Sympathy and antipathy

Use in the book

The personal sense appears early. Burton may “sympathize” with the laughter, satire and lamentation of earlier writers, although he denies that this shared feeling is his reason for the adopted name. Elsewhere he wishes to help sufferers from “fellow-feeling,” grounding the impulse in his own painful experience. These are related but distinguishable uses: sharing a response to the world, and using shared suffering as a reason to help. Neither passage needs a hidden physical force to explain the word.

In the debate about melancholy's bodily seat, sympathy allows several organs to suffer without making them all the primary seat of disease. Burton reports the predominant view that the brain is affected, either in itself or through another part. The opposing argument places fear and sorrow in the heart. His answer allows that the heart, diaphragm and other parts suffer together while preserving the brain's priority as the seat of reason. The language of “compati” and “fellow-feeling” makes this shared disturbance intelligible. His clock comparison then pictures a whole mechanism disordered by one faulty wheel. The supplied note finds a related account of bodily harmony in Vives but does not find Burton's clock there.

The most received threefold classification distinguishes head melancholy, arising from the brain alone; a second kind proceeding “sympathetically” from a melancholic temperament throughout the body; and a third arising from abdominal organs. Sympathy here helps classify causal pathways rather than merely intensifying a description of distress. Later the brain is again said to suffer in itself or through vapours rising from elsewhere. Burton places incompatible accounts of excessive heat and cold beside one another; the shared term does not resolve those disagreements.

Influence also runs between body and soul. Burton argues that passions cause bodily disease and bodily disease affects the soul “by consent.” The margin describes a law of partnership, while the body compares interdependent parts to strings of a lute. In the account of melancholy attributed to reproductive disorders, the brain is explicitly affected “not in essence, but by consent”: the asserted cause lies elsewhere, in the historical theory of retained fluids and vapours. That causal distinction should be preserved without treating the gendered medical theory as established physiology. The same vocabulary later connects appetite, reason and the heart in human love.

The connection can justify a proposed treatment. The marginal “compatitur,” suffers with, accompanies the rationale for strengthening both heart and brain because they affect one another. Joubert's account of facial redness recommends rubbing and washing the feet because of the “consent” between head and feet. This explains the historical rationale; it is not present medical advice. Fracastoro's work On Sympathy and Antipathy is also cited in the discussion of blushing, where fear and awareness of one's defects are distinguished from guilt for wrongdoing. A title citation alone should not be converted into an additional English occurrence of sympathy in Burton's body text.

Antipathy can qualify general rules about diet. Some people cannot endure cheese, or even the sight of roast duck, while others enjoy the same food. Burton invokes individual aversion and appetite as exceptions to broad claims about melancholy-producing foods. The adjective secret marks the obscure reason for the aversion; it does not supply a physiological mechanism or a modern diagnosis.

The spider amulet gives a different use of hidden opposition. Burton initially asks what antipathy could connect a spider with fever. He then finds written authorities and reports apparent success in some people, increasing his confidence. The questioning form and the sequence from doubt to greater credit matter. His account does not establish universal efficacy, and the next paragraph rejects medicines consisting of words, signs, spells and charms, allowing their apparent effects only through strong belief or demonic contrivance. Hidden natural action and verbal magic are being distinguished within Burton's argument.

In the love partition, sympathy and antipathy enter a systematic division of natural, sentient and rational love. Natural love includes the downward motion of heavy things, fire's upward motion, a lodestone attracting iron and jet attracting chaff. Burton extends love-language to lifeless things. The examples belong to a philosophical account of natural tendencies, not an assertion that stones possess the same conscious emotions as human lovers. The following animal section gives different causes, including reproduction and association with one's own kind.

Plants supply both affinities and antagonisms: vine and elm, vine and cabbage, vine and olive, vine and bay, burdock and lentil, olive and myrtle. The earlier prefatory example prints “Vine and Oyl”; the later passage says olive. The edition preserves these local forms rather than silently harmonizing them. The Latin margin likewise prints “olei”; its supplied olive rendering follows the adjacent botanical example, while the precise Latin reading remains uncollated. The botanical claims are supported with named authorities, including Porta, whose abbreviated “Element. sym.” is expanded as sympathy of elements, and Mizaldus, and mixed with an emblem about the maiden fleeing Bromius. Burton explicitly mentions fable and moral interpretation among Leone Ebreo's explanations. These are reported natural relations and allegories, not verified horticultural instructions.

