Intention and remission

Use in the book

The early descriptions repeatedly vary the degree of impairment, humour and imagination. In the definition of dotage, severity generally differs between people. The explanation of melancholy dispositions similarly joins the strength or weakness of the humour to the body’s and rational soul’s capacity to resist. Imagination is heightened or relaxed; the symptom catalogue makes differences of intensity part of the reason that symptoms vary. These are gradations within Burton’s historical explanatory schemes.

The account of women’s symptoms says that further objects or passions intensify or diminish them, within a historical theory of uterine sympathy. In the account of appetite and mental effort, intention is tension arising from disturbances, while intentive operations demand concentration that the exhausted soul lacks spirits to sustain. A subsequent prognosis attributes to Hercules de Saxonia the judgement that the form accompanied by laughter is the safest, mildest and least severe of all. Remiss is comparative mildness there, not an assurance that every such illness is harmless.

Intend also takes an object that is strengthened or attended to. Reported instruments intend hearing; the claim is introduced as something people speak of. The lover, by contrast, is told not to intend one woman more than the rest: the object receives attention rather than increased sensory power. Burton says that removal and a short absence will weaken the attachment; the next beautiful person will only probably alter it. In the religious-melancholy discussion, intended and remitted again marks the changing intensity of symptoms, alongside differing willingness to accept counsel.

Other uses prevent a single technical gloss from swallowing the family. Burton’s prose can be more elaborate or more relaxed; educational remissness is excessive laxity; remission from work is relief. A reported royal speech uses intention for purpose, and the pastoral assurance of remission of sins concerns forgiveness. The theological expression must not be read as a statement about the course of an illness.

Intent describes the concentrated imagination in the account of humours and bodily spirits. Intensive likewise has two constructions: intense pleasure in Laurentius’s explanation of false beliefs, and absorbed mental activity in the historical warning against concentration after meals.

The awkward phrase remitting anger, and reason has different objects and effects: the margin explains that anger is relieved while obstructed reason is freed. The claim about moderate sexual activity concerns some people only, and the ensuing discussion sharply restricts it by prior cause, constitution and accustomed practice; this is historical medical reasoning.

In the love discussion, pleasantly intended describes a passion taking a pleasant course. Burton asks how much worse its effects must be when fear and sorrow accompany it; the phrase is not simply another instance of increased intensity.

Related entries

Remedy by diversion: Turning attention elsewhere.

Confer and conference: Comparison and consultation as activities of attention.

Sleep and waking: Waking within the regulation of activity and rest.

Imagination: The imagination whose force varies.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 27–29Relaxed and elaborate prose in the author’s account of composition.
2. Subsection 4. Mental Impairment, Frenzy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropy, St… · paragraphs 17–19The gradation of impairment and the supplied subject severity.
3. Subsection 5. Melancholy as a Passing State, Loosely So Called; the Different… · paragraphs 14–16Humoral intensity and differing capacities of resistance.
4. Member 3 Subsection 1 Passions and Disturbances of the Mind and How They Cause… · paragraphs 2–4Intent imagination within the historical account of spirits and humours.
5. Subsection 2. The Power of Imagination · paragraph 33 through Subsection 3. Classification of the Passions · paragraph 1Imagination’s heightened or relaxed force.
6. Subsection 2 Education as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraphs 46–48Educational laxity contrasted with excessive harshness.
7. Section 3. Member 1. Subsection 1. Symptoms or Signs of Melancholy in the Body · paragraphs 4–6Variable intensity in the symptom catalogue.
8. Subsection 4 Symptoms of Melancholy in Unmarried Women, Nuns and Widows · paragraphs 29–31Historical uterine-sympathy claims and changing symptoms.
9. Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraphs 2–4Intense pleasure in Laurentius’s distinct explanation of false beliefs about rank.
10. Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraphs 10–12Tension, concentration and the exhaustion of spirits.
11. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraphs 5–7The attributed comparative prognosis.
12. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraphs 1–8Relieving anger and freeing reason: the attributed claim, its limited scope and the ensuing restrictions.
13. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraphs 4–6The reported strengthening of hearing.
14. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraphs 21–23Remission as relief from excessive work.
15. Subsection 6 Remedies for Accompanying Symptoms: To Bring Sleep, and Against… · paragraphs 9–11Intensive mental occupation in the specifically post-meal historical warning.
16. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind… · paragraphs 40–42The pleasant course of love contrasted with its stronger troubled effects.
17. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul… · paragraphs 4–6Attention to a woman and counsel against fixation.
18. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul… · paragraphs 8–10Absence and the weakening of attachment.
19. Subsection 5 the Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have… · paragraphs 17–19Intention as purpose in a reported royal speech.
20. Symptoms of Despair: Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, Horror of Conscience… · paragraph 45 through Third Partition · Subsection 5 · paragraph 1Changing symptoms and different responses to counsel.
21. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 23–25Remission of sins and the qualifications on pastoral reassurance.

