Counterfeit

Use in the book

The reported therapeutic deception makes the personal noun unmistakable. Forestus has a patient who believes he is dead. Another man is placed in a chest beside the bed as a supposed corpse, raises himself and eats. The patient asks this counterfeit whether dead people eat, receives the answer yes, and begins eating himself. Burton reports a cure. The counterfeit is the staged performer, not the patient whose belief the performance addresses. The neighbouring cases also create apparent evidence that fits a patient’s belief. They are historical treatment stories, not instructions to deceive patients, and the irregular marginal Latin does not independently certify their success.

Other acts of counterfeiting have plainly different purposes. In the Democritus speech, falsified weights join counterfeit money in the attack on corrupt dealings. In the poverty discussion, people are accused of feigning illness to support begging; Burton distinguishes this from alleged actual self-injury and presents want as the pressure behind both. Counterfeit cranks is consequently an accusatory social category, not a diagnosis. The phrase later returns in the mouth of an uncharitable passer-by who refuses assistance. There the charge of fraud belongs to the refusing voice: the passage condemns indiscriminate neglect, and its preceding pretend sickness means plead sickness, without necessarily alleging deception. The Map–Camden nunnery story uses feigned sickness for an alleged scheme of sexual exploitation and land acquisition. Its intended benefit is the schemer’s, unlike the corpse performance’s stated therapeutic purpose.

Imitation may work through sight or sound. The phantom armies of the demonological account are counterfeit because they are appearances of armies; Burton does not therefore dismiss their existence as a human hoax. He explicitly favours demonic agency over natural explanations of the accompanying phenomena. Marco Polo’s desert spirits allegedly imitate companions’ voices to lead travellers astray. In the account of disturbed perception, human performers imitate voices and animal sounds to persuade listeners that spirits are speaking. That passage follows a qualified explanation which locates deception chiefly in the brain while still allowing demonic interference. Elsewhere imitation devils used as a joke are said to cause lasting fear. The harmless intention of a joke, in Burton’s account, does not guarantee a harmless effect.

Outward appearance also supplies a social and moral vocabulary. Counterfeit masks turn people into false faces in the world’s theatre. The counterfeit Catos are affectedly severe critics of Burton’s love section. Counterfeit gestures can imitate love, learning or virtue without inward worth; the continuation opposes them to genuine, unfeigned honourable love. In religious government, counterfeits are people pretending devotion for political ends. Burton calls them the majority but first expressly acknowledges many sincere governors. His rejection of counterfeit miracles and a counterfeit god belongs to a different, theological judgment. The contrast of true religion with a counterfeit superstition makes clear that his argument does not dismiss all faith as pretence.

Counterfeiting can also be inward. In Cardan’s quoted self-description, the edition’s counterfeited renders mentitus sum: he has simulated through repeated thought the pleasure he could not, or was ashamed to, enact. Pleasure is the object and thought the means. Burton defends the candour of this confession and compares it with a Gregory-attributed account of outward chastity compromised by inward fantasy. The latter attribution remains unresolved; neither passage describes a pretended display to a lover. Their astrological explanations remain historical.

The erotic passages distinguish manufactured appearance from imagined representation. Burton conjectures that the attraction of hair explains why Venetian women imitate blond hair; the wording does not specify the technique. Léry’s counterfeit colours and fabricated beauty concern cosmetic and sartorial artifice, in a comparison that expressly grants Brazilian women equal natural beauty. The counterfeit ladies of poetry are instead represented or imagined women whom a lover claims his beloved surpasses. This does not establish that every named poetic beloved was wholly invented.

Feigned smiles and passions can be presented as instruments of persuasion, but observers also deceive themselves. Burton first distinguishes ordinary smiling from composed gestures, then describes the lover who takes any pleasant look as encouragement. The Latin couplet attributes the inference to the fool; Burton’s following English adds a deceiving intention to the woman. Those claims must remain distinct. His later assertion that women feign passions more often than men follows a warning about men’s oaths and uses dramatic speeches as examples. Finally, counterfeit shapes are assumed identities in pursuit of the beloved. The Martin Guerre anecdote illustrates impersonation, although Burton reverses the historical roles identified by the supplied apparatus. Neither a theatrical role nor a changed appearance is automatically evidence that the person receiving it consented to the purpose.

