Explode

Use in the book

The allegorical contest makes rejection audible. Fortune and Folly defeat Virtue and Wisdom, whom the common people hiss away, reversing the expected relation between merit and success. The crowd acts; Virtue and Wisdom suffer its judgment. The same force appears in the author’s account of conflicting readers: what one admires, another explodes, and if some shout Burton down, others may praise him. Tax, Tax; receive criticism, already explains that conditional clause; Happiness and fortune, fortuna · Fortuna, explains Fortune in the shared apologue.

The catalogue of national prejudices has “we” explode many German fashions, while Germans return the contempt. The verb exposes reciprocal ridicule, not the correctness of an English judgment about foreign customs. In another polemical setting, prayers, petitions and devotions are said to be exploded in named philosophical and satirical works: the ill-chosen benefits people seek from their gods become objects of ridicule.

Public disgrace also belongs to a speaker’s complaint. “Yea but I am... exploded” introduces an imagined offender’s objection, not Burton’s confession. His ensuing answer says that fresh rumours will displace the scandal. The Latin theatrical example is a more serious warning about attribution: “Ob Tragœdiam explosam” presents a rejected tragedy as the cause of Sophocles’s death, but the supplied note says the cited Valerius Maximus reports death from joy after victory instead. The word’s meaning is clear even though the alleged biography is not established.

Intellectual rejection requires attention to its agent and object. Named critics explode scholastic theology; Christian philosophers reject the mortality of spirits in a parenthesis, rather than every detail of Psellus’s account. Opponents of an imagination-only explanation of witchcraft do not deny that witches are melancholy: they deny that corrupted imagination alone produces the alleged effects. When physicians dispute astrology, Burton says he will not decide the controversy himself, then quotes a defense and criticizes excessive claims. Explode can mark a disputed position without settling it.

In the cosmological digression, exploding dismisses a supposed elemental sphere of fire and outer celestial machinery. The continuation attacks hard, impenetrable spheres but allows hypothetical constructions for method and order. The Table’s “Element of fire exploded” and “Excentricks and Epicicles exploded” both point to page 251. Their compressed wording must be read with that qualification, not as a claim that all geometrical models have become worthless.

The medical examples preserve competing judgments. Many reject mineral remedies, but Mattioli and others praise them. Galen’s medicines are said to be “exploded and rejected” in a complaint that the continuation identifies as an objection before defending compound medicines. Gervinus rejects the praise of antimony after his reported near-fatal experience; Burton subsequently adopts a conditional conclusion about its use, already explained in Stibium, antimony. These are historical disputes, not present recommendations.

Some rejections are the author’s own, but still have limits. Medicines of words, signs, spells and charms “are to be exploded,” after material amulets have received qualified approval; the following exception assigns any effect to conviction or the Devil’s contrivance. An original English margin instead attacks some people who explode all secular authors and studies, ending in pity rather than refutation. Finally “our Church” rejects the reported universal-salvation paradoxes, but Burton then forbids identifying particular people as reprobate and brings speculation to a halt. Charms and Humane learning already explain their respective shared passages.

Related entries

Baffle: disgrace or dishonour.

Censure: judgment, which need not always be condemnation.

Tax, Tax; receive criticism: criticism and the shared conditional reception clause.

Happiness and fortune, fortuna · Fortuna; Civil and barbarous, barbarism · local use 1: the allegorical contest and reciprocal national prejudice.

Daemon and genius, genius · boni and mali Genii · local use 2; Excrements, excrement · excrements · local use 9: rejected doctrines of spirits.

Astrology, astrology; Stibium, antimony: disputed medical uses and retained qualifications.

