Matter

Use in the book

The opening definition in chapter 11 calls matter the underlying subject of generation, destruction, and other changes. A report of Aristotle pairs matter with form. The argument that stars are not fire uses the same noun concretely: fire cannot persist apart from its fuel.

Places to read

1. I.11.1Matter is defined by its underlying role in change.
2. I.12.1b.1Matter and form are presented as principles.
3. I.25.4.2Fire cannot be separated from its fuel.
4. I.11.4.2Body requires the conjunction of matter and form.
5. I.11.5a.2Primary matter persists while its parts divide and blend.
6. I.1.39dGold and lead illustrate the contrast between purity and admixture.
7. I.3.56eSilver is among the materials denied of a remarkable statue.
8. I.8.38.1Iron evokes an agricultural implement in a poem about civilization.

Translation in this edition

“Matter” suits the technical subject; “material” or “fuel” can preserve a concrete use. The initial definition does not settle all later questions about whether matter is itself a body.

Images and comparisons

The bronze of the statue at I.12.1b.2 supplies a familiar material that can receive a form. The example illustrates a relation, rather than proving that every account of matter must mean a finished physical substance.

Constitution and persistence

The Aristotelian report says matter considered without form is not itself a constituted body, although it is corporeal as the subject of bodily qualities. The conjunction of matter and form is required for body. The Chrysippean account instead emphasizes primary matter’s persistence without increase or decrease while its parts divide and blend. These statements answer different questions about the underlying subject and the transformations of compounds.

Gold in a comparison of purity

Chrusos is gold. I.1.39d compares the staining of soul through bodily mixture with lead staining gold. The metals make a hierarchy of purity vivid within this author’s argument. Their role as examples should not be confused with a claim that the soul is literally metallic or that all theories of embodiment regard it as pollution.

Silver as a material

Arguros is silver; the related adjective argureos means made of silver. I.3.56e uses the adjective while denying that an extraordinary statue is made of any familiar listed material. The passage supplies a material vocabulary, but deliberately withholds an identification of the statue’s substance. Its marvelous claims remain those of the embedded report.

Bronze and copper

Chalkos can denote copper or bronze according to context; chalkeos describes something made of it. The statue report at I.3.56e uses the adjective among rejected material identifications. “Bronze” suits the artifact setting, but the bare word family does not by itself specify the proportions of an alloy.

Iron and its implements

Sidēros is iron and can also evoke an iron implement. In I.8.38.1, “laboring iron” stands for the tool tending a vineyard, within a poem about the emergence of civilized life. The material thus names an instrument through what it is made of; this is not an abstract assertion about matter’s spontaneous activity.

Use in the book

“The dough of which bodies are made” is an announced definition. Dough conveys a stuff capable of receiving shape; it should not be silently replaced with an abstract neutral material. Matter’s relation to God is elsewhere pictured through nails and fingers, hair and the head. These organic dependencies are Joubert’s comparisons, not equivalent formulations of a single proved account of creation.

In the discussion of the marvelous, a poem needs immense space and very little matter. The paradox distinguishes the imaginative room a work creates from the amount of material that fills it. Conversely, the demand for clarity when a matter is worth discussing uses matière in its ordinary sense of subject. Translation and reading must decide the sense locally rather than declaring every occurrence metaphysical.

Places to read

1. I, p. 57, entry 1, ¶1Matter is expressly defined through dough.
2. I, p. 473, entry 10, ¶1Its dependence is expressed through bodily growth.
3. II, p. 487, entry begun p. 486, no. 14, ¶3The poem’s spaciousness requires little matter.
4. I, p. 253, entry 2, ¶1Matière is what a philosophical discussion concerns.
5. II, p. 926, entry 1, ¶1The plural matières is rendered subjects in a judgment about objectionable kinds of writing.

Translation in this edition

The English translation keeps “dough,” “matter,” and the bodily comparisons. Elsewhere it uses “subjects” for matières when the immediate concern is objectionable kinds of writing. No uniform English equivalent should erase that ordinary sense.

Porosity

French: porosité.

Porosity lets iron be pictured as crêpe within a world described as gauze. The English translation preserves those fabric images. The claim makes even apparently solid matter perforated or slight within the comparison; it is not offered here as a numerical statement about the structure of iron.

Places to read: I, p. 162, entry 7, ¶1.

Use in the book

The distinction between the Bible’s matter and its manner structures Traherne’s account of coming to trust it. Its matter supplies the glad tidings he desired: divine love, enduring life, universal inheritance, and communion. The manner concerns how that revelation reached him and how he could know its authority. Admiration of the content initially coexists with doubt about its delivery.

Elsewhere other matters bury the child’s earlier apprehensions. Here matter names competing concerns that fill conversation and thought. Reading these passages as a technical discussion of material substance would miss their educational and epistemic work. What occupies the mind governs what remains available to enjoyment.

Places to read

1. III.7Other matters and concernments obscure and finally displace early apprehensions.
2. III.29The Bible’s matter is distinguished from the manner of its arrival.
3. III.32Excellent content sustains hope while the manner of revelation is still questioned.

In this edition

Matter in III.29 and III.32 means content. Do not substitute a metaphysical sense of matter merely because neighbouring discussions address bodies and spirit.

Use in the book

Aristotle at A37 says that the four so-called elements were first stated “as in the form of matter.” This places Empedocles inside Aristotle’s history of the recognition of causes: the four supply one explanatory role, while Love and Strife supply motion. Aëtius at A32 similarly calls the four the matter of the One or Necessity and Love and Strife its forms. The latter formulation is compressed and should not be used to repair every ambiguity in Aristotle’s causal account.

A47 gives matter a different qualification: beyond the one cosmos lies what the report calls inert matter. This is not simply another description of a root within a compound; it marks a purported remainder of the All outside the ordered world. The edition notes that no surviving fragment supports that spatial picture. The distinction between these uses prevents an apparently uniform English term from creating an unwarranted ontology: constituents as matter, matter of the One, and an inert extracosmic remainder are not one securely attested Empedoclean doctrine.

Places to read

1. A 37 (polemical)Aristotle, Metaphysics A 4, 985a21. Assigns the four the explanatory role of matter in a critical history of causes.
2. A 32 (testimony)Aëtius I 7,28 (D. 303). Calls the four matter and the two powers forms in a compressed doxographic scheme.
3. A 47 (testimony)Aëtius I 5,2 (D. 291). Describes the remainder outside the cosmos as inert matter.

Translation in this edition

Both the vocabulary and its classificatory force belong to the reporters. Do not translate it backward into a claim that Empedocles explicitly distinguished modern matter from energy or mind.

Use in the book

Matter is the receptive subject of forms, rather than merely the collection of visible physical objects. Prime matter is common and formless, equally disposed in itself toward different forms and unable to produce the form it lacks. An intrinsic form-producing power would make it something other than prime matter in this sense. The word subiectum marks what receives and supports a form, not the modern knowing subject. Because the material basis is common, differing natural effects require distinct forms and qualities rather than being explained by matter's commonness alone.

In an account attributed to Mercury Trismegistus and Timaeus, matter is not nothing but next to nothing: its low rank expresses primary, unlimited receptivity. It is nevertheless good insofar as it desires form, can receive goodness, and belongs to a good world. Material dependence and quantitative extension must remain distinguishable, particularly in Ficino's reports of celestial bodies that have dimension without matter in the relevant sense. The claims that prime matter is everlasting and that matter is caused and preserved by prior incorporeal form likewise concern different questions, duration and dependence, and should not be silently collapsed.

Book II locates prime matter under God's creative and preserving causality. God borrows no prior subject from another maker. Ficino pairs matter in bodies with essence in spirits when discussing direct divine production, but does not thereby turn spiritual essence into bodily material. A receiving subject can limit an act through its potency; God's self-subsisting actuality has no such limitation. In cognition, freedom from matter and its conditions makes form intelligible. Matter's indefinite receptivity also exemplifies potential infinity, not an already complete collection of infinitely many actual bodies. The capacitas imagined in discussion of divine presence has a different use: it names pure, unbounded capacity in thought and must not automatically be equated with prime matter.

Book IV invokes one common formless matter beneath the differentiated spheres in its argument for a corresponding world-soul. World-matter is one substance distributed through multiple places and moments, whereas soul's unity is nonspatial. Matter possesses forms potentially and receives them successively, unlike actuality or habitual possession. IV.2.20 describes this receptivity appetitively: matter desires all forms as perfections, but mutually contrary forms cannot coexist, so change provides successively what cannot be had together. The claim does not confer soul's intelligence or independent agency on matter. Its readiness to receive and be moved complements soul's power to move, while formed bodily spheres remain distinguishable from their common underlying matter.

Further passage references. I.2.1, I.2.6–I.2.9234; I.3.6, I.3.18–I.3.192, I.3.27–I.3.2923; I.5.9; I.6.11, I.6.14; II.4.1–82345678; II.6.2; II.6.5; II.6.12; II.6.15; II.9.1; II.10.3; IV.1.81; IV.2.5–IV.2.92345; IV.2.19–IV.2.202.

Places to read

1. I.3.19The reported formless matter is maximally receptive but not nothing
2. II.4.5Pure nonbeing has no capacity waiting to receive actuality
3. II.4.6Primary matter is continually produced or preserved without an older subject
4. II.6.5The first recipient contrasts with the first agent
5. IV.2.20Matter receives contrary forms successively because it cannot possess all together

Translation in this edition

The translation distinguishes “not nothing, but next to nothing” at I.3.19. In II.6.5 primum patiens is “first recipient,” as the supplied apparatus explains, not a medical patient or an emotional sufferer. Reception is not sheer nonexistence, and creation from nothing presupposes no such recipient.

informis / informe subiectum

informis / informe subiectum. Printed forms: informe; informe subiectum; informis.

Formless, or a formless substrate. Prime matter’s equal openness to forms is contrasted with the active source that gives it different forms at different times and places. References: I.3.6. See Matter.

latere / informis

latere / informis. Printed forms: informis; lateat.

To lie hidden; formless in itself. The reported one underlying matter supports a further argument for one soul; ut plerique disputant preserves its attribution. References: IV.1.81. See Matter.

materia

materia. Printed forms: materia; materiae; materiam.

Receptive matter, with primary matter produced without a prior material subject. Its unlimited receptivity is a potential infinity, distinct from pure nothing and from active divine infinity. References: II.4.6, II.6.2, II.10.3. See Matter.

Matter, the receptive subject. The craftsman and father use received material; the creator is said to produce both matter and form. References: II.13.2. See Matter.

materia / quantitas

materia / quantitas. Printed forms: materia; Quantitas; quantitate.

Matter and quantity as constituents of body. Quantity is considered either matter’s extension or something making matter susceptible to division; the opening deliberately allows these alternative analyses. References: I.2.1. See Matter.

subiectum

subiectum. Printed forms: subiecta; subiecti; subiectis; subiecto; subiectum.

