Law and justice

Use in the book

The public satire places an abundance of laws, lawyers and tribunals beside a scarcity of justice. Judges condemn faults they commit themselves; harmless people suffer while predators sit in judgment. Laws become as pliable as a nose of wax, influenced by friends, bribery and favour. A sentence, a judicial judgment, is delayed or changed ad arbitrium judicis, at the judge’s discretion, while the case remains the same. The compressed “or firm in his opinion, cast in his?” is uncertain: the modern provisionally makes the judge firm and the litigant defeated, or cast, in court. This cannot be treated as a fully resolved sentence. The attack extends beyond court procedure to a class distinction between punished poverty and licensed wealth, and then to the need to prevent destitution instead of merely punishing its consequences.

The later attack on legal business is vehement but expressly limited. Burton means the hungry Pettefoggers, rabulas forenses, courtroom ranters; he loves and honours good laws and worthy lawyers as the commonwealth’s oracles and pilots. Rabula means a wrangling advocate, and forensis belonging to the law court. His accusation is that bad practitioners profess peace while feeding on disputes, extract repeated fees, and prolong a case until its property is consumed. The Ciceronian comparison calls deceit concealed by apparent honesty especially pernicious injustice. Yet Burton finally leaves responsibility open: the fault may lie with lawyers, clients, laws, two of these or all three. His complaint is not a demonstrated verdict against every lawyer or every litigant.

Arbitration offers a different model. Augustine’s communes arbitros are arbitrators agreed upon by both sides; the next English “common arbitrators” are public mediators in Simler’s reported Swiss towns. Their friendly composition is an amicable settlement. The original Swiss margin adds the important condition “if possible.” Burton next describes swift judicial settlement at Fez, without appeals or delays, but his brief account does not establish a complete history of its legal institutions. The chapter proceeds through complaints about legal verbosity and changing rules to scriptural appeals for reconciliation. The later counsel “Go not to law without great cause” likewise limits litigation to a serious reason rather than banning it altogether.

The imagined commonwealth turns these complaints into institutions. Its few laws are plainly written in the mother tongue and strictly observed. Burton recognizes that perfect officials cannot be found and that available people must be used. Litigants should speak for themselves if possible; professional fees are either replaced by public support or kept small and deferred until completion. A deposit is forfeited only if the complaint proves wrongful, rash or malicious; an alternative preliminary commission tests whether there is a substantial case. At least three public arbitrators sit together, serving by rotation or lot. Limits on delay and appeals accompany examinations, supervision, rewards and review of officeholders.

The standard is æquabile jus, equal justice: æquabile means equitable or even, and jus law, right or justice. A proling, predatory, officer must not exploit authority to oppress inferiors. Flea here means fleece or strip through exploitation; its literal form flead, flayed, occurs in the reported Amestris story, whose distribution of injuries differs from the cited Herodotus. Insult in the public ideal means lord it over another, while insulting after victory and the counsel “Insult not” concern arrogant exultation. Burton imagines affection joining laws and authority in harmony between ranks, not the disappearance of rank. His denunciation of workers abandoned in old age makes injustice a matter of public provision as well as court procedure; severe penalties and forms of compulsory labour nevertheless remain within the ideal.

Legal disciplines have their own rival claims. Budé’s civil law is a tower of wisdom, but Burton places that praise beside other disciplines’ competing claims. The accomplished Civilian later finds English practice restricted by prohibitions and all-devouring municipal laws, the national common-law system. The charge of an unlearned and barbarous study belongs to this scholarly and jurisdictional rivalry. The ensuing satire attacks pettifoggers alongside medical empirics while allowing that an honest practitioner must struggle to maintain his credit among them. Elsewhere the Civilians of antiquity appoint guardians for spendthrifts: the supplied Digest comparison supports guardianship, not the separate story of public shaming at Padua. “Country Justice” means local magisterial duties in Burton’s criticism of minimally educated patrons.

Outside the courts, a law of nature may be normative or descriptive. Regulus’s duty to keep a promise, even to an enemy, exemplifies a moral principle; Burton’s story expressly allows return or payment of ransom. The consolation about interrupted hopes instead calls adversity a condition from which no mortal is exempt, contrasting human life with the uninterrupted heavenly spheres of older cosmology. To be a law unto himself is favourably used for dietary self-observation, because constitutions differ; in the earlier satire, being one’s own law and example condemns the person who listens to nobody else. A third natural-law sense concerns physical processes: in the historical account of sympathy between bodily parts, nature’s law makes the heart and other organs suffer with the affected brain. Neither this physiology nor the personal-rule metaphor is identical with the moral duty of keeping a promise.

Lawful and unlawful mean permitted and forbidden. In the historical cure discussion Burton first separates the question whether magic can work from the question whether it ought to be used. He asserts that celebrated cures of this kind happen daily, says such cures can be performed, and then takes that efficacy as the premise for asking whether seeking them is lawful. He reports permissive opinions, including Paracelsus’s preference for relief regardless of its agent, then rejects magical cures on theological grounds. The continuation recommends prayer together with ordinary medical means, not prayer alone. Medical permission also appears in Vega’s opinion that prepared white hellebore may be lawfully given: the surrounding cautions, disagreement and reports of injury prevent that claim from becoming an unqualified recommendation. Permission also has a positive application: Burton defends dancing as a lawful recreation when timely, moderate and sober, and later opposes scruples that deny good and lawful pleasures. These are the work’s historical arguments, not present treatment or legal advice.

