Collogue

Use in the book

The early complaint about writers distinguishes several motives: vanity, need, money and the hope of pleasing a powerful man. Those who collogue use writing to ingratiate themselves with patrons. The surrounding attack on useless books makes this interested flattery part of a corruption of learning, rather than treating every need for financial support as the same offence. Later in the opening survey, colloguing joins parasitical fawning in the catalogue of folly. Tacitus’s account of competitive flattery under Tiberius supplies an analogy for a wider social indictment, imagined as a body requiring a Vesalius to dissect it.

In the account of ambition, the action becomes a repeated technique of advancement. The seeker lies and wheedles, embraces, doffs his cap, bows, applauds, visits and waits at doors. His apparent affability is accompanied by counterfeit integrity and humility. If these means fail, the account moves on to bribery and other devices. The continuation explains their emotional cost: sleeplessness, suspense and bitterness while waiting, followed by fresh anxiety even if the desired office is obtained. Colloguing is therefore both an instrument of ambition and part of the labour that keeps the ambitious person dependent.

The warning to scholars sharpens the difference between a legitimate approach and parasitical praise. Burton admits, with Erasmus, that timidity and excessive love of liberty can make scholars too slow to respond to patrons. He then condemns the opposite extreme: applicants should first demonstrate learning and good conduct, rather than thrust themselves forward through extravagant compliments. The close makes a double judgment. The Latin gives the praised person no added credit and thinks worse of the praiser; Burton’s English goes further and speaks ill of both. The next paragraph again places the chief fault on patrons. The warning about colloging should not be expanded into a verdict that every neglected scholar deserves neglect.

Nor is successful flattery secure. In the consolation concerning rank, favourites cajole and obey their sovereign yet may be destroyed by the power on which they depend. The contented speaker later lets others flatter, adapt and smirk while he prefers private safety. A following complaint says that an incompetent flatterer can rise above a modest, deserving person. Burton briefly grants that matters may turn out otherwise, then tells of a good bishop rewarding an unconnected scholar; the eventual disclosure that this is pure fiction prevents its use as a straightforward factual exception.

The same verbal action crosses into courtship and religious controversy. After describing male persuasion, Burton alleges that women can boast, counterfeit and collogue equally well, surrounding the speech with gifts and later tears. He turns the Wife of Bath’s account of her own tactics into a gendered maxim. The vocabulary identifies persuasion within that hostile generalization without validating it. In the religious partition he accuses teachers of flattering and coaxing their listeners while chiefly controlling them by fear. Promises and encouragement sit beside threats and punishment; the schoolmaster comparison explains this mixed method. The target is the alleged management of belief, and Burton’s polemical account of particular religious communities remains attributed.

Related entries

Parasite: The dependent social role often associated with flattering speech.

Temporize: Opportunistic accommodation, separately named beside colloguing.

Living and preferment: The offices and livelihoods sought through patronage.

Church patronage: Merit, appointments and the division of blame between applicants and patrons.

Courtship and wooing: Persuasive speech and gifts in the erotic setting.

Humane learning: The claims and predicament of scholars.

Fear: Fear as an alleged means of religious control.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 7–9writers’ motives, flattering patrons and the attack on printed waste; Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 8 contains the inherited collogue example.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 26–28worship of money, cogging as cheating, and deceptive appearances.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 34–36colloguing in the catalogue of folly, with Tacitus’s historical analogy in note 1234.
4. Subsection 11. The Concupiscible Appetite: Desires and Ambition as Causes · paragraphs 21–26lying and wheedling, deferential gestures, escalating methods and anxiety renewed after success; Subsection 11. The Concupiscible Appetite: Desires and Ambition as Causes · paragraph 22 preserves the qualified page label, and note 3111–note 3113 clarify the attributed portrait.
5. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 2–5timid scholars, intrusive praise, proof of merit, and the return to patrons’ responsibility; note 3565 distinguishes the Latin and English closing judgments.
6. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 48–50flattery cannot protect the great from their ruler’s power.
7. Member 6 Against Envy, Spite, Rivalry, Hatred, Ambition, Self-Love and All Other Passions · paragraphs 47–49the private speaker’s refusal of competitive advancement, with separate meanings for collogue, temporize and fleire.
8. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 10–25unfair advancement, a tentative concession, the imagined good appointment and its explicit withdrawal as fiction at Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraph 24.
9. Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation, Singing, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales and Sights, Kissing, Familiarity, Tokens, Gifts, Bribes, Promises, Declarations, Tears, and So On · paragraphs 29–36male and female courtship tactics, the Wife of Bath quotation, flattering gifts and allegedly contrived tears.
10. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraphs 33–38the accusation against religious teachers, promises and fear, and manipulation of conscience; note 12282 qualifies the Egyptian-priest example.