An underlying recipient or bearer, sometimes a prior material basis. Received act can be limited by its subject, while creation does not presuppose a borrowed substrate. References: II.4.1, II.4.2, II.4.6, II.6.8. See Matter.

Underlying subject or recipient. A material subject bears heat; divine creation of minds and matter is distinguished from production within such a preexisting recipient. References: II.11.3, II.11.9. See Matter.

Mercury Trismegistus; Hermes (authorities and cited works)

Mercury Trismegistus; Hermes. Cited on formless matter, divine will, providence, and the world's old age. The Hermetic theologians frame the inquiry into grades of rational soul. Distinguish this authority from Mercury as planet or cosmic divine name. I.3.19; II.11.38; II.13.24; IV.1.1; IV.2.12. See Matter; Will; Hermetic theologians and the Magi; Great year.

Plotinus (authorities and cited works)

Plotinus. Invoked for matter and qualities as passive, God's self-directed intellection, universal mental presence, divine inward self-production, and celestial reason's motion. These passages have different attribution and qualification needs. I.3.19; I.6.12; II.6.14–24234567891011; II.12.9–1123; IV.2.11. See Matter; Intellect and intellection; Mind; Generation and corruption.

Timaeus; Timaeus of Locri (authorities and cited works)

Timaeus; Timaeus of Locri. An authority in the account of formless matter and the divine knot preserving otherwise dissoluble things. III.2.22 names Timaeus of Locri alongside Plato concerning soul's divisible and indivisible nature. Distinguish these references from the dialogue title Timaeus. I.3.19; III.1.5; III.2.22. See Matter; Bond, knot, and chain; Indivisibility.

Use in the book

V.42345678910 argues first that matter persists, then a fortiori that the soul ruling matter persists. Clay surviving its vessels offers a model, but prime matter is more radical than clay: it has no particular form of its own and is equally receptive of elemental and other bodily forms. God as pure act and matter as pure potency mark opposite limits of the hierarchy. If matter were naturally cold or moist, its own character would obstruct a contrary form.

Elemental transformation reveals the hidden subject. Earth’s form cannot itself receive the opposed watery form; the same matter must underlie the replacement. Water’s conversion to air, and air’s to fire, similarly changes qualities without annihilating the underlying subject. Matter’s unity follows both from one world’s requiring one receptacle and from the absence of an intrinsic distinguishing form.

The preservation argument then tests possible destructions. Matter cannot dissolve into parts as though quantity constituted its own essence: it precedes quantity in the natural order. It cannot lose an external support, since it is the bodily order’s first support. A form requiring matter cannot annihilate its own foundation; production independent of matter has no need to destroy it. Nor can matter survive only partly after a transformation, since its primary simplicity excludes that model.

Ficino’s conclusion concerns prime matter, not the survival of a particular vessel, lion, fire or human body. In V.1223456789101112131415 the very persistence of matter’s indifference to different forms explains why particular bodily substances can perish. The argument thus combines enduring substrate with changing composites.

Places to read

1. V.4.1, V.4.3, V.4.4Universal receptivity and elemental transformation disclose the hidden subject.
2. V.4.5, V.4.6, V.4.8, V.4.9, V.4.10The foundation cannot be destroyed by dissolution, contrary form or independent production.
3. V.12.5, V.12.6, V.12.7The surviving potency of prime matter underlies the possible loss of a particular body.

Translation in this edition

“Primary matter” in the facing translation and the conventional “prime matter” identify the same expression. The apparatus records a corrected ad agendum at V.4.6, not the erroneous ad angelum in the body of the first printing. The occasional reference to spiritual matter in V.112345678 is an analogy for essence, not a retraction of the soul’s freedom from this bodily subject.

fundamentum

fundamentum. Printed forms: fundamento; fundamentum.

A foundation or necessary underlying support. Removing matter would remove the basis for a new material work, whereas a separate work does not require that foundation. References: V.4.5, V.4.6, V.4.8, V.13.5. See Prime matter and enduring support.

informis

informis. Printed forms: informe; informi; informis.

Formless, lacking its own determining form rather than merely shapeless to sight. Matter cannot form itself; a superior agent must determine it, and the soul is not drawn from such an unformed material seed. References: V.4.1, V.12.3, V.13.1. See Prime matter and enduring support.

materia prima

materia prima. Printed forms: materia; materia prima; materiae; materiam.

Primary matter, the form-neutral underlying potency for changing bodily forms. Its persistence does not make individual composites imperishable; its retained openness helps explain their corruption. References: V.4.1, V.4.9, V.12.2, V.12.6. See Prime matter and enduring support.

pura potentia

pura potentia. Printed forms: prima informisque potentia; pura potentia.

Pure receptive potency without a form proper to itself. Prime matter stands opposite God as pure act and receives forms without possessing their opposed qualities by its own nature. References: V.4.1, V.4.9. See Prime matter and enduring support.

quantitas

quantitas. Printed forms: quantitas; quantitate; quantitatem; quantitati; quantitatis.

Quantity, the bodily extension through which parts and division arise. Matter precedes quantity in the order of dependence, and soul lacks the quantitative parts whose dissolution could destroy a body. References: V.3.1, V.4.5, V.4.6, V.5.9. See Prime matter and enduring support.

Quantity or measured extent, different from an intelligible account and from intensity of perfection. The soul does not become larger through virtue; the account of quantity itself is whole in different amounts and is not another extended quantity. References: VIII.2.4, VIII.2.7, VIII.3.7, VIII.4.6, VIII.4.12, VIII.6.1, VIII.9.1. See Truth, mathematical figures, and immutable principles.

sedes

sedes. Printed forms: sede; sedes.

Seat or supporting place, often metaphorical. Soul's essence is called the seat of souls; matter's lack of a deeper seat excludes collapse through removal of external support. References: V.4.6, V.5.9, V.15.2. See Prime matter and enduring support.

sinus / gremium

sinus / gremium. Printed forms: gremio; sinu; sinum.

Bosom or womb, personifying matter's receptive support. Matter opens to cold and displaces heat; a force entering its womb affects dependent forms but not the separate soul. References: V.9.4, V.14.7, V.14.8. See Prime matter and enduring support.

sustentaculum

sustentaculum. Printed forms: sustentaculo; sustentaculum.

Support or sustaining base. Matter is the first bodily support, while soul does not need a bodily prop whose withdrawal could cause its collapse. References: V.4.6, V.5.9. See Prime matter and enduring support.

universalis / totus

universalis / totus. Printed forms: totam; totum; universae; universali; universalis.

Universal or whole, with the whole order or entire individual specified by context. Universal matter and universal nature differ from the whole soul, whose entire essence is said to be life. References: V.4.1, V.4.10, V.5.1, V.14.1. See Prime matter and enduring support.

Plato, Timaeus (explicitly named works)

Plato, Timaeus. The explicit mixing-bowl reference concerns souls and the causes on which they depend. Elsewhere “Timaeus the Pythagorean” names an argumentative authority and should not automatically be treated as an explicit title citation. References: V.5.9, V.4.1. See Four causes and graded dependence; Prime matter and enduring support.

Use in the book

Bodily material and the thing affected

The introductory anatomy calls serum the matter of urine: the substance from which urine is made in this historical physiology. This is a specific material relation, not an identification of every bodily humour with melancholy. The disease’s name then comes from its material cause, black bile. When Burton turns to the matter of melancholy itself, he begins with disagreement about what the humour is, where it comes from and how it is generated. He is investigating the supposed disease-producing substance, not simply announcing a new topic.

The anatomical vocabulary is wider than pathological black bile. Fat is said to arise from the thick, oily matter of blood; the spleen is a spongy substance, while the kidneys remove watery matter. Nutritive matter is what natural heat transforms and digests. Life itself is compared with a lamp that goes out for want of matter or fuel as its sustaining heat and moisture fail. These are distinct roles for bodily material: constitution, nourishment, waste and the maintenance of life. The invitation to study anatomy also distinguishes the body’s matter from the Creator’s art and workmanship.

Montanus and Arculanus distinguish material and immaterial melancholy. Material melancholy is first identified with a natural humour; immaterial melancholy is then aligned with acquired, unnatural and artificially produced forms, residing, according to Saxonia, in the spirits alone and altering the brain without matter. Yet the return to material melancholy includes both natural mixtures and unnatural scorched humours. The subsequent dispute asks whether all four humours can become this matter: some exclude phlegm, while others allow it, sometimes rarely. Fonseca’s account makes watery fluids thicken into phlegm and proceed through further transformations. The schemes overlap and disagree; they cannot be reduced to natural equals material and acquired equals immaterial. Here without matter means without gross humoral material in the spirits-based explanation, not absence of every bodily intermediary.

The distinctions have consequences beyond a label. Different mixtures, locations and states of putrefaction of Melancholy matter are said to produce black jaundice, quartan fever, leprosy, scurvy or kinds of mental derangement. Burton then makes diversity and confusion of matter explain diversity and confusion of species. Saxonia’s two kinds are named material and immaterial, followed by the contrasting explanations through spirits alone or through humours and spirits; the order of the clauses should not reverse the distinction. The later symptom accounts expressly call the spirits immaterial, explain mixed symptoms through material or matter-free combinations, and separate head melancholy from spirits’ motion and darkness from the adust-humour kind. Burton reports disagreement rather than settling it into one scheme.

Diet and retention or evacuation are called more material because they make, retain or expel matter; air, exercise, sleep and waking, and mental disturbances are said to alter it. Diet supplies the matter and sustenance of diseases. Another passage locates the matter of melancholy in particular organs and regions when humour lodges there. Its Latin margin, Materia Melancholiæ, supplies a parallel material vocabulary but a partly differently arranged list. In Saxonia’s symptom account, the margin’s sine materiâ, without matter, again excludes humoral matter while attributing the symptoms to disordered spirits; the next body paragraph offers the alternative of altered humours. These are historical physiological explanations.

The word’s extension must therefore be read locally. Fernel’s materiamque, “and material,” distinguishes material from the nourishment supplied by diet. Yet the next explanation of diet changing matter proceeds through “spirits first, and after humors”: matter is not everywhere a rigid name for gross humours alone. In the account of internal causes, material in the stomach and mesenteric regions becomes scorched and inflamed; in Altomarus’s margin black humour is materia, material of the disorder in its full phrase. The torch analogy makes the material of a torch affect its light and smell, just as bodily organs condition the soul’s actions. The matter in that comparison belongs to the torch, not to a claim that the soul is made of it.

Subject sometimes touches this vocabulary but needs a separate explanation. Capivaccius and Mercurialis make the inner brain the subject, meaning the seat of disease; the discussion then traces communication to other parts. In Crato’s advice, the affections of the soul are called the subject, rendered the underlying matter of melancholy, alongside source and hinges. This latter emphasis concerns the condition’s basis, not necessarily a lump of bodily stuff. Neither use is the ordinary subject of a book.

