From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordBy essence and by consent distinguish two proposed ways a part can be affected: through a disorder originating in itself, or through its connection with another part.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe question about the part affected is not settled simply by finding a bodily symptom.
- In this edition“By consent” becomes “through their mutual sympathy”.
- A place to read: Shared feeling with satirists and mourners, distinguished from Burton's reason for his assumed name.
Meaning
By essence and by consent distinguish two proposed ways a part can be affected: through a disorder originating in itself, or through its connection with another part. The Latin marginal pair Per consensum sive per essentiam supplies the corresponding medical expressions. Outside this construction, essence is a thing’s nature or what it is; consent can mean agreement, permission or voluntary assent. These senses need separate lookup routes even when they occur close together in a medical discussion.
Use in the book
Affected part and originating part
The question about the part affected is not settled simply by finding a bodily symptom. Burton first reports a majority opinion that the brain must be affected because melancholy is a kind of mental derangement. It may be affected by consent or essence, but as a homogeneous bodily substance rather than by an obstruction in its ventricles. The next paragraph first calls this a cold, dry imbalance of that substance, then lists excessive cold, excessive dryness or excessive heat, the last associated with madness. Thus the pair distinguishes a route of affection, not two different anatomical brains.
The objection is that fear and sorrow belong to the heart. Burton accepts Montalto’s answer that the heart, diaphragm and other parts can suffer together through proximity without displacing the brain as the primary seat. He then describes imagination and appetite acting through spirits: the brain is affected first and the heart next. The account attributed to Capivaccius and Mercurialis similarly puts the seat in the inner brain, while admitting influence from stomach, abdomen, liver, spleen and other parts. This movement between brain-first communication and illness coming from elsewhere should remain visible; “consent” does not establish a single irreversible direction of transmission. The marginal wording also says through the brain itself where the earlier margin says through essence.
The commonly received threefold classification develops the distinction: head melancholy proceeds from the brain’s own fault; a second kind affects it through the whole body’s melancholic constitution; and a third arises from abdominal organs. Burton calls this the most received division while preserving other writers’ additional kinds before and after it.
The alternatives can coexist in one patient. Claudinus’s Polish count is reported to suffer from head melancholy and the whole-body kind at once; the margin says per essentiam, & à toto corpore. Burton then claims examples of all three kinds together, or occurring successively. A distinction between routes therefore need not make the resulting classifications mutually exclusive.
Sympathy, communication and treatment
In the discussion of inward causes, consent connects body and soul. Burton compares anger, fear, sorrow, disparagement and rivalry harming the body with bodily diseases affecting the soul through sympathy. The next paragraph locates principal causes in heart, humours and spirits, using an out-of-tune lute: disorder in one string or organ unsettles the rest. The margin’s per consensum expresses the bodily disease’s action on the soul under their shared association. These are historical explanatory claims; the term does not imply that an ill person chooses the effect.
Related words need not name the same mechanism. Fernel’s dietary explanation says that air, passions and other evident causes cannot produce the disease unless bodily disposition and the constitution of the humours consentiat, cooperate: this is concurrence of conditions, not permission or a named transmission from one organ to another. The Philostratus-attributed consensu animæ makes the soul’s assent a condition of bodily defilement within an argument blaming the mind. Burton’s English restatement says only that the body is corrupted by the soul. The moral allocation of responsibility here differs from the physiological “by consent.”
The organ discussion makes the route more concrete: the brain is disordered in itself, or vapours generated elsewhere rise into the head and alter its faculties. The preceding margin likewise opposes a part’s own affection to sympathy. Only a few paragraphs later, however, “by all their consents” means that the authorities agree about the spleen. Nearby placement does not make that plural a technical claim about organs communicating.
The symptom descriptions apply the distinction conditionally. If the illness is by essence in the head, Burton lists a ruddy or sometimes bluish face, red eyes and additional signs. The surrounding account includes Saxonia’s different explanation through spirits and varying effects of dryness and moisture. In the later discussion of women’s melancholy the brain is expressly said to be affected not in essence but by consent, with the alleged cause located in the womb, menstrual blood and vapours. Its continuation adds care, sorrow and an altered way of life among widows’ circumstances; these historical gendered causal claims are not modern diagnoses.
Consent also justifies acting upon a different bodily part in Joubert’s reported treatment of facial redness: rubbing and washing the feet supposedly works because of their sympathetic connection with the head. The surrounding treatment is historical and includes hazardous preparations; it is not a recommendation. In the account of love, both reason and appetite affect the heart, carrying it in different directions “by consent.” The margin and body locate the faculties somewhat differently, and the following marginal list derives emotions from fear where the body says love. Neither difference should be silently flattened.
Affinity beyond the medical body
Sympathy has a broader natural-philosophical range. The synopsis calls the vine and elm an example; the account of natural love extends attraction and repulsion across living and lifeless things, elements, metals and stones. Lodestone drawing iron, jet attracting chaff and the ground seeking rain are presented through the language of love. Plants supply further pairings: vine and elm agree, while other combinations are opposed; the Latin Sympathia of olive and myrtle is illustrated by their supposedly embracing roots and branches. These are the text’s reported affinities, not a new verification of its plant lore. The later palm-tree passage goes further, saying that male and female palms express “not a sympathy but a love-passion.” Its supplied modern version adds “merely,” softening an opposition the printed original states more sharply.
