Liberty and servitude

Use in the book

Permission, self-government and public order

The narrator begins by declaring himself a “free man born,” borrowing Seneca’s refusal to disclose an authority and then asserting his own freedom to answer or remain silent. The assumed Democritus persona offers additional liberty of speech, although Burton gives another explanation too. His translator’s liberty is more specific: he selects, adapts and paraphrases for his own purpose. The liberty accorded to poets similarly licenses his imaginary commonwealth. None of this amounts to a consistent demand for unrestricted publication. Scaliger’s reported permission for everyone to write is contrasted with their limited ability, and Burton subsequently invokes decrees and overseers to restrain the flood of books. His Saturnalian claim to the liberties of Roman servants is a literary excuse; defiance gives way to confession of fear and recantation.

Cicero’s paradox gives liberty a different standard: wise people are free because they govern themselves, while fools are slaves. Burton’s questions immediately test whether anyone meets that ideal. The following Horatian account of self-command is spoken by the slave Davus to his master, which itself disrupts an easy identification of moral freedom with rank. In another setting, Erasmus’s reported excessive love of liberty means unwillingness to attend patrons: independence can preserve dignity yet expose the scholar to poverty. Burton implicates himself and then criticizes the opposite extreme of importunate ambition. The marginal description of the name scholar as Servile expresses degradation through dependence, without declaring every scholar legally enslaved.

Political liberty is equally contextual. The “free States” of Germany appear in a mixed catalogue praising smaller prosperous territories, not a map of uniformly sovereign republics. Burton invokes Mare liberum, “the free sea,” in irritation at Dutch fishing and English dependence on imported catches; the Grotius title concerns navigation and commerce, but his exclamation does not endorse its entire argument. His own proposed state is monarchical: the Claudian maxim praises liberty under a just king. The same polity opens honours to deserving commoners and demands intelligible, rigorously enforced laws. Its rejection of hereditary slavery is substantial but limited: the preceding paragraph still sentences certain offenders to lifelong penal slavery. Opposition to inherited bondage must not be rewritten as abolition of every form of slavery.

Actual bondage and the consolatory reversal

The historical account of melancholy acknowledges that loss of liberty may distress even someone surrounded by gardens, galleries and good food. The point is lack of control: the person cannot come and go or act at pleasure. Burton then distinguishes that situation from actual slavery, mines, galleys and prisons, where bodily suffering accompanies confinement. The report of thirty thousand Indigenous slaves at Potosa, attributed to De Laet, retains its uncertain number, status and reference to gold mines. Other passages describe people bought and sold, compulsory labour, and servants who dare refuse no task. These are material conditions, not merely figures for strong feelings. His account of Lithuanian people who mancipate themselves and their families to avoid hunger expressly begins with a condition: if Münster can be believed. Voluntarily does not make the reported poverty unconstraining.

Consolation subsequently changes the argument. Princes too must obey, rich people are subject to wealth, and lovers to their beloveds: all are slaves to their passions. The Latin servus can thus describe a person ruled by things as well as people. Burton compares these conditions to reduce the sufferer’s sense of singular misfortune, then points out when his addressee is neither a prisoner nor a burden-bearing drudge. His account of a man who desires to leave Milan only after being forbidden is a reported Cardano anecdote, not a universal psychology of captivity. The following prison-as-world and prison-as-study arguments offer uses for confinement; they do not undo the earlier recognition of its suffering.

The servant’s appeal adapted from Seneca supplies another reversal. The dependent speaker is also a friend, companion and fellow servant, and may be better in God’s sight. The Latin defence of slaves in Macrobius belongs to Praetextatus answering Evangelus, although Burton credits Evangelus. The contrast between free people under a roof and slavery beneath marble and gold likewise subordinates wealth to inward independence; Burton’s printed roof differs from Seneca’s straw. Conversely, servitium in the Apuleius margin simply means the household of servants who can feast while their rich master cannot eat. A collective body of people should not be translated automatically as an abstract condition of slavery.

Christian constancy gives the free conscience its own register: the body can be chained or hurt while the upright mind remains unconquered. This is a theological claim about endurance, not immunity from bodily injury. The separate account of ancient arguments for death as a way to liberty is much more contentious. Burton reports those positions at length before expressly rejecting them. His concluding qualification urges care in judging afflicted people and leaves their final standing to divine mercy. The reported route to libertatem must be read through that rejection and merciful conclusion, not extracted as advice or his final position.

Erotic service, marriage and household authority

A lover may be a “voluntary servant” and yet, in the next comparison, wish for freedom without being able to obtain it. The tension is deliberate: submission willingly undertaken becomes captivity to desire. Amator amicæ mancipium makes the lover his beloved’s property; Cicero’s question about a free man ruled by a woman measures self-command, rather than announcing a legal loss of freedom. Burton’s related account of liberty enjoyed by the powerful goes the other way: high rank creates room to act, and claimed impunity may intensify sexual misconduct. That is a conditional moral accusation, not a definition making liberty itself vice.

The marriage controversy calls marriage bondage and thralldom, but the same sentence denies that marriage itself is evil and praises a harmonious couple. The dowry maxim, dos intrat, libertas exit, imagines freedom departing as wealth arrives: it is a complaint about dependence on a rich wife, not a rule of property law. Plautus’s liberos and liberum turn children and freedom into a pun within the unmarried man’s case. Burton ultimately acknowledges arguments on both sides and recommends taking the chance of marriage.

The maid in Aristaenetus separates bodily enslavement from inward affection when her jealous mistress assaults her. Burton follows her protest with the maxim that affections are free and cannot be commanded. Pliny’s affectus liber originally concerns reciprocal affection toward a ruler; Burton transfers it to lovers and uses it against forced matches. Yet the continuation retains a role for parental judgement. Similarly, “free liberty to bestow themselves” describes those already able to choose their spouses; it is not a universal legal grant. The claimed “Christian liberty” to marry has a different opponent: compulsory celibacy. Burton’s conclusion follows Wicelius’s alternatives, not a fresh declaration by Erasmus, and its sweeping estimate of priestly desire remains anti-celibacy polemic rather than demographic evidence. The response to economic objections to marriage invokes work and colonization, including assumptions about available overseas lands that the passage does not establish.

Advice to husbands opposes locking wives away but limits the liberty it grants. Aeneas Sylvius’s claim that freer wives offend less is a gendered argument, not an established causal law. Burton later recommends liberty with discretion, rejects an extreme prohibition on going out, and still demands obedience and silence when husbands become angry. Those qualifications are integral to his household ideal. The “liberty of the prison” is narrower again: a jailer lets a prisoner move without restraints, while the man remains a prisoner. The ingratitude story does not change the phrase into outright release.

