Suit

Use in the book

The legal complaint makes pursuit destructive. Burton’s ordinary suiters spend enormous sums in bitter, delayed and allegedly dishonest proceedings. He describes most litigants in these terms, reports rather than verifies the thousands of cases, and refuses to settle responsibility on a single party: lawyers, clients, laws, both or all may be at fault. Plutarch’s image of mutual destruction leads to Paul’s appeal for judgment between brethren and Christ’s call to agree promptly with an adversary. Elsewhere, cast in a sute is the loss of a lawsuit, one among many different experiences said to trouble different people.

The imagined commonwealth offers procedural remedies rather than simply abolishing legal pursuit. Whoever sues must provide a deposit, forfeitable if the action is proved wrongful, rash or malicious; alternatively, a commission must approve the complaint before proceedings begin. Concealing parties’ names is itself conditional on circumstances allowing it. These proposed institutions should not be mistaken for a statement of existing law.

The ambitious man about a sute is pursuing favour or office. His attendance, flattery, ingratiating smiles, promises and expenditure become an exhausting performance of deference even to subordinates. He often seeks what he would be better without, and obtaining it does not cure his anxiety: unsatisfied ambition begins again. Yet Burton has already condemned the sluggish refusal to sue at all when someone is fitted for a position. The distinction is between restrained, appropriate application and immoderate pursuit, not between universal withdrawal and universal competition.

The scholar’s appointment shows both institutional senses in succession. Earnest suit by himself and his friends may obtain a small living; then he may have to sue for dilapidations, be sued himself, or defend a defective title. Petition for preferment has given way to litigation over its consequences. Burton’s later concession that parishioners may be peaceable and honest limits the abusive portrait. In the separate prebend tale, many suitors are applicants for office. The deserving scholar, a suitor in conceit, made no suit at all: he lacks influence and money and dislikes these methods. A generous bishop rewards him nevertheless, but Burton expressly withdraws that ending as fiction.

The word can name an ordinary request without either court or courtship. Branchus is an earnest suiter to his mother because he wants to know his father’s identity. The attributed myth says that she initially refuses, then yields to his persistence and sends him to Apollo. In the moral-adornment exhortation associated with Tertullian, by contrast, God himself becomes a suiter: divine love is promised to those adorned with holiness. This is an explicitly religious metaphor for a lover, within the passage’s historical moral and marital prescriptions.

In erotic use, men may prefer their suites by falsely advertising wealth. Here prefer means further and suites means courtship. The continuation warns that these promises are neglected after desire is satisfied; failing words, the deceivers turn to gifts. Burton’s satire of Sutors puts the courting person beside another sense of the noun: new suits worn as fashion changes. The suit of apparel elsewhere consumes, figuratively, a thousand oaks, a hundred oxen and a manor’s value; its cost is measured in exhausted property. A plainer cloth suite has a different role in consolation: Burton asks whether wool does not keep its wearer as warm as costly silk.

Courtship does not guarantee possession. Those expecting to be sued to may face a crowd of equally enamoured rivals, although only one can succeed. The continuation tells unsuccessful lovers to loosen their attachment and let the beloved go. The historical narrative of Eudocia likewise describes an eager sutor whom she cannot bear; her brother’s desire for the match does not make her accept it. Burton condemns the unequal, politically motivated marriage that follows. These episodes prevent the language of pursuit from becoming an entitlement to success.

Petitions can also be directed to divine or sacred recipients. At the sanctuary of Venus, Burton says that lovers’ suits were commenced and grievances helped, giving their requests the sound of legal proceedings. His report expands Pausanias’s account of widows asking for another marriage. Suters at saints’ shrines are likewise petitioners, but occur within Burton’s hostile comparison of Catholic practice with other religions. In that polemical setting, the effort of requesting a pardon becomes suit rendered as effort. The allegations and the inference about the frequency of despair remain attributed claims. Elsewhere suit and favour are petitions and influence said to reverse banishment, part of a rhetorical comparison with the anguish of conscience, not a denial that despair can be treated.

Finally, suits himself to the time recommends adaptation to what cannot be helped. Burton’s English restatement follows a Latin maxim about accommodating oneself to necessity, then compares life to playing an unwelcome throw skilfully. The condition of unavoidable circumstances is essential: the counsel concerns a response to events, rather than an unrestricted licence to change principles.

Related entries

Dowry and jointure: Marriage pursuit, financial motives and settlements.

Courtship and wooing: Amorous pursuit and its limits.