A monetary metaphor transfers falsification to sexual descent. Burton calls adulterers naturæ monetam adulterantes, rendered counterfeiters of nature’s coin: people who falsify nature’s currency. His separate English calls them false coiners and clippers. The precise Philo passage is unverified. Moreover, Burton’s simultaneous summons of three thousand adulterers differs from Dio’s docket of three thousand indictments, few prosecuted, as the apparatus explains. The ensuing miller proverb denies that every case is noticed, and the great are not all called to account.

Related entries

Abraham men: Accusations of feigned illness and the social category of the beggar.

Mountebank: Performers and alleged fraudulent healers.

Habit and disposition: Appearance or guise must be distinguished from inward disposition.

Art and artificial: Made appearances, skilled imitation and therapeutic contrivance.

Imagination: Belief and the interpretation of sensory appearances.

Courtship and wooing: Persuasive performances and their recipients.

Policy: Religion used as an alleged instrument of government.

Superstition: Burton’s distinction between sincere religion and its false imitation.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 21–23; Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 3–5falsified weights, social masks and the world-as-theatre analogy.
2. Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 1–3; Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 34–36phantom armies and the spirits’ imitated voices, with Burton’s explicit explanation and source qualifications.
3. Subsection 3 Terrors and Frights as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 7–12imitation devils in jest and the claimed lasting effects of fright.
4. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 31–33poverty, alleged feigned illness, actual injury and the category counterfeit cranks; note 3954 marks the allegations’ historical status.
5. Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraphs 29–30; Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraph 1internal deception, allowance for demonic intervention, human vocal imitation and acoustic effects.
6. Member 3. Whether It Is Lawful to Seek the Saints' Help in This Disease · paragraphs 34–40disputed cures, counterfeit miracles, Aesculapius and Burton’s polemical analogy with Christian shrines.
7. Subsection 2 Help From Friends Through Counsel and Comfort Gentle and Harsh Methods Ingenious Devices Reassurance Changes in the Way of Life and Removal of Troubling Objects and So Forth · paragraphs 36–38the inherited corpse performance at Subsection 2 Help From Friends Through Counsel and Comfort Gentle and Harsh Methods Ingenious Devices Reassurance Changes in the Way of Life and Removal of Troubling Objects and So Forth · paragraph 37 and its conclusion; note 6234–note 6235 distinguish the irregular margin from the body’s clear agency.
8. Section 1. Member 1. Subsection 1 The Preface · paragraphs 35–37counterfeit Catos in the defence of writing about love.
9. Subsection 3 Honourable Objects of Love · paragraphs 21–26apparent moral worth contrasted with genuine, unfeigned love.
10. Member 3 Charity Combining All Three Kinds of Love Pleasant Profitable and Honourable · paragraphs 12–16counterfeit crank as the uncharitable passer-by’s accusation; note 8505–note 8507 distinguish pleading need, Horace’s source and the refusing voice.
11. Member 2. Subsection 1. Causes of Heroic Love: Bodily Temperament, Plentiful Diet, Idleness, Place, Climate, and So Forth · paragraphs 5–9Cardan’s inward simulation, Burton’s defence of candour, the Gregory-attributed comparison and the historical astrological explanation.
12. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraphs 31–33; Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraphs 25–27; Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraphs 34–41imitated hair, artificial beauty, composed smiles and the lover’s mistaken inference.
13. Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation, Singing, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales and Sights, Kissing, Familiarity, Tokens, Gifts, Bribes, Promises, Declarations, Tears, and So On · paragraphs 26–30the alleged feigned-illness scheme and its property motive, followed by a separately uncertain hermit story.
14. Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation, Singing, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales and Sights, Kissing, Familiarity, Tokens, Gifts, Bribes, Promises, Declarations, Tears, and So On · paragraphs 42–46men’s promises, the turn to women’s supposed feigned passions, and literary examples whose speakers remain identified.
15. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 35–37; Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 2–6poetic ladies, assumed identities and the lover’s dependent pursuit.
16. The Cure of Jealousy: Avoiding Occasions for It, Keeping Occupied; Good Counsel; Disregarding It, Not Watching Women or Locking Them Up; Concealing It, and So On · paragraphs 29–34nature’s coin as a metaphor for descent, the Philo attribution, note 11732’s correction of the Dio account and the incomplete reach of accusation.
17. The Cure of Jealousy: Avoiding Occasions for It, Keeping Occupied; Good Counsel; Disregarding It, Not Watching Women or Locking Them Up; Concealing It, and So On · paragraphs 26–34; Subsection 2 · paragraph 35impersonation in the Martin Guerre example, the role reversal identified by note 11803 and the continuing counsel of patience.
18. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraphs 38–42; Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraphs 1–2feigned religion, the sincere-governor concession and political pretenders.
19. General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 35–37the counterfeit of superstition contrasted with true religion.

