Still

Use in the book

The inherited examples make the central contrast especially clear. The man in Platter’s story imagines Aristophanes’ frogs continually croaking inside him; Burton uses his ensuing medical study as an analogy for his own work. The case remains an attributed report, not a verified diagnosis. England’s “still running rivers” likewise continue flowing while navigation is obstructed. Burton criticizes their lost use for transport, then concedes his country’s wealth and security. The obstruction does not turn running water into still water.

The lover’s heart is “still with her” because thought remains occupied by the beloved even in absence. The surrounding poetic claims are extravagances, not literal physiological assertions. The single-l “stil” appears in praise of a wife who is always the same in sickness and health. Burton extends that constancy to a historical allusion to widow-burning which does not distinguish willingness from coercion; the continuation also acknowledges good and bad husbands. A less emotionally charged construction introduces the author himself: he lives still a college member, meaning that his status continues despite limited preferment.

Stationary still belongs to a different comparison. Sailors move while the land stands still; Burton uses their apparent view of receding land to criticize people who locate their own changes in the world around them. A person who “sits still shaking” supplies a finer distinction: the person stays inactive despite shivering, so still cannot exclude every physical movement. In the later household anecdote the wife holds water still in her mouth. Burton expressly attributes the result to silence rather than a special medicine, while assigning restraint unequally to the wife during her husband’s anger.

Silence and tranquility also need local distinction. Beauty’s “still rhetorick”, attributed to Carneades, persuades without speech, as Burton immediately explains. By contrast, angling is “still and quiet” beside the exertion and danger of hunting or hawking: walking and birdsong remain part of its pleasure. Burton is answering a dismissal of fishing which the editor identifies as a position in Plutarch’s dialogue, rather than the author’s unqualified verdict. A “still, poor and contented life” is similarly tranquil, not necessarily mute. It belongs to Burton’s English adaptation of Poliziano, whose preceding Latin differs in several details; the next sentence makes the person’s recognition of contentment conditional.

Quiet has a less reassuring medical use in “still dotage”: quiet mental derangement in the historical account attributed to Rodericus following Aretaeus. Burton expressly says this condition comes and goes in fits, so still cannot mean continual there. The neighboring account acknowledges widows’ changed circumstances as well as bodily explanations; the terminology does not provide a present-day diagnosis.

Two short constructions give different adverbial senses. “Next to Sorrow still I may annex” adds a further topic, fear, and the modern accordingly uses also. The ensuing examples are reported beliefs in omens, not proof of prediction. Elsewhere fertile regions and deserts are “still in the same latitude”: nevertheless at the same latitude despite their climatic contrast. Burton proceeds from travellers’ reports to local terrain and exposure, rather than making duration the point of still.

The distilling still supplies an independent concrete image. After an attributed account of lovers’ wasting, drops from a still are compared with tears drawn out by Cupid’s fire. The intervening Latin says liquid drips from enclosed fire. Its verb stillat means drips; it should not be mistaken for the English temporal adverb merely because the printed forms resemble each other. The physiology remains historical, the verse fragment untraced, and the application a literary image.

Related entries

Sleep and waking: The inherited Waking reference: temporal persistence differs from wakefulness.

Cupid: Cupid’s fire in the distillation comparison.

Commonwealth: The political criticism of neglected river transport.

Present: The inherited temporal-vocabulary reference; no current article is assigned.

Happily: The inherited adverb reference; no current article is assigned.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 3–5Burton’s continuing college membership within his self-description of income, scholarship and detachment.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 8–10continually croaking imaginary frogs, Platter’s reported case and Burton’s reason for medical reading.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 19–21moving sailors and stationary land as an analogy for self-deception, continued into reciprocal national prejudices.
4. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 4–6continuously flowing rivers, obstructed transport and the concession to national prosperity.
5. Subsection 6 Excessive Exercise as a Cause, and How It Acts. Solitude and Idleness · paragraphs 22–24seated inactivity despite shivering, changed circumstances and Burton’s moralized account of idleness.
6. Subsection 7. A Collection of Other Events That Cause Melancholy: The Death of Friends, Losses, and So On · paragraphs 51, 1–2the transition from sorrow to an added discussion of fear and reported ominous events.
7. Subsection 4 Symptoms of Melancholy in Unmarried Women, Nuns and Widows · paragraphs 31–32, 1quiet mental derangement within an attributed historical account, expressly intermittent despite some prolonged symptoms.
8. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraphs 3–5contrasting climates at the same latitude, qualified travel reports and local explanations.
9. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraphs 27–29the objection to fishing and Burton’s reply; tranquil recreation need not exclude walking, birdsong or an unsuccessful catch.
10. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 50–52distinct Latin and English poems on a tranquil life, followed by conditional recognition of contentment.
11. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraphs 29–31beauty’s persuasive silence among attributed philosophical sayings and qualified explanations.
12. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 28–33historical wasting account, the distilling apparatus, the Latin dripping line and Cupid’s tears.
13. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 7–9the lover’s persistent thoughts and extravagant poetic claims concerning the absent beloved.
14. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 63–65, 1–2constant marital devotion, the qualified historical widow-burning comparison, Alcestis, and the turn to good and bad husbands.
15. Prevention Before or After Marriage: Plato’s Community of Wives; Marrying a Courtesan; Love Potions; Brothels; Marrying Someone Equal in Age and Fortune, From a Good Family, Well Educated and of Good Standing; Treating Wives Well; and So On · paragraphs 60–62water held still in the mouth; Burton makes silence rather than the water the operative part of an unequal household instruction.