The Latin lex talionis, law of retaliation, can describe Burton’s exchange of criticism with readers. In practical counsel, however, his recognition of the retaliatory impulse is followed by an instruction to interrupt it: do no wrong and endure wrong patiently. Divine justice has a different setting. The causal account presents illness as punishment for sin, with created things acting as instruments. The reply to despair joins God’s justice to mercy, interpreting affliction as a path to repentance and salvation rather than proof that the sufferer is abandoned. This is Burton’s theology of consolation, not a medical explanation of suffering.

Law may also name a religious system. Burton uses it in his hostile account of Islam. Latin lex and lege carry the same religious sense in the astrological theory reported through Vanini: religions supposedly rise and fall with celestial influences. Burton criticizes this account and reproduces Vanini’s declared Christian rejection of the doctrines he has described; the disclaimer’s sincerity remains unresolved.

Justice also has an inward beauty. Augustine’s martyrs exemplify a moral virtue visible to the heart despite bodily suffering; the original Latin justitiæ means of justice. Elsewhere Justice leaves the earth in the figure of Astraea, and Faith is personified as Justice’s sister in Burton’s lament over failed charity and proliferating lawsuits. By contrast, the beauty discussion attributes an exclamation praising a favourable judgment to Burton’s author: its privilege for beauty does not establish impartial judicial practice.

Private and religious relations extend the vocabulary. Reported Roman marriage disputes were heard by indifferent, impartial, arbitrators and commonly settled; the later resort to divorce is conditional, difficult and reserved for failure of other remedies. The law of love in Emilia’s reported speech means sharing the beloved’s desires and refusals, while Burton’s altered Boethian question asks who can impose a law on love at all. Latin lex means a rule or law, with legem its accusative form. These formulations characterize lovers’ behaviour, including harmful pursuit, rather than authorize it. Finally, club law means coercion by brute force in Burton’s account of suppressing religious opponents. His subsequent middle course begins with gentle admonition but still includes coercive laws and penalties; its contrast with violence cannot be simplified into universal toleration.

Related entries

Judgment: Judgment as a mental power and as a decision.

Honest: Honesty, moral worth and deceptive appearance.

Legal evidence: Legal documents, deeds and evidentiary language.

Suit: Litigation, petition and courtship as suit.

Commonwealth: The public body and its institutions.

Policy: Governmental policy and the use of religion.

Utopia: The imagined constitution and its limits.

Civil and barbarous: Civil law and the wider senses of civil.

Marriage: Marriage disputes and remedies.

Religious melancholy: Religious authority, coercion and toleration.

Despair: Divine justice and mercy in the reply to despair.

