Flux and lask

Use in the book

Travellers’ fluxes appear beside burning fevers in the warning about unfamiliar foods. Burton’s explanation blames fruits and a sudden dietary change, then turns to the supposed power of habit. A related maritime passage attributes fluxes to excessive heat. The supplied comparison with Hawkins preserves differences: Burton makes the climate the worst, rather than one of the worst, and compresses a source that also invokes cold breezes meeting heated bodies. The historical explanations are not harmonized into a single verified cause.

The minister’s sudden lask has a different narrative function. It forces an embarrassing retreat; discovery by parishioners is followed by shame, withdrawal from the pulpit and wasting melancholy. The bowel event and the emotional consequence occupy separate roles. The margin adds his suspicion that the women would accuse him of a base offence, extending the body’s embarrassment rather than merely repeating it. Foreest’s exact case remains to be collated.

Bowel disease changes argumentative value elsewhere. Jehoram’s dysentery and flux appear in Burton’s theological account of punishment; dysentery is counted among favourable prognostic signs by Guianerius in a humoral evacuation account. This latter passage does not make every disease beneficial: it expressly questions whether quartan fever cures or causes melancholy. Galen’s objection to lead-pipe water again names dysenteries and fluxes, but Burton sides with a denial of harm that the supplied editorial note rejects as medically incorrect. The bodily meaning survives across these opposed evaluations.

Not every flow is diarrhoea. Crato’s marginal fluxiones accompanies obstructions without limiting the discharge to the bowels. The conditional Latin concerns haemorrhoidal bleeding, followed immediately by Montanus’s objection to that practice. In the love section, a bowel illness belongs to an analogy of contagion, while love itself is a perpetual flux among images of anguish, warfare and consuming fire. The passing bubble of beauty in Latin supplies another construction: transience rather than bodily evacuation. These descriptions carry no recommendation to induce discharges or disease.

The Latin verb extends beyond bodily discharges. Synesius’s hair begins to fall out in the account of distress at baldness; the Cyprian margin likewise names hair falling out beside Burton’s satire of ageing lovers. In verse attributed to Petronius, a lover’s limbs instead melt under honeyed heat, continuing the account of kisses. Flow also describes how one’s affairs go, how time passes slowly and joylessly, and how pleasure flows gently in absorbing narrative. Literal water flowing past a mill supplies a proverb which Burton applies to powerful adulterers escaping scrutiny. These are separately explained motions, changes and comparisons.

Related entries

Excrements

Purging

Costiveness

Calenture and ague

Water and springs

Places to read

1. Section 2 Member 1 Subsection 1 Causes of Melancholy God as a Cause · paragraphs 5–7Bowel disease participates in the scriptural catalogue of afflictions.
2. Subsection 3 Habit in Diet, Pleasure, Appetite and Necessity How They Cause Or… · paragraphs 51–53Travellers’ bowel illness accompanies burning fevers after a change of diet.
3. Subsection 5 Bad Air as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraphs 35–37Diarrhoeal disorders afflict visiting sailors in the climatic argument.
4. Subsection 6 Excessive Exercise as a Cause, and How It Acts. Solitude And… · paragraphs 19–21Frequent discharges accompany visceral obstructions in the marginal account of idleness.
5. Subsection 6. Shame and Disgrace as Causes · paragraphs 33–35A sudden bowel attack forces the minister to withdraw to a ditch.
6. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraph 42 through Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraph 2The course of affairs is linked to the state of mind in the account of poverty and social disregard.
7. Subsection 7. A Collection of Other Events That Cause Melancholy: The Death Of… · paragraphs 20–22Hair falling out is an example of distress over bodily appearance, attributed to Synesius.
8. Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraphs 8–10Slow and joyless passing time belongs to the catalogue of weariness of life.
9. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraphs 7–9It appears among disorders Guianerius counts as favourable signs in melancholy.
10. Section 2. Member 1. Subsection 1. Diet Corrected in the Choice of Food · paragraphs 40–42Diarrhoeal illness is the harm attributed to white lead from pipes in Galen’s objection.
11. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraphs 39–41Pleasure flows gently in the description of absorbing narrative.
12. Member 3. Subsection 1 Treatment of Hypochondriacal Melancholy · paragraphs 36–38The flow is haemorrhoidal bleeding, not discharge of bowel contents.
13. Subsection 2 How Love Tyrannizes Over Human Beings. Love, or Heroical… · paragraphs 43–45The marginal hair-loss phrase accompanies the satire of ageing lovers.
14. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of The… · paragraphs 15–17A bowel illness supplies one example in the analogy of love with contagious disease.
15. Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation… · paragraphs 29–31Limbs figuratively melt under honeyed heat in verse attributed to Petronius.
16. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind… · paragraphs 44–46Love is figured as an unceasing flow alongside anguish, warfare, wounds and fire.
17. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men And… · paragraphs 28–30A short-lived bubble figures the fragility of beauty.
18. The Cure of Jealousy: Avoiding Occasions for It, Keeping Occupied; Good… · paragraphs 30–32The miller proverb uses literal water flow in an argument about unequal scrutiny of adultery.

