From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordExcrements and singular excrement can mean bodily waste or residual matter generally, including humoral residues and secretions, as well as faeces specifically.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe broad sense belongs to Burton’s account of bodily processing.
- In this edition“Great store of excrements” becomes “a great accumulation of waste matter”; “Few excrements in their eyes and nostrils” becomes “few discharges from the eyes and nostrils”.
- A place to readauthors’ excrements within a staged confession of literary faults
Meaning
Excrements and singular excrement can mean bodily waste or residual matter generally, including humoral residues and secretions, as well as faeces specifically. Excrementitious classifies matter as waste; excremental and excrementall describe waste humours, waste-like material or parts concerned with excretion. Bodily location and the immediate construction determine the sense. The term also becomes a forceful metaphor for worthless writings, futile questions, worldly riches or a despised group.
Latin excrementa means waste products; excrementorum, “of waste products”; excrementi, “of waste”; excrementis, “wastes” in constructions whose case must be read locally; and excrementum, waste or excrement, can likewise be figurative. Latin stercus names dung or faecal excrement, providing a more specifically earthy register in jokes, remedies and moral comparisons. These Latin forms have separate routes below rather than being treated as English spellings.
Use in the book
What nourishment leaves behind
The broad sense belongs to Burton’s account of bodily processing. The anatomical survey distinguishes diseases involving the brain’s waste matter from diseases of its membranes, nerves or substance. The humours passage also records a disagreement: some classify humours as useful or excrementitious, but Crato, following Hippocrates, regards all four primary humours as necessary juices rather than excrements. Sweat and tears, by contrast, are called excrementitious humours associated with the third concoction. The distinction concerns a substance’s physiological function and status, not merely where it is found.
Several bodily routes remove waste. Choler assists expulsion; intestines convey waste onward; the colon slows its passage, while the rectal muscles retain it until a person chooses to empty the bowels. The liver’s residual products are bilious or watery, and subordinate organs convey them. Black bile drawn by the spleen may help stimulate appetite when sent to the stomach, or pass to the intestines as excrement. Finally, expulsion removes surplus material through bowels, bladder and pores: Burton’s list includes vomiting, spitting, sweat and urine, and even hair and nails. Those last examples reveal the breadth of the inherited category.
The symptoms make the range especially clear. One passage first speaks generally of melancholic waste, varying with the spleen’s action, and then narrows the term with “excrements or stool.” Another passage instead locates scant excrements in the eyes and nostrils: secretions or discharges in the account of a dry brain. The following moist-brain description has a different symptom pattern. Neither the anatomical location nor the conditional contrast can be dropped without changing the sense.
Retention and evacuation
Keeping ordinary excrements in the body is identified with constipation and counted among possible causes of melancholy. The continuation reports effects on the bodily organ and on the mind; a marginal sentence explicitly says retained wastes commonly produce mental agitation. Elsewhere, inactivity is said to produce excremental humours, and excessive sleep to retain a great quantity of waste in the brain and other parts. The sleep passage follows a qualified discussion: moderate sleep is praised, and particular excessive or ill-timed sleep is criticized. It is not a claim that sleep in every amount creates harmful waste.
Treatment reverses these proposed obstructions. Ordinary bowel waste is to be discharged before a morning walk; daily evacuation is repeated in the head-melancholy regimen and its synopsis. Exercise is also said to expel residual matter through sweat and imperceptible vapours, while wine is credited with clearing waste in a passage already conditioned by moderate and timely use. These claims belong to Burton’s sources and therapeutic system. In the head-melancholy rule, “Excrements daily to be avoided” means evacuated; the following instruction to avoid passions uses the modern sense of shunning.
The case narratives sometimes describe expelled matter as evidence of a remedy’s action. The Prague priest’s excrements resemble black blood after antimony; the first-person witness in that quoted report is Mattioli, not Burton, whose interjection questions the medicine’s suitability. In the Ferrara case, Brasavola reports excrements like ink after black hellebore. The next unit records opposition to administering the substance itself. Comparisons, attributed cures and local reservations belong together. Animal excrements also enter the catalogue of medicinal substances, with livestock dung specified in the margin; rhetorical questions accumulate reported powers rather than establish their efficacy.
Bodies, speech and belief
The same material can become an object of disgust or a device in a proposed cure. In a case attributed to Plater, a physician tells a woman distressed by a butchered pig that her own body is likewise full of excrements. His words deepen the disturbance, and his later persuasion does not promptly undo it. In another Plater story, live frogs are to be placed in the patient’s excrement to persuade him that the imagined creatures in his belly have passed out. Burton says the proposed deception would not convince this medically learned patient; the eventual reported recovery is not explained by that trick.
Excretion enters even the disagreement about spirits. Psellus is reported as holding that devils have airy bodies, take nourishment and have excrements. The passage also records rejection of their mortality; its continuation approves Scaliger’s ridicule of the linked claims about feeding and bodily pain. The excrements are part of an attributed corporeal model whose consistency is under dispute, not an independently established property of demons.
Disparagement and moral redirection
In the address to the reader, “excrements of authors” belongs to an extravagant list of accusations about Burton’s compiled, disorderly writing. He stages a confession, saying some of the faults are deliberate; the preceding defence of borrowing and the subsequent appeal to mutual fallibility prevent the list from functioning as a simple surrender of his book’s value. Later, “excrements of curiosity” disparages elaborate theological questions. Burton then checks his own roaming inquiry and leaves profound matters to better-equipped minds: the phrase marks his rebuke of those questions, not a uniform definition of all inquiry.
Other uses redirect desire by reducing valued objects to refuse. A saying attributed to Jerome makes costly food end in the same excrement as an inexpensive meal. The cure of love invokes Chrysostom to depict the desired woman as earth and excrement, then lists bodily secretions beneath attractive skin. This is the passage’s deliberately demeaning strategy of disenchantment. The devotional address attributed to Augustine calls the objects of avarice filthy excrements before turning toward divine beauty. In anti-Catholic polemic, the Jesuits are labelled sæculi excrementum, “the excrement of the age,” a hostile judgement attributed within a sequence invoking Langius. These different speakers and purposes should remain distinct.
The attack on pagan worship returns to bodily waste literally: animals leave droppings in the mouths of images. A subsequent passage disparages divination from the bowels and “excrementall parts” of animals. In both, physical material becomes an argument against the reverence assigned to an object or practice.