Later the palms are said to display “not a sympathy but a love-passion.” Burton heightens affinity into the language of longing, embrace and kisses, supported by verse and an agricultural story. The supplied modern wording says “not merely a sympathetic affinity”: merely softens the original's categorical contrast and is explanatory, not a separately printed qualification. The following notes distinguish the agricultural parallel from Burton's feminine pronouns for both palms and leave the Greek and Latin intermediary uncollated. The force of the passage is its imaginative enlargement of natural attraction, not secure evidence for conscious plant passion.

Related entries

Consent; Occult; Affections; Soul; Imagination; Hypochondriacal melancholy; Amulets; Fascination; Love; Prime mover

Places to read

1. · paragraph 11–13shared feeling and the desire to help fellow sufferers
2. · paragraph 37–39plant antipathy within the extension of melancholy beyond humans
3. · paragraph 14–19bodily fellow-feeling, primary seat and causal classification
4. · paragraph 1–3personal food aversion and exceptions to dietary rules
5. · paragraph 47–49reciprocal bodily and mental influence, and direct or communicated brain disorder
6. · paragraph 28–30“not in essence, but by consent” in the attributed reproductive theory
7. · paragraph 11–13Fracastoro's title and the account of blushing
8. · paragraph 17–19heart and brain suffering together, and the rationale for attending to both
9. · paragraph 30–33questioned therapeutic antipathy and the head–feet connection
10. Unnumbered synopsis, supplied position [403]natural attraction and repulsion in the division of love
11. · paragraph 5–15natural affinities, source authorities, animal love and bodily consent in human love
12. the heightened claim of plant love-passion

In this edition

“sympathize with him or them” becomes “share those feelings with him or with them.” Bodily parts that “sympathize” instead “suffer with” the brain. “sympathetically proceeds from the whole body” becomes “arises through the influence of the whole body.” These renderings separate ordinary fellow-feeling from the historical physiology of communication.

The synopsis renders “sympathy, antipathy” as “attraction, repulsion,” while the full natural-love discussion retains the learned pair and supplies explanatory notes. In the margins, English sympathy often translates original Latin consensum; the English is then the supplied editorial translation, not Burton's printed English word. The compact records distinguish those layers and retain abbreviated original titles where relevant.

antipathy

Printed “antipathy” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: Antagonism or mutual opposition.

Here: Attributed antagonism between plants or plant-related things.

Context: Original Oyl retained; later olive is not substituted here.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: that antipathy betwixt the Vine and the Cabbage, Vine and Oyl

Modern rendering: the antagonism between vine and cabbage, or vine and oil

Word and construction: Antipathy gives antagonism; betwixt gives between. The two pairings are vine/cabbage and vine/oil: modern or clarifies their enumeration. Oil renders the locally printed Oyl without harmonizing it to the later olive.

Alignment convention

antipathy · secret Antipathy

Printed “secret Antipathy” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Meaning: An aversion whose cause is hidden.

Here: Hidden personal aversion, here to cheese.

Context: Individual exception to general food rules; secret does not establish a modern diagnosis.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Some cannot endure Cheese, out of a secret Antipathy

Modern rendering: Some people cannot bear cheese because of a hidden antipathy

Word and construction: Secret gives hidden, and Antipathy is retained. Some gives Some people, with people supplied; cannot endure gives cannot bear. Out of marks the cause or ground, because of. The limitation to some people is explicit.

Alignment convention

antipathy · Antipathy

Printed “Antipathy” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: Opposition or antagonism.

Here: Questioned hidden opposition invoked to explain the spider amulet.

Context: Burton first doubts, then finds authorities and reports apparent success in some people.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: For what Antipathy?

Modern rendering: What antipathy could there be?

Word and construction: Antipathy is retained; For what becomes What... could there be, an explanatory modal completion of the compressed question. The question belongs to Burton’s initial doubt; later authorities and alleged experience increase his confidence.

Alignment convention

compatior · compati

Printed “compati” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation: Dictionary lemma compatior; the printed compati is its present infinitive in the mixed construction They do compati.

Meaning: To suffer together.

Here: Suffer together, here bodily organs responding to one another.

Context: Concedes secondary organ affection within the argument for the brain’s priority.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: They do compati, & have a fellow-feeling by the Law of nature

Modern rendering: By nature’s law, they suffer together and share one another’s feelings

Word and construction: Compati is the Latin present infinitive of compatior, suffer together, inserted after English They do. They suffer together renders that mixed construction. Have a fellow-feeling gives share one another’s feelings, and by the Law of nature gives By nature’s law. The indexed Latin is narrower than the full English/Latin sentence.