The related subject changes with the inquiry. It can be the material worked on, as in wool, flax and metals; a human target for satire; or a topic of discussion, including the rational soul’s doubtful subjectum. It can instead be the patient whose humour and disposition explain symptoms. Gordon’s testicles and liver are seats related respectively to immediate and antecedent causes; his margin’s subjectum keeps the seat distinct from those causal relations. In the account of sight, subject and object are the person looking and the person seen, while both eyes act and receive impressions. At the far end of the religious account, the whole world becomes superstition’s subject, and a sufferer’s reduced resistance makes him the subject of the alleged demonic action. These uses clarify what bears or receives an action without making every subject physical matter.

The material body and immaterial soul form another explicit contrast. Burton asks how bodily humours, spirits and organs mediate between them and then restates influence in both directions. Immaterial soul here means incorporeal soul. In the account of will, rational appetite’s object is described as both universal and immaterial, contrasted with sensitive appetite’s particular object. Universal supplies the range beyond particulars; immaterial supplies the non-material contrast. These uses should not be mechanically equated with immaterial melancholy, which names one rival bodily explanatory scheme.

Treatment gives these distinctions practical force within the historical medicine. Saxonia refuses bloodletting in immaterial melancholy, especially that arising from a cold imbalance of spirits; Laurentius’s approval follows on Arabian authority. Hollerius objects to diuretics because the thinner material leaves while thicker matter remains, against other physicians who recommend them. The squill margin says Materias, substances described as black, are expelled; the Platter margin says the described measures disperse wind and draw out material. Matter can also mean the ingredients of a liniment, and the dietetic synopsis distinguishes the substance of food from its quality. In love melancholy, medicine is conditional on need, altered humours or newly accumulated matter. None of these historical prescriptions becomes modern treatment advice.

Prime matter, forms and being

The opposition of matter and forme first appears inside a disputed argument about generation. Advocates of parental transmission of the soul say that otherwise a human parent begets only half a human being, whereas a beast begets both matter and form. Burton marks this as their reasoning and then proceeds through other opinions. The phrase names bodily substance and its organizing form in that argument; it does not by itself decide the soul’s origin or immortality.

Burton reports that Zeno and the Stoics, as cited through Augustine, supposed the soul to survive until the body decayed into materia prima and then to vanish. Prime matter marks the loss of the body’s particular form; it is not another word for nothing. Burton’s ensuing account endorses an immortal, created soul against such doctrines, and the cited historical chain remains uncollated. The report therefore cannot serve as his own assertion that the soul ends when the body dissolves.

Prime matter returns in a cosmological comparison: souls are said by some to return to an animating source, as philosophical matter returns in materiam primam. Burton assembles several traditions and names without establishing that all held an identical doctrine. Nearby, the dispute over one matter throughout air and heavens, or two distinct matters, concerns physical substance. He reports Tycho’s distinction, then stresses a shared account of a penetrable, soft heaven. The margin’s statement about identical transparent media does not simply match the body’s distinction between substances.

Other physical uses range from the earth to the heavens. Water takes qualities from the matter or minerals through which it passes, within rival explanations of springs. Comets are said by some to arise from celestiall matter, rather than Aristotle’s aerial exhalations. The discussion of hell reports Ribera’s materiall and local fire, then a conditional alternative in which it is no material fire; Burton’s compressed theologian list is not a verified account of every named author’s position. A nearby speculative question asks what God did before creation, apart from his subjecto, the object of his activity. Burton attacks the curiosity of such questions; he is not affirming that an independent material substrate constrained creation.

Matter also figures in the explanation of apparently magical results. Daneau, Erastus and other theologians are reported to credit demons with exceptional knowledge: they combine active agents with things acted upon, gather the seeds of things, and apply them materiæ, to matter. The supplied note relates Augustine’s account to hidden natural seeds and limited, permitted action rather than creation; that is the edition’s source explanation, not a fresh collation here. The subsequent debate separates whether extraordinary cures occur from whether it is lawful to seek them. Paracelsus’s “It matters not” dismisses the identity of the healer provided relief follows; Burton presents and criticizes that stance rather than adopting it as an unrestricted rule.

The matter-and-form vocabulary also becomes an image of desire. In the praise of marriage, “ut materia appetit formam, sic mulier virum” compares woman’s desire for man with matter’s desire for form. The promised peace of marriage is then conditional on loving life without quarrels. In a much harsher passage, women are said to be as receptive to new impressions as materia prima and their affections to ebb and flow. This is polemical comparison, not a neutral finding about women. The continuation immediately calls many men even more fickle. Both the gendered analogy and its ensuing extension must remain in view.

Ens has a wider scope than bodily substance. Understanding’s object includes God, Ens, all nature and whatever can be understood; the next paragraph moves from sensible things through bodily to spiritual substance. Later, Ens entium, being of beings, addresses God in a plea attributed to Aristotle. Burton uses it while describing the supposedly dim knowledge available to pagan thinkers; the attribution is not verified in Aristotle’s surviving works.

Non ens can be a polemical denial. In the attack on pride of birth, gentry is a nonentity, ceremony and thing of nought: the argument denies its claimed intrinsic superiority while recounting its very real social origins. In the mineral-remedy dispute, Erastus calls philosophers’ stones and potable gold a fraud and a non Ens. This denies the promised substance’s reality, not the existence of the corrosive liquids or harmful preparations just mentioned. Burton presents the contrary Paracelsian claims immediately afterwards. The denial belongs to that controversy, not to a definition equating all material medicines with nothing.

Content, resources, occasions and importance

Matter also names what a writer treats or reworks. Burton defends the matter and manner of his subject, then says his borrowed matter is mostly other writers’ and yet his own, assimilated like food. “I respect matter, not words” contrasts content with verbal display; the ornate surrounding prose makes that assertion part of his self-presentation. The phrase rem substratam, the underlying thing, is his subject, melancholy and madness. It does not assert that the book’s subject is philosophical prime matter.

That content is not fixed or immune to criticism. Burton acknowledges that he now disapproves of things in the matter of his book and would retract much; he also admits that its matter and method may be faulty, since no one can observe everything. His account of reception lists material, subject, occasion and a recommender, while the Pliny margin’s materiæ, of an undertaking, qualifies the supporter and comes from a differently framed passage about an advocate. Quintilian’s materiam supplies subject matter of study. The love preface’s lætam materiam, literally cheerful material, occurs amid lewd songs in an argument distinguishing a writer’s work from the writer’s conduct; its subjectum is the topic that readers asked to have expanded.

In the economic argument, rude Matter unwrought is raw material such as tin, iron, wool and lead, which Botero’s prince is advised not to export unprocessed. Physical matter also feeds figurative language: youth is combustible matter, or prona materies, ready fuel for love. Elsewhere material fire means actual physical fire, surpassed in the extravagant comparison by the fire of love that burns from a distance and consumes the soul. The devotional counsel to put aside material objects instead concerns turning from sensible things to divine beauty; its Latin margin says demitte materiam, lay aside matter.

Physical resources also support social and moral arguments. Good materia can lie unused without a craftsman in the political margin; Britain’s available matter includes wool, flax, metals and timber. Theodoret’s margin makes wealthy people supply materiam, materials, while poor artisans supply skilled labour. Conversely, the Horatian verse calls gold material of the greatest evil. In erotic language Maximus of Tyre’s lust finds materiam, material, qualified as corrupt and available to work upon; youth is materies, material, with favourable and inclined supplied by its modifiers, before Burton makes it combustible fuel. Renewed sight of a lover is like fire applied materiæ, to fuel. The metaphors depend on what material enables or receives; corruption, inclination and combustibility are not all inherent meanings of the noun.

Matter of suspicion is an occasion or ground for suspicion. Burton acknowledges fault in either sex but immediately says many chief causes of jealousy arise from external circumstances even when both partners are innocent. Matter can thus provide occasion without proving the suspected deed. In another narrated deception, no such matter means that the claimed gifts from rivals were fictitious.

Importance rather than physicality controls most materiall circumstance, Burton’s description of moderate bodily and mental exercise. Likewise materiall and essentiall matters are allegedly substantial concerns, set within an as-if construction describing fear over trifles. Burton says the distress is real even while questioning its object. The verb matters means is significant: distinctions in physicians’ books matter little when actual cases are mixed. A hard matter is a difficult undertaking, as distinguishing the species proves to be. Finally no matter what is the indifferent anything at all in the attack on indiscriminate writing. These ordinary uses prevent a philosophical headword from swallowing common idiom.

Affairs, cases and practical help

Ordinary matters are events and affairs: comic and tragic news, affairs of state, remembered events, love affairs, or the worse conduct from which recreation should divert people. “Other mens matters” can voice an objection to Burton’s medical writing or condemn intrusive meddling. A matter can be a dispute heard by arbitrators, a question of marriage, or business managed through patronage. In the lawyer’s wife’s complaint, other men’s cases and her own neglected conjugal business become a sexual legal pun. Another neglected wife wants “another matter” mended while her scholar husband repairs corrupt texts. Chremes’s promise to help “in the matter it self” means practical action, one of the forms of help he offers. These concrete affairs must not be lost under a philosophical definition.

Other constructions turn on truth, importance or result. No such matter can deny the existence of a suitor’s boasted possessions, the truth of claimed exclusive affection, or another observer’s agreement with a lover’s estimate of beauty. It can also deny an alleged occurrence: Burton’s endorsement of the denial of harm from lead pipes is retained as a historical error, not validated by the idiom. No matter what may leave an infirmity discreetly unnamed; no matter how satirizes people’s indifference to how wealth was acquired. A great matter is a substantial achievement, which a physician cannot produce instantly, while an easie matter is an easy undertaking. “What the matter was” can identify a patient’s difficulty or what is happening, as in the pulse diagnosis and Rhazes’s case of consuming religious thoughts.

Matter supplies occasions for responses as well as bodily effects. Democritus’s reported speech finds matter of laughter in human vices and self-ignorance; the Juvenal margin makes dirty clothes materiam, material for mockery. Burton calls a stepmother matter of repentance, meaning occasion for regret. The Camerarius jealousy margin makes conduct materiam for suspicion, yet the innocent-partner qualification remains necessary. “Greater matters” hinted at by smiles are further amorous developments, followed immediately by a warning that lovers mistake ordinary friendliness for invitation. The religious polemic’s matter of madness supplies examples and symptoms for an account, without identifying black bile as their one material cause.

The distinction between an affair and the mind’s response is especially important in consolation. A distracted person’s mind is on “another matter”; topics of thought also enter dreams, and changing or avoiding a troubling subject can become part of the proposed cure. Burton says general discontent lies not in “the matter it self” but in its estimation, a local consolatory emphasis rather than a repeal of his physiology. Religious opponents make matters of conscience of practices he calls indifferent, while ad materiam suam accuses innovators of forcing Scripture to fit their own subject. The “main matter” terrifying despairing sufferers is their apprehension of sin and rejection; Burton immediately argues for pardon. Finally, nature’s expulsion of fæculent matters, foul bodily substances, becomes an analogy for the possibility of spiritual recovery.

