From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The word“Fascination” means bewitchment or enchantment, especially an influence thought to work through the eyes.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyIn the account of witches, Paracelsus is reported to affirm from experience that many are bewitched into melancholy.
- In this edition“Fascinate and bewitch children” becomes “cast the evil eye on children and bewitch them”: evil eye explicates the ocular sense rather than representing a separate original phrase.
- A place to readwriters captivated by fame; English Bewitched and marginal Effascinati
Meaning
“Fascination” means bewitchment or enchantment, especially an influence thought to work through the eyes. To “fascinate” is to bewitch; “fascinantur” means they are bewitched, while “fascinat” means he, she or it bewitches. A complement supplies the result in “Multi fascinantur in melancholiam”: many are bewitched into melancholy. Becoming melancholic is the claimed consequence in that sentence, not the dictionary meaning of the verb.
The family also describes captivating beauty, cultivated speech and beguiling thoughts. Burton’s erotic explanation sometimes makes this a physical transmission of subtle bodily spirits, sometimes a poetic image or an art of deception. The reader should neither flatten the older sense into merely interesting nor turn every attractive speech into an assertion of literal witchcraft.
Use in the book
In the account of witches, Paracelsus is reported to affirm from experience that many are bewitched into melancholy. The following testimony is Daneau’s claimed observation, not Burton’s. When imagination becomes the focus, Burton asks why witches and old women bewitch children and reports the explanation that one person’s forceful imagination moves and alters another person’s spirits. The preceding examples include yawning and other bodily responses; the following claims extend the same power to distant illness and even storms. These are the historical theory’s asserted effects. The agency runs from one person’s imagination to the other’s bodily spirits, rather than making the afflicted child the originator of the influence.
A later witchcraft debate places “bewitch cattle to death” within the question of what witches can actually do. Weyer and others attribute the supposed feats to melancholy, sleep-inducing potions and natural causes, while still allowing the Devil’s policy; Weyer says they think they harm others but do not. Opponents then reject imagination alone as a sufficient explanation. The disputed ability and its result must remain distinct from the bare meaning of bewitch.
The book also challenges frightened people’s belief that they are bewitched. In the explanation of symptoms, Burton explicitly proposes natural and internal causes to reassure them and help them endure or avoid effects. This practical argument cannot be replaced by the earlier witchcraft assertions. The same word may occur in a causal claim by an authority or in a fear that Burton seeks to correct.
The Latin margin to an earlier symptom passage says “timent ne fascinentur,” they fear being bewitched, where the body describes thinking oneself bewitched. Fear of a possible event and conviction about one’s condition are distinct constructions. Elsewhere bewitchment is something a remedy supposedly counters: a margin praises the Boll waters for “fascinationem,” while Renodaeus says gems “è fascino tuentur,” protect against enchantment. The bath discussion retains constitutional cautions, and the gem section first gives Erastus’s rejection before opposing praise. These are attributed historical claims of efficacy.
In the sleep discussion, Boissard’s Latin says many are so bewitched that they pass entire nights awake in extreme bodily and mental unrest. Burton’s restatement calls these “witches and fascinations,” followed by an idiom meaning to give someone a bad night. The next unit names heat, dryness, grief, fear and pressing business as ordinary causes of sleeplessness. Keeping that continuation prevents the isolated quotation from becoming Burton’s general explanation of insomnia.
Figurative bewitchment can be harmful or welcome. Fame-seeking writers are “Bewitched” by their desire for reputation, with “Effascinati” in the distinct Latin marginal attribution; profit and apparent advantage likewise “bewitch the Soul of man.” Yet “bewitching discourse” can lighten a troubled mind, and study’s sweetness “bewitcheth a student” like Circe’s cup. Burton uses captivating attention both for compulsive distraction and for the pleasures of reading. His scriptural catalogue also quotes “who hath bewitched you?” as a rebuke to the Galatians within its argument about human folly.
The erotic discussion greatly expands the term. Burton first says that everyone holds love to be fascination, then introduces the mechanism “as some hold.” These formulations convey the sweep of his exposition and the attribution of a particular theory; they should not be converted into a verified consensus. He also expressly agrees with the poet that love bewitches and strangely changes people; “as some hold” does not erase that bounded assent. The poetry of Mantuanus personifies love as robbing freedom and wrenching the mind from its hinges. Burton’s English version adds a magician’s rings, a detail absent from the printed Latin stanza.