Religious liberty and neighbouring senses

The discussion of religious melancholy surveys civic freedom of worship and arguments against coercing conscience. Burton adapts Cicero’s statement about a city’s religion into a permission, and his favourable reference to Pliny’s restraint is selective. After setting rigorous persecution against general toleration, he proposes a middle course that still includes excommunication, fines, burned books and forbidden assemblies. His later preference for treating some persecuted people in Bedlam is also limited and historically specific. The survey cannot be condensed into either a uniform defence of persecution or unrestricted religious freedom.

Libertines, meanwhile, names people Burton accuses of deficient religious and moral restraint. It must be distinguished from libertino patre, the freedman father in the low-birth catalogue. Libertas and English Liberty can also name a deified personification in his catalogues of ancient worship. Finally, calling Christ the believer’s liberty gives the word a Christian sense of deliverance: Christ protects, while Satan is the speaker of the following accusation. The pronoun change matters.

The smaller free examples reinforce the need for local reading. The willing horse needs no spur; Burton uses it to qualify music’s supposed benefits when music already feeds erotic fixation. Voluntary madness describes the drunkenness condemned in a moral warning. The generous spirit of the Psalm and the open-handed man in Plutarch belong to willingness and generosity; the latter can deteriorate into extravagance. Daylight is free because it is unbought, and the sea prospect free because no obstruction blocks it. None of these requires a claim about civil emancipation.

Related entries

Will and nill: Theological and psychological freedom of choice, distinguished from the social and figurative relations here.

Magnanimity and pusillanimity: The ideal of self-command and the strength or weakness of mind.

Patience: Constancy under actual suffering and the aims of consolation.

Gifts and liberality: Free and liberal giving, patronage and obligations created by benefits.

Marriage: The qualified marriage controversy, including its restrictions and eventual recommendation.

Celibacy and vows: The specific challenge to compulsory celibacy and vows.

Parents and children: Parental judgement, command and the choice of a spouse.

Poverty and riches: Material deprivation, rank and the comparison of the poor with the wealthy.

Church patronage: Scholarly independence and dependence on patrons.

Religion and superstition: Confessional classifications and the treatment of religious difference.

Law and justice: Civil powers, privileges, punishments and legal qualifications.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 1–2Free birth and the narrator’s qualified refusal to identify himself.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 11–13Alternative explanations of the borrowed name and freedom of speech.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 7–15Permission versus ability to write, then proposed restraint of publishing and the author’s self-inclusion.
4. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 4–6The author’s liberty to paraphrase and select rather than translate word for word.
5. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 18–26Cicero’s moral paradox, the slave Davus’s ideal of self-command, and the problem of finding an actual sage.
6. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 26–28Free states in the argument about territory and prosperity; the mixed geographical catalogue remains qualified.
7. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 37–39Grotius’s free-sea title invoked in the complaint about fishing and trade.
8. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 35–38Poetic licence authorizes the imagined commonwealth and its self-appointed ruler.
9. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 19–22Hereditary and granted honours, liberty under a just king, and rigorous law; the note at Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 19 is printed on 62.
10. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 1–4Severe proposed punishments: lifelong penal slavery retained immediately before hereditary slavery is rejected.
11. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 28–33Saturnalian permission, defiant authorial freedom, then fear and recantation.
12. Subsection 11. The Will · paragraphs 35–39Freedom of will in some ordinary operations and its explicit spiritual limitation.
13. Section 2 Member 1 Subsection 1 Causes of Melancholy God as a Cause · paragraphs 14–16The Psalm’s free or generous spirit within a theological account of suffering.
14. Subsection 2 The Quantity of Food as a Cause · paragraphs 10–12Unbought daylight and air in the satire on expensive luxury.
15. Subsection 13. Love of Gambling and the Like, and Excessive Pleasures, as Causes · paragraphs 5–7Free madness as voluntarily incurred drunkenness, including the original Liberæ margin.
16. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 41–43The servile name of the scholar and the material dependence of learning.
17. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 1–3Reported Erasmus confession, love of independence, Burton’s self-application, and the opposite extreme of solicitation.
18. Subsection 5 How Loss of Liberty, Servitude and Imprisonment Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 1–16Loss of liberty as a historical cause of melancholy, from comfortable confinement to actual slavery and prison deprivation.
19. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 4–6Bought and sold galley workers, coerced labour and the Latin/English servile descriptions.
20. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 37–39Mancipating oneself and one’s family in the expressly conditional Münster report; adjacent distress stories remain reported.
21. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraphs 1–22Ancient arguments for death as release, their explicit rejection, and the concluding caution and mercy. The anomalous 454 label is preserved.
22. Member 3. Whether It Is Lawful to Seek the Saints' Help in This Disease · paragraphs 25–27English Liberty among personified powers in the religious polemic.
23. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraphs 27–29The free prospect as an unobstructed view, with the scope of city-wide claims qualified.
24. Subsection 3 Music as a Remedy · paragraphs 23–25The willing horse and the exception limiting music’s historical therapeutic claims.
25. Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents · paragraphs 40–42Reported enslaved origins, advancement and the freedman-father expression; the compressed catalogue is not a uniform genealogy.
26. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 11–17The collective household of servants, restrictive rank and golden-slave metaphor.
27. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 37–43The servant’s first-person appeal, Macrobius’s misassigned speaker and Seneca’s roof/free-people contrast.
28. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 27–31Christian constancy: bodily captivity or pain alongside a free soul and conscience.
29. Member 4 Against Servitude, Loss of Liberty, Imprisonment and Banishment · paragraphs 30–40The consolatory reversal: universal dependence and passion, the forbidden-journey anecdote, and proposed uses of imprisonment.
30. Member 2. Subsection 1. Causes of Heroic Love: Bodily Temperament, Plentiful Diet, Idleness, Place, Climate, and So Forth · paragraphs 27–30Rank, liberty and claimed impunity in a conditional explanation of sexual misconduct.
31. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 1–8Voluntary erotic service, mancipium and the Ciceronian free-man question; the grooming continuation’s attribution is not securely Ciceronian.
32. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 37–39Love makes the miser open-handed, then may make him extravagant; the payment accounts include refusal and inconsistent sums.
33. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraphs 43–46Comic warning, bondage and thralldom, followed immediately by praise of a well-matched marriage.
34. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraphs 17–22Dowry as lost freedom, the commanding-servant contradiction and the liberos/liberum wordplay.
35. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 78–80Parental restrictions and delaying marriage introduce the conflict between command and affection.
36. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 1–9The enslaved maid’s protest, uncommanded reciprocal affection, criticism of forced matches and retained parental judgement.
37. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 21–23Advice specifically to those already free to choose their spouses.
38. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 15–28Wicelius, Burton’s Christian-liberty conclusion, objections about support and population, and the limits of the anti-celibacy claims.
39. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 34–36The consequential acknowledgement of opposing arguments and recommendation to attempt marriage.
40. The Cure of Jealousy: Avoiding Occasions for It, Keeping Occupied; Good Counsel; Disregarding It, Not Watching Women or Locking Them Up; Concealing It, and So On · paragraphs 1–5The attributed case against locking wives away and its conditional, gendered account of misconduct.
41. 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 53–55Reasonable freedom with support, followed by the opposite warning against excessive allowance.
42. 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 59–61Extreme confinement rejected, but decorum, obedience and wives’ silence retained; the husband is the angry subject.
43. 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 2–4Freedom within the prison rather than release, in the attributed ingratitude story.
44. Its Object, God; What His Beauty Is; How It Attracts. The Parts and People Affected · paragraphs 20–22Libertines as a polemical category within religious deficiency.
45. 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 38–40Libertas as a divine name among personified powers, with the surrounding theological interpretation.
46. Subsection 5 The Cure of Religious Melancholy · paragraphs 1–27; 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 28–29Civic religious freedom and rival toleration arguments, followed by the coercive middle course, limited medical alternative and renewed Libertines catalogue.
47. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 43–48Christ as deliverance; the changing pronouns distinguish the protector from Satan’s accusation.

