From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordDistraction can mean mental distress or derangement, but also bodily disorder and the complications that obstruct classification.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe first-person verse approaches madness by a hair’s breadth.
- In this edition“now distracted” becomes “already distraught,” preserving the distinction from ordinary inattention.
- A place to readThe plural among mixed symptoms and uncertain boundaries
Meaning
Distraction can mean mental distress or derangement, but also bodily disorder and the complications that obstruct classification. Distracted may mean distraught; it may also describe attention drawn away from present business. Distract can do harm by unsettling or engrossing a person, or help by redirecting attention from fear and sorrow. The object, agent and purpose decide its value.
The related Latin family makes the drawing or pulling explicit. Distrahant means “may pull apart”; distrahor, “I am pulled apart”; distrahantur, “let them be diverted”; distrahunt, “draw away” or “distract”; and distrahatur, “let him be sent away.” Distractionem names disturbance or diversion of the bodily spirits in a physiological explanation. These are related constructions with different objects, not one diagnosis distributed across every occurrence.
Use in the book
Distraught, not merely inattentive
The first-person verse approaches madness by a hair’s breadth. Its Latin “Insaniam” means “I shall go mad”; the later “furore” names the madness from which the speaker is scarcely separated. Burton then gives an English version ending “now distracted.” That additional description means already distraught or mentally disordered. The two versions are related but not identical, and the supplied edition does not securely identify the speaker or source from the adjacent Lucian reference.
Elsewhere, ambitious people are distracted between hope and fear, and remain distraught whether their petitions succeed or fail. Poverty’s misery is said to distract those subjected to it; a reported bereavement case links extreme distraction with despair. The word identifies distress and its setting rather than ordinary forgetfulness. In the religious partition, “distraction of soul” belongs to a heightened picture of anguish. The adjoining account of disturbed fits must remain Burton’s selected historical rhetoric, while its explicit distinction between unwanted thoughts and consent is preserved. The noun also occurs among the symptoms of the condition described under unmarried women, nuns and widows: sorrow, quiet derangement, bodily pain, solitude and weeping may come and go in fits, with sudden relief. “Distraction” in that definition does not itself imply continuous disturbance.
Distress can also be visible to another person. In Burton’s version of Porphyry’s encounter with Plotinus, “distracted looks” alert the teacher that something is wrong and prompt him to ask about Porphyry’s grief. The supplied editor distinguishes Burton’s consolatory retelling from the cited Life of Plotinus, where a journey is part of the account. A separate marginal catalogue attributed to Cardan uses “distrahunt” for the troubles that beset different people: poverty, bereavement, illness, fear, injury, plots and family concerns. Here the Latin verb expresses affliction, unlike the welcome daytime diversion in Clitophon’s complaint.
Attention captured and attention redirected
In the solitude discussion, thoughts possess, overcome, distract and detain their subject. Initially delightful imaginings obstruct necessary business; they later become distressing and hard to escape. The symptom account likewise describes a person conversing outwardly while inwardly preoccupied, forgetting what was being said or done. The continuation stresses that the recurring thought presents itself against the person’s will. Here distraction from the present task is caused by a persistent fixation, not by a simple absence of mental activity.
The cure reverses the direction. Suitable employment can “distract their cogitations” by filling the mind with other concerns. Chess may divert idle or anxious people, but Burton immediately warns that it can worsen the condition of someone exhausted by study. Study itself is recommended for the otherwise idle or engrossed, with a matching warning against overwork. The parenthesis allowing a different subject for romance readers does not cancel that limit. Beneficial distraction depends on the activity and person, not merely on keeping a mind busy.
Mesue’s attributed counsel calls for pleasures reaching different senses to draw minds away from fear and sorrow. In the lover Clitophon’s literary complaint, daytime sights and sounds give a similar respite without being a deliberately chosen cure; at night the mind returns wholly to Leucippe. The contrast therefore includes purposeful recommendations, ordinary incidental diversions and involuntary engrossment. These should not be collapsed into a single opposition between voluntary and involuntary illness.
Disorder extends beyond the mind
Burton expressly writes of distraction of the body as well as of the mind. Mental disturbance alters bodily temperament; bodily disturbance in turn affects the soul. He initially says it is difficult to decide which does the greater harm, then reports opposing accounts of principal responsibility. The continuation gives his own leaning: the soul seems to him to have the better plea against a body that inclines it so forcefully. The marginal quotation from Ecclesiasticus presents the mental-to-bodily direction, while this later passage makes the reciprocity explicit.