In this edition

‘intended or remitted in particular men’ belongs to the fuller construction ‘is for the most part intended or remitted in particular men’, rendered ‘its severity generally varies from person to person’. The explicit severity is supplied in the recasting, and generally represents for the most part. ‘intended or remitted’ becomes ‘heightened or relaxed’ and ‘intensified or diminished’. The vocabulary expresses degree rather than purpose.

‘intention proceeds from perturbations’ becomes ‘tension proceeds from disturbances’; ‘intentive operations’ becomes ‘operations requiring concentration’. In ‘most secure, gentle, and remiss’, rendered ‘safest, mildest and least severe’, each adjective has its own contribution: remiss supplies least severe. ‘to intend hearing’ becomes ‘to strengthen hearing’, whereas ‘do not intend her more then the rest’ becomes ‘pay her no more attention than the rest’. Finally, ‘are intended and remitted’ becomes ‘intensify or lessen’ in the symptom discussion. The varied equivalents preserve degree, strain and direction of attention without excluding the independently attested senses of purpose and forgiveness.

intend

Printed “intended” (English; lemma).

Directed or applied; here describing the course taken by the passion.

Here: The phrase concerns the direction or course of pleasant love, in a rhetorical comparison with troubled love.

Context: Burton argues from the effects of pleasant love to the stronger torments of love accompanied, as he says commonly, by fear and sorrow. The preceding reported visions are historical accounts, not confirmation of their reality.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: if it be pleasantly intended

Modern rendering: when its course is pleasant

Alignment scope: Corresponding subordinate clause with verbal application recast as a noun and predicate.

Word and construction: Intended is recast through course; pleasantly supplies pleasant. The conditional clause is rendered with when within the larger rhetorical if-question.

intensive · local use 1

Printed “intensive” (English; lemma).

Intense or strong in degree.

Here: The explanation assigns intense pleasure to Laurentius’s answer about imagined rank.

Context: Laurentius’s answer concerns imagined rank; Fracastorius’s preceding explanation concerns bodily perceptions. The text’s compressed alternative of pleasure or displeasure must not be silently repaired.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a very intensive pleasure

Modern rendering: intense pleasure

Alignment scope: Corresponding noun phrase with article and explicit degree word omitted.

Word and construction: Intensive supplies intense and pleasure remains pleasure; the indefinite article and separate intensifier very are not separately rendered in the modern phrase.

intensive · local use 2

Printed “intensive” (English; lemma).

Intensely occupied or mentally absorbed.

Here: Mental absorption is restricted specifically after meals in this historical regimen.

Context: The warning belongs to the historical regimen about supposed rising fumes; it is specifically after meals, not a general rejection of study.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: not to study or to be intensive after meals

Modern rendering: avoiding study or intense concentration after meals

Alignment scope: Corresponding coordinated prohibition recast as a gerund construction.

Word and construction: To be intensive is recast as the noun phrase intense concentration; study remains study, after meals retains the time condition, and not becomes the shared avoiding construction.

intent

Printed “intent” (English; lemma).

