Make away

Use in the book

Poverty supplies the inherited example. Burton calls self-killing the furthest extreme of misery, describing anguish and weariness with life under want. The following Latin is attributed to Theognis, and Burton adds an expanded English verse with an imperative make thy self away. Those are historical voices of despair, not instructions from this edition. The continuation moves through reports and allegations concerning poverty, then contrasts actual want with Apicius’s fear of future destitution despite remaining wealth. The cases remain reported exempla rather than verified modern diagnoses.

The later philosophical discussion asks both whether self-killing can be lawful under extreme suffering and how those who do it should be judged. Burton attributes conditional approval to Platonists and to Socrates, preserving the proposed limits of necessity, incurable disease and the person’s good. The supplied Phaedo comparison does not support his disease clause as a direct quotation. His compilation then assembles approving arguments and mixed historical or literary examples, including a compressed account of More’s fictional Utopia. Neither that compilation nor its rhetorical claim of incurability should be isolated as the work’s final position.

Burton expressly rejects the approving doctrines, then qualifies punishment. He argues that loss of reason and extreme melancholy can mitigate harsh judgments, including the historical burial and property penalties mentioned in the margin. Foreest’s two brothers are said to have received proper burial after further investigation revoked the earlier punitive decision. Finally, Burton leaves their souls’ fate to God and urges charity rather than rash severity. This movement from debate to rejection and then compassionate judgment is essential to the two inherited phrases at its opening.

Intent must also be kept apart from completion. A patient who believes without grounds that he has committed murder is determined to make away himself; the account establishes the fear and intention, not either death. Another passage says sufferers are often tempted, then describes renewed pleasure in life followed by renewed distress; Mercurialis’s patient repeatedly thinks of dispatching himself over years. In Burton’s retelling, Plotinus intervenes before Porphyry acts, and the next paragraph urges gentle persuasion and pity. The supplied comparison distinguishes that retelling from Porphyry’s account of a visit, advice to leave Rome and subsequent recovery.

With a non-reflexive object, the phrase instead identifies someone else as victim. The self-interested master makes away a useful retainer after exploiting him. The Circumcellion and Donatist allegation says they compelled others to kill them, making the immediate killers and the alleged procurers distinct. Fredegund is said to arrange Chilperic’s death: made away by her means through her agency, not necessarily by her own hand. Justina is likewise made away by her husband in a reported cautionary story. The jealousy prognosis includes killing oneself and others, but begins with generally and unless relieved, and its examples have different literary and historical status.

War gives the double object a wider causal reach: vain hope of immortal fame prompts people to destroy themselves and multitudes of others through reckless action. Burton expressly defends necessary soldiering, so this attack concerns destructive false honour. A nearby expression in the jealousy catalogue needs a different caution: Joan of Spain’s making an end of her miseries does not establish suicide. The original Latin margin says that she spent the rest of her life in distress; the body’s ending cannot supply a missing account of how she died.

Ordinary objects change the sense altogether. A rich widow allegedly makes all away to her other children by handing over her property beforehand, within the anti-marriage arguments offered to the lovesick. The surrounding halter image means entrapment. In the proposed commonwealth, controversies are speedily dispatched when they are dealt with and settled; the object is a legal matter, not a person.

Other settings distinguish prognosis, threat and fear. The historical prognosis calls melancholy seldom fatal except through self-killing, invokes authorities who describe even fear of death as compatible with such an outcome, and makes a strong frequency claim without a statistical measure. Joessa’s conditional threat is instead part of a literary attempt to move a lover, placed within Burton’s accusations of feigned passion; the supplied comparison corrects his apparent confusion of the addressee’s name. Platter’s patient fears acting and therefore avoids the places where he feels most tempted. That paragraph immediately allows symptoms to intensify or diminish and people to differ in their response to help.