The love-symptom discussion assigns another object: the spirits. Their distraction is said to prevent the liver converting food into blood, leaving the body weak and wasted like garden herbs without rain. These spirits are subtle agents in historical physiology, not disembodied ghosts or simply thoughts. The explanation and garden comparison are attributed to Jason Pratensis; the Latin marginal version and Burton’s English account remain separately visible.
A less medical plural appears when Burton asks how anyone can distinguish kinds of illness amid so many “casualties, distractions.” The modern “contingencies and complications” fits the passage’s concern with diagnostic perplexity. In ethical consolation, by contrast, the soul “cannot be distracted” even when the body is tortured. Here the asserted ideal is inward steadfastness, expressed against the background of bodily tearing. It is a moral claim in an exhortation, not a universal observation that suffering leaves minds unaffected.
Pulling apart and sending away
The related Latin constructions preserve the physical force behind diversion. A lover in Plautus describes himself as pulled apart on love’s wheel; Burton follows with a shorter English couplet. Another instruction sends a lover to distant regions so that proximity and communication no longer feed the attachment. An earlier cosmological proposal makes the stars pull people apart despite their neighbourhood’s tendency toward affection, but Burton immediately rejects that explanation. Speaker, grammatical object and authorial response remain essential even within this small verbal family.
Related entries
Madness; Dotage; Imagination; Spirits; Idleness; Study; Passion; Despair; Conscience
Places to read
- Complications of classificationThe plural among mixed symptoms and uncertain boundaries
- Captive attentionThoughts obstructing ordinary work and becoming compulsive
- Mind affecting bodyThe marginal mental-to-bodily statement
- Ambition, poverty and bereavementDistress with specified circumstances and agents
- Body and mind reciprocallyTwo directions of disturbance, competing accounts and Burton’s ensuing preference for the soul’s plea
- Absent attention in conversationPersistent inner thoughts and involuntary recurrence
- Intermittent disturbanceQuiet derangement, bodily pain and fits
- A rejected theory of divisionThe stars allegedly pulling people apart
- Work, chess and study as diversionsRecommendations with explicit limits
- Distress recognized in the facePorphyry’s distracted expression prompts counsel in Burton’s retelling
- Diverting fear through pleasureSensory and social variety
- Troubles distributed among peopleThe harmful force of Latin distrahunt in Cardan’s marginal catalogue
- The unshaken soulEthical consolation despite bodily suffering
- Disturbed spirits and nourishmentThe liver and the garden comparison
- A lover pulled apartPlautus’s Latin complaint and Burton’s shorter English verse
- Daytime distraction and nighttime fixationClitophon’s account
- The hair’s breadth from madnessBoth the Latin verse at 51 and the English verse at 52
- Removal to distant regionsThe physical action proposed to interrupt attachment
- Anguish and disturbed fitsHistorical descriptions, unwilled thoughts and consent
In this edition
“now distracted” becomes “already distraught,” preserving the distinction from ordinary inattention. The neighbouring Latin “Insaniam priusquam quis sentiat” becomes “I shall go mad before anyone notices,” and “Vix pili intervallo à furore absum” becomes “I am scarcely a hair’s breadth from madness.” “Already distraught” belongs to Burton’s English version; it is not presented as a literal equivalent of one word in the Latin.
The other equivalents expose different constructions: “distractions” becomes “complications”; “distraction of the minde” becomes “disturbance of the mind”; beneficially to “distract their cogitations” becomes to “divert” or “draw their thoughts elsewhere.” “The Soul cannot be distracted” becomes “the soul cannot be shaken.” In the bodily-spirit account the modernization recasts the noun phrase as “Because the spirits are distracted.” Each alignment is phrase-level and keeps the object of disturbance explicit.
The Latin related forms are translated within their complete clauses. “Pulled apart” specifically corresponds to “distrahor” among several verbs in the lover’s complaint; “let him be sent away to distant regions” translates the travel instruction. Modern English translations attached to original marginal wording remain the edition’s explanatory layer, distinct from Burton’s body paraphrases and from original English marginal text.
distractio
Printed “distractionem” (Latin; lemma).
Disturbance or diversion of bodily spirits, alleged to prevent the liver functioning properly.
Context: Original Latin marginal explanation attributed to Pratensis.
Grammar: Distractionem is accusative singular after ob; spirituum is genitive plural. The noun means disturbance or diversion, here of the bodily spirits.
Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Ob spirituum distractionem hepar officio suo non fungitur
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Because the spirits are distracted, the liver does not perform its function
Qualification: The marginal Latin ob plus noun phrase, literally because of the distraction of the spirits, becomes the editorial clause Because the spirits are distracted. Hepar is subject of non fungitur, and officio suo its ablative complement. The translation is explanatory apparatus, not original English marginal text.