Charms; Humane learning, Humane learning: rejection of verbal remedies and the original English margin defending secular study.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 10–17; Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 11–13divided readers and the crowd’s expulsion of Virtue and Wisdom.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 20–23reciprocal contempt for national customs.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 44–47; Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 33–36; Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 19–21; Subsection 5. Old Age as a Cause · paragraphs 32–34; Subsection 6. Parents as a Cause Through Inheritance · paragraph 35disputed schools, spirits and explanatory claims.
4. Subsection 6. Shame and Disgrace as Causes · paragraphs 30–32; notes 2880–2881theatrical rejection and the received story’s textual discrepancy.
5. Member 4. Subsection 1. Physician, Patient, Medicine · paragraphs 6–9disputed medical astrology.
6. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraphs 29–34fire, eccentrics and epicycles, with the distinction between real machinery and hypothetical models.
7. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 28–31public disgrace in the complainant’s speech and the ensuing consolation.
8. Subsection 4 Precious Stones Metals and Minerals as Alteratives · paragraphs 24–25; Subsection 5 Compound Alteratives Criticism of Compounds and Mixed Medicines · paragraphs 9–13; Member 2 Subsection 1 Single Substances That Purge Upwards · paragraphs 3–7contested remedies and their continuing qualifications.
9. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraphs 29–32; General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 19–22; Subsection 4. Prognosis of Religious Melancholy · paragraphs 48–51; Note 12654; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 16–21charms, religious ridicule, secular learning and the confessional rejection.
10. E · paragraph 176; E · paragraph 185Table labels for the rejection of fire, eccentrics and epicycles.

In this edition

“Were hissed out, and exploded by the common people” becomes “the crowd hissed and jeered them off”. The passive becomes active, preserving the crowd as agent and Virtue and Wisdom as the rejected pair. “Explode many of their fashions” becomes “ridicule many of their customs”: many limits the objects, and customs renders fashions, not explode. The first rendering retains noisy expulsion; the second gives contemptuous ridicule.

Elsewhere the modern column uses reject, denounce or discredit, according to the judgment and its force. “Galens medicines are now exploded and rejected” becomes “Galen’s medicines are now discredited and rejected”, keeping the two verbs rather than assigning both meanings to one word. “Exploding in the mean time” becomes “Meanwhile, this rejects”, making the preceding argument the explicit subject. The English secular-learning margin is retained as original English, not presented as a new sentence in the modern column; the translation of Latin explosam belongs to the supplied editorial portion of its Burton-labelled note.

explode: hiss or shout down

To drive off, overwhelm or publicly disgrace someone or something by noisy disapproval.

Grammar: Transitive verb; explodes is third-person singular present, exploded a passive past participle. Modern active clauses sometimes name the agent that follows by in the original.

Original text: “that which one admires, another explodes as most absurd and ridiculous.” In the modern column: “what one admires, another shouts down as utterly absurd and ridiculous.” Different readers acclaim and reject the same literary features. Contrasting tastes in the author’s defensive account of reception; absurd and ridiculous belongs to the adverse reader’s judgment. Explodes becomes shouts down; another is the rejecting reader, while that which is the object.

Original text: “If I be taxed, exploded by thee and some such”. In the modern column: “If you and others like you criticize and shout me down”. Burton imagines hostile readers shouting him down, balanced by possible praise from others. If retains a condition and haply in the continuation means perhaps; the Giovio catalogue is a borrowed formula, not verified personal acquaintance. The passive becomes active: taxed gives criticize, exploded shout me down; thee and some such supplies the agent.

Original text: “were hissed out, and exploded by the common people”. In the modern column: “the crowd hissed and jeered them off”. Virtue and Wisdom are driven away by the crowd in an allegorical contest. The apologue reverses merit and worldly success. Its exact Calcagnini source remains uncollated in the accompanying note. The paired verbs become hissed and jeered... off; the crowd renders by the common people, and them denotes Virtue and Wisdom. The whole clause is not assigned to exploded alone.

Original text: “ashamed, disgraced, dishonoured, degraded, exploded”. In the modern column: “ashamed, disgraced, dishonoured, degraded and publicly hissed down”. The imagined disgraced speaker names public rejection among losses and punishments. Yea but introduces a sufferer’s objection, not Burton confessing these crimes. The reply says one rumour supplants another; the physical punishments remain separate from this word. Exploded alone contributes publicly hissed down; the preceding adjectives remain distinct.

explode: ridicule

To reject contemptuously or expose to ridicule, without necessarily describing a literal crowd shouting someone from a place.

