Confer and conference

Use in the book

Continual conference is Rhazes’s proposed conversation about history, tales, poems and news, nourishing the mind as food and drink nourish the body. Hyperius’s godly conversation appears alongside it but has a separate attribution. The same verbal activity can sustain an unwanted attachment: few lovers manage to avoid conferring with the beloved, and Burton proposes a change of place to remove conversation along with sight, messages and cohabitation. Frightening conference before sleep instead furnishes alarming images in the Lucian and Cicero examples. The subject and occasion govern its value.

Comparison is a different action. Those who do not “confer themselves with others” overlook the relative advantages of their own condition. The later instruction to “confer hand to hand” asks a lover to compare appearances part by part, within a male-centred counsel that attempts to undo enchantment by scrutiny. The participle likewise compares melancholy with other maladies in a consolatory attempt to lessen its exceptional burden. Neither use requires speaking with the other person.

Two further senses prevent a false two-way division. Three doctors “conferred with about one party” have been consulted about the same patient, yet disagree. “fresh honors conferred” are honours bestowed. Learned conversation during Democritus’s travels belongs to exchange of knowledge, not to the award of rank.

Religious conference can mean disputation. Burton reports Magallianus’s refusal of discussion with a heretic and his demand for severe coercion. Burton’s own subsequent middle course begins with gentle admonition but still permits excommunication and coercive restrictions; discussion also enters his historically described mixture of persuasion, threats and medicine for particular sufferers. Calling this simply friendly conversation would conceal the argument’s stakes.

Related entries

Action: The construction identifies the action performed.

Conversation: Social intercourse and conduct are broader than a single exchange.

Intention and remission: Degree and intensity matter to the consolatory comparison.

Impertinent: Relevant comparison differs from an unrelated or inapplicable one.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 9Travel enables Democritus to learn through learned company.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 8Honours are awarded amid the changing news of elevation and downfall.
3. Subsection 4. The Species or Kinds of Melancholy · paragraph 56Three physicians approached about one patient give divergent opinions.
4. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 29The surrounding defence of reading and contemplation.
5. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 30Talk about histories, tales, poems and news is compared with food for the mind.
6. Member 5. Sleeplessness and Frightening Dreams Remedied · paragraph 39The warning against terrifying talk before bed.
7. Member 5. Sleeplessness and Frightening Dreams Remedied · paragraph 40Frightening talk supplies material for troubling nocturnal images.
8. Section 3 Member 1. Subsection 1 a Digression on Consolation, Containing… · paragraph 16The imaginary exchange of occupations.
9. Section 3 Member 1. Subsection 1 a Digression on Consolation, Containing… · paragraph 17People are charged with dwelling on their own disadvantages without comparing other lives.
10. Section 3 Member 1. Subsection 1 a Digression on Consolation, Containing… · paragraph 18Relative fortune develops the comparison.
11. Member 8 Against Melancholy Itself · paragraph 24The comparison minimizes melancholy’s supposed exceptional severity.
12. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul… · paragraph 24Contact with the beloved is one occasion the lover struggles to avoid.
13. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul… · paragraph 25The intervening verse belongs to the continuing sentence.
14. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul… · paragraph 26Talking is one route by which the lovers sustain the attachment.
15. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul… · paragraph 27Travel and separation are the proposed means.
16. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men And… · paragraph 47The command begins a part-by-part comparison of women’s appearances.
17. Subsection 5 the Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraph 19The reported polemic opposes verbal exchange to coercion.
18. Subsection 5 the Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraph 20Reported coercion continues.
19. Subsection 5 the Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraph 21The alternative of general toleration.
20. Subsection 5 the Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraph 22Burton claims a middle course and starts with gentleness.
21. Subsection 5 the Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraph 23Coercion remains within that claimed mean.
22. Subsection 5 the Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraph 24Speech is part of a proposed mixture with medicine in the treatment of particular disturbed people.

In this edition

“continuall conference” → “continual conversation”; “confer with them” → “converse with them”; “confer hand to hand” → “Compare hand with hand”. The comparison “confer themselves with others” becomes “comparing ourselves with them”, shifting from the third person to inclusive first-person speech while retaining the argument. “all three conferred with about one party” → “were all consulted about the same patient” makes the passive professional consultation explicit, whereas “fresh honors conferred” → “fresh honours bestowed” identifies the giving sense.

confer · local use 1

Printed “confer” (English; lemma).