Related entries

Soul; Form; Generation and corruption; Essence and quintessence; Simple; Cause; Consent and essence; Adust; Adventitious; Humour; Spirit; Imagination; Spirits; Witchcraft; Charms; Jealousy; Will; Concoction; Blood and sanguine

Places to read

1. · paragraph 4–6: Humanity and the reader as the subject of Burton’s discourse.
2. · paragraph 7–8: Comic and tragic matters as the changing events of public life.
3. · paragraph 3–5: The matter or content of the book distinguished from its manner.
4. · paragraph 14: The preface’s attack on indiscriminate writing, continued in the next source group.
5. · paragraph 1–2: No matter what as indifference to the content of indiscriminate writing.
6. · paragraph 2–4: Borrowed literary matter assimilated and rearranged as the author’s own.
7. · paragraph 14–19: Conditions of literary reception; the Pliny margin’s undertaking and Quintilian’s subject matter of study.
8. · paragraph 22–28: Burton’s willingness to retract some content, his matter-versus-words assertion, and the limits of his inquiry.
9. · paragraph 1–2: Admissions that the work’s matter and method may be faulty or incomplete.
10. · paragraph 8–10: The objection about meddling in others’ affairs and the distinction between political advice and its speaker.
11. · paragraph 23–25: Rem substratam as the underlying topic, melancholy and madness.
12. · paragraph 1: Burton’s own matter of laughter in his survey of collective folly.
13. · paragraph 18–20: Democritus’s reported explanation of the human vices that furnish laughter.
14. · paragraph 32–34: Arbitrators ending disputes as an alternative to prolonged litigation.
15. · paragraph 1–3: Unused material without a craftsman in a political analogy about settlement and government.
16. · paragraph 27–29: Botero’s prohibition on exporting unworked raw materials.
17. · paragraph 35–37: Wool, flax, metals and timber as available matter and subjects to work upon.
18. · paragraph 3–4: The continuation of the resources-and-industry argument.
19. · paragraph 24–27: True statement of political affairs and the Rosicrucians’ claimed reform of all matters.
20. · paragraph 11–13: Standardizing weights and measures as an easy undertaking in the imagined commonwealth.
21. · paragraph 20–22: People offered as literary targets for a satirist.
22. · paragraph 33–35: Serum as the matter from which urine is made in the historical physiology.
23. · paragraph 46–47: Fat derived from thick, oily material of blood.
24. · paragraph 5–7: The body’s material contrasted with its Creator’s art and workmanship.
25. · paragraph 10–12: The spleen’s spongy substance and the kidneys’ removal of watery material.
26. · paragraph 26–28: Natural heat transforming and digesting nutritive material.
27. · paragraph 35–36: Life’s sustaining material and heat compared with the oil and light of a lamp.
28. · paragraph 2–5: The rational soul as a doubtful topic; matter and form in the reported parental-propagation argument.
29. · paragraph 15–19: Reported dissolution into prime matter, competing soul doctrines, and Burton’s ensuing defence of immortality.
30. · paragraph 25–27: Ens as being within understanding’s wide scope, followed by bodily and spiritual substance.
31. · paragraph 35–37: The will’s object as both universal and immaterial, with separate force for the two qualifiers.
32. · paragraph 3: Black bile as the material cause from which melancholy takes its name.
33. · paragraph 17–19: Subject as the disease’s brain seat, in body and Latin margin, with communication to other parts.
34. · paragraph 31–47: Contested matter of melancholy, material and immaterial schemes, transformed humours, and varied material producing varied diseases.
35. · paragraph 53–61: The difficulty of classifying mixed cases, Saxonia’s immaterial spirits, and the limited practical importance of bookish divisions.
36. · paragraph 31–36: Diet and evacuation as more material causes; nourishment, material of disease, and the spirits-before-humours sequence.
37. · paragraph 21–23: No matter how satirizing indifference to the acquisition of wealth.
38. · paragraph 26–28: The Juvenal margin’s material and occasion for mockery supplied by dirty clothing.
39. · paragraph 19–21: What matter is it questioning the practical value of speculative knowledge.
40. · paragraph 44–45: Matter of repentance as occasion for regret in Burton’s hostile stepmother description.
41. · paragraph 9–11: No matter what deliberately withholding the infirmity in a clinical anecdote.
42. · paragraph 45–47: Material body and immaterial soul, their mediation, and reciprocal influence.
43. · paragraph 49–50: A torch’s matter affecting light and smell as an analogy for bodily organs affecting soul-actions.
44. · paragraph 3: Materia Melancholiæ and the bodily locations of melancholy, with the margin’s non-identical list.
45. · paragraph 8–10: Scorched and inflamed material in the stomach and mesenteric regions.
46. · paragraph 47–49: Materiall and essentiall as importance attributed to feared objects within an as-if construction.
47. · paragraph 34–36: Another matter as the distracted sufferer’s persistent object of thought.
48. · paragraph 9–15, source 190 [second occurrence]; 190 [second occurrence]–191; 191: Saxonia’s immaterial spirits and the alternative explanation through altered humours.
49. · paragraph 24–26: The humour and subject as the humour and person affected, with Montalto and Cardano separately attributed.
50. · paragraph 30–32: Mixed symptoms explained through mixed humours or spirits, with or without humoral matter.
51. · paragraph 2–4: Head melancholy through spirits’ motion and darkness, contrasted with adust humours; body and margin differ.
52. · paragraph 21–23: Black humour as materia of the disorder, with dark spirits obscuring the soul’s dwelling.
53. · paragraph 1–3: Saxonia’s exclusion of material humours in favour of animal-spirits motions.
54. · paragraph 4–6, unnumbered Second Partition synopsis: The dietetic synopsis’s distinction between the substance and quality of food and drink.
55. · paragraph 35–48, source 216; 216–220; PDF327–328; 220; 220–221; PDF328–329; 221: Demons applying agents and seeds to matter; extraordinary cures, their lawfulness, and Paracelsus’s disputed matters-not argument.
56. · paragraph 35–37: Montanus’s insistence that no great result can be achieved instantly.
57. · paragraph 40–42: No such matter denying the alleged harm of lead pipes, with the historical medical error explicitly retained.
58. · paragraph 24–30: Physical versus non-physical hell fire and matter or minerals affecting the qualities of springs.
59. · paragraph 26–31: One or two celestial substances, Tycho’s distinction, and competing comet explanations.
60. · paragraph 5–7: Return into prime matter within an assembled cosmological comparison, without collapsing the cited doctrines.
61. · paragraph 12–14: The divine subjecto as object of activity in speculative questions Burton criticizes.
62. · paragraph 1–3: Most materiall circumstance as the importance of moderate, suitably timed exercise.
63. · paragraph 47–49: Ancient matters as events remembered by old companions.
64. · paragraph 5–7: Recreation intended to divert people from worse activities before games are abused.
65. · paragraph 10–12: Love matters as amorous affairs in the description of idle courtiers.
66. · paragraph 25–26: Study and redirected attention, excluding illness from excessive study and allowing a change to a serious subject for the preceding romance readers.
67. · paragraph 41–43: Dreaming about the subjects last occupying thought.
68. · paragraph 4–6: The soul’s affections as the underlying basis of melancholy in Crato’s advice.
69. · paragraph 24–26: Chremes’s offer of practical action alongside comfort and counsel.
70. · paragraph 21–24: Non ens denying the claimed intrinsic worth of noble birth, without denying its social effects.
71. · paragraph 51–56: Horace’s verse making gold and gems material of the greatest evil.
72. · paragraph 8–10: Theodoret’s division between materials supplied by the wealthy and artisans’ labour.
73. · paragraph 12–14: The matter itself contrasted with its mental estimation in a local consolatory argument.
74. · paragraph 4–6: The management of business through favour and patronage in Seyssel’s reported account.
75. · paragraph 2–4: Meddling in other people’s affairs as a cause of trouble.
76. · paragraph 16–17: The injunction not to meddle in other people’s affairs.
77. · paragraph 34–40: Erastus’s non Ens judgment on promised alchemical substances and the subsequent contrary Paracelsian claims.
78. · paragraph 28–30: Matter as ingredients shared by medicinal preparations.
79. · paragraph 34–36: Materias atras as black substances expelled by squill, with the body’s stronger claim separately attributed.
80. · paragraph 22–29: The bloodletting disagreement over immaterial melancholy, preserving Saxonia’s refusal and Laurentius’s approval.
81. · paragraph 38–40: Hollerius’s objection that diuretics remove the finer part and leave thicker matter, against other authorities.
82. · paragraph 45–47: Dispersing wind and drawing out material in the Platter margin, retaining the printed materiamq; abbreviation.
83. · paragraph 5–7: Lætam materiam as cheerful subject matter in the defence separating poetry from the poet’s conduct.
84. · paragraph 12–14: Subjectum as the topic readers allegedly asked the borrowed authorial statement to expand.
85. · paragraph 5–7: Matter seeking form as a gendered desire comparison, followed by conditions for marital peace.
86. · paragraph 57–60[sequence; printed 246]: Testicles and liver as differently related seats or causes; Burton’s ensuing endorsement of the brain. Sequence is printed 246.
87. · paragraph 28–30: Corrupt material available for lust in the Maximus of Tyre quotation.
88. · paragraph 49–51: Subject and object as the person looking and the person seen; sight both acts and receives impressions.
89. · paragraph 34–36: Greater matters hinted at by smiles, followed by the warning that lovers misread ordinary friendliness.
90. · paragraph 32–35: Youth as material favourable and inclined to love, followed by the combustible-fuel metaphor.
91. · paragraph 12–14: No such matter denying fabricated gifts from rival suitors.
92. · paragraph 18–20: No such matter denying the existence of a suitor’s boasted possessions.
93. · paragraph 38–39: No such matter denying supposed exclusive fidelity, followed by the extension of falsity to men.
94. · paragraph 51–53: What the matter was as the passionate attachment discovered through pulse examination.
95. · paragraph 47–49: Physical fire contrasted with the extravagant soul-consuming fire of love.
96. · paragraph 37–39: Medicine made conditional on need, altered humours or newly accumulated material.
97. · paragraph 11–13: Fire applied materiæ, to fuel, as an image of rekindled love.
98. · paragraph 33–35: No such matter as another observer’s failure to share a lover’s judgment of beauty.
99. · paragraph 55–57: Prime matter receiving new impressions in a hostile comparison, immediately extended to fickle men.
100. · paragraph 83–85: Marriage business within the debate over who should marry.
101. · paragraph 38–40: Marriage reduced to a matter of money by the Epicurean objectors.
102. · paragraph 53–57: Another matter to mend in a textual and sexual pun, followed by the lawyer’s neglected conjugal business.
103. · paragraph 45–47: The Camerarius margin’s grounds for adverse talk and suspicion.
104. · paragraph 60–62: Matter of suspicion qualified by the possibility that both partners are innocent.
105. · paragraph 23–25: Jealousy’s allegedly slight occasion, with real and capital separately supplying evaluative force.
106. · paragraph 5–7: A marital dispute heard by impartial arbitrators in reported Roman practice.
107. · paragraph 26–28: Religious polemic supplying material and symptoms for an account of madness.
108. · paragraph 6–8: Material objects and materiam set aside in Ficino’s devotional counsel about divine contemplation.
109. · paragraph 29–31: The whole world as superstition’s subject or bearer in Burton’s confessional diagnosis.
110. · paragraph 18–20: Ens entium as a divine address attributed to Aristotle, without fresh authentication.
111. · paragraph 45–46: Matter of conscience as an obligation felt by the disciples described in religious polemic.
112. · paragraph 28–31, source 658; 658–651 [659]; 651 [659]: Images made of physical materials and religious practices treated as obligations.
113. · paragraph 25–27: Ad materiam suam as forcing Scripture to fit one’s own subject or argument.
114. · paragraph 9–11: Matter as the contents of Peter Lombard’s Sentences.
115. · paragraph 15–17: Matters of conscience as religious scruples contrasted with Burton’s indifferent matters of ornament.
116. · paragraph 25–27: What the matter was in Rhazes’s case, preserving the body and margin’s different religious objects of thought.
117. · paragraph 21–23: The main matter as the apprehension of sin and rejection, immediately answered by the possibility of pardon.
118. · paragraph 28–30: The subject as the vulnerable sufferer whose resistance Burton describes as diminished.
119. · paragraph 41–43: Expelling fæculent matters as a bodily-recovery analogy for possible spiritual recovery.
120. : Avoidance of terrifying subjects of reading within counsel for afflicted religious sufferers.