In this edition

The inherited pairs remain “still crying” → “continually crying”, “still running rivers” → “ever-flowing rivers”, “still rhetorick” → “silent rhetoric”, and “his heart is still with her” → “his heart is always with her”. Continually, ever-flowing and always preserve temporal persistence; silent preserves absence of speech. Running contributes flowing in the river phrase, while still supplies its continuity.

“I live still a Collegiat student” becomes “I remain a member of the college”, a construction-level rendering rather than a direct equation of still with the whole sentence. “Sits still shaking” becomes “sits shivering”; still has no separately expressed modern counterpart there. The noun in “drops from a still” remains still and is explained as an apparatus. The adjacent Latin dripping sentence and Burton’s separate English comparison remain distinct. “Still I may annex” → “I may also place” supplies the additive sense; “and still in the same latitude” → “and still at the same latitude” retains the concessive wording. In “still dotage” → “quiet mental derangement”, still supplies quiet and dotage supplies the historical mental description, whose intermittence is explicit. Present and Happily remain future-entry references inherited from the earlier article.

still · local use 1

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Continually or always, marking ongoing or repeated activity.

Here: The imagined frogs keep croaking. Still qualifies crying; it does not say the frogs are silent or motionless.

Context: Burton invokes Platter’s reported case as an analogy for his own study of medicine; the underlying case remains uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: still crying

Modern rendering: continually crying

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “still running” (English; lemma).

Citation key: still.

Here: Still supplies ever or continual duration, running flowing. Obstruction concerns navigation and transport, not the cessation of the water’s movement.

Context: Burton’s comparison with Dutch waterways criticizes neglected English transport; he then concedes his nation’s flourishing condition and defensive advantages.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: still running rivers

Modern rendering: ever-flowing rivers

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The two-word modifier still running is compounded as ever-flowing; the duration belongs to still and the motion to running.

Further local use

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Citation key: still.

Here: The lover remains mentally occupied by the absent beloved. Still supplies always; the heart’s being with her is figurative.

Context: Burton describes the lover’s preoccupation, then quotes extravagant Philostratus claims whose exact letter/intermediary remains unverified.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: his heart is still with her

Modern rendering: his heart is always with her

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “stil” (English; lemma).

Citation key: still.

Here: Stil is the single-l spelling of the temporal adverb: always or consistently. The same expresses constancy, not stillness of movement.

Context: Burton praises conjugal devotion; his adjoining widow-burning allusion does not distinguish choice from coercion. The continuation acknowledges bad and good husbands too.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: she is stil the same in sickness and in health

Modern rendering: She is always the same in sickness and in health

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

still · local use 2

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Continuing in an existing state: still or yet.

Here: The whole construction means continuing college membership. Remain carries live still; member of the college explains Collegiat student, rather than making the narrator merely an undergraduate.

Context: Burton’s prefatory self-description joins sufficient income to limited preferment and a secluded scholarly life.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: I live still a Collegiat student

Modern rendering: I remain a member of the college

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Live still is recast as remain; Collegiat student supplies member of the college. This is a construction-level alignment.

still · local use 3

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Without movement; stationary.

Here: Still describes the land’s lack of movement in contrast with the moving sailors. This is not the continual-flow sense used of rivers elsewhere.

Context: Burton adapts Virgil’s receding-land image to old people who mistake changes in themselves for folly in the world; the next paragraph generalizes reciprocal prejudice.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: the land stands still

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Citation key: still.

