Clown

Use in the book

The country labourer’s presumed toughness supplies the point of the Cape Verde example. Burton reports that extreme heat defeats even the hardiest men and stiffest clowns: people accustomed to hard bodily work supposedly cannot resist it. Reading clowns as comic performers would destroy that comparison. The account belongs to historical climatic and medical explanation. The supplied apparatus also distinguishes Burton’s superlative about the climate from Hawkins’s less absolute description, and the two writers’ explanations of the illness. Elsewhere the broader rural sense is sufficient: a country fellow can ride a horse, country people eat the birds cited in the diet section, and a countryman is among the ordinary people Antiochus allegedly meets in disguise.

The boorish sense often exposes someone’s social judgment. Drinking companions treat the man who refuses intoxication as a clown of no breeding; Burton condemns the rule that makes this an insult. The isolated university-trained minister imagines his village neighbours as country boors even after granting that they may be honest and peaceable. Musarium’s declaration that every man except Lycias is a boor belongs to her extravagant lover’s praise. The husband’s alleged boorishness in the jealousy discussion likewise belongs to a constructed, hostile scenario illustrated through literary lovers. None of these valuations is a neutral description supplied by the word alone. In the religious partition, Burton makes rustic ignorance part of his explicitly hostile depiction of Muslims; the continuation mixes material attributed to the Quran with stories transmitted by European polemicists.

The relation between rusticity and education remains unsettled. In the consolation concerning birth, Burton first declares that good character and accomplishments make a person noble regardless of ancestry. He then retreats towards a hierarchy of inherited manners, repeats Lemnius’s contempt for common people, and uses the transformed cat’s return to chasing mice to explain why a promoted clown probably retains his origins. His words likely and hardly leave a qualification, and he expressly concedes that education may make such men more capable and refined, while still claiming that their origins can probably be detected. The social prejudice is substantial. Yet the ending acknowledges faults and merit on both sides, praises deserving lowborn men, and makes the preference for hereditary nobles conditional on capability. Burton finally returns to his intended conclusion: low birth is no such disgrace. A separate climatic account includes clownish manners among the effects of air, while saying that climate affects bodily constitution more than conduct or understanding.

Love supplies the conspicuous counterexample to fixed rusticity. Among its acknowledged harms Burton finds the power to make boors courteous. He immediately allows that it is hard to determine whether its harm exceeds its good. Cymon illustrates acquired accomplishment: love of Iphigenia prompts him to learn singing, dancing, instruments and social graces. His father already holds high status in Burton’s telling, so becoming a gentleman here chiefly means becoming cultivated. Nor should the example be converted into a simple moral improvement: the edition notes that Burton’s compressed valorous exploits cover abduction and violence in Boccaccio. The following claim that even clownish lovers become neat concerns dress and self-presentation. Later, an ugly rustic is encouraged not to assume that an elegant woman must reject him; this is hypothetical reassurance about unequal matches, not a guarantee.

The theatrical occurrence belongs to another consolation. An unsuccessful office-seeker may resemble a bad tragic actor who wears a crown but cannot sustain the king’s part. He acts a clown instead. Burton proposes unfitness as one possible explanation of disappointment, then expressly concedes that the unsuccessful person may actually be more deserving. The metaphor’s argument must retain that alternative.

Related entries

Parasite: A social role whose conduct should not be inferred from rustic status.

Silly: The changing force of a nearby evaluative adjective.

Custom and education: Acquired habits and the disputed persistence of upbringing.

Exercise: Bodily work and habitual strength.

Humane learning: Scholarship and practical or social accomplishments.

Honour and nobility: Birth, acquired worth and social rank.

Love: The mixed effects and possible cultivation produced by love.

Church patronage: The scholar’s complaint about a village appointment.

Places to read

1. Subsection 2 The Quantity of Food as a Cause · paragraphs 15–17the drinking company’s insult and Burton’s condemnation of its inverted social values.
2. Subsection 5 Bad Air as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraphs 35–37extreme heat and the hardy labourers, especially Subsection 5 Bad Air as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraph 36; note 2629 qualifies the travel report.
3. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 33–35practical country skill and narrow scholarship, with the Themistocles counterexample in the apparatus.
4. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 38–39; Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraph 1the minister’s isolated village life, the honest-parishioner concession, and the turn towards scholars’ own faults.
5. Section 2. Member 1. Subsection 1. Diet Corrected in the Choice of Food · paragraphs 19–21country people in the reported dietary example.
6. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraphs 22–24rustic manners within the historical theory of climate and constitution.
7. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraphs 28–30the countryman among Antiochus’s alleged chance acquaintances.
8. Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents · paragraphs 7–27acquired worth, Lemnius’s class judgment and the transformed-cat fable, the educational concession, and the closing return to merit with a conditional preference for capable nobles.
9. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 26–28the king-and-clown performance metaphor and the concession that the rejected aspirant may deserve better.
10. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 89–91Musarium’s extravagant preference for Lycias.
11. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 50–52; Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 64–67; Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 1–2love’s improving effects and mixed verdict, Cymon’s acquired accomplishments, and fashionable self-presentation; note 10299 qualifies the Boccaccio summary.
12. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 69–71hypothetical reassurance to an apparently unsuitable rustic lover and the literary sources it repurposes.
13. 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 34–43the gallant, the disparaged husband and the Lucretia–Euryalus literary example.
14. 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 9–11the anti-Muslim insult and the limits of Burton’s hostile intermediary sources, distinguished by note 12521 and note 12523.

