Commonwealth

Use in the book

Burton carries melancholy beyond individual bodies into kingdoms, provinces and political communities. Citing Botero, he compares changing humours with public disorders recognizable by their symptoms. The margin speaks of changes of body and mind, while Burton’s body text specifically introduces humours. His healthy country combines religious obedience, peace, material prosperity, cultivated land and flourishing towns. The following claim that China and European kingdoms enjoy this condition belongs to Burton’s historical present and sources. Its opposite is a sick public body marked by poverty, conflict, waste land and depopulation.

The causes are partly circumstances, including climate, unhealthy air and other external disadvantages, and partly the community’s own failings. Burton’s religious account of national prosperity accompanies a substantial account of institutions. Altered laws, broken privileges, oppression and sedition injure the political body; unfit magistrates produce Impotentia gubernandi, inability to govern, and ataxia, disorder. Rulers become the head under which all the members suffer. The sweeping accusations about Ottoman and Russian government are Burton’s examples of tyranny, not independently established accounts of entire populations. His later marginal question distinguishes political cleverness that enriches its practitioner from the bene esse, well-being, or preservation of the commonwealth.

The institutional diagnosis can itself be aggressive. Following Plato, Burton treats an abundance of lawyers and physicians as a sign of public disorder, then accuses practitioners of multiplying the disputes and diseases by which they profit. He nevertheless exempts worthy lawyers and good laws, and ends the legal discussion by declining to place every fault on a single party. The renewed charge against medicine must likewise be read with his subsequent express distinction between medicine’s use and abuse and his praise of the profession. Public pathology is part of an argumentative performance, not an unqualified rejection of law or medicine.

England supplies a particularly clear monarchical example. Praise of a learned religious king and the union of England and Scotland is followed immediately by abuses disturbing “this political body”. The king is James VI and I, and the union is that of the crowns in 1603; the 1651 printing retains this earlier setting. Burton then argues that fertility alone does not explain prosperity: changed government, cultivation and industry explain the decline he alleges elsewhere. His geographical judgments and hostile generalizations remain the claims of this historical comparison.

The bodily metaphor also exposes the severity of his social classification. morbos reipub. means diseases of the commonwealth; Burton adds the distinct English image the boils of the commonwealth to a list including beggars and discontented people. He later presents Plato as purging beggars like a corrupt humour. Yet the adjacent Seneca margin condemns numerous punishments as shameful to a ruler, and More’s earlier marginal argument demands livelihoods before punishment. The imagined polity eventually distinguishes support for those unable to work or impoverished by misfortune from compulsory labour for those able to work. It protests against abandoning indispensable workers in old age, and pairs obligatory work with protection against overwork and appointed recreation. These competing emphases belong to Burton’s account; the people he describes are not diseases.

His proposed public institutions give the analogy administrative substance. Ædiles care for civic amenities, while Questors are financial officers; both appear among administrators whose receipts and expenditure are to be accounted for annually. A later provision requires reciprocal inspection and accountability, whether an office is annual or otherwise. Public service should receive reward, and the best merit should receive the best advancement. That language stands beside a restriction of city governorship to nobles and gentlemen rather than poor tradesmen and craftsmen. The article Utopia follows the imagined scheme and its qualifications; here these arrangements show what Burton means by organizing a commonwealth, without making his different principles perfectly consistent.

The comparisons also run in the other direction. The state and the Oeconomical, household, body differ in scale in the account attributed to Scaliger; the supposed lifespan of six or seven centuries is another reported theory. Pure monarchies, aristocracies and democracies are clearer in theory than in practice, where constitutions are usually mixed, just as melancholy’s kinds resist clean separation. A state supposedly turning to civil conflict when it lacks an external enemy supplies a comparison for the idle person’s inward torment. Elsewhere Burton makes university misconduct a seedbed of the commonwealth’s harms. He also answers John of Salisbury’s warning that official games make the commonwealth itself seem to play: recreation is permissible with regard to time, place and circumstance.

