Revenge

Use in the book

Burton defines anger as a desire for revenge, keeping the passion and its object distinct. In a repeated moral catalogue, an angry person prefers vengeance to welfare or life despite knowing the consequences. Revenge and malice press David towards harming Saul, but divine precepts, moral integrity and fear of God hold him back. The account of faction extends retaliation’s effects from people and families to cities and kingdoms; it is immediately answered by an appeal to forgiveness and peace. Charles VI supplies a transmitted case of destructive passion, with the date and continuity of illness left as Burton reports them rather than certified retrospectively.

Retaliation need not be bodily violence. The author’s preliminary defence turns the reader’s criticism back upon the critic through lex talionis and quid pro quo: mutual indulgence slides into mutual censure. Later, the poor scholar rewards a patron through praise and biography but takes revenge on enemies through satire and invective. The same power of writing can confer honour or attack reputation. In the jealousy discussion, legem is the accusative of lex: formerly unfaithful men expect like treatment, projecting their own behaviour onto others. The maxim does not establish an individual wife’s infidelity.

The central counterexample answers threatened revenge with reconciliation. Burton’s syntax makes Euclid threaten his brother, who vows instead to make Euclid love him again; the supplied Plutarch comparison reverses their roles. The printed sequence is preserved. The Latin ultus, with fuero, expresses the revenge contemplated by the first vow; the reply seeks restored affection. Christian exhortation then forbids private vengeance, calls for peace as far as possible, and links the burning-coals image to kindness towards an enemy. Burton acknowledges how hard injury is to bear before reserving vengeance to the Lord. In the quoted divine voice, mine and I belong to God; the afflicted are the beneficiaries of avenging, not its targets.

The animal stories explain reciprocity without authorizing it. A goldfinch retaliates against the ass that ruined its nest; the following eagle fable retains Burton’s bee even though the familiar version has a beetle. Brasidas’s mouse story leads to a claim that no creature is too small to retaliate. Its original margin is narrower: cupiat means desires, and ulcisci to take revenge, so it asserts desire rather than completed action. Burton calls this lex talionis and immediately instructs the reader to do no wrong and patiently bear injuries. The earlier discussion also distinguishes deserved consequences of one’s own wrongdoing from undeserved injury.

That restraint has a later qualification. Sometimes discreet and moderate resistance may defend a person and obtain lasting peace. Vindicate himself there means defend himself, whereas vindicate her self in the argument against confining wives means avenge herself. The latter belongs to Burton’s gendered account of retaliation under unjust suspicion, not a verified universal account of women’s behaviour. Vindicate can also mean free from harm, as when the moral catalogue criticizes doing nothing to escape death, pain and grief. None of these local meanings licenses treating every occurrence of vindicate as revenge.

The object can even be oneself. In the symptom account, being revenged on themselves describes self-directed fatal violence after frustrated efforts to express passion or correct what the sufferers believe wrong. This is Burton’s historical claim, not an inevitable course of melancholy. His later English verse urges the mind to expel revengeful anger; the preceding Latin calls it ultrices iras, where ultrices means vengeful and iras anger. The Latin and Burton’s expanded English remain separate voices.

Divine retribution has punitive and protective settings. In the demonological explanation, vindictæ means of vengeance, justæ just, and Dei of God: the demons are called executioners of God’s just vengeance under divine permission. Burton’s own subsequent English describes them more generally as executioners of his will. Elsewhere ultori Deo names God the avenger as the protector of strangers without friends or kin, while plural ultoribus names avenging gods in an attributed pagan explanation of defeat. These accounts belong to the work’s theology and reported supernatural theories, not present explanations of illness or historical proof of divine intervention.

Revenge also enters attributed supernatural explanations. Thyraeus distinguishes damned souls seeking revenge from souls in purgatory seeking relief. At the opening of the witchcraft subsection, Burton assigns revenge and lust to the Devil’s human instruments; Erastus then claims that witches provoke harms the demon would not otherwise have committed. These are historical demonological allegations. In the later religious consolation, the alleged pact made to take revenge belongs to the sufferer’s imagined self-accusation. The reply distinguishes unwanted thoughts from consent, including partial assent later rejected rather than a settled will, and adds the possibility of forgiveness under penitence and without final rejection of mercy. The accusation is not proof of guilt.