In this edition

“the counterfeit” → “the pretended corpse” supplies the performer’s particular role from the preceding scene. Corpse is not a universal definition of counterfeit. The patient and the man acting beside him remain separate, and the latter answers the former’s question. The noun counterfeits is instead recast as pretending, while a counterfeit becomes an adjective describing superstition.

Counterfeit false weights becomes falsify weights; the modern counterfeit coins in the preceding clause translates make false moneys, so it is not another original occurrence of the same word. Counterfeit can also become imitate, artificial, feigned, imagined or assumed according to its object. In not counterfeit → unfeigned the negation belongs to the aligned unit. In counterfeit Cranks → sham invalids, counterfeit supplies sham and Cranks supplies invalids. The later refusal’s feigned invalid remains an accusation within a voice, not a verified finding about the person asking for help.

The edition’s imagined ladies explains poetic representation without deciding the historical existence of Laura, Lesbia or every other named figure. Its impersonating him compresses counterfeited his habit into an action, while the accompanying note separately corrects Burton’s reversal of the people in the Martin Guerre story. Source correction, lexical explanation and the reported event remain distinct.

In Cardan’s Latin, mentitus sum means I have feigned or simulated, a perfect deponent construction with active meaning. The masculine participle refers to Cardan; sum completes the tense. The entire aligned clause retains pleasure as object, constant thought as means, and the preceding alternatives of inability and shame. In naturæ monetam adulterantes → counterfeiters of nature’s coin, adulterantes supplies the people falsifying, monetam the object coin, and naturæ the possessive nature’s. The participle does not itself mean either nature or currency and is not a finite Latin verb.

Adulterare

Printed “adulterantes” (Latin; lemma).

Falsifying or adulterating; the present active participle is used substantivally for the people doing so.

Here: Adulterers are figuratively represented as people falsifying nature’s currency, with descent understood as the affected value.

Context: Burton attributes the phrase to Philo, whose precise passage remains unverified. His accompanying Dio story turns three thousand indictments on a docket, few prosecuted, into three thousand adulterers simultaneously summoned; the accompanying note distinguishes these claims. The ensuing miller proverb and exemption of some great persons qualify the completeness of the account.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: naturæ monetam adulterantes

Modern rendering: counterfeiters of nature’s coin

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Adulterantes supplies the agents counterfeiters; monetam is its accusative object coin, and naturæ the genitive nature’s. In Burton’s mixed English and Latin sentence these people are subjects of were summoned; adulterantes is not a finite Latin verb.

Qualification: This is Burton’s historical sexual and monetary metaphor, not a present-day legal characterization or independently established prosecution total.

Counterfeit crank

Printed “counterfeit Cranks” (English; phrase).

Alleged sham invalids: counterfeit means feigned or pretending, and crank here means an invalid.

Here: The phrase labels beggars accused of feigning sickness, with examples of supposed muteness and mental illness.

Context: Burton’s early modern vagrancy accusation, whose factual support remains uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit Cranks

Modern rendering: sham invalids

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit contributes sham and Cranks invalids; the phrase is not a diagnosis.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit crank” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit crank.

An alleged person pretending illness.

Here: The wealthy passer-by refuses the plea by calling the sufferer a cheat.

Context: The accusation belongs to the refusing voice in Burton’s indictment of uncharitable behaviour. The preceding Horatian source concerns a former deceiver with a real injury; the body’s pretend sickness means plead sickness, not necessarily lie.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a counterfeit crank

Modern rendering: a feigned invalid

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit contributes feigned and crank invalid; a is retained.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Counterfeit; artificial cosmetic appearance

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Artificial or fabricated rather than naturally present.

