Student Excerpts: The Temperaments

Student Huda, provided an excellent "translation" for her assignment on the Temperments. This is taken from Chauser's "The Four Complexions":

Melancholic:

The water,
which is moyste and cold,
Makth fleume,
which is many fold
Foryetel, slou and wery sone
Of every thing which is to done:
He is of kinde sufficant
To holde love his covenant,
Bot that him lacketh appetit,
Which longeth unto such delit.

Interpretation:
The water, which is moist and cold,
Makes phlegm, which is manifold
Forgetful, slow and wearisome
Of everything which is to be done:
He is of kind sufficient.
To hold love his covenant,
But that he lacks appetite,
Which longs unto such delight

She further shares:
This is very much the typical characteristics of a Phlegmatic, a phlegmatic’s humour is wet (moist) and cold, consequently producing phlegm. Characteristics of the phlegmatic are forgetfulness, slowness and fatigue. Phlegamatics consider love as a covenant, the phlegmatic has many friends and are reliable and compassionate. The phlegmatic suffers from a lack of appetite however; they crave pleasurable foods, which are likely to imbalance them such as milk, sugar and wheat.