Perturbation

Use in the book

From disorder in a sentence to disorder in a body

Burton asks indulgence for “perturbations of tenses, numbers” among the faults of his writing. These are confusions of grammatical tense and number, not emotional crises experienced by the author. In the preliminary argument for universal illness, Tholosanus’s definition makes sickness a dissolution or disturbance of the “bodily league,” the agreement that health maintains. The original margin speaks of an alliance existing in the body. In the later definition of disease, Burton describes the disturbed league as that between body and soul. These related formulations are not identical word for word.

The physical sense persists outside the definitions. In the dietary discussion, unfamiliar foods are said to produce “perturbationes,” rendered by Burton himself as alterations and distempers. In the cautions for physicians, “such perturbations” means the harmful disturbance of a humour by inadequate purging. Montanus is cited against treatment that stirs the humour without carrying it away; the next paragraph also criticizes excessive medication. Neither occurrence should be reduced to disturbed feelings alone. These are historical explanations of illness and treatment.

The wider sense of disorder appears in a marginal sentence attributed to Cardano: everything is imperfect, confused and “perturbatione plena,” full of disturbance. Its subject is everything, not merely a troubled mind. In the later story of Curtius, “omnia perturbabant” means that rival physicians threw everything into confusion by contradicting his prescriptions. They then blame Curtius for a death and claim a recovery for themselves. The verb describes disruption of treatment by its practitioners.

Diet also connects bodily regimen with desired mental quiet. Burton reports that Egyptian priests avoided even the salt in bread “ut sine perturbatione anima esset,” so that the soul might be undisturbed; his English restatement follows separately. Yet “belike” marks his conjecture about their reason, and the same paragraph first names writers who commend salt. The passage preserves that disagreement rather than demonstrating that abstinence achieved freedom from passions.

Satire, self-defence and prayer

In Burton’s compressed version of Lucian, Charon sees a hovering crowd of perturbations above humanity: hope, fear, anger, greed and ignorance. Disturbing passions become visible figures in the satirical panorama. Burton combines material from both speakers in Lucian’s dialogue, rather than supplying a continuous quotation. His own “inward perturbations,” invoked when he excuses possible mistakes in the book, are mental distractions; they differ from the earlier “perturbations of tenses,” which are faults in the writing itself.

After tracing anger’s destructive consequences, Burton proposes adding “anger, and all such pestiferous perturbations” to a communal petition for deliverance. The word has a public devotional use here: the passions are the dangers from which the community asks to be delivered. The supplied note identifies the passage as an adaptation of the litany, with anger and the destructive passions added to its sequence.

The Stoic standard and Burton’s objections

The preface presents Seneca and the other Stoics as holding that wisdom cannot coexist with “any the least perturbation.” The surrounding argument converts human subjection to passions into evidence of universal folly. A later portrait of the Stoic sage becomes openly mocking: supposedly exempt from disturbance, he remains untroubled by torment, poverty and bodily disfigurement. Burton then attacks the claim that wisdom cannot be lost and reports Chrysippus’s concession that drunkenness or melancholy can undo it. The sage’s immunity is therefore an attributed ideal under satirical pressure, not Burton’s settled description of human psychology.

The anatomical account says that all affections and perturbations spring from the concupiscible and irascible inclinations. Here Burton calls them natural and “not to be resisted,” against the Stoics. In the later causal discussion he again rejects complete immunity: anyone entirely unmoved would be a god or a block. Education, philosophy and theology may restrain passions, he concedes, but only “in some few men at some times.” The book’s later commands to resist disturbances must be read beside these acknowledgements of natural vulnerability. They cannot simply erase the earlier wording.

Nor does criticism of complete Stoic immunity prevent Burton from using particular Stoic counsel. Epictetus’s example of the breakable pot promises “non perturbaberis,” you will not be troubled, if its owner remembers what sort of thing is loved. The example of mortal relatives follows. This is a conditional exercise in preparation; the preceding paragraph expressly allows distraction when present weakness prevents moderation.