In this edition

The paired text often retains liberty, free and servitude, while explaining the construction around them. “Liberty to write” becomes “permission to write”; having liberty becomes being free; “free liberty to bestow themselves” becomes freedom to choose one’s spouses. The prison phrase retains its confined scope. The political examples remain different: civic free states, the free sea of a book title, and liberty praised under a just king.

Latin endings and source layers prevent several false equations. Libertino patre natus is “born of a freedman father,” not an accusation of libertinism. The adjective liber and the children named liberos collide deliberately in the Plautine wordplay. Servitium is the household of servants in the Apuleius margin; servitute and servitutem elsewhere concern bondage. The Senecan servant appeal has a difficult opening marginal reading, which is retained as uncertain; the selected later clause is clear. Original Latin, Burton’s separate English explanations and the modern edition’s supplied translations remain distinct.

The modern “we are all slaves to our passions” supplies a finite subject and verb to the original compressed continuation. “Christ is your freedom” explicitly identifies the antecedent of he. “Libertas, Liberty” adds an explanatory English gloss to the retained divine name. “Free madness,” “free horse,” “free spirit” and “free prospect” respectively become voluntary madness, a willing horse, a generous spirit and an unobstructed view. These are local sense translations, not interchangeable definitions of free. Likewise, the word true in the quoted path to liberty is not itself allowable: that stronger wording belongs to Burton’s separate English restatement of an argument he later rejects.

Christian liberty

Printed “Christian liberty” (English; phrase).

Freedom claimed on Christian grounds, here permission to marry.

Here: This Christian liberty refers to marriage for people prohibited by celibate vows or clerical rules. It is the freedom being denied, not a general permission for every act.

Context: Burton concludes against compulsory celibacy after Wicelius’s proposed alternative of concubinage or marriage. The nearly universal priestly desire claim is polemical hyperbole, not established statistics; the continuation also rejects economic objections to poor people marrying.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to bar men of this Christian liberty

Modern rendering: to deprive people of this Christian liberty

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

free · local use 1

Printed “free” (English; lemma).

Unconstrained or undefeated in inward moral agency.

Here: The conscience remains free while the body is in chains. The claim concerns spiritual integrity rather than bodily invulnerability or release.

Context: Burton follows Chrysostom’s consolatory argument about the upright person, including Christian resurrection; these are theological assurances.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: his conscience is free

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “free” (English; lemma).

Citation key: free.

Here: Free describes the upright soul’s resistance to affliction while bodily joints and limbs may suffer.

Context: The martyr examples and Chrysostom attribution concern constancy. Burton does not deny bodily pain.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: his soule is free

Modern rendering: His soul is free

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

free · local use 2

Printed “free” (English; lemma).

Not subject to another person’s command.

Here: Free means that affection cannot be produced by an owner’s or parent’s order. The immediately preceding servant’s speech distinguishes control of her body from control of her soul.

Context: Aristaenetus’s enslaved maid speaks after her mistress assaults her; Burton then states the general maxim. The anecdote is literary evidence for the argument, not an authenticated incident.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Affections are free, not to be commanded

Modern rendering: Affections are free and cannot be commanded

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “liber” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: liber.

Here: Liber qualifies affectus, affection, free; si quis alius supplies as free as any, and vices exigens demands a return. Non imperatur denies command.

Context: Burton applies Pliny’s account of reciprocal affection toward a ruler to erotic love. The surrounding claims require mutual affection and oppose forced matches, but the passage retains a role for parental judgement.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Amor enim non imperatur, affectus liber si quis alius & vices exigens

Modern rendering: Love cannot be commanded: it is an affection as free as any, and demands a return

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Enim gives a connective for, not separately expressed; English it is and the second finite demands expand the Latin apposition and participle.

free · local use 3

Printed “free” (English; lemma).

Without payment or purchase.

Here: Free means gratis: the satire says some people despise daylight because it costs nothing. It does not mean legally emancipated.

Context: Burton adapts Seneca’s complaint about luxurious taste. Some of us limits the charge; the margin’s Seneca and preceding Guicciardini notes have displaced markers.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: because it comes free

Modern rendering: because it is free

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

free · local use 4

Printed “free” (English; lemma).

Generous or open-handed.

Here: Free is the generosity into which a hard, mean man is said to soften. Facile adds accommodating, not another definition of free.

Context: The Plutarch Table Talk example belongs to a conversational explanation of love’s transforming power. The next paragraph warns that generosity may turn into extravagance, and its payment stories include refused offers.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: free, facile, gentle, and easie to be entreated

Modern rendering: open-handed, accommodating, gentle and easy to persuade

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “free spirit” (English; lemma).

Citation key: free.

Here: Free marks a willing or generous spirit in the quoted Psalm 51:12; spirit is its noun, not a politically emancipated person.

Context: Burton’s biblical prayer belongs to a theological account of suffering and divine power. The modern chooses generous within the older willing/liberal sense.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: thy free spirit

Modern rendering: your generous spirit

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

free horse

Printed “free horse” (English; phrase).