In this edition

The philosophical and polemical terms are distinguished in translation: materia prima → prime matter; Ens → being; and a non Ens → a nonentity. The first is a philosophical substrate, the second being generally, and the third a denial of the claimed thing’s reality. Matter is the grouping heading and does not replace those Latin forms.

The expanded examples show matter becoming material, substance, underlying matter, topic or an idiomatic clause according to construction. In “the matter of Urine,” the modern “the substance from which urine is made” explains the full relation; the extra syntax does not belong to matter alone. Subject → seat of the disease supplies of the disease from context. Materiall → important is checked within the full circumstance/consideration phrase. Materia, materiam, materiâ and materies retain their printed forms in the register. Marginal English translations are editorial, even when housed in Burton-labelled notes; Caspar Ens’s surname is excluded from the philosophical ens family.

ad materiam suam

Printed “ad materiam suam” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: ad materiam suam

To their own subject or argument.

Context: The Tertullian phrase accuses religious innovators of reshaping Scripture to suit their own case; Burton’s following wax-nose image paraphrases this as serving their own ends.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: to fit their own subject

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The supplied to fit makes the purposive relation explicit; it is not a separate printed Latin verb.

Supplied words: fit

all matters

Printed “all matters” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: all matters

All affairs or fields of activity.

Context: The claimed reform of religion, government, morals, arts and sciences belongs to the Rosicrucians; Burton’s they say preserves ironic distance.

Source: original body

ancient matters

Printed “ancient matters” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: ancient matters

Events or affairs from earlier times.

Context: Old companions take pleasure in recalling things that happened in their youth.

Source: original body

another matter · local use 1

Printed “another matter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: another matter

Another object of thought or concern.

Context: The sufferer’s mind is distracted by persistent melancholy thoughts while ordinary conversation and business continue.

Source: original body

another matter · local use 2

Printed “another matter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: another matter

Another affair requiring attention, with a sexual and textual pun.

Context: The wife wants her husband’s neglected conjugal performance corrected, while he repairs corrupt passages in Festus or Pollux. The supplied passage rendering makes the textual side explicit.

Source: original body

celestial matter

Printed “celestiall matter” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: celestiall matter

Substance belonging to the heavens.

Context: The comet argument attributed to Anaxagoras and Democritus opposes Aristotle’s aerial hot, dry exhalations; the next paragraph adduces modern astronomers.

Source: original body

easy matter

Printed “easie matter” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: easie matter

An easy undertaking.

Context: The expression concerns the proposed standardization of weights and measures in Burton’s imagined commonwealth.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: easy

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The original noun phrase is compressed into the predicate adjective easy; matter contributes the undertaking construction, not a separately translated noun.

ens

Printed “Ens” (Latin; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: Ens

Being; that which is.

Context: Burton’s faculty account, followed by progression from sensible to spiritual substance.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: His object is God, Ens, all nature

Modern rendering: being

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: The object of understanding is God, being, all nature

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: of understanding

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

ens entium

Printed “Ens entium” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Original wording: Ens entium

Being of beings.

Context: Plea attributed to Aristotle in Burton’s description of limited pagan knowledge; attribution unverified.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: Ens entium miserere mei

Modern rendering: Being of beings

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Being of beings, have mercy on me

Wider word and construction: Ens entium contributes Being of beings; miserere mei supplies have mercy on me.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

faeculent matter

Printed “fæculent matters” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: fæculent matters

Foul or dreg-like bodily substances.

Context: Burton compares possible spiritual recovery with nature recovering and expelling bodily waste; the following paragraph applies the analogy without guaranteeing immediate recovery.

Source: original body

great matter

Printed “great matter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: great matter

A substantial result or achievement.

Context: Montanus requires perseverance because no major result can be achieved quickly; the passage does not discuss a large quantity of bodily substance.

Source: original body

greater matters

Printed “greater matters” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: greater matters

Further or more consequential developments.

Context: Answering smiles are represented as signs of further amorous dealings, but the following paragraph warns that lovers can misread ordinary friendliness.

Source: original body

hard matter

Printed “hard matter” (English; phrase).

A difficult undertaking.

Context: Burton acknowledges diagnostic overlap before giving examples.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: It is a hard matter, I confess, to distinguish these three species

Modern rendering: It is difficult, I confess, to distinguish these three species

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole sentence aligned. The noun phrase hard matter becomes the adjective difficult; no separately translated modern noun corresponds to matter.

immaterial · local use 1

Printed “immaterial” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: immaterial

Incorporeal; not bodily.

Context: Burton’s body/soul distinction and cited explanatory problem.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording, Wider modern rendering: the immaterial soul

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

immaterial · local use 2

Printed “immaterial” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Not consisting in gross humoral matter in this explanation.

Context: Saxonia applies the adjective directly to distempered spirits, contrary to others’ explanations through organs and humours.

Source: original body

Source wording: distempered spirits, & those immaterial

immaterial · immateriall

Printed “immateriall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Not attributed to an accumulation of bodily humour.

Context: Saxonia rejects bloodletting for this spirits-based, especially cold melancholy; Laurentius is then reported to approve bloodletting on Arabian authority.

Source: original body

Source wording: In immateriall melancholy

immateriall · local use 1

Printed “immateriall” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: immateriall

Non-material or incorporeal.

Context: Burton contrasts rational will’s universal, immaterial object with sensitive appetite’s particular object. Universal supplies scope beyond particulars; immaterial supplies the non-material contrast. The wider modern clause explicitly supplies the will, has and object from the preceding elliptical construction.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: this an universall, immateriall

Modern rendering: immaterial

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: the will has a universal, immaterial object

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: the will; has; object

Wider construction scope: Whole elliptical clause restored; universal and immaterial remain separate qualifiers.

immateriall · local use 2

Printed “immateriall” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: immateriall

Not attributed to gross humoral substance in this scheme.

Context: The acquired/unnatural sequence introduces Saxonia’s spirits-only account. Immaterial does not simply mean incorporeal soul, and the later humoral material scheme includes adust forms. The wider modern clause supplies melancholy and is.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: The immateriall or adventitious, acquisite, redundant, unnatural, artificial

Modern rendering: Immaterial

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Immaterial melancholy is adventitious, acquired, excessive, unnatural or artificially produced

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: melancholy; is

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

in materiam primam

Printed “in materiam primam” (Latin; attested phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: in materiam primam

Into prime or first matter.

Context: Comparison within a reported complex of doctrines about souls, earth and cosmic return.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: as all philosophicall matter in materiam primam

Modern rendering: into prime matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: So too all matter in natural philosophy returns “into prime matter.”

Wider word and construction: The Latin phrase contributes into prime matter; returns is supplied from the comparison’s preceding English sentence.

Wider supplied words: returns

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

in the matter itself

Printed “in the matter it self” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: in the matter it self

By practical intervention in the affair itself.

Context: Chremes offers Menedemus a choice of comfort, counsel or practical help; Burton then cites a moneylender’s cure after loss.

Source: original body

love matters

Printed “love matters” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: love matters

Amorous affairs or business.

Context: Burton’s description of idle courtiers supplies one audience for chess; his suitability judgments vary with occupation and circumstances.

Source: original body

lætam materiam

Printed “lætam materiam” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: lætam materiam

Cheerful material or subject matter.

Context: The Latin phrase belongs to the defence of writers whose lascivious works need not prove unchaste lives. Cheerful is the literal force of lætam; lewdness comes from the surrounding list.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: cheerful material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

main matter

Printed “main matter” (English; phrase).

The chief concern or thing causing distress.

Context: The apparent enormity of sin terrifies sufferers; Burton describes their belief in damnation and then contests it.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: The main matter which terrifies and torments

Modern rendering: What chiefly terrifies and torments

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole nominal-relative construction is recast as a what-clause; chiefly carries main, not matter alone.

materia · Materia

Printed “Materia” (Latin; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: Materia

Material or substance.

Context: The marginal Materia names the material of melancholy and lists possible locations differently from the body. The modern is and linking or are supplied in rendering the compressed nominal/list construction.

Source: Burton-labelled marginal original quotation

Source wording, Wider original wording: Materia Melancholiæ aliquando in corde, in stomacho, hepate

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Wider modern rendering: The material of melancholy is sometimes in the heart, stomach or liver

Wider word and construction: Materia contributes material; Melancholiæ of melancholy, aliquando sometimes, and the rest the locations. Is is supplied to complete the clause.

Wider supplied words: is; or

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

Wider alignment source or qualification: Checked against editorial translation within the attached note, not the paired modern body

materia · materiâ

Printed “materiâ” (Latin; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: materiâ

Matter or material substance.

Context: The ablative materiâ follows sine in Saxonia’s spirits-based symptom account. Matter is contrasted with the humoral alternative in060-15; Spirituum is genitive of spirits, not a separate subject.

Source: Burton-labelled marginal original quotation

Source wording, Wider original wording: Spirituum sine materiâ

Modern rendering: matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Wider modern rendering: spirits without matter

Wider word and construction: Materiâ is the ablative noun matter after sine without; Spirituum supplies of the spirits within the complete note.

Wider construction scope: Wider nominal fragment: Spirituum is genitive of spirits, rendered as spirits in the supplied fragment; no complete subject-predicate equivalence is claimed.

Wider alignment source or qualification: Checked against editorial translation within the attached note, not the paired modern body

materia · local use 1

Printed “materia” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: materia

Matter; the substrate that receives form.