Ambition: Appropriate application distinguished from insatiable advancement.

Church patronage: The appointment sought and the institutions dispensing it.

Living and preferment: The benefice obtained and the burdens of its possession.

Tires and weeds: Apparel and the moral arguments about dress.

Law and justice: Legal proceedings, divided blame and imagined procedural reform.

Temporize: Accommodation to circumstances and questions of conscience.

Despair: The rhetorical limit of worldly help and the subsequent treatment discussion.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 40–42; Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 41ordinary suiters as litigants; expense, bitterness and delay; divided blame and the concluding appeals to reconciliation.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 29–33; Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 31proposed safeguards for suing, alternative preliminary scrutiny and the qualified concealment of names.
3. Subsection 8. Rivalry, Hatred, Faction and the Desire for Revenge as Causes · paragraphs 19–23; Subsection 8. Rivalry, Hatred, Faction and the Desire for Revenge as Causes · paragraph 21honourable rivalry, restrained ambition and the refusal to sue for positions one can properly undertake.
4. Subsection 11. The Concupiscible Appetite: Desires and Ambition as Causes · paragraphs 21–26; Subsection 11. The Concupiscible Appetite: Desires and Ambition as Causes · paragraph 23about a sute, the petitioner's exhausting deference, and renewed anxiety after success. The qualified earlier page label is retained.
5. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 35–39earnest suit for a benefice followed by suing for dilapidations, defective title and a reported long lawsuit; the final concession about honest parishioners.
6. Subsection 7. A Collection of Other Events That Cause Melancholy: The Death of Friends, Losses, and So On · paragraphs 25–27; Subsection 7. A Collection of Other Events That Cause Melancholy: The Death of Friends, Losses, and So On · paragraph 26cast in a sute among diverse sources of distress.
7. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 24–27; Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 25cloth suite as plain woollen clothing in the argument against luxury.
8. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 1–5; Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 3suits himself as adaptation, the condition of necessity and the dice-game continuation.
9. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 17–24suitors for a prebend, petitioning by a wife, the suitor in conceit who made no suit, the unsolicited award and its explicit withdrawal as fiction.
10. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraphs 25–27; Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraph 26Branchus as an earnest suiter seeking his father's identity; the attributed myth continues with Apollo's gifts.
11. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraphs 37–43; Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 38; Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 42a costly suit of apparel and the different divine suiter metaphor. The original Tertullian quotation in note 9353 calls God a lover.
12. 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 18–26; 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 19ironic praise, false wealth and prefer their suites as furthering courtship, followed through neglected promises and the alternative use of gifts.
13. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 18–21; Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraph 19Sutors and new suits in the same satirical account of fashionable grooming.
14. Subsection 4 Love Potions and Magical and Poetic Cures · paragraphs 64–67; Subsection 4 Love Potions and Magical and Poetic Cures · paragraph 65lovers' petitions at the sanctuary of Venus, with legal-sounding suits commenced; the neighbouring reports remain attributed remedies.
15. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 70–75; Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 73–75sued to, competing suitors, and the counsel to relinquish an unattainable attachment. The unnumbered verso is not assigned an invented page number.
16. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 40–43; Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 41Eudocia's rejected sutor and the continuation condemning a political marriage to a child; Burton's figures remain his reported figures.
17. 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 40–44; 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 · paragraph 42suters as devotional petitioners within the complete polemical catalogue and its conclusion.
18. Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraphs 17–19; Subsection 4 · paragraph 20; Symptoms of Despair: Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, Horror of Conscience, Terrifying Dreams and Visions · paragraph 21; Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraph 18cost and suit as the expense and effort of obtaining a pardon in an unverified polemical account.
19. Symptoms of Despair: Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, Horror of Conscience, Terrifying Dreams and Visions · paragraphs 24–26; Symptoms of Despair: Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, Horror of Conscience, Terrifying Dreams and Visions · paragraph 25suit and favour as petitions and influence in the rhetorical description of despair.

In this edition

“ordinary suiters” → “ordinary litigants” and “about a sute” → “pursuing a petition” distinguish legal parties from seekers of favour. The modern text preserves Burton’s divided attribution of blame in the legal complaint. Cast in a sute becomes losing a lawsuit; earnest suit becomes earnest appeals; made no suit becomes made no application. In sue for dilapidations, the modern adds the cost of to clarify what is claimed.

