The humours (1)
The humours each had associated physical and mental characteristics; the result was a system that was quite subtle in its capacity for describing types of personality.
| Humour | Qualities | Element | Personality |
| Sanguine | hot, moist | air | Optimistic, red-cheeked, corpulent, irresponsible (compare Falstaff). |
| Choleric | hot, dry | fire | Short-tempered, red-haired, thin, ambitious (compare Hotspur). |
| Phlegmatic | cold, moist | water | Sluggish, pallid, corpulent, lazy (Are any of Shakespeare's characters phlegmatic?). |
| Melancholic | cold, dry | earth | Introspective, sallow, thin (compare Richard II, Hamlet). |
In addition, different humours could be combined for more complex personality types: choleric-sanguine, phlegmatic-melancholic, and so on.