Context: Matter receives form in the nuptial comparison. Appetit supplies desires, while the second woman/man clause understands that verb; marital peace is subsequently conditional on loving conduct.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: ut materia appetit formam, sic mulier virum

Modern rendering: matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: As matter desires form, so woman desires man

Wider word and construction: Materia contributes matter; appetit formam desires form, and the remaining clause the comparison with woman and man.

Wider supplied words: desires [second clause]

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

materia · materiam · local use 1

Printed “materiam” (Latin; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: materiam

Matter or material substance.

Context: Ficino-attributed marginal counsel, distinct from the body’s material objects.

Source: Burton-labelled marginal original quotation

Source wording, Wider original wording: demitte materiam, demitte sensum

Modern rendering: matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Wider modern rendering: lay aside matter, lay aside sense perception

Wider word and construction: Materiam contributes matter; demitte supplies lay aside; sensum supplies sense perception in the parallel command.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

Wider alignment source or qualification: Checked against editorial translation within the attached note, not the paired modern body

materia · materiæ · local use 1

Printed “materiæ” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiæ

Of an undertaking or subject.

Context: In the Pliny margin materiæ depends on fautor: a supporter of the undertaking. Burton applies a passage about an advocate to writing; the supplied apparatus corrects his addressee without silently altering his text.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: nisi materiæ fautor, occasio, commendatorque contingat

Modern rendering: of the undertaking

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiam · local use 2

Printed “materiam” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Subject matter.

Context: Quintilian’s marginal assessment credits Seneca with wide learning. Omnem and studiorum supply every and of study; praise remains paired with criticism.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording, Original wording: omnem studiorum materiam

Modern rendering: every subject of study

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · local use 2

Printed “materia” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: materia

Material or resources.

Context: The Sabellicus margin says good material can lie unused without a craftsman. Burton’s surrounding political analogy favours colonial settlement and government; those judgments remain his.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: bona materia cessat sine artifice

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiam · local use 3

Printed “materiam” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiam

Material or occasion.

Context: In the Juvenal margin dirty clothing supplies material for mockery. Causamque separately adds and occasion; jocandi supplies for mockery.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: materiam præbet causamque jocandi

Modern rendering: matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiam · local use 4

Printed “materiam” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiam

Material, source or means on which something feeds.

Context: Horace’s quoted exhortation calls gems and gold material of the greatest evil. The printed materiam differs from the comparison text recorded in the apparatus, which is not substituted.

Source: original body

Source wording: Summi materiam mali

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

materia · materiam · local use 5

Printed “materiam” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiam

Materials for productive work.

Context: The Theodoret margin makes wealthy people suppliers of materials and poor artisans the workers; it supports Burton’s theological defence of unequal stations.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: materiam subministrent

Modern rendering: materials

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiæ · local use 2

Printed “materiæ” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiæ

To fuel or combustible material.

Context: The Heliodorus margin compares renewed sight of the beloved with fire applied to fuel. The dative expresses what receives the fire; Chariclea’s response is a literary example.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: ignis materiæ admotus

Modern rendering: to fuel

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiam · local use 6

Printed “materiam” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiam

Grounds or occasion.

Context: The Camerarius margin describes behaviour said to furnish grounds for adverse comment and suspicion. The later146-61 qualification allows jealousy where both parties are innocent.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: sinistri sermonis & suspitionis materiam viro præbet

Modern rendering: grounds

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiamque

Printed “materiamque” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiamque

And material.

Context: Fernel’s margin says diet supplies nourishment and material of disease, requiring cooperation of constitution and humours. -Que is and; morbi and the surrounding construction supply the relation to disease.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: pabulum, materiamque morbi suggerens

Modern rendering: and material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · local use 3

Printed “materia” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: materia

Material or substance.

Context: Altomarus’s margin identifies black humour as the material of the disorder that carries fear’s cause within; dark spirits then obscure the soul’s dwelling.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: ater humor passionis materia

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiæ · local use 3

Printed “materiæ” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiæ

To matter or material on which agents work.

Context: Daneau, Erastus and other theologians are reported to explain demons’ results through knowledge and application of gathered seeds to matter. Augustine’s non-creative, permission-limited account is described in the supplied apparatus, not freshly collated here.

Source: original body

Source wording: eaque materiæ applicare

Modern rendering: to matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

materia · Materias

Printed “Materias” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: Materias

Substances or materials.

Context: The margin says squill expels black substances. Atras supplies black; the body’s stronger claim of purging melancholy alone is attributed to Brasavola.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: Materias atras educit

Modern rendering: substances

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiamq;

Printed “materiamq;” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

And material.

Context: The Platter margin credits the described measures with dispersing wind and drawing out material. The printed q; abbreviates -que; the is English articulation, not a separate Latin word.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording, Original wording: materiamq; evocant

Modern rendering: and draw out the material

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The whole construction reverses Latin object–verb order into English; the indexed abbreviated form contributes material and and, while evocant supplies draw out.

Supplied words: the

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

materia · materiam · local use 7

Printed “materiam” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: materiam

Material on which something works.

Context: In Maximus of Tyre’s quoted observation lust gains corrupt material, licence and boldness. Improbam supplies corrupt; the contextual to work upon explains the metaphor.

Source: original body

Source wording: materiam improbam

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

materia prima · local use 1

Printed “materia prima” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: materia prima

Prime or first matter, considered without determinate form.

Context: Reported Zeno/Stoic doctrine through Augustine; Burton later endorses immortal soul.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: resolved into materia prima

Modern rendering: prime matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: been dissolved into prime matter

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

materia prima · local use 2

Printed “materia prima” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: materia prima

Prime matter, the substrate considered capable of receiving forms.

Context: Burton’s polemic about women; next paragraph calls many men even more fickle.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: As capable of any impression as materia prima it self

Modern rendering: prime matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: As receptive to any impression as “prime matter” itself

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

material · local use 1

Printed “material” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: material

Concerned with bodily material.

Context: Diet and retention/evacuation are more material because they produce, preserve or expel substance; the remaining non-naturals alter it. More is the comparison, and directly is the supplied interpretive modifier.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: more material then the other

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: more directly material than the others

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: directly

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

material · local use 2

Printed “material” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: material

Physical or bodily.

Context: Burton asks about mediation through humours, spirits and disordered organs.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the body being material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: the material body

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

material · materiall · local use 1

Printed “materiall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Involving humours as well as spirits in this classification.

Context: Saxonia’s two kinds are listed material then immaterial, but the following one/other clauses give spirits alone then humours and spirits. Their order must not invert the distinction established at027-33.

Source: original body

Source wording: materiall and immateriall

material · materiall · local use 2

Printed “materiall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Consisting in humoral substance.

Context: Saxonia excludes all material humours in favour of animal-spirits motions; the preceding wind and choler explanations are not silently reconciled with his.

Source: original body

Source wording: excluding all materiall humors

material · materiall · local use 3

Printed “materiall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Physical or bodily.

Context: Ribera is reported to place hell as a physical fire at the earth’s centre; locall supplies location, not materiall alone. The later paragraph considers a non-material alternative.

Source: original body

Source wording: a materiall & locall fire

material · materiall · local use 4

Printed “materiall” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Physical or bodily.

Context: The conditional no materiall fire is attributed to a group of theologians; the names and their individual positions are not independently verified.

Source: original body

Source wording: if it be no materiall fire

material fire

Printed “material fire” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: material fire

Physical fire.

Context: Burton’s hyperbolic comparison continued through volcanic and literary examples.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: any material fire

Modern rendering: physical fire

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: any physical fire

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

material objects

Printed “material objects” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: material objects

Objects belonging to bodily or sensory experience.

Context: Ficino’s devotional advice asks the reader to set aside material objects and sense perception to contemplate divine beauty. This is a direction of attention, not an instruction to destroy matter.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: lay aside all material objects, all sense

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: set aside all material objects and all sense perception

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

materiall · local use 1

Printed “materiall” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: materiall

Involving bodily humoral substance.

Context: Montanus and Arculanus classify melancholy as material or immaterial. This sentence calls material melancholy natural, but027-34 includes natural mixtures and unnatural burnt humours. Natural is not built into the adjective’s definition.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the materiall is one of the four humors before mentioned, and natural

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Material melancholy is natural: it is one of the four humours already mentioned

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: melancholy

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

materiall · local use 2

Printed “materiall” (English; lemma).

Substantial or important.

Context: As-if construction: Burton calls the agony real while describing its objects as trifles.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: most materiall and essentiall matters indeed

Modern rendering: matters of the greatest substance and importance

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole two-adjective construction aligned. Substance and importance render materiall and essentiall together; no unique allocation of one modern noun to one original adjective is asserted.

materiall · local use 3

Printed “materiall” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: materiall

Important or consequential.

Context: Burton calls moderate, suitably timed bodily and mental exercise a most important consideration. Most supplies the degree; importance is not a claim of physical substance.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: a most materiall circumstance

Modern rendering: important

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: a most important consideration

Wider word and construction: Materiall contributes important; circumstance contributes consideration. Most retains the superlative emphasis.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

materies

Printed “materies” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: materies

Material or substance.

Context: Youth is called material favourable and inclined to love. Benigna and prona supply favourability and inclination; materies itself supplies material, before the English combustible/fuel expansion.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: benigna in amorem, & prona materies

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: material favourable and inclined to love

Wider word and construction: Materies contributes material; benigna... et prona favourable and inclined, and in amorem to love.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

matter · local use 1

Printed “matter” (English; lemma).

The content or substance treated.

Context: Burton conditionally answers objections to his topic and treatment.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: the matter or manner of treating of this my subject

Modern rendering: my subject, or to the way I treat it

Word and construction: Full construction aligned: matter contributes subject content; manner of treating supplies the way of treating. The modern column condenses the repeated subject.

Alignment scope: Whole phrase aligned. The repeated subject and matter are condensed into my subject; no exclusive word-for-word component equivalence is claimed.

matter · local use 2

Printed “matter” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: matter

Material or content for writing.

Context: Burton defends acknowledged borrowing through a digestion analogy.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: The matter is theirs most part, and yet mine

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: The material is mostly theirs, and yet mine

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

matter · local use 3

Printed “matter” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: matter

Substantive content.

Context: Burton’s self-presentation as plain and frank, within ornate prose.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: I respect matter, not words

Modern rendering: substance

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: I value substance, not words

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

matter · Matter · local use 1

Printed “Matter” (English; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: Matter

Material or substance available for working.

Context: Botero’s advice forbids export of unworked raw materials. Matter means material; rude and unwrought supply raw and unworked.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: no rude Matter unwrought

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: no unworked raw material

Wider word and construction: Matter contributes material; rude and unwrought supply raw and unworked; no retains the prohibition.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

matter · local use 4

Printed “matter” (English; lemma).

Material or substance.

Context: Burton’s humoral anatomy; serum is not precisely modern laboratory serum.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Serum, which is the matter of Urine

Modern rendering: serum, the substance from which urine is made

Word and construction: The full matter-of construction is expanded as substance from which... is made; from which and is made express the relation, not the noun alone.