Fixed, concentrated or strongly directed in attention.

Here: The conditional description concerns the concentrated imagination and its historical bodily effects.

Context: This is the conditional description of imagination, within historical spirits-and-humours physiology; it does not establish a modern clinical mechanism.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: very apprehensive, intent, and violent

Modern rendering: highly receptive, intent and violent

Word and construction: Intent remains intent; apprehensive supplies receptive and violent remains separate. Very is recast as highly before receptive.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intended or remitted · local use 1

Printed “intended or remitted” (English; family).

Intended means intensified; remitted means lessened or relaxed.

Here: The degree of the impairment differs between individuals.

Context: Burton reports differing definitions of dotage and then distinguishes inborn from acquired forms.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: is for the most part intended or remitted in particular men

Modern rendering: its severity generally varies from person to person

Word and construction: The paired opposites are recast as severity varies; generally represents for the most part, and from person to person represents in particular men.

Alignment qualification: The modern adds an explicit possessive subject, its severity, when recasting the clause; severity names the dimension implicit in the original paired verbs.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intended or remitted · local use 2

Printed “intended or remitted” (English; family).

Intensified or relaxed.

Here: The force of imagination varies within Burton’s explanation of passions.

Context: In Burton’s historical account, the force of passions and the depth of their impressions vary with the intensity of imagination and the disposition of the humours.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: intended or remitted

Modern rendering: heightened or relaxed

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intended or remitted · local use 3

Printed “intended or remitted” (English; family).

Increased or reduced in intensity.

Here: Variable humours help explain the variety of symptoms.

Context: The explanation belongs to Burton’s historical humoral framework.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: intended or remitted

Modern rendering: intensified or lessened

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “intended” (English; family).

Here: The strength or weakness of the humour is one variable alongside bodily and rational capacity to resist; a single catarrhal discharge versus a habitual one supplies Burton’s historical analogy.

Context: The comparison is attributed to Seneca, with the apparatus correcting the source locator; the bodily account remains historical.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the humor it self is intended, or remitted

Modern rendering: the strength or weakness of the humour itself

Alignment scope: Corresponding subject-and-predicate construction recast as a noun phrase.

Word and construction: Intended and remitted supply the opposed strength and weakness; the humor it self becomes the dependent phrase of the humour itself. The phrase is nominalized, not a word-for-word verbal rendering.

Sense relation: The same lexical sense in a further distinct local use or qualification.

Intention and remission · intended or remitted · local use 4

Printed “intended or remitted” (English; family).

Increased or reduced in intensity.

Here: Further objects or passions alter the symptoms under discussion.

Context: The claimed mechanism involves historical theories of uterine sympathy; it is not established modern physiology.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: intended or remitted

Modern rendering: intensified or diminished

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intention · local use 1

Printed “intention” (English; family).

Tension or strain.

Here: Disturbance produces tension in the account of appetite and mental exhaustion.

Context: Burton moves from Aetius’s physiological answer to an account of the soul’s depleted spirits.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: intention proceeds from perturbations

Modern rendering: tension proceeds from disturbances

Word and construction: Intention supplies tension; proceeds from expresses causal direction, and perturbations supplies disturbances.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intentive

Printed “intentive” (English; family).

Requiring concentrated attention.

Here: The exhausted soul cannot attend precisely to numerous demanding operations.

Context: The historical explanation invokes lack of spirits and the overpowering of the soul by passion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: intentive operations

Modern rendering: operations requiring concentration

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · remiss

Printed “remiss” (English; family).

Less severe or intense.

Here: The form of illness accompanied by laughter is comparatively mild in the cited prognosis.

Context: The judgement is attributed to Hercules de Saxonia; most and of all others make it comparative.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: most secure, gentle, and remiss

Modern rendering: safest, mildest and least severe

Word and construction: Secure contributes safe, gentle mild, and remiss mild or less intense. Shared most supplies superlative force, with of all others defining the comparison set in the wider sentence; the modern accordingly has safest, mildest and least severe. Remiss alone does not supply the entire list.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intend · local use 1

Printed “intend” (English; family).