Related entries

Despair: Desperate: supplementary preservation note to Despair in this batch

Charity: The concluding demand for charitable judgment

Generous: Noble courage in the attributed death debate

Fame and reputation: Fame as a motive for reckless collective destruction

Poverty and riches: Want, feared impoverishment and their different effects

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 1–2, 5–7necessary soldiering distinguished from fame-driven destruction of oneself and others
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 24–26interested friendship and the killing of an exploited retainer
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 32–34dispatch as settling legal disputes in the proposed commonwealth
4. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 30–39poverty, self-killing, the distinct Latin and English verse voices, and reported cases
5. Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraphs 34–36intention under an unfounded fear of punishment, without a reported completed act
6. Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraphs 10–13recurrent temptation, changing feelings and thoughts of dispatching oneself
7. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraphs 12–16the seldom-fatal prognosis with its self-killing exception, fear of death and non-statistical frequency claim
8. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraphs 1–14the ethical question, conditional attributed approval and source qualifications
9. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraphs 15–22rejection, mitigation, reconsidered burial and the final appeal to charity
10. Subsection 2 Help From Friends Through Counsel and Comfort Gentle and Harsh Methods Ingenious Devices Reassurance Changes in the Way of Life and Removal of Troubling Objects and So Forth · paragraphs 26–28Porphyry’s interrupted intention and the counsel to gentle treatment
11. Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation, Singing, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales and Sights, Kissing, Familiarity, Tokens, Gifts, Bribes, Promises, Declarations, Tears, and So On · paragraphs 43–47Joessa’s conditional literary threat, its manipulative framing and the Pythius/Lysias source correction
12. 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 11–16make all away as a property transfer in the anti-marriage catalogue
13. Prognostics of Jealousy: Despair, Madness, Killing Themselves and Others · paragraphs 3–12the conditional prognosis, killing oneself and others, Fredegund’s arranging role, and Joan’s ambiguous ending
14. 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 49–52Justina killed by her husband and the reported epitaph’s warning
15. Symptoms of Despair: Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, Horror of Conscience, Terrifying Dreams and Visions · paragraphs 45–46; Subsection 5 · paragraph 1fear-driven avoidance, variable symptoms and different responses to help, before the prognosis heading

In this edition

“To make away themselves” becomes “to kill themselves”; “to make away himself” becomes “to kill himself”; “he may dispatch himself” becomes “he may kill himself.” The direct equivalents remove the obsolete euphemism without erasing the difference between a description of distress and a conditional philosophical claim. May remains attributed permission, with the conditions in the surrounding sentence.

“Was often minded to dispatch himselfe” becomes “often thought of killing himself”: the thought and its recurrence remain. “He was going to make away himself” becomes “he was about to take his own life,” before the reported intervention. The alternative “do away with themselves” remains a euphemism for self-killing within an explicitly stated temptation.

“Make him away” becomes “they kill him” in the retainer story, with they supplied from the preceding agents. “Compelled others to make them away” becomes “compelled others to kill them.” “She instantly took order to make him away” becomes “she immediately arranged to have him killed,” retaining indirect agency; “made away by her jealous husband” becomes “killed by her jealous husband”.

“Make all away” is retrieved through “hand everything over,” preserving the widow’s property transfer and its recipients. “Dispatched” becomes “dealt with” when a legal controversy is settled. “Made an end of her miseries” becomes “brought her miseries to an end,” without inserting a cause or manner of death.

dispatch

Printed “dispatched” (English; lemma).

Dealt with or settled.

Here: Legal controversies are to be concluded within a year.

Context: This is Burton’s proposed commonwealth, with qualified magistrates; dispatched concerns cases, not the killing of litigants.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to be speedily dispatched, and finally concluded in that time allotted

Modern rendering: it shall be swiftly dealt with and finally settled within that time

Word and construction: Dispatched becomes dealt with; the modern it and shall make the prescribed handling of the dispute explicit.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

dispatch oneself

Printed “dispatch himself” (English; phrase).

Dispatch can mean kill; himself makes the action self-directed.

Here: Burton attributes a conditional permission to a reported philosophical authority.

Context: The conditions are incurable disease and the person’s good; the supplied Phaedo comparison does not support this as a direct quotation, and Burton later rejects the approving positions.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: he may dispatch himself

Modern rendering: he may kill himself

Word and construction: May preserves attributed permission; the two if clauses remain in the wider original and modern sentence.

Uncertainty: Burton’s intermediary for the Phaedo claim is unidentified; the supplied comparison instead stresses waiting for necessity sent by a god.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “dispatch himselfe” (English; phrase).

Citation key: dispatch oneself.

Here: Mercurialis’s patient repeatedly thinks of self-killing over many years.

Context: The reported thoughts are not a narrated completed act or a modern diagnosis.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: was often minded to dispatch himselfe

Modern rendering: often thought of killing himself

Word and construction: Minded means thought of; often preserves repetition, and himselfe is the original spelling.

Sense relation: The same phrase describes recurrent thought rather than ethical permission.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

make an end of miseries

Printed “made an end of her miseries” (English; phrase).

Brought her sufferings to an end, here in an account ending with her death.

Here: The phrase concerns Joan of Spain after an unhappy life.

