In tragedies, the characters usually start out with a normal excess of their temperamental humour, but thru their actions and reactions their excess is built up, leading to more and more extreme behaviour until all hope of restoring balance is lost. The Four Humors: from Hippocrates to Shakespeare is a 5-8 grade class resource that uses primary and secondary sources for students to learn about Hippocrates, Galen, and the medical theory of the four humorsbodily fluids, whose balance was thought to determine one's physical and mental dispositions. Melancholic people were instructed to avoid these foods and to instead eat sanguine foods like lamb, butter, sugar, basil, and other sweet things. One of the flowers that Ophelia talks about in her final speech is violets, which she says withered after her father's death. King Henry IV is melancholic and despondent. Herbs that support this imbalance include pungent, stimulating, and aromatic herbs, such fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum), bay laurel(Laurus nobilis),fir(Picea abies),thyme(Thymus vulgaris),and hyssop(Hyssopus officinalis) (Osborn, 2015). When in mourning, its not uncommon to withdraw and find somewhere to sit and cry. Elizabethans believed that the balance of the four humors would keep them healthy. humour, also spelled Humor, (from Latin "liquid," or "fluid"), in early Western physiological theory, one of the four fluids of the body that were thought to determine a person's temperament and features. Hippocrates - Greek physician (c460BC - 370BC). Come explore. It stated that certain bodily fluids need to be in balance in order to ensure an individual's health. %%EOF Retrieved from https://www.passionsandtempers.com, Galen (2003). 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." What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? As a class review the two handouts and tell students that they are to examine closely Hamlet's temperament during the exposition and rising action part of the play's dramatic structure. I feel like its a lifeline. Shakespeare Online. Hamlet talks about his reasons for admiring and trusting Horatio here, noting specifically the . Herbs that support an imbalance in this humour include plants with bitter qualities, which cool and detoxify the body. Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers . Analysis: To be, or not to be (3.1.64-98) Mary McMahon. New York, NY: W.W. Norton. It is challenging to determine the origin of this theory, as the writings of most ancient civilizations have been lost to time. Yellow bile. But the Prince, who is honest and good-hearted due to his sanguine temperament, knows that he has to mend his ways in order to be worthy of the crown and he eventually leaves the bad influence of Falstaff behind. It crops out at every turn, and indicates the essential soundness of his mind. The humours affect your whole being, from your health and feelings to your looks and actions. The theory of the four humours informed many of Shakespeare's best-known characters, including the phlegmatic Falstaff. Humoral theory was popular for a long time, but what are the four humors? | Melancholy Temperament. The phlegmatic and sanguine temperaments have a lot in common. THE THEORY OF THE FOUR HUMOURS The theory of the four humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) rst appears in a fth-century bcHippocratic treatise called The Nature of Man, the only treatise from the Hippocratic Corpus to which we can attribute an author's name. The four types of. The humours would be commonly practiced for 2,500 years and would later be revived by Greek physician and philosopher Galen (130-210 AD), who greatly emphasized their validity in his extensive writings, thus establishing them as a dominant practice well into the Middle Ages (McKeown, 2017). Choler was primarily associated with summer. Shall I be frighted when a madman stares? (Arikha, 2007). Galen taught Elizabethan doctors about fire, water, earth, and air. Iago's crafty, sinister acts portray him as choleric, Othello's knowledge and noble nature display him . Please simply create an account before buying/booking any courses. The body was a system of four fluid "humours": black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. Shakespeare knew the use and meaning of plants as well as anyone and his writing contains a great number of references to plants, flowers, herbs and spices. The roots of humorism go back to Empedocles (c.495-435 BCE), a Greek philosopher who suggested that different qualities of the four basic elementsearth (cold Similarly, the four humours loosely correspond to the wheel of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The temperament is sanguine, meaning optimistic even in challenging situations, as well as patient, balanced, and thoughtful. Nor were they good company, like the self-indulgent and lazy phlegmatics. Choleric people were quick to anger and highly irritable. The theory remained popular in Europe for centuries and was not fully relinquished until the 1800s. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet/humourhamlet.html >. Ageing was in itself seen as a process of gradual drying of the flesh and cooling of bodily humours. Ill touch my point/With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly/It may be death.. An error occurred trying to load this video. Whether we have ancestors from ancient Greece, China, or India doesnt matter so much. 4. He is working on his PhD. 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. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.. Phlegm was another important component of humorism. The young warrior's choler gave him courage but phlegm produced cowards. Blood was thought to be generated in the heart and was primarily associated with the spring, as well as with heat and wetness. Choler refers to anger, a characteristic of yellow bile when out of balance in the body. All diseases and disabilities resulted from an excess or deficit of one of these four humors. Retrieved from, (O. Powell, Trans.). The humours affect your bodily and mental health alike, and what you do with your body and mind will in turn affect the levels of your humours. Boston R.G. %PDF-1.7 % Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: the Four Humors (A) Main idea: Hamlet is not mad. The belief that blood, yellow bile, black bile, balance of his humors: blood and phlegm noted as "judgment." He goes on to talk about how a . Curator Gail Kern Paster explains "The four humors were an early typology for human personality. Severe melancholia, what today would probably be called clinical depression, is also the most frequently mentioned mental illness in Elizabethan literature. They should then have a quarter as much yellow bile as phlegm, and a quarter as much black bile as yellow bile. Heat stimulated action, cold depressed it. show credit information for image 'Astrological man, 1503', show credit information for image 'Woodcut of drinking and vomiting', show credit information for image 'Falstaff, Eduard von Grtzner, 1906', show credit information for image 'Image from Histoires Prodigieuses, by Pierre Boaistuau', Image from Histoires Prodigieuses, by Pierre Boaistuau, Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. ), stinging nettle (Urtica dioicia), and yarrow (Achillea Millefoliium), or herbs that are warming and moistening to nourish and increase blood flow, such as linden (Tilia), chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla), and hawthorn (Crataegus spp.). This idea dates back to ancient Greece, where the body was seen more or less as a shell containing four different humours, or fluids: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Although hes young, he still ticks all the boxes. The Significance of the Ghost in Armor We use a third party provider, dotdigital, to deliver our newsletters. Principles of treatment [Blog Post]. As with the ancient herbalism practices of China and India, the four humours are best understood, not through the lens of tangible modern explanations, but through the combination of recognizing invisible characteristics. If the humours were in imbalance, then the person was sick. 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). What is Phlebotomy? Affiliate links are shared throughout the website and the Herbal Academy may receive compensation if you make a purchase with these links. In Hamlet, the advisor Polonius, misreading the causes of the Prince's apparent lunacy as romantic rejection, offers a neat analysis of his illness that makes the relationship between love and madness very clear. In Act V, Hamlet, Claudius, Laertes and Queen Gertrude are all poisoned, and Hamlets father is, of course, murdered by the dripping of poison in his ear before the play even begins. Claudius and the Condition of Denmark These characteristics include energetics, elements, and temperament, as well as understanding the complexity of the natural world. Short-tempered, red-haired, thin, ambitious (compare Hotspur). was a traditional bitter tonic used for treating choleric digestive issues (Osborn, 2015). On His first meeting with Horatio furnishes opportunity. Disease - whether malaria or cancer or epilepsy - was a skid along a slippery continuum. Osborn, D. (2015). 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. Soliloquy Analysis: Now might I do it pat (3.3.77-100) Soliloquy Analysis: Tis now the very witching time of night (3.2.380-91) Cesare Ripa, 1610. Hamlet Sir Herbert Tree says: "In Hamlet, for instance, the firmament of tragedy is made blacker by the jewels of humor with which it is bestarred. These humours in turn were composed of four qualities (hot, dry, cold and . Blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile: the bodys four humours were believed to control your personality in Shakespeares day and influenced the way the Bard created some of his most famous characters. Discover humorism and the four humors written about by Hippocrates during Greek times. Arikha, N. (2007). The Herbal Academy neither endorses them nor is in any way responsible for their content. Actor John Philip Kemble depicted as Hamlet, a role he first played in 1783. Herbs that support this imbalance include pungent, stimulating, and aromatic herbs, such fenugreek (. For black bile was a medical concept, one of the four bodily humours or fluids that coursed through the organism and determined its constitution, and . the first skull he says: "It might be the pate of a politician . , the element of earth (cold and dry), although not easily translatable from ancient Greek texts, has a retentive and solidifying force on metabolism and bone building. quite chop-fallen?" Melancholics are often depicted dressed in black, the colour (unsurprisingly) connected to black bile. endstream endobj 110 0 obj <>>> endobj 111 0 obj <. Hippocrates's humoral theory of illness proposed that the body consisted of four humors: black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. Revenge in Hamlet He has given Hamlet nearly all varieties of humor, from the playful to the sardonic. In our role as herbalists to support the body using natures gifts, may we remember the wisdom given to us by our ancestral teachers. 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