From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordA “significator” is an astrological indicator: a celestial body or chart point assigned to represent the person, condition or matter being judged.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyBurton's self-portrait already separates chart offices.
- In this edition“Horoscope” becomes “ascendant” but remains “horoscope” for the whole figure in the later marriage material.
- A place to readruler, significator and ascendant in the self-portrait
Meaning
A “significator” is an astrological indicator: a celestial body or chart point assigned to represent the person, condition or matter being judged. Burton's “Horoscope” can mean the ascendant, the zodiacal degree rising at the eastern horizon, or the whole birth chart. “Hylech,” modernized as hyleg, names a planet or point assigned to signify life. “promissors” are positions or aspects taken to promise events in a calculated judgement; “radical” identifies their root in the natal figure. These are roles within an interpretive system, not interchangeable names for every object in the sky.
“direction” is the calculated advance used in timing an event. “termes” are subdivisions of zodiacal signs assigned to planets; revolution and transit concern a later celestial cycle or return and a later passage, respectively, related to the birth chart. The printed timing rule offers revolution or transit as alternatives. A planet “combust” is close enough to the Sun for its influence to be regarded as obscured. In the related catalogue, “ferall” means lacking an aspect to another planet, while “fortitudes & debilities” are astrological strengths and weaknesses. The article explains these historical distinctions so that Burton's claims can be followed without endorsing their predictive power.
Use in the book
Burton's self-portrait already separates chart offices. Saturn rules his geniture; Mars is the principal significator of his manners, or character. Mars's conjunction is with the ascendant, while the description of both planets as fortunate concerns their placement. In the exceptional-health example, Leovitius cites a person's fortunate significators and freedom from hostile aspects as evidence for his art. The lexical role of significator does not settle whether the indicated event is also caused by the planet: Burton later explicitly postpones the causes-or-signs dispute.
The Mercury rule uses “Horoscope” in the narrower ascendant sense: Mercury's sign, rising position and relation to Saturn or Mars together enter the reported judgement. The marginal Latin differs from the body by printing “et,” and, where the English gives Virgo or Pisces. That local variation is kept rather than turned into a coherent new rule. A subsequent account of timing lists the ascendant, Moon and hyleg as significators directed towards hostile rays or terms, especially of Saturn and Mars, or towards any fixed star of their nature. Its alternative concerns Saturn adversely affecting natal promissors by revolution or transit. Thus the text distinguishes a calculated direction from later planetary movement; a generic gloss such as stars predicting illness would lose the procedure's stated relationships.
The symptoms chapter shifts from timing to character. Celestial influences supposedly produce varieties of disposition through mutual aspects or rulers of the geniture. Burton immediately records a disagreement: Mercurialis rejects assigning all these symptoms to stellar influence, while Pontano and others defend it. The ensuing series attaches different habits and thoughts to different planetary rulers. “Mercurialists” are contemplative people governed by Mercury, especially poets and philosophers; the Moon's influence is connected instead with journeys, water and wandering thoughts. The next paragraph turns to the most immediate bodily causes in constitution, organs, spirits and humours. The celestial catalogue is therefore neither the only explanation present nor the last link in the causal sequence.
Mercurialists also appear earlier among scholars. Mercury and Saturn are called patrons of learning and dry planets; Origanus is invoked for scholarly poverty, while a myth gives Mercury poverty as a companion. “Mercurialists” there means Mercury's learned followers or dependants. The use joins professional identification, planetary patronage and the satirical complaint about unrewarded scholarship; it should not be reduced to a list of clinical symptoms.
The combust Moon appears in an anecdote, not a birth-chart definition. Guianerius is said to have had an otherwise unlettered patient who could compose Latin verse when the Moon was combust. The larger discussion reports extraordinary abilities and competing explanations: Avicenna and some followers invoke possession rather than melancholy, Jason Pratensis allows both together, whereas most attribute the phenomena to the humour. Montaltus firmly defends the last account. The astrological condition is part of the reported timing; the story does not independently verify either the ability or its cause. Elsewhere combust belongs to the changing-planet analogy for human fortune. Its ordinary burned sense also occurs in the alleged dissection of someone who died for love, where the heart is “combust.” That last occurrence belongs to the rhetoric of love's fire, not proximity to the Sun.