Context: It does not establish that she killed herself: the original Latin margin says she spent the rest of her time in distress, while the body gives a stronger causal story about both royal deaths.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: made an end of her miseries

Modern rendering: brought her miseries to an end

Word and construction: The metaphor of ending is retained; no self-killing verb or reflexive object is supplied.

Uncertainty: Burton’s causal account is stronger than the accompanying note; the manner of her death cannot be inferred from this expression.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

make away oneself

Printed “make away themselves” (English; phrase).

To kill oneself; make away means cause death, and themselves makes the people both agents and victims.

Here: Burton describes self-killing as an extreme result of anguish associated with want.

Context: The passage describes the distress of poverty; the following imperative verse is a historical expression of despair, not the edition’s instruction.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to make away themselves

Modern rendering: to kill themselves

Word and construction: The obsolete expression is made direct; themselves preserves the reflexive object.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make away himself” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself.

Here: The phrase names the action whose lawfulness and judgment the philosophers debate.

Context: Whether makes this a question; the subsequent attributions must be read with Burton’s rejection and plea for mitigated judgment at the end.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to make away himself

Modern rendering: to kill himself

Word and construction: The direct equivalent preserves the reflexive object within the larger question of lawfulness.

Sense relation: The same action becomes the subject of a reported ethical debate.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make thy self away” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make oneself away.

Here: The phrase occurs in Burton’s expanded English verse about despair under poverty.

Context: The command belongs to the quoted historical voice, after Latin attributed to Theognis; it is not a counsel of this article.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Goe make thy self away

Modern rendering: Go and put an end to yourself.

Word and construction: The modern euphemism means kill yourself in this verse; Go and preserves the imperative force as an attributed utterance.

Sense relation: The inverted object placement and second-person reflexive express the same self-killing sense.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make away himself” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself.

Here: A patient is reported determined to kill himself because of unfounded fear of punishment.

Context: He believes he has killed a man and cannot be dissuaded for three years; the passage does not establish either the alleged murder or a completed suicide.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: would needs make away himself

Modern rendering: determined to take his own life

Word and construction: Would needs supplies determination; the phrase describes intent rather than an accomplished act.

Sense relation: The same action is contemplated under an unfounded belief, not narrated as completed.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make away themselves” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself.

Here: The account describes recurrent temptation.

Context: The next paragraphs allow renewed pleasure in life and then renewed distress, so neither the temptation nor its relief is made permanent.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: often tempted, I say, to make away themselves

Modern rendering: often tempted, I say, to do away with themselves

Word and construction: Often and tempted retain frequency and non-completion; do away with is another euphemism for self-killing.

Sense relation: The same sense appears as fluctuating temptation.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make away himself” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself.

Here: Porphyry’s intention is interrupted by Plotinus’s consolation in Burton’s retelling.

Context: The supplied comparison says Plotinus visited and advised departure from Rome; Burton instead gives a chance meeting and immediate comfort, followed by counsel to treat sufferers gently.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: he was going to make away himself

Modern rendering: he was about to take his own life

Word and construction: Was going to becomes was about to, preserving intention before the intervening help.

Sense relation: The reported intended action is averted, rather than completed.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “made away themselves” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself.

Here: Two brothers’ deaths lead first to a punitive burial decision and then its revocation.

Context: Burton attributes the case to Foreest; further inquiry into suffering and loss of reason changes the judgment, and the next paragraph leaves the souls’ fate to God.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: two melancholy brethren, that made away themselves

Modern rendering: two melancholy brothers who killed themselves

Word and construction: Made away becomes killed in the completed past; the reflexive preserves agency and object.

Sense relation: The same completed action is followed by reconsideration and pity, not an unqualified punitive conclusion.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make away themselves” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself.

Here: Self-killing is the stated exception to the claim that melancholy seldom causes death.

Context: Burton invokes medical authorities and calls the occurrence frequent, even among people afraid of death; this historical prognosis supplies no statistical risk estimate.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: they make away themselves

Modern rendering: they kill themselves

Word and construction: The reflexive agent and object are retained within the preceding exception to seldom-fatal illness.

Sense relation: The same action is the exception in a severe historical prognosis, not a predicted outcome for every sufferer.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make away her self” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself.

Here: Joessa’s reported resolve is conditional on the lover’s refusal and is intended to move him.

Context: The story is Lucian’s literary dialogue, used by Burton in a generalization about feigned passions; the supplied comparison identifies Lysias as the addressee, whereas Burton calls him Pythius. No completed death is reported.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: if he would not have her, she was resolv’d to make away her self

Modern rendering: if he would not have her she was determined to kill herself

Word and construction: If retains the condition, resolved becomes determined, and make away her self kill herself; intention is not completion.