Dung, value and the observer’s judgement
The Latin stercus family supplies further distinct uses. Dung can have a positive material use: the marginal stercus is sheep dung that improves pasture. In a very different account of dietary custom, stercoribus names bread as “dung” in an Ethiopian observer’s hostile judgement. The modern version preserves that Latin insult before Burton’s milder “such kinde of meats.” The object and the speaker’s valuation must be distinguished.
The attack on commentators uses stercorant, “they befoul,” and sterquilinia, “dungheaps,” before placing beetle-like annotators inter stercora, “among dung.” Here the image attacks the critics’ products and habits. Poverty supplies contrasting social uses: Burton exposes the contempt that condemns the poor to “pounded dung,” yet later compares the low-born themselves to beetles born, fed and delighting in stercore, “in dung.” That later claim is a class prejudice, not a sympathetic continuation of every earlier complaint. A saying attributed to Nevizzano calls nobility without wealth the nobility stercoris, “of dung”; a consolatory voice then answers the pursuit of wealth with Stercora stercus amet, “let dung love dung.” The plural dung is what is loved; the singular dung is its lover.
Other comparisons direct a change of conduct or hope. The Psalm margin describes the poor lifted de stercore, “from the dunghill.” The proverb about contending cum stercore, “with dung,” warns that winning or losing an abusive quarrel leaves the participant soiled. In love, judgement may override disgust: the lover’s amicæ stercus, his beloved’s faeces, supposedly does not stink. An opposed proposed remedy uses the smell of the beloved’s dung to dissolve desire, but the preceding passage calls such remedies absurd and the practice impermissible. The pillow’s possessor is not stated, while the woman’s ignorance is explicit. These opposed uses of the same object show idealization and attempted disenchantment.
The dung-loving hoopoe in the margin belongs to the emblematic account of Tereus’s degrading transformation; the body nearby calls the transformed bird a lapwing. Rustic lovers said to smell of horse dung are nevertheless represented as inspired by love. Finally, sterquiliniis, “dungheaps,” supplies the Latin insult behind the account of animal entrails used in divination. These are separate literary, social and religious deployments of faecal imagery.
Related entries
Concoction; Chyle; Humour; Distillation and rheum (future batch); Oppilation (future batch); Imagination; Non naturals; Strangury (future batch); Meat (future batch); Defecate (future batch)
Places to read
- Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 5–7authors’ excrements within a staged confession of literary faults
- Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 20sheep dung as useful fertilizer within the praise of industry
- Democritus Junior to the Readerbefouling authors, commentators’ dungheaps and beetle imagery
- First Partitionbrain waste, useful humours versus waste, choler, sweat and tears
- Anatomy and nutritionbowel matter, bilious and watery residues, and the broad expulsion catalogue
- Nature of spiritsnourishment and excretion in a disputed corporeal account
- Dietary differencethe Ethiopian observer’s description of bread as dung, distinct from Burton’s softer gloss
- Retention, idleness and sleepretained wastes, waste humours and the excessive-sleep qualification
- Discontentsdung and urine as the physicians’ mock “first courses”
- Fright and disgusta physician’s words intensify distress at the contents of bodies
- Poverty and its social judgementsdegradation of the poor and the separate beetle comparison against the low-born
- Inward causes and symptomsfailed expulsion, variable melancholic waste and stool
- Particular symptomseye and nostril discharges, and the proposed frog deception
- Second Partition synopsis, unnumbered Second Partition synopsisdaily evacuation in head-melancholy treatment
- Retention and evacuationordinary bowel waste discharged before exercise
- Digression on airspeculative questions as the excrements of curiosity, followed by Burton’s retreat
- Exercisesweat, vapours and prior emptying of bladder and bowels
- Honour and propertythe nobility of dung and the mard gloss
- Consolation concerning povertydung loving dung and costly food reduced to its faecal outcome
- Divine rescueraising the poor from the dunghill
- Quarrels and their consequencesa contender with dung is soiled whether victorious or defeated
- Medicinal substancesreported animal remedies, including livestock dung
- Purgativesblack-blood and ink comparisons, attributed cures and reservations
- Head-melancholy regimen and cordials“avoided” as evacuated, and wine’s claimed waste-clearing action
- Love’s imagery and judgementthe dung-loving hoopoe, love overriding disgust, and rustic lovers
- Cure of lovedemeaning bodily imagery used to diminish attraction
- Rejected love remediesthe beloved’s dung and the explicit warning that such remedies are absurd
- Divine loveworldly possessions degraded in favour of divine beauty
- Religious polemicthe Latin insult against the Jesuits
- Polemic against pagan worshipdroppings in statues and excretory entrails used in divination
In this edition
“Great store of excrements” becomes “a great accumulation of waste matter”; “Few excrements in their eyes and nostrils” becomes “few discharges from the eyes and nostrils”. Waste matter is the broad category; discharges identifies the visible secretions. The latter phrase appears inside a reordered modern sentence attributing the observation to Montaltus. At the passage, “melancholic waste matter” and “excrement or stool” preserve the local narrowing of sense.
“Excrementitious” becomes “waste products” in the classification, and “waste humours”. “Excremental humors” likewise becomes “waste humours”. At the passage, “excrementall parts” becomes “excretory parts,” identifying the organs’ relation to discharge. “Excrements” becomes “droppings”, while the offensive metaphor remains explicit in “authors’ excrement,” “the excrement of curiosity,” and “the excrement of the age.”
The Latin routes include excrementa as the object of “have” in the Psellus margin and the subject of the retained-waste sentence; excrementorum as a genitive after “mass”; excrementi after “excess”; excrementis as an ablative with discharge or clearing, but as a dative after “opens a passage”; and excrementum as the subject of resemblance in the Prague margin and as a figurative label in the anti-Jesuit passage. The supplied English attached to these marginal quotations is editorial translation. In the physicians’ joke and the costly-food saying, stercus carries the specifically faecal image; it should not make every English occurrence of excrements equally narrow.
The additional Latin forms retain their particular constructions: stercoribus with feeding, stercore with source, location or companionship, and stercoris with nobility. Stercora is the object and singular stercus the subject in “let dung love dung.” Stercorant means befoul; sterquilinia and sterquiliniis are forms of the related noun for dungheaps. The negative fœtet claim is an illustration of the lover’s appraisal, while the explicitly rejected remedy preserves the woman’s ignorance without inventing ownership of the pillow.
excrement · excrements of authors
Printed “excrements of authors” (English; phrase).
Supposed worthless literary remnants gathered from other writers.
Context: Burton stages a confession while stating that some faults are deliberate; preceding defence of borrowing and continuation qualify it.
