Religion, faith and conscience

Relics and shrines

Relics and shrines

Relic is not always a holy object.

From the book

The Anatomy of Melancholy

Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordRelic is not always a holy object.
  • In the Anatomy of MelancholyRemnants can be small without being absent.
  • In this editionThe modern column usually regularizes reliques as relics in devotional and antiquarian contexts, but selects remnants, remains or remaining matter for non-sacred residues.
  • A place to readHuman dignity, the Fall and the explicit exception for surviving remnants.

Meaning

Relic is not always a holy object. Burton’s relique and reliques can mean surviving portions or traces: nourishment left after digestion, illness not wholly removed, or something of God’s image remaining after the Fall. Old relics can be antiquities for a gallery. The devotional sense identifies a remnant or associated object venerated through its connection with a saint; a lover’s cherished belongings can then be called relics by comparison. The object’s name does not by itself establish authenticity, sacred power or fraud.

A shrine is the sacred place or repository, not simply another name for every relic or gift within it. A capcase is a small case or box: the anxious householder’s container is ordinary, while the silver case containing Saint Fillan’s arm serves as a reliquary. That last word is the editor’s explanation of its use, not Burton’s printed noun. Shrine also becomes figurative when Love is imagined as a god to whom an unwilling bachelor might be reconciled.

Use in the book

Remnants can be small without being absent. The Fall passage excepts “some few reliques”; the divine-love argument later allows non-Christian worshippers to retain something of God’s image, even while Burton judges their way of worship mistaken. Physiological remnants have a different status: food residues are expelled, and matter thought to remain after purging is to be cleared away. The prognosis compares persistent melancholy with gold left in the recesses of a weathered statue and expressly conditions the comparison on a body once affected. These are historical theological and medical explanations, not interchangeable definitions or present-day treatment advice.

The valuation of material objects also varies. Ancient relics belong to a pleasurable gallery of coins, craftsmanship and antiquities; their value is not automatically devotional. In the account of Rome’s sack, relics and costly pictures are defaced by soldiers. The continuation laments the destruction of the city alongside human suffering. That passage should not be rewritten as approval of destruction merely because Burton elsewhere attacks relic worship. Latin reliquiae likewise need not be sacred: the quoted wish to uproot avarice would leave no remnants, while a denunciation attributed to Chrysostom depicts dependent teachers fed with the remnants of unjust feasts.

The discussion of religious remedies opens with questions: should saints be invoked, and can their shrines, relics and consecrated things help? Burton first assembles attributed reports and then speaks for a confessional “we” who reject them as inventions or diabolical illusions. Aesculapius’s sanctuary supplies the comparison: tablets, inscriptions and offerings commemorate cures, just as at Loreto. Burton claims a continuing demonic agency across the practices, but that is his polemical explanation, not independent evidence about the worshippers. His final hypothetical concession is crucial: even suppose they could help, he asks why they should be preferred to Christ. A relic’s alleged efficacy, the author’s rejection and his argument about the proper recipient of prayer are distinct propositions.

The saintly-intervention catalogue combines places, bodies and containers. “Our S. Thomas Shrine” is identified by the edition as Becket’s at Canterbury. In the next paragraph, Fillan’s arm is said to have fought at Bannockburn after being enclosed in a silver capcase. Burton immediately qualifies the report: “if Hector Boethius doth not impose.” The margin instead tells of the casket opening of its own accord and someone fighting for the Scots. These are related but not identical formulations, and neither is authenticated here. The following Saint Magnus example is attributed to the same author. Burton places the stories beside ancient divine interventions to press his comparison; his hostile “pseudocatholiques” belongs to that argument, not to neutral historical description.

The later argument shifts from intervention to income. Burton says towns and clergy are enriched through relics and images, then claims that possession of even one saint’s relic can secure a city’s maintenance for ever. The extravagance is his. Erasmus’s description of Walsingham supports the chapel’s splendour, not Burton’s assertion that its wealth surpassed ancient sacred centres. The following comparison with Demetrius and the Ephesian craftsmen explains the supposed resistance to Luther as defence of livelihood. The final devotional catalogue joins shrines, relics, offerings and petitioners to expenditure of money, time and life. Its “he that shall observe” does not reach its main verb until “will think”: the conclusion is an invited anti-Catholic inference, not a demonstrated genealogy of religions.