Finally, ultio can be punishment within conscience rather than a visible retaliatory act. The adapted Juvenal margin says that guilty people cannot acquit themselves even if they evade worldly justice. The surrounding account allows earlier pleasure and prosperity before later accusation and despair. God the avenger and the Latin ultor a tergo Deus then describe divine wrath as apprehended by the guilty soul: a tergo means from behind, Deus God, and ultor avenger. The modern pursuing unfolds that image rather than translating an additional Latin verb.

Related entries

Spirits: Attributed motives of departed spirits

Witchcraft: Alleged human instruments and demonic agency

Despair: Self-accusation, consent and qualified mercy

Anger: Anger as desire for retaliation

Patience: Forbearance and the qualified allowance of resistance

Charity: Forgiveness, enemies and charitable restraint

Envy, malice and hatred: Distinguishing revenge from hatred and malice

Fame and reputation: Literary honour and attacks on reputation

Make away: Self-directed death and the preservation of agency

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 6–8reciprocal literary censure, lex talionis and quid pro quo in the author’s defence
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 29–31vengeance preferred to welfare; vindictam in the original Cardano-associated margin
3. Subsection 8. The Moving Faculty · paragraphs 28–30revenge as the object of anger’s desire
4. Subsection 11. The Will · paragraphs 40–42David’s retaliatory impulse checked by moral and divine restraint
5. Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 22–24Thyraeus’s alternative apparition accounts, revenge contrasted with relief
6. Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 6–8avenging gods in the attributed Arcadian account
7. Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 27–29executioners of just divine vengeance in the historical demonological explanation
8. Subsection 3 Witches and Magicians: How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 30–32human retaliatory motives and Erastus’s allegation of witchly provocation
9. Subsection 8. Rivalry, Hatred, Faction and the Desire for Revenge as Causes · paragraphs 25–26; Subsection 9. Anger as a Cause · paragraph 27collective destructive passions followed by forgiveness and peace
10. Subsection 9. Anger as a Cause · paragraphs 33–35the Charles VI account and marginal ultionem, with its source discrepancies
11. Subsection 3 Symptoms of Melancholy Abounding Throughout the Body · paragraphs 25–26; Subsection 4 Symptoms of Melancholy in Unmarried Women, Nuns and Widows · paragraph 27self-directed revenge in the historical symptom account; the following heading marks its end
12. 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 · paragraphs 16–18Latin vengeful anger and Burton’s distinct expanded English verse
13. Member 4 Against Servitude, Loss of Liberty, Imprisonment and Banishment · paragraphs 45–46; Member 5 Against Sorrow Over the Death of Friends or Other Causes, Groundless Fear, and So On · paragraph 1protection of the stranger by God the avenger, before the next member heading
14. Member 5 Against Sorrow Over the Death of Friends or Other Causes, Groundless Fear, and So On · paragraphs 20–22revenge preferred to life, repeated vindictam, and vindicate as free from harm
15. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 30–34threats, the two brothers’ vows, the reversed Plutarch roles and reconciliation
16. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 41–49bearing injuries, prayer for enemies, divine reservation and punishment of oppressors
17. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 1–10responsibility for wrong, animal retaliation, desire versus action, and the command to break the reciprocal cycle
18. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 1–8conditional social reconciliation and the later allowance of discreet, moderate resistance
19. Subsection 3 Honourable Objects of Love · paragraphs 6–8literary reward and revenge, with the uncertain Plato reference
20. Causes of Jealousy. Who Are Most Susceptible. Idleness, Melancholy, Impotence, Prolonged Absence, Beauty, Sexual Licence, Being Unfaithful Themselves. Temptations Arising From Time, Place and People; Mistreatment as a Cause · paragraphs 1–3legem talionis and the projection of prior unfaithfulness
21. The Cure of Jealousy: Avoiding Occasions for It, Keeping Occupied; Good Counsel; Disregarding It, Not Watching Women or Locking Them Up; Concealing It, and So On · paragraphs 2–4vindicate as avenge in the argument against confining wives
22. Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraphs 52–56conscience’s first punishment after possible worldly success and pleasure
23. Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraphs 8–10God the avenger, the classical pursuit image and its discrepant biblical reference
24. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 14–18; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 26–38imagined self-accusation followed by distinctions of consent, settled will and qualified mercy

In this edition

“A desire of revenge” becomes “a desire for revenge”; “vengeance” becomes “revenge” in the welfare comparison. “Swore he would be revenged” is compressed to “swore revenge,” preserving the threat rather than inventing its execution. “Leave revenge unto the Lord” becomes “leave vengeance to the Lord,” while the first-person divine claim and the avenging of the afflicted remain unchanged.