Alignment scope: Latin indexed infinitive within a wider English/Latin original clause and its supplied modern rendering

compatior · compatitur

Printed “compatitur” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: It suffers together or is affected with another.

Here: The heart suffers with the brain in the rationale for attending to both organs.

Context: Third-person singular present deponent; the heart is the understood subject from Cordis ratio, the brain the dative partner. The next clause explicitly says they affect one another.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording, Original wording: Cordis ratio semper habenda quod cerebro compatitur, & sese invicem afficiunt

Modern rendering: The heart must always be considered, because it suffers with the brain, and they affect one another

Word and construction: Compatitur gives it suffers with, cerebro the brain. Cordis ratio semper habenda gives The heart must always be considered: must... be unfolds the gerundive obligation and always retains semper. Sese invicem afficiunt gives they affect one another, making reciprocity explicit.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked against supplied source; modern rendering is not independent authority; no fresh historical-witness collation

consent · by consent · local use 1

Printed “by consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Meaning: Through sympathetic connection.

Here: Through mutual bodily and mental responsiveness.

Context: The preceding clause states the reverse influence from passions to bodily disease.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: so bodily diseases affect the soul by consent

Modern rendering: so bodily diseases affect the soul through their mutual sympathy

Word and construction: By consent gives through their mutual sympathy, with their and mutual explaining the body–soul relation. Bodily diseases are the subject, affect the predicate and the soul the object; the preceding passions-to-body claim supplies the reverse direction.

Alignment convention

consent · by consent · local use 2

Printed “by consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Meaning: Through sympathetic connection.

Here: Through connection with other parts, here vapours affecting the brain.

Context: Still means always; by himself refers to the brain itself, not a person’s voluntary action.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: The brain is still distempered by himself, or by consent

Modern rendering: The brain is always disordered either in itself or through its connection with other parts

Word and construction: By consent gives through its connection with other parts, with its and other parts supplied to clarify the relation. Still gives always; by himself gives in itself, referring to the brain; or preserves the alternative and either makes it explicit. Distempered gives disordered.

Alignment convention

consent

Printed “consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: A sympathetic connection.

Here: Assumed bodily connection between head and feet.

Context: Joubert’s reported rationale for a historical treatment, not current medical guidance.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: because of that consent which is betwixt the head and the feet

Modern rendering: because of the sympathetic connection between the head and the feet

Word and construction: Consent gives sympathetic connection; which is betwixt gives between, with the head and the feet retained as the two connected parts. Because of keeps the proposed causal rationale, not present verification of treatment.

Alignment convention

consent · by consent · local use 3

Printed “by consent” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Meaning: Through sympathetic connection.

Here: Through mutual connection, here the faculties’ effects on the heart.

Context: Appetite and reason affect the heart in the inherited faculty physiology.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: the heart is diversly affected of both, and carried a thousand waies by consent

Modern rendering: Both affect the heart in different ways and carry it in a thousand directions through their mutual connection

Word and construction: By consent gives through their mutual connection. The original passive heart is diversly affected of both becomes the active Both affect the heart in different ways; both refers to appetite and reason. Carried a thousand waies becomes carry it in a thousand directions, preserving the emphatic quantity.

Alignment convention

de sympathia et antipathia · De Symp. & Antip.

Printed “De Symp. & Antip.” (Latin abbreviation; phrase).

Citation convention

Meaning: On sympathy and antipathy, an abbreviated title.

Here: Abbreviated title On Sympathy and Antipathy.

Context: Original marginal title associated with Fracastoro’s explanation of blushing; expanded English belongs to supplied note.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording, Original wording: De Symp. & Antip. cap. 12.

Modern rendering: On Sympathy and Antipathy, chapter 12.

Word and construction: De gives On; Symp. and Antip. are the abbreviated title words expanded as Sympathy and Antipathy; & gives and. Cap. 12 gives chapter 12 and lies outside the indexed title. The English expansion is editorial, not original marginal English.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked against editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note; translation is not original evidence

de sympathia et antipathia · de sym & antip.

Printed “de sym & antip.” (Latin abbreviation; phrase).

Citation convention

Meaning: On sympathy and antipathy, an abbreviated title.

Here: Abbreviated source title On Sympathy and Antipathy.

Context: A bibliographical route within the original body, not a fresh collation of the cited treatise.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Fracastorius de sym & antip.