Erotic writing borrows the same material practices. The lover adores a mistress’s dog, portrait and clothes as a relic; a garter or bracelet becomes more precious to him than any saint’s relic, is stored in a casket and kissed daily. The comparison identifies transferred devotion, not a newly authenticated sacred object. Shrine imagery can instead express hope: the imagined convert to marriage makes a pilgrimage to Love’s shrine, before Burton’s conclusion requires the desires of both partners. Other shrines carry no such assurance. Venus’s shrine is invoked in an oath the reader is told not to trust; Protesilaus’s shrine offers relief within an explicitly “fabulous” literary catalogue, with “almost all” diseases in the body rather than the margin’s all.

Related entries

Simulacra and Idolatry and images distinguish representations and worship; Religion and superstition supplies the broader theological opposition. Favour and feature, especially favour · Favours, already explains the love-token comparison; Kissing and embracing, especially Shrine of kisses, already explains shrine of kisses. Excrements and Concoction explain the physiological setting. Gifts and liberality and Sacrifice, oblation and donaries distinguish the gifts brought to shrines. Counterfeit, Suit and Magnanimity and pusillanimity retain the complementary labels, petitioners and praise of Luther in shared passages.

Places to read

  1. Human Excellence, the Fall, Miseries and Infirmities; Their Causes · paragraphs 4–12Human dignity, the Fall and the explicit exception for surviving remnants.
  2. Subsection 5. The Soul and Its Faculties · paragraphs 25–31Nourishment, expulsion and food residues within the historical physiological scheme.
  3. Subsection 11. The Concupiscible Appetite: Desires and Ambition as Causes · paragraphs 29–31; Subsection 12. Love of Money. Covetousness as a Cause · paragraphs 32–36Cloacina’s shrine as a comic location; later, the original marginal wish that no remnants of avarice remain.
  4. Subsection 12. Love of Money. Covetousness as a Cause · paragraphs 16–18The ordinary capcase in the account attributed to Theophrastus; the editor separates Distrustfulness from Burton’s Covetousness label.
  5. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 30–32Latin reliquiis, remnants of feasts, followed by Burton’s expanded English restatement; retain the printed-page discrepancy.
  6. Subsection 7. A Collection of Other Events That Cause Melancholy: The Death of Friends, Losses, and So On · paragraphs 44–48Material loss, damaged relics and the lament over Rome’s destruction.
  7. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraphs 10–12The qualified prognosis, the statue’s residual gilding and the condition that the body has once been affected.
  8. Member 3. Whether It Is Lawful to Seek the Saints' Help in This Disease · paragraphs 22–43The whole dispute about saintly help: reports, rejection, shrine gifts, hostile comparison and hypothetical concession.
  9. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraphs 31–33Artistic recreation and antiquarian relics in the gallery.
  10. Member 5. Sleeplessness and Frightening Dreams Remedied · paragraphs 41–44The poem denies divine or shrine origins for dreams; the displaced Aristeas marker and ensuing Ptolemy anecdote are distinguished.
  11. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraphs 17–19Remaining humoral matter and the historical purpose of alteratives and cordials.
  12. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraphs 18–19The lip as suaviorum delubrum, already explained in Kissing and embracing (Shrine of kisses).
  13. Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation, Singing, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales and Sights, Kissing, Familiarity, Tokens, Gifts, Bribes, Promises, Declarations, Tears, and So On · paragraphs 24–26Venus’s shrine invoked in oaths whose credibility is explicitly denied.
  14. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 45–56, 1Adoration of belongings, the blessed relic exclamation and the continuation into cherished places; shared with favour · Favours.
  15. Subsection 4 Love Potions and Magical and Poetic Cures · paragraphs 53–56Protesilaus’s healing shrine inside the fabulous-remedies sequence, not an endorsed treatment.
  16. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 44–48Love’s imagined shrine and the concluding marriage by both parties’ desires.
  17. Its Object, God; What His Beauty Is; How It Attracts. The Parts and People Affected · paragraphs 34–36Remnants of God’s image, acknowledgment of God and Burton’s contrast of ways of worship.
  18. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraphs 34–38Ancient and saintly interventions; Fillan’s arm, the silver capcase and the explicit doubt about Boece.
  19. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraphs 34–38Shrine wealth and the livelihood argument, with the limits of the Erasmus evidence.
  20. 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 40–44The full governing sentence for the concluding list of shrines, relics, offerings, costs and practices.