Here: The person stays seated rather than taking the proposed exercise, while nevertheless shaking with cold. Still therefore cannot exclude every bodily motion. The modern does not separately render still.

Context: Burton’s moralized inactivity account also describes impaired ability and changed social circumstances; it is not a general present-day prescription.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: sits still shaking

Modern rendering: sits shivering

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Sits shaking becomes sits shivering. Still, marking lack of active movement, has no separately expressed counterpart in the modern phrase.

Alignment qualification: Modern compression retains the seated shivering but does not independently translate still.

Further local use

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Citation key: still.

Here: Keep the water in place without speaking; still modifies hold, rather than simply promising to keep doing something for ever.

Context: The anecdote attributes the result to silence, not the water. Burton places the burden of restraint on wives during husbands’ anger.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: hold still in her mouth

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

still · local use 4

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Silent: operating without speech.

Here: Rhetorick is persuasive eloquence; still says beauty persuades without speaking. The following relative clause explicitly explains this.

Context: Burton attributes the definition to Carneades among several philosophers’ sayings. Their exact distribution requires collation; belike qualifies the ensuing Diogenes explanation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: still rhetorick

Modern rendering: silent rhetoric

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Still supplies silent; rhetorick rhetoric or eloquence.

still · local use 5

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Quiet or free from outward bustle or agitation.

Here: Fishing is contrasted with dangerous, laborious hunting and hawking, but the angler still walks and hears birds. Still is therefore not absolute absence of movement or sound.

Context: Burton answers the anti-fishing position he assigns to Plutarch; the editor identifies it as a speaker’s position in a dialogue. Even catching nothing can leave the outing valuable.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: still and quiet

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Citation key: still.

Here: Still supplies quiet or tranquil; poor and contented remain separate qualities. The life is free from the glory and strife of the preceding lines.

Context: Burton’s own English adaptation of Poliziano differs from the preceding Latin, including God for gods and added strife. The next sentence makes recognition of contentment conditional.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a still, poor and contented life

Modern rendering: a quiet, poor, contented life

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Citation key: still.

Here: Still supplies quiet; dotage here means mental derangement, not fond affection. Quiet does not imply well-being or unbroken duration: the passage expressly says the symptoms come and go in fits.

Context: Burton reports Rodericus following Aretaeus within historical uterine melancholy; the definition and its intermittent character are attributed, not a modern diagnosis.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: still dotage

Modern rendering: quiet mental derangement

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Still contributes quiet, and dotage mental derangement. The two-word phrase is aligned at equal scope.

still · local use 6

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

A distilling apparatus.

Here: The concrete noun follows a and names the vessel or apparatus from which drops emerge, furnishing a comparison for tears. It is neither the temporal adverb nor the adjective silent.

Context: Burton moves from Pratensis’s historical physiology to a literary comparison of Cupid’s fire and lovers’ tears; the garden in the preceding attributed passage is not casually assigned to Burton.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: drops from a still

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

still · local use 7

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Also or further, marking an addition to the discussion.

Here: Still marks the next item in Burton’s account: after sorrow he also places occasions of fear. Annex means add or place alongside, rather than making still describe an enduring emotional state.

Context: Burton’s transitional sentence introduces superstitious fear and reported beliefs in omens, without establishing the omens’ predictive truth.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: still I may annex

Modern rendering: I may also place

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Still contributes also; I may annex becomes I may place. The word order changes within the equal-scope construction.

still · local use 8

Printed “still” (English; lemma).

Nevertheless or yet, retaining a circumstance despite a contrasting result.

Here: The fertile and barren regions are at the same latitude despite their opposed climates. Still marks this contrast; it does not primarily say that latitude continues unchanged over time.

Context: Burton compares travellers’ reports, including qualified praise and reported extremes, then explains variation through local terrain and exposure.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: and still in the same latitude

Modern rendering: and still at the same latitude

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Still remains still in the modern construction, here with concessive force; in becomes at.

stillo

Printed “stillat” (Latin; lemma).

Drips or falls in drops: third-person singular of Latin stillare.

Here: Liquor is the subject liquid; stillat means drips; ut introduces as; ab igne means from fire, with occluso qualifying the enclosed fire. The Latin verb describes dripping and is not an English adverbial form of still.

Context: Unattributed Latin fragment between Burton’s English distillation image and its application to Cupid’s tears; its source remains untraced.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ut occluso stillat ab igne liquor

Modern rendering: As liquid drips from a fire enclosed

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.