In love and marriage, chart roles gain further objects. Cardan's self-account invokes planets in Mercury's “dignitatibus,” dignities or positions of supposed astrological strength. Marriage predictions consult the seventh house and “Almutens,” planets judged strongest by such dignities; the following admonition treats forecasts as conjectures, not binding decrees. Jealousy is predicted by directing significators towards their promissors, with the result expressly called probable. The later comparison of a wife's horoscope with her husband's asks whether their significators agree. The consultation is proposed if the preceding remedies do not help, and the threatened enmities are what astrologers hold. Here Horoscope is the whole chart, and the reported compatibility depends on relations between two charts, rather than the single rising point of the Mercury rule.
The burning family also has concrete, figurative and social senses. “combustions” are burning procedures listed beside cauteries, borings and lancings; their terror explains the proposed alternatives of blistering plasters and corrosive medicines. In the catalogue of lust's consequences, the same plural instead means bodily burning pains. Youth is “a very combustible matter,” readily set alight by love, especially when youth, wine and night concur. The imagined dissection develops this fire metaphor: the marginal Latin calls the whole heart “combustum,” burned, and the soul “combustam.” Its first-person belief says twice boiled or burned, where the English body reports Empedocles believing the soul either boiled or roasted. A different marginal “Combustus” describes the preacher's execution by the bishop of Würzburg; here burning is a reported punishment, not an astrological state or an amorous image.
“combustion” can also name public turmoil. The Archimedes comparison makes the whole world ablaze while the scholar draws figures; Burton turns the scene into a warning about neglecting public crisis or spiritual danger. Later, “all in a combustion” describes the discord of an uncharitable society. That sentence awkwardly includes disasters that “come not upon us”; the edition preserves its negative, rather than smoothing the whole catalogue into a single uncomplicated causal claim.
The other technical words likewise retain ordinary uses. “ferall” hatred is savage hatred in the French civil wars; “feral fowle” are wild birds in the threat of an unburied corpse; “ferall melancholy” is deadly or destructive melancholy in the moral catalogue. None of those local adjectives denotes an unaspected planet. “fortitude” is courage when set against faint-heartedness, while the marginal “dignitatibus” can mean honours bestowed on a courtier rather than a planet's dignities. Latin “transitus” names the passage of chyle to the liver and, figuratively, the death of the godly as a happy passage from labour to rest. These examples explain why an astrological gloss cannot be carried unchanged into each occurrence.
Related entries
Astrology; Astrological aspects; Geniture; Jovial and martial; Election; Spirits; Humour; Enthusiasm
Places to read
- · paragraph 2–4ruler, significator and ascendant in the self-portrait
- · paragraph 25–29savage hatred and the attributed destruction of the French civil wars
- · paragraph 12–16the world in combustion and the warning against scholarly trifles during crisis
- · paragraph 5–7fortunate significators in the exceptional-health example
- · paragraph 6–10honours bestowed on courtiers in the marginal explanation of unequal advancement
- · paragraph 1–24causes or signs, ascendant, hyleg, directions, fixed-star and revolution-or-transit alternatives, and natal promissors
- · paragraph 22–24Mercurialists as learned followers of Mercury
- · paragraph 29–33bodily passage of chyle and the effects attributed to obstruction
- first and second occurrences, thenplanetary character types, dissent, immediate bodily causes, the combust-Moon anecdote and competing bodily, demonic and combined explanations. Subsection 3 Particular symptoms from the influence of stars, parts of the… · paragraph 2 is on the first 190; Subsection 3 Particular symptoms from the influence of stars, parts of the… · paragraph 8 on the second
- · paragraph 12–14combust, feral, strengths and weaknesses in the fortune analogy
- · paragraph 24–30death as a happy passage for the godly, and wild birds in the threatened fate of an unburied body
- · paragraph 32–36fortitude as courage opposed to faint-heartedness
- · paragraph 7–12burning procedures and proposed blistering alternatives
- · paragraph 36–41social combustion, uncharitableness and the retained awkward negative
- · paragraph 21–25bodily burnings and deadly melancholy in the moral catalogue
- · paragraph 1–11Cardan’s planets in Mercury’s dignities and the surrounding attributed erotic causes
- · paragraph 31–35combustible youth, wine and night in the rhetoric of love’s fire
- · paragraph 61–65the burned heart and soul, with the margin’s whole and twice and its alternative differing from the body
- · paragraph 1–8almutens, marriage judgements and non-compulsion
- · paragraph 2–4significators, promissors and a probable jealousy forecast
- · paragraph 6–11conditional consultation and the astrologers’ comparison of the spouses’ horoscopes
- the preacher, his followers and his reported burning by the bishop of Würzburg
In this edition
“Horoscope” becomes “ascendant” but remains “horoscope” for the whole figure in the later marriage material. “Hor:” names the ascendant; the complete “as the Hor: Moon, Hylech, &c.” list is repositioned as an apposition in the sentence; “Hylech” becomes “hyleg,” and “radical promissors” becomes “natal promissors.” The adjective natal explains radical's local reference to the birth figure, rather than naming a different class of promissor.