Grammar: Plural noun with of-phrase naming producers; figurative in a catalogue of alleged faults.
Source: original body
Source wording: I solve it thus. And for those other faults of barbarism, Dorick dialect, extemporanean stile, tautologies, apish imitation, a rapsodie of rags gathered together from several dung-hils, excrements of authors, toyes and fopperies confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgment, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, phantastical, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull and dry; I confesse all (tis partly affected) thou canst not think worse of me then I do of my self. Tis not worth the reading, I yield it, I desire thee not to lose time in perusing so vain a subject, I should be peradventure loth my self to reade him or thee so writing, tis not operæ pretium.
excrement · excrements · local use 1
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Waste or residual matter of the brain, associated with catarrhs and downward discharges.
Context: Burton’s disease classification separates waste-related disorders from other structures and substance.
Grammar: Plural noun governed by belonging to, with brain as source.
Source: original body
Source wording: Inward belonging to the skins next to the Brain, called dura and pia mater, as all head-aches, &c. or to the Ventricles, Caules, Kels, Tunicles, Creeks, and parts of it, and their passions, as Caro, Vertigo, Incubus, Apoplexie, Falling sickness. The diseases of the Nerves; Crampes, Stupor, Convulsion, Tremor, Palsie: or belonging to the excrements of the brain, Catarrhes, Sneezing, Rheumes, Distillations: or else those that pertaine to the substance of the brain it self, in which are conceived, Frensie, Lethargie, Melancholy, madness, weake memory, Sopor, or Coma Vigilia & vigil Coma.
excrement · excrements · local use 2
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Waste products, expressly denied of all four primary humours in Crato’s account.
Context: Crato following Hippocrates regards the four as indispensable juices.
Grammar: Plural predicate after not; all four is the relevant scope.
Source: original body
Source wording: Some divide them into profitable, and excrementitious. But Crato out of Hippocrates will have all four to be juyces, and not excrements, without which no living creature can be sustained: which four, though they be comprehended in the mass of Blood, yet they have their several affections, by which they are distinguished from one another, and from those adventitious, peccant, or diseased humors, as Melancthon calls them.
excrement · excrements · local use 3
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Bodily waste whose expulsion choler is said to assist.
Context: Burton’s humoral physiological function.
Grammar: Object of expelling.
Source: original body
Source wording: Choler, is hot and dry, bitter, begotten of the hotter parts of the Chylus, and gathered to the Gall: it helps the natural heat and senses, and serves to the expelling of excrements.
excrement · excrements · local use 4
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Bodily waste expelled by natural organs of the lower region.
Context: Functional anatomy, liver and subordinate organs.
Grammar: Object of expelling.
Source: original body
Source wording: The second Region is the Chest, or middle Belly, in which the Heart as King keeps his court, and by his Arteries communicates life to the whole body. The third Region is the lower Belly, in which the Liver resides as a Legat à latere, with the rest of those naturall Organs, serving for concoction, nourishment, expelling of excrements.
excrement · excrements · local use 5
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Waste carried onward by intestines, distinguished from distributed nutritive chyle.
Context: Burton contrasts useful material and waste routes.
Grammar: Object of convey away.
Source: original body
Source wording: From the Stomack to the very fundament, are produced the Guts, or Intestina, which serve a little to alter and distribute the Chylus, and convey away the excrements. They are divided into small and great, by reason of their site and substance, slender or thicker: the slender is Duodenum, or whole gut, which is next to the stomack, some twelve inches long, (saith Fuschius.) Jejunum or empty gut, continuate to the other, which hath many Meseraick veines annexed to it, which take part of the Chylus to the Liver from it. Ilion the third, which consists of many crinckles, which serves with the rest to receive, keep, and distribute the chylus from the stomack.
excrement · excrements · local use 6
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Bowel waste moved through colon and rectum and retained until voluntary discharge.
Context: Colon delays passage; sphincters retain until the person chooses to pass stool.
Grammar: Repeated object of receives, conveys and containment/passive constructions.
Source: original body
Source wording: The thick guts are three, the Blinde gut, Colon, and Right gut. The blinde is a thick & short gut, having one mouth, in which the Ilion and Colon meet: it receives the excrements, and conveyes them to the Colon. This Colon hath many windings, that the excrements pass not away too fast: the Right gut is straight, and conveys the excrements to the fundament, whose lower part is bound up with certain Muscles, called Sphincteres, that the excrements may be the better contained, until such time a man be willing to go to the stool. In the midst of these guts is situated the Mesenterium or Midriffe, composed of many veins, Arteries, & much fat, serving chiefly to sustain the guts. All these parts serve the first concoction.
excrement · excrements · local use 7
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Bilious or watery residual products of the liver’s digestive work.
Context: Subordinate organs convey these products in historical physiology.
Grammar: Subject qualified by of it, referring to liver.
Source: original body
Source wording: To the second, which is busied either in refining the good nourishment, or expelling the bad, is chiefly belonging to the liver, like in colour to congealed bloud, the shop of bloud, situate in the right Hypocondry, in figure like to an halfe Moone, Generosum membrum, Melancthon stiles it, a generous part; it serves to turne the Chylus to bloud, for the nourishment of the Body. The excrements of it are either Cholerick or Watery, which the other subordinate parts convey.
excrement · local use 1
Printed “excrement” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Waste or residual matter, here black bile sent to the intestines rather than to the stomach to stimulate appetite.
Context: The spleen’s nourishment and disposal routes are distinguished.
Grammar: Singular as-complement marking role/status.
Source: original body
Source wording: The Gall placed in the concave of the Liver, extracts Choler to it: the Spleen, Melancholy; which is situate on the left side, over against the Liver, a spungy matter, that drawes this black Choler to it by a secret vertue, and feeds upon it, conveying the rest to the bottom of the stomack, to stir up appetite, or else to the guts as an excrement. That watery matter the two Kidnies expurgate, by those emulgent veines, and Ureteres. The emulgent draw this superfluous moisture from the bloud; the two Ureteres convey it to the Bladder, which by reason of his site in the lower belly, is apt to receive it, having two parts, necke and bottom: the bottom holds the water, the necke is constringed with a muscle, which as a Porter, keeps the water from running out against our will.
excrement · excrements · local use 8
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Surplus digestive residues discharged through multiple bodily outlets, including hair and nails in this scheme.
Context: Expulsion is a nutritive power; the category is wider than faeces.
Grammar: Object of expels, modified by superfluous and coordinated with reliques.