Causes, symptoms and accumulation

Perturbation belongs to the account of passing melancholy: small occasions of sorrow, fear or discontent can temporarily make anyone melancholy. The universality of these dispositions is distinguished from a settled disease. In the image of imprisonment for debt, one discontent admits a crowd of other disturbances, as one creditor’s action brings the rest upon a prisoner; accumulated trouble can carry a person into the lasting malady.

Among the six non-natural things, disturbances of mind alter bodily matter; diet, by contrast, supplies matter. Fernel’s formulation adds that air and perturbations do not produce their effect unless bodily constitution and the disposition of the humours cooperate. The later “thunder and lightning of perturbation” makes the reciprocal action especially vivid: bad humours disturb the mind, while disturbed emotions in turn alter the body. That passage strongly blames the soul as governor and instrument-user, but it also contains the explicit two-way causal account. The original marginal image calls passions nails fastening the soul to the body as to a scaffold of execution.

Size and repetition matter. Vives’s winds merely rock or wholly overturn the ship; slight disturbances, initially disregarded, may penetrate the mind by repeated action as drops penetrate stone. The classification that follows places the passions between sense and reason but more closely attached to sense and bodily organs. It reports several systems rather than one fixed taxonomy. Excess consumes the spirits and produces melancholy. Sorrow then receives the special title of a domineering passion, displacing lesser passions like a Roman dictator suspending lower magistracies. These superlatives belong to particular arguments, not a final ranking that settles every later comparison.

Other comparisons change the measure. Malicious envy and rivalry are called the most frequent disturbance, yet the same subsection permits honourable rivalry and restrained ambition. Anger is defined as a perturbation carrying the spirits outwards and, in Piccolomini’s ranking, is one of the three most violent passions; the further account makes excessive frequency a condition of its breaking out into madness. Self-love and vainglory, meanwhile, can insinuate themselves where anger, lust, fear, sorrow or any other perturbation cannot take hold. Frequency, intensity and stealth are different claims.

In the transition to immediate causes, Burton again admits disagreement about whether soul or body bears chief responsibility. He then endorses Gwalther’s account of concupiscence, original sin, inclinations and bad humours as rooted in everyone and causing perturbations. The theological and bodily causes coexist in that assertion; neither should replace the other.

Imagination supplies a more particular account of transmission: it is the medium through which passions work. Perturbations act with greater or lesser force as imagination is heightened or relaxed and as the humours are disposed. This explanatory bridge joins the mental representation to the bodily conditions already discussed; neither factor is silently dropped.

Bodily signs and differing clinical accounts

The historical account extends influence beyond the sufferer’s own body. Burton advises choosing a wet nurse free from bodily illness and, “if it be possible,” from all passions and perturbations, because he says these corrupt the milk and alter the child’s temperament. The qualification matters. So does the sequel: a suitable nurse may in some cases be better than the mother herself. This is an argument about early bodily and mental formation within Burton’s physiology, not present-day nursing advice.

In hypochondriacal melancholy, sudden perturbation is said most commonly to initiate the illness, especially in bodies already ill disposed. In the general account of bodily signs, pulse varies with the intensity of passions or perturbations; the next paragraph nevertheless discounts the diagnostic value of pulse in chronic illness and criticizes overelaborate distinctions. These qualifications prevent a selected sign or trigger from becoming an unvarying rule.

Nor are perturbations necessarily continuous. The account of head melancholy allows periods of laughter or cheerfulness between severe disturbances, explaining them through an admixture of blood. In the sex-specific account attributed to writers on women’s diseases, symptoms may be intensified or diminished by love’s ardour or other powerful objects and disturbances: both directions remain in the wording. Another explanation makes choler cause disturbances during sleep and waking, before reporting Hercules de Saxonia’s account of imagined bodily states through animal spirits, expressly excluding material humours. These differing explanations should remain distinct.

Blushing provides a further limit on moral inference. Perturbations are among its proposed occasions, but Burton rejects the claim that shame or redness necessarily proves a committed offence. Fear, force, inexperience and bodily conditions may also account for it. A visible bodily response is therefore not, in this argument, sufficient evidence of wrongdoing.