Ordinary uses retain the community beneath the imagery. Ragusa is specifically a republic; Burton’s broader grouping of it with the Swiss and United Provinces under “democratic monarchies” is expressly tentative. His argument for learned, meritorious officeholders later allows preference for hereditary nobles if capable, while acknowledging the worth of poor men’s sons. The tapestry of unequal trades and callings returns in the consolation of poverty, followed by the fable of the belly and members and a theological defence of hierarchy. In the hostile story of Flora, the commonwealth is the collective heir to her property, not a person’s personal estate.

Religious government is not reduced to deception. Burton calls justice and religion the supports of a well-governed commonwealth and admits sincere religious governors before accusing most politicians of using religion for their own ends. His later report that many commonwealths tolerate conscience begins from the practical failure of persecution. It does not establish his acceptance of unrestricted toleration: the ensuing survey leads to his preferred middle course of admonition and excommunication, followed by laws, fines, book-burning and suppression of unauthorized meetings. The heavenly commonwealth belongs to a different religious argument: worldly pleasures draw attention away from God, although the following passage expressly calls marriage good and necessary in itself.

Finally, “Plato in his Common-wealth” names a work rather than a country. The supplied title Republic preserves Burton’s body reference while the notes identify his combination of passages from Republic and Laws. The discrepancy matters: neither the book-title nor a modern institutional label should silently settle what his cited authority actually says.

Related entries

Policy: Public government and political skill.

Estate: State, standing and property.

Calling: The community’s occupations and social functions.

Custom and education: The formation of habits and civic conduct.

Manure: Cultivation in accounts of public prosperity.

Utopia: The imagined polity and its literary qualifications.

Law and justice: Public law, accountability and justice.

Poverty and riches: Relief, work and the defence of unequal ranks.

Honour and nobility: Rank and merit in public office.

Anatomy: The extension of anatomical analysis to public life.

Idleness: The inward conflict of the idle person.

Religious melancholy: Religious government, toleration and coercion.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 1–23kingdoms and political bodies; public welfare, unhealthy government, unfit magistrates and the self-advancement/public-benefit distinction.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 24–42the attack on proliferating lawyers and physicians, qualifications for worthy lawyers and good law, and the closing distribution of responsibility.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 1–39, 1–12national prosperity and decay, the Jacobean political body, diseases and boils of the commonwealth, public employment and the competing punishment/relief arguments.
4. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 33–41the turn toward the imagined polity; read with Utopia for its literary framing.
5. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 10–12civic officials, accounts, noble city governors and the qualification against depopulation.
6. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 17–19public benefit, private property and the rejection of complete utopian equality.
7. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 34–43public service, accountability, merit, maintenance, compulsory work and recreation.
8. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 17–20the turn from public government to the political and household bodies, with the reported lifespan theory.
9. Subsection 4. The Species or Kinds of Melancholy · paragraphs 56–60diagnostic kinds and the analogy with modified or mixed constitutions.
10. Subsection 6 Excessive Exercise as a Cause, and How It Acts. Solitude and Idleness · paragraphs 26–30the idle body compared with a community turning to internal war.
11. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 1–4the Latin charge that university conduct produces the commonwealth’s harms; these are sequence pages 143–144 with no visible printed numerals, on scans 243–244.
12. Subsection 4 Cheerfulness, Merry Company, and Pleasing Sights as Remedies · paragraphs 3–7whether official recreation makes the commonwealth itself seem to play, and Burton’s qualified defence.
13. Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents · paragraphs 36–44, 1–4; Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents · paragraphs 25–27Ragusa and the tentative constitutional grouping, public merit, and the later qualification in favour of capable hereditary nobles.
14. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 8–12the commonwealth’s unequal, interdependent callings and the belly-and-members argument.
15. Member 1 Subsection 1 Medical Treatment by Medicines · paragraphs 1–8; Member 1 Subsection 1 Medical Treatment by Medicines · paragraphs 22–24corrupt-state accusations in the prosecution of medicine, followed by the explicit defence of its proper use.
16. 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 56–59Commonwealth as Plato’s book-title, the mismatched Laws references, and Burton’s subsequent censure.
17. Its Object, God; What His Beauty Is; How It Attracts. The Parts and People Affected · paragraphs 1–5the heavenly commonwealth and the account of disordered attachment to otherwise legitimate goods.
18. 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 40–42, 1–4sincere religious government, justice and religion as supports, and the renewed accusation of manipulation.
19. 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 4–8the civic community as Flora’s alleged heir within the polemical account of deification.
20. Subsection 5 The Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraphs 1–24toleration by commonwealths, competing positions, and the coercive limits of Burton’s middle course.

