From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordSwoon, printed also swone, swouning and swounings, names a collapse or fainting fit; syncope is its learned counterpart.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyIn the anatomy of spirits, syncope or swouning illustrates the cessation of vital spirits made in the heart and carried by arteries.
- In this editionThe modern column uses fainting for swouning and swounings, while retaining syncope in the anatomical explanation.
- A place to readDefinition of bodily spirits before their subdivision.
Meaning
Swoon, printed also swone, swouning and swounings, names a collapse or fainting fit; syncope is its learned counterpart. Faint can refer to bodily failure but also to discouragement or loss of courage. Neither the English family nor the Latin-derived noun warrants identifying all Burton's instances with one modern clinical condition. A feared swoon must also be kept separate from one said to have occurred.
Use in the book
In the anatomy of spirits, syncope or swouning illustrates the cessation of vital spirits made in the heart and carried by arteries. Burton's sentence says that life ceases if these spirits cease. The comparison belongs to the historical model and should not be turned into an assertion that every faint is irreversible death. His own narrative language allows a person to fall “dead in a swone,” which the edition explains as unconscious, not killed. The full account of vital spirits remains with Spirits, and the heart's multiple roles with Heart and cordolium.
Fear offers one causal setting. Syncope stands among flushing, pallor, trembling, sweat and palpitation before the discussion of frightened public speakers. This list supplies possible effects; it does not say Cicero or Demosthenes necessarily fainted whenever they spoke. In another setting, Montanus's patient avoids leaving home alone because he fears a swoon or death. That example concerns anticipated collapse governing behaviour, not a record that collapse happened on the journey.
The story of verses recited from Virgil stages a sudden collapse brought on by hearing. Burton names Augusta Livia. The editor identifies a discrepancy with the ancient Life of Virgil, which names Octavia; the modern body preserves Burton's name and translates the event as falling as though dead. A lexical account must preserve both the force of the swoon and the textual distinction between the reported name and later identification.
Bodily explanation is not confined to fear. The discussion of air reports an argument from people fainting on high American mountains for lack of denser air to cool the heart. The symptoms attributed to Mercatus include being sometimes ready to swoon: readiness marks imminent faintness, not a completed fit. The bezoar passage gives another report, in which people afflicted with faintness, swounings and melancholy are said to recover. Its first-person testimony is quoted medical authority rather than Burton's own observation, and the alleged remedy remains historical, not a recommendation.
Fainting can also describe failing confidence. Deferred hope is the fainting of the heart in Burton's biblical citation; the fulfilment of desire is opposed to it as a tree of life. The consolations urge readers not to faint before unavoidable misfortune and not to faint in despair, that is, not to lose heart. These imperatives address perseverance; they are not commands to stop an involuntary collapse by willpower.
Related entries
- Heart and cordolium: bodily heart and courage.
- Aqua vitae: restorative spirits in other contexts.
- Helleborism: dangerous historical purgative treatments.
- Fear: fear and anticipated danger.
- Spirits: natural, vital and animal spirits.
Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.
Places to read
- Subsection 2. Divisions of the Body, Humours and Spirits · paragraph 35Definition of bodily spirits before their subdivision.
- Subsection 2. Divisions of the Body, Humours and Spirits · paragraph 36Syncope and swouning in the account of vital spirits.
- Subsection 5. Fear as a Cause · paragraph 23Syncope among possible effects of fear.
- Subsection 3 Terrors and Frights as Causes of Melancholy · paragraph 17; note 3732Collapse at Virgil’s recitation; note distinguishes Livia from Octavia.
- Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraph 30Avoidance through fear of a swoon.
- Subsection 4 Symptoms of Melancholy in Unmarried Women, Nuns and Widows · paragraph 2Being sometimes ready to swoon in Mercatus’s symptom account.
- Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraph 27Fainting in an attributed argument about thin air.
- Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 47Deferred hope and a fainting heart.
- Member 5 Against Sorrow Over the Death of Friends or Other Causes, Groundless Fear, and So On · paragraph 30Not fainting as perseverance before misfortune.
- Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 7; note 7935Faintness and swounings in quoted medical testimony; note preserves speaker.
- Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 40Faint not as encouragement against despair.
In this edition
The modern column uses fainting for swouning and swounings, while retaining syncope in the anatomical explanation. It translates “dead in a swone” as “as though dead in a swoon” and figurative “not to faint” as “without losing heart.” Those contextual differences are more useful than a uniform replacement of every form with one medical term.
a Syncope or Swouning
A fainting episode in the historical account of failing vital spirits. The two names are given as equivalents here; the surrounding explanation remains Burton’s physiology.
Original wording: “as in a Syncope or Swouning”
Modern wording: “as in syncope or fainting”
Lookup: syncope; swouning; swoon.
Syncope
Fainting as one of fear’s possible effects. The original noun becomes a verbal clause; the ensuing orator examples do not assert that every frightened speaker fainted.
Original wording: “palpitation of the heart, Syncope”
Modern wording: “the heart palpitates, they faint”
Lookup: faint: bodily.
dead in a swone
Unconscious in a swoon, as though dead. Dead intensifies the appearance of collapse, not a claim of death. Burton names Livia; the editor records the Octavia discrepancy.
Original wording: “fell down dead in a swone”
Modern wording: “fell down as though dead in a swoon”
Lookup: swone; swoon: apparent death.
for fear he should swoon
Because he fears he might faint. The reported symptom is fear limiting solitary travel; the sentence does not report an actual collapse.
Original wording: “for fear he should swoon, or die”
Modern wording: “for fear of fainting or dying”
Lookup: swoon: feared.
ready to swoon
Feeling near to fainting. Sometimes limits frequency, and ready distinguishes the sensation from a completed faint.
Original wording: “sometimes ready to swoon”
Modern wording: “They sometimes feel ready to faint”
Lookup: faintness; near-fainting.
faints instantly
Collapses or becomes faint immediately, in the reported mountain example. This is part of an argument attributed to named mathematicians about the air, using historical cardiac cooling physiology.
Original wording: “he faints instantly for want of thicker ayre to refrigerate the heart”
Modern wording: “he immediately faints for lack of denser air to cool the heart”
Lookup: fainting: thin air.
faintness, swounings
Weakness and fainting fits. The edition differentiates general weakness from discrete fits; the cure claim is quoted testimony, not Burton’s personal case.
Original wording: “faintness, swounings, and melancholy”
Modern wording: “weakness, fainting fits and melancholy”
Lookup: swounings; fainting fits.
the fainting of the heart
Loss of hope or inward strength under prolonged delay. The opposing tree of life figures fulfilled desire; this is not a case history of syncope.
Original wording: “the hope that is defer’d, is the fainting of the heart”
Modern wording: “Deferred hope makes the heart faint”
Lookup: faint heart; fainting: hope.
not to faint
Not to lose courage or yield to discouragement. The counsel concerns preparing for unavoidable misfortune; it is not a claim that bodily fainting is voluntary.
Original wording: “not to faint is best”
Modern wording: “without losing heart”
Lookup: faint: lose heart; faint not.