Source: original body
Source wording: Besides these three several operations of Digestion, there is a fourfold order of concoction: Mastication, or chewing in the mouth; Chilification of this so chewed meat in the stomack; the third is in the Liver, to turne this Chylus into bloud, called Sanguification; the last is Assimulation, which is in every part. Expulsion is a power of Nutrition, by which it expels all superfluous excrements, and reliques of meat and drink, by the guts, bladder, pores; as by purging, vomiting, spitting, sweating, urine, haires, nailes, &c.
excrement · excrements · local use 9
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Excreted products attributed to nourished, corporeal devils.
Context: Reported Psellus doctrine; mortality rejected parenthetically and pain/feeding claims ridiculed in the next unit.
Grammar: Object of have under Psellus holds.
Source: original body
Source wording: Psellus a Christian, and sometimes Tutor (saith Cuspinian) to Michael Parapinatus, Emperour of Greece, a great observer of the nature of Devils, holds they are corporeal, and have aeriall bodies, that they are mortall, live and dye, (which Martianus Capella likewise maintaines, but our Christian Philosophers explode) that they are nourished and have excrements,
excrement · excrements · local use 10
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Ordinary bowel waste whose retention is called constipation.
Context: Burton treats retention as sometimes causal, with several possible causal roles.
Grammar: Object of keeping in; ordinary restricts application.
Source: original body
Source wording: Of Retention and Evacuation, there be divers kindes, which are either concomitant, assisting, or sole causes many times of melancholy. Galen reduceth defect and abundance to this head; others, All that is separated, or remains. In the first rank of these, I may well reckon up Costiveness, and keeping in of our ordinary excrements, which as it often causeth other diseases, so this of Melancholy in particular.
excrement · excrements · local use 11
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Waste matter accumulating in the brain and other parts through excessive sleep.
Context: Fuchs’s reported explanation follows a qualified praise of moderate sleep and particular harmful cases.
Grammar: Plural after great store of.
Source: original body
Source wording: It duls the Spirits, if overmuch, and senses, fils the head full of gross humors, causeth distillations, rheumes, great store of excrements in the brain, and all the other parts, as Fuchsius speaks of them, that sleep like so many Dormice.
excrement · excrements · local use 12
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Bodily waste in a physician’s description that intensifies a woman’s disgust.
Context: Plater’s case as transmitted by Burton; the physician’s speech contributes to distress.
Grammar: Plural complement of full of within reported speech.
Source: original body
Source wording: A Gentlewoman of the same city saw a fat hog cut up, when the intrals were opened, and a noysome savour offended her nose, she much misliked, and would not longer abide: a Physician in presence, told her, as that hog, so was she, ful of filthy excrements, and aggravated the matter by some other loathsome instances, in so much, this nice Gentlewoman apprehended it so deeply, that she fell forthwith a vomiting, was so mightily distempered in minde and boby, that with all his art and perswasions, for some months after, he could not restore her to her self again, she could not forget it, or remove the object out of her sight. Idem.
excrement · Melancholy excrements
Printed “Melancholy excrements” (English; phrase).
Melancholic waste matter varying with the spleen’s action.
Context: Symptom description; not yet the specifically identified stool of the following sentence.
Grammar: Noun phrase with variable quantities some very much / others little.
Source: original body
Source wording: Their Melancholy excrements in some very much, in others little, as the spleen plays his part, and thence proceeds winde, palpitation of the heart, short breath, plenty of humidity in the stomack, heavines of heart & heartake, & intolerable stupidity and dulnes of spirits. Their excrements or stool hard, black to some & little.
excrement · excrements or stool
Printed “excrements or stool” (English; phrase).
Faecal matter, here described as hard and sometimes black and scanty.
Context: Second sentence narrows the bodily waste sense; to some limits blackness and scantiness.
Grammar: Noun with explanatory or stool.
Source: original body
Source wording: Their Melancholy excrements in some very much, in others little, as the spleen plays his part, and thence proceeds winde, palpitation of the heart, short breath, plenty of humidity in the stomack, heavines of heart & heartake, & intolerable stupidity and dulnes of spirits. Their excrements or stool hard, black to some & little.
excrement · excrements · local use 13
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Secretions or discharges in the eyes and nostrils.
Context: Conditional dry-brain pattern; Montaltus named, contrasted with moist-brain symptoms.
Grammar: Plural modified by Few and locally qualified by in their eyes and nostrils.
Source: original body
Source wording: If it proceed from dryness of the brain, then their heads will be light, vertiginous, and they most apt to wake, & to continue whole moneths together without sleep. Few excrements in their eyes and nostrils, and often bald by reason of excess of drynes, Montaltus adds c. 17. If it proceed from moisture; dulness, drowziness, headache follows; and as Salust. Salvianus, c. 1. l. 2. out of his own experience found, Epileptical, with a multitude of humors in the head. They are very bashfull, ruddy, apt to blush, and to be red upon all occasions, præsertim si metus accesserit.
excrement · excrements · local use 14
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
The patient’s faeces, into which live frogs would be put as a deception.
Context: Platerus would have deceived him; patient would not be deceived. Eventual cure has no specified mechanism.
Grammar: Object of into in proposed/failed strategy.
Source: original body
Source wording: He studied Physick seven years together to cure himself, travelled into Italy, France and Germany to confer with the best physicians about it, and A° 1609. asked his counsell amongst the rest, he told him it was wind, his conceipt, &c. but mordicus contradicere, & ore, & scriptis probare nitebatur: no saying would serve, it was no wind, but reall frogs: and doe you not heare them croake? Platerus would have deceived him, by putting live frogs into his excrements: but he being a physician himself, would not be deceived, vir prudens aliàs, & doctus, a wise and learned man otherwise, a Doctor of physick, and after seven years dotage in this kind, à phantasia liberatus est, he was cured. Laurentius and Goulart have many such examples, if you be desirous to read them.
excrement · Excrements · local use 1
Printed “Excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Bowel waste to be evacuated daily in the treatment synopsis.
Context: Historical head-melancholy regimen; art or nature distinguish assistance and natural evacuation.
Grammar: Subject of passive avoided, here discharged.
Source: original body
Source wording: ♋ Sect. 5. Cure of head-melancholy. Mem. 1. 1. Subsect. Moderate diet, meat of good juyce, moistning, easie of digestion. Good Ayr. Sleep more then ordinary. Excrements daily to be avoided by Art or Nature. Exercise of body and minde not too violent, or too remiss, passions of the minde, and perturbations to be avoided. 2. Bloud-letting if there be need, or that the blood be corrupt, in the arm, forehead, &c. or with Cupping-glasses.
excrement · excrements · local use 15
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Ordinary bowel waste to be discharged before morning exercise.
