Concupiscible and irascible

Use in the book

Two springs, several classifications

The initial anatomy locates the pair within sensitive appetite, the power pursuing what sense approves as good and avoiding what it judges evil. Its organ is said to be the same as that of common sense. The concupiscible seeks pleasure and rejects what is unpleasant; the irascible avoids through anger and hatred, with Burton’s following English gloss using indignation. From these two springs arise the affections and perturbations. The account passes from the powers to good and bad objects, presence and absence, and then mixed emotions. Those successive distinctions should not be collapsed into a single two-column list.

The chapter on passions places them between sense and reason but makes them follow sense more closely because they are embodied in sensory organs. Burton reports the Thomist division into eleven passions, six in the “Coveting” and five in the “Invading.” He immediately sets other schemes beside it: Aristotle’s pleasure and pain, Plato’s love and hatred, Vives’s good and bad. The continuation again distinguishes present and future objects, speaks of four principal passions, and then allows six. This is a comparison of inherited arrangements.

Burton next grants sorrow first place in the “Irascible appetite.” The supplied edition notes that this does not agree with the Thomist classification he has just reported, which places sorrow in the concupiscible faculty. The inconsistency should remain visible. Burton also anticipates criticism of placing discontents and cares in his “Irascible row”: he defends the arrangement because these conditions involve grief, anguish and pain and are both causes and symptoms of melancholy. His own explanatory purpose helps determine the placement.

The preliminary synopsis already displays that arrangement. Its irascible group runs from sorrow and fear through shame, envy, revenge, anger and cares. Its concupiscible group includes ambition, avarice, excessive gaming, praise and pride, and excessive learning or study. The categories organize causal discussion as well as naming powers; the range of objects explains why “concupiscible” cannot simply mean sexual.

Intertwined powers and the case of love

At the opening of concupiscible appetite as a cause, the two powers are strands of a rope winding around the heart. Both can be good when moderate, both harmful when excessive. The original margin gives a further formulation: good if they follow right reason, bad if they exceed its bounds. Desire’s pleasing object does not prevent torment when it becomes extreme. Ambition supplies the first major example; the entire category is broader than erotic desire.

Erotic love nevertheless supplies significant applications. The Lange margin calls it an affection of the concupiscible soul or appetitive faculty, arising from desire conceived through the eyes and inflaming spirits in the heart and liver. The body gives Lange’s account after another anatomical explanation that a commentator rejects. Later, amid love’s doubts, quarrels and predominant sorrow, an original English margin says Aristotle places love in the irascible part. Burton’s precise warrant remains unresolved in the supplied edition. The two references belong to different accounts within the anthology, and neither permits a universal statement that Burton always assigns love to only one of these powers.

The symptom description “facilè irascibiles” supplies an ordinary use of the family: people are easily angered, ready to take offence even when none was intended. Its continuation explains how missed greetings or private conversations may be taken personally. This describes irritability; it does not identify every irritable act as a technical division of appetite.

The related verb and the grounds of anger

The related Latin verb names being or becoming angry. Montanus’s patient “Irascebatur levibus de causis,” became angry over trifles; Burton follows this with his own English “He was easily moved to anger.” It is a particular reported causal example beside the claim that excessive, prolonged or frequent fits provoke madness. The verb does not mean belonging to the irascible faculty.

Its moral force varies with its construction. An unattributed maxim tells the reader to regard “irasci,” being angry, as sinful. Gordon’s marginal counsel says “nec irascaris,” do not be angry, alongside prohibitions of fear and grief. In the continuation the sufferer objects that such commands cannot simply overcome bodily illness and settled habit; Burton initially answers with the more limited claim that one can correct oneself to some degree. Elsewhere the Augustine margin asks not when someone “irascatur” but why; the body requires a just reason and moderation rather than forbidding anger altogether. These passages judge anger by its object, cause and extent rather than giving every occurrence the same moral force.

“Irascere,” be angry, can even appear in counsel Burton commends. His Senecan maxim joins anger at the killer with pity for the person killed, two aspects of the same person in the self-killing example. It follows the reversal of a harsh burial judgment after examination of suffering and madness, and precedes the insistence that God alone knows the fate of souls and charity should hope for the best. The Senecan source is a rhetorical dispute; neither its burial rule nor Burton’s story establishes present law.