In this edition

The modern column usually regularizes reliques as relics in devotional and antiquarian contexts, but selects remnants, remains or remaining matter for non-sacred residues. The metaphoric relic remains a relic, with “as” and “more precious than any” still marking the comparison. Capcase becomes small case in the domestic scene and casket in the Fillan narrative. The latter’s editorial identification as a reliquary explains function rather than introducing a word into Burton’s body text. In the original margin, Loculos is a plural Latin form; the supplied editorial translation uses the singular casket. The arm’s reported fighting in the body and the casket’s opening in the margin must remain separately attributable.

A modern shrine is not always a printed English shrine. Aesculapius’s “church” becomes shrine; Plautus’s sacrum supplies shrine in the location by Cloacina; delubra deûm supplies gods’ shrines in the poem denying their agency in dreams. The beloved’s suaviorum delubrum supplies shrine of kisses, with of kisses belonging to the genitive suaviorum. The phrase is already explained in Kissing and embracing (Shrine of kisses). Latin reliquiæ and reliquiis supply remnants in a hypothetical no-remains clause and a meal-scraps construction respectively. The exact words, negations and grammatical relationships matter more than a single English search label.

relic: sacred material object

A bodily remnant or associated object venerated through its connection with a saint or sacred person. The noun does not itself assert authenticity or miraculous power.

Grammar: English singular relique/Relique and plural reliques/Reliques; relic/relics are normalized access forms.

Original text: “reliques, costly pictures defaced”. In the modern column: “relics and costly pictures were defaced”. Relics are material objects damaged in the account of the sack of Rome. Burton’s historical report within the effects of loss; the continuation calls the city’s ruin lamentable. No sacred efficacy is asserted. Reliques becomes relics; defaced describes what soldiers did to the objects, not a judgment that the objects were counterfeit.

Original text: “their images, shrines, Reliques, consecrated things”. In the modern column: “their images, shrines, relics, consecrated objects”. The objects are candidates for disputed therapeutic help. Whether governs their efficacy. The ensuing reports are rejected by Burton’s we at 068-35; at 068-42 he hypothetically concedes possible help only to prefer Christ. Reliques becomes relics; images, shrines and consecrated things remain distinct listed terms.

Original text: “If they can get but a relique of some Saint”. In the modern column: “If they can obtain even a relic of some saint”. A relic is imagined as the basis of a city’s devotional income. Burton’s anti-Catholic assertion that the city needs no other maintenance is polemical hyperbole, not an established economic measure. The following Luther comparison concerns livelihood. Relique becomes relic; if remains conditional and but becomes even, emphasizing the claimed sufficiency of one object. Complementary earlier route: Magnanimity and pusillanimity. Shared shrine-economy passage; the earlier record owns magnanimous as Burton’s praise of Luther, not the relic noun.

Original text: “those Reliques at Rome, Jerusalem, Genua, Lions, Pratum, S. Denis”. In the modern column: “those relics at Rome, Jerusalem, Genoa, Lyon, Prato and St Denis”. The relics are objects associated with named destinations in a devotional catalogue. The catalogue belongs to the unfinished he that shall observe construction, concluded by will think at 159-44. Alleged continuity between religions is Burton’s conclusion, not demonstrated transmission. Reliques becomes relics; the place names are regularized individually. Complementary earlier route: Suit. Shared catalogue and complete sentence; the earlier record owns suters as religious petitioners, while this one distinguishes the relic objects.

relic: surviving remnant

A remaining portion, trace or residue after loss, alteration, digestion or attempted removal; not necessarily a sacred object.

Grammar: Plural English noun reliques, with of phrases identifying what remains.