In this edition

“common-wealth” → “commonwealth” retains the political community without narrowing its constitution. “body politick” → “political body” retains the governing analogy. The wider phrase “pure formes of Commonwealths” becomes “pure forms of government,” because constitutional arrangements are being compared; the named Ragusian community becomes “the republic of Ragusa.” “Common-wealth” becomes Republic only in the book-title.

Latin respublica and its abbreviations are retrieved with their particular constructions: the ailing head’s commonwealth, the university indictment’s Resp., the officials’ respub. that seems to play, and the rempub. governed by learned men. The last is an inflected object, not a different institution. The fresh “diseases of the commonwealth” translates the Latin; the following “boils” preserves Burton’s separate English. “Oeconomical” becomes household. This selection follows significant political, institutional and figurative uses rather than every occurrence of the word.

aedile

Printed “Ædiles” (English; lemma).

Civic officials responsible for public amenities and maintenance.

Here: Officers appointed to care for civic institutions; the margin specifies markets, fountains, roads, harbours and streets.

Context: Burton proposes these offices in his imagined polity; the titles draw on ancient civic administration.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Ædiles

Modern rendering: aediles

Word and construction: The modern spelling preserves the office-name; its duties are explained by the original margin.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

ataxia

Printed “ataxia” (Greek-derived Latin form; lemma).

Disorder or lack of proper arrangement.

Here: Disorder in government, placed beside confusion and ill government.

Context: Burton uses a Greek-derived term in a political catalogue, not a present-day neurological diagnosis.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ataxia

Modern rendering: disorder

Word and construction: The English supplies the ordinary political sense of the transliterated term.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

beata civitas

Printed “Beata civitas” (Latin; phrase).

A happy city or civic community: beata means happy or flourishing; civitas means the city considered as a community of citizens.

Here: The whole community’s happiness is distinguished from that of a fortunate few.

Context: Burton’s margin cites Plato, Republic 4, for the contrast; it is a criterion of public well-being.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Beata civitas non ubi pauci beati, sed tota civitas beata

Modern rendering: A happy city is not one where a few are happy, but where the whole city is happy

Word and construction: The negative and but preserve the contrast; English supplies is and one where to complete the elliptical Latin.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

bene esse

Printed “bene esse” (Latin; phrase).

Well-being: bene means well, and esse means to be or being.

Here: The community’s welfare, opposed to the self-advancement of people called politicians.

Context: Burton’s English margin questions whether reading political authors, defeating rivals and gaining wealth contribute to public preservation.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: bene esse

Modern rendering: well-being

Alignment scope: exact phrase with supplied editorial gloss in the same note

Word and construction: The supplied explanation in the same note defines the Latin phrase; it is not a separate translation of the whole English marginal question.

Modern container: note

body politic

Printed “body politick” (English; phrase).

A political community understood as an organized body, with related parts and governing organs. Politic here means pertaining to civil government.

Here: The public body injured by broken privileges, oppression, legal changes and incompetent magistrates.

Context: Burton lists public grievances and their causes, then compares rulers to heads and subjects to members.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a body politick

Modern rendering: the political body

Word and construction: The adjective is moved before body; the modern definite article presents the same generic community.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “politick bodies” (English; phrase).

