Avert and averters

Use in the book

The medical definition supplies direction and bodily hierarchy. Averters and purgers must work together to divert the rebellious humour; enemas and suppositories are given a chief place in drawing it from brain and heart towards “more ignoble parts.” The common purpose does not make the actions identical: diversion changes its supposed direction, purging removes it. The synopsis places averters beside, rather than inside the name of, cordials, resolvers and hinderers. This article develops the noun’s uses while retaining the earlier owner of the verb divert.

The class is not one uniform preparation. Its synopsis gathers rubbing, enemas, suppositories, sneezing and various external or invasive procedures. In the later treatment of windy melancholy, averters are directed to liver and spleen and the clearing of mesenteric veins, through opening obstructed passages or provoking urine. The term names a supposed purpose shared by different procedures, not a safe or standardized technique. After alteratives, averters and diminutives have been used, accompanying symptoms may still need correction; the category’s presence does not certify a completed cure.

The English verb becomes social and emotional in the proposed cure of love. Burton lists frightening allegations about a prospective partner and says such things can “avert and terrifie” anyone. Avert means repel the lover or turn the lover away from the match. The long list supplies suggested disparagement, not verified facts about a particular person. Its cruelty and stigmatizing content belong to Burton’s rhetorical strategy and must not be mistaken for the lexicon’s own description of illness or disability.

Turning the eyes away is a more literal attempt to remove the occasion of desire. The instruction “averte oculos,” attributed to David, sits among injunctions not to gaze and not to fix attention lustfully. Its opposite appears in the travel story about Varthema, where the woman is said never to turn her eyes from him. The ability to turn away is likewise denied in the literary complaint of Clitophon: the margin says he tried to turn his eyes from the girl, but they resisted. These are an imperative, an alleged sustained gaze and a narrated failed effort, not three instances of successful avoidance.

Turning thought away retains the same directional grammar but changes the object. The marginal “avertantur” asks that sufferers be diverted from every fixed thought; the English surrounding it adds “if it be possible.” In the final consolation, the advice attributed to Navarrus follows an explicit condition: if the trouble began with loss, disaster or a terrifying object, remove the cause and turn thought from the matter that occasions scruples. The next passage adds recreation, personal effort and friends’ help. This mental redirection should neither be confused with moving humours nor reduced to a promise that a person can immediately stop distressing thoughts at will.

The Latin extends the family in two further directions. In the marriage couplet attributed to Euripides, a loving wife turns her husband’s spirit from sadness; Burton’s separate English verse instead has her divert strife, so the object has changed. In the prayer “avertite pestem,” the gods are asked to turn a plague away from the earth, a Virgilian line applied here to jealousy. Finally, the margin to the consolatory account of repentance says it does not turn away a drunkard but receives all. The negation reverses the action: the promise is acceptance, not exclusion.

Related entries

Remedy by diversion retains divert and the broader programme of redirected attention; its Remedy by diversion · divert · local use 3 owns “to divert this rebellious humor.” Purging, Phlebotomy and Clister distinguish the associated operations. Prevent retains anticipation and forestalling, rather than treating every averting action as prior prevention. Friction and embrocation owns rubbing and liquid applications.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Synopsis of the Second Partition · paragraph 23The synopsis groups varied averting procedures.
2. 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 3; note 6097Mental diversion qualified by if possible; avertantur in the accompanying note.
3. Subsection 4 Remedies That Divert the Humours · paragraph 1The dedicated Averters heading.
4. Subsection 4 Remedies That Divert the Humours · paragraph 2Turning humours from brain and heart, alongside purging.
5. Subsection 6 Remedies for Accompanying Symptoms: To Bring Sleep, and Against Fearful Dreams, Redness and So On · paragraph 34Symptoms remain after averters and other means.
6. Member 3. Subsection 1 Treatment of Hypochondriacal Melancholy · paragraph 36Averters directed to liver, spleen and mesenteric passages.
7. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraph 62; note 9086Clitophon’s resisted attempt to turn his eyes away, the accompanying note.
8. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraph 23The traveller’s claim of a gaze never turned away.
9. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraph 5Averte oculos among instructions against gazing.
10. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraph 52Avert as repelling a lover through disparagement.
11. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 60A loving wife turns the spirit from sadness in Latin.
12. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 61Burton’s English couplet substitutes strife. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
13. Prevention Before or After Marriage: Plato’s Community of Wives; Marrying a Courtesan; Love Potions; Brothels; Marrying Someone Equal in Age and Fortune, From a Good Family, Well Educated and of Good Standing; Treating Wives Well; and So On · paragraph 14A prayer to turn a plague away, applied to jealousy.
14. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 44Repentance explicitly supplies the antecedent of the following promise. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
15. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 45The consolatory antecedent promises salvation without distinction. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
16. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 46; note 13114The negative turn away and universal welcome; avertit in the accompanying note.
17. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 27Conditional advice to turn thought from the source of scruples.
18. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 28Recreation and help from friends continue the advice. [Context, not a headword attestation.]