In the love dialogue, by contrast, “irascitur” occurs inside Ampelis’s claim that a lover who does not become jealous and angry, fight or swear falsely is no lover. Burton endorses her maxim, while the supplied note records Chrysis’s resistance and the violent source context. This alleged symptom of love differs from the separate marginal assignment of love to the irascible part; the dramatic speaker and conditional negative limit the claim.

Related entries

Appetite; Concupiscence; Passion; Perturbation; Sorrow; Fear; Love; Ambition; Common sense; Will and nill

Places to read

1. The categories in the synopsisSorrow and cares; nonsexual desires including excessive learning
2. Two appetitive inclinationsObjects, organs, English glosses and the subsequent divisions of emotions
3. Several inherited systemsThe Thomist eleven, other classifications and Burton’s differing placement of sorrow
4. Anger over triflesIrascebatur in the reported medical case and the preceding conditions
5. The irascible row defendedAn anticipated objection to the position of cares
6. The rope and moderationThe original marginal right-reason qualification; ambition as an example
7. Ordinary irritabilityEasily angered and prone to take offence
8. Anger joined with pityIrascere, the revised burial judgment and charitable hope
9. Commands and the sufferer’s objectionIrasci, negative irascaris and the ensuing debate over control
10. Cause and moderationThe adapted Augustine margin, irascatur and justified emotion
11. Lange’s appetitive loveOriginal concupiscibilis in note 8798 within an anatomical debate
12. Anger as an alleged sign of loveAmpelis’s conditional claim, Burton’s endorsement and the supplied qualification
13. Love in the irascible partOriginal English note 9889; attribution unresolved

In this edition

The technical names remain “concupiscible” and “irascible.” “Coveting” becomes “desiring faculty” and “Invading” becomes “faculty of struggle” in the elevenfold division. At the first definition, “Anger invading, or Impugning” becomes “anger that attacks or resists.” The Latin phrase “aversans per iram & odium” has hatred, while Burton’s adjacent English has indignation; the modernization preserves both stages. Its direct formulation does not separately represent the introductory quasi, “as if” or “as it were.”

The ordinary “facilè irascibiles” becomes “easily angered.” The original marginal “concupiscibilis” is translated as “appetitive” in the attached note; that editorial translation is separate from the modernized body. is followed by the repeated in the passions sequence, and the later leaf is labelled 112 [122]. These locators are preserved in the reading routes.

The related forms keep their verbal grammar: “Irascebatur” describes a past response, “Irascere” commands, “irasci” is an infinitive, and “irascaris” is negated in counsel. The complete “Non quæro cum irascatur sed cur” becomes “I ask not when he is angry but why,” preserving the printed contrast; the supplied note identifies it as an adaptation, not an exact quotation. In the lover’s conditional sentence the negative extends over several coordinated responses.

anger invading or impugning

Printed “Anger invading, or Impugning” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: Anger invading, or Impugning

Anger acting by assault or opposition; English explanation of the irascible inclination.

Context: Burton attributes the translated terminology to another writer, identified in the margin as T. W.

Source: original body

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

concupiscibilis

Printed “concupiscibilis” (Latin; lemma).

Appetitive, belonging to the power of desire; the supplied rendering takes animi concupiscibilis as the appetitive faculty whose passion is being defined.

Context: Original Latin marginal definition associated with Lange, distinct from the modern body.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Affectus animi concupiscibilis

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: A passion of the appetitive faculty

Alignment convention

Qualification: The original marginal genitive animi concupiscibilis refers to the concupiscible soul or appetitive power; its supplied editorial translation uses appetitive faculty. This is not a phrase from the modern body.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

concupiscible · Concupiscible

Printed “Concupiscible” (English; lemma).

The desiring inclination that seeks the pleasant and rejects the disagreeable.

Context: Burton’s general faculty definition; the following clause adds aversion.

Source: original body

Source wording: Concupiscible covets alwayes pleasant and delightsome things

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

concupiscible

Printed “concupiscible” (English; lemma).

Belonging to the desiring division of appetite; the heading places intense desires and ambition in this group.

Context: The complete synopsis extends the group through covetousness, excessive gaming, praise and pride, and excessive learning or study. These nonsexual objects establish the breadth of the technical term.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Or concupiscible Vehement desires, ambition

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Or concupiscible passions: Violent desires, ambition

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the entire unit carries the rendering.

