Corrosive

Use in the book

The movement from commonwealths to families carries the bodily analogy into household government: households possess as many corsives and discontents as political communities. The next passage supplies extravagance as a shared cause of ruin. The analogy concerns similar modes of distress at different scales, while the asserted six- or seven-century lifespan remains a report of Burton’s authorities.

Injury becomes a perpetual corrosive when a sufferer magnifies it and continually broods on it. Burton singles out people already melancholy or inclined to it, but he also condemns those who mock them: the following passage does not excuse the injury because the mocker intended amusement. Perpetual describes sustained consumption, qualified in the same sentence by the prospect of time wearing it away.

Poverty and want are corrosives too, especially for people who have fallen from prosperity. Burton’s account gives inherited rank and upbringing a prejudicial prominence, visible in his dismissive next paragraph about poorer people. The later consolatory address names memory of former happiness a double corrosive: the present loss hurts more because the earlier condition remains available for comparison. He concedes the misery before maintaining that it can be endured.

The physical sense remains active. In the dietary account, sharp and sour substances are called corrosive in contrast with obstructive sweets, amid disagreement about particular ingredients. In the dispute over potable gold, corrosive liquids are an argument against a preparation, associated with Erastus and Gwinne. The opposing chemical physicians follow immediately. These are historical dietary classifications and medical controversies, not present-day instructions.

Related entries

Jealousy: Jealousy as a consuming affliction.

Sorrow: Persistent grief and its bodily images.

Macerate: The parallel vocabulary of wearing down.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 18–20Households and commonwealths share consuming troubles.
2. Subsection 1 Bad Diet as a Cause. Substance. The Quality of Foods · paragraphs 23–25Physical corrosiveness in disputed dietary teaching.
3. Subsection 7. Envy, Malice and Hatred as Causes · paragraphs 2–5Envy, bodily wasting and the marginal moth comparison.
4. Subsection 4 How Mockery, Slander and Bitter Jokes Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 40–42Brooding, time and the responsibility of the mocker.
5. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 15–17Poverty and status loss, with Burton’s class-biased qualification.
6. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 50–52Former prosperity makes present loss doubly painful.
7. Subsection 4 Precious Stones Metals and Minerals as Alteratives · paragraphs 35–39The dispute about gold and corrosive liquids.

In this edition

‘corsives & molestations’ becomes ‘corrosive troubles and vexations’: troubles makes the metaphorical noun explicit. ‘a perpetual corrosive’ remains unchanged. Elsewhere the edition redistributes a noun into a verb: poverty and want ‘are generally corrosives’ becomes ‘generally eat away’, and ‘a double corrosive’ becomes ‘what eats away at you doubly’.

The marginal ‘Ut tinea corrodit vestimentum’ means ‘As a moth eats away a garment’. Corrodit belongs to the moth’s action; the comparison’s second clause uses consumit for envy’s consumption of the envious person. The original and translated note preserve both actions, rather than assigning the entire moral comparison to one verb.

corrodere

Printed “corrodit” (Latin; family).

Eats away or gnaws.

Here: The moth’s material damage is the first term of a comparison with envy’s destructive action.

Context: The marginal comparison accompanies Burton’s attribution to Chrysostom; exact independent source collation remains unresolved.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Ut tinea corrodit vestimentum, sic invidia eum qui zelatur consumit

Modern rendering: As a moth eats away a garment, so envy consumes the person who envies

Word and construction: Corrodit supplies eats away, with tinea as its subject and vestimentum as its object; the second clause uses consumit, not corrodit.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Corrosive · corsives

Printed “corsives” (English; family).

Things that eat away; figuratively persistent troubles.

Here: Household discontents are compared with the troubles of commonwealths.

Context: Burton’s analogy compares the political and household body; the lifespan claim is attributed to other writers.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: corsives & molestations

Modern rendering: corrosive troubles and vexations

Word and construction: Corsives is expanded to corrosive troubles; molestations contributes vexations. Troubles supplies the noun implicit in the shortened plural.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Corrosive · corrosive · local use 1

Printed “corrosive” (English; family).

Having an eating-away or biting action.

Here: The adjective assigns a bodily effect to sharp, sour and related foods in a historical dietary classification.

Context: Burton adds these foods to authorities’ prohibitions; the surrounding discussion records disagreement about salt.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: these are corrosive

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Corrosive · corrosive · local use 2

Printed “corrosive” (English; family).

A consuming source of distress.

Here: Brooding prolongs the injury and gives it an apparently continuous eating-away effect.

Context: Burton especially singles out people already melancholy or disposed to it, and qualifies perpetual with eventual wearing away by time.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: a perpetual corrosive

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Corrosive · corrosives

Printed “corrosives” (English; family).

Persistent afflictions that consume their sufferers.

Here: The metaphor includes deprivation and loss of former social standing.

Context: Burton generalizes across people but especially emphasizes formerly prosperous and high-born sufferers; the next passage exposes his class prejudice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Poverty and want are generally corrosives to all kind of men

Modern rendering: Poverty and want generally eat away at people of every kind

Word and construction: The noun corrosives becomes the verbal expression eat away; the subjects and general qualification remain.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Corrosive · corrosive · local use 3

Printed “corrosive” (English; family).

A source of distress intensified by a second consideration.

Here: Present poverty is aggravated by remembering former prosperity.

Context: Burton’s consolatory address concedes this intensified pain before arguing that it can be endured.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a double corrosive

Modern rendering: what eats away at you doubly

Alignment scope: Corresponding nominal and relative-clause expressions; the modern at you makes the sufferer explicit from the surrounding second-person address.

Word and construction: Corrosive becomes eats away; double supplies doubly. What recasts the noun as a relative expression, and at you supplies the sufferer from the surrounding address rather than translating a separate word inside a double corrosive.

Corrosive · corrosive · local use 4

Printed “corrosive” (English; family).

Chemically biting or eating-away.

Here: The liquids used in preparing potable gold ground an objection to that preparation.

Context: Burton reports Erastus’s attack and Gwinne’s related argument; the next passage states the opposing chemical physicians’ claims.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the corrosive waters

Modern rendering: the corrosive liquids

Word and construction: Corrosive retains its adjective sense; waters here becomes the broader liquids.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.