

south-

[west]

bulge

to

the

coastline of South America appearing on

nearly

all

maps

before

this date has been corrected."20

While much

of

our

information

remains

sketchy, we do possess some hard

facts

about

the

map.

It was based

on an earlier foolscap world

map

by

the

French

mapmakerJean

de Gourmont, which was published

in

Paris ca. 1575 (please see Figure 2). The earlier foolscap map was

made

from

a

woodcut

and is somewhat smaller than the

later

copper

engraving;

the actual

map of the world on the woodcut

is

a

small

oval

similarly

framed within the hood of

a

jester's

cap,

where

the

face

would

ordinarily

be. As

on the anonymous

copper

engraving,

the

map

on de Gourmont's

woodcut

is derived from

a

world

map

by

Ortelius-but

in this case it is Ortelius's

earlier

world

map

of

1570.21

110







A N N

E S. CH A P

P

L

E

j:::~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

:~~~~~~~:~::"

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;A

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0

~::

:? :2?

r`:~

e6f-

:::::

t

: O

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Iy

4?

0;f

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S

C:

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~r

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F

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i

:

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y

Figure

1: Later

copper-plate

foolscap

world

map, printed

anonymously,

ca.

1590,

in

Antwerp?

Ill

:>

;

^

tb

,

E: sie

/

<..*-'

"

a







B U R T

O

N S GEOGRAPHY

The

mapmaker's

idea of

representing

the human

face

as

the

earth was probably inspired by Ptolemy's Geographia. Ptolemy's

unusual

analogy

found its

way

into numerous Renaissance tracts

on

the

"correspondences"

between macrocosm and

microcosm.

For

instance,

quoting Ptolemy's

seminal

work

on

maps,

William

Cunningham

wrote

in

1559,

"'Geographie

... is

the

imitation,

and

description

of the

face,

and

picture

of th'earth.'"22 This same

conception

of the face also found its

way

into the

"high"

literature

of the Renaissance. For

example,

in

Coriolanus,

Twelfth Night,

2

Henry

VI,

"Sonnet

68,"

and

The

Rape ofLucrece,

Shakespeare

likens

the face to a map which tells something about a person.23 For

instance,

in

2

Henry

VI,

the

King

tells his

uncle,

the Duke

of

Gloucester,

"Ah,

uncle

Humphrey,

in

thy

face

I

see

/

The

map

of

honour,

truth,

and

loyalty"

(III.i.202-203).

John

Donne

makes

repeated

references

to the

globe

in

the

context of

microcosms,

"images,"

and

"pictures."

He uses the word

"picture"

to

mean "a

likeness,"

often

applied

to

the

face,

as

in the

poem

entitled

"Here

take

my picture."24

Victor

Morgan

clarifies the

meaning

that

the

analogy

had for

Renaissance

readers:

as

it

was

developed

in

the

context of "the literary theory of the theophrastian character which

was enjoying a revival in the late sixteenth and early

seventeenth

centuries. .

the face was the microcosm of the

person, and

showed

forth the dominant traits of personality, just as the map

is

the microcosm of a place, and conveys

by signs the

characteristics

of the real place it epitomises."25 For Burton,

too, the face could

be a map of the microcosm; in any case,

it was a

melancholy

one,

as his choice of the foolscap map

to exemplify his world

view

would imply.

But what of the mapmaker and

his own world view? Burton had

apparently studied the map carefully and picked up what he

must

have believed was the name

of the engraver from the

cartouche

on the left-hand side of the map: "Epichthonius

Cosmopolites."

This attribution was erroneous; in all probability

the name refers

to a mythic figure, and

not to a real person. As to just who

this

Epichthonius Cosmopolites

was, scholars can not seem to

agree.

His identity-if in fact he ever existed-remains a mystery,

despite

the efforts of several scholars to identify him. The name itself

means

"a citizen of the world," according to J.B.

Bamborough.26

We may also translate it as "citizen of the cosmos."

Alternatively,

as Rodney W. Shirley suggests, "the

Greek wording may be liberally

translated aseveryman indigenous in this world of ours.'"27

Given

the map's global perspective

on the vanity and folly of

mankind,

according to Shirley, "probably no more is meant

within the

ambit

of Burton's fanciful inferences than

we all perceive the world as

112







ANNE

S.

CHAPPLE

ma

CONON

)ISTO\

TOY4Y-VESMEL

I

/o re

Pev

iCa X

IrarUernir

fyea gnacogilane

a~qcrir.

1

-

I~~~~~~-

1</

s(

-

ii

--^

\

I

"-

f

Uo'>'',se1i..:$,sgEt

i', :

>j .?

b AP

KIS

Sjarkndc'EG (rt;nt

Figure

2:

Earlier

woodcut

foolscap

world

map,

byJean

de

Gourmont,

ca.

1575,

in

Paris

113

:

::

';?, ?

'::

I

:::-:- :

, N,

- d 'L>'t-''C a- ^-X>9Kt>.t8;S) ;

t } i

,^s^

/^^^' ^SQ.̂







B U R T O N' S GEOGRAPHY

mad,

we are the

begetters

of

its

inanities,

and

we

are made

mad

by

its follies.

Epichthonius Cosmopolites

is each one

of

us."28

A much

stronger

possibility

which scholars seem not

to

have

considered,

is

that

EEichthonius

Cosmopolites

is a

misspelled

version of Erichthonius

Cosmopolites.29

If the

mapmaker copied

the name from a Greek

text,

he

might

have confused the

Greek

letter "rho" with the

English

letter

"p,"

which it resembles. The

mysterious

name would then refer

to

Erichthonius

of Greek

mythology,

who was

an "Attic hero and

mythical

king

of

Athens,"

according

to The

Oxford Companion

to

English

Literature. ? An

entry

in The New Century Classical Handbook helps us to understand the

relevance of this

mythical

character

in the overall context of the

map,

and the

meaning

he

might

have had

for Renaissance readers.

Significantly,

he was associated in the

popular

imagination

with

both wisdom and

madness,

or

folly.

Erichthonius was the

offspring

of

Hephaestus

and Gaia

(the

Earth).

Struggling

to ravish

Athena,

Hephaestus accidentally

inseminated Gaia when his semen fell

upon

the

ground.

Gaia abandoned Erichthonius

after

giving

birth

to

him,

and Athena took the

infant,

who was half human and half

serpent. She put the baby in a chest and asked the daughters of

Cecrops, king

of

Athens,

to

guard it, giving

them strict instructions

not

to

open

the chest. When the

daughters' curiosity got

the

best

of

them, they opened the chest and found

a child with

a

serpent's

tail for

legs; then, according

to

most

versions of

the

myth, they

were "maddened

with fear and leaped

to their deaths

from the

Acropolis."31 The association with foolishness

and madness

springs

from their misfortune. After the deaths of Cecrops's daughters,

Athena

"put Erichthonius in her aegis

and reared

him herself."32

Later, when he became king of Athens, Erichthonius established

the

worship

of

Athena

(wisdom)

there.