Supplied words: passions (the noun understood with the original adjective is made explicit)

Notes: Historical attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of cited historical works is claimed.

concupiscible and irascible appetites

Printed “Concupiscible and Irascible Appetites” (English; phrase).

The two intertwined inclinations of desire and resistance, figuratively strands around the heart.

Context: Both are good if moderate and harmful if excessive; the image stresses interaction.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.

Source wording: These Concupiscible and Irascible Appetites are as the two twists of a rope

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

coveting and invading

Printed “Coveting” (English; phrase).

The desiring faculty; Coveting names the first division, assigned six passions, while the coordinated Invading names the resisting faculty, assigned five.

Context: Reported Thomist scheme, placed alongside alternatives; no inference that Burton consistently follows it.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.; This source group includes repeated printed 96–97 and supplied 98–99; see SUPPLIED_OPENING and SOURCE_DJR_040.

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: six in the Coveting, and five in the Invading

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: six belonging to the desiring faculty and five to the faculty of struggle

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase alignment; the entire phrase, not each component separately, carries the stated rendering.

Supplied words: faculty (explicit explanatory noun for the two nominal labels)

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

invading

Printed “Invading” (English; lemma).

The faculty of resistance or struggle; five passions are assigned to it in the reported Thomist scheme, beside six in the desiring faculty.

Context: Burton reports this as one classification among several and later gives sorrow a different position. This separate record indexes Invading rather than treating it as a second definition of the indexed Coveting.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.; This source group includes repeated printed 96–97 and supplied 98–99; see SUPPLIED_OPENING and SOURCE_DJR_040.

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: six in the Coveting, and five in the Invading

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: six belonging to the desiring faculty and five to the faculty of struggle

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the entire unit carries the rendering.

Supplied words: faculty (the English nominal label is expanded into an explanatory noun)

Notes: Historical attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of cited historical works is claimed.

irasci · Irascebatur

Printed “Irascebatur” (Latin; related verb form).

Was angry or became angry; the imperfect verb describes the patient’s response to slight causes.

Context: Montanus is said to identify this as a principal cause in his Jewish patient’s melancholy. The preceding statement makes excessive, prolonged or frequent fits the condition for provoking madness. Burton follows the Latin with a separate English restatement.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Irascebatur levibus de causis

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: He became angry over trifles

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the entire unit carries the rendering.

Supplied words: He (understood subject supplied in the modern translation)

Notes: Historical attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of cited historical works is claimed.

irasci · Irascere

Printed “Irascere” (Latin; related verb form).

Be angry; an imperative balanced by the contrary imperative to pity the dead person.

Context: Burton commends the Senecan advice after the reported reversal of a punitive burial judgment. The same person is considered as killer and killed. The continuation reserves judgment of souls to God and urges charitable hope; the attribution belongs to a rhetorical debate, not a simple legal rule.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Irascere interfectōri, sed miserere interfecti

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Be angry with the killer, but pity the one killed

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the entire unit carries the rendering.

Notes: No present legal or medical guidance is asserted.

irasci

Printed “irasci” (Latin; related verb form).

To be angry; the infinitive is represented by the noun anger within the maxim’s moral judgment.

Context: An unattributed Latin maxim enjoins the reader to regard anger as sinful. It is counsel, not a claim that anger is absent. The ensuing treatment debate gives the sufferer an objection to such commands and Burton’s limited initial answer that one may correct oneself to some degree.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: irasci crede profanum

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: regard anger as a sin

Alignment convention

Qualification: The entire construction is aligned: Latin infinitive irasci becomes the English noun anger, and profanum carries the maxim’s moral characterization, not the lexical meaning of the verb.

Notes: Historical attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of cited historical works is claimed.

irasci · irascaris

Printed “irascaris” (Latin; related verb form).

Be angry; here the verb is negated as part of a threefold prohibition.

Context: The original marginal counsel is attributed to Bernard of Gordon and includes losses, bereavement, prison and exile. The sufferer soon objects that bodily illness and habit prevent applying such precepts; the historical counsel is not presented as guaranteed control of symptoms.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: nec irascaris, nec timeas, nec doleas

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Do not be angry, afraid, or sorrowful

Alignment convention

Qualification: The complete negative coordination is aligned with its editorial translation. English shares Do not be across three adjectives, where Latin repeats nec with three verbs.