A willing or eager horse.

Here: Free describes readiness to run, so an additional spur may be harmful. It does not mean a horse released from ownership or tack.

Context: Burton uses the comparison to qualify music as a remedy: it may intensify an existing erotic fixation. The surrounding historical therapeutic claims are not present advice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a free horse

Modern rendering: a willing horse

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

free liberty to bestow oneself

Printed “free liberty” (English; phrase).

Freedom to choose one’s marriage partner.

Here: Bestow themselves means choose spouses; free reinforces liberty. The statement addresses those who already possess this choice.

Context: Burton wishes these people to follow the comic old man’s advice; he does not here grant every person an unrestricted legal entitlement. Earlier the passage qualifies the critique of imposed matches.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: such as have free liberty to bestow themselves

Modern rendering: those who are free to choose their own spouses

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Have free liberty becomes are free, and bestow themselves is explicated as choose their own spouses.

free madness

Printed “free madness” (English; phrase).

Voluntarily chosen loss of self-command.

Here: Free here means voluntarily incurred, in the attack on drunkenness. It does not mean exemption from melancholy or a cost-free remedy.

Context: Burton attributes the formulation to Seneca, but the exact source remains unlocated; the historical moral language is not a modern diagnostic judgement.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: free madness

Modern rendering: voluntary madness

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “Liberæ” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: liber.

Here: Liberæ is genitive singular agreeing with horæ, hour: the printed construction is literally madness of one free hour. The supplied note translation transfers the voluntary quality to madness, yielding one hour of voluntary madness; it does not print a feminine accusative adjective agreeing with insaniam.

Context: The margin states the exchange of a short voluntary madness for enduring weariness, attributed by Burton to Seneca without an identified passage.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Liberæ unius horæ insaniam

Modern rendering: one hour of voluntary madness

Alignment scope: Original marginal wording aligned with the supplied editorial translation of that note

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Modern container: note

free man

Printed “free man” (English; phrase).

A man governing himself rather than obeying another’s will.

Here: The legal-status question is turned into a challenge to the lover’s moral independence. Commands, demands and fear show his submission.

Context: Burton reports Cicero’s paradox; it is a gendered philosophical comparison, not a declaration that a lover loses civil status.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Is he a free man over whom a woman domineers

Modern rendering: Is a man free when a woman rules him

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The noun phrase a free man and relative clause become a man free and a when-clause; the modern man supplies the original he’s referent.

Further local use

Printed “servum” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servus.

Here: Servum is accusative slave; hunc this man, nequissimum most worthless, puto I consider. The condemnation concerns obedience to the beloved.

Context: The Latin verdict and Burton’s separate English very drudge are distinct renderings of the philosophical accusation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Nequissimum hunc servum puto

Modern rendering: I consider this man a most worthless slave

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

free prospect

Printed “free prospect” (English; phrase).

An unobstructed view.

Here: Free means unobstructed; prospect is a view. Neither civic freedom nor an unpaid spectacle is intended.

Context: Burton’s panoramic city descriptions and almost every house claim are generalizations, not verified descriptions of each dwelling.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a free prospect to the sea

Modern rendering: an unobstructed sea view

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

free state

Printed “free States” (English; phrase).

Political communities possessing civic autonomy or privileges.

Here: Free qualifies states rather than individual choice; the German location is preserved by the modern possessive Germany’s over the complete coordination. The mixed catalogue is not a precise inventory of modern sovereign countries.

Context: Burton argues that smaller territories are commonly richer, while retaining an uneven list of cities, peoples and regions.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: those Imperial Cities, and free States of Germany

Modern rendering: Germany’s imperial cities and free states

Alignment scope: Equal-scope complete coordination with geographical complement

Word and construction: Free qualifies states; the original of Germany becomes the modern possessive Germany’s over the coordinated imperial cities and free states.

freeborn

Printed “free man born” (English; family).

A person born free rather than enslaved.

Here: The claim of free birth supports the persona’s joking refusal to be compelled to identify himself. It is a social-status expression used to assert independence, not evidence about every reader’s legal rights.

Context: Burton follows the narrator’s refusal in Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis with his separate English claim, then partly satisfies the reader’s curiosity.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: I am a free man born

Modern rendering: I am a freeborn man

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

hereditary slavery

Printed “hereditary slaves” (English; family).

People whose enslaved status passes through descent.

Here: The modern version changes persons, slaves, into the institution slavery. Hereditary limits the rejection: the preceding paragraph retains lifelong penal slavery.

Context: Burton’s proposed polity rejects inherited bondage and punishment of kin for a father’s offence, while imposing severe punishments on offenders. This is his proposal, not present law or an unconditional abolitionist position.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: I hate all hereditary slaves

Modern rendering: I detest all hereditary slavery

Alignment scope: Personal plural object rendered as an institutional abstract noun

Word and construction: The object changes from people in a hereditary condition to the abstract institution; I hate becomes I detest and all remains.

liber

Printed “liberum” (Latin; lemma).

Free or unattached, here unencumbered by marriage and children.

Here: Liberum is the adjective free in the infinitive esse, to be. Liberos is the noun children, object of procreare, beget: the similar forms make a pun, not interchangeable senses. Lepidissimum and multo lepidius supply most delightful and much more delightful.

Context: Burton adapts an exchange between Plautus’s Palaestrio and Periplectomenus for the anti-marriage case. His later conclusion recommends attempting marriage.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: procreare liberos lepidissimum, Hercle verò liberum esse, id multo est lepidius

Modern rendering: To beget children is most delightful; But, by Hercules, to be free is much more delightful

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

liberi

Printed “liberos” (Latin; lemma).

Children or offspring.

Here: Liberos is accusative plural children, object of procreare, beget. It plays against liberum, free, in the next line; the noun is not an inflection meaning emancipated people here.

Context: Burton adapts Plautus’s dialogue into the anti-marriage argument, which his eventual recommendation qualifies.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: procreare liberos lepidissimum

Modern rendering: To beget children is most delightful

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Lepidissimum supplies most delightful; English is is supplied to complete the nominal Latin statement.

libertas

Printed “libertas” (Latin; lemma).

Civic freedom under government.

Here: Libertas is the subject liberty; nunquam never, gratior more welcome, and sub Rege pio under a just or dutiful king. The comparative does not mean freedom from all government.

Context: Burton quotes Claudian in favour of monarchy for his imagined commonwealth, alongside access to honours for worthy commoners and strictly enforced intelligible laws.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: nunquam libertas gratior extat, Quam sub Rege pio

Modern rendering: Never is liberty more welcome Than under a just king

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

libertas · libertatem

Printed “libertatem” (Latin; lemma).