In this edition

“Treatments that draw the disorder away” in the synopsis and “remedies that divert the humours” in the subsection spell out the medical purpose of averters. The English avert becomes “repel” in the disparagement passage. Latin averte, avertebat, avertere, avertat, avertens, avertite and avertit retain their different constructions; averto is only a dictionary access form. In the repentance passage, marginal “non ebrium avertit” corresponds to not turning away a drunkard, whereas Burton’s English assigns “turn away” to an idolater. Both versions deny exclusion, but their phrase-level objects are not identical.

Averters

Treatments intended to redirect offending humours away from affected parts.

Original wording: “Averters and Purgers must go together”

Modern wording: “Remedies that divert the humours and those that purge them must go together”

The first class redirects and the second evacuates. The following sentence identifies the proposed route from brain and heart to parts regarded as less noble. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage; the passage. Lookup: averters; Averters of melancholy.

avert

Repel or turn someone away from the person or relationship contemplated.

Original wording: “able to avert and terrifie any man or woman living”

Modern wording: “as could repel and terrify any man or woman alive”

Avert corresponds to repel, while terrifie supplies the second action. Burton proposes allegations intended to frighten a lover away; the list is not evidence that those allegations are true. Lookup: avert; repel.

averte oculos

Turn the eyes away.

Original wording: “averte oculos”

Modern wording: “Turn away your eyes”

Averte is an imperative and oculos its object. The printed phrase has no possessive; the English supplies your from the addressed command. The David attribution remains unlocated in the edition. Lookup: averte; averte oculos; averto [Latin dictionary access form].

avertebat [gaze]

Was turning or used to turn away; here denied by never.

Original wording: “non à me nunquam aciem oculorum avertebat”

Modern wording: “never turning her eyes away”

The negative construction portrays an unbroken gaze in Varthema’s reported anecdote. The lexicon records what the story claims rather than independently verifying it. Lookup: avertebat; turning the eyes away.

avertere [attempt]

To turn away, as the goal of an attempted movement of the eyes.

Original wording: “oculos à virgine avertere conatus sum, sed illi repugnabant”

Note translation: “I tried to turn my eyes away from the girl, but they resisted”

The infinitive belongs to tried; the continuation explicitly defeats the effort. The margin speaks in Clitophon’s first-person literary voice, unlike the body’s report about him. Lookup: avertere; averto [Latin dictionary access form].

avertat cogitationem

Let him redirect his thought away from its troubling object.

Original wording: “avertat cogitationem à re scrupulosa”

Modern wording: “let him turn his thoughts away from what occasions his scruples”

The object is thought and the point of departure is the matter causing scruples. The advice follows a conditional inquiry into what first occasioned the distress. Lookup: avertat; avertat cogitationem; thought redirection; avertantur [the accompanying note].

avertens animam ejus à tristitia

Turning his spirit away from sadness.

Original wording: “avertens animam ejus à tristitia”

Modern wording: “turning his spirit from sadness”

The loving wife is the grammatical agent. Burton’s separate English couplet replaces sadness with strife; that is a changed object, not the literal meaning of tristitia. Lookup: avertens; avertens animam; turning from sadness.

avertite pestem

Turn a plague or destructive evil away.

Original wording: “dii talem terris avertite pestem”

Modern wording: “Gods, turn such a plague away from the earth”

Avertite addresses the gods in the plural; pestem is what they are asked to remove. The Virgilian prayer is reapplied to jealousy in Burton’s conclusion. Lookup: avertite; avertite pestem; avert a plague.

avertit [rejecting a person]

Turns away or refuses to receive someone; here the action is negated.

Original wording: “non ebrium avertit”

Note translation: “turn away a drunkard”

The note’s opening does not governs its coordinated verbs. The promise is that repentance receives everyone; Burton’s English uses turn away with idolater instead, so the margin’s drunkard must not be reassigned to that body phrase. Lookup: avertit; non ebrium avertit; turn away [refuse].

avertantur

Let them be turned or diverted away.

Original wording: “Ab omni fixa cogitatione quovis modo avertantur”

Note translation: “Let them be diverted by any means from every fixed thought”

The passive instruction concerns sufferers and their fixed thoughts, not bodily humours. Every and by any means belong to the marginal injunction; the surrounding English adds if it be possible. Lookup: avertantur; divert from fixed thought.