Here: Colours and ornaments create an elaborately fashioned beauty.

Context: Burton quotes Léry comparing European dress with habitual nakedness in Brazil; the passage grants the women there equal natural beauty despite its European terminology.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit colors

Modern rendering: artificial colours

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies artificial and colors colours; the phrase concerns cosmetic appearance, not forged currency.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; fabricate beauty.

To fashion or fabricate an appearance of beauty.

Here: The same quotation describes what dress and accessories do to appearance.

Context: Léry’s reported comparative judgment, adopted by Burton in his account of art’s erotic force.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit a beauty

Modern rendering: fabricate beauty

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies fabricate; a beauty is rendered uncountable beauty, without declaring that every adorned woman lacks natural beauty.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Counterfeit; assumed identity

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Assumed rather than genuine, here describing forms or identities taken on.

Here: The lover adopts disguises and pretexts to gain access to the beloved.

Context: Burton’s account of amorous servitude and persistent pursuit, with Jupiter as mythic comparison; not a recommendation to evade another person’s boundaries.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit shapes

Modern rendering: assumed identities

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies assumed and shapes is interpreted as identities in the context of disguise.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeited” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; impersonate.

Imitated another person’s appearance so as to pass for him.

Here: The Martin Guerre anecdote supplies an example of impersonation in the jealousy discussion.

Context: Burton reverses the impersonator and the person impersonated. The modern preserves his narrative order, while the accompanying note identifies Arnaud du Tilh as the impersonator of Martin Guerre.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: he counterfeited his habit

Modern rendering: impersonating him

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The complete clause is recast as impersonating him; habit supplies the other person’s appearance or guise, not an inward disposition.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Counterfeit; false moral appearance

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Feigned or falsely expressive of a quality not possessed.

Here: Gestures make a show of love, learning, integrity or zeal without inward worth.

Context: Burton’s warning against flattering dependants, contrasted with sincere virtue and honourable love in the continuation.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: counterfeit gestures

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The modern retains the phrase; gestures supplies the expressive acts and counterfeit their alleged falseness.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; false social face.

False or assumed, here describing masks figuratively applied to people.

Here: The new company of social performers has impressive appearances without corresponding worth.

Context: Burton’s hypothetical modern Democritus follows the world-as-theatre image and leads into Calcagnini’s Crysalus fable.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit vizards

Modern rendering: false faces

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies false and vizards faces, with the figurative mask sense made explicit.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; affected moral severity.

Ostentatiously or falsely assuming the manner of stern moral judges.

Here: The phrase mocks critics who object to Burton’s treating love.

Context: Burton’s defensive address; the following argument insists that love belongs to the melancholy treatise.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit Cato’s

Modern rendering: counterfeit Catos

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit retains the claim of affected severity; Cato’s is a plural name used for would-be moralists, modernized without the apostrophe.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; unfeigned contrast.

Feigned or insincere, here negated.

Here: Genuine virtue is said to be open, honest and undisguised.

Context: Burton’s positive description of honourable love after his account of false appearances; this love cannot be compelled.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: not counterfeit

Modern rendering: unfeigned

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Not counterfeit is rendered unfeigned as a complete negative construction.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Counterfeit; falsify

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

To falsify or make a deceptive substitute.

Here: Weights are falsified for fraudulent dealings.

Context: The Democritus speech in Burton’s retelling extends its attack on unjust institutions to false money and weights.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: others counterfeit false weights

Modern rendering: others falsify weights

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit false is compressed into falsify, with weights retained. The modern counterfeit coins in the preceding clause renders make false moneys, not this printed verb.

Counterfeit; feign illness

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

To feign or pretend a condition.

Here: Some people in want are accused of feigning diseases to make begging more persuasive.

Context: Burton presents poverty as the pressure behind the alleged acts; his hostile vagrancy categories and Damhouder citation do not independently establish the allegations.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit several diseases

Modern rendering: feign various diseases

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies feign, several various and diseases diseases. The following claims of actual self-injury are distinct from feigning illness.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; keep up a pretence.