Context: Altomarus’s instruction, followed by daily frequency from other cited physicians.
Grammar: Object of have … evacuated.
Source: original body
Source wording: Altomarus cap.7. commends walking in a morning, into some fair green pleasant fields, but by all means first, by art or nature he will have these ordinary excrements evacuated. Piso calls it Beneficium ventris, the benefit, help or pleasure of the belly, for it doth much ease it. Laurentius cap.8. Crato consil.21. l.2. prescribes it once a day at least: where nature is defective, art must supply, by those lenitive electuaries, suppositories, condite prunes, turpentine, clisters, as shall be shewed.
excrement · excrements of curiosity
Printed “excrements of curiosity” (English; phrase).
Worthless or objectionable products of prying theological speculation.
Context: Burton rebukes these questions; next paragraph marks his own limits and defers to stronger minds.
Grammar: Figurative noun phrase apposed to questions and intricacies.
Source: original body
Source wording: If God be infinitely and only good, why should he alter or destroy the world? if he confound that which is good, how shall himself continue good? If he pull it down because evill, how shall he be free from the evill that made it evill? &c. with many such absurd and brainsick questions, intricacies, froth of humane wit, and excrements of curiosity, &c. which, as our Saviour told his inquisitive Disciples, are not fit for them to know.
excrement · excrements · local use 16
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Bodily waste expelled through sweat and imperceptible vapours.
Context: Historical benefit of exercise; moderation stated in the preceding unit.
Grammar: Object of expells; exercise is subject.
Source: original body
Source wording: Besides, it expells excrements by sweat, and other insensible vapours; in so much, that Galen prefers Exercise before all Physick, Rectification of diet, or any regiment in what kinde soever; ’tis Natures Physician. Fulgentius out of Gordonius de conserv. vit. hom. lib. 1. cap. 7. tearmes exercise, a spur of a dull sleepy nature, the comforter of the members, cure of infirmity, death of diseases, destruction of all mischiefes and vices.
excrement · excrements · local use 17
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Faecal products of eating, used to belittle distinctions between costly and simple meals.
Context: Burton’s consolation adopts a saying attributed to Jerome; not a new digestive doctrine.
Grammar: Subject of passive be made, in rhetorical question.
Source: original body
Source wording: I live I thank God as merrily as he, and triumph as much in this my mean estate, as if my father and uncle had been Lord Treasurer, or my Lord Major. He feeds of many dishes, I of one; qui Christum curat, non multum curat quam de preciosis cibis stercus conficiat; what care I of what stuffe my excrements be made?
excrement · excrements · local use 18
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Animal waste materials said to possess medicinal powers.
Context: Burton accumulates reported powers; livestock dung specified in margin, not all animal materials identified.
Grammar: Plural object of reported virtues in a rhetorical question.
Source: original body
Source wording: This is as well observed in other plants, stones, minerals, and creatures, as in herbs, in other maladies as in this. How many things are related of a mans skull? What severall vertues of corns in a horse legge, of a Wolves liver, &c. Of diverse excrements of beasts, all good against severall diseases?
excrement · excrements · local use 19
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Purgative discharge described as resembling black blood.
Context: Mattioli’s reported priest case; Burton interrupts with a reservation about the remedy.
Grammar: Plural subject of were as; resemblance, not identity.
Source: original body
Source wording: he was purged of a deal of black choler, like little gobbets of flesh, and all his excrements were as black blood, a medicine fitter for a Horse then a Man) yet it did him so much good, that the next day he was perfectly cured. This very story of the Bohemian Priest, Sckenkius relates verbatim, Exoter. experiment. ad Var. morb. cent. 6. observ. 6. with great approbation of it.
excrement · excrements · local use 20
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Purgative discharge described as like ink.
Context: Brasavola’s reported case; subsequent unit records refusal of the substance itself by another authority.
Grammar: Plural subject with simile like inke.
Source: original body
Source wording: and tels a story how he cured one Melatasta a mad man, that was thought to be possessed, in the Duke of Ferrara’s Court with one purge of black Hellebor in substance: the receipt is there to be seen; his excrements were like inke, he perfectly healed at once.
excrement · Excrements · local use 2
Printed “Excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Bowel matter prescribed to be evacuated every day.
Context: The next avoid all passions uses a different sense of avoid in the same paragraph.
Grammar: Subject of passive to be avoided, meaning discharged.
Source: original body
Source wording: Exercise not too remisse, nor too violent. Sleep a little more then ordinary. Excrements daily to be avoided by art or nature, and which Fernelius enjoyns his Patient consil. 44. above the rest, to avoid all passions and perturbations of the mind.
excrement · excrements · local use 21
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Waste that wine is said to help discharge.
Context: Mattioli’s attributed virtues in the context of sober, timely, moderate use.
Grammar: Object of drives out.
Source: original body
Source wording: A famous Cordial Matthiolus in Dioscoridem calls it, an excellent nutriment to refresh the body, it makes a good colour, a flourishing age, helps concoction, fortifies the stomack, takes away obstructions, provokes urine, drives out excrements, procures sleep, cleers the blood, expels wind and cold poysons, attenuates, concocts, dissipates all thick vapours, and fuliginous humours. And that which is all in all to my purpose, it takes away feare and sorrow.
excrement · local use 2
Printed “excrement” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
The desired body disparaged as mere refuse in an effort to diminish lust.
Context: Chrysostom invoked by Burton for demeaning disenchantment rhetoric; not a neutral description of women.
Grammar: Singular predicate label modified by meer.
Source: original body
Source wording: To conclude with Chrysostome, When thou seest a fair and beautifull person, a brave Bonaroba, a bella Donna, quæ salivam moveat, lepidam puellam & quam tu facile ames, a comely woman, having bright eyes, a merry countenance, a shining lustre in her look, a pleasant grace, wringing thy soul, and increasing thy concupiscence; bethink with thy self that it is but earth thou lovest, a meer excrement, which so vexeth thee, which thou so admirest, and thy raging soul will be at rest. Take her skin from her face, and thou shalt see all loathsomness under it, that beauty is a superficiall skin and bones, nerves, sinewes: suppose her sick, now rivel’d, hoarie-headed, hollow cheeked, old; within she is full of filthy fleame, stinking, putride, excrementall stuffe: snot and snevill in her nostrills, spettle in her mouth, water in her eyes, what filth in her brains, &c.
excrement · excrements · local use 22
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Worldly objects of greed degraded as filthy refuse.