In this edition

“stiffest clowns” → “toughest labourers” preserves the occupational sense of clowns and the force of stiffest. The ordinary rural uses can instead become country fellow, country people or countryman. In the social insults, boor or oaf conveys an evaluation of manners, not a professional comic role.

The drinking passage’s “a clown, of no bringing up” becomes “an ill-bred oaf”: ill-bred renders the explanatory phrase, while oaf renders clown. In “clowns, civil” → “boors courteous,” the governing makes is understood from the earlier clause. The unchanged repetition “a clown will be a clown” requires the following probably and scarcely to explain its qualified claim about persistent rusticity. Clownish becomes rustic in the climatic list and boorish in the description of lovers’ earlier manners. These are contextual choices, not one interchangeable modern label.

Clown; boor

Printed “clown” (English; phrase).

An uncultivated or ill-bred person.

Here: Refusal to get drunk is treated by the drinking company as proof of bad breeding.

Context: Burton condemns the social rule that makes abstention shameful; the insult belongs to that rule, not to his endorsement of drunkenness.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a clown, of no bringing up

Modern rendering: an ill-bred oaf

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

Word and construction: Clown contributes oaf; of no bringing up contributes ill-bred. The modern condenses the noun and its explanatory phrase.

Uncertainty: The precise Chrysostom sermon locator remains unresolved in the supplied apparatus.

Further local use

Printed “Clownes” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; country boor.

Country boors, described from the isolated scholar’s point of view.

Here: A village appointment allegedly deprives the learned minister of cultivated company.

Context: Burton’s socially prejudiced complaint, which expressly allows that the parishioners may be peaceable and honest.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Idiots and Clownes

Modern rendering: unlearned people and country boors

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

Word and construction: Idiots contributes unlearned people and Clownes country boors; the latter does not itself mean intellectually disabled.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Further local use

Printed “clowns” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; boor.

Boors or uncultivated men.

Here: A lover calls every other man inferior to her beloved.

Context: Musarium’s extravagant praise of Lycias in Burton’s quotation of Aristaenetus, not an impartial judgment of all other men.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: meer clowns

Modern rendering: mere boors

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

Word and construction: Meer contributes mere and clowns boors.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Further local use

Printed “clown” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; boor.

A boor, defined by ill-mannered behaviour.

Here: A husband is disparaged after the wife’s admiration of an elegant gallant.

Context: Burton constructs this misogynistic scenario with literary examples, including Lucretia and Euryalus; it is not evidence for a general truth about wives.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: how like a clown he behaves himself

Modern rendering: how like a boor he behaves

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

Word and construction: Clown contributes boor; behaves himself is rendered behaves, without a separate reflexive object.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Further local use

Printed “clownes” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; polemical rustic.

Rustics, used as an insulting characterization of a religious audience.

Here: The term contributes to Burton’s hostile depiction of Muslims as credulous followers.

Context: Burton’s anti-Muslim polemic, drawing in the continuation on European intermediaries who mix Quranic material with other stories; the article does not adopt the characterization.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a company of rude and barbarous clownes

Modern rendering: a crowd of ignorant, barbarous rustics

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

Word and construction: Company contributes crowd, rude ignorant, barbarous barbarous, and clownes rustics.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Clown; boor made courteous

Printed “clowns” (English; phrase).

Boors or people lacking cultivated manners.

Here: Love is said to turn them into courteous people, among other improvements.

Context: Burton reports Cardano drawing on Plutarch, balances favourable effects against harmful symptoms, and next says it is hard to decide whether love does more harm or good.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: clowns, civil

Modern rendering: boors courteous

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

Word and construction: Clowns contributes boors and civil courteous; makes is understood from the governing clause.

Further local use

Printed “clown” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; boor made courteous.

A boor lacking cultivated accomplishments.

Here: Cymon learns music, dancing and social graces through his love of Iphigenia.

Context: Burton’s condensed Boccaccio example; Cymon already has a high-status father, so this is acquired cultivation rather than a change of ancestry.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: from an Idiot and a clown

Modern rendering: from a simpleton and a boor

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

Word and construction: Idiot contributes simpleton and clown boor; both describe the starting condition in the transformation.

Qualification: The apparatus observes that the compressed courageous exploits include abduction, imprisonment and killings in Boccaccio. Gentlemanly accomplishments must not be equated with an uncomplicated moral reform.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Clown; country labourer

Printed “clowns” (English; phrase).

Country labourers, here presumed hardened by bodily work.

Here: Even the toughest labourers supposedly cannot withstand the excessive heat.

Context: Burton reports a complaint about Cape Verde and adds the authority of Constantine; these are historical climatic and medical claims.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: stiffest clowns

Modern rendering: toughest labourers

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

Word and construction: Clowns contributes labourers, while stiffest contributes toughest; this is not a comparison with comic entertainers.