To continue pretending, here to be ill.

Here: Godwin instructs his nephew to maintain the sick role as part of an alleged scheme to obtain the nunnery’s property.

Context: A story named after Walter Map in the body and Camden in the margin, followed through the pregnancies, expulsion and acquisition of land; not an established case history.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: so long to counterfeit

Modern rendering: to keep up the pretence

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit is used without an expressed object; keep up the pretence supplies the earlier pretended illness. So long is completed by the following until clause in both versions.

Qualification: The scheme involves sexual exploitation for material gain. The next hermit story is separately left uncertain by Burton; that uncertainty is not silently transferred into an attribution of proof for this one.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; feign religion.

To put on a show of religious devotion.

Here: A prince is said to display piety for the purpose of controlling subjects.

Context: Burton’s hostile account of Machiavelli and political expediency, followed by named critics and an explicit concession that many governors are sincere.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: counterfeit religion

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The modern retains verb and object; the surrounding clauses distinguish appearance from belief.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Counterfeit; feigned expression

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Feigned or deliberately composed.

Here: Smiles are alleged to signal more than ordinary friendliness, yet lovers can also misinterpret an ordinary pleasant look.

Context: Burton distinguishes ordinary smiling from artful gestures and immediately faults foolish lovers for treating every smile as personal encouragement.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit, composed, affected, artificial and reciprocal

Modern rendering: feigned, composed, affected, artful, exchanged

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies feigned; the other adjectives contribute their own meanings. Smiles is recovered later in the original sentence and is expressed after the modern list.

Qualification: The Latin couplet at 120-37 describes the lover’s inference; Burton’s English version at 120-38 adds the woman’s intention to deceive. These are not equivalent claims.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; feigned passion.

Feigned or simulated.

Here: Threats and distress are presented as means of obtaining a lover’s pity.

Context: Burton moves from male threats and Ariadne’s warning to a generalization about women, illustrated by Phaedra’s dramatic speech; the gender stereotype is not adopted.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit passions

Modern rendering: feigned passions

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies feigned and passions passions, meaning emotions or affective states.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Counterfeit; imitate

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

To imitate or reproduce an appearance or sound.

Here: Performers imitate voices and animal sounds so listeners believe they hear spirits.

Context: Burton’s accusation of imposture against named groups; the preceding paragraph mainly locates perceptual deception in the brain while allowing demonic intervention.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit the voices of all birds and bruit beasts almost

Modern rendering: imitate the voices of almost all birds and brute beasts

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies imitate; almost is moved before all without making the imitation universal.

Uncertainty: The exact Bacon and Blancanus passages and acoustic sites remain uncollated.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; imitate voices.

To imitate voices.

Here: Spirits supposedly call a separated traveller in familiar voices to draw him off course.

Context: A report from Marco Polo, with the printed marginal chapter number differing from the edition discussed in the apparatus.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit voyces of his companions to seduce him

Modern rendering: imitate his companions’ voices to lead him astray

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit supplies imitate; seduce means lead astray here, not specifically sexual persuasion.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; imitate appearance.

To imitate an appearance or colour.

Here: Venetian women are said to reproduce blond hair as an attractive appearance.

Context: Burton offers this probable explanation after praising hair, with belike retaining uncertainty; the fashion report remains uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit yellow hair

Modern rendering: imitate blond hair

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit contributes imitate, yellow blond, and hair hair. The phrase does not establish whether dye, added hair or another technique is meant.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; imitation representation.

Imitation or simulated rather than actual.

Here: A joking representation of a devil is said nevertheless to cause serious fright.

Context: Burton’s historical account of fear, continued beyond the intervening Lucretian couplet to alleged lasting effects.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit divels in jest

Modern rendering: imitation devils as a joke

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit contributes imitation, divels devils, and in jest as a joke.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Counterfeit; person acting a role

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

A person pretending or acting a part.

Here: The man placed in the chest pretends to be a corpse and demonstrates eating.

Context: Burton attributes the treatment to Forestus: the performer is distinct from the patient, who believes he is dead and then imitates the apparent corpse’s eating.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the counterfeit

Modern rendering: the pretended corpse

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit names the performer; corpse supplies his assumed role from the preceding context, not a meaning the noun carries in every occurrence.