Revenge: Retaliation and the counterargument for restraint.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 5–8reciprocal criticism as the law of retaliation, with qualified self-criticism.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 15–22legal abundance, corrupt judgment, the uncertain cast clause, class bias and prevention of destitution.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 19–23the self-admirer as his own law and example.
4. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 24–42predatory legal business, the express worthy-lawyer exception, shared responsibility, arbitration and reconciliation.
5. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 18–22accessible laws within the imagined monarchy and its account of rank.
6. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 28–43available officials, qualified fee and complaint reforms, public arbitrators, equal justice and provision for labour.
7. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 1–4severe penalties and distinctions within the ideal’s treatment of servitude.
8. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 4–8Budé’s praise of civil law among competing professional claims.
9. Subsection 10. Understanding · paragraphs 30–34conscience, Regulus and the moral law of nature.
10. Subsection 2. The Part Affected The Faculty Affected and the People Affected · paragraphs 14–18physical sympathy between bodily parts as a law of nature in historical medicine.
11. Section 2 Member 1 Subsection 1 Causes of Melancholy God as a Cause · paragraphs 3–16divine justice, punishment and subordinate natural instruments.
12. Subsection 13. Love of Gambling and the Like, and Excessive Pleasures, as Causes · paragraphs 40–42, 1–2ancient civil lawyers’ guardianship and the separate Padua shame report.
13. Subsection 14 Self-Love, Vainglory, Praise, Honour, Excessive Applause, Pride, Too Much Joy, and So on, as Causes · paragraphs 35–39insulting as exulting after victory, applied to literary fame; sequence pages 123–124 have 123 printed as 113.
14. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 35–42, 1civil and municipal law, restricted employment, pettifoggers and honest practitioners.
15. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 29–33country Justice and the criticism of uneducated patrons.
16. The Second Partition. The Cure of Melancholy. Section 1. Member 1. Subsection 1. Unlawful Cures Rejected · paragraphs 33–53; Member 2. Lawful Cures, First From God · paragraphs 1–8lawful and unlawful cures, efficacy separated from permission, replies to permissive opinions, and prayer with medicine; printed labels 216, 220–222, with the opening at PDF page 327 (sequence page 227) and the intervening numbering discontinuity retained.
17. Subsection 2. Diet Corrected in Quantity · paragraphs 19–23individual constitutions and being a law to oneself.
18. Section 3 Member 1. Subsection 1 A Digression on Consolation, Containing Remedies for Every Kind of Discontent · paragraphs 7–11adversity as a universal condition of mortal life.
19. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 7–11the retaliatory impulse followed by patient restraint.
20. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 16–20avoiding arrogant exultation and litigating only for serious cause.
21. Member 2 Subsection 1 Single Substances That Purge Upwards · paragraphs 37–41lawfully as medical permissibility, within conflicting claims and warnings about white hellebore.
22. Subsection 3 Honourable Objects of Love · paragraphs 36–40justice’s inward beauty and the qualified Augustinian citation.
23. Member 3 Charity Combining All Three Kinds of Love Pleasant Profitable and Honourable · paragraphs 27–33Astraea, personified Justice, failed charity and lawsuits.
24. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraphs 43–47attributed praise of beauty’s judicial privilege.
25. Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation, Singing, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales and Sights, Kissing, Familiarity, Tokens, Gifts, Bribes, Promises, Declarations, Tears, and So On · paragraphs 45–49dancing defended as lawful under express conditions of timing, moderation and sobriety.
26. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 1–7a law imposed on love and love’s own rule of shared desires and refusals.
27. Prognostics of Jealousy: Despair, Madness, Killing Themselves and Others · paragraphs 5–9flead in a reported account of jealousy and violence, with the source discrepancy retained.
28. Prevention Before or After Marriage: Plato’s Community of Wives; Marrying a Courtesan; Love Potions; Brothels; Marrying Someone Equal in Age and Fortune, From a Good Family, Well Educated and of Good Standing; Treating Wives Well; and So On · paragraphs 4–12impartial marital arbitration, usual settlement and the qualified last resort to divorce.
29. General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 8–12law as a religious system in Burton’s polemical account of Islam.
30. Subsection 4. Prognosis of Religious Melancholy · paragraphs 42–50good and lawful recreation defended against excessive scruple.
31. Subsection 5 The Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraphs 18–24club law, toleration arguments and Burton’s coercive middle course.
32. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraphs 21–29religious lex and lege in the contested astrological theory, including Vanini’s stated rejection.
33. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 23–33divine justice joined to mercy in the reply to the sufferer’s sense of abandonment.

In this edition

The selected vocabulary distinguishes law, lawes and the legal profession from the wider rules of nature, conscience, experience and love. Civilian becomes civil lawyer; municipal Laws becomes laws of our own country. Pettefoggers and pettifoggers share their disreputable professional sense; dayesmen becomes mediators, and composition becomes settlement. The public common arbitrators differ from the agreed-upon communes arbitros. Sentence becomes judgement and cast is provisionally understood as defeated in court. A nose of wax includes the supplied explanation moulded.

The Latin constructions retain their components: rabulas forenses, courtroom ranters; ad arbitrium judicis, at the judge’s discretion; and æquabile jus, equal justice. Lex and legem name a rule or law; justitiæ names justice in a genitive construction, while injustitia and injustitiæ name injustice. The Swiss margin’s if possible, the limits on fees and wrongful complaints, and the warning against litigation without serious cause matter as much as the translated nouns.

Proling becomes predatory; flea becomes figurative fleecing, while flead is literal flayed. Insult can become lord it over or exult, according to the construction. Lawfull and Unlawfull retain the distinction between permission and prohibition; lawfully in the hellebore discussion becomes permissible within a reported opinion. The Augustinian source is printed as Psalm 84 but identified in the supplied note as Exposition of Psalm 64.8, corresponding to Psalm 65 in common English numbering. The marginal reference also adds bodily deformity beyond the English paraphrase. These selected uses preserve the work’s legal, medical and religious arguments without treating them as current guidance.

a law unto oneself

Printed “a law unto himself” (English; phrase).

One’s own practical rule or standard: law means a guiding principle, and unto himself makes it personal.

Here: Dietary self-observation suited to the individual constitution.

Context: Burton’s historical regimen praises experience because what benefits one may harm another; the statement is not current medical advice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: let every man observe, and be a law unto himself

Modern rendering: Let everyone observe himself and be a law to himself

Word and construction: Himself after observe is supplied in the modern; unto becomes to in the otherwise parallel personal-rule phrase.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “a law and example to himself” (English; phrase).

Citation key: a law unto oneself.

Here: One’s own exclusive standard and model.

Context: Here the expression criticizes the self-admirer who refuses to hear or imitate anyone else, contrasting with its favourable dietary application.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a law and example to himself

Modern rendering: he is his own law and example

Word and construction: He is is supplied from the preceding person; to himself is recast as his own, and example remains distinct from law.

Sense relation: The same personal-rule metaphor, given an opposed evaluation by the local context.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

ad arbitrium judicis

Printed “ad arbitrium judicis” (Latin; phrase).

At the judge’s discretion: ad means according to or at, arbitrium discretion or decision, and judicis of the judge.

Here: The power to change a sentence while the case remains the same.