Context: Burton invokes Augustine, then redirects desire toward God and Wisdom.
Grammar: Plural in rhetorical question addressed to the covetous.
Source: original body
Source wording: Thou covetous wretch, as Austin expostulates, Why dost thou stand gaping on this dross, muck-hils, filthy excrements? behold a far fairer object, God himself wooes thee; behold him, enjoy him, he is sick for love. Cant. 5. He invites thee to his sight, to come into his fair Garden, to eat and drink with him, to be merry with him, to enjoy his presence for ever. Wisdome cryes out in the streets, besides the gates, in the top of high places, before the city, at the entry of the door, and bids them give ear to her instruction, which is better then gold or precious stones; no pleasures can be compared to it: leave all then and follow her, vos exhortor ô amici & obsecro.
excrement · excrements · local use 23
Printed “excrements” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Animal droppings left in the mouths of statues.
Context: Literal waste employed in polemic against worshipping human-made images.
Grammar: Object of laid; mice and birds are among animals described.
Source: original body
Source wording: Their carved Idols, gilt Images of wood, iron, ivory, silver, brass, stone, olim truncus eram, &c. were most absurd, as being their own workmanship; for as Seneca notes, adorant ligneos deos, & fabros interim qui fecerunt, contemnunt, they adore work, contemn the workman; and as Tertullian follows it, Si homines non essent diis propitii, non essent dii, had it not been for men, they had never been gods, but blocks still, and stupid statues, in which mice, swallows, birds made their nests, spiders their webbes, and in their very mouths laid their excrements.
excremental
Printed “excremental” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Waste-like or residual, applied to humours produced through bodily inactivity.
Context: Fernel’s claim reported with if we may believe.
Grammar: Adjective modifying humors.
Source: original body
Source wording: This idleness is either of body or minde. That of body is nothing but a kinde of benumming laziness, intermitting exercise, which if we may beleeve Fernelius, causeth crudities, obstructions, excremental humors, quencheth the natural heat, dulls the spirits, and makes them unapt to do any thing whatsoever. Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris.
excremental · excrementall · local use 1
Printed “excrementall” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Waste-like or excretory material invoked beneath outward beauty.
Context: Same polemical/desire-regulating strategy; examples include secretions from nose, mouth and eyes.
Grammar: Adjective modifying stuffe in a list of internal bodily matter.
Source: original body
Source wording: To conclude with Chrysostome, When thou seest a fair and beautifull person, a brave Bonaroba, a bella Donna, quæ salivam moveat, lepidam puellam & quam tu facile ames, a comely woman, having bright eyes, a merry countenance, a shining lustre in her look, a pleasant grace, wringing thy soul, and increasing thy concupiscence; bethink with thy self that it is but earth thou lovest, a meer excrement, which so vexeth thee, which thou so admirest, and thy raging soul will be at rest. Take her skin from her face, and thou shalt see all loathsomness under it, that beauty is a superficiall skin and bones, nerves, sinewes: suppose her sick, now rivel’d, hoarie-headed, hollow cheeked, old; within she is full of filthy fleame, stinking, putride, excrementall stuffe: snot and snevill in her nostrills, spettle in her mouth, water in her eyes, what filth in her brains, &c.
excremental · excrementall · local use 2
Printed “excrementall” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Excretory, describing animal parts used in divination.
Context: Burton degrades divination from entrails before turning to temple splendour.
Grammar: Adjective modifying parts of beasts.
Source: original body
Source wording: And what so base as to reveal their counsels and give oracles è viscerum sterquiliniis, out of the bowels and excrementall parts of beasts? sordidos Deos Varro truely cals them therefore, and well he might. I say nothing of their magnificent and sumptuous temples, those majestical structures: To the roof of Apollo Didymeus Temple, ad Branchidas, as Strabo writes, a thousand okes did not suffice.
excrementitious · local use 1
Printed “excrementitious” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Classed as waste or residual matter, contrasted with useful humours in a division that Crato disputes.
Context: Some classify thus; Crato disputes treating the four primary humours as waste.
Grammar: Adjective used substantivally after profitable in a proposed division.
Source: original body
Source wording: Some divide them into profitable, and excrementitious. But Crato out of Hippocrates will have all four to be juyces, and not excrements, without which no living creature can be sustained: which four, though they be comprehended in the mass of Blood, yet they have their several affections, by which they are distinguished from one another, and from those adventitious, peccant, or diseased humors, as Melancthon calls them.
excrementitious · local use 2
Printed “excrementitious” (English; family). Attestation: word form.
Of the waste-product class, applied to sweat and tears.
Context: Burton assigns these named products to the third digestive processing.
Grammar: Adjective modifying humors of the third Concoction.
Source: original body
Source wording: To these humors you may adde Serum, which is the matter of Urine, and those excrementitious humors of the third Concoction, Sweat, and Teares.
excrementum · excrementa
Printed “excrementa” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Waste products attributed to spirits as a consequence of taking nourishment.
Context: Psellus account as cited in Burton; connective later in the marginal sentence uncertain.
Grammar: Accusative neuter plural object of habent.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Nutriuntur, et excrementa habent
Modern rendering, Modern wording: They are nourished and have excrement
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum · Excrementa
Printed “Excrementa” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Retained bodily wastes said commonly to produce mental agitation.
Context: Reported causal account in the margin; commonly, not invariably.
Grammar: Nominative neuter plural agreeing with retenta, subject of solent.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Excrementa retenta mentis agitationem parere solent.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: Retained bodily wastes commonly produce agitation of mind.
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum · excrementorum · local use 1
Printed “excrementorum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Of waste, in a phrase for its accumulation under inactivity.
Context: Fernel quoted in Burton’s margin.
Grammar: Genitive neuter plural dependent on proventus.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: cruditates, obstructiones, & excrementorum proventus facit.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: it produces undigested matter, blockages and accumulations of waste.
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum · excrementorum · local use 2
Printed “excrementorum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Of residual matter retained in brain and other parts.
Context: Fuchs quotation supports excessive-sleep claim.
Grammar: Genitive neuter plural dependent on vim, a mass or quantity.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Magnam excrementorum vim cerebro & aliis partibus conservat.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: It retains a great mass of waste matter in the brain and other parts.
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum · excrementi
Printed “excrementi” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Of waste, whose surplus a disordered part may fail to expel.