Release from constraint or suffering.

Here: Libertatem is accusative after ad, towards freedom; viam is path and veram true. Burton’s separate following English uses allowable, which is not a lexical translation of veram. In this reported ancient argument the release is claimed through death, a position Burton later rejects.

Context: Burton reports ancient philosophical defences of voluntary death, then expressly rejects them and concludes with caution about judging sufferers and hope in divine mercy. This is a reported controversial argument, not his final endorsement or advice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: quamcunque, veram esse viam ad libertatem

Modern rendering: Any path is a true path to freedom

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Libertas

Printed “Libertas” (Latin divine name; lemma).

The personified divine figure of Liberty.

Here: The Latin abstract noun is used as a divine name, and the modern edition retains it while supplying its transparent English meaning.

Context: Burton’s catalogue of ancient gods belongs to his polemic against worship of personified powers; its categories and historical sources are uneven.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Libertas

Modern rendering: Libertas, Liberty

Alignment scope: Original divine name retained with an added explanatory English gloss

Word and construction: The modern text repeats the name Libertas and appends the supplied gloss Liberty; only the name is printed in the original.

Further local use

Printed “Liberty” (English personified name; lemma).

Citation key: Liberty.

Here: Liberty is the English name of the personified power among alleged ancient divinities.

Context: The catalogue compares pagan powers and Catholic patron saints in Burton’s religious polemic. Exact source passages and the claimed cult practices remain uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Honor, Liberty, Contumely

Modern rendering: Honour, Liberty, Insult

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

libertine

Printed “Libertines” (English; lemma).

People accused of rejecting religious or moral restraint.

Here: Libertines is a polemical classification within religious deficiency, not a reference to freed slaves or a precise neutral denomination.

Context: Burton groups very different people under his own confessional and moral judgement; the accusations are not adopted as facts about those groups.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Epicures, Libertines, Atheists

Modern rendering: pleasure-seekers, libertines, atheists

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “Libertines” (English; lemma).

Citation key: libertine.

Here: Libertines again names people accused of doctrinal and moral error in Burton’s list; the adjoining political schemers are another category.

Context: The passage treats both insufficient belief and excessive despair as religious deficiency. Its broad classification does not establish a uniform group identity.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Sadduces, Herodians, Libertines, polititians

Modern rendering: Sadducees, Herodians, Libertines, political schemers

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

libertinus

Printed “libertino” (Latin; lemma).

Pertaining to a person freed from slavery.

Here: Libertino modifies patre, father, both ablative singular; natus means born. The phrase means born of a father who had been freed, not born of an irreligious libertine.

Context: Burton’s compressed low-birth catalogue echoes Horace, Satires 1.6; it should not be taken to prove this exact paternal status for every name in his list.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: libertino patre natus

Modern rendering: born of a freedman father

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

liberty · local use 1

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Freedom or latitude to speak.

Here: Liberty is paired with freedom of speech; a little more supplies degree. The assumed name offers room for frank speech.

Context: Burton proposes this as one possible explanation of his persona, then gives the Hippocratic story as another. The alternatives must not be turned into one exclusive motive.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: a little more liberty and freedom of speech

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

liberty · local use 2

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Discretion or latitude in handling material.

Here: Liberty here permits paraphrase, selection and adaptation instead of word-for-word translation; more supplies greater degree.

Context: Burton describes his own authorial practice and acknowledges that he selects what suits his purpose.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: I use more liberty

Modern rendering: I take greater freedom

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Citation key: liberty.

Here: Poetic liberty is latitude to invent; the claim supports Burton’s imagined commonwealth and his asserted freedom to rule it.

Context: The abbreviated Horace quotation concerns painters’ and poets’ licence. Democritus’s lawgiving is qualified as some say.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: what liberty Poets ever had

Modern rendering: the freedom poets have always enjoyed

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The original exclamatory what-clause becomes a definite noun phrase with a relative clause; ever is always.

liberty · local use 3

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Permission or authorization to act.

Here: Liberty is permission to write, expressly contrasted with ability.

Context: Burton attributes this observation about France to Scaliger; the exact letter remains unresolved. The passage calls for princely regulation, so the sentence is not an unconditional defence of unrestricted publishing.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: every man hath liberty to write

Modern rendering: everyone has permission to write

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Citation key: liberty.

Here: Liberty again denotes the freedom to publish, now the object of proposed restraint.

Context: Burton invokes Gesner’s desired reform through decrees and overseers, and then includes his own volume in the excessive production of books.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to restrain this liberty

Modern rendering: to curb this freedom

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Citation key: liberty.

Here: Temporary permission for servants to speak and act freely is the Saturnalian analogy; had liberty becomes were free.

Context: This is the satirist’s literary excuse. His defiant assertion the passage is followed by fear and recantation the passage, not a verified claim to immunity.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: servants in old Rome had liberty to say and do what them list

Modern rendering: servants in ancient Rome were free to say and do whatever they pleased

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Had liberty is recast as were free; the complete clause preserves the servants, speech, action and unrestricted object.

Further local use

Printed “libertati” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: libertas.

Here: Libertati is dative singular of libertas: no danger exists for freedom. The modern clause makes freedom its subject.

Context: The quoted phrase introduces the Saturnalian analogy rather than establishing an actual protected season for this publication.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: nullum libertati periculum est

Modern rendering: freedom is in no danger

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Nullum supplies no, periculum danger, est is; the dative libertati becomes the modern subject in the idiomatic recasting.

liberty · local use 4

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Moral self-government or command of one’s own actions.

Here: The quoted paradox defines liberty through self-rule. The following question asks who actually possesses it, rather than assigning it to all legally free people.

Context: Burton attributes the paradox to Cicero; the continuation invokes the wise person’s mastery, then questions whether such a person can be found. The Horatian speaker is the slave Davus addressing his master.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: liberty is a power to live according to his own Laws, as we wil our selves

Modern rendering: Freedom is the power to live by our own laws, as we ourselves wish

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “free” (English; lemma).

Citation key: free.

Here: Free and slaves form the moral contrast: the wise govern themselves, while fools are subject to their passions. Neither word here fixes legal status.

Context: Cicero’s Stoic paradox is followed by Burton’s question about the existence of its ideal sage.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: wise men are free, but fools are slaves

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “liberi” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: liber.

Here: Liberi is nominative plural free; servi is slaves; sapientes the wise, stulti fools, libertas liberty and potestas power. The nominal clauses omit a form of are.