Notes: Historical attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of cited historical works is claimed.

irasci · irascatur

Printed “irascatur” (Latin; related verb form).

Is angry; the verb describes the emotion whose cause, rather than its occurrence alone, is being examined.

Context: The marginal Augustine adaptation asks why the person is angry. Burton’s body explicitly refuses to forbid anger altogether and requires both moderation and a just reason. The original margin prints cum, rendered when, and its chapter number differs from the parallel identified in the supplied note.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Non quæro cum irascatur sed cur

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: I ask not when he is angry but why

Alignment convention

Qualification: Original marginal quotation aligned with its separately identified editorial translation, not with the modern body.

Notes: Historical attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of cited historical works is claimed.

irasci · irascitur

Printed “irascitur” (Latin; related verb form).

Becomes angry or is angry; the conditional negative coordination joins this response with jealousy, fighting and false swearing.

Context: Ampelis speaks to Chrysis in the Lucianic dialogue. Burton explicitly endorses her maxim, but the supplied note distinguishes her position from Chrysis’s resistance and notes the source’s violence. This is an alleged sign of love, not itself an assignment to the technical irascible faculty or a reliable present-day test of affection.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Si quis enim nec Zelotypus irascitur, nec pugnat aliquando amator, nec perjurat, non est habendus amator

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: For if a lover neither becomes jealous and angry, nor sometimes fights, nor swears falsely, he is not to be counted a lover

Alignment convention

Qualification: Original marginal quotation aligned with its separately identified editorial translation, not with the modern body.

Notes: Historical attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of cited historical works is claimed.

irascibilis

Printed “irascibiles” (Latin; lemma).

Prone to anger; an ordinary description of irritability.

Context: Burton’s symptom catalogue says commonly, and the continuation describes misread social signals.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: facilè irascibiles

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: easily angered

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase alignment; the entire phrase, not each component separately, carries the stated rendering.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

irascible · Irascible · local use 1

Printed “Irascible” (English and Latin; lemma).

The resisting or anger-associated inclination, described through aversion.

Context: Latin explanatory phrase is followed by a distinct English gloss with indignation.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Irascible, quasi aversans per iram & odium

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: The irascible turns away through anger and hatred

Alignment convention

Qualification: The modern gives the sense of the descriptive clause but omits a separate equivalent for introductory quasi, as if/as it were. The adjacent English indignation is rendered separately from Latin odium, hatred.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

irascible · Irascible · local use 2

Printed “Irascible” (English; lemma).

Belonging to the appetitive division concerned with resistance and difficulty; the heading groups several passions, beginning with sorrow.

Context: The synopsis makes Burton’s placement visible before the body: sorrow, fear, shame, envy, emulation, anger and cares belong here. Its arrangement is not silently harmonized with the Thomist division later reported.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Irascible Sorrow, cause and symptome

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Irascible passions: Sorrow, as cause and symptom

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the entire unit carries the rendering.

Supplied words: passions (the noun understood with the original adjective is made explicit)

Notes: Historical attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of cited historical works is claimed.

irascible appetite

Printed “Irascible appetite” (English; phrase).

The appetite associated with struggle or resistance; Burton locally assigns sorrow primacy within it.

Context: A departure from the reported Thomist classification, disclosed by the supplied note.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.; This source group includes repeated printed 96–97 and supplied 98–99; see SUPPLIED_OPENING and SOURCE_DJR_040.

Source wording: the first place in this Irascible appetite

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

irascible part

Printed “irascible part” (English; phrase).

The division associated with anger or struggle, to which this marginal assertion assigns love.

Context: Burton’s original English marginal attribution; exact Aristotelian warrant is not established.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Modern rendering, Modern wording, Original construction, Modern construction: Aristotle 2. Rhet. puts love therefore in the irascible part.

Alignment convention

Qualification: This is original English marginal wording, repeated unchanged for retrieval. The supplied note provides no separate modern translation; the identity field is not a second historical witness.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

irascible row

Printed “Irascible row” (English; phrase).

A category or series of passions associated here with grief, anguish and pain.

Context: Burton defends his arrangement while anticipating that some readers will judge it misplaced.

Source: original body

Source wording: this Irascible row

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.