Agreement and the nature of a thing
The ordinary consent senses remain active. The preface invokes philosophers’ common agreement to support its sweeping argument about human folly; the imagined commonwealth requires supervisors’ permission before changes to land. The patient needs an approved physician’s consent before experimenting upon himself, and the following ass-and-mule fable explains why copying another person’s apparently successful treatment can harm. In the literary example of Euryalus and Lucretia, a pleasing look is narrated as assent. That is the story’s representation of communication, not a general rule for interpreting real people’s willingness.
The words also move between shared feeling, belief and approval. In explaining his adopted name, Burton allows that he may sympathize with the satirical and sorrowing figures just described, yet denies that this affinity is his reason for the disguise. The hares’ generall consent belongs to a fable of collective resolve, reversed when the frogs prove more fearful. In Busbecq’s reported first-person testimony, assensum is belief withheld from animal-love stories until his own alleged observation of a lynx. Elsewhere consentaneam means consistent with Christian charity, consentanea like children’s toys, and consentaneum agreeable or reasonable in rival astronomical arguments. None of these expressions automatically invokes medical sympathy.
Permission has different agents and objects. The Senate’s consent authorizes Cincinnatus’s appointment; Mirrha’s approval allegedly controls Dionysius’s decisions in the unverified tyrant-and-mistress story. Burton separately withholds medical recipes lest readers experiment without a physician’s consent. His marital ideal asks spouses to share one consent, one accord of will, but the impediment catalogue distinguishes their own disagreement from parents, tutors or guardians withholding permission. The conditional legal report about a woman over twenty-five says “against her parents consent,” whereas its Latin margin says without her father’s knowledge. Burton immediately limits this argument by approving parental choice and female reserve. His ridicule of husbands who “give consent” to their wives’ movements and spending belongs to the same historical gendered polemic, not the word’s neutral definition.
Literary assent is equally particular. Burton interprets the ass’s attempted answering bray in Apuleius as an offer to “give consent,” preserving the story’s human consciousness within an animal body. The Juno myth narrates consent after attempted sexual force and a promise of marriage; its Latin refusal expressly mentions fear of her mother, a detail missing from Burton’s adjacent English. In the Sana narrative it is the traveller who withholds consent, despite the intervening quotation from Dido’s appeal to Aeneas. Narcissus’s refusal of Echo precedes, and must not be reassigned to, the new Psyche-and-Cupid example. The Neuburg account reports a man murdering his sweetheart and then himself when her parents refuse: its placement among love stories does not turn violence into consent. These are attributed narratives, not general tests of anyone’s willingness.
At the end of the work, consent becomes important to moral responsibility. Burton argues that sufferers who abhor intrusive thoughts have not consented to them. He immediately qualifies this by allowing partial assent followed by rejection: it has not proceeded from a settled will. The attributed Augustinian maxim opposes the suggestion of evil to giving it consent, while Burton warns that excessive anxious attention can deepen distress. This is voluntary assent, not the physiological sympathy that elsewhere carries effects between organs. The supernatural and humoral explanation remains Burton’s account, not an established explanation of intrusive thoughts.
Assent can also mean indulging a thought: prolonged wakefulness in bed, “to give assent to pleasing conceits and vain imaginations,” is contrasted with sleep in the historical regimen. That criticism of indulgence should be read alongside the final consolation’s careful distinction between unwanted thoughts, partial assent subsequently rejected and a settled will. Burton also adds the possibility of pardon where sin has occurred and the sufferer repents. The verb consents elsewhere simply says that Augustine agrees with Ambrose; even that passage’s procreation argument is qualified by Burton’s explicit allowance of marriage in old age for companionship, help and comfort.
Essence outside the medical pair means nature or being. Burton calls the soul’s essence peculiarly difficult to understand; understanding and will differ in office, not in essence. He also calls the will free in essence while distinguishing its corrupted operations and immediately limiting the claim in spiritual matters. In the astronomical digression, whether light belongs to the stars’ essence is a question, followed by the question whether light is substance or accident. These uses ask what something is, rather than where an illness starts. The margin defining health as the body’s harmonious agreement, with consentientis, adds a related image of bodily concord without using the medical pair.
The adjective is not uniform either. In the fear discussion, essentiall matters are substantial or important matters, contrasted with the trifles sufferers dread. In the bleeding discussion, essentiall or accidentall distinguishes primary from secondary melancholy in the supplied translation. The astronomical Essences are substances: the dispute asks whether air and heaven are one substance or two. Its quinta essentia, fifth essence, belongs to the Aristotelian account under criticism, not unqualified endorsement. For concentrated-essence metaphors and the chemical preparation, see the planned Essence and quintessence article; those compounds are distinct from this medical opposition.
Related entries
Hypochondria; Cause; Matter; Soul; Understanding; Will; Passion; Complexion and temperament; Essence and quintessence; Sympathy and antipathy; Assent (future article)
Places to read
- · paragraph 11–12: Shared feeling with satirists and mourners, distinguished from Burton's reason for his assumed name.
- · paragraph 6–8: The bodily alliance in health and its disruption in sickness, including marginal consentientis.
- · paragraph 9: Philosophers' alleged common agreement in the argument about universal folly.
- · paragraph 5–7: Geographers' and historians' alleged common consent in praise of England.
- · paragraph 15: Supervisors' permission qualifying the imagined regulation of land use.