“Lex talionis,” “lex Talionis” and “legem talionis” all retrieve “the law of retaliation,” in three distinct settings; “quid pro quo” gives “something for something.” In the mouse margin, “quod non cupiat ulcisci” means “that it does not desire revenge,” whereas the body says “will not be revenged,” rendered “will not take revenge.” The wish and the predicted act remain distinct.

“Vindicate her self” becomes “avenging herself”; “vindicate himself” becomes “defending yourself” within the wider peace-seeking construction. “Vindicate us from” becomes “free us from them,” with them supplied from the preceding harms. “Prima hæc est ultio” becomes “This is the first punishment”: prima means first, hæc this, est is and ultio punishment. “Ultor a tergo Deus” becomes “God pursuing from behind in vengeance,” with the pursuit made explicit from the whole image.

avenge oneself

Printed “avenge our selves” (English; phrase).

Retaliate for injury to oneself.

Here: The apostolic exhortation prohibits personal vengeance.

Context: Burton combines scriptural passages, preserving as far as possible for peace and repentance in the forgiveness clause; the coals image belongs to kindness toward an enemy.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: not to avenge our selves

Modern rendering: not to avenge ourselves

Word and construction: Negation remains explicit and the reflexive object identifies the private avengers.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “avenge our selves” (English; phrase).

Citation key: avenge oneself.

Here: The exhortation contrasts forgiveness and peace with mutually inflicted misery.

Context: The original shifts from inclusive our selves to the modern quoted yourselves; the surrounding first-person plural indictment remains.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: not avenge our selves

Modern rendering: do not avenge yourselves

Word and construction: The modern recasts the exhortation as direct address, changing the reflexive person while preserving the prohibition.

Sense relation: The same prohibition occurs in the earlier diagnosis of faction and mutual injury.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “avenge” (English; lemma).

Citation key: avenge.

Here: God is said to avenge the afflicted and judge the poor.

Context: The Lord is agent and the afflicted are beneficiaries, not the targets of retaliation. The supplied comparison is Psalm 140:12, while the original margin prints 13:12 and separately 45.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: will avenge the afflicted and judge the poor

Word and construction: The unchanged construction preserves both divine actions and their objects.

Sense relation: The same redress is sought for injured others, with God rather than a private person as agent.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

be revenged

Printed “be revenged” (English; phrase).

Take revenge; obtain retaliatory satisfaction.

Here: A threat of revenge is met by a vow to restore affection.

Context: Burton’s syntax makes Euclid threaten and his brother reply; the supplied Plutarch comparison reverses those roles. Both versions lead to reconciliation, not enacted revenge.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: swore he would be revenged

Modern rendering: swore revenge

Word and construction: Would be revenged is compressed into the object revenge of swore; the threatened intention is preserved.

Uncertainty: The paired text preserves Burton’s allocation of speakers rather than silently replacing it with Plutarch’s.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “in revenge” (English; phrase).

Citation key: revenge.

Here: The little bird retaliates against the ass that destroyed its nest.

Context: The animal exempla warn against provoking even the weak; the subsequent maxim recommends enduring injuries. The separate eagle story has Burton’s bee where the familiar fable has a beetle.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: in revenge

Word and construction: The unchanged phrase identifies the retaliatory purpose of the bird’s action.

Sense relation: Retaliation is illustrated by an attributed animal example.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “be revenged” (English; phrase).

Citation key: be revenged.

Here: Brasidas’s reported remark generalizes the mouse’s response to harm done to her young.

Context: The body says no creature will fail to retaliate; the original margin says no animal fails to desire revenge, a distinct claim about inclination.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: there is no creature so contemptible, that will not be revenged

Modern rendering: no creature is so contemptible that it will not take revenge

Word and construction: Will and the negative remain; the modern makes the active retaliatory meaning explicit.

Sense relation: The same verbal construction names the reaction claimed even for small creatures.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “be revenged on themselves” (English; phrase).

Citation key: be revenged on oneself.

