Fasting

Use in the book

In ordinary regimen, both excess food and excessive deprivation can harm. Guianerius’s cases associate immoderate fasting and night waking with melancholy and madness; Burton’s examples of religious communities carry his polemical generalizations. The quantity-of-diet instructions forbid the patient to fast altogether, just as they forbid overeating; repletion and inanition are opposite potentially harmful extremes. Entering a bath fasting, however, specifies the immediate state of the stomach, not a long total fast.

The love-cure section addresses a different purpose and initially makes a much stronger claim. Guianerius’s severe regimen, explained through the supposedly protective hardships of poor people, ends in fasting rather than pretending to abstain while consuming rich food. The body says abstention from all kinds of food, while the margin gives bread and water. Burton calls fasting sufficient by itself, then invokes Jason Pratensis’s account of well-fed, idle people and Hildesheim’s ranking of hunger above baths, exercise and sweating. Chastity supplies the intended end. The escalating saying about hunger, time and a noose is marked comic, while Burton continues to commend fasting and a contrary diet. Crucially, the same discussion makes an exception for lovers deeply dejected, physically weakened and approaching despair: wine and a substantial diet may then be appropriate. These are historical prescriptions, not present-day directions.

Religious fasting likewise receives opposed assessments. In lawful cures, Burton invokes the saying that some kinds of devils require fasting and prayer, explicitly both together, while also requiring practical efforts and medicine. In religious melancholy, fasting can become a means of injury, yet he immediately affirms its value as restraint of the body and preparation for devotion. Praise is true only when the practice is moderate and seasonable; claims of excessive merit, counterfeit observance and the elevation of food rules over the commandments are his targets. His subsequent list makes excessive fasting one among several causes, forerunners or companions of visions. Hilarion’s wasting, sleeplessness and imagined noises exemplify a physiological reinterpretation of ascetic experience; the later paragraph again allows beneficial uses before condemning abuse.

The polemic does not simply demand abolition. Burton attacks the escalation from fasting generally commended to selected foods and times imposed under threat of damnation, but also attacks people in his own religious camp who reject every fast day and ceremony. His report of Muslim month-long fasting specifies abstention until sunset, and the margin says by day each year: it does not claim continuous starvation for a month. In a therapeutic story, a man who believes himself Elijah is induced to end his fast by a counterfeit angel offering food, after which the physician gives medicine. The final counsel for despair is conditional on knowing that excessive fasting or similar practices caused this sufferer’s trouble; removing the cause, recreation and counsel then answer it.

Other settings clarify purpose and voice. Epicurus sometimes fasts voluntarily to avoid the disgust of excess. The later protest against easy consolation uses the well-fed man’s praise of fasting to challenge those who do not experience want; renewed advice to grow accustomed to suffering meets another objection, rather than settling the dispute at once. David fasts while his child lives but stops after the death, an example against unending mourning. Fasting on St Anne’s eve is instead reported as a lover’s divinatory device. Neither the empty gut in anatomy nor Cyprian’s starved grass describes a devotional act.

In a hostile generalization about wives and marital satisfaction, “to fast long” means going without intercourse; the ensuing anecdotes concern husbands who withhold it.

The bereaved woman in Burton’s account of 2 Esdras instead resolves to mourn and fast until death, an extreme of sorrow that contrasts with David’s decision to stop fasting once his child has died.

The later anti-Jesuit polemic alleges a further use: fasting imposed with darkness and isolation to alter another person’s mind and prepare him for violent service. Burton’s accusation is reported here as polemic, not established history.