- · paragraph 10–12: Zanchi-associated conditions under which interest is said to accord with Christian charity.
- · paragraph 10–12: Human strength and wealth compared with fragile children's toys through consentanea.
- · paragraph 21–23: The soul's essence and the difficulty of knowing its nature.
- · paragraph 1–3: Rival accounts of the rational soul's essence and origin.
- · paragraph 22–24: Understanding and will distinguished in office, not essence.
- · paragraph 36–41: The will's essential freedom, corrupted operations and the limits concerning spiritual matters.
- · paragraph 14–18: Brain and heart as disputed seats, sympathetic communication, and the differing Latin medical pairs.
- · paragraph 50–52: The commonly received head, whole-body and hypochondriacal classification.
- · paragraph 57–59: Primary and whole-body affection coexisting, with simultaneous or successive kinds.
- · paragraph 31–33: Bodily disposition and humours cooperating as conditions of disease in Fernel's dietary argument.
- · paragraph 14–16: Visitors refusing intercourse in the fuller Latin of Platter's alleged case.
- · paragraph 33–35: The soul's consent as a condition of defilement in an attributed moral argument.
- · paragraph 46–48: Reciprocal body–soul action, humours and spirits, and the lute image of shared disturbance.
- · paragraph 53–55: Physicians' agreement about preceding disease as a cause of melancholy.
- · paragraph 5–7: Local disorder contrasted with sympathy and rising vapours, amid hot/cold disagreements.
- · paragraph 10: Authorities' agreement about the spleen, rather than communication between organs.
- · paragraph 47–49: Substantial or important matters contrasted with the trifles sufferers fear.
- · paragraph 3–5: Conditional signs of primary head melancholy and Saxonia's differing spirit account.
- · paragraph 29–31: The attributed womb/vapour explanation, negated primary brain affection and widows' altered circumstances.
- · paragraph 11–13: Fracastoro's abbreviated sympathy title and the explanation of blushing beyond guilt.
- · paragraph 37–39: A physician's permission before self-treatment, followed by the ass-and-mule caution.
- · paragraph 25–30: Air and heaven as disputed substances, and the fifth essence in the rejected Aristotelian account.
- · paragraph 4: The question whether light belongs to the stars' essence.
- · paragraph 7–9: The motion theory called agreeable to nature, reason and truth by its reported advocates.
- · paragraph 15–17: The Kepler-associated inference of planetary inhabitants as reasonable or probable.
- · paragraph 28–30: Sleep contrasted with wakeful assent to pleasing fancies.
- · paragraph 20–22: The hares' shared resolve and reversed fear in Aesop's consolatory fable.
- · paragraph 34–36: Burton's claim of writers' agreement about pearls' cordial virtues.
- · paragraph 42–44: Recipes withheld to discourage self-experiment without a physician's consent.
- · paragraph 24–26: Primary and secondary melancholy in the reported bleeding practice and its disputed Hippocratic warrant.
- · paragraph 3–5: Joubert's alleged head–feet sympathy as a rationale for treatment of facial redness.
- · paragraph 3–5, unnumbered [403] (Third Partition synopsis): Natural attraction and repulsion in the synopsis of love's kinds.
- · paragraph 5–8: Natural sympathy in elements, stones and plants, with original Latin and abbreviated reference forms.
- · paragraph 26–28: Appetite and reason affecting the heart by consent; differing body and marginal formulations.
- · paragraph 33–35: The Senate's consent in the Cincinnatus example and the abbreviated Latin patrū.
- · paragraph 25–27: Palms said to express not sympathy but love-passion; modern merely qualifies the printed opposition.
- · paragraph 46–48: Busbecq's reported withholding of belief until the alleged lynx observation.
- · paragraph 18–20: One accord of will as the ideal of married love.
- · paragraph 48–50: The ass's answering bray interpreted as agreement in Apuleius's story.
- · paragraph 31–33: Suffragari and consent conveyed by a look in the Euryalus and Lucretia narrative.
- · paragraph 11–13: Juno's narrated consent after attempted force and a marriage promise, with differing Latin and English refusal details.
- · paragraph 29–33: The traveller's refusal in the Sana narrative, despite the inserted Dido quotation.
- · paragraph 21–23: Mirrha's alleged control of Dionysius's decisions through required approval.
- · paragraph 68–70: Parental refusal in the reported Neuburg murder and suicide, with the margin's specification of both parents.
- · paragraph 15–17: The parties' own disagreement distinguished from others withholding permission.
- · paragraph 55–58: Narcissus's refusal of Echo, followed by the separate Psyche example.
- · paragraph 7–9, unnumbered PDF688: A conditional historical legal claim about parental wishes, differing marginal knowledge, and Burton's ensuing restriction.
- · paragraph 35–37: Husbands' permission for wives' actions in gendered satire.
- · paragraph 17–19: Augustine's reported agreement with Ambrose, qualified by marriage for companionship in old age.
- : Unwanted thoughts, partial assent later rejected, settled will, anxious attention and the further assurance of pardon.
In this edition
“By consent” becomes “through their mutual sympathy”. “By essence in the head” is expanded to “originates in the head itself”. The full construction “not in essence, but by consent” becomes “through sympathy with another part, rather than through a disorder originating in itself”: the modern order reverses the two limbs and supplies the implied affectedness of the brain. The long explanatory phrase renders the opposition, not consent alone.