Grammar: Transitive present explode with first-person plural subject; passive participle exploded with an understood reference to preceding practices.

Original text: “explode many of their fashions”. In the modern column: “ridicule many of their customs”. English observers ridicule German customs in a sequence of reciprocal national prejudices. The next clause has Germans think equally contemptuously of us. Neither the national stereotype nor its assumed superiority is endorsed by the lexicon. Explode gives ridicule; many remains many; fashions gives customs. The subject we and German reference come from the adjoining clause.

Original text: “there likewise exploded”. In the modern column: “where they are likewise exposed to ridicule”. Named philosophical and satirical works are said to ridicule ill-chosen petitions and devotions. Burton’s polemical question supplies the negative assessment; listed classical works are cited as additional critics, not original witnesses to an explosion. There becomes where; exploded gives exposed to ridicule; they makes the understood preceding practices explicit.

explode: reject or discredit

To reject, repudiate, denounce or discredit an opinion, practice, explanatory model or remedy. The verb reports a judgment, not necessarily its truth or Burton’s final assent.

Grammar: Transitive verb: explode, third-person singular explodes, participle exploding, and passive participle exploded; are to be exploded expresses required rejection.

Original text: “explode as a vast Ocean of Obs and Sols, School divinity”. In the modern column: “denounce scholastic theology as a vast ocean of objections and solutions”. Named critics condemn scholastic theology as futile disputation. The accusation belongs to the named critics and the surrounding satire of learned professions. Explode gives denounce; the postponed original object School divinity becomes scholastic theology before the comparison.

Original text: “which Martianus Capella likewise maintaines, but our Christian Philosophers explode”. In the modern column: “a view Martianus Capella also maintains, but which our Christian philosophers reject”. The parenthesis rejects the claim that spirits are mortal and live and die. Conflicting reported authorities. The marginal everlasting spirits do not agree with mortality; later feeding and pain are separately ridiculed. Explode gives reject; which refers to the mortality claim, not every preceding and following claim in Psellus’s description.

Original text: “those Ethnicks boni and mali Genii, are to be exploded”. In the modern column: “the pagans’ good and evil genii must be rejected”. Burton rejects a pagan classification of good and evil genii. A Christian polemical judgment follows conflicting ancient doctrines; good and evil modifies the reported classes. Are to be exploded is a prescription, must be rejected, not a report of physical destruction.

Original text: “But this opinion Bodine, Erastus, Danæus, Scribanius, Sebastian Michaelis, Campanella de Sensu rerum lib. 4. cap. 9. Dandinus the Jesuit, lib. 2. de Animâ explode”. In the modern column: “But Bodin, Erastus, Daneau, Scribanius, Sébastien Michaëlis, Campanella in On the Sense of Things, book 4, chapter 9, and the Jesuit Dandini in On the Soul, book 2, reject this opinion”. Named opponents reject explaining witches’ effects through impaired imagination alone. The continuation expressly says they do not deny witches are melancholy; alone limits the explanation they reject. Explode supplies reject; this opinion is the object, repositioned after the verb in the modern.

Original text: “doubted of, and exploded by others”. In the modern column: “others doubt it and reject it”. Some physicians reject astrology’s use in medicine, while others require it. Burton says he will not decide the controversy himself; the later defense is quoted from Magini and the next paragraph criticizes excess. Exploded gives reject; the passive agent others becomes the modern subject. Doubt remains a separate action.

Original text: “exploding in the mean time that element of fire”. In the modern column: “Meanwhile, this rejects that element of fire”. The preceding cosmological argument dismisses a supposed elemental sphere and outer celestial machinery. Burton attacks hard real spheres, while 074-34 allows hypothetical models for method and order; not every geometrical construction is rejected in every use. Exploding gives rejects; in the mean time becomes Meanwhile; this summarizes the preceding argument.