Compare or bring into comparison.

Here: People are charged with dwelling on their own disadvantages without comparing other lives.

Context: Burton’s consolatory generalization contrasts self-preoccupation with relative circumstances.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: confer themselves with others

Modern rendering: comparing ourselves with them

Alignment qualification: The modern changes third-person themselves/others to inclusive first-person ourselves/them; the negative construction is distributed over the larger sentence.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “conferred” (English; lemma).

Citation key: confer.

Compare or bring into comparison.

Here: The comparison minimizes melancholy’s supposed exceptional severity.

Context: Burton speaks consolatorily; this does not establish a modern ranking of illnesses.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: conferred to other maladies

Modern rendering: compared with other ailments

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

confer · local use 2

Printed “confer” (English; lemma).

Converse or speak with.

Here: Contact with the beloved is one occasion the lover struggles to avoid.

Context: Burton describes weak restraint rather than claiming all lovers can withdraw at will; the sentence continues through verse to a proposal of separation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: confer with them

Modern rendering: converse with them

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “confer” (English; lemma).

Citation key: confer.

Converse or speak with.

Here: Travel enables Democritus to learn through learned company.

Context: Burton’s biography contains acknowledged conflicting reports.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: confer with learned men

Modern rendering: converse with learned men

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

confer · local use 3

Printed “confer” (English; lemma).

Compare or examine alongside another.

Here: The command begins a part-by-part comparison of women’s appearances.

Context: Burton’s counsel to the male lover treats the beloved as an object of appraisal; the preceding claim is that senses may deceive.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: confer hand to hand

Modern rendering: Compare hand with hand

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

confer · conferred · local use 1

Printed “conferred” (English; lemma).

Consult or seek professional judgment from, in confer with.

Here: Three physicians approached about one patient give divergent opinions.

Context: Burton presents reported medical disagreement; they are the consultants, not the three objects compared.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: all three conferred with about one party

Modern rendering: were all consulted about the same patient

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

confer · conferred · local use 2

Printed “conferred” (English; lemma).

Bestow or grant.

Here: Honours are awarded amid the changing news of elevation and downfall.

Context: Burton’s catalogue alternates fortune and adversity; no dialogue or comparison is meant.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: fresh honors conferred

Modern rendering: fresh honours bestowed

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

conference · local use 1

Printed “conference” (English; lemma).

Conversation or exchange of speech.

Here: Talk about histories, tales, poems and news is compared with food for the mind.

Context: Burton attributes the prescription to Rhazes; Hyperius is separately credited with the benefit of godly conversation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: continuall conference

Modern rendering: continual conversation

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

conference · local use 2

Printed “conference” (English; lemma).

Conversation or exchange of speech.

Here: Talking is one route by which the lovers sustain the attachment.

Context: Burton’s proposed change of place aims to remove sight, hearing, messages and living together, not only one conversation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: conference and the like

Modern rendering: conversation and the like

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

conference · local use 3

Printed “conference” (English; lemma).

Conversation or exchange of speech.

Here: Frightening talk supplies material for troubling nocturnal images.

Context: Burton’s speaker in Lucian and his Cicero parallel illustrate the historical account of imagination, rather than a universal rule that talk helps.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: after such conference

Modern rendering: after such conversation

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

conference · local use 4

Printed “conference” (English; lemma).

Discussion or disputation.

Here: The reported polemic opposes verbal exchange to coercion.

Context: Burton attributes refusal of discussion and gallows to Magallianus; his later middle course allows gentleness first but retains coercive measures.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: conference with an heretique

Modern rendering: discussion with a heretic

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “conference” (English; lemma).

Citation key: conference.

Discussion or disputation.

Here: Speech is part of a proposed mixture with medicine in the treatment of particular disturbed people.

Context: The historical proposal includes threats and must not be softened into an exclusively gentle practice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: with conference, threats, promises, perswasions, to intermixe Physick

Modern rendering: combine discussion, threats, promises and persuasion with medical treatment

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.