Love, jealousy and religious distress

The later treatment of love calls love and hatred the first and most common “perturbationes,” in an account attributed to Piccolomini and, in the margin, to Plato. The ranking concerns their origin and prevalence: the other passions arise from and attend them. This introduction explicitly allows love to be honourable or dishonourable, a natural passion or a disease. When a later passage calls it a “vehement perturbation,” Burton has first conceded love’s social and generative benefits, then distinguished raging love as burning lust. The condemnation should not swallow the concession.

Jealousy, too, has several positions in the account: named physicians make it a cause of melancholy, others a symptom, while Burton argues for treating it separately as a species. His later “more furious perturbation” escalates its severity beyond ordinary melancholy, following his claim that love is the most violent passion and jealousy its strongest bitter product. These comparisons have their own local subjects and measures.

In the religious discussion, “Intolerabilem perturbationem,” repeated in English as “an intolerable perturbation,” condemns oppressive superstition and excessive scruple. Burton attributes the Latin to Seneca, but the supplied note has not confirmed that exact phrase at the printed citation. The preceding hostile story about Sabbath observance remains an unverified reported anecdote, not a warrant for generalizing about a whole religious community.

Rectification, resistance and help

“Perturbations of the minde rectified” heads a practical programme: resisting their beginnings and confiding grief to a friend. Burton praises quiet of mind, recommends cheerfulness and hope, and gives prominent place to removing fears and distressing company. After the strong claims for the mind’s role in cure, he allows an objection to speak at length: if even philosophers cannot govern their passions, how can a person already ill do so? His answer is that help and effort may moderate them; he distinguishes being eased from being completely cured.

The later continuation makes the limit concrete. If judgment, reason and will are too disordered for self-government, the sufferer should share the misery with a discreet, trustworthy friend. Another discussion allows serious dispute as a way of rousing a sluggish mind, but expressly on condition that it does not become “a violent perturbation.” Disturbance is not measured simply by whether the conversation is calm: activity may help, while agitation defeats the purpose.

Company can also fail to help. In the quoted Terentian scene, Menedemus returns with his mind almost “Perturbato,” disturbed; the servants’ efforts cannot relieve the grief which Burton’s following paraphrase connects with his absent son. The first-person voice belongs to the dramatic character, and the son is not said to be dead. Elsewhere a “comes perturbatus,” an agitated companion who laments everything, is called an enemy to tranquillity. That adjective describes the companion, while the surrounding practical counsel requires gentle treatment of the patient.

An earlier passage argues that advice can do little while the causes remain. Its comparison is with telling a wounded person not to feel pain. In the final religious partition, despair is called the most grievous perturbation in an attributed judgment, yet temporary despair is expressly allowed to afflict faithful people. Treatment generally combines medicine with counsel, and the passions and perturbations are again to be rectified. The vocabulary joins bodily and spiritual care without making one sufficient in every case.

Related entries

Passion; Non naturals; Melancholy; Disposition and habit; Concupiscible and irascible; Appetite; Will and nill; Soul; Sorrow; Despair; Conscience

