Attenuate and rarify

Use in the book

The beer passage answers a hostile verse about thickness and retained dregs. Burton defends the drink for those accustomed to it and says hops make it more subtil and better by rarifying it. The pronoun’s immediate object is the beer, not the drinker’s blood. In the later herb catalogue he praises hops for thinning and cleansing, then turns again to ordinary beer’s former thickness and cloying quality. These passages connect a preparation’s sensible consistency with humoral claims without making the beer description itself a proof of medical efficacy.

In the sleep discussion, vinegar is said to rarify melancholy and induce a wish for sleep. Melancholy here is the supposed humour rather than the whole experience of sadness. The margin uses Attenuat melancholiam, making the shared thinning sense explicit. But Burton gives divided authorities: some allow vinegar when the disease proceeds from the spleen, others oppose it altogether, and Mercado permits it in some cases. The next paragraph leaves Rhazes hesitant. To define the verb is not to endorse a unanimous remedy that the source itself does not supply.

Wine’s praised actions distinguish thinning, concocting and dispersing. These neighbouring verbs are not a single undifferentiated cure: attenuation concerns the thickness of vapours and humours; concoction their processing; dissipation their dispersal. The preceding paragraph conditions the use of wine on sobriety, moderation and suitable timing. The Latin margin has thick humours as the object of attenuat, whereas the English body groups “all thick vapours, and fuliginous humours” after its three verbs. The lexical connection survives without requiring the two columns of evidence to have identical objects or scope.

With a person or body as its object, attenuation can be the harm medicine is meant to prevent. Troubles attenuate bodies, drying and shrivelling them like old apples; the marginal Ovid line makes sleepless cares the wasting agent. A second Ovid quotation in the love symptoms gives sleepless nights, care and grief the same bodily effect. The Latin attenuatis in the Ptolemy anecdote instead qualifies his strength: illness keeps him indoors and becomes the occasion for study and the reported founding of a library. Weakness is the condition of that story, not proof that physical wasting itself is desirable.

The word also takes a non-bodily object. Fear “attenuates the soul,” meaning weakens it, in the explanation for correcting passions. By contrast the lyre “lessens fearful frenzies” in the marginal attenuat of the music account: the weakened object is now a disturbance, so the reduction is beneficial in the reported claim. Burton’s English body there uses extenuate, not attenuate. The two forms are locally connected by the parallel description, not interchangeable spelling variants to be silently substituted.

A further Latin use reduces a regimen: Victus sit attenuatus means that the diet is to be reduced in the cure-of-love discussion. Later attenuatus describes a person weakened by fasting and vigils. Burton’s account of Hilarion then connects wasting, sleeplessness and disturbing experiences; the next paragraph distinguishes beneficial temperance or contemplation from abuse. The shared vocabulary exposes a practical tension between intentional reduction and excessive depletion, rather than a uniform command to make bodies ever thinner. These are historical arguments and reported treatments, not advice to restrict food or sleep.

Related entries

Concoction retains the bodily-processing verb; Vapours the matter described as thick or subtle; Alteratives the broader category of changing a bodily condition. Water and springs gives the complementary account of liquid quality. Macerate treats bodily wasting and wearing down. Sleep and waking and Music and harmony develop the surrounding debates about rest and emotional relief.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Subsection 1 Bad Diet as a Cause. Substance. The Quality of Foods · paragraph 36The hostile beer verse makes thickness and thinness its joke. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
2. Subsection 1 Bad Diet as a Cause. Substance. The Quality of Foods · paragraph 37Hops said to rarify beer for accustomed drinkers.
3. Subsection 10. Discontents, Cares, Miseries and the Like as Causes · paragraph 11Troubles attenuate bodies; the Ovid margin retains Attenuant.
4. Member 5. Sleeplessness and Frightening Dreams Remedied · paragraph 37Rarifying melancholy in the disputed vinegar remedy, with marginal Attenuat.
5. Member 5. Sleeplessness and Frightening Dreams Remedied · paragraph 38Rhazes’s hesitation continues the disagreement. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
6. Member 6 Subsection 1 Disturbances of the Mind Corrected Through the Sufferer’s Own Efforts in Resisting as Strongly as Possible and Confiding His Grief to a Friend and So Forth · paragraph 6Fear weakens the soul.
7. Subsection 3 Music as a Remedy · paragraph 6Music extenuates in the body; attenuat appears in the margin.
8. Member 4 Against Servitude, Loss of Liberty, Imprisonment and Banishment · paragraph 38Ptolemy’s weakened strength in the illness-and-learning anecdote.
9. Subsection 3 Alteratives Herbs and Other Plant Remedies · paragraph 16Hops thin and cleanse; the beer comparison returns.
10. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 19Wine’s proposed use is conditioned by moderation and timing. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
11. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 20Thinning distinguished from concocting and dispersing.
12. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraph 44Loss of appetite and sleep precedes the wasting quotation. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
13. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraph 45Attenuant in Ovid’s verse on sleeplessness and love.
14. The Cure of Love Melancholy by Work, Diet, Medicine, Fasting and Other Means · paragraph 21Fasting is introduced among severe proposed love remedies. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
15. The Cure of Love Melancholy by Work, Diet, Medicine, Fasting and Other Means · paragraph 22Marginal Victus sit attenuatus: a reduced diet.
16. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraph 8Excessive fasting said to waste bodies and disturb experience. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
17. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraph 9Attenuatus in the marginal account of weakening by fasting and vigils.
18. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraph 10Burton distinguishes beneficial practice from abuse. [Context, not a headword attestation.]