He himself

was later

worshipped

at Athens in the

form

of a

serpent.33

Most

versions of the

myth relate

that Athena

presented

Erichthonius with two

drops

of

the

blood of the

Gorgon Medusa,

"one

of

which

poisoned and the other healed."34

Some

say

that she

gave

him the

power to restore the

dead to life with those

drops

of

blood.35 The name

Erichthonius, then,

was

for Renaissance

readers

closely associated with wisdom and with the power to heal. If we

are

correct in

assuming that

Egichthonius

was

never

anything

more than a

misreading

of

Erichthonius,

it seems

likely

that his

wisdom and

his healing powers were intended

to contrast

strikingly

with the

foolishness and madness decried

in

virtually

all

of the

inscriptions

on

the map.36 Whether

the

"Epichthonius"

of the

foolscap map was simply a name given to "Everyman"

who suffers

from

the

madness and melancholy of

the human

condition,

or

a

114







ANNE

S.

CHAPPLE

misspelled

version of Erichthonius the

mythical

Attic

hero,

which

seems much more

likely,

we know that he was not the actual

engraver

of the later

foolscap map.

The

identity

of

the true

engraver

will

probably

never be known.

Of

particular

interest to us here are the various

epigrammatic

phrases

on the head-and-shoulders

figure

of

the

jester,

which

lament the

vanity

of the

world

and the foolishness of those

who

love it. Across

the

top

of the

foolscap,

on either side of the

seam,

run

the

words,

"0

Caput

elle boro

dignum," meaning

"0

head

requiring

hellebore,"

the "Motto" to which Burton

alludes in the

passage from the Preface. As "hellebore" [spelled "elle boro" on

the

foolscap

map]

was a natural

remedy

for

insanity

used

in ancient

Greece,

but not

in the

Renaissance when the

mapmaker

was

engraving

the

map,

we

may

surmise that

he

took his

inspiration

from Greek

texts. I think

it

is a

fair

guess

that the

mapmaker got

the idea for his motto

from

Strabo,

who wrote

an

exposition

on

the

Anticyrae

and

the kinds of hellebore said to

grow

there in

his

Geography;

Strabo makes reference to hellebore as

a cure for

madness. The

inscription

on

the fool's chin reads

"Stultorum

infinitus est numerus" and is attributed to "Salomon." The Latin

translates

as

"The

number

of

fools

is infinite."

"Salomon,"

of

course,

refers

to Solomon of the

Old

Testament,

whose

beliefs

about

fools are

voiced

in

a number

of the Proverbs. On

the ears of

the

cap, continuing

from

the first

ear to the

second,

are inscribed

the

following

words: "Auriculas

asini.

. .

quis

non habet."

The

reference

here

is

to Persius's First

Satire,

in which

a

character,

also

named

Persius, comments,

"There's

not one of them

who doesn't

/

Have

ass's

ears "

(line 121).s7

The

import

of his observation

seems to be

something

like

"every

man is a fool."

Printed

across the

brow-line of the

fool's

cap

are

the words:

"Hic

est mundi

punctus

et materia

gloriae

nostrae

hec

sedes

hic

honores

gerimus

hic

excercemus

imperia,

hic

opes cupimus

hic

tumultuatur

humanum

genus,

hic

instauramus

bella

etiam

civilia,

Piun."

"Plin."

here

refers

to

Pliny, specifically Pliny

the

Elder,

who

is the

author of

the

quoted passage, though

it is

roughly

translated.

The

words take

their

inspiration

from Book

2, Chapter

174 of

Pliny's Natural History:"detrahantur hae

tot

portiones terrae,

immo

vero,

ut

plures tradidere,

mundi

puncto (neque

enim aliud

est

terra

in

universo):

haec

est materia

gloriae nostrae,

haec

sedes,

hic

honores

gerimus,

hic

exercemus

imperia,

his

opes cupimus,

hic

tumultuamur

humanum

genus,

hic

instauramus

bella etiam

civilia

mutuisque

caedibus

laxiorem

facimus

terram "38

Horace Rackham

translates

this

passage

as follows: "subtract

all these

portions

from

the

earth

or

rather

from

this

pin-prick,

as the

majority

of

thinkers

115







BURTON'

S

GEOGRAPHY

have

taught,

in the

world-for in the

whole

universe

the

earth

is

nothing else: and this is the substance of our glory, this is its

habitation,

here it is that we

fill

positions

of

power

and covet

wealth,

and throw mankind into an

uproar,

and launch even civil

wars and

slaughter

one

another

to make the land more

spaciousl"39

The medallions

on the fool's

necklace

are

also

inscribed

with

quotations.

One of them reads "0 curas

Hominum,"

which

translates

as "0

the

vanity

of human

cares "

and

takes

its

inspiration,

once

again,

from the first line of Persius's First

Satire,

which

begins

"0

the

vanity

of human

caresl

O

what a

huge

vacuum

man's nature admits "40A second medallion reads "0, Quantum

Est

in

Rebus

Inane." This

phrase

may

be translated

roughly

as

"O,

how

much

emptiness

there is in the affairs

of

men,"

and

it, too,

comes

from

the

first

line

of Persius's

Satire. A third reads

"Stultus

factus

est omnis

homo,"

or

"Every

man was made

a

fool."

A fourth

reads

"Universa

Vanitas

Onis

[read

"omnis"]

Homo,"

which

may

be

translated

as "universal

vanity

is

every

man."

These

last

two

inscriptions

are based on sentiments

that are voiced in

many

places

in

the

Bible,

especially

in

Ecclesiastes, Isaiah,

and the

Psalms.

Other inscriptions surround the head-and-shoulders figure. The

inscription

on the fool's

bauble, for example, reads:

"Vanitas,

vanitatum

et

omnia vanitas." This quotation, which means

"Vanity

of

vanities,

all is vanity," comes from Ecclesiastes 1:2 and

12:8.

Across

the

top of the map runs

the

inscription

"Nosce te

ipsum,"

which

makes

reference

to

the

famous

Greek adage, "Know

thyself."

Finally,

we must

turn our attention to the allusive

references

in

the

cartouche

on the left-hand side of the map.

The

Latin

inscription

in

the cartouche

reads "Democritus

Abderites

deridebat,

Heraclitus Ephesius

deflebat,

Epichthonius

Cosmopolites

deformabat."J.B.

Bamborough translates

these

lines

as

follows:

"Democritus of Abdera mocked it, Heraclitus

of

Ephesus

wept

for

it,

Epichthonius

Cosmopolites disfigured

it"

[private

communication].

