Three Books on Life

...they join, and are compelled to separate from the body to that extent. From this, their body is sometimes rendered as if half-alive and melancholic. This is indeed what our Plato signifies in the Timaeus One of Plato's most influential dialogues, dealing with the creation of the world and the nature of the soul and body., saying that the soul, contemplating divine things most frequently and intensely, grows so powerful on such nourishment that it exceeds its own body beyond what the nature of the body can endure; and by its more violent agitations, it sometimes either escapes the body in a certain way, or sometimes seems as if it might dissolve it.

Why melancholics are gifted, and what kind of melancholics are like this, and what kind are the opposite. Chapter 5.

—So far, let it suffice to have shown why the priests of the Muses original: "musarum sacerdotes". A poetic way of describing scholars, poets, and philosophers dedicated to learning. are either melancholic from the start, or become so through study, by first celestial, second natural, and third human reasons. Aristotle confirms this indeed in his book of Problems. For he says that all men who have been outstanding in any field were melancholics. In this matter, he confirmed that Platonic saying written in the book On Knowledge original: "libro de scientia". Ficino likely refers to the Theaetetus, where Plato discusses the nature of genius and the philosopher's "dizziness.": namely, that the gifted are usually very agitated and prone to frenzy. Democritus also says that no men can ever be great in genius except those who are stirred by a certain frenzy. Our Plato seems to prove this indeed in the Phaedrus, saying that the gates of poetry are knocked upon in vain without frenzy. And even if he perhaps wants divine frenzy original: "divinum furorem". A state of inspired "madness" where the soul is moved by a higher power, which Ficino believed was the source of all great art and philosophy. to be understood here, nevertheless, among physicians, such frenzy is never incited in any others except melancholics. Next, however, we must assign the reasons why Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle assert that some melancholics sometimes so excel everyone in genius that they seem not human but rather divine. Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle undoubtedly assert this. Yet they do not seem to explain the reason for such a great matter sufficiently. Nevertheless, with God showing the way, we must dare to investigate the causes. Melancholy, that is...