Context: Arculanus as cited; either scorching or failure to expel, with possibility in potest.
Grammar: Genitive neuter singular dependent on superfluitatem.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Vel quia aduritur, vel quia non expellit superfluitatem excrementi.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: either because it is scorched or because it does not expel the excess waste.
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum · excrementis · local use 1
Printed “excrementis” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Bowel wastes already discharged before exercise.
Context: Altomarus’s order of actions; nature or treatment are alternative means.
Grammar: Ablative neuter plural agreeing with excretis in an ablative absolute.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: excretis prius arte vel natura alvi excrementis.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: after the bowels’ waste has first been discharged, by treatment or naturally.
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum · excrementis · local use 2
Printed “excrementis” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Waste removed from bladder and bowels before the prescribed exercise.
Context: Calenus-associated marginal routine; bodily outlets make the wider-than-faeces scope clear.
Grammar: Ablative plural after ab; the surrounding ablative agreement is irregular as printed.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Iejuno ventre vesica et alvo ab excrementis purgato
Modern rendering, Modern wording: With the stomach empty, bladder and bowels cleared of waste
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum
Printed “excrementum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
The purgative discharge said to resemble very black blood.
Context: Mattioli’s witness claim, not Burton’s eyewitness testimony; next body unit continues the case.
Grammar: Nominative neuter singular with totum, subject of repræsentabat.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: totum excrementum tanquam sanguinem nigerrimum repræsentabat.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: all the excrement resembled the blackest blood.
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum · excrementis · local use 3
Printed “excrementis” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Waste for which a passage is opened in the alleged action of wine.
Context: Mattioli’s marginal virtues; body says drives out excrements.
Grammar: Dative neuter plural with viam parat; not an ablative here.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: excrementis viam parat
Modern rendering, Modern wording: opens a passage for waste
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
excrementum · sæculi excrementum
Printed “sæculi excrementum” (Latin; phrase).
Worthless refuse of the age: a hostile figurative label for the Jesuits.
Context: Anti-Catholic invective in Burton’s sequence invoking Langius; attributed hostile judgement.
Grammar: Latin singular predicate/appositional label; sæculi is genitive singular, of the age.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: postremus diaboli conatus, & sæculi excrementum
Modern rendering, Modern wording: the Devil’s last effort and the excrement of the age
stercoro
Printed “stercorant” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
They befoul or smear with dung, figuratively disparaging commentators’ treatment of authors.
Context: Burton quotes an unnamed critic, then develops the attack in his own English; the subsequent passage targets textual scholars.
Grammar: Third-person plural present active; authores is the object, commentis suis the means, shared with percacant.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Quosvis authores absurdis commentis suis percacant & stercorant
Modern rendering, Modern wording: They shit on and befoul every author with their absurd commentaries
stercus · Stercus · local use 1
Printed “Stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung or faecal excrement, jokingly made the physician’s first course with urine.
Context: Marginal joke accompanying social contempt for physicians.
Grammar: Nominative neuter singular coordinated with urina; predicate fercula.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Stercus & urina, medicorum fercula prima.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: Excrement and urine, the physicians’ first courses.
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
stercus · local use 1
Printed “stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Faeces made from costly food in a saying that belittles luxurious dining.
Context: Saying attributed to Jerome, whose exact source is unlocated.
Grammar: Accusative neuter singular object of conficiat.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: qui Christum curat, non multum curat quam de preciosis cibis stercus conficiat
Modern rendering, Modern wording: He who cares for Christ cares little how costly the food is from which he makes his excrement.
stercus · Stercus · local use 2
Printed “Stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Livestock dung claimed as a remedy for epilepsy.
Context: Burton’s marginal example of historical animal materia medica.
Grammar: Nominative neuter singular, with pecoris genitive naming the animal source.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Stercus pecoris ad Epilepsiam &c.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: Livestock dung against epilepsy, and so on.
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
stercus · local use 2
Printed “stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung as a disparaging metaphor for the admired body.
Context: Chrysostom-associated marginal passage; body and margin differ in detail.
Grammar: Predicate neuter singular with quod admiraris as subject.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: & quod admiraris stercus
Modern rendering, Modern wording: that what you admire is dung
Edition note: checked against modern editorial translation of the quoted Burton marginal Latin
stercus · local use 3
Printed “stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung, here sheep droppings that fertilize land.
Context: Dio cited in the margin as supporting the pasture-improvement analogy in praise of industry.
Grammar: Accusative singular after causal ob; the sheep are the source of the dung.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Terra ubi oves stabulantur optima agricolis ob stercus.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: Land where sheep are penned is excellent for farmers because of the dung.
Edition note: checked against editorial translation of original quotation in Burton-labelled note
stercus · stercora · local use 1
Printed “stercora” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung, presented as the habitual surroundings of beetles and, by insult, foolish annotators.
Context: Burton extends the beetle comparison in an attack on textual commentary.
Grammar: Accusative neuter plural after inter; ut plurimum supplies most of the time.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: inter stercora ut plurimum versantur
Modern rendering, Modern wording: spending most of their time among dung
Alignment scope: Whole Latin verbal phrase rendered as a modern participial phrase; the commentators/beetles remain the subject.
stercus · stercoribus
Printed “stercoribus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung, the contemptuous name given to bread by an Ethiopian observer in the reported anecdote.
Context: A reported unfamiliar observer’s judgement illustrates dietary difference; Burton’s own English gloss softens the Latin.
Grammar: Ablative neuter plural governed by vescentes; the underlying food is bread, not a claim that the European ate actual faeces.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: quomodo stercoribus vescentes viverimus
Modern rendering, Modern wording: how we could live by feeding on dung
stercus · local use 4
Printed “stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung, in the degrading image of food assigned to the poor.
Context: Burton exposes how poverty converts respected people into objects of contempt, within a catalogue of drudgery.
Grammar: Accusative singular object of comedere; pistum supplies pounded.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: pistum stercus comedere
Modern rendering, Modern wording: to eat pounded dung
stercus · stercore · local use 1
Printed “stercore” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung, used as the source, sustenance and pleasure of beetles in a contemptuous class comparison.
Context: Burton contrasts genteel people impoverished by disaster with the supposed lesser sensitivity of the low-born; this is his class prejudice.