Elsewhere the edition uses “whether secondarily or in itself” for “be it by consent or essence”, “through its connection with other parts” for the second branch, and “as they all agree” for “by all their consents”. Ordinary permission can retain consent. Essence is likewise retained in the philosophical passages. The original Latin quoted in Burton-labelled notes is distinct from the supplied editor’s subsequent English translation. This article checks the supplied edition, without claiming independent collation of Burton’s cited medical works.
The original compati is Latin within an English sentence; its rendering “suffer together” should not be mistaken for an original English form. consentiat is “cooperate” in the marginal causal condition, while non consentirent becomes “they refused”: non supplies the negative and the English pronoun makes the understood subject explicit. The title De Symp. & Antip., and Element. sym. and de sym & antip. in the later bibliography, retain their actual abbreviations separately from the supplied expansions. “Symp.” elsewhere can abbreviate a different work, so the letters alone do not identify sympathy. In the palm-tree passage the added modern “merely” remains visible as an interpretation of the sharper original opposition. The late legal passage is on an unnumbered source page labelled by scan position; that label is not a newly inferred printed page.
assensus
Printed “assensum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: assensum
Assent or belief; accusative of assensus.
Context: Busbecq’s reported first-person testimony withholds assent from stories until his alleged observation of a lynx; this is attributed testimony, not the reviewer’s verification.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: assent
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
assent
Printed “assent” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: assent
Agree to or accept.
Context: Burton allows partial assent and delight followed by rejection, distinguishing it from a settled will; this qualification extends beyond the preceding absolute non-consent.
Source: original body
by consent · local use 1
Printed “by consent” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Through shared bodily–mental responsiveness.
Here: Through a shared bodily-mental responsiveness.
Context: Burton’s reciprocal comparison after reporting Lemnius; bodily disease is the subject and soul the affected object.
Source: original body
Source wording: so bodily diseases affect the soul by consent
by consent · local use 2
Printed “by consent” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Through communication with another bodily part.
Here: Through physiological connection with other parts, contrasted with a local brain disorder.
Context: Burton’s explanatory alternative; vapours rising into the head specify the second branch.
Source: original body
Source wording: The brain is still distempered by himself, or by consent
by consent · local use 3
Printed “by consent” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Through physiological connection.
Here: Through the physiological connection of faculties and bodily seats, affecting the heart.
Context: Burton reports Valesius and inherited faculty locations; margin/body wording differs.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: carried a thousand waies by consent
Modern rendering: carry it in a thousand directions through their mutual connection
Supplied words: it; their
Alignment scope: Passive original recast actively: carry it refers to the heart already named; their mutual connection makes the bodily/faculty relation explicit. This is the whole construction, not consent alone.
by consent · local use 4
Printed “by consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: by consent
Through communication from another bodily part.
Context: The qualifying clause allows the stomach, abdomen, whole body, liver, spleen and other sites as causes; this is not an exclusively brain-to-body direction.
Source: original body
by consent or essence
Printed “by consent or essence” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Through communication from another part or through a disorder originating in itself.
Here: The alternatives of being affected through another part or through a disorder originating in the part itself.
Context: Burton reports the majority brain-seat explanation amid disagreement.
Source: original body
Source wording: be it by consent or essence
by essence
Printed “by essence” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Through a disorder originating in the affected part itself.
Here: Originating in the head itself; the condition attached to the listed signs.
Context: Burton’s conditional catalogue; differing spirits and humour theories flank it.
Source: original body
Source wording: if it be by essence in the head
common consent · local use 1
Printed “common consent” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Common or shared agreement.
Here: Shared agreement among authorities, here asserted with the universal all.
Context: Burton’s broad argument from wickedness to folly, not a measured survey of every philosopher.
Source: original body
Source wording: Tis ratified by the common consent of all philosophers
common consent · local use 2
Printed “common consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: common consent
Shared agreement.
Context: Burton appeals to geographers, historians and political writers in praising England; this is his rhetorical generalization, not a verified survey.
Source: original body
compatior
Printed “compati” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Original wording: compati
To suffer together or share an affection.
Context: The Latin infinitive embedded in English explains the heart, diaphragm and other organs suffering together by proximity under Montalto’s answer to the heart-seat objection.
Source: original body
Source wording: They do compati
Modern rendering: suffer together
Alignment scope: Latin infinitive embedded in English; the supplied modern verb phrase renders that component.
consensu animæ
Printed “consensu animæ” (Latin; phrase).
By the soul’s assent or agreement.
Context: The Philostratus-attributed saying makes the soul’s consent a condition of moral defilement. Burton’s following English says only by the Soul, a less specific restatement.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: non coinquinatur corpus, nisi consensu animæ
Modern rendering: The body is not defiled without the soul’s consent
Alignment scope: Whole negative clause aligned; the ablative condition is rendered by without in conjunction with nisi. No isolated by/without equivalence is claimed.
consensus · consensu · local use 1
Printed “consensu” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
By agreement or approval; ablative of consensus.
Context: The marginal Cincinnatus example names the senators with the abbreviated patrū; the agreement is political authorization.
Source: Burton note original
Source wording, Original wording: consensu patrū
Modern rendering: by the consent of the senators
Alignment scope: Whole Latin noun phrase aligned; senators renders patrū, not consensu alone.