The exposition attributed to Ficino and Varius treats repeated mutual gazing as a means of drawing love into the body. Rays supposedly carry vapours or spirits from one person’s heart through the eyes and affect the other person’s spirits and blood. “Agent” is the person acting; “patient” is the person acted upon. Burton acknowledges the objection from the account of vision as receiving something into the eye. His proposed examples of contagious sore eyes, a lethal gaze and a stained mirror belong to the old theory, not established optical evidence. The Phaedrus–Lysias illustration is likewise a transmitted philosophical example. Burton’s closing direction of attraction differs from the Ficino parallel identified by the edition and must not be silently reversed.
Varius’s marginal “Spiritus puriores fascinantur” makes the purer bodily spirits themselves the subjects of bewitchment, alongside the body’s language of infection. Later the erotic assault can fail: Buchanan’s adapted verse uses “fascinat,” bewitches, under repeated declarations of “in vain.” Burton applies it to the occupied goddesses and Muses, then recommends important activity against love. The irresistible-looking optical images therefore do not exhaust the family’s argumentative uses.
The question of how a person blind from birth can love interrupts this optical explanation. Burton proceeds through an anecdote and a magnetic image, then distinguishes natural and chaste love from the excessive erotic passion presently under discussion. Later fascination becomes sleight of hand, cultivated presentation and enchanting speech. In the philter section, some authorities deny demonic power and allow only fascination through the eyes; the story of Philip’s supposed enchantress explains attraction through beauty, education and accomplishment. That restricted claim belongs to the stated opponents, not to a definition valid throughout the work. The philter discussion continues with alleged contrary cases, another view that the Devil acts without charms, and reported natural explanations; its concluding comparison gives the remedies only perhaps as much power as the legendary bath and Venus’s girdle.
Related entries
Philter; Lodestone and adamant; Occult; Characters; Ligation and ligature; Catoptrics and perspectives; Imagination; Love; Eye; Sleep and waking
Places to read
- · paragraph 1–3writers captivated by fame; English Bewitched and marginal Effascinati
- · paragraph 9–11the scriptural question to the Galatians in the argument about folly
- · paragraph 50–52passive bewitchment into melancholy and attributed experience
- · paragraph 31–34disputed cattle-bewitching, imagined harm and opposed explanations
- · paragraph 8–10beguiling thoughts in the solitude passage
- · paragraph 26–34disputed cures and imagination’s alleged action on others
- · paragraph 26–29thinking oneself bewitched and marginal fear of bewitchment
- · paragraph 17–21natural explanations offered against fear of bewitchment
- · paragraph 44–46Boll waters in a distinct marginal claim and continuing bath cautions
- · paragraph 39–41enchanting narratives as pleasurable diversion
- · paragraph 9–11Circe’s cup as an image of absorbing study
- · paragraph 28–32Boissard’s sleeplessness claim and the ordinary causes that follow
- · paragraph 23–27disputed gem powers and alleged protection è fascino
- · paragraph 30–32profit and apparent advantage captivating the soul
- · paragraph 8–10beauty and the broad assertion that love is fascination
- · paragraph 1–15poetry, bodily spirits, eye-rays, objections and the qualification concerning excessive love
- · paragraph 52–54fascination as artifice and sleight of hand
- · paragraph 1–2enchanting speech and vocal attraction
- · paragraph 1–19the eyes-only account, contrary alleged cases, competing agencies and the final qualified comparison
- poetic bewitchment declared vain against active occupation
In this edition
“Fascinate and bewitch children” becomes “cast the evil eye on children and bewitch them”: evil eye explicates the ocular sense rather than representing a separate original phrase. “Witches and fascinations” becomes “witches and enchantments.” The embedded Latin “multos ita fascinari” means many are so bewitched; the degree construction leads to the following sleeplessness, rather than making sleeplessness a component of fascinate itself. “Dare alicui malam noctem” means give someone a bad night: dare is give, alicui to someone, and malam noctem a bad night.
In the love passages, fascination can become “bewitchment” or “enchantment,” while “fascinating speech” becomes “enchanting speech.” The word “interview” in the proposed mechanism means an exchange of looks, and the “spirits” there are bodily intermediaries. “Visio fit intramittendo” is rendered “vision occurs by receiving something from outside”: vision is the subject, occurs the verbal force, and receiving names the proposed direction of seeing. These explanations concern the supplied paired edition; neither its modern rendering nor editorial historical parallels constitute a fresh collation of the cited witnesses.
agent
Printed “agents” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Of the person acting; possessive agents in agents heart.