Citation key: body politic.

Here: Organized political communities, capable of suffering in the bodily analogy.

Context: Burton extends the preceding discussion of melancholy to kingdoms and provinces.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: politick bodies

Modern rendering: political bodies

Word and construction: Politick is modernized to political; bodies remains the governing metaphor.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “body politick” (English; phrase).

Citation key: body politic.

Here: The organized national community, here the monarchy praised in the preceding passage.

Context: Burton qualifies praise of Jacobean England with abuses needing reform.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: this body politick

Modern rendering: this political body

Word and construction: The demonstrative points back to the national community; political body preserves the metaphor.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Political” (English; phrase).

Citation key: political body.

Here: Pertaining to the government of a state; a political body is the state understood as an organized community.

Context: Burton compares public and household government, following Scaliger, and reports other authorities’ alleged shared lifespan.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a Political and Oeconomical body

Modern rendering: A political body and a household body

Word and construction: The shared original noun body is repeated in English; Political supplies political, not household.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

commonwealth

Printed “common-wealth” (English; lemma).

A political community or state, including one governed by a monarch.

Here: The community whose disorders are compared with diseases of a human body.

Context: Burton extends melancholy to kingdoms and provinces, citing Botero; this is a political analogy.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: common-wealth

Modern rendering: commonwealth

Word and construction: The spelling is modernized without restricting the constitution to a republic.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Commonwealths” (English; lemma).

Citation key: commonwealth.

Here: Political communities, considered here in respect of their forms of government.

Context: Burton compares diagnostic kinds with constitutional types; the pure forms are usually mixed in practice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: pure formes of Commonwealths

Modern rendering: pure forms of government

Word and construction: The construction makes constitutional form the point; Commonwealths does not alone mean the complete phrase.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Common-wealth” (English; lemma).

Citation key: commonwealth.

Here: A political community used as a comparison for the idle individual.

Context: Burton says internal conflict is likely when there is no external enemy, then transfers the comparison to self-torment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: In a Common-wealth, where is no publike enemy, there is likely civil wars

Modern rendering: In a commonwealth with no external enemy, civil wars are likely

Word and construction: Common-wealth names the community; the lack of an external enemy and likelihood belong to the wider conditional comparison.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Commonwealth” (English; lemma).

Citation key: commonwealth.

Here: The community benefited by useful labour.

Context: Burton asks why indispensable workers should be abandoned in old age while wealthy idlers prosper, drawing on More.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to do the Commonwealth good

Modern rendering: for the commonwealth’s benefit

Word and construction: The infinitive expresses the public benefit of the worker’s labour; no republican constitution is specified.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Common-wealth” (English; lemma).

Citation key: commonwealth.

Here: A political community, specifically the republic of Ragusa in this example.

Context: Burton groups Ragusa, the Swiss and the United Provinces under imperfect constitutional labels, explicitly qualified by if I may so call them.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the Ragusian Common-wealth

Modern rendering: the republic of Ragusa

Word and construction: Republic is appropriate to this named community, but is not imposed on every occurrence of commonwealth.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Common-wealth” (English; lemma).

Citation key: commonwealth.

Here: A community composed of different, unequal occupations and social functions.

Context: Burton defends interdependence and unequal ranks through tapestry, musical and bodily comparisons.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: so is a Common-wealth of severall inequal trades and callings

Modern rendering: so a commonwealth is made of different, unequal trades and callings

Word and construction: Is made supplies the relation carried by the preceding comparison and elliptical is... of.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “commonwealth” (English; lemma).

Citation key: commonwealth.

Here: A political community or state.

Context: Burton expressly recognizes sincere religious governors before renewing his accusation against the majority.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a well governed commonwealth

Modern rendering: a well-governed state

Word and construction: Commonwealth supplies state; well governed gives the qualification.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Common-wealth” (English; lemma).

Citation key: commonwealth.

Here: The civic community as a collective recipient of an inheritance.

