Baffle

Use in the book

The changeable opportunist in the preliminary satire can dominate one person and cringe before another. Proteus, the chameleon and astrological Mercury supply images of adaptability for personal advantage. His being baffled in one place is paired with his tyrannizing elsewhere: he shifts between inflicting and suffering humiliation. The following comparison with actors develops the gap between outward roles, words and inward intentions.

Burton also applies the word to himself. In the complaint about scholarly preferment, an imagined objector turns blame back on scholars and clergy. Burton concedes fault on both sides but thinks grasping patrons chiefly responsible. His personal admission that some have treated him contemptuously follows an attribution to his own misfortune rather than their wrongdoing, then gives way to a further correction: his own negligence. The original margin explains that he lacked money and shamelessness, could not scramble for advancement or dissemble, and would not remake himself into a flatterer. The continuation compares him with scholars who did not ask for rewards; he professes contentment with what he has before returning to blame on both sides for buying and selling church livings. The complaint and self-correction must be read together.

The poor dependant is bafled even after adapting himself to powerful people’s moods to obtain a meal. Mockery, blows, compelled entertainment and the humiliation of being lorded over form the surrounding catalogue. The example of Ulysses being struck by Melanthius makes the injury concrete. Burton’s following claims about poverty driving wrongdoing belong to his sweeping account of social pressure, not a neutral characterization of poor people. Poverty traces that wider argument and its later objections and consolations.

In consolation for disgrace, Burton generally recommends disregarding insults and guarding a good conscience. Yet he makes a bounded exception: resistance may sometimes secure peace if conducted discreetly and moderately. Allowing everyone to baffle a person risks becoming a common laughingstock, he argues, and the village-dog comparison praises standing one’s ground. The conditions matter: the neighboring counsel favours restraint, and the continuation includes repaying evil with good and peace with others. These are the work’s historical moral counsels, not unrestricted permission to retaliate.

Related entries

Explode: Public rejection and disgrace

Patience: The surrounding counsel of restraint

Magnanimity and pusillanimity: Courage and the charge of pusillanimity

Poverty and riches: Dependence and the wider poverty argument

Temporize: Changing roles for advantage

Church patronage: The dispute over scholars, patrons and church livings

Revenge: Retaliation and its limits

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 27–29, 1–2; Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 29the opportunist alternates domination and humiliation among changing public roles
2. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 6–17; Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraph 10Burton’s personal complaint, original marginal explanation, self-correction and return to shared fault in patronage
3. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 23–30; Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraph 27the poor dependant’s humiliation among compelled service, mockery and physical mistreatment
4. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 36–56, 1–14; Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 7–8the general counsel of restraint, the strictly qualified permission to resist humiliation, and its moral continuation

In this edition

“Baffled” contributes “treated with contempt” in the personal complaint. The fuller rendering “treated me with contempt” takes me from Burton’s first-person passive: “I have been baffled in my time by some of them” becomes “Some of them have indeed treated me with contempt in my time.” The actors are unchanged; indeed carries the concession introduced by the preceding Although.

“Bafled” becomes “humiliated” within the sequence of being abused and lorded over. “Be baffled” becomes “being humiliated” in the contrast between tyrannizing in one place and suffering elsewhere. The active “baffle him” becomes “humiliate him” within the clause about allowing everyone to do so. Each rendering makes the social injury explicit while preserving its grammatical setting.

baffle

Printed “baffled” (English; lemma).

To humiliate, disgrace or treat contemptuously.

Here: Burton says that some patrons have treated him with contempt.

Context: The first-person admission is qualified by his attribution of disappointment to misfortune, then his own negligence; he has just blamed both scholars and patrons, chiefly the latter.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: I have been baffled in my time by some of them

Modern rendering: Some of them have indeed treated me with contempt in my time

Word and construction: The passive becomes active: some of them remains the agent, and I becomes me. Baffled contributes treated with contempt; indeed carries the concession introduced by Although immediately before the selected original clause.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “baffled” (English; lemma).

Citation key: baffle.

Here: Humiliated in one setting while dominating in another.

Context: Burton’s opportunist changes roles for advantage; the same man tyrannizes in one place and suffers humiliation elsewhere.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: tyrannize in one place, be baffled in another

Modern rendering: tyrannizing in one place and being humiliated in another

Word and construction: The matched contrast preserves both actions and places. Be baffled becomes being humiliated; the added conjunction makes the coordination explicit.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “bafled” (English; lemma).

Citation key: baffle.

Here: Humiliated as one of the injuries endured by a poor dependant.

Context: Burton describes social coercion to obtain food, including blows and compelled flattery; the claim is part of his indictment of poverty’s pressures, not approval of abusive treatment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: be reviled, bafled, insulted over

Modern rendering: be abused, humiliated and lorded over

Word and construction: The middle participle alone contributes humiliated; the neighboring verbs name abuse and domination separately.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “baffle” (English; lemma).

Citation key: baffle.

Here: Humiliate or treat contemptuously; the surrounding clause concerns allowing others to do so.

Context: Burton allows resistance only sometimes and with discretion and moderation, after recommending restraint; this is historical consolation, not a blanket instruction to retaliate.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: will let every man baffle him

Modern rendering: allows everyone to humiliate him

Word and construction: Let becomes allows, every man everyone, and baffle humiliate; him remains the person treated contemptuously.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.