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
consensus · consensu · local use 2
Printed “consensu” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: consensu
Consent or approval; ablative of consensus.
Context: The Bellus-associated margin describes the mistress’s approval as a condition of royal acts; its insulting second clause is separate from the English body.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: consent
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
consent · local use 1
Printed “consent” (English; word).
Meaning: Permission or approval.
Here: Permission required before a proposed administrative action.
Context: Burton’s imagined commonwealth and its regulation of land use.
Source: original body
Source wording: but by the consent of some supervisors
consent · consents · local use 1
Printed “consents” (English; lemma).
Meaning: Agreements.
Here: Agreements of medical authorities, not sympathetic action among organs.
Context: Burton attributes agreement about the spleen to the preceding authorities.
Source: original body
Source wording: by all their consents
consent · local use 2
Printed “consent” (English; word).
Meaning: Permission or approval.
Here: A physician’s authorization before self-treatment or experiment.
Context: Burton’s caution; the fable that follows emphasizes different individual responses.
Source: original body
Source wording: without an approved physicians consent
consent · local use 3
Printed “consent” (English; word).
Meaning: Sympathetic connection.
Here: An assumed sympathetic connection between distant bodily parts.
Context: Joubert’s reported rationale for rubbing and washing the feet.
Source: original body
Source wording: because of that consent which is betwixt the head and the feet
consent · local use 4
Printed “consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: consent
Agreement.
Context: Burton attributes agreement on preceding bodily diseases causing melancholy to approved physicians; consent here does not name the bodily transmission itself.
Source: original body
consent · local use 5
Printed “consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: consent
Agreement.
Context: Burton asserts agreement among all writers concerning pearls’ cordial powers; retain it as his universalizing claim rather than verified unanimity or therapeutic efficacy.
Source: original body
consent · local use 6
Printed “consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: consent
Permission or approval.
Context: Burton withholds recipes and doses to avoid encouraging uninformed self-experiment without a good physician’s approval.
Source: original body
consent · local use 7
Printed “consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: consent
Approval or agreement.
Context: Cincinnatus is said to have been chosen dictator by the Senate’s agreement in an attributed Livian example; Burton’s initials and acreage are retained as printed.
Source: original body
consent · local use 8
Printed “consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: consent
Approval or permission.
Context: Burton alleges that Dionysius made appointments and decisions only with Mirrha’s approval; the unverified story and the margin’s added insult remain distinguishable.
Source: original body
consent · consents · local use 2
Printed “consents” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording: consents
Agrees; a verb.
Context: Augustine is represented as agreeing with Ambrose’s procreative doctrine, not granting permission to spouses. Burton’s next paragraph expressly allows marriage in old age for companionship, help and comfort.
Source: original body
consentaneus · consentaneam
Printed “consentaneam” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: consentaneam
Consistent or in accord with; feminine accusative of consentaneus.
Context: The Zanchi-associated margin makes the proposed interest consistent with Christian charity under express conditions and restrictions.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: consistent
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
consentaneus · consentanea
Printed “consentanea” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: consentanea
Like or comparable to; neuter plural of consentaneus.
Context: The Valerius-associated margin compares human strength and wealth to children’s toys because of their fragility; the printed locator differs from the supplied apparatus’s comparison.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: like
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
consentaneus · consentaneum · local use 1
Printed “consentaneum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: consentaneum
Agreeable or in accord with; neuter of consentaneus.
Context: The expression agrees the motion theory with nature, reason and truth in the reported Lansbergen-associated advocacy; it does not settle Burton’s surrounding disputes or repair his prefatory misattribution.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: agreeable
consentaneus · consentaneum · local use 2
Printed “consentaneum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: consentaneum
Reasonable or fitting; neuter of consentaneus.
Context: The Kepler-associated margin infers possible inhabitants from astronomical analogies; probable inference is not observed proof of life.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: reasonable
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
consentio · consentientis
Printed “consentientis” (Latin; lemma).
Meaning: Being in agreement or concord; genitive participle of consentio.
Here: Being in harmonious agreement; a Latin participle qualifying the body in a definition of health.
Context: Gregorius of Toulouse’s reported definition in a marginal quotation.
Source: Burton-labelled marginal original quotation
Source wording, Original wording: sanitas est consentientis bene corporis consummatio quædam
Modern rendering: health is a kind of fulfilment of the body in harmonious agreement
Edition note: Checked against editorial translation within the attached note, not the paired modern body
consentio · consentire
Printed “consentire” (Latin; lemma).
Meaning: To agree or assent; infinitive of consentio.
Here: To assent, here explicitly negated as the sufferer’s task in an attributed maxim.
Context: Burton attributes the Latin to Augustine, then restates it in English; exact patristic source unverified.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Satanæ est mala ingerere (saith Austin) nostrum non consentire
Modern rendering: It is Satan’s part to thrust evil upon us, says Augustine, ours not to consent
Word and construction: Latin maxim and English rendering aligned as a whole; non supplies the negation and nostrum the attribution of responsibility.
Supplied words: It; upon us
Alignment scope: The indexed infinitive is Latin; the wider quoted construction mixes Latin with the English parenthesis saith Austin. It is a supplied syntactic opener, while est already supplies the copula; upon us supplies the object of ingerere. Non supplies the negation of consentire.
consentio · consentiat
Printed “consentiat” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: consentiat
Cooperate or concur; subjunctive of consentio.
