Bawd

Use in the book

The preliminary attack on a Jesuit pairs “a notorious Bawd” with a fornicator: procurement and participation are separate charges, set against professions of chastity, poverty and fasting. The target is male. Its force is religious polemic, not neutral information about a religious order. A different male example, Plautus’s Ballio, welcomes insults and so exemplifies shamelessness rather than vulnerability to disgrace. Procurement also enters the assault on inherited nobility: Burton alleges that pandering to powerful men can win promotion and found a distinguished lineage.

The love-cause subsection first marks a change of means. When lovers cannot succeed by themselves, they turn to intermediaries, preparations and finally the Devil. Burton reapplies Petronius’s image of Croton’s hunters and prey to urban procurement, then calls bawdry an art or liberal science, with Lucian as the stated but unlocated authority. The alleged network includes nurses, old women, letter-carriers, beggars, medical practitioners and religious figures. Secret signs, “Stenography, Polygraphy” and “Nuntius Animatus” extend the repertoire of communication; magnetic transmission is specifically reported as rejected by Cabeus. This qualification prevents a list of purported devices from becoming Burton’s unqualified endorsement of every device.

Philippa’s alleged help to Joan of Naples and Myrrha’s nurse are examples of the assistant who obtains access the lover lacks. Celestina’s maxim and the enclosed woman’s talkative visitor continue that theme; the supplied note distinguishes Aelred’s recluse from Burton’s broader nunnery description and Augustine attribution. The Petronian vegetable seller illustrates deception of the prospective customer: the lost man thinks her a “wise woman”, someone with uncanny knowledge, until he realizes she has led him to a brothel. Burton then alleges husbands act as procurers for their wives, and uses Plautus’s harbour servants to show how newcomers’ names can be obtained to simulate acquaintance. “Factors” are agents in that recruiting system. Their promises, conversation, gifts and opportunities become nets, siege weapons and “glew or lime” trapping the mind’s wings. The claims that even exemplary chaste figures could not escape are rhetorical exaggerations.

The next movement attacks access obtained through medicine and religion. Burton alleges that certain practitioners facilitate encounters with drugs and reproductive interventions, sometimes participating themselves; these are claims about misconduct and supposed powers, not established medical effects. The Latin and English Pluto couplets intensify the accusation separately. Service may be for oneself, for hire or both; “auricular confession” means private confession spoken to a priest, here included among the alleged opportunities for abuse. Chaucer’s “limiter”, a friar authorized to beg in a district, becomes a sexual threat in the compressed quotation. Burton mixes allegations of feigned possession with Boccaccio’s fictional abbess, then the story of Paulina deceived into believing her sexual visitor is Anubis. The disguised Jesuits who supposedly “inescate” young women catch them with bait; Burton qualifies the wardrobe allegation with his condition that certain reports be believed. The polemical conclusion and transition to philters retain the distinction between human brokerage and alleged magical means.

Before that subsection, the eye is called “the first bawde”: looks and smiles serve as a dialogue between Euryalus and Lucretia before speech. Clothing similarly becomes “the greatest bawd” by preparing an attractive exterior, but Burton immediately allows customary, becoming dress. Neither object literally operates a brothel. Conversely, the cooks’ “bawdy hands” are foul hands, clarified by the margin as unwashed after defecation; the adjective need not imply procurement or even a sexual act.

The adjective also condemns sexual indecency. In the account of Petronius’s death, Burton calls the entertainment “bawdy verses and scurrile songs”. This intensifies the preceding quoted Latin’s light poems and easy verses. The surrounding attack treats rejection of religious counsel as impiety; the next movement introduces a milder class of hesitant believers.

Related entries

Quean and slut: Quean can name a prostitute; that role differs from a procurer.

Philters: Supposed love potions remain distinct from human intermediaries.

Fascination: Eyes, attraction and fascination.

Art and artificial: Clothing’s deliberate enhancement and Burton’s qualification of its use.

Honour and nobility: Procurement in the attack on the origins of rank.