In this edition

“Calentures, Fluxes” → “burning fevers and diarrhoea” assigns the bowel sense to Fluxes alone. “suddenly taken with a lask or looseness” → “suddenly seized with diarrhoea” gives one explicit modern term for the original paired description. Diarrhoea does not carry over every possible meaning of flux into these contexts.

“a perpetual flux” becomes a perpetual flow. The Latin marginal “fluxiones” and the conditional “fluxerint” have separately identified note translations. “fluxaq; bullula” becomes a passing bubble; Burton’s subsequent English verse is translated independently. The affirmative body wording about an excellent remedy is retained despite the margin’s stronger no-better-remedy formulation; an unprinted not has not been inserted.

Latin fluere becomes fall out when the subject is hair; fluent becomes will melt when the subject is a lover’s limbs. Fluunt becomes pass with time as its subject. The wording around each verb supplies the subject and qualifications: slow and joyless belong to tarda and ingrata, while the honeyed heat belongs to mellifluo calore.

dysentery

Printed “dysentery” (English; lemma).

A bowel disease involving severe discharges.

Here: It appears among disorders Guianerius counts as favourable signs in melancholy.

Context: Guianerius’s prognostic claim follows Rhazes’s evacuation account; the same paragraph explicitly disputes the benefit of quartan fever. This does not recommend producing disease.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: dysentery

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

fluo · fluxerint

Printed “fluxerint” (Latin; lemma).

To flow; fluxerint is the form used in the conditional construction.

Here: The flow is haemorrhoidal bleeding, not discharge of bowel contents.

Context: Plater’s reported remedy is followed by Montanus’s explicit objection; the body’s awkward affirmative differs from the margin’s no-better-remedy claim.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Si Hemorroides fluxerint

Modern rendering: If the haemorrhoidal vessels flow

Modern container: note

Alignment scope: Original Latin marginal construction and supplied note translation

Word and construction: The indexed Latin form supplies the flowing or discharge meaning within the full construction; the particular bodily site is stated only where the source supplies it.

Further local use

Printed “fluit” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: fluo.

Here: The course of one’s affairs is linked to one’s state of mind in Burton’s account of poverty and social disregard.

Context: Burton quotes a maxim alongside the assertion that money gives life and soul; the margin names Euripides without an identified location.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: prout res nobis fluit, ita & animus se habet

Modern rendering: as our affairs go, so goes our state of mind

Alignment scope: Corresponding complete phrase or construction

Word and construction: Fluit supplies go in the affairs clause; res supplies affairs and nobis is recast possessively as our. The second goes renders se habet, not fluit again.

Sense relation: A figurative use of flowing for how affairs proceed, with its own object and argument.

Further local use

Printed “fluunt” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: fluo.

Here: Time seems to pass slowly and joylessly in the catalogue of weariness of life.

Context: The unattributed Latin recalls Horace according to the supplied note; it appears within Burton’s description of melancholy, not an independent medical finding.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: tarda fluunt, ingrataque tempora

Modern rendering: Slowly and joylessly the hours pass

Alignment scope: Corresponding complete phrase or construction

Word and construction: Fluunt supplies pass; tarda and ingrata supply slowly and joylessly, while tempora is rendered hours.