Supplied words: are (makes the Latin causal noun phrase an English finite clause)
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction
Printed “distraction” (English; lemma).
Mental disturbance said to produce bodily disorder.
Context: An original English marginal formulation cited as Ecclesiasticus; the supplied editor says it is not verbatim in the compared version.
Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: distraction of the minde causeth distemperature of the body
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: disturbance of mind causes disorder of the body
Qualification: Original marginal wording aligned with supplied editorial translation in the same note container; the translation is not original marginal text.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distractions
Printed “distractions” (English; word family).
Complications or perplexing variations that frustrate clean classification.
Context: Burton’s reflection on mixed diseases and the difficulty of distinguishing their kinds.
Source: original body
Source wording: so many casualties, distractions
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distract · local use 1
Printed “distract” (English; word family).
Carry attention away and unsettle; thoughts seize the person and obstruct necessary business.
Context: Burton describes initially pleasant imaginings becoming difficult or impossible to leave.
Source: original body
Source wording: possess, overcome, distract, and detain them
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distracted · local use 1
Printed “distracted” (English; word family).
Mentally harassed or pulled in different directions; the ambitious petitioners are caught between hope and fear. Tired supplies the separate meaning exhausted.
Context: Burton’s portrait of ambitious petitioners waiting for success.
Source: original body
Source wording: distracted and tired
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distracted · local use 2
Printed “distracted” (English; word family).
Distraught or mentally tormented; success and failure alike leave ambition unsatisfied.
Context: Burton’s moral and medical argument about ambition, not a neutral prediction about every ambitious person.
Source: original body
Source wording: he is distracted so long as his Ambition lasts
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distract · local use 2
Printed “distract” (English; word family).
Distress or unsettle people enduring poverty and contempt.
Context: Burton identifies social hardship as the agent disturbing people.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: This common misery of theirs must needs distract
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: This general misery of theirs must surely distress them
Qualification: Must needs becomes must surely, retaining necessity in Burton’s causal claim. The modern makes the object them explicit with distress; the original supplies them with the following coordinated make.
Supplied words: them (object of distress, made explicit from the people under discussion and the following make them)
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distraction · local use 1
Printed “distraction” (English; word family).
Severe mental disturbance or distress in a reported bereavement case.
Context: A case attributed to Trincavelli, not an independently established historical diagnosis.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: ready through distraction to make away himself
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: ready in his distraction to kill himself
Qualification: The original through explicitly presents distraction as the cause; the modern in his distraction expresses the accompanying state and supplies his. The original causal force remains relevant to interpretation.
Supplied words: his (makes the sufferer explicit in in his distraction)
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distraction · local use 2
Printed “distraction” (English; word family).
Mental disturbance said to alter bodily temperament.
Context: Burton begins a reciprocal causal statement and then reports rival assignments of principal responsibility. At the passage Burton himself inclines to the soul’s better plea against the body, after the initial uncertainty.
Source: original body
Source wording: the distraction of the minde
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distraction · local use 3
Printed “distraction” (English; word family).
Disorder of the body, said in turn to disturb the soul.
Context: The bodily half of Burton’s explicitly reciprocal account. At the passage Burton himself inclines to the soul’s better plea against the body, after the initial uncertainty.
Source: original body
Source wording: the distraction & distemper of the body
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distracted · local use 3
Printed “distracted” (English; word family).
Inattentive to present conversation or business because attention is occupied by persistent inner thoughts.
Context: Burton’s next paragraph stresses recurrence against the sufferer’s will.
Source: original body
Source wording: distracted with their own melancholy thoughts
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distraction · local use 4
Printed “distraction” (English; word family).
Mental disturbance among the symptoms of an intermittent condition.
Context: A definition attributed to Rodericus following Aretaeus; the symptoms are said sometimes suddenly to remit.
Source: original body
Source wording: solitarinesse, weeping, distraction
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distract · local use 3
Printed “distract” (English; word family).
Redirect thoughts through suitable occupation; a beneficial turning toward other matters.
Context: Burton follows a recommendation attributed to Rhazes, not an unconditional modern prescription.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: which may set their minde aworke, and distract their cogitations
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: that sets the mind to work and diverts its thoughts
Qualification: Employment is the governing agent: its object is the sufferers’ thoughts. The modern recasts their mind/their cogitations as the mind/its thoughts, and converts may set... and distract into sets... and diverts without a separately expressed may. The historical recommendation remains attributed to Rhazes.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distract · local use 4
Printed “distract” (English; word family).
Divert the mind from troubling or idle thoughts through chess.