Empiric: The disparaging medical-practitioner label in the procurement catalogue.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 12Religious polemic immediately before the Jesuit accusation.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 13Bawd and fornicator distinguish procurement from participation; original marginal accusations remain unverified.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 14Continuation intensifies the polemical charge of hypocrisy.
4. Subsection 6. Shame and Disgrace as Causes · paragraph 35Baud: Ballio as a comic model of shamelessness, with the full original marginal exchange.
5. Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents · paragraph 22Context: ancestral pride challenged by a redirected Virgil quotation.
6. Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents · paragraph 23Baudery and bawd connect noble origins with procurement and favour.
7. Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents · paragraph 24Continuation alleges dishonourable promotion.
8. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 19Bawdy hands means foul hands; the original margin specifies unwashed hands after defecation.
9. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 31Context: poetic power ascribed to the eyes.
10. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 32The eye is the first bawde, arranging attraction before words.
11. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 33Continuation: silent rhetoric and the eyes as channels of desire.
12. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 2Context: a Sidney couplet transferred to apparel.
13. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 3Dress as the greatest bawd within snare imagery.
14. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 4Essential qualification: becoming customary clothing is accepted.
15. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 53Subsection heading joins procurers and love potions as causes.
16. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 54Escalation from human intermediaries to magical means.
17. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 55Adapted Virgil turns Juno’s vow into the lovers’ plural resolve.
18. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 56Petronius’s legacy-hunters at Croton are reapplied to procurement.
19. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 57Bawdry as art or liberal science; named intermediary roles.
20. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 58Plautine insult amplifies the alleged abundance of tricks.
21. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 59Secret communication, named writing arts and title; Cabeus’s rejection of magnetic communication.
22. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 60Philippa and Myrrha’s nurse as assistants; marginal verse misattributed to Catullus is identified as Tibullus by the edition.
23. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 61Celestina and the enclosed woman; the note identifies Aelred behind Burton’s Augustine attribution.
24. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 62Petronian brothel episode; wise woman is the narrator’s mistaken divinatory expectation.
25. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 63A husband as bawd in Burton’s allegation about Venice and Zante.
26. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 64Plautine harbour agents identify a newcomer in order to feign acquaintance.
27. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 65Factors recruit travellers; nets, baits and siege imagery exaggerate their power.
28. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 66Birdlime catches the mind’s wings; infernal images extend the charge.
29. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 67Medical and religious facilitators; alleged interventions and occasional participation.
30. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 68Professional access to private spaces under the stated cover of treatment.
31. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 69Latin couplet says monk and old woman dare more than Pluto.
32. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 70Burton’s separate English restatement of the Pluto couplet.
33. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 71Own benefit, hired service or both; auricular confession among alleged access routes.
34. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 72Chaucer’s limiter replaces supernatural beings as sexual danger.
35. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 73Alleged possession tricks and Boccaccio’s comic abbess; sources and alterations distinguished.
36. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 74Paulina deceived into believing Mundus is Anubis.
37. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 75Inescate and disguise; the wardrobe claim is explicitly conditional on reports.
38. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 76The anti-Jesuit conclusion returns to the opposition between profession and conduct.
39. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraph 1Continuation distinguishes procurement from supposed philters and magical siege engines.
40. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraph 62Context: the polemical picture of people rejecting religious teaching.
41. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraph 63Bawdy means sexually indecent; Burton intensifies Tacitus’s light poems and easy verses.
42. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraph 64Continuation condemns the portrayed impiety.
43. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraph 1The following movement introduces a milder class of hesitant believers.

In this edition

“Notorious Bawd” is rendered “notorious procurer”, preserving the intermediary role and its application to a man. Ballio’s “Baud” becomes “pimp”; “bawdry” becomes “procuring”, and “baudery” becomes “pimping”. The metaphorical eye and clothing are “go-between”, whereas “Bawdy house” becomes “brothel”. “Bawdy hands” becomes “foul hands”.

The supporting terms likewise need local scope. “Factors” becomes “agents”; “glew or lime” becomes “glue or birdlime”; “auricular confession” is “private confession”; “limiter” is “begging friar”; and “inescate and beguile” is “bait and deceive”. The literal title “Nuntius Animatus” becomes “the Animated Messenger”, while its intended work remains unidentified. The supplied apparatus identifies several mistaken or transformed citations, without establishing the generalized polemical allegations as historical events.

“Bawdy verses and scurrile songs” becomes “bawdy verses and coarse songs”. Bawdy means sexually indecent or obscene here; scurrile supplies coarse. The preceding Latin “levia carmina & faciles versus” is separately rendered “light poems and easy verses”. Burton’s English is a stronger characterization, not a literal gloss of levia.

auricular confession

Printed “auricular confession” (English; phrase).