Places to read

1. Grammatical confusionAn author’s request for lenient judgement
2. A disturbed bodily allianceThe preliminary universalizing argument and marginal definition
3. Passions made visibleLucian’s satirical crowd in Burton’s composite retelling
4. The Stoic idealThe smallest disturbance and the impossibility of escaping sorrow
5. The sage mockedImmunity and the reported concession concerning lost virtue
6. A writer’s inner disturbancesEmotional distractions distinguished from grammatical confusions
7. Disease definedThe bond of body and soul
8. Passing and settled melancholyUniversal dispositions and the creditor image of accumulated distress
9. Natural emotional powersThe two inclinations and the statement that the emotions are natural
10. Material conditionsPerturbations alter matter; the body’s preparation must concur
11. Salt and the purpose of quietReported priestly abstinence, disputed diet and Burton’s conjecture
12. Disturbance from unfamiliar foodsDietary change and habituation
13. Reciprocal action and cumulative harmThunderbolt, nails, winds and rain, with qualified resistance
14. Imagination conveys passionsDegrees of imagination and the disposition of humours
15. Classifications and griefAlternative divisions, excess and the dominion of sorrow; exceptional page numbering retained
16. Frequency with an exceptionMalicious envy’s prevalence and the allowance for honourable rivalry
17. Anger as outward motionA physiological definition, one-of-three ranking and excessive frequency
18. A petition against destructive passionsAnger’s consequences and the proposed litany adaptation
19. The world’s disorderCardano’s marginal generalization beside the Care fable
20. Self-love slips past resistanceThe contrast with passions that cannot take hold
21. Nursing and temperamentConditional choice of a nurse and the claimed influence of passions on milk
22. Rooted causes and disputed responsibilityGwalther’s endorsed account and the competing claims for body and soul
23. Agitation as a precipitantHypochondriacal melancholy, common triggers and ill-disposed bodies
24. Pulse and its limitsIntensified passions, changing signs and the caution about diagnosis
25. A dramatic speaker remains troubledMenedemus, his servants and his absent son
26. Disturbances with intervalsHead melancholy with alternating cheerfulness
27. Symptoms intensified or diminishedThe sex-specific historical explanation and its two-directional wording
28. Advice and causesThe comparison with real pain
29. Alternative accounts of bodily disturbanceCholer, animal spirits and the exclusion of material humours in the reported alternative
30. Blushing without wrongdoingEmotional and physical occasions of redness
31. Treatment-induced disturbanceInadequate purging and excessive medication
32. Argument within limitsConversation may rouse; violent agitation defeats its purpose
33. Rectification and assistanceThe heading, programme, sufferer’s objection and appeal to a friend
34. The agitated companionMarginal adjective, distressing company and gentle treatment
35. Conditional Stoic preparationThe pot, mortality and relief when moderation fails
36. Physicians confuse the treatmentRival prescriptions in Cardano’s story of Curtius
37. Love and hatred as primary passionsThe marginal noun, origin and prevalence, with love’s different kinds
38. Raging desire distinguishedThe concession about beneficial love before the condemnation of burning lust
39. Jealousy’s disputed positionCause, symptom and Burton’s proposed separate species
40. Jealousy’s comparative severityMore furious disturbance in a local escalation
41. Intolerable superstitionLatin attribution, English restatement and the limits of the preceding anecdote
42. Despair and combined careA theological superlative with the temporary/final distinction and medicine plus counsel

In this edition

“perturbations of tenses, numbers” becomes “confusions of tense and number.” The Stoic construction “any the least perturbation” becomes “even the slightest disturbance of the emotions.” The full treatment heading “Perturbations of the minde rectified” becomes “Disturbances of the mind corrected,” stating its aim. Elsewhere “perturbation” becomes “agitation” when a dispute threatens to become excessive. The varying equivalents identify the kind of disorder in each construction.

The Latin quotation about unfamiliar foods and Burton’s following English gloss are separately modernized: the former has “serious disturbances,” the latter “marked changes and disorders.” Original marginal Latin is likewise distinguished from the modern translations accompanying it. The chapter on division retains the source’s exceptional pagination:, followed by the repeated. No fresh collation of the classical or medical authorities is claimed here.

Related Latin verb forms are not all translated as the noun “disturbance.” Menedemus’s “Perturbato” becomes “Distracted,” the companion’s “perturbatus” becomes “agitated” in the translation of the original margin, and “omnia perturbabant” becomes “they threw everything into confusion.” In the pot example “non perturbaberis” is a negated prediction, “you will not be troubled,” within conditional counsel. These distinct grammatical uses and speakers are retained.

fulmen perturbationum

Printed “fulmen perturbationum” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: fulmen perturbationum

A thunderbolt of emotional disturbances; a metaphor for violent, rapid bodily alteration.

Context: Name attributed to Piccolomini; the following account explicitly describes reciprocal body–mind influence.

Source: original body

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: thunderbolt of the passions

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase alignment; the entire phrase, not each component separately, carries the stated rendering.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbare · Perturbato

Printed “Perturbato” (Latin; related verb form).

Disturbed or unsettled, describing the mind of the speaker returning home in grief; ferè supplies almost.

