Privy

Use in the book

Emptying privies appears among the humiliating services assigned to poor people. The catalogue says that poverty instantly changes how a person is treated, even when the person is deserving; its insults expose social contempt while also participating in it. Jakes is not a general name for all the dirty work: fay channels names gutter-cleaning separately. The later Jakes-fermers are privy cleaners, some of the labourers who work hard but cannot obtain clothes or bread. The original margin to the passage professes pity, not mockery. Poverty and riches follows that wider tension. The salt-licking example nearby still has its unresolved disagreement between the prose’s Aristophanes and the printed Plautus citation.

The same physical place has a different argumentative role in the account of air. Draughts, Sinks belong with dunghills and carrion among sources of foul smells. Burton attributes the claim that such air generates melancholy and plagues to ancient and more recent physicians. The passage is a historical explanation of disease, not a current medical rule. It distinguishes a privy from a drain even though both contribute to its catalogue of unhealthy surroundings.

The publishing satire gives jakes another setting, not another object. Bad writing fills every close-stool and jakes as well as libraries and shops; close-stool is a chamber commode. Burton adapts Martial’s latrine verses to printed waste paper and then lists further ignoble uses of paper. The preceding admission that he too borrows from old writers prevents the attack from being wholly external to his own authorship. Bewray explains the related image of commentators befouling books.

The goddess of the draught, or jakes makes two words serve one bodily function. Burton includes the privy in his polemical catalogue of deities for everything, beside his attack on assigning particular saints to illnesses. The later story of a man who falls into a privy instead concerns the refusal to rescue him: his companions allegedly refuse on Saturday and the bishop forbids rescue on Sunday. Burton condemns the consequences of excessive observance, including the bishop’s retaliation. The hostile story attributed to Münster is unverified, and the edition notes that it omits the Jewish principle that saving life overrides the Sabbath. It cannot be used as a neutral description of Jewish law or conduct.

Privy councillors belong to government, whether actual in the story or figurative in the explanation. Dionysius rejects his councillors and lets his mistress direct appointments and other affairs; consent there means her approval, as Consent and essence, consent · local use 8, explains. In the bodily analogy, the brain is the heart’s privy counsellor and chancellor. The next paragraph makes the heart king and the liver a legate, so the phrase expresses an advisory relation within a hierarchy, not secret bodily waste.

Claims to be of God’s privy council transfer that political intimacy to privileged knowledge. Burton attacks people who profess revelations about salvation and the end of the world. Familiar, familiar · familiar with God, distinguishes the adjoining claim to intimacy with God from council membership. The later recurrence applies the image to some of the sectaries whose restrictions and interpretations Burton is criticizing, after his attacks on Catholics. Both passages report a claim he rejects; neither admits its speakers to divine secrets.

Privily marks the concealed act in Burton’s adapted Spenserian lines: mighty Mars secretly moistens his fearsome cheek with tears. The contrast turns military strength into vulnerability under love; womanish retains the poem’s gendered reproach. Privities, by contrast, names sexual anatomy in the report from Léry. There Burton uses familiar nakedness to challenge the assumption that more exposed bodies must provoke more lust than elaborate European dress. Neither example is a use of privy meaning a toilet.

Related entries

Meat, for food vocabulary and bodily comparisons; Bewray, for befouling and disclosure; Excrements, for the neighbouring dung imagery; Evacuation and retention, for emptying. Poverty and riches treats the social argument; Familiar and Consent and essence clarify intimacy and approval.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 6–8jakes and close-stool in the attack on worthless writing.
2. Subsection 4. Composite Parts · paragraphs 2–4the brain as privy councillor within the bodily government.
3. Subsection 5 Bad Air as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraphs 1–3Draughts and Sinks as separate sources of offensive air.
4. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 1–13; Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraph 3; Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraph 10; Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraph 11emptying privies, cleaning gutters and Jakes-fermers; the original margin to the passage qualifies the treatment of poverty.
5. Member 3. Whether It Is Lawful to Seek the Saints' Help in This Disease · paragraphs 25–27the goddess of the draught, or jakes in the polemical catalogue.
6. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraphs 11–13the rejected claim to God’s privy council.
7. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraphs 24–26privities and the comparison between nakedness and dress.
8. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 32–34privily in the adapted lines about Mars’s tears.
9. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 21–23the dismissal of Dionysius’s privy councillors.
10. General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 16–19another polemical claim to divine council membership.
11. Subsection 4. Prognosis of Religious Melancholy · paragraphs 49–51the reported fall into a privy and the fatal refusal of rescue.

