Tables

Use in the book

The old contrast between game and record is especially clear. Losing “games at Tables” makes the gambler angry, whereas the regimen synopsis includes “cards, tables” among moderate recreations. The fuller gaming discussion allows honest refreshment after work or study while attacking habitual play for gain; chess is suitable for some patients, not every person indiscriminately. When melancholy comes from excessive study, its concentration, anxiety and anger at losing may make it harmful. Tables is therefore neither uniformly condemned nor universally prescribed.

In the shrine of Aesculapius, “tables, inscriptions” are records displayed with offerings. The Latin margin describes hanging tablets inscribed with healed illnesses. Burton’s account, attributed to Strabo, occurs in a polemic about religious cures; the tablets’ existence and the truth of the claims on them are different matters. Medical “tables or losings” instead names the tablets or lozenges made from confections, a sense already visible in the treatment synopsis.

Other uses widen the family without erasing these distinctions. The passive understanding begins like “a bare and rased table,” a tablet wiped clean; Cebes’ table is an allegorical picture of life. Mathematical tables arrange information for calculation: the astronomical dispute mentions the Alfonsine tables, and the exercise chapter praises Gunter’s logarithmic sines and tangents. Charlemagne’s silver tables bear maps, while a cardinal’s generously furnished table represents hospitality from which his own moderate diet can be separated.

The game also supplies figures. Unavoidable accidents resemble a throw that skill must make the best of. A wife who has “plaid false at tables” and borne an extra man is the subject of an adultery joke: the playing piece and human partner remain audible together.

An arranged account need not contain numerical data. The sufferers’ “fatall tables” are imagined registers of destiny, possibly doctrinal schemes, formed through misinterpretation to their own harm; Burton answers by questioning their supposed certainty of rejection. The printed historical index is itself headed “The Table.” This final occurrence names an alphabetical finding aid, not a new body passage or a guarantee that every old page reference is correct.

Related entries

Recreate: Games are possible recreations when degree and purpose suit.

Confection: Medicinal tables belong among confection forms.

Religion and superstition: Votive records occur inside a disputed account of sacred healing.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 4The represented entrance into human life supplies Burton’s image of universal error.
2. Subsection 10. Understanding · paragraph 29The receptive passive understanding is likened to an erased tablet.
3. Subsection 13. Love of Gambling and the Like, and Excessive Pleasures, As… · paragraph 34The gaming example begins.
4. Subsection 13. Love of Gambling and the Like, and Excessive Pleasures, As… · paragraph 35Repeated losses provoke anger in a gambling example.
5. Subsection 13. Love of Gambling and the Like, and Excessive Pleasures, As… · paragraph 36Excess, gain and ruin qualify gaming.
6. Synopsis of the Second Partition · paragraph 9Regimen synopsis; the locator is a PDF scan label, not a printed page.
7. Synopsis of the Second Partition · paragraph 16The cold-confection synopsis also names tablets.
8. Member 3. Whether It Is Lawful to Seek the Saints' Help in This Disease · paragraph 37Context of religious healing.
9. Member 3. Whether It Is Lawful to Seek the Saints' Help in This Disease · paragraph 38Votive records join inscriptions and gifts in the healing shrine.
10. Member 3. Whether It Is Lawful to Seek the Saints' Help in This Disease · paragraph 39Votive offerings compared with a shipwreck survivor’s dedication.
11. Subsection 2. Diet Corrected in Quantity · paragraph 14The cardinal’s public hospitality can be lavish while his own diet remains simple.
12. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraph 13Astronomical tables embody competing theoretical suppositions.
13. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 1Defence of games as honest in themselves despite abuse.
14. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 2Habitual gaming and financial loss.
15. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 3The continuation of the ruinous habit.
16. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 4Return to damaging pleasures.
17. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 5Consequences for households.
18. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 6Refreshment after labour or studies is the proper purpose.
19. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 7Chess has patient-specific limits.
20. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 8Chess may worsen melancholy arising from excessive study.
21. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 3Charlemagne’s tables bear engraved city maps and a world representation.
22. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 10Gunter’s tables supply mathematical occupation and replace multiplication and division with addition and subtraction.
23. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 3The game becomes an ethical analogy for responding skilfully to unavoidable chance.
24. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 4Terence’s dice analogy explains skill after chance.
25. Subsection 5 Compound Alteratives Criticism of Compounds and Mixed Medicines · paragraph 27The word names dosage forms made from aromatic confections.
26. The Cure of Jealousy: Avoiding Occasions for It, Keeping Occupied; Good… · paragraph 25The gaming language disguises adultery; the following man is both a playing piece and a sexual partner.
27. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 40Misinterpreted religious reading increases distress.
28. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 41The sufferer’s constructed tables of destiny.
29. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 42Burton challenges certainty of self-condemnation.
30. The Index · paragraph 1Historical alphabetical-index heading; its page references remain source numbers.

In this edition

“games at Tables” → “games of backgammon” and “cards, tables” → “cards, backgammon” identify the game family without establishing an exact modern ruleset. “tables, inscriptions” → “tablets, inscriptions” preserves the shrine’s material records; “tables or losings” → “tablets or lozenges” makes the medicinal form explicit. “a bare and rased table at first” becomes “a blank tablet wiped clean”, where the temporal phrase is redistributed into the modern sentence’s opening. “artificial Sines and Tangents” are logarithmic sines and tangents, not fabricated numbers.

table · tables · local use 1

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

Tablets or panels bearing written records.