Original text: “some few reliques excepted”. In the modern column: “apart from a few surviving remnants”. A limited residue of humanity’s former excellence is excepted from the account of the Fall. The preceding clause considers humanity in its unregenerate condition. This is Burton’s theological account, not an empirical species ranking. Reliques gives remnants; surviving is an explanatory addition describing their continued presence. Some few gives a few, and excepted gives apart from; the retained construction keeps the limited exception.

Original text: “reliques of meat and drink”. In the modern column: “remnants of food and drink”. Residual nourishment is expelled within the historical nutritional scheme. The list includes hair and nails within historical expulsion; this is not a modern physiological classification or treatment instruction. Reliques gives remnants; meat and drink becomes food and drink. Complementary earlier route: Excrements. Shared nutrition sentence; the earlier record owns excrements, coordinated with reliques. Concoction records mastication · Mastication–assimilation own the named processing stages, not a newly discovered relic sense.

Original text: “there will be some reliques of melancholy left in the purest bodies (if once tainted) not so easily to be rooted out”. In the modern column: “some remains of melancholy will be left in the purest bodies, once affected, and will not be easily rooted out”. The residue of illness is compared with gilding remaining in crevices. A historical prognosis, conditional upon prior affliction, not a claim about every body or modern medical advice. An accompanying note distinguishes Latin fringes from Burton’s chinks. Reliques gives remains; some, if once tainted and not so easily are preserved in the broader construction.

Original text: “the reliques are to be cleansed”. In the modern column: “the remaining matter must be cleared away”. The remains are matter believed to persist after evacuation. The editor identifies the humoral assumptions. The claims for alteratives, cordials and their timing are not present-day advice. Reliques becomes remaining matter; are to be becomes must be in the historical prescription.

Original text: “out of those reliques they have yet left of Gods Image”. In the modern column: “through the remnants of God’s image still left in them”. The surviving divine likeness is invoked to explain non-Christian acknowledgment of God. Burton grants this surviving capacity while saying the worshippers follow their own inventions; the next unit contrasts their way with Christian revelation. Reliques gives remnants; yet left becomes still left, preserving the claim that something remains.

relic: antiquarian survival

An old surviving object valued as an antiquity or item for learned viewing, without necessarily being a devotional relic.

Grammar: Plural noun reliques modified by old.

Original text: “old reliques, Roman Antiquities”. In the modern column: “ancient relics, Roman antiquities”. Surviving objects belong to the pleasurable gallery catalogue beside coins and works of craftsmanship. Burton describes some viewers’ delight, not an obligation to venerate these objects or a claim that every item is Roman. Old becomes ancient and reliques becomes relics; Roman Antiquities is the separate neighbouring category.

relic: cherished love-token

An object associated with the beloved and treated with a devotion compared to the veneration of sacred relics.

Grammar: Singular relique/Relique in comparison and exclamation; the sacred sense supplies the metaphor.

Original text: “her dog, picture, and every thing she wears, they adore it as a relique”. In the modern column: “Her dog, her portrait, everything she wears—they worship it as a relic”. Attachment extends from the mistress to things associated with her. Burton generalizes about lovers satirically. The preceding love and admire a servant syntax is uncertain; the editor’s serving interpretation is not a restored original word. As a relique becomes as a relic, retaining the explicit comparison; the lover’s adoration is the action described. Complementary earlier route: Simulacra. Complementary contextual route: the earlier Latin simulachra record already retains the passage and the beloved-object catalogue. The relic comparison is explained here without claiming the surrounding erotic context as newly discovered.

Original text: “a garter or a bracelet of hers is more precious then any Saints Relique, he lays it up in his casket, (O blessed Relique) and every day will kiss it”. In the modern column: “A garter or bracelet of hers is more precious than any saint’s relic. He stores it in his casket—O blessed relic!—and kisses it every day”. The lover stores and kisses a token as though it were a sacred relic. The valuation belongs to the satirically described lover. Casket means small box, not proof of a literal church reliquary; the story’s picture may be any likeness. More precious than any remains the comparative claim; the exclamation blessed relic applies the sacred vocabulary to the token.

shrine: sacred place or repository

A sacred place or structure associated with a deity, saint, tomb or relic and visited or invoked in devotion. It is distinct from the object housed there and from the gifts brought to it.