Here: Burton describes self-directed fatal violence when people cannot vent passion or redress what they believe is wrong.

Context: His historical causal claim is severe, but does not establish an inevitable outcome for people with melancholy; as they mean qualifies the wrong as their own judgment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: be revenged on themselves

Modern rendering: take revenge upon themselves

Word and construction: Themselves retains the self-directed object; no external victim is supplied.

Sense relation: The same retaliatory action is represented as self-directed in this historical account.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “revenge such men take of their adversaries” (English; phrase).

Citation key: take revenge.

Here: Scholars attack enemies through satire and invective, in contrast with honouring patrons in writing.

Context: The passage describes the power of literary recompense and retaliation; it does not require physical violence. Burton’s Plato book number is impossible as an ordinary Laws reference and remains unresolved.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the greatest revenge such men take of their adversaries

Modern rendering: the greatest revenge such men take on their enemies

Word and construction: Take of becomes take on; the superlative and the writers’ agency remain.

Sense relation: Retaliation can be literary rather than bodily.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

leave revenge to the Lord

Printed “leave revenge unto the Lord” (English; phrase).

Reserve retribution to God; leave means entrust or refrain from taking it oneself, revenge retaliatory punishment, unto to.

Here: The patient sufferer is told not to exact private revenge.

Context: Burton follows recognition that injury is hard to bear with the divine first-person claim to vengeance and repayment, then a comparison with God’s punishment of oppressors.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: leave revenge unto the Lord

Modern rendering: leave vengeance to the Lord

Word and construction: Revenge becomes vengeance, unto to; leave and the divine recipient remain.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Vengeance” (English; lemma).

Citation key: vengeance.

Here: God claims vengeance and promises repayment in the quoted scriptural voice.

Context: The speaker of mine and I is the Lord, not Burton or the reader; the source is Romans 12:19 in the supplied note.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Vengeance is mine and I will repay

Modern rendering: Vengeance is mine, and I will repay

Word and construction: The identity wording retains possession and future repayment.

Sense relation: The noun explicitly names what the preceding command reserves to God.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

lex talionis

Printed “lex talionis” (Latin; phrase).

The law of retaliation: lex means law or principle; talionis means of retaliation or equivalent requital.

Here: Mutual literary censure is presented as reciprocal repayment.

Context: The author admits his faults, invokes precedents and invites the reader’s criticism; mutual indulgence becomes mutual retaliation in the self-defensive performance.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: lex talionis

Modern rendering: the law of retaliation

Word and construction: The modern phrase translates both noun components and supplies the article.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lex Talionis” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key: lex talionis.

Here: The animal stories are generalized into a tendency to retaliate.

Context: Burton immediately tells the reader to do no wrong and patiently endure wrongs received; description of the impulse is not permission to act on it.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: lex Talionis

Modern rendering: the law of retaliation

Word and construction: The same phrase is translated directly, with the original capitalization retained in the form.

Sense relation: The reciprocal principle is described and then countered by a call to restraint.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “legem talionis” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key: lex talionis.

Here: Men formerly unfaithful expect like treatment from others.

Context: The context presents suspicion as projection of their own behaviour; the future they shall have is Burton’s moralizing formulation, not evidence of a specific wife’s act.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: legem talionis, like for like

Modern rendering: the law of retaliation,” like for like

Word and construction: Legem talionis supplies the quoted law of retaliation; the following like for like is Burton’s own English gloss, retained separately.

Sense relation: Reciprocal requital explains the suspicion of people conscious of their own wrongdoing.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

quid pro quo

Printed “quid pro quo” (Latin; phrase).

Something for something: quid means something, pro for or in return for, quo something in that relation.

Here: The phrase restates reciprocal censure or requital.

Context: It accompanies lex talionis in the author’s playful defence; it does not here denote an allegation of a corrupt bargain.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: quid pro quo

Modern rendering: something for something

Word and construction: The three components retain the reciprocal construction.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

revenge

Printed “revenge” (English; lemma).

Retaliation for a wrong or injury.

Here: Revenge is the object desired in the definition of anger.

Context: Burton lists anger among mixed passions, alongside but distinct from hatred and malice; desire does not itself mean an accomplished act.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Anger, which is a desire of revenge

Modern rendering: anger, a desire for revenge

Word and construction: The modernization preserves revenge and the distinction between the passion and its desired object.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “vengeance” (English; lemma).