Context: This occurrence forms part of the attack on mutable judgments; it does not condemn every exercise of judicial discretion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ad arbitrium judicis

Modern rendering: at the judge’s discretion

Word and construction: The complete Latin construction receives the complete English phrase.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

arbitrator

Printed “common arbitrators” (English; lemma).

A person appointed or agreed upon to hear and settle a dispute. Common here means public.

Here: Town mediators in Simler’s reported Swiss practice.

Context: The English praises their success; the original margin expressly says settlement if possible.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: common arbitrators

Modern rendering: public arbitrators

Word and construction: Common supplies public, arbitrators is retained; it does not mean mediocre or commonplace.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “communes arbitros” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: arbiter.

Here: Arbitrators shared or agreed upon by the parties; arbitros is an inflected plural of arbiter, and communes means common to both sides.

Context: Burton attributes former consensual settlement to Augustine, whose precise source is unlocated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: per communes arbitros

Modern rendering: through arbitrators agreed upon by both sides

Word and construction: Per supplies through; communes is expanded as agreed upon by both sides, unlike public in the next English example.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “common arbitrators” (English; lemma).

Citation key: arbitrator.

Here: Public adjudicators assigned to hear and end disputes.

Context: Burton’s imagined officers sit at least three together, rotating or chosen by lot; these are proposals, not existing universal rules.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: as common arbitrators to hear causes, and end all controversies

Modern rendering: serving as public arbitrators to hear cases and settle every dispute

Word and construction: Common supplies public, causes cases, and controversies disputes; serving makes the role explicit.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “indifferent arbitrators” (English; lemma).

Citation key: arbitrator.

Here: Impartial persons who hear and settle disputes.

Context: The reported Roman marriage practice says disputes were commonly, not invariably, settled; the later discussion permits divorce only as a difficult last resort when other remedies fail.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: before some indifferent arbitrators and friends

Modern rendering: before impartial arbitrators and friends

Word and construction: Indifferent supplies impartial, not uninterested. The original some is not separately expressed in the modern phrase.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

cast

Printed “cast” (English; lemma).

Defeated in a legal case.

Here: The supplied interpretation takes the litigant as losing on his own opinion while the judge holds to his.

Context: The compressed printed clause remains uncertain; the modern expands a provisional reading rather than correcting the original.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: or firm in his opinion, cast in his?

Modern rendering: Or he holds firmly to his opinion, while the litigant loses on his.

Word and construction: Cast supplies loses in court. He, holds, while and the litigant make the elliptical construction explicit; the two possessives are provisionally assigned to judge and litigant respectively.

Uncertainty: The referents and construction of the printed question are unresolved; the supplied modern interpretation is provisional.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

civil law

Printed “civil Law” (English; phrase).

The learned Roman-based legal tradition: civil specifies that tradition and law its rules and discipline.

Here: The discipline Budé calls the tower of wisdom.

Context: Burton places this praise beside rival claims for medicine and other disciplines; he does not adopt its exclusive superiority.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: civil Law to be the tower of wisdom

Modern rendering: civil law the tower of wisdom

Word and construction: The legal name and metaphor retain equal scope within Budé’s reported judgment.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Civil Law” (English; phrase).

Citation key: civil law.

Here: The Roman-based legal system and profession.

Context: Burton complains that prohibitions and English national law restrict its jurisdiction and employment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the Civil Law with us so contracted with Prohibitions

Modern rendering: Here, prohibitions so restrict the civil law

Word and construction: With us supplies Here; the passive contracted becomes active restrict, with prohibitions retaining the instrument.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

civilian

Printed “Civilian” (English; lemma).

A jurist specializing in Roman-based civil law.

Here: An accomplished doctor of law who may still lack a viable field of practice.

Context: The example belongs to disappointment in professional prospects.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: an excellent Civilian of good worth

Modern rendering: an excellent and accomplished civil lawyer

Word and construction: Civilian supplies civil lawyer; of good worth contributes accomplished in the modern arrangement.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Civilians” (English; lemma).

Citation key: civilian.

Here: Jurists of the civil-law tradition.

Context: Ancient guardianship of spendthrifts is attributed to the civil lawyers; the Digest comparison supports guardianship, not the preceding Padua shame ritual.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: The Civilians of old set guardians

Modern rendering: The civil lawyers of antiquity appointed guardians

Word and construction: Civilians supplies civil lawyers, of old of antiquity, and set appointed.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

club law

Printed “club law” (English; phrase).

Rule by brute force: club names the instrument of violence, and law is used for coercive control.

Here: Burton’s description of a purported policy of beating or suppressing religious opponents rather than reasoning with them.

Context: His attribution to Bernard remains uncollated; his later preferred middle course starts gently but still includes coercive laws, fines and suppression.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: club law

Modern rendering: the law of the club

Word and construction: The metaphor is expanded without making it a formal statutory title.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

composition

Printed “composition” (English; lemma).

An agreement or settlement between disputing parties.

Here: The friendly settlement achieved by the reported Swiss mediators.

Context: The margin’s if possible prevents a promise that every disagreement can be settled amicably.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a friendly composition betwixt man and man

Modern rendering: an amicable settlement between one person and another

Word and construction: Composition supplies settlement, friendly amicable; the paired parties retain equal scope.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

daysman

Printed “dayesmen” (English; lemma).