Context: Menedemus speaks in the quoted Terentian scene, not Burton autobiographically. The following paraphrase says he has lost his son, whose absence, not death, is clarified by the supplied note.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: animo ferè Perturbato, atque incerto præ ægritudine

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: my mind almost Distracted, bewildered by distress

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the full unit carries the rendering.

Supplied words: my (the mind’s possessor is made explicit from the first-person speaker)

Notes: Perturbato is an inflected participial form of the related Latin verb; the separate prose paraphrase is not substituted for the quotation’s modern alignment.

perturbare · perturbatus

Printed “perturbatus” (Latin; related verb form).

Agitated or disturbed, describing a companion whose habitual lamenting is said to unsettle the sufferer.

Context: The marginal Senecan counsel concerns the companion, not a diagnostic adjective for the patient. The body paraphrases him as a groaning companion; the original participle occurs in the margin.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: comes perturbatus, omnia gemens

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: an agitated companion who groans about everything

Alignment convention

Qualification: The original marginal quotation is aligned with its separately identified editorial translation in the same note, not the modern body.

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbare · perturbaberis

Printed “perturbaberis” (Latin; related verb form).

You will be disturbed or troubled; non negates the predicted disturbance upon the pot’s breaking.

Context: Epictetus’s practical counsel makes the promise conditional on remembering that the loved object is only a pot. Burton extends the example to mortal relatives; the preceding paragraph also allows diversion when present weakness prevents moderation.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: non perturbaberis eâ confractâ

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: you will not be troubled when it is broken

Alignment convention

Qualification: The original marginal Latin is aligned with the note’s editorial translation; the ablative absolute eâ confractâ becomes a when-clause, with the pot supplied by its antecedent.

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbare · perturbabant

Printed “perturbabant” (Latin; related verb form).

They confused or disordered; here rival physicians disrupt the whole course of treatment through contradictory prescriptions.

Context: Burton continues Cardano’s story of Curtius: the other physicians thwart him, blame him if the patient dies, and credit themselves if recovery follows. The action belongs to those rivals.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: omnia perturbabant

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: they threw everything into confusion

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the full unit carries the rendering.

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbatio

Printed “perturbatio” (Latin; lemma).

Disturbance of an internal bodily alliance; the marginal Latin localizes the covenant within the body.

Context: Quoted definition, not a modern physiological assertion.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: perturbatio fœderis in corpore existentis

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: disturbance of the alliance existing in the body

Alignment convention

Qualification: Original marginal quotation aligned with its supplied editorial translation, not with the modern body.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbatio · perturbationes · local use 1

Printed “perturbationes” (Latin; lemma).

Physical disturbances or disorders; insignes supplies the qualification marked or serious. In the cited account, unfamiliar foods produce them.

Context: Latin quotation associated with Bruyérin; Burton supplies his own following English paraphrase.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: perturbationes insignes

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: serious disturbances

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase alignment; the entire phrase, not each component separately, carries the stated rendering.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbatio · Perturbationes

Printed “Perturbationes” (Latin; lemma).

Passions or mental disturbances, metaphorically nails fastening soul to body as to an execution scaffold.

Context: Marginal saying attributed to Iamblichus, exact historical passage uncollated.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Perturbationes clavi sunt

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: The passions are nails

Alignment convention

Qualification: Original marginal quotation aligned with its supplied editorial translation, not with the modern body.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbatio · perturbatione · local use 1

Printed “perturbatione” (Latin; lemma).

Disturbance; sine perturbatione means without disturbance, a condition the reported abstinence from salt was intended to secure.

Context: An unnamed author supplies the purpose attributed to Egyptian priests. Burton’s belike marks his conjecture connecting their practice with his claim that salt produces melancholy; other named writers commend salt.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: ut sine perturbatione anima esset

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: so that the soul might be undisturbed

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the full unit carries the rendering.

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbatio · perturbatione · local use 2

Printed “perturbatione” (Latin; lemma).

Disturbance or disorder, here a condition of everything in a sweeping marginal account of the world’s imperfection.

