Antidotes for Melancholy in Early Modern England

[benbreen]

https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/better-than-a-pound-of-sorrow/

[amarant]

Here in Sweden, we have this genre of songs called nubbe-visor, which sometimes incorporate a brief pause for you to drink a small glass of spiced booze (other songs you drink at the end).

The songs are often witty, funny, and romantic about alcohol.

I swear they work better than my sertralin prescription against melancholy!

[thombat → amarant]

That sounds like something that works best in company? Or can you also enjoy them alone, and if so, would you enjoy them that way if you'd never earlier performed that observance in company?

For me, of a perforce-alone evening I can sometimes toast myself with: "nur ein Schwein trinkt allein" (only a pig drinks alone), but it's in memory of times the blessing was conjoint, so joyous not melancholic.

[mcswell]

Guinevere: What else do the simple folk do To help them escape when they're blue?

King Arthur: They sit around and wonder what royal folk would do.

(long before early modern England)