All three were voicing

their attitudes toward

the

world

figured

in the fool's cap.

The

world

view conveyed by the inscriptions

on the

foolscap

map,

then,

is

a

melancholy one: men are consumed

with

vanity

and foolishness. It is a conservative vision in essence: the world

may

change

its

face,

but the foolhardiness

of the human

condition

abides.

This

is

certainly not a new perspective

on the

world,

especially

not

for Burton's

contemporaries, who were

familiar

with

Biblical

admonitions

about the vanity of human life. What

is

different

about

the foolscap map is that it presents those

old

adages

in

a

striking new way

with reference

to the changing

character

of

the

world.

Burton voices many of the same

sentiments

116







ANNE S. CHAPPLE

in "DemocritusJr. to the Reader" and even uses

many

of the

same

quotations from the same classical sources. Remarking that an

attempt

to

catalogue

all of the "ridiculous instances" of foolishness

in

the world

around him would be like "one of Hercules

labours,"

he

exclaims,

"Quantum

est in rebus

inaneT

(1:55).

This

is

the

same

line from Persius's First Satire that we saw

imprinted

in one of the

medallions of the fool's necklace on the

map.

In another

context,

Burton comments on

the

absurdity

of "our

Actions,

Carriages,

Dyet, Apparell,

Customes,

and Consultations"

by

concluding

that

"all are fooles"

(1:57);

he

ends his observation with a

quotation:

"and they the veriest asses that hide their ears most" (1:57). The

reference

is

either to

Horace,

or to Persius who

quotes

Horace in

his First Satire.

Again

there is

common

ground

between the

classical

allusions on

the

foolscap map

and those in Burton's own work.

Then,

too,

we

find anti-war sentiment

expressed

in both

places.

On the

map

it finds

expression

in

Pliny's

ironic

comment on civil

war and

slaughter

as the "substance" of man's dubious

"glory."

In

The

Anatomy

the

horror and senselessness of

war

are treated at

length

in a series of detailed

examples

to which Burton

devotes

several pages of the Preface. I cannot claim that Burton took his

own thematic

inspirations

from the

foolscap

map directly,

although

that remains a

possibility,

but it is clear that the

map

had a

great

appeal for him and that it spoke to a number

of

his own

preoccupations.

Burton's own

propensity

for

dwelling

with

melancholic

intensity

on the foolishness and

vanity

of

men

makes

it

apparent why

this

map

made such an

impression

on

him.

Given what

we

know about the classical

inspiration

for

the

inscriptions

on the

foolscap maps,

we can

make a case for

the

influence

of ancient

Greek

geographical writings

on the

figure

of

the

map

itself. It

is

possible

that the

original conception

of

representing

the world as a human head came from the

works

of

Strabo, Pliny,

or

Hippocrates,

all of whom

habitually

described a

given

land formation

by comparing

it

to a

familiar

object,

often

the

human

body

or a

part

of it. It seems

likely

that the

anonymous

engraver

of the

map got

access to Greek

geography through

the

many

"rediscovered"

Greek and

Latin

texts that

began

to

circulate

in England in the Renaissance.41

Alternatively,

we can

speculate

that de Gourmont's

original

foolscap map may

have been influenced

by

the

very popular

The

Ship of

Fools

by

Sebastian

Brant.

By 1575, whenJean

de Gourmont

is

presumed

to have executed

his

woodcut,

Brant's

Narrenschiff,

as

it was

originally known,

had been translated

into a

number of

different

languages

and had been

widely

disseminated across

Europe. By

1499

three

separate

French

translations,

or

117







BURTO N S GEOGRAPHY

paraphrases,

had

appeared.

A French

abridgement

(1535)

and

later French editions

(Paris 1529; Lyons 1530)

and

reprints (1499;

1579)

are

known to

have

been

published.42

The circulation of all

of these French versions (and others in other

languages)

makes it

likely

that Brant's

work

was

accessible

to de

Gourmont,

working

in

Paris

around 1575. Section

24

of The

Ship of

Fools,

entitled "Of

Too Much

Care,"

is

prefaced

with a woodcut

depicting

a fool

carrying

the world on his back.43 The

juxtaposition

of the fool's

head

and

the

world,

as

well as the sentiments

expressed

in the

accompanying

verse,

make this a

likely

source of

inspiration

for de

Gourmont's foolscap map. Edwin Zeydel has located references to

the

Narrenschiff

in

Burton's The

Anatomy

of

Melancholy.

Burton

makes a reference to "a

company

of brainsicke dizards" who

"may

goe

ride the

asse,

and all saile

along

to the

Anticyrae,

in the

ship of

fooles

for

company together"

(1:59).

Burton's treatment of the

foolscap map

leads him

by

a

process

of

associative

thinking

to consider other

(Greek)

anthropomorphic

maps.

One

good

reason for his mental association of

the

foolscap

map

with the

Greek

maps

is that

they

are all

head-and-shoulders

representations of men as maps. He approaches his subject by

gathering insights

from the work of Nicholas

Gerbelius,

the

Renaissance commentator. Gerbelius

as well as Greek

geographers

Strabo, Pliny,

and

Hippocrates

contributed

significantly

to Burton's

geography

of

melancholy.44

Gerbelius's

work,

which

provided

him

with an abbreviated

summary

assessment

of the

geography

of

Strabo and

Pliny,

was the

source on which

Burton relied most

heavily (see

notes

42, 45,

and

47).

In

the

following passage

Burton

continues

his treatment

of

anthropomorphic maps

with an

acknowledgement of his debt to Gerbelius:

Strabo,

n the

9th Booke

of his

geography, compares

Greece o

the

picture

of a

man,

which

comparison

of

his,

Nic. Gerbelius

in his

exposition

of

Sophianus Map, approves;

The

brest

lyes

open

from

those Acroceraunian

Hilles

in

Epirus

to the Sunian

Promontorie

in

Attica, Pagae

and

Magaera

are the

two

Shoulders,

that Istmos

of Corinth

the

neck,

&

Peloponnesus

the

head. If this

allusion

hold,

'tis sure

a mad

head;

Morea

may

be

Moria

[Folly];

& to

speake

what I

thinke,

the

Inhabitants

of

moderne

Greece,

warve

as much

from

reason,

& true

religion

at this

day,

as

that Morea

doth from

the

picture

of a man.

(1:24)

An

obvious

thing

to note

about

this

description

is the

degree

to

which the

microcosm

(the

individual

inhabitants

of

Greece)

and

118







ANNE

S.

CHAPPLE

the

macrocosm

(the

world,

here

depicted

in the

shape

of a

man)

are fused in Burton's imagination; the "picture of a man" with its

"mad

head,

Morea"

is an

image,

writ

large,

of the

folly

of the

actual inhabitants of Greece. For

Burton,

man is a

map

of the

world,

as much as the world is a

map

of man. He

is

embroidering

here on traditional

commonplaces

in

Greek

geographical

literature.