Context: The marginal sentence is attributed to Cardano. Its subject is omnia, everything; it is not limited grammatically to the mind of the mythological Care or of her human creature.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Omnia imperfecta, confusa, & perturbatione plena

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Everything is imperfect, confused and full of disturbance

Alignment convention

Qualification: The original marginal quotation is aligned with its separately identified editorial translation in the same note, not the modern body.

Supplied words: is (copula supplied in the editorial translation of the Latin nominal sentence)

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbatio · perturbationes · local use 2

Printed “perturbationes” (Latin; lemma).

Passions or emotional disturbances; the phrase names love and hatred as first and most common in the reported derivation of the other passions.

Context: Piccolomini is the body’s authority; the margin says from Plato. This ranks origin and prevalence, not moral evil or intensity. The surrounding survey explicitly admits honourable and dishonourable, natural and diseased love.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: primæ & communissimæ perturbationes

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: The first and most common passions

Alignment convention

Qualification: The original marginal quotation is aligned with its separately identified editorial translation in the same note, not the modern body.

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbatio · perturbationem

Printed “perturbationem” (Latin; lemma).

Disturbance; intolerabilem means unbearable, qualifying the oppressive superstition and scrupulosity condemned here.

Context: Burton attributes the phrase to Seneca and endorses its application to rigid observance. The supplied note says the exact Latin phrase has not been confirmed at Burton’s cited On Benefits 7.2.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Intolerabilem perturbationem

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: an intolerable disturbance

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the full unit carries the rendering.

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 1

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Confusions or disorders; specifically inconsistent grammatical tense and number in writing.

Context: Burton asks indulgence for faults left in his text.

Source: original body

Source wording: perturbations of tenses, numbers

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 1

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Disruption of the harmonious bodily agreement constituting health.

Context: Definition attributed to Tholosanus within Burton’s argument for general sickness.

Source: original body

Source wording: A dissolution or perturbation of the bodily league

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 2

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Emotional disorder, here even its smallest degree.

Context: Attributed Stoic claim excluding wisdom where any such disturbance exists; subsequent challenge kept.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: any the least perturbation

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: even the slightest disturbance of the emotions

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase alignment; the entire phrase, not each component separately, carries the stated rendering.

Supplied words: of the emotions (contextual expansion of perturbation)

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 2

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Mental or emotional agitations, excluded from the ideal sage.

Context: Plutarch’s mocking portrait reported by Burton; not asserted immunity for ordinary Stoics.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: subject to no perturbations

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: subject to no disturbance of mind

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase alignment; the entire phrase, not each component separately, carries the stated rendering.

Supplied words: of mind (contextual expansion of perturbations)

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 3

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Disturbance of a bond, specified here as the bond of body and soul.

Context: Tholosanus’s definition as Burton paraphrases it; modern repeats the antecedent of it.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: a perturbation of it

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: disturbance of the bond between body and soul

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase alignment; the entire phrase, not each component separately, carries the stated rendering.

Supplied words: the bond between body and soul (antecedent of original it repeated)

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 4

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

An unsettling of the mind; one occasion of temporary melancholy.

Context: Burton defines the broad passing condition before distinguishing established illness.

Source: original body

Source wording: perturbation of the minde

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 3

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Additional emotional troubles; represented as assailants accumulating after one discontent.

Context: Conditional if any discontent seizes a patient; creditors and rushing winds provide comparisons.

Source: original body

Source wording: all other perturbations

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 4

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbances; coordinated with affections, both said to arise from the concupiscible and irascible inclinations.

Context: Burton calls them natural and not to be resisted; later prescriptions do not silently replace this claim.

Source: original body

Source wording: All affections and perturbations

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 5

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbances as causes requiring bodily conditions to concur.

Context: Negative conditional argument attributed to Fernel; not an assertion of independent mental causation.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: neither air, nor perturbations

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Neither air nor disturbances of the mind

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase alignment; the entire phrase, not each component separately, carries the stated rendering.

Supplied words: of the mind (contextual clarification of perturbations)

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · Perturbations · local use 1

Printed “Perturbations” (English; lemma).

Disturbing emotions; the things classified by competing schemes.

Context: Burton reports several classifications and gives sense greater influence than reason.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.; This source group includes repeated printed 96–97 and supplied 98–99; see SUPPLIED_OPENING and SOURCE_DJR_040.