A mediator who intervenes to settle a dispute.

Here: An English alternative name for Simler’s reported public arbitrators.

Context: The success of friendly settlement is reported and qualified by if possible in the original margin.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: or dayesmen

Modern rendering: or mediators

Word and construction: Dayesmen supplies mediators; the alternative or is retained.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

flea

Printed “flea” (English; lemma).

Flay; figuratively strip or fleece someone through exploitation.

Here: One of the abuses the imagined constitution forbids officials to inflict on subordinates.

Context: The wild-beast comparison and negative no govern the wider catalogue.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: flea, grinde, or trample on

Modern rendering: fleecing, grinding down, or trampling on them

Word and construction: Flea supplies fleecing; them is supplied from the preceding inferiors or subordinates, and the participles recast the shared construction.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “flead” (English; lemma).

Citation key: flea.

Here: Flayed, literally stripped of skin, rather than financially exploited.

Context: In Burton’s reported story, Amestris inflicts this violence on Masista’s wife. His distribution of other injuries differs from Herodotus and also from his own margin.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: flead her besides

Modern rendering: flayed her besides

Word and construction: Flead supplies flayed and her remains the wife; this literal example explains the physical image without endorsing the report’s historical details.

Sense relation: The literal action underlying the figurative stripping or fleecing in the public-office passage.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

go to law

Printed “Go not to law without great cause” (English; phrase).

Resort to legal proceedings: go to law means litigate, while not without great cause limits permission to a serious reason.

Here: A practical warning against unnecessary litigation.

Context: The qualification leaves room for a sufficiently serious cause; it is not an absolute prohibition.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Go not to law without great cause.

Modern rendering: Do not go to law without serious cause.

Word and construction: Great means serious, and without retains the condition.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

injustice

Printed “injustice” (English; lemma).

Wrong or unfair dealing.

Here: Deceit accompanied by a cultivated appearance of honesty.

Context: Burton applies a Ciceronian judgment transmitted through John of Salisbury to predatory practitioners.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: of all injustice

Modern rendering: Of all injustice

Word and construction: The phrase is retained as the class within which deceptive pretence is judged especially harmful.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “injustitiæ” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: injustitia.

Here: Of injustice or wrongdoing; the genitive singular of injustitia.

Context: The Latin marginal quotation condemns those who try to appear good when deceiving most.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Totius injustitiæ

Modern rendering: Of all injustice

Word and construction: Totius supplies all, injustitiæ of injustice in the shared genitive construction.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “injustitia” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: injustitia.

Here: Injustice, unfair treatment.

Context: More’s condensed marginal argument contrasts idle luxury with workers abandoned to poverty after useful labour.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Quæ hæc injustitia

Modern rendering: What injustice is this

Word and construction: The question retains its force; hæc supplies this and injustitia the wrong being challenged.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

insult

Printed “insult” (English; lemma).

Domineer or lord it over another person.

Here: The conduct that mutual affection, law and authority are meant to prevent among ranks.

Context: The imagined harmony does not abolish kings, nobles or commoners; the negative never governs the conduct.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: insult or incroach one upon another

Modern rendering: lord it over one another, or encroach on one another

Word and construction: Insult supplies lord it over; the shared reciprocal complement is repeated in the modern.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

insult · insulting

Printed “insulting” (English; lemma).

Exult or triumph arrogantly.

Here: Philip’s pride after victory is corrected by the observation that his shadow has not grown.

Context: Burton applies the reported rebuke to writers imagining lasting fame; the claim is a moral comparison.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: insulting after a victory

Modern rendering: exulting after a victory

Word and construction: Insulting supplies exulting; after retains the temporal relation.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Insult” (English; lemma).

Citation key: insult.

Here: Exult or triumph over others.

Context: An admonition in the collection of counsels for a settled life.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Insult not.

Modern rendering: Do not exult over others.

Word and construction: Insult supplies exult; over others makes the contextual target explicit, while not preserves prohibition.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

justice · Justice · local use 1

Printed “Justice” (English; lemma).

Fair and right administration of public judgment.

Here: The quality absent despite the proliferation of legal practitioners and courts.

Context: Burton condemns guilty judges and selective punishment; he subsequently expressly honours good laws and worthy lawyers.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: so many tribunals, so little Justice

Modern rendering: so many courts, so little justice

Word and construction: Tribunals supplies courts; Justice is retained as the standard against which their conduct is judged.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “justice” (English; lemma).

Citation key: justice.

Here: Impartial administration of law.

Context: In the imagined commonwealth officials are to prevent predatory conduct and partiality.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: justice equally done

Modern rendering: justice impartially administered

Word and construction: Equally means impartially in this construction; justice is not identical with an equal distribution of all offices or rank.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “country Justice” (English; phrase).

Citation key: country justice.

Here: Local magisterial duties: country means local or provincial, and justice the administration of law.

Context: Burton disparages minimally educated patrons by saying an ordinary yeoman could perform these duties with equal common sense.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to do country Justice

Modern rendering: administer local justice

Word and construction: Do supplies administer, country local and Justice the legal duties.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Justice” (English; lemma).

Citation key: justice.

Here: A judicial decision or administration of judgment.