Private confession spoken to a priest.

Here: Pastoral attendance and confession provide access which the polemic alleges is abused.

Context: Burton’s generalized accusation, not an implication inherent in confession itself.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: auricular confession

Modern rendering: private confession

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes private confession spoken to a priest.

baudery

Printed “baudery” (English; lemma).

Procuring or pimping.

Here: Procurement joins other crimes in Burton’s assault on the supposedly honourable origins of noble families.

Context: Burton’s social satire includes promotion earned by supplying a powerful man with sexual access.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: knavery, baudery, murther and tyranny

Modern rendering: knavery, pimping, murder, and tyranny

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes procuring or pimping.

bawd

Printed “Bawd” (English; lemma).

A procurer or intermediary arranging sexual encounters.

Here: The accusation distinguishes procuring from participating in sex.

Context: Burton attacks a male Jesuit as hypocritical; these sweeping accusations are polemic, not verified facts about the order.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a notorious Bawd, and famous fornicator

Modern rendering: a notorious procurer and an infamous fornicator

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Bawd supplies procurer; fornicator names the separate participant-role. Famous becomes infamous in this condemnatory context.

Further local use

Printed “Baud” (English; lemma).

Here: Ballio exemplifies shameless pleasure in abuse and public disgrace.

Context: Burton invokes a comic character; the original margin preserves an exchange of insults and approving replies.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Ballio the Baud in Plautus

Modern rendering: Ballio the pimp in Plautus

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes a procurer.

Sense relation: A further local application of the same sense, with its own agency and phrase alignment.

Further local use

Printed “Bawd” (English; lemma).

Here: The intermediary can be a husband; it is not a role defined by female sex.

Context: Burton’s generalization about Venice and Zante is a reported social allegation, not independently verified.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: for a man to be Bawd to his own wife

Modern rendering: for a man to act as bawd to his own wife

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes a procurer.

Sense relation: A further local application of the same sense, with its own agency and phrase alignment.

Further local use

Printed “bawds” (English; lemma).

Here: The charge turns on privileged medical and religious access, combined with alleged facilitation.

Context: Burton’s anti-Catholic and anti-practitioner polemic; the alleged effects of drugs are not medically established.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: The most slye, dangerous, and cunning bawds

Modern rendering: The slyest, most dangerous and most cunning bawds

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes procurers or facilitators of sexual encounters.

Sense relation: A further local application of the same sense, with its own agency and phrase alignment.

bawd and pander

Printed “Bawds, Panders” (English; family).

Bawds and panders are sexual intermediaries; philters and recipes are separate material or magical means.

Here: The opening escalation distinguishes human brokerage from preparations and finally demonic aid.

Context: Burton describes desperate recourse when the lovers’ own stratagems fail.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Bawds, Panders, Magical Philters, and receits

Modern rendering: bawds, panders, magical love potions and recipes

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The first two nouns name people; magical philters and receits name other means. The full list is not a definition of bawd.

bawd as metaphor

Printed “bawde” (English; phrase).

A facilitator of sexual attraction, metaphorically.

Here: The eye arranges an encounter through looks before speech begins.

Context: Burton gives the Euryalus and Lucretia story as an example of mutual visual communication; its construed consent belongs to the story.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the first bawde

Modern rendering: the first go-between

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes a facilitator of sexual attraction, metaphorically.

Further local use

Printed “bawd” (English; phrase).

Here: Adorned clothing is represented as an intermediary that catches the admirer.

Context: Burton’s attack on dress, framed with trapping imagery, is qualified by acceptance of becoming ordinary clothing in the next paragraph.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the greatest bawd

Modern rendering: the greatest go-between

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes a facilitator of attraction, metaphorically.

Sense relation: A further local application of the same sense, with its own agency and phrase alignment.

bawdry

Printed “bawdry” (English; lemma).

The practice or trade of procuring sexual encounters.

Here: The learned-art comparison introduces a network of intermediaries and elaborate tricks.

Context: Burton attributes liberal science to Lucian, whose exact passage the supplied apparatus leaves unlocated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: bawdry is become an art, or a liberal science

Modern rendering: procuring has become an art, or a liberal science

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the practice or trade of procuring sexual encounters.

bawdy · local use 1

Printed “bawdy” (English; lemma).

Foul or filthy.