In this edition

Empty jakes becomes empty privies, while fay channels becomes clean gutters. Draughts, Sinks becomes privies and drains: the translation does not turn the whole phrase into a synonym for one toilet. The goddess of the draught, or jakes becomes a goddess of the privy or latrine, preserving the two alternative names. Jakes-fermers becomes privy cleaners. The Latin latrinas evacuant, empty privies, is separately explained in Evacuation and retention, evacuare: latrinas names the objects and evacuant the action.

Privy councillor remains recognizable in the political and bodily examples. Of privie counsell with him becomes membership of his privy council, while take upon them supplies the preceding claim. The translation preserves Burton’s distance from the alleged revelation. Privily becomes Secretly, and privities becomes private parts. These renderings make the different constructions accessible without carrying the sanitation sense into the other passages.

privy; jakes; draught

A privy or latrine, a place for bodily excretion; jakes and draught are alternative historical names in these passages.

Grammar: Count nouns: singular a Privy, a jakes or draught; plural Draughts, and jakes used after empty.

Component sense: close-stool. A chamber commode, paired with jakes as a destination for worthless writing..

Component sense: Sinks. Channels or receptacles carrying foul matter, distinguished from the privies named by Draughts..

Component sense: fay channels. To clear gutters or drains; a separate task from emptying the privies..

Component sense: fay. To clean or clear, here taking channels as its object..

Component sense: channels. Gutters or drains to be cleared, not the privies themselves..

Component sense: Muckhils. Heaps of dung, one separate source of the foul air in the medical catalogue..

Component access (close-stool): A chamber commode, paired with jakes as a destination for worthless writing.

Component access (commode): A chamber commode, paired with jakes as a destination for worthless writing.

Component access (Sinks): Channels or receptacles carrying foul matter, distinguished from the privies named by Draughts.

Component access (drains): Channels or receptacles carrying foul matter, distinguished from the privies named by Draughts.

Component access (fay channels): To clear gutters or drains; a separate task from emptying the privies.

Component access (clean gutters): To clear gutters or drains; a separate task from emptying the privies.

Component access (fay): To clean or clear, here taking channels as its object.

Component access (clean): To clean or clear, here taking channels as its object.

Component access (channels): Gutters or drains to be cleared, not the privies themselves.

Component access (gutters): Gutters or drains to be cleared, not the privies themselves.

Component access (Muckhils): Heaps of dung, one separate source of the foul air in the medical catalogue.

Component access (dunghills): Heaps of dung, one separate source of the foul air in the medical catalogue.

Original text: “every close-stool and jakes”. In the modern column: “every commode and privy”. Discarded writing fills toilets as well as libraries in the publishing satire. Burton’s coarse satire includes his own confessed borrowing in the preceding paragraph. Jakes corresponds to privy, close-stool separately to commode.

Original text: “Muckhils, Draughts, Sinks”. In the modern column: “dunghills, privies and drains”. Privies are among places from which offensive air arises. Galen, Avicenna and Mercurialis are said to hold that such air breeds illness. This is historical medicine, not present advice. Draughts gives privies; Sinks gives drains; Muckhils gives dunghills.

Original text: “to empty jakes, fay channels”. In the modern column: “to empty privies, clean gutters”. The poor are assigned degrading work in a catalogue of social contempt. The surrounding account exposes contempt but also uses demeaning class language; the later margin professes pity. The Plautus/Aristophanes mismatch is unresolved. Empty jakes gives empty privies; the separate imperative-like infinitive fay channels gives clean gutters.

Original text: “a goddess of the draught, or jakes”. In the modern column: “a goddess of the privy or latrine”. Two English names identify the same low bodily function in the catalogue of deities. Burton’s polemical catalogue compares pagan functional deities with saintly patronage; exact sources for the full catalogue remain uncollated. Draught gives privy and jakes gives latrine; they are alternatives, not two functions.

Original text: “a Jew fell into a Privy upon a Saturday”. In the modern column: “a Jew fell into a privy on a Saturday”. The place noun is literal within the reported story of a man denied rescue. Hostile anecdote attributed to Münster, not a verified event or neutral account of Judaism. The bishop also withholds rescue; the accompanying note notes the saving-life principle omitted from the anecdote. Privy is retained; Saturday and the subsequent Sunday determine the disputed observances.