The romantic “to prefer their suites” → “to further their courtship” gives each component its local work: prefer is further, their retains possession, and suites is the amorous pursuit. Sutors are suitors, while new suits in the same paragraph are clothes. “a suit of apparel” → “a suit of clothes” retains the clothing sense; “a cloth suite” → “a woollen suit” makes the fabric explicit. The passive sued to becomes courted, not sued in a law court.

Suitor in conceit becomes an applicant only in his imagination: only makes the restriction explicit, and his identifies the understood possessor. Branchus’s nominal earnest suiter is recast as begged within the complete request to his mother; the construction, rather than a word alone, carries the equivalent meaning. The divine suiter remains suitor as a love metaphor. Devotional suters become petitioners, while suit in the pardon passage becomes effort, specifically the trouble of applying. Suit and favour is petitions and influence, keeping the request distinct from the support that helps it succeed.

The adapting verb in suits himself to the time becomes adapts himself to the times. Burton’s adjacent Latin maxim has necessity as its object; the English is his restatement, not a second identical Latin quotation.

Sue to; be courted

Printed “sued to” (English; phrase).

Addressed with amorous petitions; courted.

Here: The passive verb joins being wooed and sought after.

Context: Burton describes frustrated marriage wishes and competing suitors, then directs unsuccessful lovers to disentangle themselves and let the beloved go. Desire or competition does not guarantee success.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: They look to be wooed, sought after, and sued to

Modern rendering: They expect to be wooed, sought after and courted

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Look to means expect; sued to is the passive courted. The repeated romantic expressions describe the same anticipated attention.

Sue; apply for advancement

Printed “sue” (English; family).

Apply or seek an office, honour or position.

Here: Burton condemns never applying when qualified, as well as seeking advancement excessively.

Context: The criticism of refusal is limited to positions to which birth, standing, resources and education call someone who is apt and capable. The next clause condemns immoderate ambition.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: not to emulate or to sue at all

Modern rendering: never to compete or apply at all

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Sue supplies apply, emulate compete; the negative and at all apply to the coordinated actions.

Sue; bring legal proceedings

Printed “sues” (English; family).

Brings a legal action against someone.

Here: The plaintiff in Burton’s imagined commonwealth must lodge security or obtain preliminary approval.

Context: These are proposed rules, not a description of current universal law. Forfeiture depends on proof of wrongful, rash or malicious suing; commission approval is an alternative, and concealment of names has an express circumstances exception.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: He that sues any man

Modern rendering: Anyone who brings a lawsuit

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The English modernization recasts the relative construction: sues any man becomes brings a lawsuit, leaving the existence of an opponent implicit in lawsuit.

Further local use

Printed “sue for dilapidations” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Sue for dilapidations.

Bring a legal claim for the cost of disrepair.

Here: An incumbent may sue for dilapidations or be sued himself.

Context: The scholar has first petitioned for a living; after obtaining it, he faces repairs, arrears and possible defective title. Burton later concedes that parishioners may be peaceable and honest.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: sue for dilapidations

Modern rendering: sue for the cost of the dilapidations

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Sue is retained as legal action; the cost of is explicitly supplied to clarify the claim for disrepair.

Suit; adapt oneself

Printed “suits himself” (English; family).

Adapts or accommodates himself.

Here: Wise adjustment responds to circumstances that cannot be changed.

Context: Burton begins with the condition that the matter cannot be helped or amended; the dice analogy recommends skill in responding to an unchosen result. This is not blanket approval of abandoning conscience.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: he is wise that suits himself to the time

Modern rendering: a wise man adapts himself to the times

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The English restatement renders suits himself as adapts himself and time as times. It is distinct from the immediately preceding Latin maxim, whose object is necessity.

Suit; adverse legal result

Printed “cast in a sute” (English; phrase).

Defeated in a lawsuit: cast means losing one’s case, and sute is the legal action.

Here: A lost lawsuit joins frustrated hopes and bad news among occasions of melancholy.

Context: Burton distributes contrary troubles among different people rather than saying every legal defeat produces the same illness. This is his historical account of causes.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: cast in a sute

Modern rendering: losing a lawsuit

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Cast in supplies losing; a sute supplies a lawsuit. The compact phrase does not denote being literally thrown.

Suit; application

Printed “suit” (English; family).

An application or petition for a position.

Here: The deserving scholar makes no application and is a candidate only in imagination.

Context: He lacks influence, money and advocates and detests the usual methods; the bishop nevertheless rewards him in the tale. Burton explicitly withdraws the outcome as fiction.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: made no suit

Modern rendering: made no application

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suit means application, and no preserves the absence of an actual request.