Grammar: Singular shrine/Shrine and plural shrines/Shrines. A grouped equivalent use of church names Aesculapius’s sanctuary rather than a Christian congregation.

Original text: “their images, shrines, Reliques”. In the modern column: “their images, shrines, relics”. Shrines are listed separately from images and relics in the inquiry about remedies. The sentence asks whether these things help. The full discussion rejects the cited miracles, then argues that Christ should be preferred even if help were supposed possible. Shrines remains shrines; it is not a translation of either adjacent noun.

Original text: “to be seen in his church”. In the modern column: “to be seen in his shrine”. Church names the ancient sanctuary of Aesculapius in this comparison, not necessarily a Christian building. The surrounding tablets and votive gifts record reported cures; Burton’s counterfeit label and ensuing claim of the same devil are confessional polemic. The modern selects shrine for original church; temple occurs separately earlier in the sentence. Complementary earlier route: Gifts and liberality. Shared shrine catalogue: the earlier record owns donaries as votive gifts and retains the polemical continuation. This attestation explains the separate church/shrine component; table · tables · local use 1 owns tables/tablets and Counterfeit; sham religious claim the counterfeit label.

Original text: “by Venus shrine”. In the modern column: “by Venus’s shrine”. The lover invokes a sacred place as a guarantee of his oath. Though he solemnly swear is followed by give no credit: the shrine invocation does not prove sincerity. The Plato dialogue attribution is corrected editorially, not silently in the original. Venus becomes possessive Venus’s; shrine remains shrine.

Original text: “the rare vertues of that shrine”. In the modern column: “the shrine’s remarkable powers”. The tomb and altar of Protesilaus are represented as a site of healing. Burton explicitly introduces fabulous remedies and attributes this to Philostratus’s vinegrower. Almost all in the body must not become all from the shorter marginal quotation. Shrine remains shrine; rare vertues gives remarkable powers, not moral virtues.

Original text: “of old at our S. Thomas Shrine”. In the modern column: “formerly at our Saint Thomas’s shrine”. The named shrine is identified editorially as Thomas Becket’s at Canterbury. The rhetorical how many cures is part of Burton’s hostile comparison of miracle traditions; pseudocatholiques is his label for opponents, not a neutral group name. Of old becomes formerly, preserving the retrospective local reference.

Original text: “S. Thomas Shrine”. In the modern column: “Saint Thomas’s shrine”. The shrine stands among institutions Burton accuses of accumulating wealth. Erasmus’s chapel description supports splendour, not Burton’s comparative wealth ranking against Delphi, Delos and Dodona. The Pausanias comparison remains uncollated. The modern expands the abbreviation and supplies the possessive.

Original text: “their Shrines, Images, Oblations”. In the modern column: “their shrines, images, offerings”. Shrines are destinations within the extended catalogue. Read through 159-44: will think completes the observer construction and gives Burton’s polemical inference. Shrines remains shrines; Oblations independently becomes offerings.

shrine: figurative sanctuary of Love

An imagined sacred place belonging to personified Love, in a literary representation of renewed acceptance of marriage.

Grammar: Singular Shrine, with possessive his referring to the great God Love.

Original text: “go a pilgrimage to his Shrine”. In the modern column: “make a pilgrimage to his shrine”. A reluctant reader is imagined becoming reconciled to Love and willing to marry. Burton predicts this result with I doubt not, after recommending books in praise of marriage. The concluding union at 143-48 is according to both their desires. Shrine remains shrine; his refers to Love rather than a historical saint.

capcase

A small case, box or chest; in the saint’s-arm story its use makes it a reliquary, but the word also names an ordinary domestic container.

Grammar: Singular English noun capcase; silver is a material modifier, not part of the definition.

Original text: “the capcase be sealed”. In the modern column: “sealed the small case”. The anxious householder checks whether a container has been secured. Burton calls the character covetous; the editor identifies Theophrastus’s chapter as Distrustfulness. The body’s shirt-clad figure differs from the naked one in the marginal summary. Capcase becomes small case; the modern coordinates sealed with shut and bolted inside the wife-directed question.