Original text: “many explode the use of them or any Minerals in Physick”. In the modern column: “Many reject their use, or that of any minerals, in medicine.” Many, especially Erastus, reject precious stones and minerals as medicines. Mattioli and others are lavishly supportive in the next unit; Erastus’s I is a quoted adverse account, not Burton’s own experimental report. Explode supplies reject; many restricts the group; them refers to precious stones.

Original text: “Galens medicines are now exploded and rejected”. In the modern column: “Galen’s medicines are now discredited and rejected”. Older medicines are represented as discredited amid rival compounding practices. The next two units continue the complaint then label it an objection and offer a defense of compound medicines. Do not mistake this for the section’s final blanket verdict. Exploded gives discredited and rejected separately remains rejected; now concerns their current reception in the passage.

Original text: “explodes all this”. In the modern column: “rejects all this”. Gervinus rejects the preceding praise of antimony after reporting a near-fatal experience. His adverse account is followed by Burton’s conditional conclusion through Zwinger, not an unrestricted endorsement or rejection. Explodes gives rejects; all this points back to the commendations, not every medical treatment.

Original text: “Such medicines are to be exploded, that consist of words, characters, spels, and charms”. In the modern column: “Medicines consisting of words, signs, spells and charms must be rejected”. Burton prescribes rejection of verbal and written charms, distinct from material amulets he has just allowed. No good at all is followed by except through conviction or the Devil’s contrivance. The exception and earlier qualified allowance of amulets prevent a universal claim about every remedy. Are to be exploded becomes must be rejected; the relative clause specifies which medicines.

Original margin: “Some explode all humane authors, arts, and sciences, Poets, histories, &c.” Retained English in supplied marginal apparatus: “Some explode all humane authors, arts, and sciences, Poets, histories, &c.” An original English margin condemns some rigorists’ rejection of secular authors and studies. Some limits those accused; all quantifies what they reject. Burton opposes their exclusive permission to read Scripture and says they deserve pity rather than refutation. Original English wording is retained in the note, with no separate modern-body translation; the accompanying note separately glosses explode as reject or denounce.

Original text: “But these absurd paradoxes are exploded by our Church, we teach otherwise.” In the modern column: “But our Church rejects these absurd paradoxes; we teach otherwise.” Burton resumes his confessional voice and rejects the previously reported universal-salvation arguments. The earlier question about punishment belongs to the objection. Later Burton refuses to identify particular people as reprobate and stops the speculative controversy. The passive becomes active: our Church is the rejecting agent; these points to the arguments just rehearsed.

Original Table: “Element of fire exploded 251”. In the modern column: “The elemental sphere of fire rejected. 251”. The unnumbered Table refers to the cosmological rejection on page 251. This is a finding-aid entry, not evidence of an explosive event. Exploded gives rejected; elemental sphere explicates Element of fire, not the verb.

Original Table: “Excentricks and Epicicles exploded, 251”. In the modern column: “Eccentrics and epicycles rejected. 251”. The unnumbered Table points to the same rejection of celestial machinery. The main discussion distinguishes real spheres from useful hypothetical models. Exploded gives rejected; the two nouns name the objects.

explodo

To hiss off or reject by public disapproval; here a tragedy is described as hissed off.

Grammar: Latin verb cited in the first-person present dictionary form explodo; printed explosam is a perfect passive participle, accusative feminine singular agreeing with Tragœdiam after Ob.

Original margin: “Ob Tragœdiam explosam”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “Because his tragedy was hissed off”. The original Latin margin gives an alleged theatrical humiliation as the reason for Sophocles’s death. The supplied editorial note says Valerius Maximus reports Sophocles dying of joy after victory, not the death-after-failure story. This is a textual discrepancy, not an established biography. Explosam gives hissed off; Tragœdiam supplies tragedy; Ob makes it a cause and the modern possessive his comes from the narrative.