From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordVoice is audible sound, its bodily means and quality, and sometimes a person's expressed preference.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe anatomy figures the lungs as an orator attached to a kingly heart, expressing its thoughts.
- In this editionThe modern versions distinguish sound-production from meaningful wording.
- A place to readLungs as the instrument and orator of the heart.
Meaning
Voice is audible sound, its bodily means and quality, and sometimes a person's expressed preference. Speech can mean the faculty of utterance, an actual saying, or discourse intended to move someone. These senses do not align simply with truth: a pleasing voice may comfort or entice, and a voice heard as a spirit's may be fabricated. The lungs are called an “instrument of voice”; the human speaker and the bodily instrument remain distinct.
Use in the book
The anatomy figures the lungs as an orator attached to a kingly heart, expressing its thoughts. That image belongs to an account which also makes respiration cool the heart. Burton then reports speech as a sixth external sense “according to Lullius,” an addition to the conventional five, rather than silently presenting it as an uncontested classification. Animal faculties owns the broader division; the lexical point here is that speech appears both as an outward faculty and as an operation with bodily instruments.
Disturbed utterance takes several forms. The general catalogue includes stuttering, tripping in speech and inarticulate voices. Rhasis's three degrees distinguish false thought, expression of that thought, and acting upon it; the middle stage includes disordered sounds and gestures as well as intelligible statements. Burton's causal chapter separately explains a trembling voice through the shaken heart, faltering through dryness affecting the tongue's nerves, and fast speaking through wind and swift imagination. Rapid speech is expressly a symptom of “some few,” not all sufferers.
Voice also enters an argument about deceptive appearances. Burton says performers can counterfeit animal and human voices and speak as if from afar, persuading listeners that spirits are addressing them. The continuation adds echoes and sounds interpreted according to expectation. This supplies several possible causes of a seemingly uncanny voice; it does not attribute all such experiences to fraud, for the preceding unit retains both internal deception and possible diabolical agency within Burton's world-view.
The power to move a hearer can be helpful or dangerous. “A gentle speech” is compared to medicine for a wounded soul, but the condition is wise administration and suitability to the occasion. In the love discussion, an affected tone, wit and eloquence become means of captivation. The voice is not therapeutic or deceptive merely by being attractive; recipient, occasion and use decide the argument. The fuller treatment of consolation and music remains with their earlier owners. (the passage; the passage; the passage; see Comfort and consolation and Music and harmony.)
Finally, “the mothers voice” in a disputed marriage means her declared preference for a suitor, not a description of her vocal timbre. The modern text accordingly says she favoured him. The editor's corrections to Burton's retelling of Livy concern place and motive; they do not change the local idiom by which voice means a person's judgement in a decision.
Related entries
- Animal faculties: perception, movement and their organs.
- Music and harmony: voiced sound as music.
- Comfort and consolation: the larger practice of relieving distress.
- Courtship and wooing and Pathetical: persuasive language.
- Silence and taciturnity (Silence and taciturnity): abstention, incapacity and nonverbal expression.
Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.
Places to read
- Subsection 4. Composite Parts · paragraph 16Lungs as the instrument and orator of the heart.
- Subsection 6. The Sensitive Soul · paragraph 4The sixth-sense claim specifically attributed to Lullius.
- Section 3. Member 1. Subsection 1. Symptoms or Signs of Melancholy in the Body · paragraph 11Stammering in the general sign-list.
- Section 3. Member 1. Subsection 1. Symptoms or Signs of Melancholy in the Body · paragraph 12Tripping in speech and inarticulate voices.
- Subsection 4 Symptoms Arising From Education, Custom, Duration, Our Circumstances, Mingled With Other Diseases, Occurring in Fits, From Inclination, and So On · paragraph 21Thought, outward expression and practice distinguished in Rhasis’s three degrees.
- Subsection 4 Symptoms Arising From Education, Custom, Duration, Our Circumstances, Mingled With Other Diseases, Occurring in Fits, From Inclination, and So On · paragraph 22The continuation separates speaking from acting.
- Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraph 9Different proposed causes for trembling, faltering and rapid speech.
- Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraph 29Internal deception and diabolical possibility as the frame.
- Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraph 30Counterfeit voices and concealed acoustics.
- Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraph 1Echoes and expectation in hearing.
- Subsection 2 Help From Friends Through Counsel and Comfort Gentle and Harsh Methods Ingenious Devices Reassurance Changes in the Way of Life and Removal of Troubling Objects and So Forth · paragraph 20Words that wound contrasted with words that comfort.
- Subsection 2 Help From Friends Through Counsel and Comfort Gentle and Harsh Methods Ingenious Devices Reassurance Changes in the Way of Life and Removal of Troubling Objects and So Forth · paragraph 21Wise, timely speech as remedy.
- 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 · paragraph 1Tone and cultivated speech as means of attraction.
- Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 84; note 11069Voice as a declared preference; the accompanying note corrects details of the Livy retelling.
In this edition
The modern versions distinguish sound-production from meaningful wording. “Inarticulate, incondite voices” becomes “inarticulate, disordered sounds,” while “stut or faulter” is stuttering or faltering. “Opportunity of speech” means words suited to the occasion, not merely a chance to get a turn at speaking. Conversely, the mother's voice is rendered as favouring a candidate because its force is preference, not acoustic quality. These local equivalents keep the family from collapsing into either rhetoric alone or physiology alone.
instrument of voice
The organ through which voice is produced and expression conveyed. Burton makes lungs the instrument and heart the figurative ruler. The phrase belongs to his historical anatomy.
Original wording: “the instrument of voice, as an Orator to a King”
Modern wording: “the instrument of voice, joined to the heart like an orator to a king”
Lookup: voice; voyce; voices; voyces.
Speech
The faculty of articulate utterance, here considered an outward faculty. According to Lullius is indispensable attribution: this is a reported addition to the five senses.
Original wording: “Speech, which is the sixt external sense, according to Lullius”
Modern wording: “speech, which Lullius considers the sixth external sense”
Lookup: speech; speeches.
stut or faulter
Stutter or falter in speaking. The explanation cites dryness affecting the tongue’s nerves; trembling voice has a different explanation in the same unit.
Original wording: “why they stut or faulter in their speech”
Modern wording: “for stuttering or faltering in speech”
Lookup: stut; stutting; stutter; stammer; faulter; falter.
inarticulate, incondite voices
Unarticulated or disordered sounds. Incondite concerns lack of arrangement or order, not simply low volume or a foreign accent.
Original wording: “inarticulate, incondite voices”
Modern wording: “inarticulate, disordered sounds”
Lookup: inarticulate; incondite voices.
Fast speaking
Rapid utterance. The limited quantifier must remain: Aetius’s proposed cause is not a description of every melancholy person.
Original wording: “Fast speaking, (which is a symptome of some few)”
Modern wording: “Rapid speech, a symptom in a few”
Lookup: fast speaking; rapid speech.
counterfeit the voices
Imitate voices so as to deceive a listener about their origin. Almost qualifies the extensive claim. The next clauses add human tones and apparent distance.
Original wording: “counterfeit the voices of all birds and bruit beasts almost”
Modern wording: “imitate the voices of almost all birds and brute beasts”
Lookup: counterfeit voices; imitated voices.
opportunity of speech
Speech fitted to its occasion. Timeliness and wise use are central to the proposed remedy, not mere plentiful talking.
Original wording: “but opportunity of speech”
Modern wording: “but speech suited to the occasion”
Lookup: opportunity of speech; gentle speech.
an affected tone
A cultivated or deliberately adopted way of speaking. The tone is placed among arts of attraction. The record preserves its represented intentional quality.
Original wording: “an affected tone they use”
Modern wording: “an affected tone they adopt”
Lookup: tone; affected tone; pleasing speech.
the mothers voice
The mother’s expressed preference in the marriage dispute. Voice stands for her judgement or support, not its pitch or loudness.
Original wording: “The Gentleman was preferred by the mothers voice”
Modern wording: “The mother favoured the gentleman”
Lookup: voice: preference; mother’s voice.