Source wording: Perturbations and passions, which trouble the phantasie

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 6

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Harmful bodily disturbances caused by stirring a humour without adequate evacuation.

Context: Montanus’s criticism as reported by Burton, followed by criticism of overmedication.

Source: original body

Source wording: such perturbations

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 5

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Emotional agitation or disturbance; violent makes this an excessive degree, the excluded outcome of otherwise useful argument.

Context: Explicit condition limits the recommendation to dispute with sufferers.

Source: original body

Source wording: a violent perturbation

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · Perturbations · local use 2

Printed “Perturbations” (English; lemma).

Mental disturbances as the objects of attempted correction or treatment.

Context: Section heading describes an aim, not a completed cure.

Source: original body

Source wording: Perturbations of the minde rectified

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 7

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbances ranked by severity, with despair placed highest in the attributed judgment.

Context: Patrizi is cited; temporary and final despair are distinguished immediately afterward.

Source: original body

Source wording: of all perturbations most grievous

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 8

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Disturbing passions, imagined as a crowd hovering over human beings in a satirical view of the world.

Context: Burton recounts Lucian’s fiction, presenting Charon’s report to Mercury; the supplied note warns that Burton combines observations by both speakers rather than quoting continuously.

Source: original body

Source wording: a confused companie of perturbations

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 9

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Inner mental disturbances; distractions invoked to explain possible lapses in a long satirical work.

Context: Burton excuses possible authorial error: even the best may sometimes err. The following conditional recantation remains part of the self-defence.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: inward perturbations to molest

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: inner disturbances to trouble us

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the full unit carries the rendering.

Supplied words: us (the implied people troubled, supplied in the modern construction)

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 10

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Mental disturbances; the troubles from which the priests’ souls were supposedly to remain free.

Context: Burton’s English restatement follows his Latin quotation, separately translated in the modern edition. It describes the reported purpose, not a demonstrated effect of abstaining from salt.

Source: original body

Source wording: that their souls might be free from perturbations

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 11

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Passions or emotional disturbances; their varying force is explained through imagination as their conveying medium and through the disposition of bodily humours.

Context: Burton’s conclusion varies the effects with heightened or relaxed imagination and the humours’ disposition; it does not posit a constant or unconditioned influence.

Source: original body

Source wording: so do perturbations move more or less, and take deeper impression

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 12

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Disturbing passions; pestiferous calls them destructive, extending the petition against anger and allied passions.

Context: Burton proposes an addition to the communal litany after describing anger’s political and bodily harm. The supplied editorial note identifies the adaptation of the Book of Common Prayer.

Source: original body

Source wording: anger, and all such pestiferous perturbations

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 13

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbances; included with passions in the qualities Burton wishes a wet nurse, if possible, to be free from.

Context: Burton advises choosing a nurse only where the mother cannot suitably nurse; freedom from all such passions is expressly qualified if it be possible. He claims the passions corrupt milk and alter the child’s temperament, then allows some nurses to be preferable to some mothers.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Preserve sequence and printed-number distinction exactly.

Source wording: all passions and perturbations of the minde

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 6

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Mental agitation or disturbance; a precipitating occasion in the account of hypochondriacal melancholy.

Context: Burton says fear, grief or sudden agitation most commonly begins this illness, especially in ill-disposed bodies. Melanchthon’s comparison with the mother in women is a reported historical claim.

Source: original body

Source wording: some sudden commotion, or perturbation of the minde

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 14

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbances; intended means intensified, linking variations in the described pulse to the strength of the passions.

Context: The pulse claim is supported by Struthius in Burton’s account, but the next paragraph says the pulse deserves little diagnostic attention in chronic illness and criticizes excessive distinctions.

Source: original body

Source wording: but that varies according to their intended passions or perturbations

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 15

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Mental disturbances; immoderate specifies their excessive degree in this account of head melancholy.

Context: The account immediately denies uninterrupted continuity: sufferers may laugh or be cheerful, explained here by admixture of blood, and become melancholy again afterwards.

