[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "]
Sin,—None of your correspondents appear to have seen that Burton's epitaph is untranslatable because we have no word in modern English bearing so extensive a meaning as Burton's " melancolia." By vitam dedit et mortem melan- coils," he seems to have meant what he expressed in his prefatory poem to the " Anatomy " by the alternating refrains :—
"All my joys to this are folly Naught so sweet as melancholy";
"All my griPfs to this are folly, Naught so sad as melancholy."
The Elizabethan word " thought " had this double sense,- e.g., Shakespeare speaks of people " dying of thought." I think, too, an English version should not assume that its readers know all about Democritus and his studies in the anatomy of "melancholy" The following is humbly sub- mitted, not as a translation, but as a paraphrase :- Here lies one whose English name
Few know ; few but know his fame ; Our Democritus 'tis, he Who gave us Grief's anatomy.
Joy he found as Grief he sought, But found Grief too, and died of Thought.
and—.
—I am, Sir, he., H. C. BEECHING.
Tattendon Rectory, Arewbury, June 10th.
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