Sense relation: A conditional threat in an attributed literary manipulation differs from the historical case descriptions.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make away himself” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself.

Here: Platter’s patient avoids church and the Rhine because he fears acting on temptation.

Context: Fear of the act and avoidance are not resolved intent. The paragraph immediately qualifies the catalogue by variable symptom severity and different responses to help.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: for fear to make away himself

Modern rendering: for fear of killing himself

Word and construction: For fear retains the feared prospect; make away himself becomes killing himself, not a completed act.

Sense relation: The same act is feared and avoided, rather than resolved upon or completed.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

make away oneself and others

Printed “make away themselves and multitudes of others” (English; phrase).

Bring about one’s own death and the deaths of many others.

Here: Pride and hoped-for military fame prompt reckless action causing collective destruction.

Context: Burton condemns rash false honour while expressly defending necessary soldiering; this need not denote a separate deliberate act of suicide.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to make away themselves and multitudes of others

Modern rendering: to destroy themselves and multitudes of others

Word and construction: Destroy preserves the double object and allows the wider war-caused ruin rather than prescribing a particular mechanism.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make away themselves and others” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make away oneself and others.

Here: Burton attributes self-killing and homicide under jealous madness to Vives.

Context: The preceding prognosis says generally and unless relieved; the nearby examples combine literary stories, transmitted historical allegations and medical case reports, not a modern prediction for all jealous people.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: they make away themselves and others

Modern rendering: they often kill themselves and others

Alignment scope: phrase with often supplied from preceding many times

Word and construction: The two objects remain; often comes from the preceding many times in the wider original sentence.

Sense relation: The double-object phrase appears in the jealousy prognosis, with a different reported causal setting.

make property away

Printed “make all away” (English; phrase).

Dispose of or transfer all the property.

Here: A rich widow is said to give her property to children of her previous marriage.

Context: The accusation belongs to accumulated anti-marriage arguments addressed to the lovesick; the nearby halter is an image of entrapment, not a reported death.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: she will make all away before hand, to her other children

Modern rendering: she will hand everything over beforehand to her other children

Word and construction: Make all away becomes hand everything over; the recipient and prior timing show a property transfer rather than killing.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

make someone away

Printed “make him away” (English; phrase).

To kill another person or have that person killed.

Here: A useful retainer is killed once his services no longer benefit his master.

Context: Burton uses the Bayezid and Ahmed Pasha story within his satire of interested friendship; the original Giovio margin specifies an order to kill, and its exact source is uncollated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: make him away

Modern rendering: they kill him

Word and construction: They is supplied from the preceding agents; him remains the retainer and is not reflexive.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make them away” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make someone away.

Here: The alleged victims compel other people to kill them.

Context: Burton repeats hostile accounts of Circumcellions and Donatists before condemning the approving doctrines; the immediate killers are others, not the grammatical victims.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: compelled others to make them away

Modern rendering: compelled others to kill them

Word and construction: Others remains the agent of killing; them refers to those who compel the act.

Sense relation: The non-reflexive construction identifies external killers even though the victims allegedly procure their deaths.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “made away by Ferdegunde his Queene” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make someone away.

Here: Chilperic is the victim and Fredegund the person said to arrange his death.

Context: The narrated murder is attributed to Paolo Emili; the text does not say the queen personally performs the killing.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: made away by Ferdegunde his Queene

Modern rendering: killed through the agency of his queen, Fredegund

Word and construction: The passive preserves the victim, and through the agency makes the queen’s arranging role explicit.

Sense relation: The passive construction keeps homicide distinct from self-killing and preserves indirect agency.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “make him away” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make someone away.

Here: The queen immediately arranges the king’s killing after realizing he has heard her disclosure.

Context: This is the attributed story’s arranging action, not direct evidence establishing the historical incident.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: she instantly took order to make him away

Modern rendering: she immediately arranged to have him killed

Word and construction: Took order becomes arranged; him is the husband, and have him killed preserves indirect agency.

Sense relation: The active construction states the arrangement that explains the preceding passive.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “made away by her jealous husband” (English; phrase).

Citation key: make someone away.

Here: Justina is the victim of her husband’s violence.

Context: Burton’s warning about marriage uses a story and epitaph attributed to Camerarius; neither the story nor the broad medical claim is independently authenticated here.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: made away by her jealous husband

Modern rendering: killed by her jealous husband

Word and construction: The passive identifies her husband as killer; the phrase does not mean that she kills herself.

Sense relation: Another passive makes the victim and killer explicit.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.