“principall significators of manners, diseases” becomes “chief astrological indicators of character and disease.” Astrological clarifies the context; chief renders principall, character renders manners, and the printed comma becomes and. “Mercurialists” becomes “Mercury's followers” in the scholarly passage and “Those governed by Mercury” in the symptoms catalogue. “combust” remains combust for the Moon and becomes burned for the heart. These phrase-level comparisons keep the indicated subject, chart role and ordinary-language sense distinct.
The ordinary “combustions” becomes “burnings” for treatments and “burning” for bodily distress; “combustion” becomes “turmoil” in social discord. “ferall” becomes “savage” or “deadly,” while “feral fowle” becomes “Wild birds.” The marginal forms “combustum,” “combustam” and “Combustus” are participles of comburo, burn: their grammatical subjects or referents are respectively the heart, soul and executed man. The last construction supplies he was in English for an elliptical Latin passive. These marginal Latin quotations and their editorial translations are separate from the modernized body. The ordinary transitus examples similarly distinguish the passage itself from what makes it happy or prevents it: happy belongs to felix, and the blocked-vein construction is recast from passive into active English.
almuten
Printed “Almutens” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Planets judged strongest by astrological dignities.
Context: Reported marriage-judgement procedure; following units reject treating the forecast as binding.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: the seventh house the Almutens, Lords and Planets there
Modern rendering: the seventh house, its almutens, rulers and planets
Supply or redistribution: Its redistributes there as the relationship of the almutens, rulers and planets to the seventh house; it is not a separately printed possessive.
comburo · combustam
Printed “combustam” (Latin; Latin verb lemma; perfect passive participle, accusative feminine singular). Attestation: word form.
Burned; the participle describes the soul, imagined as subjected to love’s fire.
Context: The marginal quotation gives a first-person I believe, while the English body names Empedocles in the account reported through Hoffmann. The margin keeps twice and the alternative boiled or burned; the body instead says either boiled or roasted. Neither is independently established as a historical dissection.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: ut credam miseram illam animam bis elixam aut combustam
Modern rendering: so that I believe that wretched soul twice boiled or burned
Word and construction: The entire belief clause is aligned; combustam supplies only burned within its alternative predicate.
Edition note: checked against the supplied editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note, not the modern body
Supply or redistribution: I is explicit for the first-person credam; so that renders ut.; The object soul comes from animam and twice from bis; neither is contained in combustam.
comburo · combustum
Printed “combustum” (Latin; Latin verb lemma; perfect passive participle, nominative neuter singular). Attestation: word form.
Burned; the participle describes the heart in the marginal dissection report.
Context: The margin expressly says the whole heart; the English body says his heart was combust without that quantifier. Burton reports Hoffmann’s alleged account from Plato, whose historical and textual status remains unverified.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Cor totum combustum
Modern rendering: The whole heart burned
Edition note: checked against the supplied editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note, not the modern body
Supply or redistribution: The supplies an English article; whole belongs to totum, not to combustum.
comburo · Combustus
Printed “Combustus” (Latin; Latin verb lemma; perfect passive participle, nominative masculine singular). Attestation: word form.
Burned or put to death by burning; a passive participle describing the reported execution.
Context: The marginal Münster citation concerns the preacher Hans Böhm in the preceding narrative. The bishop of Würzburg is the stated agent; the man is burned, rather than himself burning something.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Combustus demum ab Herbipolensi Episcopo
Modern rendering: At last he was burned by the bishop of Würzburg
Edition note: checked against the supplied editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note, not the modern body
Supply or redistribution: He was supplies the subject and finite auxiliary for the elliptical passive participle; at last belongs to demum.; The supplies the English article before bishop; of Würzburg unfolds the place adjective Herbipolensi.
combust · local use 1
Printed “combust” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Astrologically obscured through proximity to the Sun.
Context: The combust Moon is a time condition in Guianerius’s reported verse-making anecdote; the patient is otherwise unlettered. Avicenna and followers invoke possession, Jason Pratensis allows both possession and melancholy, while most and Montaltus assign the phenomena to the humour.
Source: original body
Source wording: when the moon was combust
combust · local use 2
Printed “combust” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Burned, in a reported dissection illustrating love’s fire.
