The Four Humours and Their Associations

The concept of the four humours is an ancient Greek theory about the makeup of the human body, first proposed by Galen, a Greek physician and philosopher in the second century CE. Galen compared the structure of the human body to the structure of the universe, and claimed that within this system, four different humours, or fluids, flowed through the body. The levels of these fluids was influenced by a person's diet or activity level. According to Galen, an imbalance of the proper levels of the four humours was the cause of disease.

The four humours correspond to four temperaments: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic. Sanguine is happy: it is the humour of content, cheerfulness, optimism, and is associated with blood. Choleric is angry: it is the humour of the hot-tempered and irate, and is associated with yellow bile. Melancholic is sad: the humour of depression, sadness, low spirits, and is associated with black bile. And Phlegmatic is sluggishness: the humour of slothfulness, impassivity and apathy, associated with phlegm, or mucus.

According to the theory of the four humours, a person's emotion was determined by the levels of these fluids in the body. For example, anger was caused by a rush of Yellow Bile to the heart, while slothfulness was caused by an excess of Phlegm.

Galen's theories were so well established that they were commonly held until the 17th century, when the four humours made an appearance in literature. Especially in Elizabethan drama, the four humours and their corresponding temperaments were used as templates for characters. By classifying a character as Sanguine or Melancholic, the writer already had a series of personality traits set up for him.

Here are three examples of Shakespearean characters who can be classified according to the four humours:

1: Antonio, from "Merchant of Venice," is a Melancholic character, someone who has too much Black Bile in their system.

2: Katherine, from "Taming of the Shrew," is a Choleric character, someone with too much Yellow Bile.

3: Macbeth may be both a Melancholic and a Choleric character. In the play, he switches between the two temperaments like a manic-depressive.

The Four Humours and Their Associations

Blood

Temperament: Sanguine

Element: Air

Body Organ: Liver

Personality: Courageous, happy, hopeful, irresponsible, amorous/lustful, generous

Qualities: Warm & Moist

Yellow Bile

Temperament: Choleric

Element: Fire

Body Organ: Gall bladder

Personality: Easily angered, bad-tempered, violent, vengeful, ambitious

Qualities: Warm & Dry

Black Bile

Temperament: Melancholic

Element: Earth

Body Organ: Spleen

Personality: Despondent, sleepless, irritable, sentimental, gluttonous

Qualities: Cold & Dry

Phlegm

Temperament: Phlegmatic

Element: Water

Body Organ: Brain/Lungs

Personality: Calm, unemotional, sluggish, cowardly

Qualities: Cold & Moist

Examples from Shakespeare (italics mine)

Othello, IV, i, lines 90-91: "Or I shall say you're all in spleen,/ and nothing of a man."

Othello, III, iv, lines 38-39: "This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart./ Hot, hot and moist. This hand of yours..."

Othello, V, ii, lines 133-134: "Thou art as rash as fire to say that she was false."

Taming of the Shrew, Induction, ii, line 143: "Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your blood..."

Taming of the Shrew, III, ii, lines 10-13: "No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forced/ To give my hand opposed against my heart/ Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen,/ Who wooed in haste and means to we at leisure."

Taming of the Shrew, IV, I, lines 168-173: "I tell thee Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away,/ And I expressly am forbid to touch it,/ For it engenders choler, planteth anger,/ And better 'twere both of us did fast,/ Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,/ Than feed it with such overroasted flesh."

A Midsummer Night's Dream, I, i: "Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion."

Twelfth Night, II, iv: "She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought; And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief."

Allusions to the four humours occur frequently in Shakespeare, as well as in other plays during the Elizabethan era and before. While Galen's theory of the four humours has been replaced by modern scientific observation, a version of this theory survives in modern psychological theories of personality which may still use terms such as Sanguine and Choleric.

Sources:

Best, Michael. Shakespeare's Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions,

University of Victoria: Victoria, BC, 2001-2005. 27 June 2007.

Wellcome Collection. "The Heart: About the Exhibit."

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/heart/WTD027765.htm.

"The Four Humours in Renaissance and Elizabethan time."

http://www.kheper.net/topics/typology/four_humours.html

"Humorism." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 24 Jun 2007, 18:35 UTC.

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 Jun 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Humorism&oldid=140350470>.