Supplied words: from which; is made

Alignment scope: Whole serum/urine relation aligned. From which urine is made explains the relation in matter of Urine; it is not the lexical definition of matter alone.

matter · local use 5

Printed “matter” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: matter

Bodily substance.

Context: Bruel-attributed explanation; Burton leaves the subsequent cause/effect dispute undecided.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: The Name is imposed from the matter

Modern rendering: substance

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Its name comes from its substance

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

matter · Matter · local use 2

Printed “Matter” (English; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: Matter

Bodily material or substance.

Context: Burton frames disagreement rather than a settled chemical identification.

Source: original body

Source wording: Of the Matter of Melancholy, there is much question

Modern rendering: material

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider original wording: Of the Matter of Melancholy, there is much question betwixt Avicen & Galen

Wider modern rendering: There is much disagreement between Avicenna and Galen about the material of melancholy

Wider construction scope: Whole first sentence aligned, including both named authorities. The clause is reordered in modern English.

matter · local use 6

Printed “matter” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: matter

Physical substance.

Context: Rothmann, Pena, Bruno and others reported; Tycho’s distinction and Burton’s qualified comparison follow.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: one matter throughout

Modern rendering: substance

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: one substance throughout

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

matter · local use 7

Printed “matter” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: matter

Material or stuff.

Context: Burton describes youth as highly combustible material and naphtha feeding love’s fire. Combustibility comes from the modifier and imagery, not the bare noun matter.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: a very combustible matter

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: highly combustible matter

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

matter · matters · local use 1

Printed “matters” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Events or happenings.

Context: Burton alternates comic and tragic news in the changing scene of contemporary life.

Source: original body

Source wording: now comical, then tragical matters

matter · local use 8

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Material or content available for a work.

Context: Burton’s English list makes suitable material, subject, occasion and a recommender conditions of literary success; the marginal Pliny sentence has a different construction.

Source: original body

Source wording: except the matter, subject, occasion, and some commending favorite happen to it

matter · local use 9

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Substantive content.

Context: Burton says he now disapproves of things he wrote and would retract much; the concern reaches assertions, not only style or borrowed wording.

Source: original body

Source wording: in the matter it self, many things I disallow at this present

matter · local use 10

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The material or content of an inquiry.

Context: Burton admits possible faults of content and method and denies that any one writer can observe everything.

Source: original body

Source wording: For the matter it self or method, if it be faulty

matter · matters · local use 2

Printed “matters” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Disputes or cases to be settled.

Context: Burton reports Augustine’s account of disputes ended by arbitrators agreed upon by both sides, then Simler’s account of Swiss town mediators.

Source: original body

Source wording: end matters

matter · local use 11

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Materials available to be worked.

Context: Burton lists wool, flax, metals and timber and blames lack of industry; the following subjects to work upon are these resources.

Source: original body

Source wording: matter of all sorts, Wool, Flax, Iron, Tin, Lead, Wood

matter · local use 12

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The facts or affair being described.

Context: Burton adapts Lucian’s independent historian into an independent political writer who states the case truthfully. The adjacent no subject refers separately to political allegiance.

Source: original body

Source wording: lay out the matter truly as it is

matter · matters · local use 3

Printed “matters” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Has significance or makes a difference.

Context: Paracelsus argues that relief matters regardless of the healer’s divine or demonic identity. Burton’s surrounding lawfulness debate and criticism remain distinct from this reported argument.

Source: original body

Source wording: It matters not, saith Paracelsus

matter · local use 13

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The business or affair being managed.

Context: The report is Seyssel’s account of French patronage; Burton quotes it as consolation for rejected candidates.

Source: original body

Source wording: the matter is carried by favour and grace

matter · local use 14

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

A concern, affair or occurrence.

Context: Burton deliberately minimizes the substantiality and importance of jealousy’s occasion, whether true or false; real and capital supply the evaluative qualifiers.

Source: original body

Source wording: no such real or capital matter

matter · local use 15

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

A dispute to be heard and settled.

Context: The reported Roman marriage-reconciliation practice places the dispute before impartial arbitrators. The claims about temples and sacrifices remain reported history.

Source: original body

Source wording: the matter was heard betwixt man and wife

matter · local use 16

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Material from which an object is made.

Context: Images made from every kind of material belong to Burton’s confessional attack on worship; physical composition and his religious judgment should remain distinct.

Source: original body

Source wording: make images of all matter

matter · local use 17

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Subject matter or contents.

Context: The matter belongs to Peter Lombard’s Sentences. The attributed count of commentators is not independently verified.

Source: original body

Source wording: on the matter of the sentences

matter · local use 18

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Bodily substance.

Context: Fat is described as arising from thick, oily material of blood; this physiological constituent is not automatically diseased black bile.

Source: original body

Source wording: thick and unctious matter of the bloud

matter · local use 19

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: matter

The substance of which a body is composed.

Context: The body-as-temple comparison distinguishes its material from the excellence of divine workmanship.

Source: original body

matter · local use 20

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Material constituting an organ.

Context: The spleen’s spongy substance is described as an instrument for separating melancholy humour. Adjacent watery matter concerns the kidneys and has its own excretory role.

Source: original body

Source wording: spungy matter

matter · local use 21

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Material sustaining bodily life, compared with a lamp’s fuel.

Context: Life fails when sustaining material or natural heat fails; the context compares a lamp’s oil and light, rather than identifying every use of matter with pathological humour.

Source: original body

Source wording: want of matter

matter · local use 22

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The bodily material whose variety is used to explain disease kinds.

Context: Burton links diversity and confusion of the material to diversity and confusion of species and to authors’ mixing melancholy with madness.

Source: original body

Source wording: When the matter is divers and confused

matter · local use 23

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Bodily material altered by diet.

Context: The stated sequence is spirits first and humours afterwards; this wider matter vocabulary complicates a universal equation of matter with gross humours alone.

Source: original body

Source wording: alter and change the matter, spirits first, and after humors

matter · local use 24

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Material from which something is made.

Context: The torch’s substance affects its light and smell, furnishing an analogy for bodily organs affecting the soul’s actions. It is the torch, not the soul, that is expressly made from this matter.

Source: original body

Source wording: according to the matter it is made of

matter · local use 25

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Humoral bodily material.

Context: The material in stomach and mesenteric regions is said to become scorched and inflamed, producing hypochondriacal melancholy; the margin separately names blood.

Source: original body

Source wording: the matter is so adust, and inflamed in those parts

matter · Matter · local use 3

Printed “Matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The substance of food and drink.

Context: The dietetic synopsis separates substance and quality before listing foods, bread, water and drink. This is a regimen heading, not philosophical prime matter.

Source: original body

Source wording: Matter & quality

matter · local use 26

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Physical substance through which water passes.

Context: Competing explanations of springs make their heat, cold and consistency depend on encountered matter or minerals; these are reported natural-philosophical accounts.

Source: original body

Source wording: as the matter or minerals are by which they pass

matter · local use 27

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Ingredients or materials of a preparation.

Context: Liniments use the materials named immediately before; the subsequent plasters and poultices distinguish preparation forms, not new kinds of prime matter.

Source: original body

Source wording: Liniments are made of the same matter

matter · local use 28

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Humoral substance.

Context: Hollerius objects that diuretics remove the fine component and leave thicker substance. Other named authorities recommend the treatment; the disagreement is retained.

Source: original body

Source wording: the thicker matter remains

matter · local use 29

Printed “matter” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Accumulated bodily material.

Context: Medicine is conditional: if needed because humours are altered or fresh material has accumulated, lovers are to be treated as melancholy patients.

Source: original body

Source wording: any new matter aggregated

matter and form

Printed “matter and forme” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: matter and forme

Bodily substance and its determining or organizing form.

Context: The phrase occurs in the reported argument for parental propagation of body and soul: otherwise a parent would beget only half a person. Burton does not here give his own unqualified endorsement of that argument.

Source: original body

matter itself

Printed “matter it self” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: matter it self

The actual thing or external circumstance.

Context: Burton’s consolatory argument contrasts circumstances with the mind’s evaluation and follows it with Cardano’s maxim; this local emphasis does not erase his bodily causal accounts.

Source: original body

matter of conscience

Printed “matter of conscience” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: matter of conscience

An issue treated as a binding religious obligation.

Context: The disciples described in Burton’s polemic fear damnation for non-compliance; the statement reports the obligation they feel, not its validity.

Source: original body

matter of conscience · matters of conscience

Printed “matters of conscience” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: matters of conscience

Issues treated as binding religious obligations or scruples.

Context: Burton contrasts opponents’ scruples about robes and degrees with his own view that these are indifferent matters of ornament or distinction.

Source: original body

matter of laughter

Printed “matter of laughter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: matter of laughter

Occasion or material for laughter.

Context: The speaker is Democritus in the reported exchange with Hippocrates; human vices and self-ignorance provoke his laughter. Burton also uses the phrase in his own preface at008-01.

Source: original body

matter of madness

Printed “matter of madness” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: matter of madness

Material or examples for an account of madness.

Context: Burton’s polemic says superstition, heresy and schism supply unsurpassed examples and symptoms; the phrase does not identify a particular bodily humour.

Source: original body

matter of money

Printed “matter of money” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: matter of money

A business or arrangement concerned with money.

Context: This reduction of marriage to financial dealings is spoken by the group Burton labels an Epicurean crowd; it is an objection within the debate.

Source: original body

matter of repentance

Printed “matter of repentance” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: matter of repentance

An occasion for regret.

Context: Burton’s hostile description of a stepmother supplies regret, patience-testing and dissension; it is his polemical characterization, not a neutral claim about stepfamilies.

Source: original body

matter of suspition

Printed “matter of suspition” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: matter of suspition

Grounds or occasion for suspicion.

Context: Burton acknowledges both sexes’ faults, then explicitly allows innocent partners.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: yield matter of suspition

Modern rendering: matter for suspicion

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: furnishing matter for suspicion

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

matters

Printed “matters” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: matters

Has significance or consequence.

Context: Burton limits the practical force of pure classifications because patients have mixed cases.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: it much matters not

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: matters little

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

melancholy matter

Printed “Melancholy matter” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: Melancholy matter

Melancholic bodily substance.

Context: Different locations, mixtures and putrefaction of this substance are said to produce jaundice, fever, leprosy, scurvy or mental disturbance. These historical disease categories are not collapsed into a single modern pathology.

Source: original body

no matter how

Printed “no matter how” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: no matter how

It is of no importance; regardless.

Context: Burton satirizes common opinion that honours wealth regardless of its acquisition or the owner’s character. This is the opinion he criticizes.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: it does not matter how

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Elliptical original clause rendered with explicit it does; no noun meaning physical matter is intended.

Supplied words: it; does

no matter what · local use 1

Printed “no matter what” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: no matter what

Anything at all, irrespective of its identity.

Context: Burton’s criticism of writers eager for fame.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: he will write no matter what

Modern rendering: anything at all

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: he will write anything at all

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

no matter what · local use 2

Printed “no matter what” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: no matter what

Its particular identity need not be stated.