Source: original body

Source wording: immoderate perturbations of the mind

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 7

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Mental disturbance; one possible influence upon the degree of the symptoms attributed to a womb-related melancholy.

Context: In Burton’s historical sex-specific causal account, symptoms are intended or remitted, intensified or diminished, with love’s ardour or other powerful objects or perturbations. The wording gives both directions of change, not aggravation alone.

Source: original body

Source wording: perturbation of mind

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 16

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Disturbances of mind, here occurring both during sleep and while awake.

Context: Burton first explains frightening dreams and disturbances through abundant choler; the ensuing account ascribed to Hercules de Saxonia explains imagined bodily states through motions of animal spirits and excludes material humours. These are not silently combined into one theory.

Source: original body

Source wording: violent perturbations

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 17

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Printed form, Source wording: perturbations

Emotional disturbances; one of several proposed occasions of blushing or redness.

Context: Burton opposes the claim that shame must follow wrongdoing: redness may arise without a committed fault, through fear, force, inexperience or bodily conditions as well as perturbations.

Source: original body

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 8

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbance; vehement marks the force of the raging desire condemned in this passage.

Context: Burton first concedes love’s benefits to society and reproduction, then says raging love becomes burning lust. The negative contrast with a virtuous habit concerns that raging desire, not every kind of love.

Source: original body

Source wording: a vehement perturbation of the mind

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 18

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbances; the class within which melancholic people are said to be particularly susceptible to jealousy.

Context: Named physicians classify jealousy as a cause; others make it a symptom. Burton then proposes treating it as a separate species because of its extent and prominence.

Source: original body

Source wording: amongst these passions and perturbations of the minde

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 9

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbance; more furious gives the comparative force attributed here to jealousy.

Context: Burton has just called love the most violent passion and jealousy its strongest bitter product, then describes jealous people as afflicted beyond ordinary melancholy. The comparison is local to this escalation.

Source: original body

Source wording: a more furious perturbation

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 10

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Mental disturbance; Burton’s English restatement calls the superstitious condition intolerable and assigns it dreadful consequences.

Context: This is Burton’s own English restatement after the Latin he attributes to Seneca. The preceding hostile anecdote is not independently verified and must not become evidence of an entire religion’s actual practice.

Source: original body

Source wording: an intolerable perturbation

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 11

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbance; malicious envy and rivalry receive the local claim that no disturbance is so frequent.

Context: The statement follows Burton’s adaptation of Cyprian on envy’s captivity. The modern recasts the negative comparison as no disturbance more frequent. Later in the subsection Burton expressly allows honourable rivalry and modest ambition.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Yet no perturbation so frequent, no passion so common

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Yet no disturbance is more frequent, no passion more common

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope coordinated comparison; original no... so frequent is modernized as no... more frequent, a slight recasting of the comparison which is recorded rather than silently treated as identical wording.

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 12

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbance; here anger is defined through an outward movement of the bodily spirits.

Context: Burton presents the physiological definition, then attributes to Piccolomini the rank one of the three most violent passions. The subsequent claim about madness specifies excessive frequency rather than every instance of anger.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Anger, a perturbation, which carries the spirits outwards

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Anger is a disturbance that carries the spirits outwards

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the full unit carries the rendering.

Supplied words: is (supplied to complete the English nominal definition)

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · local use 13

Printed “perturbation” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbance or passion; the phrase completes a negated list of passions that fail to seize someone nevertheless vulnerable to self-love.

Context: Burton’s contrast grants self-love and vainglory a stealthy power even where the other named passions cannot take hold. It does not deny that those passions operate elsewhere.

Source: original body

Source wording: nor any other perturbation can lay hold

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

perturbation · perturbations · local use 19

Printed “perturbations” (English; lemma).

Emotional disturbances; listed with affections and disorders as effects of rooted sinful inclinations and bad humours.

Context: Burton explicitly endorses the account attributed to Gwalther as most true and applies its roots to every one of us. The preceding paragraphs preserve disagreement over bodily and mental responsibility and reciprocal harm.

Source: original body

Source wording: causing these perturbations, affections, and several distempers

Notes: Historical source attributions remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.