Citation key: vengeance.

Here: The angry man puts revenge before his own welfare.

Context: The moral catalogue depicts acknowledged harmful attachment; the body says welfare while the Latin margin says life.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: an angry man will prefer vengeance

Modern rendering: the angry man will prefer revenge

Word and construction: Vengeance becomes revenge; the comparison with welfare occurs later in the same coordinated sentence.

Sense relation: Vengeance names the same preferred retaliatory object.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “revenge” (English; lemma).

Citation key: revenge.

Here: Revenge is again preferred to life or well-being.

Context: The repeated catalogue criticizes pursuing desires while hating their harmful consequences; the preceding vindicate means free, not avenge.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: an angry man his revenge

Modern rendering: the angry man, his revenge

Word and construction: The elliptical comparison depends on prefers and before his life, or good estate in the preceding clause, retained in the modern sentence.

Sense relation: The same preference recurs in the consolation argument.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “desire of revenge” (English; phrase).

Citation key: desire of revenge.

Here: Desire for revenge is grouped with hatred, malice and faction as a cause of collective destruction.

Context: Burton attributes violent institutions and the ruin of political communities to these passions, then immediately urges restraint and forgiveness.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: hatred, malice, faction, and desire of revenge

Modern rendering: hatred, malice, faction and desire for revenge

Word and construction: The four members remain distinct; the desire is not silently equated with every other passion.

Sense relation: The same desire has public consequences in Burton’s moral account.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “desire of revenge” (English; phrase).

Citation key: desire of revenge.

Here: Charles VI’s revenge and malice are alleged causes of his distress and violent episode.

Context: This is Burton’s account attributed to Aemilius; its July date and claim of lifelong continuation are retained as his, with the supplied comparison dating the forest episode to August.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: desire of revenge and malice

Modern rendering: his desire for revenge and his malice

Word and construction: The modern supplies his twice from Charles as subject; the two motives remain separate.

Sense relation: The retaliatory desire appears in a transmitted historical case, not a verified retrospective diagnosis.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Revenge” (English; lemma).

Citation key: revenge.

Here: Revenge presses David towards harming Saul but is restrained.

Context: The preceding account of the will is qualified by divine precepts and the Spirit; moral integrity, religion and fear of God hold David back.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Revenge and Malice were as two violent oppugners on the one side

Modern rendering: Revenge and malice pressed violently upon him on one side

Word and construction: The two named impulses are retained; the assailant metaphor is recast as pressing upon him, with him supplied from David.

Sense relation: The same impulse is checked rather than acted upon.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “seek revenge” (English; phrase).

Citation key: seek revenge.

Here: Seeking revenge is the motive assigned to the souls of the damned.

Context: Burton reports Thyraeus’s alternative explanations: devils, damned souls seeking revenge, or purgatorial souls seeking relief. This is attributed demonology, not established supernatural agency.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: souls of damned men that seek revenge

Modern rendering: the souls of the damned seeking revenge

Word and construction: The seeking remains an intention, and its subject remains the damned souls; relief belongs to a different alternative.

Sense relation: The familiar retaliatory motive is attributed to a particular class of apparitions.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “their revenge” (English; lemma).

Citation key: revenge.

Here: The human instruments of the Devil allegedly cause harm to satisfy their own revenge and lust.

Context: Burton makes the human instruments the holders of the motive; Erastus’s following claim says witches provoke a demon to harms he would otherwise not have done. These are historical allegations, not proof of witchcraft.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to satisfie their revenge and lust

Modern rendering: to satisfy their revenge and desire

Word and construction: Their refers to the human instruments; revenge remains distinct from lust, rendered desire.

Sense relation: The same desire is attributed to alleged witches, with human provocation distinguished from demonic action.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “to be revenged of thine enemies” (English; phrase).

Citation key: be revenged.

Here: Revenge is an alleged motive in the sufferer’s imagined accusation of a pact with the Devil.

Context: The objection is voiced, not established as an actual crime. The later reply distinguishes unwanted thoughts, resistance, partial assent later rejected, settled will, and forgiveness conditioned by penitence and nonfinal rejection of mercy.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to be revenged of thine enemies

Modern rendering: take revenge on your enemies

Word and construction: The passive-shaped idiom becomes active take revenge; of becomes on, and the enemies remain the object.

