The Anatomy of Melancholy

The places. Fear concerns a future evil within the classification of affections. (p. 25; DJR-025-28.)

In this edition. “or future, as Fear” → “Or they concern some future evil, as fear does” (DJR-025-28). The modern sentence supplies the repeated subject and object needed to make Burton’s compressed contrast clear. It preserves the opposition between present sorrow and anticipated fear.

See also. Passion; Jealousy; Shame.

Feral

Source forms: feral; ferall

The word. Feral can mean savage or brutal; ferall can also mean deadly or fatal. The spelling alone does not decide between these senses.

In Burton. The comparison with Hercules describes vices as savage monsters of the mind, to be fought by moral reform. In the account of persistent melancholy, a ferall plague is a deadly affliction that follows the sufferer everywhere, like an arrow lodged in a wounded deer.

The places. Feral describes the vices opposed by Crates. (p. 59; DJR-015-28.) Ferall describes an inescapable affliction. (p. 184; DJR-059-06.)

In this edition. “feral vices” → “savage vices” (DJR-015-28); “ferall plague” → “deadly affliction” (DJR-059-06). Savage preserves the monstrous moral imagery; deadly gives the second passage its fatal force. Plague there names an affliction rather than establishing a specific infectious disease.

See also. Calenture and ague; Desperate.

Flux and lask

Source forms: fluxes; lask

The word. Flux names a flow or discharge; in the cited illness account, fluxes are bowel discharges, commonly diarrhoea or dysentery. A lask is diarrhoea or looseness of the bowels.

In Burton. Travellers’ fluxes appear beside burning fevers in the warning about unfamiliar foods. The minister’s sudden lask forces an embarrassing retreat; Burton uses the reported incident to illustrate the power of shame. The bodily event and the emotional consequence occupy different roles in the story.

The places. Fluxes afflict travellers in the account of unfamiliar diets. (p. 77; DJR-035-52.) A sudden lask begins the minister’s story of shame. (p. 99–100 [supplied; scan p. 200]; DJR-040-34.)

In this edition. “Calentures, Fluxes” → “burning fevers and diarrhoea” (DJR-035-52); “suddenly taken with a lask or looseness” → “suddenly seized with diarrhoea” (DJR-040-34). Diarrhoea makes the bowel sense explicit in both passages. It does not carry over every possible meaning of flux into these contexts.

See also. Purging.

Fond

Source forms: fond

The word. Fond here means foolish or deluded. It does not express affection, attachment or liking.

In Burton. Burton begins with people laughing at an old man described as a little fond, then extends the charge of folly to the whole town and eventually to everyone. The passage turns a familiar insult about age into a universal accusation; its argument depends on that widening movement.

The places. The old man’s supposed foolishness becomes an example of general folly. (p. 22; DJR-008-02.)

In this edition. “by reason of his age was a little fond” → “whose age had made him a little foolish” (DJR-008-02). Foolish gives the immediate sense. The successive quotations and English restatements remain, allowing the expansion from one person to everyone to be followed.

See also. Conceit.

Form

Source forms: form; formam

The word. Form has several unrelated contextual uses here: a hare’s shallow resting place, a bench, and the philosophical form that gives determination or fulfilment to matter. A hare’s form is not a burrow.