In this edition

“rarifies” is rendered “thin” or “thins” according to the sentence; “attenuate our bodies” becomes “waste our bodies”; “attenuates the soul” becomes “weakens the soul.” These are contextual meanings, not evidence of separate original spellings for each sense. The printed Attenuant in the accompanying note differs from the editor’s comparison text extenuant; both are described as wasting or thinning, but only the former is Burton’s marginal form. In the music margin timidos furores is “fearful frenzies,” where the editor reports tumidos in the compared Cassiodorus text. That comparison must not replace Burton’s actual adjective.

rarifies [liquid consistency]

Makes a liquid finer or less dense.

Original wording: “more subtil and better for the Hop that rarifies it”

Modern wording: “finer and better for the hops that thin it”

The object of it is beer. The immediately preceding verse’s thick drink and thin discharge provide the polemical context; the verb does not here mean thinning the blood. Further checked occurrences: the passage. Lookup: rarify; rarefy [modern dictionary access form]; rarifies; subtil [beer consistency].

rarifies melancholy [phrase]

Thins the melancholic humour within historical physiology.

Original wording: “because it rarifies melancholy”

Modern wording: “because it thins the melancholic humour”

The object is the supposed bodily humour, not sadness as an emotion. This is an attributed rationale in a paragraph that reports both conditional approval and outright opposition to vinegar. Lookup: rarifies melancholy; thin the melancholic humour.

attenuate [bodily wasting]

Waste or wear down the body, reducing its strength or substance.

Original wording: “attenuate our bodies”

Modern wording: “waste our bodies”

The subject is the many troubles just catalogued. The following drying, withering and shrivelling images specify damaging depletion rather than a beneficial thinning of humours. Lookup: attenuate; attenuate [waste].

attenuates the soul [phrase]

Weakens the soul or its powers.

Original wording: “Fear dissolves the spirits, infects the heart, attenuates the soul”

Modern wording: “Fear disperses the spirits, taints the heart, and weakens the soul”

Fear is the agent throughout the three coordinated clauses. The soul’s weakening is distinct from the spirits’ dispersal and the heart’s tainting, although all enter the same account of passion. Lookup: attenuates; attenuates the soul; weaken the soul.

attenuates [humoral thinning]

Makes thick bodily vapours or humours thinner.

Original wording: “attenuates, concocts, dissipates all thick vapours, and fuliginous humours”

Modern wording: “thins, digests and disperses all thick vapours and sooty humours”

Attenuates supplies thins, not the entire three-verb sequence. Wine is the alleged agent, carried over from the preceding paragraph; its proposed benefit is conditioned there by moderate, suitable use. Lookup: attenuate [humours]; attenuates [thinning].

Attenuant [Latin bodily wasting]

They waste or wear down, with sleepless nights, care and grief as the agents.

Original wording: “Attenuant juvenum vigilatæ corpora noctes”

Modern wording: “Sleepless nights waste young men’s bodies”

The Latin verb is plural and governs corpora, bodies. The next line adds care and grief, so the physical change cannot be attributed to love alone with all intervening conditions removed. The same printed verb occurs with sleepless cares in the accompanying note. Further checked occurrence: the accompanying note. Lookup: attenuant; attenuare [Latin dictionary access form].

An accompanying note compares the printed Attenuant with extenuant in the comparison text; that editorial comparison does not replace Burton’s form. Editorial comparison lookup: extenuant [editorial comparison, the accompanying note].

viribus attenuatis [Latin phrase]

With bodily strength weakened.

Original wording: “cum viribus attenuatis infirma valetudine laboraret”

Modern wording: “when his strength was weakened and he suffered from ill health”

Viribus identifies what has been reduced: the king’s strength. The story subsequently makes restricted movement an occasion for learning; the printed phrase does not itself praise weakness. Lookup: attenuatis; viribus attenuatis.

attenuat [lessening frenzy]

Lessens or reduces the force of a disturbance.

Original wording: “timidos furores attenuat”

Note translation: “lessens fearful frenzies”

The lyre is the subject. The original printed timidos gives fearful, even though the editor’s compared Cassiodorus text has tumidos. Burton’s English body uses the related verb extenuate. Further checked occurrence: the passage. Lookup: attenuat [music]; extenuate [music]; lessen frenzy.

Editorial comparison lookup: tumidos [editorial comparison, the accompanying note].

Victus sit attenuatus [Latin phrase]

Let the diet or regimen of food be reduced.

Original wording: “Victus sit attenuatus”

Note translation: “Let the diet be reduced”

Victus is the grammatical subject: what is to be reduced is the diet, not a humour being made less dense. The phrase occurs in the historical discussion of fasting as a remedy for love. Lookup: attenuatus [diet]; victus attenuatus; reduced diet.

attenuatus [Latin personal weakening]

Weakened or wasted in bodily condition.

Original wording: “Ita attenuatus fuit jejunio & vigiliis”

Note translation: “He was so weakened by fasting and vigils”

Fasting and vigils supply the means of weakening. The following clause describes severe bodily wasting; the body’s Hilarion narrative and later qualification distinguish this excess from temperance in general. Lookup: attenuatus [person]; weakened by fasting.

Attenuat melancholiam [Latin phrase]

It thins the melancholic humour.

Original wording: “Attenuat melancholiam”

Note translation: “It thins the melancholic humour”

The marginal Latin supplies the same local physical sense as the body’s rarifies melancholy. The agreement concerns the proposed action, not unanimity among the authorities about using vinegar. Lookup: attenuat melancholiam; attenuat [humour].