Modern rendering: Fracastoro, On Sympathy and Antipathy

Word and construction: De gives On; sym and antip. are expanded as Sympathy and Antipathy, and & gives and. Fracastorius gives Fracastoro, the author named outside the indexed title. This is an expanded bibliographical phrase, not a dictionary lemma.

Alignment convention

elementorum sympathia

Printed “Element. sym.” (Latin abbreviation; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Element. sym.

Citation convention

Meaning: Sympathy of elements, an expanded bibliographical phrase.

Here: The abbreviated natural-affinity topic in Burton’s reference to Porta.

Context: Latin title abbreviation in the original body; expansion is contextual and no precise Porta edition or chapter has been freshly collated.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: sympathy of elements

Word and construction: Element. supplies of elements and sym. sympathy; the modern reverses their order. The preceding chapter-on-plants wording is outside this indexed phrase.

Alignment scope: Abbreviated original title phrase and supplied modern expansion

Edition note: checked against supplied source; modern rendering is not independent authority; no fresh historical-witness collation

fellow-feeling

Printed “fellow-feeling” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: A shared feeling, especially from common experience of suffering.

Here: Shared experience of suffering motivating help.

Context: Authorial intention grounded in the preceding personal experience, not a hidden physical force.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: I would help others out of a fellow-feeling

Modern rendering: I would help others from fellow-feeling

Word and construction: Fellow-feeling is retained; out of gives from, marking the motive of would help others. The preceding experience supplies the suffering shared, rather than a separate adjective within the indexed noun.

Alignment convention

not in essence, but by consent

Printed “not in essence, but by consent” (English; phrase).

Citation: Phrase key retains the complete negative/positive contrast; neither limb is a standalone dictionary definition of the other.

Meaning: Not through a disorder in the part itself, but through connection with another part.

Here: Secondary brain affection through another part rather than origin within the brain.

Context: Modern supplies is affected to clarify the compressed original; historical gendered causal theory is attributed.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: the brain I say, not in essence, but by consent

Modern rendering: The brain, I say, is affected through sympathy with another part, rather than through a disorder originating in itself

Word and construction: Not in essence... but by consent is reordered as through sympathy with another part, rather than through a disorder originating in itself. Is affected is supplied to complete the original fragment. The longer explanatory limbs render the full causal contrast, not consent alone.

Alignment convention

per consensum, a lege consortii

Printed “per consensum, a lege consortii” (Latin; phrase).

Citation: Phrase key covers the whole indexed construction, including its law-of-partnership complement.

Meaning: Through sympathy, under the law of partnership.

Here: Through sympathy, under the law of bodily and mental partnership.

Context: Original Latin margin separated from supplied editorial translation.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording, Original wording: Corporis itidem morbi animam per consensum, a lege consortii afficiunt

Modern rendering: Bodily diseases likewise affect the soul through mutual sympathy, under the law of their partnership

Word and construction: Per consensum gives through mutual sympathy; a lege consortii gives under the law of their partnership. Mutual and their make the association explicit. Corporis morbi gives bodily diseases, itidem likewise, animam the soul and afficiunt affect; these subject/object/predicate words lie outside the indexed phrase.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked against editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note; translation is not original evidence

per consensum; per essentiam

Printed “Per consensum sive per essentiam” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Per consensum sive per essentiam

Citation convention

Meaning: Through sympathy or through essence; locally secondary affection or affection in the part itself.

Here: Through another part’s influence or through a disorder arising in the part itself.

Context: Original Latin margin; English sympathy is supplied translation, not original English evidence.

Source: original marginal quotation

Modern rendering: Through sympathy with another part or in itself

Word and construction: Per gives through or by; consensum gives sympathy, with another part supplied to explain the medical relation. Sive gives or; per essentiam is contextually rendered in itself, identifying primary affection rather than an abstract claim about essence.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked against editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note; translation is not original evidence

sympathetically

Printed “sympathetically” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: Through sympathetic connection or influence.

Here: Through the influence of the body’s general temperament.

Context: Second member of a threefold historical causal classification.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: the second sympathetically proceeds from the whole body

Modern rendering: The second arises through the influence of the whole body

Word and construction: Sympathetically gives through the influence; proceeds gives arises, and from the whole body supplies the source of that influence. The second identifies the second kind; the next clause makes the whole temperament melancholy.