Related entries

Non naturals

Religious melancholy

Religion and superstition

Complexion and temperament

Diet and regimen

Plethora and repletion

Continence

Baths and bathing

Places to read

1. Human Excellence, the Fall, Miseries and Infirmities; Their Causes · paragraphs 14–16The adjective describes grass scarcely produced by barren soil.
2. Subsection 4. Composite Parts · paragraphs 7–9The anatomical name identifies a section of small intestine continuing from the duodenum.
3. Subsection 2 the Quantity of Food as a Cause · paragraphs 34–36Excessive fasting, paired with night waking, is blamed for melancholy and madness.
4. Subsection 7. A Collection of Other Events That Cause Melancholy: The Death Of… · paragraphs 19–23Bereavement drives the woman from 2 Esdras to intend self-starvation until death; the episode belongs to extreme sorrow, not prescribed regimen.
5. Member 2. Lawful Cures, First From God · paragraphs 5–7Fasting and prayer are both required in the cited saying about some kinds of devils.
6. Subsection 2. Diet Corrected in Quantity · paragraphs 3–5Depletion and excessive fullness are opposing potentially harmful extremes.
7. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraphs 34–36The adjective qualifies the patient sitting in the bath.
8. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 18–20Voluntary abstention counters the disgust produced by continuous luxury.
9. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 3–17The well-fed praise of fasting in Latin conflicts with the English introduction; the poor speaker challenges easy consolation.
10. Member 5 Against Sorrow Over the Death of Friends or Other Causes, Groundless… · paragraphs 25–27David’s fast ends after the child’s death because it cannot bring him back.
11. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind… · paragraphs 48–50Fasting becomes a divinatory practice intended to reveal a future husband.
12. The Cure of Love Melancholy by Work, Diet, Medicine, Fasting and Other Means · paragraphs 19–33Guianerius’s severe love-cure regimen culminates in food abstention. The love-cure praise, its chastity purpose and the later exception for depleted, despairing patients must be read together.
13. Causes of Jealousy. Who Are Most Susceptible. Idleness, Melancholy, Impotence… · paragraphs 46–50The food-abstinence verb becomes a sexual metaphor within a hostile account of wives and withheld marital intercourse.
14. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions… · paragraphs 3–13Moderate, timely fasting is praised before excessive merit claims and harmful ascetic practices are condemned. Excessive fasting is one of several alleged precursors or companions of religious visions. Hilarion’s wasting is connected to lack of vapours, sleeplessness and perceived noises.
15. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions… · paragraphs 21–26Ritual preparations lead into Burton’s allegation that enforced fasting and isolation are used to manipulate someone else; the allegation remains attributed.
16. General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions… · paragraphs 13–15The reported month-long observance is daytime abstention, not a month without any eating.
17. General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions… · paragraphs 14–16Abolition of fast days is among the practices Burton attacks in his own religious camp.
18. Subsection 4. Prognosis of Religious Melancholy · paragraphs 40–44Wednesday is said to be in danger of becoming another imposed fast day.
19. Subsection 5 the Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraphs 24–26A physician interrupts the fast of a man who believes he is Elijah.
20. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 25–29A known history of excessive fasting calls for removing the cause and contrary means of relief.

In this edition

“so he may not absolutely fast” becomes “so he must not fast altogether” in the ordinary regimen. Inanition there becomes emptying the body; the modal may remains can. “he must enter fasting” becomes “The patient must enter on an empty stomach”, and the Latin jejunus has the same local force. The duration specified in its marginal clause concerns sitting in the bath, not a defined length of fasting.

Two differences are kept visible. The English says declaim against fasting, but “Qui satur est pleno laudat jejunia ventre” means the well-fed man praises fasting: the supplied edition preserves the contradiction. The body’s abstention from all food and the margin’s bread-and-water fast are not silently equated. The love-cure claim all-sufficient is rendered sufficient by itself and must be read with its later patient exception. The fasting story prints meditation where the edition renders the apparent sense mediation or intervention; the reported deception is not concealed.

fast · local use 1

Printed “fast” (English; lemma).

To abstain from food.

Here: Complete abstention is forbidden alongside overeating in the ordinary quantity-of-diet regimen.

Context: The advice concerns the melancholy patient under discussion; named authorities differ about meals, and the clause does not govern every later patient or purpose.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: so he may not absolutely fast

Modern rendering: so he must not fast altogether

Word and construction: Fast contributes fast; absolutely altogether, may not is rendered must not, and he identifies the patient.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fast” (English; lemma).