Here: The acting person, contrasted with the person affected.
Context: The heart is proposed source and eyes passage; neither is interchangeable with the recipient.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: the beams that come from the agents heart, by the eys
Modern rendering: the beams coming from the active person’s heart through the eyes
Word and construction: Printed agents, without an apostrophe, is possessive in agents heart; modern active person’s gives that relation. By the eys becomes through the eyes, naming the intervening route, not the original source or recipient.
bewitch · bewitched
Printed “bewitched” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Subject to imagined witchcraft in a belief Burton seeks to correct.
Context: Burton offers natural internal causes to reassure sufferers; the feared explanation is denied locally.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: not from divels, as they suppose, or that they are bewitched or forsaken of God
Modern rendering: They do not come from devils, as they suppose, nor mean that they are bewitched or forsaken by God
Word and construction: The widened comparison includes the governing negative. They do not come and nor mean complete Burton’s compressed syntax, with symptoms as the antecedent; bewitched is the feared explanation he is locally correcting.
bewitch · Bewitched
Printed “Bewitched” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Beguiled or captivated.
Here: Compulsive pursuit of authorial fame despite illness and damage to other people’s reputations.
Context: Burton’s prefatory criticism of fame-seeking writers; the English then names Scaliger, while the distinct Latin marginal formula names Justus Baronius.
Source: original body
Source wording: Bewitched with this desire of fame
bewitch · who hath bewitched you
Printed “who hath bewitched you” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Who has enchanted or deluded you?
Here: Scriptural rebuke used in Burton’s catalogue of human folly.
Context: The question addresses the Galatians, not Burton’s present reader. The editorial note identifies Galatians 3:1 within a compressed chain of scriptural references.
Source: original body
Source wording: foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?
bewitch · bewitch cattle to death
Printed “bewitch cattle to death” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Bewitch cattle so as to kill them.
Here: A disputed alleged feat used to distinguish imagined witchcraft from actual harm.
Context: Whether and can govern the claim. Weyer and others explain the alleged acts through melancholy, sleep-inducing potions, natural causes and the Devil’s policy; their opponents deny that corrupt imagination alone suffices.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording, Modern rendering: whether they can bewitch cattle to death
Word and construction: Cattle is the object and to death the alleged result; neither the killing nor the disputed capacity is asserted simply by the verb bewitch.
bewitch · bewitcheth a student
Printed “bewitcheth a student” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Captivates or enchants a student.
Here: Devotion to study is compared to the inability to leave Circe’s enchanting cup.
Context: The surrounding passage praises pleasure in study; Cardano’s Latin comparison and Burton’s English restatement remain distinct, not a claim of a literal poisoned drink.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: the like sweetnesse, which as Circes cup bewitcheth a student
Modern rendering: The same sweetness bewitches a student like Circe’s cup
Word and construction: The student is the person captivated, while the surrounding sweetness is the subject. Like Circe’s cup renders the explicit comparison as Circes cup.
bewitch · bewitch the Soul of man
Printed “bewitch the Soul of man” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Beguile or captivate the human soul.
Here: The attraction vocabulary extends to profit and apparent advantage, not only erotic beauty.
Context: Burton says none of the enticing objects is as forceful as profit; health, wealth and preferment lead into an exaggerated picture of dependence on a benefactor.
Source: original body
Source wording: which procure Love, and bewitch the Soul of man
bewitching · bewitching thoughts
Printed “bewitching thoughts” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Beguiling thoughts that detain the solitary thinker.
Context: Thoughts are agents of an extended metaphor of capture, followed by the puck simile.
Source: original body
Source wording: these phantastical and bewitching thoughts
bewitching · bewitching discourse
Printed “bewitching discourse” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Captivating or enchanting discourse.
Here: Pleasurable reading can lighten a troubled mind: Heliodorus and Julian’s absorption in Libanius illustrate beneficial attention.
Context: Burton recommends literary diversion in this historical regimen; the example concerns narrative and reading, rather than an alleged magical assault.
Source: original body
Source wording: some pleasant bewitching discourse
dare alicui malam noctem
Printed “dare alicui malam noctem” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: dare alicui malam noctem
Give someone a bad night, an idiom for the alleged magical disturbance.