Context: Burton reports his author’s rhetorical praise of acquittal obtained through beauty; this exemplum does not establish impartiality or a general historical immunity.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: O noble piece of Justice, mine author exclaims

Modern rendering: O noble piece of justice, my author exclaims

Word and construction: The wording and explicit attribution are retained. Noble is the quoted praise, not an independently certified assessment.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

justice

Printed “justice” (English; lemma).

Moral rightness or righteousness, regarded as a virtue.

Here: An inward beauty perceptible in martyrs despite bodily suffering.

Context: Burton attributes the argument to Augustine; his printed Psalm 84 is corrected by the supplied note to Psalm 64.8 in Augustine’s numbering, commonly 65 in English.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a peculiar beauty of justice, and inward beauty

Modern rendering: a special beauty of justice, an inward beauty

Word and construction: Justice is retained in its moral sense; peculiar means special, and the second phrase explains inward beauty.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Justice” (English; lemma).

Citation key: justice.

Here: The virtue of right dealing, personified as a departing figure.

Context: Burton combines Astraea’s departure with an iron-age indictment of vanished charity and proliferating lawsuits.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Justice fled with her assistants

Modern rendering: Justice has fled with her attendants

Word and construction: The personification and companions are retained; assistants becomes attendants.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

justice · Justice · local use 2

Printed “Justice” (English; lemma).

Divine righteousness and the just judgment or punishment of sin.

Here: The theological account assigns disease to divine punishment and satisfaction of justice.

Context: This is Burton’s historical religious explanation, not a medical finding; the later despair reply joins justice to mercy and rejects the sufferer’s inference of abandonment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: satisfaction of his Justice

Modern rendering: satisfy his justice

Word and construction: Satisfaction is recast as satisfy, while his Justice remains the divine attribute.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “justice” (English; lemma).

Citation key: justice.

Here: Divine judgment carried out through created agents.

Context: Burton’s account makes natural forces instruments of God; their agency is subordinate, not independent.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: executioners of his justice

Modern rendering: agents carrying out his justice

Word and construction: Executioners is expanded as agents carrying out; justice names the divine judgment they execute.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “justice” (English; lemma).

Citation key: justice.

Here: God’s righteous judgment, paired with mercy.

Context: Burton answers people who think themselves damned by arguing that affliction can lead to repentance, healing and salvation; the following passages promise compassionate support rather than abandonment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Gods mercy and his justice

Modern rendering: God’s mercy and justice

Word and construction: The two attributes remain coordinated; the possessive is shared in English.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

justitia

Printed “justitiæ” (Latin; lemma).

Justice or righteousness; justitiæ is the genitive singular, of justice.

Here: The virtue whose inward beauty Augustine’s quoted margin describes.

Context: The margin adds bodily deformity to the martyrs’ suffering, a clause not repeated in Burton’s English paraphrase.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: pulchritudo justitiæ

Modern rendering: beauty of justice

Word and construction: Pulchritudo supplies beauty, justitiæ of justice.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Justitiæ” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: justitia.

Here: Of Justice, with the virtue personified; the genitive singular of justitia.

Context: Horace’s personified Faith is called Justice’s sister, and Truth appears alongside them in Burton’s lament.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Justitiæ soror

Modern rendering: Justice’s sister

Word and construction: Justitiæ supplies Justice’s and soror sister; the genitive does not make Justice the grammatical sister named by the line.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

law · Laws

Printed “Laws” (English; lemma).

A binding rule, or collectively the rules and institutions governing a community.

Here: Enacted rules are contrasted with the disorders they fail to prevent.

Context: Burton’s satirical question distinguishes the quantity of laws and courts from their just administration.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: so many Laws, yet never more disorders

Modern rendering: so many laws, yet more disorder than ever

Word and construction: Laws is retained; the comparative paradox is preserved in the full clause.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lawes” (English; lemma).

Citation key: law.

Here: Public rules governing the imagined monarchy.

Context: Burton proposes few, intelligible laws, strictly observed; the design does not promise absence of coercion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: few lawes, but those severely kept

Modern rendering: There shall be few laws, but they shall be strictly observed

Word and construction: Lawes is modernized as laws; the modern supplies There shall be from the prospective constitution.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

law

Printed “law” (English; lemma).

A religious dispensation or system of belief and observance.

Here: Burton’s hostile description of Islam calls its religion a law.

Context: The polemical charge and conflation of Quranic material with later or European reports are Burton’s, not neutral descriptions of Muslims.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: their superstitious law

Modern rendering: Their superstitious law

Word and construction: Law names the religious system; superstitious is Burton’s adverse evaluation, not part of the noun’s definition.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lex” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: lex.

Here: A religious dispensation or system; lex is nominative singular.

Context: The astrological theory reported through Vanini makes religious systems rise and fall with celestial influences. Burton criticizes that theory and also reproduces Vanini’s stated Christian rejection without resolving its sincerity.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: cum cessat influxus, cessat lex

Modern rendering: when the influence ceases, the religious law ceases

Word and construction: Cum supplies when, influxus influence, cessat ceases and lex law; religious is supplied to make the local sense explicit.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lege” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: lex.