Further local use

Printed “sue for him” (English; family).

Citation key: Sue; petition.

Petition on his behalf.

Here: A candidate sends his wife to request the appointment for him.

Context: One motive within the expressly fictional prebend tale; the exact kinship implied by kinswoman is not supplied in the original.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to sue for him

Modern rendering: to petition for him

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Sue supplies petition, and for him preserves the beneficiary, distinct from the wife who performs the request.

Suit; courtship

Printed “suites” (English; family).

Courtship efforts or amorous requests.

Here: Men falsely advertise wealth to further their pursuit of a beloved.

Context: Burton accuses many men of deception, with examples of invented possessions and hired appearances; the preceding praise is ironic. The continuation says promises are neglected once desire is satisfied and, if verbal promises fail, gifts are tried. This is an accusation, not advice to deceive.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to prefer their suites

Modern rendering: to further their courtship

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Prefer supplies further, their retains the possessive, and plural suites is rendered collectively as courtship.

Suit; effort of applying

Printed “suit” (English; family).

Application or petition, here the effort involved in obtaining something.

Here: The modernization makes the effort of applying explicit in Burton’s claim that pardons are easily obtained.

Context: The statement continues the polemical fees allegation and leads to an unsupported inference about the frequency of despair among Catholics. It is not a verified description of pardon procedure or comparative illness.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: with so smal cost and suit obtained

Modern rendering: secured at such little expense and effort

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Cost supplies expense; suit is contextually rendered effort, the trouble of making an application. Obtained supplies secured; so smal becomes such little.

Suit; petition and intercession

Printed “suit and favour” (English; phrase).

Petitioning and influential support.

Here: Petitions and influence are said to reverse banishment in a comparison with a troubled conscience.

Context: Burton’s categorical contrast describes the extremity of despair rhetorically. It does not deny the possibility of treatment, which later combines medicine and counsel.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: suit and favour revoke banishment

Modern rendering: petitions and influence reverse banishment

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suit supplies petitions, favour influential support, and revoke reverse; the entire clause is aligned.

Suit; petition for favour

Printed “sute” (English; family).

A petition or sustained application for favour, honour or office.

Here: The ambitious petitioner performs exhausting deference and expends himself and his fortune.

Context: Burton’s portrait attacks excessive ambition; its sought objects are often better forgone. Even success renews anxiety because the aspirants remain unsatisfied. The wider allowance of restrained ambition limits the attack.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: about a sute

Modern rendering: pursuing a petition

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: About is rendered as active pursuit; a sute supplies a petition.

Further local use

Printed “earnest suit” (English; family).

Citation key: Suit; petition for appointment.

Urgent or persistent petitioning.

Here: The scholar and his friends appeal for a small benefice.

Context: Obtaining the appointment is conditional and begins fresh troubles in the following paragraphs.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: earnest suit of our selves and friends

Modern rendering: earnest appeals by ourselves and our friends

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suit supplies appeals; of is rendered as agency by, while the second our is supplied to make the shared possession explicit.

Suit; petition to a deity

Printed “suits” (English; family).

Petitions or requests; the construction also evokes legal proceedings.

Here: Lovers bring requests to Venus, especially widows seeking another marriage.

Context: Burton cites Pausanias but extends the sanctuary report with legal-sounding suits commenced and grievances helped. This is a report of religious practice, not an established treatment claim.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: all manner of suits concerning Lovers were commenced

Modern rendering: all manner of lovers’ suits were brought

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suits retains requests; were commenced becomes were brought in the reordered construction, preserving the legal analogy without making the sanctuary a law court.

Suit; set of clothes

Printed “suit of apparel” (English; family).

A set of garments or clothes.

Here: Extravagant dress consumes the resources of an estate.

Context: Burton’s thousand oaks, hundred oxen and manor on the back are a satirical reckoning of expenditure, not literal materials sewn into clothing. The surrounding gendered and moral condemnations belong to his argument.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a suit of apparel

Modern rendering: a suit of clothes

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suit retains the clothing-set meaning; apparel supplies clothes.

Further local use

Printed “cloth suite” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Cloth suit.

A woollen set of clothes.

Here: Plain woollen clothing is said to be as becoming and warm as expensive fabric.

Context: Burton’s consolatory rhetorical question uses practical comfort to challenge luxury. The following Nero comparison remains an exemplum, not evidence that wealth invariably causes illness.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a cloth suite

Modern rendering: a woollen suit

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Cloth specifies woollen fabric here; suite is the set of clothes.

