Lust and lusty

Use in the book

Burton’s account of weariness with pleasure describes people trapped in repetitive pursuit: like a horse in a mill or a dog in a wheel, they return to what no longer satisfies them. Their “lust” is the desire that worldly delights fail to satisfy, before the comparison turns to the still greater misery of bondage. The verb can take a plainly nonsexual object: those who “lust after” money crave wealth in the scriptural condemnation of covetousness. A third force occurs in Chaucer’s couplet: Troilus is “in lust and in quiet”, in pleasure and peace with Criseyde. Burton places it amid imagined happy unions, but the cited lovers are not thereby married in Chaucer’s narrative.

The regimen’s “very lusty” is a bodily qualification. Montalto permits an exception to his restriction on sexual activity for those who are vigorous and full of blood; another cited writer forbids it to labourers. Burton later insists that neither extreme is good and the middle cannot easily be determined. The strong and well-fed are contrasted with people of cold, dry constitution who cannot endure the exertion without harm, even if strongly inclined to it. Desire, capacity and permissible activity therefore remain separate within his historical physiology.

The sparrows supply the more specifically sexual word “salacity”: Burton reports that frequent sexual expenditure shortens their lives. This is an inherited physiological claim, not an established account of avian longevity. In the later classification of love, young and vigorous people are said to display the passion most evidently, though Burton first includes every rank and condition. Theologians’ “burning lust” then contrasts with physicians’ heroic or noble terminology. A hostile marriage catalogue makes the distinction within one clause: being lusty means vigorous, while the further word lascivious supplies the accusation of excessive sexual appetite.

Related entries

Appetite: The general faculty and objects of appetite.

Concupiscence: Desire and morally evaluated concupiscence.

Luxurious and riot: Excessive pleasure, expenditure and riot.

Venery: Sexual activity in Burton’s historical regimen.

Impotent: Desire can coexist with inability or loss of self-command.

Pleasure: The distinct pleasure-sense of lust.

Places to read

1. Subsection 12. Love of Money. Covetousness as a Cause · paragraph 34Context: covetousness as source of public and private wrongdoing.
2. Subsection 12. Love of Money. Covetousness as a Cause · paragraph 35Verbal lust after money, rendered crave.
3. Subsection 12. Love of Money. Covetousness as a Cause · paragraph 36Continuation defines the immoderate desire of gain.
4. Subsection 5 How Loss of Liberty, Servitude and Imprisonment Cause Melancholy · paragraph 6Senecan statement of tedium precedes Burton’s expanded English.
5. Subsection 5 How Loss of Liberty, Servitude and Imprisonment Cause Melancholy · paragraph 7Unsatisfied lust means appetite or desire amid worldly pleasures.
6. Subsection 5 How Loss of Liberty, Servitude and Imprisonment Cause Melancholy · paragraph 8Continuation extends the argument from tedious pleasure to bondage.
7. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 5The caution and exceptional conditions governing the regimen.
8. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 6Very lusty means vigorous in Montalto’s conditional recommendation.
9. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 7Continuation distinguishes cold/dry constitution and students.
10. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 8Moderation and preservation of seed introduce the excess argument.
11. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 9Latin salacitatem and English salacity in the reported sparrow example.
12. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 10Strong and lustie; the elusive middle course and differing capacities.
13. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 11Continuation distinguishes strong inclination from ability to sustain exertion.
14. Subsection 2 How Love Tyrannizes Over Human Beings. Love, or Heroical Melancholy: Its Definition and the Part Affected · paragraph 47Young and lusty are especially evident cases, after the claim of general reach.
15. Subsection 2 How Love Tyrannizes Over Human Beings. Love, or Heroical Melancholy: Its Definition and the Part Affected · paragraph 48Burning lust is the theologians’ designation; the continuation’s page number 446 is misprinted 246.
16. 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 · paragraph 13Vigour and the additional charge of lasciviousness remain distinguishable.
17. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 50The sequence of imagined romance unions introduces the Chaucer couplet.
18. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 51Lust means pleasure; the note identifies the actual book-ending and the lovers’ unmarried status.
19. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 52Continuation returns to the comfort of lovers who do marry.

In this edition

“Their lust could never be satisfied” becomes “their desires could never be satisfied”, while “they that lust after it” becomes “those who crave it”. Chaucer’s “in lust and in quiet” is “in pleasure and at peace”. The supplied note corrects Burton’s marginal description of this couplet as the poem’s conclusion: it closes book 3.