Jakes-fermers

Workers who empty or clean privies.

Grammar: Plural compound occupational noun.

Original text: “Chimney-sweepers, Jakes-fermers, Dirt-daubers”. In the modern column: “chimney sweeps, privy cleaners, plasterers”. The occupation belongs to a catalogue of people who labour hard yet lack necessities. Burton uses disparaging names but acknowledges inadequate pay; the accompanying note in the continuation states pity rather than mockery. Jakes-fermers gives privy cleaners; neither the neighbouring plasterers nor the Latin divers are included in that translation.

privy council; privy councillor

A ruler’s intimate advisory council, or a member of it; transferred to the body’s government or to an alleged privileged relationship with God.

Grammar: Attributive adjective in nouns of council membership; of privie counsell marks membership in an inner council.

Component sense: Counsellor. Member of an advisory council; the brain occupies this role metaphorically..

Component sense: Chancellor. A high official, used alongside councillor within the body-as-government comparison..

Component access (Counsellor): Member of an advisory council; the brain occupies this role metaphorically.

Component access (councillor): Member of an advisory council; the brain occupies this role metaphorically.

Component access (Chancellor): A high official, used alongside councillor within the body-as-government comparison.

Component access (chancellor): A high official, used alongside councillor within the body-as-government comparison.

Original text: “a privy Counsellor, and Chancellor to the Heart”. In the modern column: “the heart’s privy councillor and chancellor”. The brain is an adviser in the political analogy of bodily organs. As it were marks comparison. The following passage calls the heart king and the liver a legate; this is historical physiology. Counsellor is modernized to councillor; the relational to the Heart becomes the possessive heart’s.

Original text: “Some, by visions and revelations, take upon them to be familiar with God, and to be of privie counsell with him”. In the modern column: “Some, through visions and revelations, claim intimacy with God and membership of his privy council”. The political expression figures the asserted right to know divine secrets. Burton rejects the presumption. Some remains the subject quantifier; the claim is not affirmed. Familiar with God gives intimacy with God; of privie counsell with him gives membership of his privy council. Take upon them supplies claim.

Original text: “Dionysius that Sicilian tyrant rejected all his privy Councellors”. In the modern column: “Dionysius, the Sicilian tyrant, rejected all his privy councillors”. A ruler dismisses his advisers in the report of excessive influence by his mistress. Burton’s received anecdote, not a verified reconstruction of Sicilian offices. Mirrha’s approval determines appointments in the story. Privy Councellors is retained with modern spelling; all governs the reported dismissals.

Original text: “will be of privy councel with God himself, and know all his secrets”. In the modern column: “claim to sit on God’s own privy council and know all his secrets”. The council image attacks religious pretensions to secret revelation. Some of them limits the charge; the preceding paragraph targets restrictive sectaries as well as Catholics, not all believers. Will be of is rendered claim to sit on, making the presumption explicit.

privily

Secretly or out of public view.

Grammar: Adverb modifying moistning.

Component sense: horrid. Fearsome or bristling in the description of Mars’s cheek; not the general modern evaluation unpleasant..

Component access (horrid): Fearsome or bristling in the description of Mars’s cheek; not the general modern evaluation unpleasant.

Component access (fearsome): Fearsome or bristling in the description of Mars’s cheek; not the general modern evaluation unpleasant.

Original text: “Privily moistning his horrid cheek”. In the modern column: “Secretly wetting his fearsome cheek”. Mars conceals the tears produced by love, contrasting martial appearance with emotional suffering. Burton condenses and rearranges Spenser, The Faerie Queene 3.11.44.3–7. Womanish is the verse’s gendered judgment, not an editorial one. Privily gives Secretly; horrid gives fearsome, not disgusting.

privities

The external sexual organs, termed private parts.

Grammar: Plural noun after the possessive their.

Original text: “without any covering, so much as of their privities”. In the modern column: “without any covering, even over their private parts”. The bodily term occurs in the report of habitual nakedness in Brazil. Burton follows Léry’s comparison, which claims less provocation from familiar nakedness than from European dress; it does not equate nudity with sexual availability. Privities becomes private parts; the surrounding clause supplies the absence of covering.