Context: Fernel’s causal account requires bodily disposition and the humours’ constitution to cooperate before air or passions produce disease; this is physiological concurrence, not mental permission.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: cooperate
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
consentio · consentirent
Printed “consentirent” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Agree or consent; imperfect subjunctive of consentio.
Context: The Platter-associated margin negates the visitors’ agreement to the woman’s demand for intercourse. Its fuller ending is absent from Burton’s abbreviated English; neither is a verified case history.
Source: Burton note original
Source wording, Original wording: non consentirent
Modern rendering: they refused
Alignment scope: Whole negative predicate: non supplies refusal, and they makes the Latin understood subject explicit. The positive verb alone does not mean refuse.
Supplied words: they
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
De sympathia et antipathia
Printed “De Symp. & Antip.” (Latin; phrase).
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: De Symp. & Antip.
Abbreviated title: On Sympathy and Antipathy.
Context: Fracastoro’s title accompanies the explanation of blushing through fear and awareness of defects, rather than proof of guilt. The expanded title is supplied, not fully printed.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: On Sympathy and Antipathy
Alignment scope: Whole abbreviated title aligned to its supplied English expansion; the abbreviation is retained exactly.
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
essence · Essence · local use 1
Printed “Essence” (English; word).
Citation key, Modern rendering: essence
Printed form, Original wording: Essence
Meaning: Nature or what a thing is.
Here: The soul’s nature or what it is, represented as difficult to know.
Context: Burton reports widespread uncertainty and competing accounts.
Source: original body
Source wording: For the Essence and particular knowledge, of all other things it is most hard
Alignment scope: Component-only lexical alignment; the difficulty claim and soul referent remain in the exact quotation and local explanation.
essence · local use 1
Printed “essence” (English; word).
Meaning: Underlying nature or being.
Here: Underlying nature, denied as the respect in which understanding and will differ.
Context: Burton’s philosophical division of one rational soul; only qualifies office/function.
Source: original body
Source wording: differing in office only, not in essence
essence · local use 2
Printed “essence” (English; word).
Meaning: Intrinsic nature or being.
Here: The stars’ intrinsic nature, posed as a question about light.
Context: Burton’s open sequence of cosmological questions, not an asserted conclusion.
Source: original body
Source wording: Whether light be of their essence
essence · local use 3
Printed “essence” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: essence
Nature or what a thing is.
Context: Burton calls the rational soul’s nature and origin disputed and lists competing accounts; the list is not a freshly verified history of the philosophers.
Source: original body
essence · Essences
Printed “Essences” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording: Essences
Substances or kinds of being.
Context: The Tycho–Rothmann dispute asks whether air and heavens have the same matter or two distinct substances; it is not only a dispute about visibility.
Source: original body
essence · Essence · local use 2
Printed “Essence” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording: Essence
Substance or nature.
Context: Burton says the opponents agree with a qualification about the penetrable heavens, while retaining Tycho’s two-substance claim and the margin’s different formulation.
Source: original body
essentia
Printed “essentia” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: essentia
Essence or fundamental nature; ablative of essentia.
Context: The Melanchthon-associated margin describes the will as free in its nature although its operations are mostly wild; the following discussion limits spiritual freedom.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: essence
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
essential · essentiall · local use 1
Printed “essentiall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Substantial or important, rather than trivial.
Context: Burton contrasts trifles that sufferers fear with genuinely weighty matters; this adjective does not identify the primary seat of disease.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: most materiall and essentiall matters
Modern rendering: matters of the greatest substance and importance
Alignment scope: The coordinated original adjectives and noun are rendered together as the full modern phrase; no isolated one-to-one equivalence for essentiall is claimed.
essential · essentiall · local use 2
Printed “essentiall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording: essentiall
Primary, arising in itself rather than secondarily.
Context: The medical distinction qualifies melancholy in a reported bleeding practice. The cited Hippocratic aphorism and the move from naturally appearing haemorrhoids to opening them remain separate problems.
Source: original body
fellow-feeling
Printed “fellow-feeling” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Shared suffering or responsiveness.
Context: Here the fellow-feeling is between bodily parts, not a person’s deliberate compassion.
Source: original body
Source wording: have a fellow-feeling
free in his essence
Printed “free in his essence” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Free in its fundamental nature.
Here: Free in its fundamental nature; locally distinguished from corrupted or limited operations.
Context: Burton’s contrast with sensitive appetite; the next passage restricts freedom in spiritual things.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: but this is free in his essence
Modern rendering: The will, however, is free in its essence
Supplied words: The will
Alignment scope: Whole construction: but becomes however; The will explicitly resolves the original this. No new copula is supplied.
gave consent · local use 1
Printed “gave consent” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Expressed agreement or assent.
Here: Expressed assent, represented by a look in a narrated literary courtship.
Context: Burton’s example of Euryalus and Lucretia, attributed to Aeneas Sylvius; not a general test of permission.
Source: original body
Source wording: gave consent with a pleasant look
gave consent · local use 2
Printed “gave consent” (English; phrase).
Agreed or assented.
Context: The Juno myth places this after attempted sexual force and a marriage promise. Latin fear of her mother and Burton’s separate English refusal remain distinct; the tale does not define valid real-world consent.
Source: original body
Source wording: she gave consent
gave not consent
Printed “gave not consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: gave not consent
Did not agree or assent.