Context: The original margin condenses Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 5.33–34; its etcetera does not supply an additional definition.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Sapientes liberi, stulti servi, libertas est potestas

Modern rendering: The wise are free, fools slaves; liberty is the power

Alignment scope: Original marginal wording aligned with the supplied editorial translation of that note

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Modern container: note

liberty · local use 5

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Freedom from another’s restraint or command.

Here: Liberty concerns movement and control of one’s life; its loss may distress even someone supplied with comfortable housing and food. Servitude and imprisonment name related but not identical conditions.

Context: Burton adds these causes to his historical account of melancholy, expressly saying to some persons. The continuation distinguishes comfortable restriction from slavery and an actual prison.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: loss of liberty, servitude, or imprisonment

Modern rendering: loss of liberty, servitude or imprisonment

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

liberty · local use 6

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Personal independence from another’s demands.

Here: Liberty here is freedom from the attendance and reciprocal services expected by patrons. The passage treats excessive attachment to it as costly.

Context: Burton reports Erasmus’s confession and implicates himself, then warns against the opposite extreme of shameless solicitation. The exact Erasmus borrowing remains unresolved.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: love of liberty

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “libertatis” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: libertas.

Here: Libertatis is genitive singular of liberty, dependent on amor, love; immodicus supplies excessive.

Context: The confession is attributed to Erasmus and interrupted by Burton before its continuation about poverty. It is not a blanket condemnation of independence.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: immodicus amor libertatis

Modern rendering: an excessive love of liberty

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “libertas” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: libertas.

Here: Libertas is freedom, personified as leaving when the dowry arrives; dos is dowry, intrat enters and exit goes out.

Context: This is the anti-marriage complaint about dependence on a wealthy wife, not a legal rule of dowry. The preceding declamation is Seneca the Elder’s, and the eventual recommendation is qualifiedly pro-marriage.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: dos intrat, libertas exit

Modern rendering: The dowry comes in, freedom goes out

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Sense relation: The same personal independence from another’s demands is here imagined as lost through financial dependence on a spouse.

liberty · local use 7

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Licence or latitude to act without restraint.

Here: Liberty glosses the freedom afforded by greatness. The following impunity of sin adds immunity from punishment, claimed by the powerful rather than established as a right.

Context: The conditional combination of youth, rank and claimed impunity explains Burton’s accusation of increased vice; it does not prove every great person corrupt.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: liberty I mean

Modern rendering: by which I mean freedom

Alignment scope: Parenthetical gloss recast with an explicit relative connector

Word and construction: The parenthetical liberty I mean becomes by which I mean freedom; by which explicitly connects the gloss to the preceding high rank.

liberty · local use 8

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Permission for movement and social activity.

Here: Liberty is the freedom husbands are urged to allow wives; with discretion supplies reasonable and the time-and-place qualification limits it.

Context: Burton’s advice balances criticism of confinement with warnings against too much latitude. Its demand for wives’ obedience and silence remains patriarchal rather than an unqualified equal-rights argument.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: liberty with discretion, as time and place requires

Modern rendering: reasonable freedom as time and place require

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “free liberty” (English; lemma).

Citation key: liberty.

Here: Liberty denotes freedom of action, with trespass specifically doing wrong. The comparative claim is that less coercion yields fewer offences, not that wrongdoing becomes lawful.

Context: Burton agrees with Aeneas Sylvius’s argument against locking wives away; the gender generalization is an attributed claim, not a verified causal law.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: free liberty to trespass

Modern rendering: complete freedom to transgress

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Citation key: liberty.

Here: Liberty concerns going out; in good sort adds the proper measure or manner.

Context: Burton rejects the anonymous philosopher’s three-outings rule as too strict, but immediately insists on decorum and wives’ obedient silence when husbands are angry.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Let them have their liberty in good sort

Modern rendering: Let them have a proper measure of freedom

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

liberty · libertie

Printed “libertie” (English; lemma).

Permission to follow a religious practice.

Here: Libertie is the spelling of liberty; the clause advocates freedom for each province’s worship within the argument being surveyed.

Context: Burton assembles arguments for toleration, including a selective Pliny account. His own ensuing middle course retains excommunication, laws, fines, book-burning and prohibition of assemblies; it is not unrestricted toleration.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Let every Province enjoy their libertie in this behalf

Modern rendering: Let every province enjoy its liberty in this matter

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “free” (English; lemma).

Citation key: free.

Here: Free denotes permission for a city’s religious observance.

Context: Burton turns Cicero’s Pro Flacco statement has its religion, est, into the permission let it have, sit. This is his adapted argument, not an exact Ciceronian toleration declaration.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: every city should be free in this behalf

Modern rendering: every city should be free in this respect

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

liberty · local use 9

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Spiritual deliverance or the source of it.

Here: Liberty is predicated of Christ as the believer’s deliverance from sin, death and the devil. The modern explicitly names Christ to disambiguate he.

Context: Burton exhorts a troubled believer to reject Satan’s accusation of rejection; the next he who accuses refers to Satan, not Christ. This is Christian consolation, not a general political liberty.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: he is thy liberty

Modern rendering: Christ is your freedom

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: Christ explicitly supplies the antecedent of he; thy becomes your and liberty freedom.

liberty · local use 10

Printed “liberty” (English; lemma).

Freedom of choice or volitional agency.

Here: Liberty distinguishes will from sensitive appetite. Againe is represented by also within the complete alignment.

Context: Burton says the will remains free in some ordinary operations despite corruption after the Fall; the passage explicitly limits spiritual freedom unless regenerated. Will and nill treats that theological and psychological argument fully.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Againe, they differ in liberty

Modern rendering: They also differ in freedom

Alignment scope: Equal-scope complete clause with the connective Againe rendered as also

Word and construction: Liberty supplies freedom; modern also corresponds to Againe, not to liberty itself.

liberty of the prison

Printed “liberty of the prison” (English; phrase).

Limited freedom within imprisonment.

Here: The jailer releases the prisoner from restraints and permits movement within the prison; he does not discharge him from captivity.

Context: The Aristaenetus attribution concerns a story found in a later translation rather than established in the Greek text. The alleged cuckolding supplies an ingratitude example, not proof that humane treatment causes sexual betrayal.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: he let him loose, to enjoy the liberty of the prison

Modern rendering: he released him from his restraints and allowed him the freedom of the prison

Alignment scope: Complete finite clause with purpose infinitive recast as coordinated finite predicates

Word and construction: Liberty of the prison supplies freedom of the prison; the modern released him from his restraints explicates let him loose, and allowed him recasts the purpose infinitive to enjoy as a coordinated finite predicate. The whole construction preserves restricted movement within captivity.

mancipate

Printed “mancipate” (English; lemma).