Here: Voluntary abstention counters the disgust produced by continuous luxury.

Context: Burton’s consolatory example is not a universal fasting rule; the later poor speaker challenges well-fed praise of deprivation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: that temperate Epicurus sometimes voluntarily fast

Modern rendering: the temperate Epicurus sometimes fasted voluntarily

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasted” (English; lemma).

Here: David’s fast ends after the child’s death because it cannot bring him back.

Context: Burton uses the biblical speech against unending mourning; the printed reference 2 Samuel 22 differs from the actual 12:22–23 identified in the edition.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept

Modern rendering: While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fast” (English; lemma).

Here: Guianerius’s severe love-cure regimen culminates in food abstention.

Context: Burton rejects pretended fasting on rich fare and says all manner of food; the marginal instruction instead specifies bread and water. These unequal scopes remain visible.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: but above all, to fast

Modern rendering: but above all, fast

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fast” (English; lemma).

Here: The reported month-long observance is daytime abstention, not a month without any eating.

Context: The margin says each year, by day, neither eating nor drinking; Burton’s religious comparisons and generalizations remain attributed.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: they fast a month together many times, and must not eat a bit till Sun be set

Modern rendering: They often fast for a month together and must not eat a morsel until sunset

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fast” (English; lemma).

Here: A bereaved woman resolves to continue abstention until death.

Context: Burton reports the woman in 2 Esdras as an extreme example of sorrow, not a recommended regimen. Her resolve differs from David’s later discontinued fast.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: neither to eat nor drink, but mourn and fast untill she died

Modern rendering: neither eating nor drinking, but mourning and fasting until she died.

Word and construction: Fast names abstention from nourishment; neither to eat nor drink states its scope, and untill she died states the intended endpoint.

Sense relation: Same lexical sense in a meaningfully different argumentative setting; local speaker, purpose and qualification are retained.

Qualification: The supplied editorial note identifies the woman as later interpreted as Zion in 2 Esdras; Burton presents the episode here among extreme mourners.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

fast · local use 2

Printed “fast” (English; lemma).

An appointed period or day of dietary abstinence.

Here: Wednesday is said to be in danger of becoming another imposed fast day.

Context: Burton quotes Erasmus while attacking the escalation from beneficial fasting to rules binding conscience under threat of damnation; elsewhere he criticizes wholesale abolition of fast days.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Wednesday now is in danger of a fast

Modern rendering: Wednesday is now in danger of becoming a fast day

Word and construction: Fast contributes fast day; becoming is supplied to express the nominal original construction.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasting dayes” (English; lemma).

Here: Abolition of fast days is among the practices Burton attacks in his own religious camp.

Context: He portrays total rejection of ceremonies as an opposite excess, qualifying any inference that his criticism of imposed fasting means all fast days must disappear.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: no fasting dayes

Modern rendering: no fast days

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

fast · local use 3

Printed “fast” (English; lemma).

A period of abstaining from food.

Here: A physician interrupts the fast of a man who believes he is Elijah.

Context: Hercules de Saxonia dresses an assistant as an angel offering divine food, then administers medicine; Burton reports a cure, without an independently verified source.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: by that means staid his fast

Modern rendering: In this way he stopped the man’s fast

Word and construction: Fast names the period of abstention; staid means stopped, and his is expanded to the man’s.

Qualification: The source prints meditation in the final clause; the supplied edition renders the apparent sense of mediation as intervention. This is an acknowledged textual repair, not a silent substitution in the original.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

fast · local use 4

Printed “fast” (English; lemma).

Figuratively, to abstain from sexual intercourse.

Here: The food-abstinence verb is transferred to going without sexual intercourse in marriage.

Context: Burton makes a hostile generalization about wives whose husbands are absent or fail to give sexual satisfaction. The following anecdotes concern withheld marital intercourse; the generalization is not endorsed as fact.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: they cannot endure to lie alone, or to fast long

Modern rendering: They cannot endure sleeping alone or abstaining for long.