“Very lusty” becomes “very vigorous”, and the later “yong and lusty” becomes “young and vigorous”. “Their salacity, which is very frequent” becomes “their very frequent sexual activity”. Activity is the translator’s contextual expression of appetite in repeated exercise, not the whole lexical definition of salacity. The preceding Latin “parùm vivaces ob salacitatem” is separately rendered “short-lived because of their lust”; it should not be collapsed into Burton’s expanded English. Salacitatem is the accusative after ob, “because of”; the modern possessive “their” is supplied from the sparrows named in the surrounding sentence. These historical medical passages do not supply present-day sexual-health advice.

burning lust

Printed “burning lust” (English; phrase).

Intense sexual desire, morally condemned in this designation.

Here: The theologians’ name contrasts with the physicians’ more honourable heroic or noble love.

Context: Burton reports and judges competing names for the passion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: which our Divines call burning lust

Modern rendering: which our theologians call burning lust

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes intense sexual desire, morally condemned in this designation.

lust · local use 1

Printed “lust” (English; lemma).

Appetite or desire, not confined to sex.

Here: Repeated worldly pleasures become tedious without satisfying desire.

Context: Burton expands the preceding Senecan passage and invokes Marcus Aurelius and Solomon as witnesses to weariness with pleasure.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: their lust could never be satisfied

Modern rendering: their desires could never be satisfied

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes appetite or desire, not confined to sex.

lust · local use 2

Printed “lust” (English; lemma).

Pleasure or delight.

Here: Troilus is with Criseyde in pleasurable peace, in the couplet Burton places among romance unions.

Context: Chaucer’s lovers are quoted within Burton’s marriage conclusion; the supplied note identifies the end of book 3, not the conclusion of the entire poem, and does not make them married.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: in lust and in quiet

Modern rendering: in pleasure and at peace

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Lust supplies pleasure; quiet supplies peace. The two nouns remain separate.

lust after

Printed “lust after” (English; phrase).

Desire or crave something strongly.

Here: The object is money, explicitly named before the relative clause.

Context: Burton quotes 1 Timothy within his account of covetousness.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: they that lust after it

Modern rendering: those who crave it

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Lust after supplies crave; it refers back to money.

lusty

Printed “lusty” (English; lemma).

Bodily vigorous or robust.

Here: Vigour and fullness of blood are the stated exception to Montalto’s restriction on sexual activity.

Context: Burton reports a conditional medical opinion, immediately distinguishing another author’s prohibition for labourers; it is historical regimen, not current advice.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: very lusty

Modern rendering: very vigorous

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes bodily vigorous or robust.

Further local use

Printed “lustie” (English; lemma).

Here: Physical capacity is placed within a difficult-to-determine middle course between extremes.

Context: Burton reports humoral differences and literary examples of exceptional capacity, then contrasts those unable to sustain the exertion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: strong and lustie

Modern rendering: strong, vigorous

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes vigorous or robust.

Sense relation: A further local application of the same sense, with its own agency and phrase alignment.

Further local use

Printed “lusty” (English; lemma).

Here: Love’s effects are said to be most evident among the young and vigorous, richly fed, noble and idle.

Context: Burton first says all ranks and conditions are affected; most evident does not mean exclusively confined to these people.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: yong and lusty

Modern rendering: young and vigorous

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The indexed form contributes vigorous.

Sense relation: A further local application of the same sense, with its own agency and phrase alignment.

Further local use

Printed “lusty” (English; lemma).

Here: A hostile argument against marriage turns vigour into a prediction of excessive desire.

Context: Burton’s dissuasive conditional catalogue makes the sexual accusation with lascivious, not with lusty alone.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: if lusty, too lascivious

Modern rendering: if vigorous, too lustful

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Lusty contributes vigorous; too lascivious supplies the added accusation too lustful.

Sense relation: A further local application of the same sense, with its own agency and phrase alignment.

salacitas

Printed “salacitatem” (Latin; lemma).

Sexual appetite or lust.

Here: The Latin gives the causal account of sparrows’ short lives before Burton restates it in English.

Context: Burton’s Latin report attributed to Aristotle, preserved independently of his expanded English explanation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: parùm vivaces ob salacitatem

Modern rendering: short-lived because of their lust

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Salacitatem is accusative singular governed by ob and contributes lust; ob contributes because of, and parùm vivaces supplies short-lived. Their is supplied from the sparrows context.

Translator-supplied words: their: supplied possessive referring to the sparrows named in the surrounding sentence

salacity

Printed “salacity” (English; lemma).

Sexual appetite or lust.

Here: The supposed frequency of sparrows’ sexual activity explains their short life in the report attributed to Aristotle.

Context: Burton turns the animal example into a warning against excess; the physiological claim is historical.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: their salacity, which is very frequent

Modern rendering: their very frequent sexual activity

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Salacity names appetite; the modern clause renders its frequent exercise as sexual activity, making the enacted appetite explicit.