One of the

governing concepts

in the

geographic

work

of

Hippocrates,

for

instance,

was that the inhabitants of a

particular

geographic

region

took their character from the climatic

conditions

and

geographical

features

of

that

region.

(For

example,

the

vaguely

effeminate Scythians who live on plains chilled by ice and snow,

heavy

rains,

and thick

fog

are

"moist and

flabby"

men,

who "have

not the

strength

either to draw a bow or to throw

ajaveline

from

the shoulder" and who

"have no

great

desire for

intercourse

because of the moistness of their constitution and the softness

and

chill of

their

abdomen."45)

In

like

manner,

Burton

implies,

the

wayward

character of his Greek

contemporaries

finds a

sympathetic

representation

in the distorted

shape

of their homeland.

That

is,

the

"picture

of a man" is as much a

distortion of the true

image

of

man as the inhabitants of Greece distort reason and true religion.

There still lingers in Burton's description of "the inhabitants of

modern Greece" something of the ancient Greek belief in

the

concrete resemblance of man to the natural landscape, something

of the sympathy between man and his environment. As on

the

foolscap

map, the world is figured in terms of the character of

its

inhabitants.

I think it is important that we try to understand Burton's maps

not only in their Renaissance context, but in terms of

their

historical lineage; only by tracing them back to their original

historical context can we gain a full appreciation of their

meaning.

However, it is a little tricky to trace the lineage of the

geographical

description that Burton is presenting in

the above passage,

which

calls for closer scrutiny, because it is apt to be confusing

to

anyone

not familiar with the works of the three geographers

mentioned.

Burton is under the impression that it is Strabo who

originally

compares Greece to the picture of a man, and that this

comparison

is located in Book 9 of his Geography.According to Burton,

Strabo's

comparison is "approved" by Nicholas Gerbelius in

Gerbelius's

exposition on Sophianus's map. Burton is most likely

referring

here to Gerbelius's 1545 expository tract on geography,

In

descriptionem Graeciae Sophiani, praefatio.46 The actual

comparison

of Greece to the "picture" of the man, which Burton reprints

in

The Anatomy and credits to Strabo, reads as follows: "the brest

lyes

open from those Acroceraunian Hilles in Epirus, to the

Sunian

119







BURTON' S GEOGRAPHY

Promontorie

in

Attica,

Pagae

&R

Magaera

are

the

two

Shoulders,

that Istmos of Corinth the neck, & Peloponnesus the head" (1:24).

But

Burton

has made an error in

his attribution of

authorship

here.

The

comparison

of Greece

"to

the

picture

of

a

man"

may

indeed

be

found in

Nicholas

Gerbelius's

In

descriptionem,

but the

origin

of the

comparison

is not Strabo's

Geography.47

The

likeness to which Burton refers

may

be traced to several

references

that

Gerbelius

makes in his

In

descriptionem

Graeciae

Sophiani,

praefatio

to Greece

being shaped

like a man. The first

reference,

which occurs in a subsection entitled

"Attica,"

reads

as

follows: "Locos omnes indicat pictura, praesertim Megara & Pagas:

quae

duae urbes in Attica

sinibus,

tanquam scapulae positae

sunt.

Isthmus

collum,

Peloponnesus caput

&

arx totius Graeciae"

(p.

17).

This

may

be translated

as:

"All

this

indicates with

a

picture,

that

Megara

and

Pagas especially,

which are

two

cities within

the

borders

of

Attica,

are

positioned

as

if

they

were the shoulders.

The

Isthmus

is the

neck,

the

Peloponnesus

the head

and

capitol

of

all

Greece."

But it is not clear that Gerbelius is in fact

attributing

the

authorship

to Strabo here. Gerbelius has

just

concluded a

passage

on

Pliny

the Elder and is on the

verge

of

beginning

a new

section

on Book 9 of Strabo's Geography. He appears to be

giving

credit

either

to Pliny or to Strabo, but the

anthropomorphic

comparison

in question is sandwiched between his treatment of

the

two

authors,

and no specific attribution

of authorship is made.

Gerbelius's

vagueness

here is almost surely the source of Burton's

error:

Gerbelius's citation is ambiguous, but Burton

understood

him

to

be

crediting

the comparison to Strabo.

When I checked

the

Ninth Book

of Strabo's Geography to find

the original quotation, I

could

find

no reference to Greece being shaped like a man. To

my

mind,

Pliny

is the more likely source. In Book 4, Chapter 4

of

Pliny's

Natural

History, which covers the Isthmus of Corinth, there

is

a

reference

to a "narrow neck of land" from which the

Peloponnesus

"projects," and another reference to "Morea,"

which

"is

only

attached

to Greece by a narrow neck of land."48

Rackham

points

out

that the noun "isthmus," meaning a neck of land,

"came

to

be

attached as a proper name to the neck joining

the

Morea to Central Greece."49 The definition of an isthmus as a

"neck"

of

land

helps

to explain why Morea resembled a

human

head

for

Pliny

and the other geographers. In the section

entitled

"Attica"

in

Book

4, Chapter 7 of Pliny's

work, we find a reference

to

the

two

towns

Megara and Pagae, which are "situated where

the

Peloponnese

projects,

and stand

on either side of the Isthmus,

as

it

were

on

the

shoulders

of Hellas."50 Thus, it seems likely that

Gerbelius

was

elaborating on Pliny's suggestions when

he

120







ANNE

S.

CHAPPLE

compared

Greece "to

the

picture

of a man."

We

might

reasonably

speculate

that

the

irregularly shaped Peloponnesus

that

is

positioned

as the "head"

in

Pliny's

scheme was the

basis

for

Burton's

skeptical

comment about

the

supposed

likeness

between

Morea and "the

picture

of a

man":

"'tis

sure a mad

head;

Morea

may

be

Moria

[Folly];

&

to

speake

what I

thinke,

the

Inhabitants

of

moderne

Greece swarve as much from

reason,

&

true

religion

at

this

day,

as

that Morea doth from the

picture

of a man"

(1:24).

The idea that the

anthropomorphic comparison

derives at

least

in

part

from Gerbelius's own

extrapolation

finds

more

support

in

a later subsection of the In descriptionemGraeciaeSophiani, praefatio,

entitled

"Hellas,"

in which Gerbelius writes: "veram

Greciam

esse,

quam

in

superioribus descripsimus,

&

veluti totius

gentis

corpus.

Quod

si cui libet in re tam amoena

tamque

iucunda

ludere,

is

picturam

nostram invertat: tum videbit

hoc

corpus,

una

cum

Peloponneso,

hominis

imaginem

ad

pectus usque

representare.

Pectus

referet,

quicquid

a Cerauniis montibus ad

Sunium

promontorium

deducitur.