In this edition

“collogue” → “ingratiate themselves”; “colloguing” → “wheedling”; “cogging and collogueing” → “lying and wheedling”; “colloging” → “coaxing”. These inherited pairs retain interested flattery while assigning lying separately to cogging. The reflexive themselves belongs to the modern construction ingratiate oneself, not to an additional person named by the original verb.

Context also governs the neighbouring words. In “lying, cogging” → “lying, cheating,” the separate items remain distinct. In the later three-verb list, collogue becomes flatter, while insinuate supplies ingratiate himself. In the religious accusation, collogue corresponds to flatter and sooth up to coax. Thus the same modern verb can translate different original expressions locally; it does not erase their component boundaries.

Cogging and collogueing

Printed “cogging and collogueing” (English; phrase).

Cogging is lying or cheating; collogueing is wheedling or coaxing through flattery.

Here: The ambitious seeker combines deception and ingratiating speech with caps, bows, visits and waiting for patrons.

Context: Burton’s portrait of anxious ambition, partly attributed to Cyprian; if flattery fails, bribery and other means follow, and success does not end the anxiety.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: cogging and collogueing

Modern rendering: lying and wheedling

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

Word and construction: Cogging corresponds to lying, collogueing to wheedling, and and joins the distinct actions.

Uncertainty: The precise sermon collection and authorship behind Burton’s Cyprian attribution remain unresolved; the edition distinguishes displaced marginal anchors.

Further local use

Printed “cogging” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Cogging.

Cheating or deceptive dealing.

Here: Cogging is a separate item after lying in the catalogue of corrupt worldly behaviour.

Context: Burton’s sweeping moral indictment following the personification of Money as a goddess.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: lying, cogging

Modern rendering: lying, cheating

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

Word and construction: Lying is retained; cogging contributes cheating. The pairing distinguishes the two modern items instead of translating both as lying.

Sense relation: A further attestation of interested flattery or the separately specified cogging component, with its own agency and construction.

Collogue · collogue

Printed “collogue” (English; phrase).

To flatter, coax or ingratiate oneself through speech.

Here: Writers seek the favour of powerful patrons by flattering them.

Context: Burton’s attack on scribblers follows an attributed Scaliger complaint; financial need, vanity and parasitical flattery are presented as different motives.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: collogue

Modern rendering: ingratiate themselves

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

Word and construction: The reflexive English construction renders the single verb; themselves is required by ingratiate oneself rather than an extra object named in collogue.

Further local use

Printed “collogue” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Collogue.

To cajole or flatter.

Here: Powerful dependants try to secure themselves by pleasing their ruler, but may still be ruined.

Context: Burton’s consolation concerning rank: the compliant favourites’ eventual fall limits the apparent usefulness of flattery.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: collogue and flatter their leiges

Modern rendering: cajole and flatter their sovereign

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

Word and construction: Collogue contributes cajole, flatter remains flatter, and their leiges is rendered their sovereign.

Uncertainty: The Aeneas Sylvius image of favourites fattened for consumption remains unlocated; the edition distinguishes Burton’s motto from the inspected Camerarius emblem.