Translator-supplied words: corpse, specifying the role supplied by the preceding description

Qualification: The reported cure is not modern therapeutic advice. The marginal Latin has disordered syntax and agreement and is translated for apparent sense, not silently repaired.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeits” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; pretender.

People pretending to religious conviction.

Here: Politicians are accused of using religion for political purposes.

Context: Burton says most, after expressly conceding that many politicians are sincerely religious; this is his judgment of motives, not an independently established classification.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeits only for politicall ends

Modern rendering: pretending only for political ends

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The original plural noun is recast as pretending; only for politicall ends becomes only for political ends.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Counterfeit; phantom appearance

Printed “Counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Apparent or phantom, resembling something without being that thing.

Here: Armies seen in the air are represented as spectral appearances produced by aerial spirits.

Context: Burton assembles prodigy reports and then explicitly favours demonic agency over the natural explanations he acknowledges.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Counterfeit Armies

Modern rendering: phantom armies

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit contributes phantom and Armies armies. The modern supplies They produce before the phrase from the preceding description of aerial spirits.

Qualification: The word marks the armies’ apparent character; it does not mean Burton dismisses the reports as human fabrications. His demonic explanation remains historical.

Counterfeit; poetically represented

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Represented or imagined in poetry.

Here: The lover’s beloved is said to surpass women celebrated by poets.

Context: An extravagant lover’s comparison using mythological and literary figures; the word does not prove that every named woman was wholly invented.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: counterfeit Ladies

Modern rendering: imagined ladies

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit contributes imagined in the sense of poetic representation; Ladies contributes ladies.

Counterfeit; sham religious claim

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Spurious or falsely claiming the character of something genuine.

Here: Reported miraculous cures are rejected as inventions or demonic illusions.

Context: Burton’s Protestant polemic; he doubts the alleged patients’ condition and cites hostile accounts rather than demonstrating each fraud.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: counterfeit miracles

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The modern retains the adjective and noun; the surrounding alternatives give Burton’s grounds for calling the miracles spurious.

Further local use

Printed “counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; false god.

Falsely accorded divine status, according to Burton’s religious judgment.

Here: Aesculapius’s reported cures and votive offerings are compared with Christian shrine practices.

Context: Burton’s theological and anti-Catholic analogy, expanded in the next passage into a claim of continuing demonic worship.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: that counterfeit God

Modern rendering: that counterfeit god

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Counterfeit retains the denial of true divinity; God becomes lower-case god, without converting the claim into a finding of human forgery.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Further local use

Printed “a counterfeit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Counterfeit; sham thing.

A sham or false imitation.

Here: Superstition is contrasted with true religion as its insincere imitation.

Context: Burton’s explicit distinction preserves a positive account of faith while attacking superstition; his classification remains his own.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the one unfained, the other a counterfeit

Modern rendering: one sincere, the other counterfeit

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The original noun a counterfeit is recast adjectivally as counterfeit; unfained becomes sincere.

Sense relation: A related local use, retaining its own part of speech, object, motive, speaker and degree of assertion.

Mentior

Printed “mentitus sum” (Latin; lemma).

I have feigned or simulated: first-person singular perfect of the deponent verb mentior, with active meaning.

Here: Cardan describes inwardly simulating pleasure through repeated thought when action was impossible or shameful.

Context: Cardan’s quoted self-description, defended by Burton as candid and useful to learners; it is not Burton’s own confession. The subsequent Gregory-attributed comparison concerns inward fantasy despite outward chastity, and its precise source remains unresolved. The astrological explanations remain historical claims.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: quam facto implere non licuit, aut fecisse potentem puduit, cogitatione assiduâ mentitus sum voluptatem

Modern rendering: the pleasure I was unable to fulfil in action, or was ashamed to act on when I could, I have counterfeited through constant thought

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Mentitus sum supplies I have counterfeited: mentitus is the masculine participle referring to the quoted male speaker, and sum completes the finite perfect. Voluptatem is the accusative object pleasure; cogitatione assiduâ is the ablative means through constant thought. The preceding relative clause describes the alternatives of inability to fulfil and shame at acting when able.