Here: Religious system or dispensation; lege is the ablative singular of lex.

Context: The reported astrological argument contrasts Jupiter’s former prestige with later contempt.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: in Gentili lege

Modern rendering: in pagan religion

Word and construction: In supplies in, Gentili pagan and lege religion; the judgment belongs inside the reported theory.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

law of love

Printed “law of love” (English; phrase).

A rule attributed to love: law means governing principle, and of love specifies the passion whose conduct it governs.

Here: The lover adopts the beloved’s desires and refusals.

Context: Emilia’s reported speech in Castiglione supplies the rule; the surrounding examples include ruin and coercive pursuit, rather than a recommendation to obey every desire.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the law of love, to will and nill the same

Modern rendering: love’s law is to desire and reject the same things

Word and construction: Will and nill mean desire and refuse; the modern supplies things for the substantival same.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lex” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: lex.

Here: A law or governing rule; lex is nominative singular, amoris means of love.

Context: The Latin marginal version gives the same requirement to share the beloved’s desires and refusals.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Ea enim amoris lex est idem velle & nolle

Modern rendering: For this is love’s law: to desire and reject the same things

Word and construction: Enim supplies For, Ea this, amoris love’s and lex law; idem is the same, with things supplied in English.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “legem” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: lex.

Here: A law or binding rule; legem is the accusative singular of lex.

Context: Burton’s altered Boethian question represents the lover’s resistance to restraint; Boethius’s lovers become love in Burton.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Amori quis legem det?

Modern rendering: Who can lay down a law for love?

Word and construction: Amori supplies for love, quis who, legem a law and det the subjunctive give, rendered can lay down.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

law of nature · local use 1

Printed “law of nature” (English; phrase).

A moral rule understood to be inherent in human nature: law supplies binding principle, nature its claimed source.

Here: The duty to keep a promise, including one made to an enemy.

Context: In Burton’s Regulus example the condition is return or pay the stipulated ransom; conscience applies the general principle to that case.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: by the law of nature

Modern rendering: as the law of nature requires

Word and construction: The modern expands by as a requirement, preserving its normative force.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

law of nature · local use 2

Printed “law of nature” (English; phrase).

A general necessity or condition of mortal life, understood as natural.

Here: Everyone is subject to interruption, opposition and changing fortune.

Context: The consolation contrasts human difficulty with uninterrupted heavenly spheres in older cosmology; it is not a modern physical law.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: no mortall man is free from this law of nature

Modern rendering: no mortal is exempt from this law of nature

Word and construction: Free from becomes exempt from, preserving the universal negative.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

law of nature · Law of nature

Printed “Law of nature” (English; phrase).

A principle governing natural bodily processes: law means operative rule, and nature the physical order.

Here: The historical medical argument explains the heart and other parts suffering together with the affected brain.

Context: Burton reports the disagreement over the principal affected organ, then gives priority to the brain while allowing sympathetic effects in other parts; this is not a statement of modern physiology.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: by the Law of nature

Modern rendering: By nature’s law

Word and construction: The phrase is reordered without changing its natural-process sense.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

lawful and unlawful

Printed “Lawfull, some again Unlawfull” (English; family).

Permitted and forbidden respectively; lawful is admissible under a governing moral or legal rule, and unlawful its negative.

Here: Burton classifies historical cures by religious permission before distinguishing whether magic works from whether it ought to be used.

Context: He reports arguments for magical treatment and then rejects their permission; the next chapter recommends prayer together with ordinary medical means.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: some be Lawfull, some again Unlawfull

Modern rendering: Some of these cures are lawful, others unlawful

Word and construction: Lawfull and Unlawfull supply the two opposed predicates; of these cures makes the original these cures context explicit.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lawfully” (English; lemma).

Citation key: lawfully.

Here: Permissibly or acceptably.

Context: Vega considers prepared white hellebore permissible in a historical dispute; surrounding cautions and subsequent reports of harm remain essential.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: it may be lawfully given

Modern rendering: its administration permissible

Alignment scope: corresponding clause content, recast from reported that-clause to object and predicate

Word and construction: The modern recasts the passive giving as administration and lawfully as the predicate permissible within likewise considers; this is medical permission in the reported argument, not modern regulatory approval.

Further local use

Printed “lawful” (English; lemma).

Citation key: lawful.

Here: Permitted or admissible.

Context: Burton expressly defends dancing only when practised at a suitable time, moderately and soberly, replying to an objection that he condemns it altogether.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a lawful recreation, if it be opportune, moderately and soberly used

Modern rendering: a lawful recreation when practised at a suitable time, moderately and soberly

Word and construction: Lawful is retained as lawful and means permitted; the complete unit retains all three conditions.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lawfull” (English; lemma).

Citation key: lawful.

Here: Permitted, rather than forbidden by legitimate religious obligation.

Context: Burton attacks excessive scruples that deprive people of good recreations; his generalization about other religions remains polemical.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: many good and lawfull things

Modern rendering: many good and lawful things

Word and construction: Lawfull is modernized as lawful, while good remains a separate qualification.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lawfully” (English; lemma).

Citation key: lawfully.

Here: Permissibly, in accordance with the governing rule.