Context: Hoffmann’s alleged account from Plato, not verified as a historical dissection or an astrological condition.
Source: original body
Source wording: his heart was combust
combustible
Printed “combustible” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Readily capable of catching fire; figuratively, susceptible to love’s fire.
Context: Youth is the material compared with naphtha, in a conditional description of youth, wine and night coming together. The seven servants and at least three couples are Burton’s rhetorical illustration, not measured proportions.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: a very combustible matter
Modern rendering: highly combustible matter
Supply or redistribution: Highly renders very; the article a is omitted before the modern mass noun matter.
combustion
Printed “combustion” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Turmoil or violent agitation; here collective discord associated with the lack of charity.
Context: Burton connects social misery with uncharitable conduct in a theology of punishment. The later awkward negative come not upon us is retained by the edition, rather than silently converted to an assertion that every listed disaster occurs.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: all in a combustion
Modern rendering: everything in turmoil
Supply or redistribution: All is made explicit as everything; the English indefinite article disappears before the mass noun turmoil.
combustion · combustions · local use 1
Printed “combustions” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Burnings or applications of fire in treatment; here frightening bodily procedures.
Context: Burton presents blistering plasters and corrosive preparations as alternatives devised because burning, boring and lancing are terrible. This is a historical therapeutic account.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: combustions, boarings, launcings
Modern rendering: burnings, borings and lancings
Supply or redistribution: And explicitly coordinates the final two items.
combustion · combustions · local use 2
Printed “combustions” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Burning pains or sensations; here sufferings that torment the body in a moralized catalogue of lust’s consequences.
Context: Burton joins bodily diseases and pains to deadly melancholy and future punishment. The catalogue reports his moral and medical causal claims; its burnings are bodily afflictions rather than the therapeutic operations.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: aches, combustions
Modern rendering: pain and burning
Supply or redistribution: The plural nouns become mass nouns; and explicitly coordinates the printed comma.
dignitas · dignitatibus · local use 1
Printed “dignitatibus” (Latin with planetary symbols; Latin noun lemma; ablative plural form). Attestation: word form.
Astrological dignities or placements that confer strength.
Context: Cardan’s self-description quoted by Burton; planetary symbols preserved in exact original.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: ♂ ♀ & ☿ in ☿ dignitatibus
Modern rendering: Mars, Venus and Mercury in Mercury’s dignities
Word and construction: Dignitatibus is the ablative plural noun dignities, governed by in. The surrounding symbols supply the three planets and Mercury as possessor.
Supply or redistribution: The planetary symbols are expanded as Mars, Venus and Mercury; Mercury’s explicitly gives the possessive relationship of the final Mercury symbol.
dignitas · dignitatibus · local use 2
Printed “dignitatibus” (Latin; Latin noun lemma; ablative plural form). Attestation: word form.
Honours, dignities or positions of distinction; here benefits bestowed upon a new courtier.
Context: The margin asks how often princes almost overwhelm a new courtier with wealth and honours while giving nothing to an experienced servant who repeatedly risked danger. It accompanies the reported explanation of unequal advancement through ruling spirits.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording: divitiis & dignitatibus pene obruant
Original wording: novitium aulicum divitiis & dignitatibus pene obruant
Modern rendering: almost overwhelm a new courtier with wealth and honours
Word and construction: This complete construction aligns the verb, object and ablative complements; dignitatibus alone corresponds to honours.
Edition note: checked against the supplied editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note, not the modern body
Supply or redistribution: A supplies the article before new courtier; with expresses the ablative construction. The Latin object precedes the verb, while the modern object follows it.; Almost renders pene; and expands the ampersand.
direction of significators
Printed “direction of the significators” (English; phrase).
Calculated movement of representing chart points to event-promising positions.
Context: Astrologers offer a probable jealousy forecast; their respective preserves the relationship.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: by direction of the significators to their several promissors
Modern rendering: by directing the significators towards their respective promissors
Word and construction: The noun direction and its of-complement become the verbal directing and its direct object; several is rendered respective, retaining each significator’s relation to its promissor.
Supply or redistribution: The original nominal construction by direction of becomes the gerund construction by directing.
feral · ferall · local use 1
Printed “ferall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Lacking an astrological aspect to another planet.
Context: A technical state in the analogy of fluctuating planetary and human fortunes; ordinary feral elsewhere can mean savage, wild, or deadly.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: combust, ferall, free
Modern rendering: combust, feral, or free
Supply or redistribution: Or explicitly coordinates the printed three-item list; ferall is modernized to feral.
feral · ferall · local use 2
Printed “ferall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Savage, cruel or destructive; here the hatred displayed in civil war.