Context: The refusal continues the traveller Varthema and Sultan of Sana’s wife narrative, notwithstanding the inserted Virgil line from Dido’s appeal. It is not a report of Aeneas’s refusal here.
Source: original body
generall consent
Printed “generall consent” (English; phrase).
Common agreement.
Context: The hares agree to drown themselves in Aesop’s fable, then recover courage on seeing the frogs’ greater fear; this is a consolation story.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: with a generall consent they went
Modern rendering: all agreed to go
Alignment scope: The complete noun-and-verb construction is recast as agreement governing an infinitive; all belongs to general agreement.
give assent
Printed “give assent” (English; phrase).
Yield approval or acceptance; here indulge.
Context: Burton distinguishes prolonged wakeful indulgence in pleasing fancies from the sleep recommended in the historical regimen.
Source: original body
Source wording: to give assent
give consent · local use 1
Printed “give consent” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Assent or agree voluntarily.
Here: Voluntarily assented to; negated of unwanted thoughts that the sufferer abhors.
Context: Burton’s consolatory argument; the continuation allows some temporary assent followed by rejection.
Source: original body
Source wording: didst never give consent to
give consent · local use 2
Printed “give consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: give consent
Show agreement.
Context: In Apuleius’s story Burton interprets the ass’s attempted answering bray through its human consciousness; the animal’s supposed assent is a narrative representation.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: show his agreement
Alignment scope: Contextual phrase rendering; his makes the already stated ass the possessor of agreement.
Supplied words: his
give consent · local use 3
Printed “give consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: give consent
Grant permission.
Context: The impediment catalogue distinguishes the parties’ own disagreement from permission withheld by parents, tutors, masters or guardians.
Source: original body
give consent · local use 4
Printed “give consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: give consent
Agree or assent.
Context: He is Narcissus refusing Echo in the preceding Ovidian line; Psyche and Cupid begin a different example after the refusal.
Source: original body
give consent · local use 5
Printed “give consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: give consent
Permit or agree to.
Context: Burton derides husbands who allow their wives freedom of spending and movement in gendered satire; the lexical sense does not endorse his marital standard.
Source: original body
give consent · local use 6
Printed “give consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: give consent
Agree or assent.
Context: Burton’s English restatement makes withholding consent sufficient while warning that excessive anxious effort can worsen distress; the Latin maxim remains separately attributed to Augustine.
Source: original body
non per essentiam, sed per consensum
Printed “non per essentiam, sed per consensum” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: non per essentiam, sed per consensum
Not through its own essence, but through sympathetic communication.
Context: The margin denies primary affection while invoking menstrual vapours and corrupted seed; its compressed spiritus cerebrum remains unamended original wording.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: not through its own essence, but through sympathy
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
not in essence, but by consent
Printed “not in essence, but by consent” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Not through a disorder originating in itself, but through communication from another part.
Here: Not originating in the brain, but affecting it through another bodily part.
Context: Burton’s explicit correction of the supposed disease’s location; womb and menstrual material are then named.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: the brain I say, not in essence, but by consent
Modern rendering: The brain, I say, is affected through sympathy with another part, rather than through a disorder originating in itself
Word and construction: Full antithetical construction aligned; modern wording reverses the two alternatives and supplies the implied affectedness.
Supplied words: is affected
one consent
Printed “one consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: one consent
One accord or shared will.
Context: The ideal of married love compares spouses’ agreement with aristocratic government and Geryon’s combined bodies; it is prescribed concord rather than physiological transmission.
Source: original body
Parents consent
Printed “Parents consent” (English; phrase).
Parental permission.
Context: The chronicle-derived story reports a man killing his sweetheart and himself after her parents refuse; this is murder followed by suicide, not an endorsed proof of love. The margin specifies both parents.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: her Parents consent
Modern rendering: sweetheart’s parents’ consent
Alignment scope: Her is resolved contextually as sweetheart’s; the explicit modern noun is supplied from the surrounding narrative.
Supplied words: sweetheart’s
parents consent
Printed “parents consent” (English; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: parents consent
Parents’ wishes or approval.
Context: The conditional Nevizzano claim concerns marriage above twenty-five against parental wishes; the Latin margin instead says without the father’s knowledge. The next paragraph reasserts parental choice. This is historical legal discussion.
Source: original body
per cerebrum
Printed “per cerebrum” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: per cerebrum
Through the brain.
Context: The margin’s second alternative says brain where the earlier medical pair says essence; itself is the supplied translator’s contextual interpretation.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: through the brain itself
Supplied words: itself
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
per consensum · local use 1
Printed “per consensum” (Latin; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Through sympathetic communication.
Here: Through sympathy: the mode by which bodily diseases are said to affect the soul.
Context: Marginal quotation explaining bodily-mental association.
Source: Burton-labelled marginal original quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Corporis itidem morbi animam per consensum, a lege consortii afficiunt
Modern rendering: Bodily diseases likewise affect the soul through mutual sympathy, under the law of their partnership
Edition note: Checked against editorial translation within the attached note, not the paired modern body
per consensum · Per consensum
Printed “Per consensum” (Latin; phrase).
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Per consensum
Through sympathetic communication with another part.
Context: The marginal phrase gives one alternative in the majority account of the affected brain.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: Through sympathy with another part
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
per consensum · local use 2
Printed “per consensum” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: per consensum
Through sympathetic communication.