Humeri,

seu

scapulae,

sunt

Pagae

et

Megara,

collum totus

Isthmus,

caput Peloponnesus, quam

Graeciae

nonnulli appellaverunt arcem" (p. 48). His words may be translated

as follows: "true Greece is ...

like the body of the

whole

people.

Because if it pleases anyone to joke

in a pleasant

matter,

he

may

invert our picture. Then he will see that this body

together

with

the Peloponnesus represents the image of a

man

up

to

the

chest.

He would call the chest what stretches from the

Ceraunian

hills

to

the Suniam promontory.

The arm bones or

shoulder

blades

are

Pagae & Megara, the neck is the whole

Isthmus,

the

head

the

Peloponnesus, which some Greeks call the citadel."

This

passage,

too, may have been the inspiration for Burton's disbelieving

comment

on Sophianus's "picture of a man."

Whether

it was

Gerbelius or Pliny who was really responsible for this

"picture of a

man," Burton's point is that "Morea" on the map in

question

does

not very much resemble a picture of

a

man.

The

practice of

comparing land masses to familiar

everyday figures,

often human

ones, is common in Strabo's and Pliny's work, as well

as

in that of

other classical geographers, but the supposed

"pictures"

often

require the reader

to stretch his imagination

more

than a

little.51

It seems possible that

a work entitled the

Hippocratic

Anthology

may also have had an influence

on

Burton's

geographic

vision,

though it is not specifically mentioned in the passage

we've been

examining. Hippocrates' thought

contains

images

that

are

germane

for

our

purposes

here. In an essay entitled

"The

Number

Seven,"

that is included in the Hippocratic Anthology,

we

find

a

striking

image that

is

reminiscent

of-and clearly a

variant

of-those we

121







B U R T

O

N S GEOGRAPHY

have

just

examined.

In this

essay

the earth

is

represented

as a

huge

human body; the head is formed by the Peloponnesus, the spine

by

the

Isthmus,

and so

on.

"Each

geographical part

of

the earth

and each land

corresponds

to a definite

part

of

the

body;

all

the

physical

and

spiritual

features and

way

of life of the

inhabitants

depend

on their anatomical localization."52

The

correspondence

between

body

and world is

stressed,

and once

again

the

relationship

is

"the concrete resemblance of man to the natural

landscape."53

The

essay

presents

a

"grotesque" image

of the

body

so that

"the

confines

dividing

it from

the world are

obscured" and

"the exchange between the body and the world is constantly

emphasized."54

Given

Burton's

frequent

references to

Hippocrates

in

The

Anatomy,

it

seems

well

within

the realm of

possibility

that

he read

Hippocrates'

"The Number Seven"

essay

and that the

images

in it influenced his own

writing

on

geography.

Having

said all

that,

I

think

we are in a

good position

to

understand the

appeal

that the

foolscap

map

had for Burton.

Burton was fascinated with the

map

because it

presented

a

melancholy landscape,

because it

juxtaposed

an

image

of

folly

with the pressing need for a cure ["0 Caput elle = boro dignum,"

or, "A head requiring hellebore"], and because the spokesmen in

the cartouche inscription voiced Burton's own attitudes

toward

the world: "Democritus Abderites deridebat,

Heraclitus Ephesius

deflebat, Epichthonius Cosmopolites deformabat." The

foolscap

map of Epichthonius Cosmopolites draws together many of

the

thematic threads that run through Burton's The Anatomy

of

Melancholy, that vast catalogue of fools and madmen. On it

are

learned classical references regarding the pervasive folly of

men,

an allusion to hellebore as a cure for "mad" heads, and a

confirmation writ large in the shape of a fool's head that all the

world is mad. The inscription

on the fool's bauble, so like

a

"child's toy," voices Burton's own motto: "Vanitas, vanitatum

et

omnia vanitas." Burton returns so often to these themes that one

wonders whether the map might not have been the inspiration

for

the whole Preface. Certainly, it helped Burton to integrate all

of

the elements

of the persona he adopted from Democritus, and

it

underscores, in a particularly vivid and memorable

fashion,

Burton's own judgment on the vanity of human effort. In my view

the foolscap map can stand as a compelling and highly

appropriate

symbol for the whole of the Preface. This short poem, included

in

a missive addressed to "To the Mischievously Idle

Reader,"

concludes Burton's Preface:

Weep, Heraclitus, for this wretched age,

Nought dost thou see that is not base and sad:

122







ANNE S. CHAPPLE

Laugh

on, Democritus,

thou

laughing sage,

Nought

dost thou see that is not vain and

bad.

Let one

delight

in

tears and

one

in

laughter,

Each

shall

find his

occasion ever

after.

There

needs,

since mankind's now in madness

hurled,

A thousand

weeping, laughing

sages

more:

And best

(such

madness doth

prevail)

the

world

Should

go

to

Anticyra,

feed on hellebore.

(Dell

edn.

p.

105)

As many of the central players on this closing stage also figure

importantly

on the

foolscap map,

Burton's lines

might

well serve

as

a

perfect explanatory accompaniment

to it.55

ADDENDUM

For convenience

I have

reprinted

here,

in its

entirety,

the

passage about the foolscap map in Robert Burton's Preface,

"Democritus

Junior

to the

Reader":

Of the necessitie

and

generalitie

of this

[that

the world is

full

of

melancholy,

madness, disease,

corruption,

etc.]

which I

have

said,

if

any

man

doubt,

I shall desire him to make a

briefe

survey

of

the

world,

as

Cyprian

advised

Donat,

supposing

himselfe to be transported o the top of some

high Mountaine,

and

thence to behold the tumults & chancesof this wavering world,

he

cannot chuse but either laugh at, or pitty it. S. Hieromeout of a

strong imagination,

being in the Wildernesse, conceived with

himselfe, that he then saw them

dauncing in Rome, and

if

thou shalt either conceive, or climbe to see, thou shalt

soone

perceive that all the world is mad, that it is melancholy,

dotes:

that it is (which Epichthonius Cosmopolites xpressed

not

many

yeeres since in a Map) made like a Fooles head (with that

Motto, Caput Helleborodignum), arased head, cavea

stultorum,

a Fooles paradise, or as Apollonius, a common prison

of

Gulles, Cheaters, Flatterers,

c. needs to be

reformed.

Strabo, n the 9th Booke of his geography, compares Greece

o

the picture of a man, which comparison

of his, Nic. Gerbelius

in his exposition

of Sophianus Map, approves; The brest

lyes

open from those AcroceraunianHilles in Epirus to the

Sunian

Promontorie in Attica, Pagae and Magaera are the

two

Shoulders, that Istmosof Corinth the neck, & Peloponnesus

the

123







BURTO N' S GEOGRAPHY

head. If this allusion

hold,

'tis sure

a

mad

head;

Morea

may

be

Moria

[Folly];

&

to

speake

what

I

thinke,

the Inhabitants

of

moderne

Greece,

warve as much from

reason,

& true

religion

at this

day,

as that Morea doth from the

picture

of

a

man.