Further local use

Printed “new suits” (English; family).

Citation key: Suit; clothes.

New sets of clothes.

Here: Fashionable suitors repeatedly change their clothes.

Context: The attire is part of Burton’s satirical description of lovers’ expense and grooming.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: with every day new suits

Modern rendering: wearing new suits every day

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: New suits is retained; wearing makes the construction’s clothing action explicit, and every day is moved.

Suiter; divine lover

Printed “suiter” (English; family).

A wooer or lover, here figuratively God.

Here: Moral adornment is promised divine love in an exhortation associated with Tertullian.

Context: The promise is conditional on the advocated sanctity, modesty and chastity; Burton’s Christian marital and moral exhortation is reported as such. His English suiter corresponds to the margin’s divine lover, not a petition for office.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: they shall have God himself to be a suiter

Modern rendering: they will have God himself as a suitor

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suiter is retained as suitor in the metaphor; God himself is the pursuing lover. To be and as express the same predicative role.

Suiter; earnest requester

Printed “an earnest suiter” (English; family).

A person making an earnest request.

Here: Branchus asks his mother to reveal his father’s identity.

Context: The myth is attributed to Lactantius without an identified passage. The mother initially refuses because of an oath, yields to importunity and sends him to Apollo, who subsequently honours his beauty; the request itself is familial information, not courtship.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: was an earnest suiter to his mother to know his father

Modern rendering: he begged his mother to tell him who his father was

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The nominal description earnest suiter is recast by begged; the infinitive purpose is expanded to the request that his mother tell him the identity. The modern he represents the previously named Branchus.

Suiter; litigant

Printed “suiters” (English; family).

People pursuing legal cases; litigants.

Here: Ordinary litigants are blamed for destructive contention, alongside lawyers and laws.

Context: Burton says most part, reports rather than counts the cases in one court, and expressly leaves fault divided among lawyers, clients, laws, both or all. Paul and Christ supply the following appeal to reconciliation.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: ordinary suiters

Modern rendering: ordinary litigants

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Ordinary retains ordinary; suiters supplies litigants, not marriage-seekers.

Suiter; religious petitioner

Printed “suters” (English; family).

People making petitions or devotional requests.

Here: Pilgrims and worshippers at saints’ shrines are called petitioners.

Context: The word occurs inside Burton’s anti-Roman polemical catalogue. Its conclusion alleges continuity with other religions; neither the hostile analogy nor the numerical claims independently establish the practices or motives of worshippers.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: number of suters

Modern rendering: number of petitioners

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suters supplies petitioners; number of retains the count expression without verifying a count.

Suitor; applicant

Printed “suitors” (English; family).

Applicants or petitioners for an appointment.

Here: Candidates compete for a vacant cathedral prebend.

Context: Burton introduces a consolatory tale, admits favourable outcomes are rare, and expressly withdraws this generous appointment as pure fiction. These applicants are not spouses.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: many suitors were up in an instant

Modern rendering: many applicants sprang up

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suitors supplies applicants; the rapid appearance is expressed by were up in an instant and sprang up.

Further local use

Printed “suitor in conceit” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Suitor in conceit.

An applicant in imagination only.

Here: The scholar does not formally apply.

Context: The tale grants him a position unsolicited, then withdraws the happy result as fiction.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a suitor in conceit

Modern rendering: an applicant only in his imagination

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Suitor supplies applicant; in conceit means in imagination. Only makes the restriction explicit and his supplies the understood possessor of that imagination.

Suitor; wooer

Printed “Sutors” (English; family).

People courting a beloved.

Here: The lover’s extravagant grooming leads immediately to new suits of clothes.

Context: Burton generalizes about all suitors in a satirical account; the Heinsius continuation describes a scholar’s supposed loss of study and obsessive grooming.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: all Sutors

Modern rendering: all suitors

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The modernization retains both the universal all and the courting-person noun; the generalization remains Burton’s.

Further local use

Printed “sutor” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Suitor.

A man seeking marriage.

Here: The Serbian ruler seeks Eudocia, who refuses him despite her brother’s preference.

Context: Burton attributes the narrative to Gregoras, with chronology uncollated; he then condemns the unequal politically motivated marriage to the emperor’s little daughter. The request creates no assured acceptance.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: an earnest sutor to Eudocia

Modern rendering: an eager suitor to Eudocia

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Earnest becomes eager; sutor remains suitor with Eudocia as the person sought.