To put into bondage or enslavement.

Here: Mancipate is a verb, glossed by sell; voluntarily is a separate qualification, and hunger and poverty constrain the reported choice.

Context: Burton explicitly begins if we may give credit to Münster. The Lithuanian report remains uncollated, and the neighbouring accounts of death in distress are reports rather than present advice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: they voluntarily mancipate, and sell themselves, their wives and children to rich men

Modern rendering: people voluntarily enslave themselves, selling themselves, their wives and children to the rich

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Mare liberum

Printed “Mare liberum” (Latin title; phrase).

The sea understood as open to navigation and commerce.

Here: Mare is sea and liberum its neuter singular adjective, free. The marginal reference identifies Grotius’s book; the phrase is a title invoked in a commercial dispute.

Context: Burton’s Tush rejects complacency about Dutch fishing and English dependency; invoking the title is not an endorsement of all Grotius’s argument.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Mare liberum

Modern rendering: the free sea

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

servant

Printed “servant” (English; lemma).

A person serving another in a subordinate position.

Here: Servant overlaps here with the enslaved person of Seneca’s source. The first-person speaker claims shared humanity and possibly greater worth before God, not a change in legal status.

Context: Burton turns Seneca’s remarks about slaves into a servant’s appeal. The margin prints Letter 74 where the parallel is 47.1; peradventure qualifies the comparison of spiritual worth.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: I am a servant

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “servus” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servus.

Here: Servus is a slave; sum I am; at but; humilis amicus a humble friend. The supplied note translation carries the repeated I am from the larger series.

Context: The opening clause elsewhere in this margin has an uncertain printed sumne; this selected later clause is clear. The whole series is Burton’s adaptation of Seneca 47.1.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: servus sum, at humilis amicus

Modern rendering: a slave, but a humble friend

Alignment scope: Original marginal wording aligned with the supplied editorial translation of that note

Word and construction: The modern note’s phrase omits the repeated I am, carried by the larger explanatory series; it does not deny the Latin first-person verb.

Modern container: note

Further local use

Printed “servi” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servus.

Here: Servi is nominative plural slaves; etiam even; diis to the gods and curæ an object of care, a double-dative construction with sunt.

Context: Burton attributes the defence to Evangelus, but in Macrobius it is Praetextatus replying to Evangelus. The Latin gods and Burton’s following singular his sight remain distinct.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Etiam servi diis curæ sunt

Modern rendering: Even slaves are objects of the gods’ care

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

servile

Printed “servile” (English; lemma).

Subject to dependent or forced service.

Here: Servile describes a class compelled to work and unable to refuse tasks; generation means a class or people here. The word does not itself establish one uniform legal status across Burton’s examples.

Context: The surrounding marginal authorities range from Leo Africanus to Münster’s German peasants; the precise passages remain uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a servile generation

Modern rendering: a servile race

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “servilis” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servilis.

Here: Servilis qualifies gens, an enslaved or servile people; misera adds wretched, nihil nothing, recusare refuse and audet dares.

Context: The Latin and Burton’s separate English describe compulsory labour, with different levels of explicitness about enslavement.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: servilis & misera gens nihil recusare audet

Modern rendering: an enslaved and wretched people dares refuse nothing

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

servilis

Printed “Servile” (Latin; lemma).

Marked by subordinate or degrading dependence.

Here: Servile qualifies nomen, name: the social designation scholar has become degradingly dependent. It does not assert that every scholar is legally owned.

Context: The marginal sentence accompanies Burton’s complaint that poverty forces scholars to beg for patronage. The supplied transcription expands the printed abbreviations nom. and ē; the associated Heinsius preface remains unlocated.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Servile nomen est Scholaris jam

Modern rendering: The name “scholar” is now a servile one

Alignment scope: Original marginal wording aligned with the supplied editorial translation of that note

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Modern container: note

servitium

Printed “servitium” (Latin; lemma).

A household or body of servants collectively.

Here: Servitium here names the people serving a master, not an abstract experience of oppression. Totum supplies whole and ejus his.

Context: The marginal Apuleius passage contrasts the rich man’s inability to eat with the servants’ feasting. Burton expands the body with sickness and diet; these are historical claims.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: totum ejus servitium

Modern rendering: his whole household of servants

Alignment scope: Original marginal wording aligned with the supplied editorial translation of that note

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Modern container: note

servitude · local use 1

Printed “servitude” (English; lemma).

Subjection to another’s power, especially bondage or slavery.

Here: Servitude is the condition ranked as extreme misery; the extremity belongs to Botero’s evaluation rather than the word’s definition.

Context: Burton attributes the judgement to Botero and surrounds it with comparisons between confinement and actual slavery. The authorities’ death comparisons are reported rhetoric, not advice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: that accompt servitude, the extremity of misery

Modern rendering: who regards servitude as the extremity of misery

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “servitute” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servitus.

Here: Servitute is ablative singular after in, in bondage; vivendum concerns having to live, while tristius morte supplies worse than death.

Context: Hermolaus addresses Alexander in Curtius, as reported by Burton. The saying is a historical valuation, not a recommendation for a reader.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Quod tristius morte, in servitute vivendum

Modern rendering: To live in bondage is worse than death

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “servitutem” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servitus.

Here: Servitutem is accusative singular in the indirect statement, slavery; extremum omnium malorum the greatest of all evils. Arbitror is first-person I consider, but the modern rendering incorporates it in I am one who considers.

Context: Botero’s attributed judgement is reported without independently establishing the exact source.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Equidem ego is sum, qui servitutem extremum omnium malorum esse arbitror

Modern rendering: For my part, I am one who considers slavery the greatest of all evils

Alignment scope: Equal-scope complete Latin and modern clauses

Word and construction: Equidem ego is sum supplies For my part, I am one; qui introduces who, while the first-person arbitror becomes considers within the English relative clause. Servitutem names slavery and extremum omnium malorum the greatest of all evils.

Further local use

Printed “servitute” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servitus.

Here: Servitute means in servitude; mentem mind and non preserves the denial of mental bondage. The supplied note translation makes the printed compressed construction intelligible.

Context: The margin quotes the maid’s protest from Aristaenetus. It does not claim that she is legally emancipated.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: non mentem unà addixit mihi fortuna servitute

Modern rendering: Fortune did not bind my mind along with me in servitude

Alignment scope: Original marginal wording aligned with the supplied editorial translation of that note

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Modern container: note

Sense relation: The maid’s actual servile condition supplies the literal bondage from which she explicitly excludes her mind.

servitude · local use 2

Printed “servitude” (English; lemma).