Context: This margin pairs the phrase with per cerebrum, not per essentiam; retain that actual wording.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: through sympathy
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
per consensum · local use 3
Printed “per consensum” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: per consensum
Through sympathetic communication.
Context: The margin specifies vapours rising into the brain as the communicated route, amid competing hot and cold explanations.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: through sympathy
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
per consensum sive per essentiam
Printed “Per consensum sive per essentiam” (Latin; phrase).
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Per consensum sive per essentiam
Meaning: Through sympathetic communication or in itself.
Here: Latin medical pair: through sympathetic communication, or through the affected part’s own disorder.
Context: Marginal formulation supporting the body’s pair.
Source: Burton-labelled marginal original quotation
Modern rendering: Through sympathy with another part or in itself
Edition note: Checked against editorial translation within the attached note, not the paired modern body
per essentiam · local use 1
Printed “per essentiam” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: per essentiam
Through a disorder originating in the affected part itself.
Context: The second marginal alternative contrasts a part’s own disorder with communicated affection; it does not name a second brain.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: in itself
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
per essentiam · local use 2
Printed “per essentiam” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: per essentiam
Through the part’s own disorder.
Context: The Claudinus-associated margin reports primary affection together with affection from the whole body; Burton adds simultaneous or successive combinations of all three kinds.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: in itself
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
per propriam affectionem
Printed “per propriam affectionem” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: per propriam affectionem
Through its own disorder.
Context: The Montaltus-associated margin contrasts local disorder with vapours rising into the brain through sympathy; the body and margin give different chapter numbers.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: through its own disorder
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
quinta essentia
Printed “quinta essentia” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: quinta essentia
Fifth essence or substance.
Context: The fifth substance belongs to the Aristotelian account rejected in this compressed comparison; it is not Burton’s unqualified description of the soft heavens.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: fifth essence
suffragor
Printed “suffragari” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: suffragari
Give support or assent; infinitive of suffragor.
Context: The Latin infinitive embedded in English is rendered as a finite verb in the Euryalus and Lucretia example; the narrated look is not a general rule for interpreting willingness.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: assented
sympathetically
Printed “sympathetically” (English; word).
Meaning: Through sympathetic communication.
Here: Through physiological communication from the body as a whole.
Context: Burton’s most received threefold scheme, alongside additional proposed kinds.
Source: original body
Source wording: the second sympathetically proceeds from the whole body
sympathia · Sympathia
Printed “Sympathia” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Sympathia
Sympathy or natural affinity.
Context: The Mizaldus-associated margin describes olive and myrtle embracing in branches and roots; printed olei remains unrepaired.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: sympathy
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
sympathia · sym.
Printed “sym.” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Abbreviation for sympathy or affinity in a cited chapter description.
Context: Porta’s citation concerns the sympathy of elements alongside plant antipathy; do not expand the printed original itself.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Element. sym.
Modern rendering: sympathy of elements
Alignment scope: Whole abbreviated construction aligned; elements belongs to Element., not the indexed sym. component.
sympathia · sym
Printed “sym” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Abbreviation for sympathy in a cited title.
Context: Fracastoro’s title is de sym & antip.; the modern edition supplies its expansion. The exact component is lower-case and has no point in this occurrence.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: de sym & antip.
Modern rendering: On Sympathy and Antipathy
Alignment scope: Whole abbreviated title aligned; On and Antipathy render other printed components, not sym alone.
sympathize · local use 1
Printed “sympathize” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: sympathize
Share or participate in another’s feelings.
Context: Burton allows an affinity with the preceding satirical and sorrowing figures, but denies that this affinity explains his assumed name.
Source: original body
Source wording: In which passion howsoever I may sympathize with him or them
Modern rendering: share
Alignment scope: Verbal component only; the shared feelings are supplied by the surrounding passion construction.
sympathize · local use 2
Printed “sympathize” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: sympathize
Suffer together or share an affection.
Context: Capivaccius and Mercurialis are reported placing the seat in the brain and communicating the effect to heart and lower parts, while the same sentence also allows causes elsewhere.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: suffer with it
Alignment scope: Contextual verbal alignment; it makes explicit the other affected part supplied by the preceding brain-seat account.
Supplied words: it
sympathy · local use 1
Printed “sympathy” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: sympathy
Natural attraction or affinity.
Context: The synopsis applies the term to plants, with vine and elm as the example, opposing attraction to antipathy.
Source: original body
sympathy · Sympathy · local use 1
Printed “Sympathy” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording: Sympathy
Natural attraction or affinity.
Context: Burton’s natural-love account extends to animate and inanimate things, stones, metals and elements; the attributed universal love is a historical explanatory account.
Source: original body
sympathy · Sympathy · local use 2
Printed “Sympathy” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording: Sympathy
Natural affinity.
Context: Vine and elm exemplify affinity while other plant pairings exemplify antipathy; reported plant relations are not newly established botanical claims.
Source: original body
sympathy · local use 2
Printed “sympathy” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Natural affinity.
Context: Burton claims that male and female palms express not sympathy but a love-passion. The supplied merely softens his printed opposition and must not be silently imported into the original.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: a sympathy
Modern rendering: a sympathetic affinity
Alignment scope: Noun phrase aligned; merely belongs to the modern wider opposition and is absent from the original.