Sense relation: The same retaliatory intention occurs inside an objection that the subsequent consolation answers.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

revengeful anger

Printed “Revengeful anger” (English; phrase).

Anger seeking retaliation: revengeful means vengeful, anger the passion.

Here: Burton’s English verse urges expulsion of vengeful anger from the mind.

Context: This is his independent English adaptation after Latin attributed to Fracastoro; pain and discontent are English additions.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Revengeful anger

Modern rendering: Vengeful anger

Word and construction: Revengeful becomes vengeful; anger remains.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “ultrices” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: ultrix.

Here: Vengeful anger is one of the things commanded to stay far away.

Context: The Latin is attributed to Fracastoro without an exact work; its English translation is distinct from Burton’s following adaptation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ultrices iras

Modern rendering: vengeful anger

Word and construction: Ultrices supplies vengeful and iras anger; the Latin plural is rendered collectively.

Sense relation: The Latin adjective has the same retaliatory quality but belongs to the preceding independent verse.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

ulciscor

Printed “ultus” (Latin; lemma).

Avenge oneself or take revenge; ultus forms the perfect expression with fuero.

Here: The first vow threatens revenge on the other brother.

Context: The second vow promises to make the first speaker love him; the original marginal Latin leaves the names unstated.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Dispeream nisi te ultus fuero

Modern rendering: May I perish unless I take revenge on you

Word and construction: Dispeream supplies may I perish, nisi unless, te on you, and ultus fuero the completed revenge contemplated by the vow.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “ulcisci” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: ulciscor.

Here: The infinitive supplies the action desired by even a small animal.

Context: This margin says desire revenge, where Burton’s body says will be revenged; desire is not silently converted into achievement.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: quod non cupiat ulcisci

Modern rendering: that it does not desire revenge

Word and construction: Cupiat supplies desire, ulcisci revenge or to take revenge; quod and non supply the relation and negation.

Modern container: note

Sense relation: The same verb occurs as the object of desire, with a narrower modality than the body.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “ulcisci” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: ulciscor.

Here: A person’s punishment of an enemy is compared with God’s treatment of oppressors.

Context: Burton attributes the maxim to Plato without a verified locus. The margin’s customarily differs from the body’s will.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: inimicum suum ulcisci

Modern rendering: take such severe vengeance on his enemy

Alignment scope: phrase with degree supplied from earlier tam severè in the wider comparison

Word and construction: Inimicum suum supplies his enemy; ulcisci take vengeance. Such severe is supplied from tam severè earlier in the full comparison.

Modern container: note

Sense relation: The same retaliatory verb occurs under a comparison of human and divine power.

ultio

Printed “ultio” (Latin; lemma).

Vengeance, requital or punishment; here conscience’s inward punishment.

Here: The guilty person cannot acquit himself, even after avoiding worldly justice.

Context: The adapted Juvenal quotation belongs to an account of conscience that follows earlier pleasure and worldly success; it does not claim distress is continuous from the first wrongdoing.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Prima hæc est ultio

Modern rendering: This is the first punishment

Word and construction: Prima gives first, hæc this, est is and ultio punishment.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “ultionem” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: ultio.

Here: Charles is described as bent on revenge.

Context: The attributed margin differs from the body in its concise account of food, rest and killing companions; its printed July 1392 date is retained with the supplied historical discrepancy.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: in ultionem versus

Modern rendering: bent on revenge

Word and construction: Versus supplies bent or turned, in towards/on, and ultionem revenge.

Modern container: note

Sense relation: The same noun denotes intended retaliation rather than conscience’s internal punishment.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

ultor

Printed “ultor” (Latin; lemma).

An avenger or agent of retribution.

Here: God is imagined pursuing from behind in vengeance, felt by a guilty soul.

Context: The classical phrase is placed beside the biblical avenger; the margin’s Psalm 44:1 differs from the supplied Psalm 94:1 comparison. This is Burton’s theological and poetic account of experienced wrath.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ultor a tergo Deus

Modern rendering: God pursuing from behind in vengeance

Word and construction: Deus means God, ultor avenger, and a tergo from behind; pursuing is supplied to unfold the image, not a separate Latin verb.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “avenger” (English; lemma).

Citation key: avenger.

Here: The English title names God as avenger before the Latin phrase.