Sense relation: The flowing image is transferred to the passage of time; tarda and ingrata supply slowness and unpleasantness.

Further local use

Printed “fluit” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: fluo.

Here: Pleasure flows gently in absorbing narrative, illustrated by Heliodorus.

Context: The margin attributes the comment to Melanchthon; its exact source is unresolved. Burton uses it in praise of the pleasure of reading.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ubi oblectatio quædam placidè fluit, cum hilaritate conjuncta

Modern rendering: where a certain pleasure flows gently, joined with cheerfulness

Alignment scope: Corresponding complete phrase or construction

Word and construction: Fluit supplies flows; placidè supplies gently. Oblectatio quædam supplies a certain pleasure and cum hilaritate conjuncta supplies joined with cheerfulness.

Sense relation: Abstract pleasure, rather than fluid, is the subject of the figurative flowing verb.

Further local use

Printed “fluit” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: fluo.

Here: Flowing water belongs to a proverb applied to incomplete or socially unequal prosecution of adultery.

Context: Burton expands the Latin proverb in the following English sentence and conjectures that powerful offenders escaped; the metaphor’s application remains his.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Non omnem molitor quæ fluit unda videt

Modern rendering: The miller does not see all the water that flows by

Alignment scope: Corresponding complete phrase or construction

Word and construction: Fluit supplies flows; by is supplied in the modern wording, making the direction past the miller explicit. Non omnem preserves the not-all qualification.

Sense relation: The same basic flowing verb has literal water as its subject inside a proverb; the proverb has a separate social application.

fluo · fluere

Printed “fluere” (Latin; lemma).

To fall out or be shed, here of hair.

Here: Hair begins to fall out; its loss is offered as a source of distress.

Context: Burton attributes the saying to Synesius, whose humorous defence of baldness supplies the setting. His Latin intermediary remains uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: hic ubi fluere cœpit, diros ictus cordi infert

Modern rendering: When it begins to fall out, it deals dreadful blows to the heart

Alignment scope: Corresponding complete phrase or construction

Word and construction: Fluere supplies fall out; cœpit supplies begins. The English it refers to hair from the preceding context; the dreadful blows and heart belong to the following clause.

Grammar: Fluere is the present infinitive after cœpit; hair is the understood subject from the preceding discussion.

Further local use

Printed “fluunt” (Latin; lemma).

Here: Hair falls out in the marginal catalogue of bodily decline accompanying the satire of ageing lovers.

Context: The margin attributes the catalogue to Cyprian; its exact passage remains uncollated. The body is Burton’s satirical depiction.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: capilli fluunt

Modern rendering: the hair falls out

Alignment scope: Corresponding complete phrase or construction

Word and construction: Fluunt supplies falls out with capilli, hair, as its subject. The English article the is supplied.

Modern container: note

Sense relation: The same shedding sense has hair as its explicit subject.

fluo · fluent

Printed “fluent” (Latin; lemma).

To flow or melt; figuratively to dissolve.

Here: The lover’s limbs figuratively dissolve under pleasurable heat.

Context: Burton attributes the verse to Petronius; the precise poem remains unidentified. It continues his account of the power of kisses.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Jam tua mellifluo membra calore fluent

Modern rendering: At once your limbs will melt with honeyed heat

Alignment scope: Corresponding complete phrase or construction

Word and construction: Fluent supplies will melt; membra supplies limbs and tua your. Jam is rendered at once; mellifluo calore supplies with honeyed heat.

Grammar: Fluent is future indicative, third-person plural, with membra, limbs, as its subject; mellifluo calore supplies the honeyed heat.

flux · Fluxes

Printed “Fluxes” (English; lemma).

Bowel discharges or diarrhoeal illness.

Here: Travellers’ bowel illness accompanies burning fevers after a change of diet.

Context: Burton reports sailors’ experience and blames unfamiliar foods and fruits; the next paragraph turns to supposed habituation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Calentures, Fluxes

Modern rendering: burning fevers and diarrhoea

Word and construction: Fluxes supplies diarrhoea; Calentures supplies the distinct burning fevers within the joint rendering.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “flux” (English; lemma).