Context: In the Ronsse case Burton deliberately leaves the publicly disclosed infirmity unnamed. This is withholding a detail, not the indiscriminate choice of writing-anything at004-01.

Source: original body

no such matter · local use 1

Printed “no such matter” (English; phrase).

No such actual fact or state of affairs.

Context: A narrated speaker’s deception, with fictitious gifts staged in the preceding unit.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: when there was no such matter

Modern rendering: There was no truth in it

Alignment convention

Supplied words: it

Alignment scope: Whole idiomatic clause recast. It resumes the alleged rival gifts; the existence and truth of that claim are denied.

no such matter · local use 2

Printed “no such matter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: no such matter

No such occurrence or state of affairs.

Context: Burton endorses Alsarius Crucius’s denial of the alleged harm from lead-pipe water. The supplied edition identifies that denial as medically incorrect; lexical evidence does not validate it.

Source: original body

no such matter · local use 3

Printed “no such matter” (English; phrase).

No such actual things or possessions.

Context: The supposed clothes and jewels in a suitor’s invented display of wealth do not exist.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: when there is no such matter

Modern rendering: none of these things exists

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole construction interprets the denied matter as the enumerated possessions; it is not the same contextual referent as fabricated rival gifts at124-13.

no such matter · local use 4

Printed “no such matter” (English; phrase).

No truth in the supposed state of affairs.

Context: Burton attacks belief in a lover’s exclusive fidelity; the following line applies falsity to men as well.

Source: original body

Source wording: there is no such matter

no such matter · local use 5

Printed “no such matter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: no such matter

Nothing of the sort perceived or judged.

Context: An observer does not see the beauty the lover imagines; the quoted woman admits love may impair her judgment. The phrase here need not allege a fabricated possession.

Source: original body

non ens

Printed “non ens” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: non ens

A nonentity; something denied substantial reality or worth.

Context: Burton’s polemical attack on pedigree, not denial that social ranks exist.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: It is non ens, a mear flash, a ceremony, a toy, a thing of nought

Modern rendering: nonentity

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: It is a nonentity, a mere flash, a ceremony, a trifle, a thing of nothing

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

non ens · non Ens

Printed “non Ens” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Original wording: non Ens

A nonentity; something whose claimed reality is denied.

Context: Erastus’s reported rejection within a controversy; opposing Paracelsian claims follow.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: a meer imposture, a non Ens

Modern rendering: nonentity

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: a mere fraud, a nonentity

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

nutritive matter

Printed “nutritive matter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: nutritive matter

Substance that nourishes.

Context: Natural heat is said to transform and digest this substance, illustrated by the fuel of a torch. The comparison does not assert literal cooking by flame inside the body.

Source: original body

other men’s matters · other mens matters · local use 1

Printed “other mens matters” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: other mens matters

Other people’s affairs or business.

Context: Burton voices the objection that a clergyman meddles in medicine, adapting Menedemus’s complaint to Chremes; the subsequent defence should not be mistaken for agreement with the objection.

Source: original body

other men’s matters · other mens matters · local use 2

Printed “other mens matters” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: other mens matters

Other people’s affairs.

Context: Burton condemns meddling that creates trouble and later enjoins readers not to meddle; this is an active moral use of the ordinary affairs sense.

Source: original body

other men’s matters · other mens matters · local use 3

Printed “other mens matters” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: other mens matters

Other people’s business or cases.

Context: The lawyer’s wife contrasts his clients’ affairs with his neglected conjugal duties and threatens another advocate; legal and sexual senses interact.

Source: original body

rem substratam

Printed “rem substratam” (Latin; attested phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: rem substratam

The underlying thing or subject.

Context: Burton explains his topic’s importance and public benefit.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the matter of this my subject, rem substratam, melancholy, madnes

Modern rendering: the underlying thing

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: the matter of my subject, “the underlying thing”—melancholy, madness

Wider word and construction: Rem substratam contributes the underlying thing; the English framing supplies the subject and identifies melancholy and madness.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

serous matters

Printed “serous matters” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: serous matters

Watery bodily fluids.

Context: Fonseca’s reported transformation sequence, compared to wine becoming vinegar.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: ichores & those serous matters being thickned become flegme

Modern rendering: watery fluids

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: ichors and watery fluids become phlegm when thickened

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

state matters

Printed “state-matters” (English; phrase). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: state-matters

Affairs of government.

Context: The Spartan council story distinguishes sound political advice from the disreputable speaker who offers it.

Source: original body

subject · local use 1

Printed “subject” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: subject

The seat or bearer of a condition.

Context: Capivaccius and Mercurialis reported; other parts are affected by communication.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the subject is the inner Brain

Modern rendering: seat of the disease

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The supplied of the disease makes the understood condition explicit; subject itself names its seat.

Supplied words: of; the disease

Wider modern rendering: the seat of the disease is the interior of the brain

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: of the disease

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

subject · local use 2

Printed “subject” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: subject

The underlying basis or seat of a condition.

Context: Crato-based advice with Burton’s strong alone formulation, not topic of discussion.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: they are the fountain, the subject, the hinges whereon it turns

Modern rendering: underlying matter

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Contextual two-word rendering of the condition’s underlying basis, not a claim that subject always means physical substance.

Wider modern rendering: they are its source, its underlying matter, the hinges on which it turns

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: its (twice, relating source and underlying matter to melancholy)

Wider construction scope: Whole construction aligned; the two possessives its make the relation to melancholy explicit rather than translating printed possessives.

subject · local use 3

Printed “subject” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The person or topic treated in a discourse.

Context: Burton addresses the reader as his subject, following a verse that names humanity. This topic/person sense differs from the clinical seat.

Source: original body

Source wording: Thou thy self art the subject of my discourse

subject · subjects · local use 1

Printed “subjects” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Materials or things upon which work is performed.

Context: These subjects are wool, flax, metals and timber, not the prince’s political subjects.

Source: original body

Source wording: excellent subjects to work upon

subject · subjects · local use 2

Printed “subjects” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

People or examples offered for treatment by a writer.

Context: Burton calls the idle, sensual or extravagant people satirical subjects; this is the literary target sense.

Source: original body

Source wording: fit subjects all for a Satyrist to work upon

subject · local use 4

Printed “subject” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The person affected by a condition.

Context: Montalto refers symptoms to the quality and disposition of humour and patient. Cardano’s subsequent violent-behaviour claim is separately attributed.

Source: original body

Source wording: the quality and disposition of the humour and subject

subject · subjects · local use 3

Printed “subjects” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Objects or topics of thought.

Context: The dream discussion says people dream of what they last thought about, illustrating continuity of mental attention.

Source: original body

Source wording: on such subjects they thought on last

subject · local use 5

Printed “subject” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The seat of a condition.

Context: Gordon names testicles as immediate seat or cause and liver as antecedent. The Latin margin more explicitly distinguishes a seat from its relation to the immediate or antecedent cause.

Source: original body

Source wording: an immediate subject or cause

subject · local use 6

Printed “subject” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The person exercising the act of sight.

Context: The subject is the person looking, contrasted with the person seen as object; the eye both acts and receives an impression.

Source: original body

Source wording: both in the subject and in the object

subject · local use 7

Printed “subject” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

That which bears or undergoes a condition.

Context: Burton makes the whole world the bearer of superstition in an expansive confessional diagnosis. The modern sentence recasts the noun as subject to.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: the world it self is the subject of it

Modern rendering: the whole world is subject to it

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole sentence recast from a noun predicate to subject-to construction; no claim that the entire modern clause translates the isolated noun.

subject · local use 8

Printed “subject” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

The person suffering or undergoing an action.

Context: The subject is the vulnerable sufferer in Burton’s account of demonic compulsion. The modern sentence absorbs the noun into their, retaining reduced resistance.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: the subject is less able to resist

Modern rendering: their reduced power to resist

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The whole construction is recast; their resumes the sufferers. The supernatural agency remains Burton’s explanation.

subjectum · local use 1

Printed “subjectum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: subjectum

A subject or topic of discussion.

Context: Velcurio’s marginal label calls the rational soul a pleasant but doubtful topic; it does not name bodily matter.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: Iucundum & anceps subjectum

Modern rendering: subject

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

subjectum · Subjectum

Printed “Subjectum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: Subjectum

The seat or bearer of a condition.

Context: The margin identifies the interior brain as the seat; the body assigns the conclusion to Capivaccius and Mercurialis and then describes communication with other parts.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: Subjectum est cerebrum interius

Modern rendering: seat

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

subjectum · subjecto

Printed “subjecto” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

An object or subject upon which activity is exercised.

Context: The marginal question imagines God before creation, idle apart from his object. Burton presents such speculation as the prying questions of fantasists.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording, Original wording: suo subjecto

Modern rendering: object of his activity

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Suo supplies his; of activity is the supplied contextual explanation of object, not an additional printed noun.

Supplied words: of; activity

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

subjectum · local use 2

Printed “subjectum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: subjectum

A topic or subject matter.

Context: Burton borrows the statement about readers requesting expansion from the author of Celestina through Barth. The borrowing and claimed sixth resumption are not independently authenticated.

Source: original body

Source wording: extendi & locupletari hoc subjectum

Modern rendering: subject

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

subjectum · local use 3

Printed “subjectum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: subjectum

A seat or bearer of a condition.

Context: The margin says testicles and liver may be seats with respect to different causal relations; may preserves possunt.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: possunt esse subjectum

Modern rendering: seat

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

what matter is it

Printed “what matter is it” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: what matter is it

What significance or practical benefit does it have?

Context: Burton continues a criticism of useless speculative knowledge, following the argument attributed to Socrates through Eusebius.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: what does it matter

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole interrogative construction recast from a noun to the modern verb matter.

what the matter was · local use 1

Printed “what the matter was” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: what the matter was

What was happening or what the trouble was.

Context: Struś’s reported pulse examination identifies passionate attachment and its object. The margin suggests adultery more explicitly than the English body.

Source: original body

what the matter was · local use 2

Printed “what the matter was” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: what the matter was

What was wrong or troubling the patient.

Context: Rhazes asks about the complaint and reports cure by medicine and persuasion. The English body’s heaven, hell and fiery spirits differ from the margin’s God and angels.

Source: original body

without matter · local use 1

Printed “without matter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: without matter

Without the humoral material distinguished in this explanatory scheme.

Context: The conditional account makes mixed symptoms follow mixed humours or spirits and the distinction between sharing in matter and lacking it.

Source: original body

without matter · local use 2

Printed “without matter” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: without matter

Without humoral matter.

Context: Saxonia assigns head-melancholy signs to spirits’ motion and darkness alone, separately treating humoral adustion. The margin instead mentions the brain’s movement and darkness.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: without humoral matter

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Humoral is supplied by the local opposition, not printed as a separate adjective.

Supplied words: humoral

worse matters

Printed “worse matters” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: worse matters

Worse activities or conduct.

Context: Games are said to have been intended as restorative recreation and diversion from worse behaviour, before being perverted through abuse.

Source: original body