Examine the rest in like

sort,

and

you

shall find that

Kingdomes

and

Provinces are

Melancholy,

Cities and

Families,

all

Creatures,

Vegetall,

Sensible,

and

Rationall,

that all

sorts,

sects,

ages,

conditions,

are

out of

tune,

as in Cebes

Table,

omnes errorembibunt,before they come into the World, they

are intoxicated

by

Errors

cup,

from the

highest

to the

lowest,

have need of

Physicke,

and those

particular

Actions in

Seneca,

where father

&

son

prove

one

another

mad,

may

be

generall;

Porcius Latro

shall plead

against

us all. For indeed who

is

not

a

Foole,

Melancholy,

Mad?

-Qui

nil molitur

inepte,

who is not

brain-sick?

Folly, Melancholy,

Madnesse,

are but one

disease,

Delirium is a common name to

all.

Alexander,

Gordonius,

ason

Pratensis,

Savanarola, Guianerius, Montaltus,

confound

them

as differing secundium magis & minus, so doth David, Psal.

75.4.

I

said unto the

Fooles,

deale not so

madly,

8c

'twas

an old

Stoicall

paradox,

omnes stultos

insanire,

all fooles are mad

though

some madder than others. And who is not a

Foole,

who is

free

from

Melancholy?

Who is not touched more or

lesse in habit or

disposition?

If

in

disposition,

ill

dispositions

begethabits, if theypersevere,

aith

Plutarch,

habits either

are,

or

turne to diseases. 'Tis the same

which

Tully

maintains in the

Second of

his

Tusculans,

omnium

insipientum

animi in

morbo

sunt,

&eperturbatorum,

Fooles are sick, and all that are troubled

in

mind,

for what is

sicknesse,

but

as

Gregory

Tholosanus

defines

it,

A dissolution

or

perturbationof

the

bodily eague,

which

health combines:And who

is not

sick,

or ill

disposed,

in

whom

doth

not

passion, anger, envie, discontent,

feare

&

sorrow

raigne?

Who

labours

not of this

disease? Give

me but a little

leave,

and

you

shall see

by

what

testimonies, confessions,

arguments

I will evince

it,

that

most men

are

mad,

that

they

had as much need

to

goe

a

pilgrimage

to the

Anticyrae (as

in

Strabo's ime

they did)

as

in

our

daies

they

run

to

Compostella,

our

Lady

of

Sichem,

or

Lauretta,

to seeke for

helpe;

that

it

is

like to be as

prosperous

a

voyage

as that of

Guiana,

and that

there is much more

need

of Hellebor then of Tobacco.

(1:24-25)

124







ANNE S.

CHAPPLE

NOTES

'Cited in Raleigh A. Skelton, Decorative Printed Maps of the 15th to 18th

Centuries

(London

and New York:

Staples

Press,

1952),

p.

1.

For

further

information on Dr. Dee's social

observations,

seeJohn

Dee,

The Private

Diary

of

Dr.

John

Dee,

ed.

James

O.

Halliwell

(London:

printed by John Bowyer

Nichols and Son for

the Camden

Society,

1842).

Please note that I

have

duplicated

the

spelling

as I found it

in

all texts cited in this article.

2See

the

prefatory page,

entitled

"To

the

Reader,"

in Thomas

Blundeville,

A

Briefe Description of

Universal

Mappes

and Cardes

and

of

Their

Use

(London:

printed by Roger

Ward for Thomas

Cadman,

1589).

3A

parallel urge

to

map

and

chart the

human

body

exists in

the mid-to-

late Renaissance; unprecedented numbers of "body maps" appeared in the

medical literature as well as in the

popular

literature of the time.

Maps

of the

body

charting everything

from the venous

system

to the

cosmographical

correspondences

for the

major organs

were constructed

with

the same careful

attention to detail and

accuracy

that

foreign

coastlines were.

(See

Michael

Feher, ed.,

Fragmentsfor

a

History of

theHuman

Body,

3 vols.

(Cambridge,

MA:

MIT

Zone

Press,

1991).

While

actual

maps

and charts of the

body

are not the

subject

of this

essay, they might fruitfully

be

explored

in the context

of

geographical exploration

and colonial

enterprise.

4For

a

thorough account

of Burton's

interest

in

geography, please

see

E.

Patricia

Vicari,

The View From Minerva's Tower:

Learning

and

Imagination

in

"TheAnatomyof Melancholy (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: Univ. of Toronto

Press, 1989).

Professor Vicari has

thoroughly catalogued

Burton's

geographical

authorities. The

book

includes

a useful

appendix listing

Burton's

sources on geography.

Her list is

organized by period (Ancient, Medieval,

Modern), type (Physical

and General

Geography

and

Cartography,

Historical

and

Political, Urban

and

Political, etc.),

and

region (America, Europe, etc.).

5Skelton, p.

1.

6Robert

Burton,

The

Anatomy of Melancholy,

eds. Thomas C.

Faulkner,

Nicolas K.

Kiessling,

and Rhonda

L.

Blair

(Oxford:

Clarendon

Press, 1989-),

1:23 (based

on the

1632 edition).

All

subsequent quotations

from

Burton's

TheAnatomyof Melancholyhave been taken from this edition, unless otherwise

specified.

7Burton's

brother,

William

Burton,

was

also interested

in

maps.

The

line

Robert Burton

borrows

from him here is taken from

the Preface

to

William

Burton,

Descriptionof

Leistershire

London: printed by W.Jaggard

forJ.

White,

1622).

This

information

comes

from

an

explanatory

note Burton himself

added to his

Anatomy.

8Vicari, p.

31.

9A

very helpful

tool for

Burton scholars

wishing

to learn more about

Burton's

grasp

of

geography

and

cartography

is Nicolas K.

Kiessling,

The

Library of

Robert

Burton

(Oxford:

Oxford

Bibliographical Society, 1988).

"'Albert Baugh et al., eds., A Literary History of England (New York and

London:

Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1948), pp.

597-98.

"Vicari, p.

41.

'2Democritus,

the

philosopher

of

Abdera

(ca.

460

B.C.),

was a

writer on

geography himself,

and Strabo mentions

him as an

influence on

his

own work.

See

Rev.

H.F.

Tozer,

Selections

rom

Strabo

(Oxford:

Clarendon

Press, 1893),

p.

47.

'3Baugh, pp.

597-98.

125







BURTON'S GEOGRAPHY

'4Vicari,

p.

31.

'5Robert

Burton,

The

AnatomyofMelancholy,

ed.