Here: Bowel disease participates in the scriptural catalogue of afflictions.

Context: Burton presents Jehoram’s illness within his theological account of divine punishment, not as a present medical conclusion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: dysentery and flux

Modern rendering: dysentery, diarrhoea

Word and construction: Flux supplies the bowel-discharge term in this list; the neighbouring conditions have their separate meanings.

Sense relation: The same bowel sense serves a different causal, theological or analogical argument.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fluxes” (English; lemma).

Here: Diarrhoeal disorders afflict visiting sailors in the climatic argument.

Context: Burton attributes the illness to excessive heat; the supplied Hawkins comparison notes that his source’s judgment and mechanism differ.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: fluxes, feavers, frenzies, calentures

Modern rendering: diarrhoea, fevers, frenzies and burning fevers

Word and construction: Flux supplies the bowel-discharge term in this list; the neighbouring conditions have their separate meanings.

Sense relation: The same bowel sense serves a different causal, theological or analogical argument.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “fluxes” (English; lemma).

Here: Diarrhoeal illness is the harm attributed to white lead from pipes in Galen’s objection.

Context: Burton endorses Alsarius’s denial; the supplied editorial note explicitly rejects that denial as medically incorrect.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: dysenteries and fluxes

Modern rendering: dysentery and diarrhoea

Word and construction: Flux supplies the bowel-discharge term in this list; the neighbouring conditions have their separate meanings.

Sense relation: The same bowel sense serves a different causal, theological or analogical argument.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Flux” (English; lemma).

Here: A bowel illness supplies one example in the analogy of love with contagious disease.

Context: Burton’s spirits-and-blood account belongs to historical erotic physiology; the supplied comparison notes that Ficino’s list differs.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Plague, Itch, Scabs, Flux

Modern rendering: plague, itching, scabs, flux

Word and construction: Flux supplies the bowel-discharge term in this list; the neighbouring conditions have their separate meanings.

Sense relation: The same bowel sense serves a different causal, theological or analogical argument.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

flux

Printed “flux” (English; lemma).

A flow or discharge, here used figuratively of love.

Here: Love is figured as an unceasing flow alongside anguish, warfare, wounds and fire.

Context: Burton’s accumulating metaphors follow an anecdote in which frustrated love is itself punishment; flux is not a diagnosis of diarrhoea here.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Love is a perpetual flux

Modern rendering: love is a perpetual flow

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

fluxio

Printed “fluxiones” (Latin; lemma).

Flows or bodily discharges.

Here: Frequent discharges accompany visceral obstructions in the marginal account of idleness.

Context: Crato’s Latin contrasts both excessive exercise and inactivity as harmful; fluxiones does not specify diarrhoea alone.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: crebras fluxiones

Modern rendering: frequent fluxes

Modern container: note

Alignment scope: Original Latin marginal construction and supplied note translation

Word and construction: The indexed Latin form supplies the flowing or discharge meaning within the full construction; the particular bodily site is stated only where the source supplies it.

fluxus

Printed “fluxaq;” (Latin; lemma).

Passing or transient, with the attached and.

Here: A short-lived bubble figures the fragility of beauty.

Context: The Latin verse is attributed to Bauhusius; Burton’s following English is a separate adaptation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: fluxaq; bullula

Modern rendering: a passing bubble

Alignment scope: Local adjectival noun phrase; the attached conjunction is absorbed into the modern list

Word and construction: Fluxa modifies bullula, bubble, as passing; q; abbreviates the attached conjunction and. The modern a is supplied for English idiom.

lask

Printed “lask” (English; lemma).

Diarrhoea or looseness of the bowels.

Here: A sudden bowel attack forces the minister to withdraw to a ditch.

Context: Foreest’s reported case makes subsequent shame the emotional cause of withdrawal and wasting; the margin adds fear of accusation, and the exact case remains uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: suddenly taken with a lask or looseness

Modern rendering: suddenly seized with diarrhoea

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.