]Cebes' table, may well be coupled with it.
[1641]Chrysostom, in his seventeenth epistle to Olympia, describes it to be
"a cruel torture of the soul, a most inexplicable grief, poisoned worm,
consuming body and soul, and gnawing the very heart, a perpetual
executioner, continual night, profound darkness, a whirlwind, a tempest, an
ague not appearing, heating worse than any fire, and a battle that hath no
end. It crucifies worse than any tyrant; no torture, no strappado, no
bodily punishment is like unto it." 'Tis the eagle without question which
the poets feigned to gnaw [1642]Prometheus' heart, and "no heaviness is
like unto the heaviness of the heart," Eccles. xxv. 15, 16. [1643]"Every
perturbation is a misery, but grief a cruel torment," a domineering
passion: as in old Rome, when the Dictator was created, all inferior
magistracies ceased; when grief appears, all other passions vanish. "It
dries up the bones," saith Solomon, cap. 17. Prov., makes them hollow-eyed,
pale, and lean, furrow-faced, to have dead looks, wrinkled brows,
shrivelled cheeks, dry bodies, and quite perverts their temperature that
are misaffected with it. As Eleonara, that exiled mournful duchess (in our
[1644]English Ovid), laments to her noble husband Humphrey, Duke of
Gloucester,

"Sawest thou those eyes in whose sweet cheerful look
Duke Humphrey once such joy and pleasure took,
Sorrow hath so despoil'd me of all grace,
Thou couldst not say this was my Elnor's face.
Like a foul Gorgon," &c.

[1645]"It hinders concoction, refrigerates the heart, takes away stomach,
colour, and sleep, thickens the blood," ([1646]Fernelius, _l. 1. c. 18. de
morb. causis_,) "contaminates the spirits." ([1647]Piso.) Overthrows the
natural heat, perverts the good estate of body and mind, and makes them
weary of their lives, cry out, howl and roar for very anguish of their
souls. David confessed as much, Psalm xxxviii. 8, "I have roared for the
very disquietness of my heart." And Psalm cxix. 4, part 4 v. "My soul
melteth away for very heaviness," v. 38. "I am like a bottle in the smoke."
Antiochus complained that he could not sleep, and that his heart fainted
for grief, [1648]Christ himself, _vir dolorum_, out of an apprehension of
grief, did sweat blood, Mark xiv. "His soul was heavy to the death, and no
sorrow was like unto his." Crato, _consil. 24. l. 2_, gives instance in one
that was so melancholy by reason of [1649]grief;