Word and construction: Fast supplies abstaining from intercourse in this context; long supplies for long, and lie alone names the linked circumstance.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

fasting · local use 1

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Abstention from food, or restriction of food intake.

Here: Excessive fasting, paired with night waking, is blamed for melancholy and madness.

Context: Burton reports Guianerius’s experience and adds confessional generalizations about Muslims and ascetics; the objection is to excess, not every fast.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Others offend in overmuch fasting

Modern rendering: Others err by fasting too much

Word and construction: Fasting names food abstention; overmuch supplies too much and offend is err.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Here: Fasting and prayer are both required in the cited saying about some kinds of devils.

Context: Burton insists on both, neither without the other, while also requiring human efforts and medicine under divine blessing.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Some kind of devils are not cast out but by fasting & prayer

Modern rendering: Some kinds of devils can be cast out only by fasting and prayer

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Fasting” (English; lemma).

Here: The love-cure argument initially presents fasting as sufficient and ranks it above accompanying measures.

Context: Burton’s next clauses concern well-fed, idle people through Jason Pratensis and Hildesheim; the later exception gives full diet to weakened, deeply distressed patients.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Fasting is an all-sufficient remedy of it self

Modern rendering: Fasting is a sufficient remedy by itself

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Here: Fasting is positively valued as bodily restraint and preparation for devotion.

Context: Burton immediately limits the praise to moderate and timely use; he attacks excessive claims of merit and counterfeit observance, not the practice in itself.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Not that fasting is a thing of it self to be discommended

Modern rendering: Not that fasting is blameworthy in itself

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Here: Excessive fasting is one of several alleged precursors or companions of religious visions.

Context: Burton’s universal rhetoric lists alternatives and distinguishes causes, forerunners and concomitants; it does not make fasting the sole cause of every vision.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: immoderate fasting, bad diet, sickness, melancholy, solitariness

Modern rendering: excessive fasting, bad diet, sickness, melancholy, solitude

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Here: Hilarion’s wasting is connected to lack of vapours, sleeplessness and perceived noises.

Context: Burton recasts Jerome’s religious narrative physiologically and adds as he thought; the Antony parallel does not verify every detail.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: was so bare with fasting

Modern rendering: was so wasted by fasting

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Here: A known history of excessive fasting calls for removing the cause and contrary means of relief.

Context: The conditional diagnosis concerns this sufferer’s despair; subsequent recreation, friendly help and counsel answer it.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: If the party affected shall certainly know this malady to have proceeded from too much fasting

Modern rendering: if the sufferer knows for certain that this malady arose from too much fasting

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Here: Fasting becomes a divinatory practice intended to reveal a future husband.

Context: Burton describes lovers’ desires and magical practices without establishing their efficacy.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: by fasting on S. Annes Eve or night

Modern rendering: by fasting on St Anne’s eve or night

Sense relation: Same sense under a different speaker, purpose or condition; the local valuation is not generalized.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Here: Fasting is alleged to be deliberately imposed with isolation to manipulate another person’s mind.

Context: In anti-Jesuit polemic Burton alleges that reduced food, darkness and solitude prepare someone for violent service. The accusation is attributed, not treated as established history.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: this fasting and solitary meditation is, to alter mens minds

Modern rendering: this fasting and solitary meditation can alter people’s minds

Alignment scope: Matched fasting-and-meditation clause; the original of what force...is construction is redistributed into modern how powerfully...can alter.

Word and construction: Fasting is one coordinated practice; solitary meditation is another, and alter mens minds names the alleged combined effect.

Sense relation: Same lexical sense in a meaningfully different argumentative setting; local speaker, purpose and qualification are retained.

fasting · local use 2

Printed “fasting” (English; lemma).

Having an empty stomach, before eating.

Here: The patient is to enter a bath without having eaten.