Context: Burton reports the hostile Flora origin-story of a Roman festival; the account is not established biography.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: she made the Common-wealth her heir

Modern rendering: she made the commonwealth her heir

Word and construction: The community is the beneficiary and Flora the alleged donor; the construction does not name an individual ruler.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “commonwealths” (English; lemma).

Citation key: commonwealth.

Here: Political communities or states, here allowing religious practice without coercing conscience.

Context: Burton reports a practical reason for toleration; his subsequent preferred middle course still permits coercive restrictions.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: many commonwealths

Modern rendering: many states

Word and construction: States renders political communities without specifying their constitutions.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Commonwealth as book title

Printed “Common-wealth” (English; phrase).

An English title for Plato’s Republic, his work on the constitution and government of a community.

Here: The work Burton names as authority for a claim about dancing schools.

Context: Burton combines material from Laws and Republic; the body’s title, the margin’s Laws book 10 and the supplied identification of Laws 6.771e–772a remain distinct. He then endorses criticism of naked dancing.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Plato in his Common-wealth

Modern rendering: Plato, in his Republic

Word and construction: Republic identifies the title, rather than translating this occurrence as an existing political community.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

commune bonum

Printed “Commune bonum” (Latin; phrase).

The common good: commune means common or shared, and bonum means good.

Here: Public well-being as the end of political association.

Context: Burton attributes the expression to Aristotle and joins it to a prosperous, obedient, peaceful country; precise cited loci remain uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Commune bonum

Modern rendering: the common good

Word and construction: The modern definite article is supplied idiomatically; both lexical components are represented.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

democratical monarchies

Printed “Democratical Monarchies” (English; phrase).

Monarchies described as democratic: democratical pertains to rule by the people, while monarchies ordinarily denotes government by one ruler. The combination is deliberately qualified in this passage.

Here: Burton’s tentative label within a grouping of Ragusa, the Swiss and the United Provinces, beside aristocracies.

Context: He expressly adds if I may so call them; the unusual expression must not be treated as a precise modern classification of those institutions.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Democratical Monarchies, (if I may so call them)

Modern rendering: democratic monarchies, if I may call them that

Word and construction: The adjective is modernized and the author’s reservation retained; the final that refers to the proposed name.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

impotentia gubernandi

Printed “Impotentia gubernandi” (Latin; phrase).

Inability to govern: impotentia means inability or lack of power; gubernandi means of governing.

Here: Incapacity for public administration, one of the disorders attributed to unfit magistrates.

Context: Burton’s catalogue ranges from incompetence and negligence to deliberate oppression; these causes are not all identical.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Impotentia gubernandi

Modern rendering: Inability to govern

Word and construction: The two components are rendered as inability plus the infinitive to govern.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

morbos reipublicae

Printed “morbos reipub.” (Latin; phrase).

Diseases of the commonwealth: morbos means diseases; reipub. abbreviates the genitive reipublicae, of the commonwealth.

Here: A medical metaphor applied to Burton’s catalogue of allegedly idle, criminal, begging and discontented people.

Context: Burton attributes the expression to Lycurgus in Plutarch, but redirects a wider catalogue of social diseases toward these people; his separate English intensifies the image to boils.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: morbos reipub.

Modern rendering: diseases of the commonwealth

Word and construction: Diseases translates morbos; the following English boils is Burton’s own additional image, not the literal meaning of morbos.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “the boils of the commonwealth” (English; phrase).

Citation key: boils of the commonwealth.

Here: Boils, inflammatory swellings, used as a hostile metaphor for people represented as a public disorder.

Context: This is Burton’s separate English expression after the Latin diseases; later proposals combine compulsory work with support for those unable to work.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: the boils of the commonwealth

Word and construction: Identity wording preserves the metaphor; the English form is not treated as an exact literal translation of morbos.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

oeconomical

Printed “Oeconomical” (English; lemma).

Pertaining to the management or government of a household.

Here: The household as an organized body compared with the state.