Context: Burton asks what Democritus would have thought of the French wars. The casualty and destruction totals are attributed to Coligny, and the devastation to Dinoth, rather than verified as the reviewer’s facts.
Source: original body
Source wording: with such ferall hatred
Original wording: with such ferall hatred, the world was amazed at it
Modern rendering: such savage hatred that the world stood amazed
Supply or redistribution: The introductory with is absorbed into the modern sentence’s explanatory such … that construction; the resuming at it is absorbed into the result clause.
feral
Printed “feral” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Wild; here birds that would devour an unburied body.
Context: Burton’s English verse follows the Virgil quotation about the threatened corpse. This is the ordinary wild sense, distinct from the unaspected planet; his English version preserves the alternative birds or fish.
Source: original body
Source wording: feral fowle
feral · ferall · local use 3
Printed “ferall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Deadly or destructive; here melancholy said to torment the soul.
Context: Burton’s moral catalogue distinguishes bodily pains from melancholy crucifying the soul in this life and everlasting torments in the next.
Source: original body
Source wording: that ferall melancholy
fortitude
Printed “fortitude” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Courage or strength of mind; here the virtue set against faint-heartedness.
Context: Burton urges readers to counter disturbing passions with opposite virtues, drawing on philosophical and divine precepts and other people’s examples. The opposition belongs to moral practice, rather than planetary strength.
Source: original body
Source wording: fortitude to pusillanimity
fortitude and debility
Printed “fortitudes & debilities” (English; phrase).
Astrological strengths and weaknesses.
Context: Burton attributes planetary strengths and weaknesses to what astrologers hold, within his analogy for changing human fortune. The attribution qualifies the account; it is not an if-clause.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: have their fortitudes & debilities
Modern rendering: they have their strengths and weaknesses
Supply or redistribution: They supplies a new sentence subject, referring back to the planets in the preceding original construction.; And expands the ampersand; strengths and weaknesses render the technical pair.
horoscope · Horoscope · local use 1
Printed “Horoscope” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
The ascendant or rising zodiacal degree.
Context: Mercury occupies the point in Pontano’s reported conditional rule; here not the whole chart.
Source: original body
Source wording: in the Horoscope
horoscope · Hor:
Printed “Hor:” (English; lemma; abbreviated form). Attestation: word form.
The ascendant, or rising zodiacal degree; Hor: abbreviates Horoscope in this list.
Context: The ascendant is one of the chart points or bodies directed in Burton’s reported timing rule; Moon and Hylech are separate listed significators.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: as the Hor: Moon, Hylech, &c.
Modern rendering: the ascendant, moon, hyleg, and so forth
Word and construction: Hor: alone corresponds to ascendant; the full aligned list also contains Moon, Hylech and &c.
Supply or redistribution: As is absorbed into the appositional presentation of the examples in the modern full clause; &c. is expanded as and so forth.
horoscope · Horoscope · local use 2
Printed “Horoscope” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Whole birth chart compared with a spouse’s figure.
Context: The consultation is conditional on the preceding remedies not helping. Her indicators are compared with his, and the forecast of intolerable enmities is expressly attributed to what astrologers hold.
Source: original body
Source wording: the significators in her Horoscope agree with his
hyleg
Printed “Hylech” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Planet or chart point assigned to signify life.
Context: One of the listed significators directed to hostile positions; not a name for every natal ruler.
Source: original body
Source wording: Moon, Hylech
lord of the geniture
Printed “Lords of the geniture” (English; phrase).
Printed form, Source wording: Lords of the geniture
Planets judged to rule the birth chart.
Context: One stated mode of planetary influence alongside mutual aspects; first.
Source: original body
Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.
mercurialist · Mercurialists · local use 1
Printed “Mercurialists” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Learned people under Mercury’s patronage.
Context: Origanus is cited amid the scholarly-poverty complaint; most part remains mostly.
Source: original body
Source wording: why Mercurialists are so poor, and most part beggers
mercurialist · Mercurialists · local use 2
Printed “Mercurialists” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
People whose disposition is attributed to Mercury’s government.
Context: Reported planetary character catalogue, followed by more immediate bodily causes; second.
Source: original body
Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.
Source wording: Mercurialists are solitary
radical promissors
Printed “radical promissors” (English; phrase).
Natal positions or aspects that promise the event in astrological judgement.