Context: The next paragraph limits the recommendation: chess can harm those already exhausted by study.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: nothing better to distract their mind, and alter their meditations
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Nothing better diverts their minds and changes the course of their thinking
Qualification: The original infinitival recommendation to distract... and alter is recast as a finite assertion diverts... and changes. The phrase is governed by nothing better; the subsequent limitation excludes melancholy caused by excessive study. Changes the course of their thinking explicates alter their meditations, not distract alone.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distract · local use 5
Printed “distract” (English; word family).
Redirect attention through study when it is otherwise held by troublesome imaginings.
Context: A conditional recommendation, excluding illness caused by excessive study; the parenthesis permits a change of subject for romance readers.
Source: original body
Source wording: to distract their cogitations
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distract · local use 6
Printed “distract” (English; word family).
Draw attention away from distress through varied sensory pleasure and occupation.
Context: Counsel attributed to Mesue within Burton’s account of mirth and diversion.
Source: original body
Source wording: to distract their minds from fear and sorrow
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distracted · local use 4
Printed “distracted” (English; word family).
Shaken or inwardly disordered; the negated verb asserts the soul’s moral steadfastness despite bodily torment.
Context: Burton’s ethical consolation, attached to Socrates and an unmoved-mind quotation, not an empirical guarantee of immunity.
Source: original body
Source wording: the Soul cannot be distracted
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distraction · local use 5
Printed “distraction” (English; word family).
Disturbance or diversion of the bodily spirits, alleged to interrupt the liver’s nutritive work.
Context: An explanation attributed to Jason Pratensis in historical physiology; spirits here are bodily agents.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: because of the distraction of the spirits
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Because the spirits are distracted
Qualification: Because of the distraction of the spirits is recast as Because the spirits are distracted: the noun becomes a passive predicate and spirits moves from a dependent of-phrase to subject. Are is required by the new English finite construction.
Supplied words: are (finite auxiliary supplied when the noun construction becomes a clause)
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distract · local use 7
Printed “distract” (English; word family).
Occupy the senses with other objects, giving a lover daytime respite from fixation.
Context: Clitophon’s experience in Achilles Tatius as Burton reports it; nighttime removes these incidental diversions.
Source: original body
Source wording: to distract his senses
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distracted · local use 5
Printed “distracted” (English; word family).
Distraught or mentally disordered, close to madness, not merely momentarily inattentive.
Context: The first-person speaker in Burton’s English verse; its speaker and ultimate source remain unidentified in the supplied edition.
Source: original body
Source wording: now distracted
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distraction · local use 6
Printed “distraction” (English; word family).
Severe inward disturbance accompanying fear, anguish and despair.
Context: Burton’s heightened description of religious melancholy; it is not a universal contemporary clinical claim.
Source: original body
Source wording: distraction of soul
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distracted · local use 6
Printed “distracted” (English; word family).
Mentally disturbed or disordered; qualifies fits, the episodes in Burton’s selected reports of despair.
Context: The adjacent paragraphs distinguish unwanted thoughts from willing assent; the violent-case rhetoric is not an assessment of people with mental distress today.
Source: original body
Source wording: their distracted fits
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraction / distract · distracted · local use 7
Printed “distracted” (English; word family).
Distraught or showing mental distress; the adjective describes a visible expression through which another person recognizes suffering.
Context: Burton’s retelling of Porphyry’s encounter with Plotinus. The supplied editor notes that the cited Life of Plotinus differs in the meeting and treatment; Burton’s version is the attestation here.
Grammar: English participial adjective qualifying looks.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: perceiving by his distracted looks all was not wel
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: saw from his distracted expression that something was wrong
Qualification: Looks is modernized as singular expression, while the relation of outward sign to perceived trouble is preserved. Distracted does not here mean that the observer himself fails to concentrate.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraho · distrahant
Printed “distrahant” (Latin; lemma).
Pull apart or divide; the stars are alleged to counteract the affection fostered by neighbourhood.
Context: Scaliger’s proposed explanation reported and immediately rejected by Burton as inadequate.
Grammar: Third-person plural present active subjunctive of distraho in the ut construction; sydera, stars, is its subject. The contrast sets the stars’ divisive force against neighbourhood’s contribution to affection.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: ut quantum vicinia ad charitatem addat, sydera distrahant ad perniciem
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: so that whatever nearness contributes to affection, the stars may pull apart towards destruction
Qualification: The quoted constructions are aligned at phrase level; individual component meanings are not equated with the entire phrase.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraho · distrahantur
Printed “distrahantur” (Latin; lemma).
Let them be drawn away or diverted; the plural passive instruction concerns the sufferers’ minds, turned from what they fear and grieve over.