Context: The person must make good use of things permitted; Burton calls refusal of such enjoyment superstitious rather than temperate.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: such things as are lawfully permitted

Modern rendering: things lawfully permitted

Word and construction: Lawfully supplies the manner of permission; the modern condenses the relative clause.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

lawyer

Printed “Lawyers” (English; lemma).

A practitioner of law.

Here: Worthy practitioners are praised as guides and authoritative advisers to the commonwealth.

Context: The explicit love and honour limits the preceding attack on predatory legal business.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: all good laws, and worthy Lawyers

Modern rendering: all good laws and worthy lawyers

Word and construction: Both coordinated objects retain their scope; worthy qualifies Lawyers, while good qualifies laws.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

lex talionis

Printed “lex talionis” (Latin; phrase).

The law or principle of equivalent retaliation: lex means law, and talionis of like requital.

Here: Burton calls reciprocal literary criticism a law of retaliation.

Context: He allows that he has judged others and may judge his critic, then qualifies his excessive self-condemnation in the next paragraph.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: lex talionis

Modern rendering: the law of retaliation

Word and construction: Lex supplies law, talionis of retaliation; the construction is applied to criticism rather than a court sentence.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “lex Talionis” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key: lex talionis.

Here: The principle of retaliation or equivalent requital.

Context: After describing revenge in animals, Burton urges the reader to do no wrong and patiently endure wrongs received; description of the impulse is followed by restraint.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: lex Talionis

Modern rendering: the law of retaliation

Word and construction: The Latin phrase receives the same English rendering, but the practical exhortation interrupts retaliation rather than recommending it.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

municipal law

Printed “municipal Laws” (English; phrase).

The country’s own law: municipal here means national or domestic, and laws its legal rules.

Here: The English common-law system which Burton portrays as consuming the civil lawyer’s jurisdiction.

Context: The learned-profession rivalry and accusation of barbarous study are Burton’s historical judgment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: those all-devouring municipal Laws

Modern rendering: those all-devouring laws of our own country

Word and construction: Municipal expands to of our own country; it does not here restrict the laws to a town council.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

nose of wax

Printed “a nose of wax” (English; phrase).

Something pliable and moulded at will: nose is the shaped object and wax the yielding material.

Here: A metaphor amid laws and judgments altered through influence.

Context: The syntax moves between laws and the swayed judge; the image condemns malleability without resolving every referent in the following uncertain clause.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: as a nose of wax

Modern rendering: moulded like a nose of wax

Word and construction: Moulded is supplied to explain the simile, rather than being a separate original verb.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

pettifogger

Printed “Pettefoggers” (English; lemma).

A petty or disreputable legal practitioner, especially one who wrangles over technicalities.

Here: The hungry, rapacious practitioners Burton identifies as his target.

Context: He expressly separates these targets from worthy lawyers and good laws.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: our common hungry Pettefoggers

Modern rendering: our ordinary hungry pettifoggers

Word and construction: Pettefoggers is modernized as pettifoggers; common means ordinary and hungry remains a separate description.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “pettifoggers” (English; lemma).

Citation key: pettifogger.

Here: Petty, unscrupulous legal practitioners.

Context: Burton combines them with empirics in a complaint about overcrowded professions and predatory competition; the preceding some does not condemn every practitioner.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: such a multitude of pettifoggers and Empericks

Modern rendering: Such a multitude of pettifoggers and empirics

Word and construction: The professions remain distinct; pettifoggers does not itself mean medical empirics.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

proling

Printed “proling” (English; lemma).

Prowling in search of prey, hence predatory.

Here: An officer using public authority to exploit inferiors.

Context: Burton’s constitution prohibits such conduct; it is not a description of every officer.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: no proling officer

Modern rendering: no predatory official

Word and construction: Proling supplies predatory, officer official; no preserves the prohibition.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

rabula forensis

Printed “rabulas forenses” (Latin; phrase).

A courtroom ranter: rabula means a noisy or wrangling advocate, and forensis belonging to the forum or law court. The printed words are plural inflections.

Here: Burton’s Latin designation for the pettifoggers he attacks.

Context: The phrase is inside his qualification exempting worthy lawyers from the satire.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: rabulas forenses

Modern rendering: courtroom ranters

Word and construction: Forenses supplies courtroom, rabulas ranters; the insulting expression belongs to Burton.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

sentence

Printed “Sentence” (English; lemma).

A judicial decision or judgment.

Here: A judgment delayed or altered although the case is unchanged.

Context: Burton’s accusation concerns arbitrary or corrupt administration, not the grammatical unit called a sentence.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Sentence prolonged, changed

Modern rendering: Judgement delayed or changed

Word and construction: Sentence supplies Judgement; prolonged and changed name the separate acts.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

æquabile jus

Printed “æquabile jus” (Latin; phrase).

Equal or impartial justice: æquabile means even or equitable, and jus law, right or justice.

Here: The governing standard opposed to official predation and corruption.

Context: The ideal preserves distinctions of rank while demanding impartial treatment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: æquabile jus

Modern rendering: equal justice

Word and construction: Æquabile supplies equal and jus justice; the separate English justice equally done is a second formulation, not part of this Latin phrase.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.