Context: Saturn may adversely affect them by revolution or transit in the alternative condition.
Source: original body
Source wording: any of those radical promissors in the geniture
revolution or transit
Printed “revolution, or transitus” (English with Latin transitus; phrase).
A later celestial cycle or return, or a passage through celestial positions, respectively; both are considered in relation to the natal chart.
Context: Saturn is the subject in this alternative condition, adversely affecting any natal promissor. The original or is retained; this later revolution or transit is distinct from the preceding calculated direction.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: by his revolution, or transitus
Modern rendering: by its revolution or transit
significator · significators · local use 1
Printed “significators” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Chart bodies or points representing the matter whose timing is judged.
Context: Burton reports a conditional timing rule: the ascendant, Moon and hyleg are examples of significators. Their direction towards hostile rays or terms, or a fixed star of the same nature, is distinguished from the alternative Saturn revolution or transit.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: the significators of any geniture are directed according to Art, as the Hor: Moon, Hylech, &c.
Modern rendering: the significators in a birth chart—the ascendant, moon, hyleg, and so forth—are directed according to the art
Supply or redistribution: The examples after according to Art are moved into an apposition after birth chart; as is absorbed into that apposition.; Any geniture is rendered a birth chart, expressing an unspecified chart within the general rule; the adds an article before art.
significator · significators · local use 2
Printed “significators” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Celestial bodies or points used as indicators of the matter judged; here their indicated matters are character and disease.
Context: Burton appeals to named astrological and medical authorities. The next unit records Mercurialis’s rejection of assigning all these symptoms to celestial influence and Pontano’s defence; Burton also leaves the Centiloquy’s authorship uncertain.
Source: original body
Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.
Source wording, Original wording: principall significators of manners, diseases
Modern rendering: chief astrological indicators of character and disease
Supply or redistribution: Chief renders the separate adjective principall, and astrological is supplied from context.; And explicitly coordinates the printed comma; character renders manners, while diseases becomes the mass noun disease.
significator of manners
Printed “significator of manners” (English; phrase).
Astrological indicator of character or disposition.
Context: Mars receives this office; Saturn is separately ruler of the geniture. My is supplied from the autobiographical context.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Mars principal significator of manners
Modern rendering: Mars was the chief indicator of my character
Supply or redistribution: Was and the make the elliptical predicate explicit; my is supplied from Burton’s autobiographical context.; Chief renders principal and character renders manners; neither belongs to significator by itself.
term
Printed “termes” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Planet-assigned subdivisions of zodiacal signs.
Context: The terms are one possible destination of the directed significators; the rays-or-terms alternative and especially qualification are retained. The complete rule also permits any fixed star of the planets’ nature.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: hostile beames or termes of ♄ and ♂ especially
Modern rendering: hostile rays or terms, especially those of Saturn and Mars
Supply or redistribution: Those makes the reference back to rays or terms explicit when especially is moved before the planetary names.; The Saturn and Mars symbols are expanded as their names.
transitus · local use 1
Printed “transitus” (Latin; Latin noun lemma; nominative singular form). Attestation: word form.
Passage or movement from one place to another; here the bodily passage of chyle to the liver.
Context: The marginal quotation describes blocked veins preventing the passage. Burton attributes the account to Montaltus citing Galen; the subsequent corruption concerns the chyle, a distinction clarified in the modern body.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording: prohibetur transitus Chili ad jecur
Original wording: quibus obstructis prohibetur transitus Chili ad jecur
Modern rendering: their blockage prevents the passage of chyle to the liver
Word and construction: The complete construction shifts from passive to active; transitus itself corresponds to passage, not to the preventing cause.
Edition note: checked against the supplied editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note, not the modern body
Supply or redistribution: The passive is prevented becomes active prevents; the ablative absolute quibus obstructis, those veins being blocked, becomes the subject their blockage.; The supplies English articles before passage and liver.
transitus · local use 2
Printed “transitus” (Latin; Latin noun lemma; nominative singular form). Attestation: word form.
A passage or transition; figuratively the death of the godly as movement towards rest and reward.
Context: The unattributed marginal maxim qualifies whose death is described: the godly. Its succeeding three pairs are labour/rest, expectation/reward and contest/prize, in Burton’s religious consolation.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Est enim mors piorum felix transitus
Modern rendering: For the death of the godly is a happy passage
Edition note: checked against the supplied editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note, not the modern body
Supply or redistribution: The supplies the English article before death and godly, and a before passage; of expresses the genitive piorum.; Happy belongs to felix, while for renders enim.