Context: This is Fernelius’s bathing regimen; the surrounding authorities disagree about frequency and warmth, and no prolonged total fast is specified.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: he must enter fasting

Modern rendering: The patient must enter on an empty stomach

Word and construction: Fasting contributes on an empty stomach; enter is unchanged and The patient expands the pronoun he.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

inanition

Printed “inanition” (English; lemma).

Emptying or depletion of the body through insufficient nourishment.

Here: Depletion and excessive fullness are opposing potentially harmful extremes.

Context: Burton cites Celsus and Iacchinus on Rhazes; may do harm is a possibility, not an assertion that all temporary emptiness is harmful.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: repletion and inanition may both do harm in two contrary extreams

Modern rendering: overfilling and emptying the body can both do harm at their opposite extremes

Word and construction: Inanition contributes emptying the body; repletion overfilling, may can, and the rest retains the two harmful extremes.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

jejunium

Printed “jejunium” (Latin; lemma).

Fasting or abstinence from food.

Here: The marginal argument commends fasting as a means to chastity.

Context: Jason Pratensis’s demonic explanation concerns especially those who eat delicacies; the wider love-cure discussion later exempts physically depleted and despairing patients.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: hanc ob rem jejunium impendio probatur ad pudicitiam

Modern rendering: For this reason fasting is greatly commended as a means to chastity.

Alignment scope: Equal-scope marginal phrase; the English is supplied note translation

Word and construction: Jejunium supplies fasting; impendio greatly, probatur is commended, and ad pudicitiam its purpose chastity.

Alignment qualification: The original marginal expression has no separately aligned modern-body counterpart; its meaning is explained here from its full note context.

Modern container: note

jejunium · jejunia

Printed “jejunia” (Latin; lemma).

Fasts or abstinence from food.

Here: A Latin maxim makes the well-fed man praise fasting, exposing advice from a position of security.

Context: The English introduction instead says declaim against fasting; the contradiction is preserved. The surrounding poor speaker objects to empty consolation, before renewed counsel and objection.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Qui satur est pleno laudat jejunia ventre

Modern rendering: The well-fed man praises fasting on a full stomach

Word and construction: Jejunia supplies fasting; laudat praises, satur the well-fed person and pleno ventre on a full stomach.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

jejunum

Printed “Jejunum” (Latin; lemma).

The jejunum, named here as the empty gut.

Here: The anatomical name identifies a section of small intestine continuing from the duodenum.

Context: Burton describes historical chyle transport by mesenteric veins; the name does not describe a person undertaking a religious fast.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Jejunum or empty gut

Modern rendering: The jejunum, or empty gut

Word and construction: Jejunum is retained as jejunum, and or empty gut preserves Burton’s explanatory gloss.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

jejunus

Printed “jejunus” (Latin; lemma).

Fasting; having an empty stomach.

Here: The adjective qualifies the patient sitting in the bath.

Context: The margin gives a cooling-moistening purpose and avoids sweating; it is not harmonized with the body’s moderate warmth.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: In quibus jejunus diu sedeat eo tempore

Modern rendering: Let him sit in them for a long time on an empty stomach at that time

Alignment scope: Equal-scope marginal phrase; the English is supplied note translation

Word and construction: Jejunus supplies on an empty stomach; diu for a long time and sedeat Let him sit concern the duration in the bath, not a specified duration of fasting.

Alignment qualification: The original marginal expression has no separately aligned modern-body counterpart; its meaning is explained here from its full note context.

Modern container: note

jejunus · jejunas

Printed “jejunas” (Latin; lemma).

Starved, scanty or poorly nourished.

Here: The adjective describes grass scarcely produced by barren soil.

Context: The Cyprian quotation belongs to a theological argument about drought and punishment; it does not mean that plants voluntarily fast.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: jejunas & pallidas herbas

Modern rendering: starved and pallid grass

Alignment scope: Equal-scope marginal phrase; the English is supplied note translation

Word and construction: Jejunas supplies starved; pallidas pallid and herbas grass are separate components.

Alignment qualification: The original marginal expression has no separately aligned modern-body counterpart; its meaning is explained here from its full note context.

Modern container: note