Context: Burton cites Scaliger for the affinity; the alleged centuries-long duration reported from other authorities is not an established law.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a Political and Oeconomical body

Modern rendering: A political body and a household body

Word and construction: Oeconomical supplies household, and the shared noun body is repeated in English. Political supplies the first part of the comparison.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

quaestor

Printed “Questors” (English; lemma).

Public financial officers.

Here: Financial administrators among the proposed civic officers, followed by a requirement to account for receipts and expenditure.

Context: Burton’s imagined institutions borrow the ancient title; this is not a description of one uniform contemporary English office.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Questors

Modern rendering: quaestors

Word and construction: The modern spelling preserves the office-name and its financial function.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

respublica

Printed “respublica” (Latin; lemma).

A commonwealth or political community; the Latin expression names public affairs or the organized state.

Here: The community cannot flourish under an ailing head, in the cited political-body maxim.

Context: The margin attributes this maxim to John of Salisbury; Burton applies the image to allegedly tyrannical rule.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Non viget respublica cujus caput infirmatur

Modern rendering: A commonwealth cannot flourish when its head is ailing

Word and construction: Respublica is commonwealth; the negative and the condition of its head belong to the complete maxim.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Resp.” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: respublica.

Here: The commonwealth, allegedly afflicted by harms originating in universities’ own misconduct.

Context: Burton includes himself and university men in the accusation; contemptuous social-origin language in its continuation is his polemic.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Quod tot Resp. malis afficiatur, à nobis seminarium

Modern rendering: The commonwealth’s many evils have their seedbed in us

Word and construction: Resp. abbreviates respublica; the Latin subordinate statement that it suffers many evils becomes an English possessive subject. The seedbed is attributed to us.

Source page qualification: Sequence page 143; no printed page numeral is visible. Scan page 243.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “respub.” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: respublica.

Here: The commonwealth represented by its public officials.

Context: John of Salisbury’s reported objection is that official recreation would make the state seem frivolous; Burton supports recreation with limits of occasion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ne respub. ludere videatur

Modern rendering: lest the commonwealth itself seem to be playing

Word and construction: Respub. abbreviates respublica; itself makes the implied identification of officials and commonwealth explicit.

Translator-supplied words: itself is an English emphasis, not a separately printed Latin pronoun.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “rempub.” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: respublica.

Here: The commonwealth as the object of governing.

Context: The Ricci margin describes selection by tested learning and merit, beside Burton’s proposal for advancement.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Ad regendam rempub. soli literati admittuntur

Modern rendering: Only the learned are admitted to govern the commonwealth

Word and construction: Rempub. abbreviates the accusative rempublicam; ad regendam expresses purpose, to govern, and soli restricts admission to the learned.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

respublica caelestis

Printed “Rempub. cœlestem” (Latin; phrase).

The heavenly commonwealth: Rempub. abbreviates rempublicam, commonwealth, and cœlestem means heavenly.

Here: The community of heaven to which disordered worldly attachments prevent proper attention.

Context: Burton attributes the expression to Augustine; its exact source is unresolved, and the adjacent Plato margin concerns the separate composite-creature analogy.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Rempub. cœlestem cogitare

Modern rendering: set our minds on the heavenly commonwealth

Word and construction: The object is heavenly commonwealth; cogitare means think about and supplies set... minds on. Our is supplied from the preceding we cannot, which is outside this Latin fragment.

Translator-supplied words: our is supplied from the preceding English we cannot.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

salus publica

Printed “salus publica” (Latin; phrase).

Public welfare: salus means welfare or safety; publica means public.

Here: The welfare of the community as the supreme law in the marginal maxim.

Context: Burton’s composite margin joins public advantage, a maxim about welfare and the whole city’s happiness.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: salus publica suprema lex esto

Modern rendering: let the public welfare be the supreme law

Word and construction: Salus publica is public welfare; suprema lex means supreme law and esto supplies the injunction let... be.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.