Floyd

Dell and

PaulJordan-

Smith (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1955), p. 32n. Subsequent references

to

pages

in

the Dell edition will be noted in

parenthetical

references after

the

quoted

text.

'6W.

Falconer and

H.C.

Hamilton, trans.,

The

Geography

of

Strabo,

2

vols.

(London

and

New

York:

George

Bell

and

Sons,

1892),

2:116.

'7In

Marvelous Possessions

Stephen

Greenblatt makes the

claim that

the

foolscap map

is a

representation

of "travelas

folly" (Chicago:

Univ. of

Chicago

Press,

1991),

plate

10.

While

folly

and the world are

closely

associated on

the

map,

there

is

nothing

on

it

to

imply

travel.

The Latin

inscriptions

on the head-

and-shoulders

figure

tell

us that it is

misleading

to

explain

the

map

as an

image

of "travel"at all. It is a decorative map, not a functional one, and its vision of

the

world is

relatively

archaic

compared

to that of other

maps being produced

in

the same

period.

Its

spokesmen

are ancient ones

who

stubbornly bespeak

traditional

attitudes toward the

world;

it served to

reinvigorate

an

existing

world

view and

to

reinforce

traditional values

and

beliefs. The

foolscap map

expresses

little or

nothing

of

the

spirit

of

the

age

of

exploration, despite

the

use

of Ortelius's latest

plate

to

represent

the

globe.

'8Burton

was not alone in his

melancholy

world

view,

of

course,

nor was

he

alone

in making use of the "world in a foolscap" metaphor. E. Patricia

Vicari

has

discovered a very similar perspective on the world in a sermon by

Thomas

Adams, an Anglican, City preacher.

"Stultorum

plena sunt omnia, -it

were no hard matter to bring all the world into the compass of a fool's cap,"

wrote

Adams

(The Worksof Thomas Adams, ed. Thomas Smith [Edinburgh and

London:

1861]; quoted in Vicari, p. 33). It is unclear whether Adams was

referring

to

a commonplace of the day or whether he had in fact seen the

same

map Burton had.

'9The

map

to which Burton refers, and its French precursor, have an

unusually

interesting history. For full details, see Rodney W. Shirley, The

Mapping

of the World:Early

Printed

World Maps, 1472-1700 (London: Holland

Press,

1983),

pp. 157-58, 189-90. Only seven or eight copies of the copper-

plate

foolscap

world map are now extant. The copy reproduced in Figure 1

is the only extant copy of the copper engraving in the United States.

(Reference

information:

Foolscap map of the world [copper-plate].

Individual

map,

printed

separately. Antwerp?: ca. 1590. This map is available at

the

Newberry

Library

in Chicago. The reference number is Navacco 2F6.) Ronald

V.

Tooley

has suggested

that the engraver of the map might have been Franz

Hogenberg,

since

it is in the style of Hogenberg's engravings. See Ronald V.

Tooley,

description,

"Geographical Oddities," no. 1 of The Map Collectors'

Series

(London:

The Map Collectors' Circle, 1964), p. 3. Hogenberg was

renowned

as

a

maker

of maps of towns and cities, most notably as a

co-author

of

Braun

and

Hogenberg's Civitates

Orbis

Terrarum. Shirley speculates

that

"some

further

link might be postulated through the recent discovery of

Ortelius's fanciful map of Utopia" (Rodney W. Shirley, "Epichthonius

Cosmopolites:

Who Was He?" The Map Collector18 [March 1982]: 3940). The

Utopian

map

is

clearly related to Sir Thomas More's Utopia published in 1516,

and

the

ancestry

of the foolscap map, with its epigrams and references to the

foolishness

and

vanities

of this world, may well derive from Erasmus's parallel

work

In

Praise

of

Folly published

five

years earlier, in 1511

(Shirley,

"Epichthonius

Cosmopolites: Who Was He?," pp. 39-40). Some evidence

supports

this

idea,

since Burton mentions Erasmus at a later point in

The

Anatomy

with

the observation "Erasmus urgeth in his Moria [Folly], fools beget

126







128 BURTON'S

G

E

O

G

R A P H Y

Sixteenthand Seventeenth

Centuries,

2

vols.

[Cambridge: Cambridge

Univ.

Press,

1952], 1:178-81.)

Elsewhere in

Shakespeare,

the head is likened

to a

planet;

in 2

Henry

VI,

the

queen

who makes her entrance in Act

IV,

scene iv with

Suffolk's head exclaims:

"Ah,

barbarous villains hath this

lovely

face

/

Rul'd

like

a

wandering planet

over

me,

/

And could it not enforce them to

relent,

/

That were

unworthy

to

behold

the same?"

(IV.iv.15-18).

In "Sonnet

68"

the

face becomes a

map

of

age:

"Thus is his

cheek

the

map

of

days

outworn,

/

When

beauty

liv'd and died

as flowers

do

now,

/

Before these bastard

signs

of fair were

born,

/

Or durst inhabit on a

living

brow." Victor

Morgan

has

noted that

"Shakespeare

also

exploited

the notion of the

map

as a microcosm

that

signified

a

larger

matter,

or

fundamentals of character"

(Victor

Morgan,

"The

Literary

Image

of Globes

and

Maps

in

Early

Modern

England,"

English

Map-Making1550-1650, ed. SarahTyacke [London: The British Library, 1983],

p.

53).

For

example,

in The

Rape

ofLucreceShakespeare

describes the

sleeping

Lucrece

as

"Showing

life's

triumph

in

a

map

of

death,

/

And death's dim look

in life's

mortality"

(lines 402-403).

In this

instance,

"sleep

is a

sign,

a

microcosm,

which is a

map,

of the

larger

matter,

death"

(Morgan, p.

53).

Elsewhere the face of the ravished Lucrece is also described as

being

like a

map:

"While with a

joyless

smile she turns

away

/

The

face,

that

map

which

deep impression

bears

/

Of

hard

misfortune,

carv'd

[in it]

with

tears"

(lines

1711-13). (For

details on additional

map imagery

in

Shakespeare,

which I do

not have

space

to mention

here,

see

Morgan, pp. 46-56.)

All

Shakespeare

quotations

have

been taken from

The

Riverside

Shakespeare,

d.

G. Blakemore

Evans et al.

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974).

24Morgan, pp. 52-55.

25Morgan,p. 53.

26Shirley, "Epichthonius Cosmopolites," pp.

3940.

27Shirley, "Epichthonius Cosmopolites," p.

40.

28Shirley, "Epichthonius Cosmopolites," p.

40.

291

owe

this

theory

to

Professor David

Bevington

of the

University

of

Chicago [in conversation].

30M.C.

Howatson, ed.,

The

OxfordCompanion

to

English Literature,2nd

edn.

(Oxford:

Oxford Univ.

Press, 1989), p. 222.