Context: They call it supplies the idiom; dare gives, alicui marks recipient, malam noctem the object.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: giving someone a bad night
effascino
Printed “Effascinati” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Bewitched or captivated; plural passive participle.
Here: The compound Latin verb in the margin parallels the English criticism of writers captivated by fame.
Context: The printed attribution is Justus Baronius and remains unverified; do not transfer the body’s Scaliger attribution to this margin.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Effascinati etiam laudis amore
Modern rendering: Bewitched also by love of praise
Word and construction: Effascinati is passive plural; etiam supplies also and laudis amore by love of praise. No English finite verb is supplied in this fragment, and the compound is kept distinct from fascinantur.
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note
fascinate
Printed “fascinate and bewitch children” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: fascinate and bewitch children
Bewitch children, especially through a supposed ocular influence.
Context: Burton’s question leads to the attributed theory of one person’s imagination moving another’s bodily spirits.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: cast the evil eye on children and bewitch them
Word and construction: Cast the evil eye renders fascinate explicatively; children is the shared object. The second verb bewitch is separately retained, with modern them resuming children rather than an additional original noun.
fascinating
Printed “fascinating speech” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Enchanting speech as a cultivated means of attraction.
Context: Speech joins wit, eloquence and gesture in Burton’s account; the Sirens supply a comparison.
Source: original body
Source wording: fascinating speech, pleasant discourse
fascinatio
Printed “fascinationem” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: fascinationem
Meaning: Bewitchment or enchantment; accusative singular.
Here: Bewitchment appears among conditions for which the Boll waters are praised in a marginal catalogue.
Context: The claim belongs to Ioh. Baubinus as printed. This is Boll, separately added beside the body’s Abano/Saint Helen discussion; the following body warns about hot baths and differing constitutions.
Source: original marginal quotation
Modern rendering: bewitchment
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note
fascination · fascinations
Printed “fascinations” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Enchantments alleged to prevent sleep.
Context: English restatement following Boissard’s quoted account; ordinary causes follow.
Source: original body
Source wording: witches and fascinations
fascination · local use 1
Printed “fascination” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Bewitchment as a broad way of describing love’s power.
Context: Burton’s generalization leads into a theory later explicitly attributed to some.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: for all hold, love is a fascination
Modern rendering: for everyone holds that love is a kind of bewitchment
Word and construction: All hold becomes everyone holds. The modern that and kind of make the relation explicit; kind of is not a separately printed qualification in the original a fascination.
fascination · local use 2
Printed “fascination” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
The supposed visual bewitchment explained through repeated mutual gazing.
Context: Ficino supplies the stated mechanism; Burton transmits it.
Source: original body
Source wording: The manner of the fascination, as Ficinus 10. cap. com. in Plat. declares it
fascination · a fascination
Printed “a fascination” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Bewitchment figured as seductive trickery.
Context: Burton’s polemical account of artifice added to beauty.
Source: original body
Source wording: Love is a kind of legerdemain; meer jugling, a fascination
fascination · local use 3
Printed “fascination” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Enchantment limited by some writers to the effect of the eyes.
Context: Restriction belongs to Crato and other opponents of demonic love magic; not a universal lexical definition.
Source: original body
Source wording: there is no other fascination then that which comes by the eys
fascino · fascinantur
Printed “fascinantur” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Are bewitched; third-person plural passive.
Here: Are bewitched; the complement names melancholy as the purported result.
Context: Paracelsus’s reported experiential assertion; Burton repeats it in English.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Multi fascinantur in melancholiam
Modern rendering: Many are bewitched into melancholy
Word and construction: Multi supplies many; fascinantur are bewitched; in melancholiam gives the result into melancholy. This is the first quoted modern rendering of the Latin, followed separately by the rendering of Burton’s English restatement.
fascino · fascinari
Printed “fascinari” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: To be bewitched; present passive infinitive.
Here: Be bewitched, in a result construction describing sleeplessness.
Context: Boissard is the quoted speaker; the ut-clause supplies the alleged result.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: multos ita fascinari ut noctes integras exigant insomnes
Modern rendering: many are so bewitched that they pass whole nights without sleep
Word and construction: Multos is the accusative subject of fascinari under the preceding constat; the supplied rendering makes the construction finite as many are so bewitched. Ita and ut give so...that, with sleeplessness in the result clause.
fascino · fascinat · local use 1
Printed “fascinat” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Bewitches; third-person singular active.