To strengthen or enhance.

Here: The purpose assigned to reported hearing instruments is improvement of hearing.

Context: Some speak of marks a report rather than Burton’s demonstrated result; the following optical invention is another reported project.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to intend hearing

Modern rendering: to strengthen hearing

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intend · local use 2

Printed “intend” (English; family).

To direct or fix attention upon.

Here: The injunction limits special attention to one woman in the counsel against growing erotic fixation.

Context: Burton combines scriptural and literary counsel; the apparatus notes the narrower setting of Jerome’s advice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: do not intend her more then the rest

Modern rendering: pay her no more attention than the rest

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · remitted

Printed “remitted” (English; family).

Lessened or weakened.

Here: The lover’s attachment is expected to lose force with absence and new surroundings.

Context: Burton argues for change of place and then qualifies the likely effect of encountering another attractive object.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: it will be remitted

Modern rendering: it will weaken

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intended and remitted

Printed “intended and remitted” (English; family).

Increase and decrease in intensity.

Here: Symptoms vary with the severity of the illness and sufferers differ in receptiveness to help.

Context: The preceding beliefs about being damned are the sufferers’ thoughts in Platter’s reported cases; they are not confirmed judgments.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: are intended and remitted

Modern rendering: intensify or lessen

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · remisse

Printed “remisse” (English; family).

Relaxed or less elaborately worked.

Here: The contrast describes variations in the author’s prose.

Context: Burton describes his own uneven composition in the address to the reader.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: now more elaborate, then remisse

Modern rendering: more elaborate, then more relaxed

Alignment scope: Contrasting phrases with an explicitly identified omitted temporal marker.

Alignment qualification: The modern omits the initial now while retaining the alternation expressed by more elaborate, then more relaxed.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · remisness

Printed “remisness” (English; family).

Laxity or insufficient discipline.

Here: The term names the opposite defect to excessively harsh schooling.

Context: Burton condemns both educational extremes; this is an ethical assessment, not a measure of symptom severity.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: too much remisness

Modern rendering: excessive laxity

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · remission · local use 1

Printed “remission” (English; family).

Relaxation or relief from labour.

Here: The bodily servant, compared with an ox, is worked without adequate rest.

Context: Burton argues for balanced bodily and mental activity.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: no respite, or remission

Modern rendering: no respite or relief

Word and construction: Respite retains respite; remission contributes relief, with the shared negation preserved.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · intention · local use 2

Printed “intention” (English; family).

Purpose or intended course of action.

Here: Elizabeth imagines speaking with Henry and perhaps letting slip a word that would disclose her intention; the passage expresses her desire, not a completed declaration or a stated category of acceptable marriage.

Context: Burton gives a literary historical report of Elizabeth’s speech; it is not presented as independently verified verbatim speech.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: mine intention

Modern rendering: my intention

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Intention and remission · remission · local use 2

Printed “remission” (English; family).

Forgiveness or pardon.

Here: The promise concerns sin and reconciliation with God.

Context: Burton’s pastoral argument addresses those who are truly penitent and desire reconciliation; the noun here does not mean a reduction of symptoms.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: remission of sins

Modern rendering: the forgiveness of sins

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

remit

Printed “remitting” (English; lemma).

To relax or release; locally anger is relieved and restrained reason is set free.

Here: The same participle has two objects with different effects: anger is relieved and reason released.

Context: Peter Forestus supplies the attributed claim; the initial moderate use and some parties limits, and the subsequent cautions, must remain explicit. No present-day prescription.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: remitting anger, and reason, that was otherwise bound

Modern rendering: relieving anger and freeing reason that was otherwise held captive

Alignment scope: Corresponding coordinated construction, with one original participle differentiated into two English verbs.

Word and construction: The single original participle governs two objects awkwardly; the modern distinguishes relieving anger from freeing reason. The original margin uses remittit for alleviating anger and Solvit for freeing the obstructed power of reason, which guides the differentiated rendering.