Original text: “S. Philanus arm was seen to fight (if Hector Boethius doth not impose) that was before shut up in a silver capcase”. In the modern column: “Saint Fillan’s arm, previously shut inside a silver casket, was seen fighting—if Hector Boece is not deceiving us”. A small silver case contains the arm said to intervene in battle. The arm is the fighting subject in the body. Burton explicitly doubts Boece. The original margin separately refers to the casket opening; the story and separate Magnus episode remain uncollated. Capcase becomes casket; silver remains the material. The doubtful condition and passive was seen remain in the whole construction.

loculus: casket

A small case or casket; the marginal plural form is rendered as a singular casket in the supplied editorial translation.

Grammar: Latin loculos, accusative plural form in a compressed infinitival report. The singular English does not preserve its morphological number.

Original margin: “Loculos sponte aperuisse & pro iis pugnasse”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “The casket opened of its own accord, and he fought on their behalf”. The margin reports the case’s opening and a separate fighting agent. Burton-labelled mixed note: only Latin is original quotation, English is editorial translation. The body instead says the arm was seen fighting and adds the if Boece doubt; no story is authenticated. Loculos supplies the casket in the editorial rendering, which uses singular number; sponte supplies of its own accord. He in the second clause is not the casket.

reliquiae: remnants

Remaining traces or leftovers; the selected Latin uses are an imagined residue of avarice and scraps of food, not sacred relics.

Grammar: Latin nominative plural reliquiæ after nullæ, and ablative plural reliquiis expressing what fills the bellies.

Original margin: “ut nullæ reliquiæ essent”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “so that no remnants remained”. The imagined uprooting of avarice would leave no trace of it. Attributed Hippocratic letter tradition, not an authenticated botanical cure for greed; the larger condition is if Crateuas could remove the root. Reliquiæ gives remnants; nullæ no, and essent remained in the hypothetical result clause.

Original text: “iniquarum cœnarum reliquiis”. In the modern column: “the remnants of unjust feasts”. Rich patrons feed dependent teachers with meal scraps in the reported denunciation. Burton attributes the Latin to Chrysostom; exact passage and intermediary remain uncollated. His own English offals of their meat at 049-32 is an expanded restatement, not the source of this Latin attestation. Reliquiis supplies remnants in an ablative construction; iniquarum cœnarum is the genitive specifying unjust feasts.

delubrum: shrine

A shrine or sacred sanctuary, used literally in a denied account of dream-origins and figuratively of the beloved’s lip.

Grammar: Latin nominative plural delubra as one subject of mittunt; singular delubrum in apposition to the coral lip, with suaviorum genitive plural, of kisses.

Original text: “Nec delubra deûm, nec ab æthere numina mittunt”. In the modern column: “Are sent neither by the gods’ shrines nor by powers from heaven”. The poem denies that shrines or heavenly powers send the dreams under discussion. The next line says each person makes dreams for himself. An accompanying note identifies Petronian transmission and the displaced Aristeas marker; the following Ptolemy advice is a different passage. Delubra supplies shrines; deûm is genitive plural, of the gods, rendered by the possessive gods’. The retained full phrase delubra deûm corresponds to the gods’ shrines. Latin makes the shrines and heavenly powers denied agents of mittunt; the modern passive and neither...nor retain that negation.

Original text: “suaviorum delubrum”. In the modern column: “the shrine of kisses”. The lip is imagined as a sacred place inhabited by kisses. Erotic encomium, extended by the following revealed and hidden kisses; shrine is modern English translating printed Latin, not an English original attestation. Delubrum gives shrine; suaviorum gives of kisses; the article the is supplied in English.

sacrum: sacred place

A sacred place or shrine, here a named location in a comic map of the Roman Forum.

Grammar: Latin accusative singular neuter noun after apud; Cluasinæ is the printed divine-name genitive.

Original text: “apud Cluasinæ sacrum”. In the modern column: “go to Cloacina’s shrine”. The shrine is the place where the quoted speaker says to find a liar and braggart. Plautus quoted by Burton in a satirical survey of social types. An accompanying note distinguishes the printed mitto in the preceding line from the comparison text’s ito; no worship at the shrine is narrated. Sacrum gives shrine; apud locates the meeting. Go to is supplied from the instruction, while Cluasinæ is regularized as Cloacina’s.