Grammar: Ablative singular after è twice and in once, with source/means and location differentiated by the prepositions.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: è stercore orti, è stercore victus, in stercore delicium
Modern rendering, Modern wording: born from dung, fed from dung, delighting in dung
Alignment scope: Compressed nominal/participial construction rendered as parallel English participial phrases; repeated stercore does not mean all three activities by itself.
stercus · stercoris
Printed “stercoris” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Of dung, disparaging the standing of noble birth when it lacks wealth.
Context: Nevizzano’s reported saying makes property decisive for social recognition; Burton follows with the coarse mard gloss.
Grammar: Genitive singular dependent on nobilitate, within a repeated comparison.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Disputare de nobilitate generis, sine divitiis, est disputare de nobilitate stercoris
Modern rendering, Modern wording: To argue about noble birth without riches is to argue about the nobility of dung
stercus · Stercora
Printed “Stercora” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung or refuse, here the wealth desired by the other dung-like figure in the saying.
Context: The consolatory voice relinquishes wealth and honours for security and peace of mind.
Grammar: Accusative neuter plural, object of amet; singular stercus is the subject, fixed by the singular verb.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Stercora stercus amet
Modern rendering, Modern wording: let dung love dung
stercus · local use 5
Printed “stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung or refuse, figuratively the lover of wealth in the saying.
Context: The consolatory voice casts both wealth and its pursuer as refuse before choosing peace of mind.
Grammar: Nominative neuter singular subject of amet; plural Stercora is the object.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Stercora stercus amet
Modern rendering, Modern wording: let dung love dung
stercus · stercore · local use 2
Printed “stercore” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung or a dunghill, the lowly condition from which God raises the poor.
Context: Psalm quotation in the margin supports consolation through the possibility of divine rescue.
Grammar: Ablative singular after de, expressing the starting point of erigit; pauperem is its object.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: de stercore erigit pauperem
Modern rendering, Modern wording: lifts the poor from the dunghill
Edition note: checked against editorial translation of original quotation in Burton-labelled note
Attestation page note: the accompanying note explicitly belongs to printed page334; the paired body spans333–334.
stercus · stercore · local use 3
Printed “stercore” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung, the degrading opponent in a warning that quarrelling soils the contender whether he wins or loses.
Context: The marginal proverb reinforces the body’s picture of mutual destruction in litigation or quarrelling.
Grammar: Ablative singular after cum with certo, I contend; the preceding pro certo means for certain.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Hoc scio pro certo quod si cum stercore certo, Vinco seu vincor, semper ego maculor.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: This I know for certain: if I contend with dung, whether I win or lose, I am always soiled.
Edition note: checked against editorial translation of original quotation in Burton-labelled note
stercus · stercora · local use 2
Printed “stercora” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung, said in the margin to be loved by the hoopoe.
Context: Emblematic account of the transformed Tereus; the margin’s hoopoe differs from the preceding body’s Lap-wing and is not silently substituted there.
Grammar: Accusative neuter plural object of amans; upupa is the bird named in the Latin.
Source: original marginal note
Source wording, Original wording: Animal immundum upupa stercora amans
Modern rendering, Modern wording: The hoopoe is an unclean creature, loving dung
Edition note: checked against editorial translation of original quotation in Burton-labelled note
Supplied words: is
Qualification: English supplies the copula in this nominal Latin construction.
stercus · local use 6
Printed “stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Faeces, invoked in a deliberately extreme claim that love makes even the beloved’s excrement seem not to stink.
Context: Burton contrasts the lover’s extravagant praise with the hostile observer’s disgust; the saying illustrates distorted appraisal.
Grammar: Nominative singular subject of fœtet; nec negates stinking and amicæ names the beloved as possessor.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Immo nec ipsum amicæ stercus fœtet
Modern rendering, Modern wording: Indeed, even the beloved’s own shit does not stink.
Qualification: The modern own expresses the emphatic ipsum in the whole construction; ipsum agrees with stercus, while amicæ supplies the possessor.
stercus · stercore · local use 4
Printed “stercore” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung, specifically horse dung in a disparaging description of rustic lovers.
Context: Burton claims even the people he depicts as foul rustics become inspired and inventive under love.
Grammar: Ablative singular after de, modified by equino; the relative qui refers to the rustic figures.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: qui fætant de stercore equino
Modern rendering, Modern wording: who stink of horse dung
stercus · Stercus · local use 3
Printed “Stercus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dung belonging to the beloved woman, used as the foul-smelling material in a reported love-dissolving remedy.
Context: The preceding passage calls the remedies absurd and the practice impermissible; this is a reported proposal, not endorsement or demonstrated cure.
Grammar: Neuter singular with positum in a compressed recipe; amatæ is genitive, the woman is unaware in illa nesciente, and the pillow’s possessor is unstated.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Radix mandragoræ ebibitæ, Annuli ex ungulis Asini, Stercus amatæ sub cervical positum, illa nesciente, &c. quum odorem fœditatis sentit, amor solvitur.
Modern rendering, Modern wording: Mandrake root taken in a drink; rings made from an ass’s hooves; the beloved woman’s dung placed under the pillow without her knowledge, etc.: when he smells its foulness, his love dissolves.
sterquilinium · sterquilinia
Printed “sterquilinia” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dungheaps, figuratively the products of textual correctors.
Context: Scaliger is cited for the hostile label; Burton is attacking annotators rather than defining all criticism neutrally.
Grammar: Accusative neuter plural in what Scaliger calls them; correctorum is the genitive plural, of correctors.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Quosvis authores absurdis commentis suis percacant & stercorant, one saith, they bewray and dawb a company of books and good Authors, with their absurd Comments, correctorum sterquilinia Scaliger cals them, and shew their wit in censuring others, a company of foolish note-makers, humble-bees, dors or beetles, inter stercora ut plurimum versantur,
Modern rendering, Modern wording: They shit on and befoul every author with their absurd commentaries, as someone says; they soil and smear a whole company of books and good authors with their ridiculous comments. Scaliger calls these the dungheaps of textual correctors. They show their wit by censuring others, a company of foolish annotators, bumblebees, dor-beetles, or other beetles, spending most of their time among dung;
Alignment scope: Full source unit; the Latin label and its embedding English are redistributed as Scaliger calls these the dungheaps of textual correctors.
sterquilinium · sterquiliniis
Printed “sterquiliniis” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Dungheaps, used metaphorically for entrails consulted in divination.
Context: Burton’s polemical degradation of a divinatory practice; his following English is a separate expansion.
Grammar: Ablative neuter plural after è; viscerum is genitive plural, of entrails.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: è viscerum sterquiliniis
Modern rendering, Modern wording: from the dung-heaps of entrails