Dependence or restrictive obligation figured as slavery.

Here: State is social rank; its ceremonial obligations prevent privacy and ordinary freedom. The modern a form of makes the metaphor explicit.

Context: Burton argues that the rich or powerful may be less free than a countryman. His following generalizations about secluded Asian rulers remain reported, not universal facts.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: his state is a servitude

Modern rendering: his high position is a form of slavery

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “mancipia” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: mancipium.

Here: Mancipia is neuter plural for enslaved people or human property; aurea adds golden, the luxury gilding the restriction.

Context: The epithet is transferred to rulers supposedly confined by the requirements of majesty; it does not establish their legal enslavement.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: aurea mancipia

Modern rendering: golden slaves

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “servitus” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servitus.

Here: Servitus is personified slavery, contrasted with liberos, free men. Culmen is the printed roof, not the straw of the compared Seneca text.

Context: The poor speaker contrasts his freedom with the rich favourite’s dependence. Burton adapts Seneca 90.10, adding afterwards and changing the tense.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: culmen liberos texit, sub marmore et auro postea servitus habitavit

Modern rendering: A roof sheltered free men; afterwards slavery lived beneath marble and gold

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

slave · slaves · local use 1

Printed “slaves” (English; lemma).

People held in slavery.

Here: Slaves names the reported condition of coerced mine workers. The number, Indigenous identity and place belong to this report, not to the definition.

Context: Burton cites De Laet; the number, classification and reference to gold mines are not independently established. The paragraph condemns harsh labour, hunger and beatings, rather than merely likening passion to captivity.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: 30000 Indian slaves at Potosa in Peru

Modern rendering: thirty thousand Indigenous slaves at Potosa in Peru

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “Gally-slaves” (English; family).

Citation key: galley slave.

Here: Gally-slaves is a compound for enslaved galley labourers; the comparison concerns people bought and sold as working animals.

Context: Burton’s compressed Ottoman, African and American examples invoke Lansius and De Laet. Their scope is reported rather than independently verified.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Turks Gally-slaves, which are bought and sold like juments

Modern rendering: the Turks’ galley slaves, bought and sold like beasts of burden

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “slaves” (English; lemma).

Citation key: slave.

Here: Slaves are people subjected for life to the person they wronged in Burton’s penal proposal.

Context: The modern sentence expresses for life before its list of punishments. The passage rejects hereditary slavery but does not retract this penal condition.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: otherwise they shal be condemned to the gallies, mines, be his slaves whom they offended, during their lives

Modern rendering: Otherwise they shall be condemned for life to the galleys or mines, or to slavery under the person they wronged.

Alignment scope: Equal-scope complete sentence with shared duration

Word and construction: Be his slaves becomes to slavery under the person they wronged. The modern for life precedes the coordinated penalties and preserves during their lives within the complete sentence.

slave · slaves · local use 2

Printed “slaves” (English; lemma).

People figuratively mastered by desires or emotions.

Here: Affections are passions; slaves expresses their mastery over people. The modern supplies we are to make Burton’s compressed continuation a complete clause.

Context: Burton’s consolation treats rulers, lovers and rich people as subject to fear, pride, lust or money. It must be read beside the earlier recognition of actual imprisonment and forced labour.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: all slaves to our affections

Modern rendering: we are all slaves to our passions

Alignment scope: Compressed nominal continuation rendered as a complete finite clause with supplied we are

Word and construction: The nominal continuation all slaves becomes the finite clause we are all slaves; our affections is our passions.

Further local use

Printed “servus” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servus.

Here: Servus is slave; rerum and hominum are genitives of things and people; sis is whether you are. Nihil refert supplies makes no difference.

Context: The maxim deliberately puts bondage to possessions beside subjection to people as a moral comparison, without making their material circumstances identical.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: nihil enim refert, rerum sis servus an hominum

Modern rendering: for it makes no difference whether you are a slave to things or to people

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “servitutem” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servitus.

Here: Servitutem is accusative slavery; assiduam unceasing, extremam utter, and ineluctabilem inescapable. Those intensifiers describe bondage to vice.

Context: Burton adapts Seneca’s Natural Questions 3, preface 16–17, in the consolatory argument; the neighbouring Macrobius attribution mistakes Evangelus for his respondent Praetextatus.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: assiduam servitutem extremam & ineluctabilem

Modern rendering: unceasing, utter and inescapable slavery

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “servit” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: servio.

Here: Servit means serves, with the dative libidini, lust; the repeated verb is understood with ambitioni, spei and timori, ambition, hope and fear.

Context: The Macrobius margin supports the moral servitude comparison; the body assigns its argument to the wrong dialogue speaker.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Alius libidini servit, alius ambitioni, omnes spei, omnes timori

Modern rendering: One serves lust, another ambition; all serve hope, all fear

Alignment scope: Original marginal wording aligned with the supplied editorial translation of that note

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Modern container: note

thraldom

Printed “thralldom” (English; family).

Bondage or subjection.

Here: Thralldom intensifies the chain of slavery metaphors applied to marriage. The immediate sentence denies that marriage itself is evil and praises a harmonious match.

Context: Burton has just marked the preceding violent joke as comic; his serious formulation still contains an express qualification. The passage concludes by urging the risk of marriage.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: marriage is a bondage, a thralldom, an yoke

Modern rendering: marriage is a bondage, a slavery, a yoke

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

voluntary servant

Printed “voluntary servants” (English; phrase).

People who willingly place themselves in another’s service.

Here: Voluntary qualifies servants; the lover’s willing submission is described through captivity imagery. It can coexist rhetorically with his later inability to escape desire.

Context: Burton uses Castiglione’s courtly dialogue and Xenophon’s Cyrus to characterize erotic dependence. The literal suffering of enslaved workers elsewhere is not reduced to this metaphor.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: slaves, captives, voluntary servants

Modern rendering: slaves, captives and willing servants

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes the defined sense to this complete aligned unit.

Further local use

Printed “mancipium” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: mancipium.

Here: Amator means lover; amicæ is the beloved woman’s, genitive singular; mancipium a person held as property. Is and his are supplied to express the compressed nominal relation in English.

Context: Burton attributes the formula to Castiglione; the surrounding account invokes Emilia’s description of the lover becoming a lackey.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Amator amicæ mancipium

Modern rendering: the lover is his beloved’s property

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase/construction in the paired body texts

Word and construction: The nominal Latin clause supplies no explicit is or his; the English adds them to articulate the possessive relation.