Sense relation: A further attestation of interested flattery or the separately specified cogging component, with its own agency and construction.

Further local use

Printed “collogue” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Collogue.

To flatter for advantage.

Here: The imagined contented speaker lets others pursue wealth and office while preferring private safety.

Context: A consolatory first-person stance, not an instruction to use these methods.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: collogue, temporize and fleire

Modern rendering: flatter, bend with the times and smirk

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

Word and construction: Collogue contributes flatter; temporize contributes bend with the times and fleire smirk. The three actions are related but not synonymous.

Sense relation: A further attestation of interested flattery or the separately specified cogging component, with its own agency and construction.

Further local use

Printed “collogue” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Collogue.

To flatter.

Here: An unworthy applicant is promoted through self-presentation and connections while a modest deserving person may be rejected.

Context: Burton’s accusation is followed by a concession that merit sometimes succeeds, then a deliberately invented happy appointment story which he explicitly withdraws as fiction.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: temporize, collogue, insinuate

Modern rendering: adapt to the times, flatter and ingratiate himself

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

Word and construction: Temporize contributes adapt to the times, collogue flatter, and insinuate ingratiate himself; the last reflexive phrase must not be assigned wholly to collogue.

Sense relation: A further attestation of interested flattery or the separately specified cogging component, with its own agency and construction.

Further local use

Printed “collogue” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Collogue.

To flatter or speak coaxingly.

Here: Women are said to use persuasive words and gifts in courtship as men do.

Context: Burton moves from men’s tactics to a hostile generalization about women, partly by turning the Wife of Bath’s own speech into a maxim.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: crack, counterfeit and collogue

Modern rendering: boast, counterfeit and flatter

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

Word and construction: Crack contributes boast, counterfeit remains counterfeit, and collogue contributes flatter.

Qualification: The surrounding handkerchiefs, embroidered caps and posies are associated tokens, not part of the verb’s lexical meaning. The gendered accusation is not adopted by the article.

Sense relation: A further attestation of interested flattery or the separately specified cogging component, with its own agency and construction.

Further local use

Printed “collogue” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Collogue.

To flatter or coax.

Here: Religious teachers are accused of managing listeners through promises and especially fear, leaving them falsely reassured.

Context: Burton’s anti-Catholic and anti-separatist polemic, following Lavater’s charge of withheld instruction; the schoolmaster is an analogy for the alleged control.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: collogue and sooth up their silly Auditors

Modern rendering: flatter and coax their simple listeners

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

Word and construction: Collogue contributes flatter; sooth up contributes coax, silly simple, and Auditors listeners. Coax here translates the accompanying phrase rather than proving that both verbs are one lexical unit.

Qualification: The continuation emphasizes threats and conscience. An accompanying note notes that Burton’s Egyptian-priest illustration reverses Curtius’s reassuring scene into one of intimidation.

Sense relation: A further attestation of interested flattery or the separately specified cogging component, with its own agency and construction.

Collogue · colloguing

Printed “colloguing” (English; phrase).

Coaxing or wheedling by flattery.

Here: The action is paired with parasitical fawning in the catalogue of social folly.

Context: Burton compares contemporary flattery with Tacitus’s account of Tiberius’s time, then imagines anatomizing the whole corrupt social body.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: colloguing

Modern rendering: wheedling

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

Word and construction: The modern participial noun supplies the act of flattering persuasion.

Collogue · colloging

Printed “colloging” (English; phrase).

Coaxing or flattering conversation used to win favour.

Here: Unproven scholars force themselves on powerful patrons with excessive praise.

Context: Burton’s warning asks applicants first to demonstrate learning and good conduct; it follows an admission of excessive timidity and precedes renewed blame of patrons.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: colloging

Modern rendering: coaxing

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

Word and construction: The modern participial noun retains interested persuasion rather than ordinary conversation.

Qualification: The concluding Latin says the praised person gains no credit while the praiser loses it; Burton’s English then condemns both. These are related but not identical judgments.