Here: Bewitches, with personified love as subject.
Context: Mantuanus’s verse quoted by Burton, who prefaces it with his agreement that love bewitches and strangely changes people. The instrumental art remains part of the poetic statement, not a verified optical mechanism.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: mirâ nos fascinat arte
Modern rendering: bewitching us by wondrous art
Word and construction: Love is the subject in the preceding line. Fascinat becomes English participial bewitching in the joined sentence; nos supplies us and mirâ...arte by wondrous art.
fascino · timent ne fascinentur
Printed “timent ne fascinentur” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: timent ne fascinentur
Meaning: They fear that they may be bewitched.
Here: The Latin margin expresses fear of bewitchment where the English body says they think themselves bewitched.
Context: The paragraph is conditional on scorched melancholy and attributed to medical authorities. A fear clause is not a report that bewitchment occurred.
Source: original marginal quotation
Modern rendering: fear being bewitched
Word and construction: Fascinentur is passive subjunctive after timent ne. Ne introduces what is feared, not a denial that they fear; the supplied English uses being bewitched. The distinct body think and marginal fear constructions are not silently equated.
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note
fascino · Spiritus puriores fascinantur
Printed “Spiritus puriores fascinantur” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Spiritus puriores fascinantur
Meaning: The purer spirits are bewitched.
Here: The bodily spirits themselves are the grammatical subjects of passive bewitchment in Varius’s marginal mechanism.
Context: The margin’s bewitchment wording is distinct from infected in Burton’s English body, though both belong to the same attributed optical theory.
Source: original marginal quotation
Modern rendering: The purer spirits are bewitched
Word and construction: Spiritus is plural here, puriores comparative purer, and fascinantur passive are bewitched; English The is supplied. These are subtle bodily spirits in the theory, not demons.
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note
fascino · fascinat · local use 2
Printed “fascinat” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Bewitches; third-person singular active.
Here: Poetic erotic bewitchment is resisted by occupied goddesses and Muses in Burton’s argument for activity against love.
Context: The opening in-vain repetitions govern the stanza. Quisquis is the agent; the lovers’ disordered hearts are the objects and are described as drunk with seductive poisons. The edition notes that Burton has adapted Buchanan’s wording.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Et quisquis male sana corda amantum Blandis ebria fascinat venenis
Modern rendering: And whoever bewitches lovers’ disordered hearts, Drunk with seductive poisons
Word and construction: Quisquis supplies whoever; corda amantum supplies lovers’ hearts and ebria modifies those hearts. Fascinat alone supplies bewitches, not the whole description or the surrounding claim that the assault fails.
fascinum
Printed “è fascino tuentur” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: è fascino tuentur
Meaning: Protect against enchantment.
Here: The alleged protective power of gems, rather than the production of bewitchment.
Context: Renodaeus’s praise appears within a dispute: Erastus’s preceding rejection of mineral powers and the opposed commendations are retained as attributed views.
Source: original marginal quotation
Modern rendering: protect against enchantment
Word and construction: Fascino is the ablative noun after è, not first-person fascinō, I bewitch. Tuentur supplies protect; its plural subject is the gems from the surrounding catalogue. The selected English fragment also leaves that subject outside the aligned words.
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note
interview
Printed “interview” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
An exchange of looks, not a formal question-and-answer meeting.
Context: Varius’s reported physiological theory; bodily spirits are what receive the alleged infection.
Source: original body
Source wording: by this interview, the purer spirits are infected
patient
Printed “patients” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Patient: the person undergoing or receiving an action.
Here: The person acted upon in the alleged transmission.
Context: Patient here means recipient of the action, not simply a client of a physician.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: infect the spirits about the patients
Modern rendering: infect the spirits surrounding the person affected
Word and construction: The exact printed patients is retained in the compressed spirits about the patients construction. The modern the person affected resolves the recipient without reproducing that compressed spelling and syntax; it does not mean a physician’s patient merely by definition.
visio fit intramittendo
Printed “visio fit intramittendo” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: visio fit intramittendo
Meaning: Vision takes place by intromission, or admitting something inward.
Here: Vision takes place through reception into the eye.
Context: An alternative account of vision raises an objection to emitted eye-rays.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: vision occurs by receiving something from outside
Word and construction: Visio is vision, fit takes place/occurs, and intramittendo describes admitting inward. The English something from outside explicates the intromission model; the Latin phrase does not separately print an object equivalent to something.