Alignment convention

sympathia

Printed “Sympathia olei & myrti” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Meaning: Affinity of oil and myrtle on the ordinary literal reading of olei; the supplied editorial olive is a contextual interpretation of the botanical example.

Here: The attributed affinity of olive and myrtle, their parts embracing.

Context: Original Latin margin credited to Mizaldus; printed olei retained and English translation identified as supplied.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording, Original wording: Sympathia olei & myrti ramorum & radicum se complectentium

Modern rendering: The sympathy of olive and myrtle, their branches and roots embracing one another

Word and construction: Sympathia gives The sympathy, with The supplied; & gives and and myrti of myrtle. The supplied editorial olive interprets the printed olei through the adjacent botanical context; its precise Latin reading remains uncollated and is not silently emended. Ramorum & radicum gives branches and roots, with their supplied; se complectentium gives embracing one another. The latter participial explanation lies outside the indexed phrase.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked against editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note; translation is not original evidence

sympathize · local use 1

Printed “sympathize” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: Share or respond with the same feelings.

Here: Share the feelings of the writers just named.

Context: Burton allows that he may share the preceding feelings but denies that this is the reason for his assumed name.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: In which passion howsoever I may sympathize with him or them

Modern rendering: However much I may share those feelings with him or with them

Word and construction: Sympathize gives share those feelings; in which passion supplies the relation to the preceding feelings, and howsoever I may becomes However much I may. With him or them gives with him or with them. The following denial excludes this shared feeling as the reason for the assumed name, not merely as the sole reason.

Alignment convention

sympathize · local use 2

Printed “sympathize” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: Suffer together or respond in connected affection.

Here: Suffer with the affected brain through bodily connection.

Context: Heart and lower parts respond; original context also discusses disturbance communicated from other parts.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: which sympathize and are much troubled

Modern rendering: which suffer with it and are greatly disturbed

Word and construction: Sympathize gives suffer with it; it is supplied to specify the affected brain from the preceding clause. Are much troubled gives are greatly disturbed. The relative which refers to the heart and other lower parts, not to a person giving consent.

Alignment convention

sympathy · a great Sympathy

Printed “a great Sympathy” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Meaning: A strong affinity.

Here: Attributed affinity between vine and elm.

Context: Plant relation narrated under natural love.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: as betwixt the Vine and Elm a great Sympathy

Modern rendering: a great sympathy between vine and elm

Word and construction: A great Sympathy gives a great sympathy, retaining the degree. Betwixt the Vine and Elm gives between vine and elm. The surrounding as exemplifies the more general plant claim; its absence from the selected modern phrase does not make the botanical relation universal.

Alignment convention

sympathy · not a sympathy but a love-passion

Printed “not a sympathy but a love-passion” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Meaning: Not an affinity, but a passion of love.

Here: Rhetorical elevation of plant affinity into passion of love.

Context: Modern merely softens the categorical original and is explicitly identified as supplied.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: express not a sympathy but a love-passion

Modern rendering: display not merely a sympathetic affinity but a passion of love

Word and construction: Express gives display; a sympathy gives a sympathetic affinity, and a love-passion gives a passion of love. Not... but is retained, but the modern adds merely, softening the original categorical opposition. Merely is not an independently printed original qualification.

Alignment convention

sympathy; antipathy · sympathy, antipathy

Printed “sympathy, antipathy” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: sympathy, antipathy

Citation convention

Meaning: Affinity and opposition.

Here: Natural attraction and repulsion in the synopsis of love’s divisions.

Context: Synopsis’s natural-love branch includes plants and lifeless things; locator is the unnumbered supplied position [403].

Source: original body

Modern rendering: attraction, repulsion

Word and construction: Sympathy gives attraction and antipathy repulsion, preserving the ordered pair. These are the supplied modern synopsis’s contextual equivalents, not separate original English attestations.

Alignment convention

sympathy; antipathy · Sympathy or Antipathy

Printed “Sympathy or Antipathy” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Meaning: Affinity or opposition.

Here: Natural affinity or opposition across living and lifeless things.

Context: Definitional application of love and hatred in natural philosophy, not proof of conscious emotion in stones.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Naturall love or hatred, is that Sympathy or Antipathy

Modern rendering: Natural love or hatred is the sympathy or antipathy

Word and construction: Sympathy or Antipathy is retained as sympathy or antipathy. Naturall love or hatred gives Natural love or hatred; is retains the equation and that becomes the. The disjunction is not converted into an assertion that every object has both relations.

Alignment convention