Qualification: The apparatus distinguishes Hawkins’s one of the worst climates from Burton’s superlative, and Hawkins’s account of cold breezes acting on heated bodies from Burton’s emphasis on excessive heat.

Clown; country person

Printed “Clown” (English; phrase).

A country fellow or rustic.

Here: Horse-riding is presented as a common practical skill in contrast to the limitations of the mere scholar.

Context: Burton reports fashionable gentlemen’s ridicule, then grants that narrow scholarship sometimes deserves it; the adjacent Themistocles example supplies a counterweight.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: every Clown

Modern rendering: any country fellow

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

Word and construction: Every contributes any in this generalized comparison; Clown supplies country fellow.

Further local use

Printed “Clownes” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; country person.

Country people.

Here: Mountain birds are said to be ordinary rural food in Palestine.

Context: A reported dietary example: the body names Dublinius, while the marginal attribution differs.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Boores and Clownes

Modern rendering: peasants and country people

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

Word and construction: Boores contributes peasants and Clownes country people.

Uncertainty: The supplied apparatus records the body/margin attribution discrepancy rather than resolving it.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Further local use

Printed “Clowne” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; country person.

A countryman.

Here: The rustic is one of the ordinary people Antiochus is said to have encountered while disguised.

Context: An attributed anecdote in the account of recreations, not a description of the king’s professional entertainers.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Tinker, Clowne, Serving man, Carrier

Modern rendering: tinker, countryman, servant, carrier

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

Word and construction: Clowne corresponds to countryman within the list.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Further local use

Printed “Clown” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; rustic.

A rustic, here contrasted with an elegant prospective partner.

Here: Differences of dress, beauty, wealth and rank need not make a match impossible.

Context: Burton’s hypothetical encouragement to a discouraged lover, using a Virgilian line originally spoken bitterly by a rejected lover.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: but thou an ugly Clown

Modern rendering: you an ugly rustic

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

Word and construction: Clown supplies rustic; ugly remains the adjective. The wider comparison supplies the contrast expressed by but.

Qualification: The continuation’s unfinished Ovidian allusion to proceeding beyond kisses is retained as an historical text, not adopted as courtship advice.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Clown; dramatic role contrast

Printed “Clowne” (English; phrase).

A rustic or boorish figure opposed to the king’s part in a theatrical comparison.

Here: The disappointed aspirant behaves below the dignity of the office he wants, like an inadequate tragic actor.

Context: Burton develops a comparison attributed to Plutarch; the next paragraph expressly grants the alternative that the disappointed person may be more deserving.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Thou wouldst play a Kings part, but actest a Clowne

Modern rendering: You would play a king, but act a clown

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

Word and construction: Clowne supplies the contrasting role or behaviour; this is explicitly theatrical, but the context does not identify a modern comic entertainer.

Clown; rustic social origin

Printed “clown” (English; phrase).

A rustic or boor whose manners are represented as persisting after social advancement.

Here: The cat transformed into a woman is a fable for supposedly ineradicable rustic habits.

Context: Burton’s class prejudice is qualified by likely and hardly. He concedes that education may make such men more capable and refined, but says their origins can probably still be detected. The ending acknowledges faults and merit on both sides, praises deserving lowborn men, prefers hereditary nobles only if capable, and concludes that low birth is no such disgrace.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: a clown will be a clown

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

Word and construction: The modern retains the proverbial repetition. The continuation gives its force as probable persistence of rusticity, not an absolute inability to change.

Further local use

Printed “clowns” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clown; class insult.

Rustics characterized contemptuously as uncultivated.

Here: The English common people are contrasted with supposedly courteous gentry.

Context: A report attributed to Lemnius, generalized by Burton; its class stereotype is not the article’s judgment. The continuation concedes possible improvement through education, then claims likely detection of origins; the final return to merit praises deserving lowborn men and denies that low birth is itself such a disgrace.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: silly, sullen, dogged clowns

Modern rendering: foolish, sullen, surly clowns

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

Word and construction: Silly contributes foolish, sullen remains sullen, dogged becomes surly, and clowns is retained.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.

Clownish

Printed “clownish” (English; phrase).

Rustic or uncultivated in manner.

Here: Rusticity appears in a list of characteristics Burton attributes to the influence of air.

Context: A historical climatic theory: Burton says bodily constitutions change more than customs, manners or minds, while still making sweeping claims about inhabitants.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: clownish

Modern rendering: rustic

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

Word and construction: The adjective supplies rustic; it does not describe a comic performance.

Further local use

Printed “clownish” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clownish.

Boorish or uncultivated.

Here: Formerly rough people are said to dress neatly once in love.

Context: Burton’s generalizing claim about amorous self-presentation, followed by deliberate control of gesture and gait.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: never so clownish, rude and horrid

Modern rendering: however boorish, uncouth and rough

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

Word and construction: Never so is recast as however; clownish, rude and horrid correspond respectively to boorish, uncouth and rough.

Sense relation: A further local attestation, with its own social setting, agency and exact construction.