Context: The wrath is said to be apprehended by a guilty soul; the title and psychological account belong to Burton’s religious explanation.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: God the avenger

Word and construction: The title remains unchanged and keeps God as agent.

Sense relation: The original English title corresponds to the nearby Latin agent noun.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “ultori” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: ultor.

Here: The stranger is the special concern of God the avenger.

Context: Burton invokes Plato’s protection of strangers to console forced exiles; the avenging role is protective, not an accusation that the stranger is guilty.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ultori Deo summa cura peregrinus est

Modern rendering: The stranger is the particular concern of God the avenger

Word and construction: Peregrinus is the stranger, summa cura the particular concern, est is, and ultori Deo God the avenger as the person concerned. The dative construction is recast as of in English.

Sense relation: Divine retribution grounds care for the vulnerable stranger.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “ultoribus” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: ultor.

Here: The Greek gods are said to exact vengeance in the Arcadian story.

Context: Burton reports his author’s explanation of a historical defeat within theories of guardian spirits; the compressed story remains uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Diis Græciæ ultoribus

Modern rendering: the gods of Greece exacting vengeance

Word and construction: Diis gives the gods, Græciæ of Greece and ultoribus avengers, rendered dynamically as exacting vengeance.

Sense relation: The same agent noun appears in an attributed pagan explanation of retribution.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

vindicate

Printed “vindicate” (English; lemma).

Rescue or free from a harm.

Here: The speaker criticizes doing nothing to escape death, pain and grief.

Context: The omitted object after from is supplied from the preceding harms; the later revenge is a separate noun in the moral catalogue.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: that which should vindicate us from

Modern rendering: that would free us from them

Word and construction: Vindicate becomes free; them supplies the omitted object from death, pain and grief.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

vindicate oneself · vindicate her self

Printed “vindicate her self” (English; phrase).

Avenge herself.

Here: A wife is said to retaliate because she is unjustly suspected.

Context: This is Burton’s gendered account in an argument against locking wives up; the preceding poisoning line is not translated by the whole following prose or evidence that every suspected wife acts so.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: seeks by all means to vindicate her self

Modern rendering: tries every means of avenging herself

Word and construction: Vindicate means avenge here; seeks preserves attempted action, and herself identifies whose supposed wrong is avenged.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

vindicate oneself · vindicate himself

Printed “vindicate himself” (English; phrase).

Defend oneself or secure redress.

Here: Discreet resistance may secure lasting peace.

Context: Burton allows resistance only sometimes and if discreetly and moderately done, qualifying the preceding counsel to bear injuries; this is not unrestricted revenge.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: no better means to vindicate himself to purchase final peace

Modern rendering: There is no better means of defending yourself and securing lasting peace

Word and construction: Vindicate becomes defending; himself shifts to yourself in the direct address, and purchase means securing.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

vindicta

Printed “vindictam” (Latin; lemma).

Revenge or vengeance; accusative object of the understood verb prefers.

Here: The angry man prefers revenge to life in the attributed Latin catalogue.

Context: Cardano is named in the margin; the preceding lover clause supplies the verb and the comparison with life, while Burton’s English body separately says welfare.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: iracundus vindictam

Modern rendering: the angry man, revenge

Word and construction: Iracundus supplies the angry man and vindictam revenge; the omitted verb and comparison are understood from the preceding clause.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “vindictam” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: vindicta.

Here: The angry man’s preference is repeated in the Cardano-associated moral list.

Context: The marginal ellipsis carries forward puts before life from the lover clause; it is not an independent imperative.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: iracundus vindictam

Modern rendering: the angry man, revenge

Word and construction: The noun remains the object of the understood preference.

Modern container: note

Sense relation: The repeated Latin has the same object and comparison.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “vindictæ” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: vindicta.

Here: Demons are styled agents of God’s just punishment.

Context: Burton gives the theological claim under God’s permission and attributes the phrase to Tolosanus; illness as punishment is his historical account, not a modern causal explanation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Carnifices vindictæ justæ Dei

Modern rendering: executioners of God’s just vengeance

Word and construction: Carnifices means executioners, vindictæ of vengeance, justæ just and Dei of God. Burton’s separate English executioners of his will is less specific and remains distinct.

Sense relation: The noun denotes authorized divine retribution within Burton’s theological explanation.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.