Context: Original marginal quotation attributed to Mesue; supplied translation is editorial.
Grammar: Third-person plural present passive subjunctive of distraho, used as an instruction; eorum animi is its subject. Let expresses the jussive force, and their minds translates eorum animi.
Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: distrahantur eorum animi, de re aliquâ quam timent & dolent
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: let their minds be diverted from whatever they fear and grieve over
Qualification: Original marginal wording aligned with supplied editorial translation in the same note container; the translation is not original marginal text.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraho · distrahor
Printed “distrahor” (Latin; lemma).
I am pulled apart: the lover describes being torn by passion through the image of torture on a wheel.
Context: Alcesimarchus’s dramatic complaint from Plautus as excerpted by Burton; first-person passive verb.
Grammar: First-person singular present passive indicative of distraho.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Exanimor, feror, distrahor, deripior
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Drained of life, swept away, pulled apart and torn down
Qualification: Pulled apart corresponds to distrahor; neighbouring participles render neighbouring verbs. The modern participial sequence shares the I am printed at the opening of the whole stanza, while each Latin verb carries first-person singular passive inflection.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraho · distrahunt · local use 1
Printed “distrahunt” (Latin; lemma).
Draw the mind elsewhere; occupied senses provide incidental daytime diversion.
Context: Original marginal Latin reporting Clitophon’s complaint; the supplied English is editorial.
Grammar: Third-person plural present active indicative of distraho; eyes and ears are the compound subject, animum the accusative object.
Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Interdiu oculi, & aures occupatæ distrahunt animum
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: By day my occupied eyes and ears distract my mind
Qualification: Original marginal wording aligned with supplied editorial translation in the same note container; the translation is not original marginal text.
Supplied words: my, supplied from the first-person narrative context
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraho · distrahatur
Printed “distrahatur” (Latin; lemma).
Let him be taken or sent far away; physical removal is recommended to interrupt the lover’s attachment.
Context: A precept attributed to Gordonius, followed by Burton’s own “send him to travel.”
Grammar: Third-person singular present passive subjunctive of distraho, used as an instruction; the lover is the understood subject. Let him be sent away expresses this construction, not a diagnosis.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: distrahatur ad longinquas regiones
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: let him be sent away to distant regions
Qualification: The quoted constructions are aligned at phrase level; individual component meanings are not equated with the entire phrase.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
distraho · distrahunt · local use 2
Printed “distrahunt” (Latin; lemma).
Distract, trouble or pull in different directions; the shared verb makes different misfortunes the disturbing agents for different people, rather than beneficially diverting attention.
Context: Original marginal catalogue attributed to Cardan, supporting Burton’s universal consolatory claim that no condition is free from discontent.
Grammar: Third-person plural present active indicative at the end of the catalogue, shared across its differently numbered subjects; the final uxor, filii gives a plural subject. Huic is retained as printed rather than silently changed to an accusative.
Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Alium paupertas, alium orbitas, hunc morbi, illum timor, alium injuriæ, huic insidiæ, illum uxor, filii distrahunt, Cardan.
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Poverty distracts one, bereavement another; illness troubles this man, fear that one; injuries trouble another, plots this one, a wife and children that one.
Qualification: The English distributes distracts/troubles across the catalogue and leaves the repeated verb understood in its later clauses. No single gloss applies the whole list to one person. Cardan is an attribution, printed separately after the translated sentence in the note.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
furor
Printed “furore” (Latin; lemma).
Madness or frenzy, represented as a threshold only a hair’s breadth away.
Context: The same unidentified first-person poetic speaker; this does not literally supply Burton’s added “now distracted.”
Grammar: Furore is ablative singular of the noun furor after à; absum is first-person singular, and vix pili intervallo sets the small distance from madness.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Vix pili intervallo à furore absum
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: I am scarcely a hair’s breadth from madness
Qualification: The quoted constructions are aligned at phrase level; individual component meanings are not equated with the entire phrase.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.
insanio
Printed “Insaniam” (Latin; lemma).
I shall go mad: a first-person future verb in the quoted line, not a noun naming an existing condition.
Context: An unidentified poetic speaker, followed by Burton’s distinct English verse.
Grammar: First-person singular future active indicative of insanio in the supplied reading; its first-person assertion goes with the following absum. The same written ending can occur in other grammatical forms, but this is not the accusative noun insaniam in the sentence.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Insaniam priusquam quis sentiat
Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: I shall go mad before anyone notices
Qualification: The quoted constructions are aligned at phrase level; individual component meanings are not equated with the entire phrase.
Notes: Authorities and anecdotes are reported as Burton presents them; no fresh historical-witness collation is claimed.