Here: Votive records join inscriptions and gifts in the healing shrine.

Context: Burton reports the shrine through Strabo within his polemical discussion of religious cures; displaying a record does not independently establish a cure.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: tables, inscriptions

Modern rendering: tablets, inscriptions

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

table · tables · local use 2

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

Small solid medicinal preparations; tablets.

Here: The word names dosage forms made from aromatic confections.

Context: Burton catalogues historical preparations; this is neither a gaming table nor tabular information.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: tables or losings

Modern rendering: tablets or lozenges

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

Citation key: table.

Small solid medicinal preparations; tablets.

Here: The cold-confection synopsis also names tablets.

Context: The editor identifies tablets or lozenges in the pharmaceutical context.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: with their tables

Modern rendering: and their tablets

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

table · local use 1

Printed “table” (English; lemma).

A writing tablet or surface.

Here: The receptive passive understanding is likened to an erased tablet.

Context: Burton explains a philosophical faculty through a material analogy; the surrounding account also admits innate notions.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a bare and rased table

Modern rendering: a blank tablet wiped clean

Alignment qualification: The wider original has at first, redistributed into the modern sentence’s opening. The present aligned units isolate only the tablet phrase.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

table · local use 2

Printed “table” (English; lemma).

A picture or pictorial representation, here the title of an allegory.

Here: The represented entrance into human life supplies Burton’s image of universal error.

Context: Burton recruits the allegorical picture for his expansive satire of human folly.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Cebes table

Modern rendering: the Tablet of Cebes

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

table · tables · local use 3

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

Ordered numerical information for calculation.

Here: Gunter’s tables supply mathematical occupation and replace multiplication and division with addition and subtraction.

Context: Burton praises their practical interest; the editor flags a bibliographical date discrepancy rather than silently correcting the print.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: tables of artificial Sines and Tangents

Modern rendering: tables of logarithmic sines and tangents

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

Citation key: table.

Ordered numerical information for calculation.

Here: Astronomical tables embody competing theoretical suppositions.

Context: Burton reports an argument favoring a moving earth, including its claim to greater reliability.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: those Alphonsine, or any such tables

Modern rendering: those Alfonsine or similar tables

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

table · local use 3

Printed “table” (English; lemma).

A dining table, including the meal served there.

Here: The cardinal’s public hospitality can be lavish while his own diet remains simple.

Context: Burton reports Prosper Calenus’s advice, qualified by the host’s rank and guests.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: his table be jovially furnished

Modern rendering: his table to be generously furnished

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

Citation key: table.

Physical tables or flat surfaces.

Here: Charlemagne’s tables bear engraved city maps and a world representation.

Context: Burton attributes the story to Platina; the supplied editor does not claim that passage freshly collated.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: three faire silver tables

Modern rendering: three beautiful silver tables

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

table · tables · local use 4

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

Arranged registers or accounts.

Here: The metaphor evokes determinations or registers of destiny, possibly schemes setting out predestination and reprobation.

Context: The distressed readers form these constructions against themselves; Burton next challenges their certainty of rejection.

Source: original body

Source wording: such fatall tables they form to their own ruine

Original wording: such fatall tables

Modern rendering: such tables of destiny

Alignment scope: Equal-scope noun phrase

Alignment qualification: The surrounding modern construction moves the sufferers’ act of forming these tables earlier in the sentence. The tables may evoke doctrinal schemes; the precise material form is uncertain.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

table · Table

Printed “Table” (English; lemma).

An arranged list or index of subjects.

Here: The heading names the alphabetical index supplied after the work.

Context: This is the printed historical index heading, not a new occurrence in continuous body prose. It does not authenticate every index entry or page reference.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: The Table.

Modern rendering: The Index

Record type: historical_index_heading

Source layer qualification: Original wording in the historical index, distinct from continuous authorial body prose.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

tables · Tables

Printed “Tables” (English; lemma).

A board game of the backgammon family.

Here: Repeated losses provoke anger in a gambling example.

Context: Burton describes gamblers’ ill temper; the following passage condemns excessive gaming.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: games at Tables

Modern rendering: games of backgammon

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

tables · local use 1

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

A board game of the backgammon family.

Here: The synopsis includes it among moderate recreations of mind.

Context: The regimen’s summary recommends degree-governed occupation, not unrestricted gambling.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: cards, tables

Modern rendering: cards, backgammon

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

tables · local use 2

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

A board game of the backgammon family.

Here: The game becomes an ethical analogy for responding skilfully to unavoidable chance.

Context: Burton urges adaptation to what cannot be amended; the next Terentian verse develops chance and skill.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a game at tables

Modern rendering: a game of backgammon

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

tables · local use 3

Printed “tables” (English; lemma).

A board game of the backgammon family.

Here: The gaming language disguises adultery; the following man is both a playing piece and a sexual partner.

Context: The anecdote belongs to a sequence of comic responses to infidelity, not literal evidence of a gaming offence.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: plaid false at tables

Modern rendering: cheated at backgammon

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.