3'Catherine B. Avery, ed., TheNew CenturyClassical Handbook(New York:

Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962), p.

449.

32Ibid.

"Ibid.

3Howatson, p. 222.

"Avery, p.

449.

"There is another

Erichthonius known to

us

from Homeric

legend (The

Iliad)

"who

was a

son of Dardanus" who "succeeded to his father's

kingdom."

Somewhat

later,

the

kingdom

came

to

be known as the

Troad,

named after

Erichthonius's own

son Tros

(Avery, p. 449).

37Persius,

The Satires

of Persius,

trans. W.S. Merwin

(Bloomington:

Indiana

Univ.

Press, 1961), p.

61.

"Pliny

the

Elder,

Natural

History,

vol.

1,

trans. Horace

Rackham,

Loeb

Classical

Library (Cambridge:

Harvard

Univ. Press, 1940), p.

309.

"Pliny,

1:310.

40Persius,

Satires

of

A. Persius

Flaccus, trans. John Conington (Oxford:

Clarendon

Press, 1874), pp. 8-9.

41The

inspiration

for the

foolscap maps

as well as for other

maps

in the

shape

of

human figures, like Putsch's Virgin Europe map or Munster's Europa

(in post-1580 editions of the Cosmography), came from ancient Greek







ANNE S. CHAPPLE

precedents.

After the

"rediscovery"

of classical

texts

during

the

Renaissance,

a

number of Greek and

Latin

texts on

geography

circulated in

England,

including works by Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and Hippocrates. In addition,

works

by

various Renaissance commentators on

geography,

such

as

Gerbel,

were available.

According

to Professor

Bunbury,

"The

geography

of Strabo

is not

only

the most

important

geographical

work that has come down to us

from

antiquity,

but it is

unquestionably

one of the most

important

ever

produced by

any

Greek or

Roman

writer"

(Tozer,

p.

55).

Strabo,

this most

important

Greek

geographer,

was well known to Renaissance intellectuals.

In the Middle

Ages, according

to Rev.

Tozer,

Strabo

was known as "the

geographer par

excellence,"

and he continued to

enjoy popularity

in

the

Renaissance

(p.

43).

4Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools, trans., introd., and comm. Edwin

Zeydel

(New

York:

Columbia

Univ.

Press,

1944),

pp.

24-31.

4Brant,

pp.

116-17.

"Nicholas Gerbelius

(also

known

as

Nicolai

Gerbe,

Nicholas

Gerbel,

and

Nicolai

Gerbelij)

was a

sixteenth-century

commentator and

geographer

in his

own

right

who

wrote,

among

other

things,

In

descriptionem

Graeciae

Sophiani,

praefatio,

the treatment

of

Sophianus's map

to

which Burton is

probably

referring

(Nicolai

Gerbelij,

In

descriptionem

Graeciae

Sophiani,praefatio

[Basel:

1545]). Subsequent

references

appear

in

the text. I believe

that

Burton

used

this

document as the

primary

source for

his

information

about

Strabo,

as well

as for

the

comparison

of Greece

to

"the

picture

of a man."

Hippocrates

wrote

at least one geographical essay, the lengthy "Airs, Waters, Places." See

Hippocrates,

rans.

W.H.S.Jones,

4

vols.

(Cambridge,

MA:

Harvard Univ.

Press,

1962).

4Hippocrates, 1:121, 123-125.

"Burton could also

be

referring

to

Nicolaus

Gerbelius's

much

longer

work

Pro declaratione

picturae

siue

descriptionis

Graeciae

Sophiani,

libri

septemprinted

in Basel in

1550,

which

he

numbered

among

the volumes in his

personal

collection

(Kiessling, p. 126).

To

date,

I

have been unable

to obtain

a

copy

of

the

longer

Pro

declaratione

and

therefore cannot

determine

which source he

consulted.

According

to

the

National Union

Catalog,

it is available

at

the

University

of

Pennsylvania

in

Philadelphia.

47Strabocould have been credited with making such a comparison in some

other

corrupt source, given

the nature

of

many

other

comparisons

in

the

Geography.

The

erroneous attribution

may

indicate

good guesswork

on

Burton's

part. Alternatively,

Burton

could have

been

working

from a

corrupt

text.

To describe the

shape

of

particular

land

formations

in his

Geography,

Strabo

often

compares

them to familiar

objects,

both animate

and

inanimate;

some

examples

include

a

leaf

of a

plane tree,

a

stag's

head and

horns,

a

millipede,

etc. One

obvious

example

from Strabo's

work

reads

"The

Peloponnesus

resembles

in

figure

the leaf

of a

plane

tree"

(Falconer, 2:5).

Pliny

uses the

same

comparison

in

Book

4, Chapter

4

of

his Natural

History.

We know that Burton

owned a

copy

of

Pliny

the

Elder's Natural

History,

in

Latin

(Kiessling, p. 238). By comparing

these

geographical

features

to

familiar

objects,

both Strabo and

Pliny

enabled

their readers

to

visualize

them.

Hippocrates, too,

made

anthropomorphic comparisons

in

at least

two of

the

essays

in the

Hippocratic Anthology.

"Pliny,

2:125.

4Pliny, 2:124.

50Pliny,

1:135.

5'For

more information about the

imaging

of

geography,

see

Karl

W.

Butzer's "Ueber

Strabo's

Geography" (cited

in

Tozer, p. 35;

no other

129







130

BURTO

N' S

GEOGRAPHY

bibliographic

information

available).

If

one stretches

one's

imagination

a

bit,

it is

possible

to see the

supposed

head-and-shoulders

"picture

of a man" in

the lower

left-hand corner

of the

Europa map,

included in

post-1580

editions

of

Sebastian

Munster's

Cosmography. Presumably,

the maker

of the

map

included in

Munster's

book either read

Pliny

or

the

Gerbelius

summary

account of it.

52Mikhail

Bakhtin,

Rabelais and His

World,

trans.

Helene

Iswolsky

(Bloomington:

Indiana Univ.

Press,

1984),

p.

357.

53Bakhtin,

pp.

355-57.

54Bakhtin,

p.

355.

55Many

hanks to Dr.

James

Akerman,

Dr. David

Buisseret,

and Dr. Robert

Karrow of the

Newberry

Library

for their

advice and

assistance,

and to

the

Herman Dunlap Smith Center at the Newberry for a generous fellowship

which

helped

to

make this work

possible.

More thanks to Karl

Longstreth

and Professor

Walter

Mignolo

of the

University

of

Michigan

for

helping

to

make the

fellowship possible. Special

thanks to Professor David

Bevington

and Professor

Richard Strier of

the

University

of

Chicago

for moral

support

and

encouragement.

More

thanks to

ProfessorJanis

Holm of

Ohio

University

for the

editorial

expertise

she

generously

contributed to

this

project.

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