Here: The cook’s unwashed hands make luxury repellent; the margin explicitly refers to defecation.

Context: Burton’s coarse anti-luxury example, with a distinct bodily-dirt sense rather than sexual procurement.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: their bawdy hands

Modern rendering: their foul hands

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes foul or filthy.

bawdy · local use 2

Printed “bawdy” (English; lemma).

Sexually indecent or obscene.

Here: Burton calls Petronius’s deathbed entertainment bawdy, intensifying the light poems and easy verses of the preceding quoted Latin.

Context: Burton’s polemical English restatement of Tacitus’s reported scene; the adjective is Burton’s stronger characterization, not the literal meaning of the Latin levia. The following passage condemns the portrayed impiety before introducing a milder class of hesitant believers.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: bawdy verses and scurrile songs

Modern rendering: bawdy verses and coarse songs

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Bawdy contributes sexually indecent or obscene and is retained in the modern rendering; scurrile separately contributes coarse.

Translation layer: The preceding Latin levia carmina & faciles versus is separately translated as light poems and easy verses. Burton’s stronger English characterization must not be presented as a literal Latin gloss.

bawdy house

Printed “Bawdy house” (English; phrase).

A house of prostitution.

Here: The lost narrator recognizes where the vegetable seller has led him by seeing prostitutes.

Context: Burton retells Petronius’s fictional episode, changing its setting into an evening walk.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a Bawdy house

Modern rendering: a brothel

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes a house of prostitution.

factor

Printed “Factors” (English; lemma).

An agent acting for others.

Here: Factors search for customers and bring in inexperienced travellers.

Context: Burton’s hostile description of a procuring network; the trapping and siege examples are rhetorical exaggerations.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Panders, Bawds and Factors

Modern rendering: panders, bawds and agents

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Factors contributes agents; panders and bawds identify the sexual brokerage setting.

glew or lime

Printed “glew or lime” (English; phrase).

Sticky glue or birdlime used figuratively for entrapment.

Here: The mind’s wings become unable to escape once caught by the procurers’ attractions.

Context: Continuation of Burton’s infernal trapping imagery, not a description of literal glue applied to a mind.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the glew or lime

Modern rendering: the glue or birdlime

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes sticky glue or birdlime used figuratively for entrapment.

inescate

Printed “inescate” (English; lemma).

To catch or attract with bait.

Here: The verb continues the procurement subsection’s snares-and-bait imagery.

Context: Burton’s allegation about disguised Jesuits; he expressly qualifies the wardrobe story with if we may believe certain reports.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to inescate and beguile yong women

Modern rendering: to bait and deceive young women

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Inescate contributes bait; beguile contributes deceive. Young women is their shared object.

limiter

Printed “limiter” (English; lemma).

A friar licensed to beg within a particular district.

Here: The friar replaces the elf as a sexual danger in the compressed Chaucer quotation.

Context: Burton quotes the Wife of Bath’s Tale; the supernatural comparison is satirical.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the limiter himself

Modern rendering: the begging friar himself

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes a friar licensed to beg within a particular district.

Nuntius Animatus

Printed “Nuntius Animatus” (Latin; phrase).

Animated Messenger: a title in the list of secret communication.

Here: The title accompanies purported magnetic communication, which Burton reports Cabeus rejects as fictitious.

Context: A printed title whose intended work remains unidentified in the supplied apparatus.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Nuntius Animatus

Modern rendering: the Animated Messenger

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes animated Messenger: a title in the list of secret communication.

stenography and polygraphy

Printed “Stenography, Polygraphy” (English; family).

Methods of concealed or coded writing in this list of secret communication.

Here: The terms describe possible message-conveying devices within procurement’s purported arts.

Context: Burton’s margin names Trithemius; the precise editions remain uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Stenography, Polygraphy

Modern rendering: stenography, polygraphy

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Both names concern secret communication here; the supplied text does not supply a technical distinction sufficient to impose narrower definitions.

wise woman

Printed “wise woman” (English; phrase).

A woman thought to have uncanny knowledge or divinatory powers.

Here: The narrator mistakes the old woman’s confidence for knowledge of where he lives.

Context: The phrase records the deceived narrator’s belief, not Burton’s certification of supernatural ability. The original marginal Latin explains the divinatory sense.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: I took her for a wise woman

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes a woman thought to have uncanny knowledge or divinatory powers.