Wounds

Use in the book

Fresh wounds appear as objects of treatment and as things people can hardly bear to see. The account of weapon salve reports claims of magnetic healing but also names Libavius's opposition and says the matter is disputed. The training example takes a different approach: someone initially unable to endure a wound's appearance may become a competent surgeon. Burton then extends habituation to spectators enjoying gladiatorial deaths, a morally disturbing example rather than an unqualified celebration of desensitization.

An apparently literal maxim against changing plasters supports constancy in treatment. Burton gives Seneca's comparison as a warning against repeatedly changing physicians and remedies; the editor notes that Seneca's own setting is sustained reading. A separate treatment narrative says a head-wounded man was well while the wound remained open and relapsed when it healed. The first-person witness there belongs to Gordonius's quoted account, and the procedures are introduced as a last resort. The lexical opposition is open versus healed wound within historical evacuation theory; it does not authorize injuring a person as treatment.

Wounding can be socially produced. A person sensitive to reputation is deeply wounded by disgrace, while the bitter joke, slander or calumny becomes an arrow leaving an incurable wound. The latter passage first distinguishes the person who does not notice a jest from the one who takes it to heart. Burton's claim therefore concerns the experienced force of words, not an assertion that every utterance harms every hearer identically. Shame retains the full account of reputation and response.

Words can also heal. Gentle speech is called a remedy for a wounded mind, provided it is administered wisely; the passage interprets Homer's nepenthe as discourse suited to the occasion. The underlying claim concerns timely consolation, not every speech having medicinal power. A nearby consolation says a bodily wound does not penetrate the soul, illustrated by Loyola's changed life after injury. That maxim distinguishes bodily injury from inward worth; it does not cancel the figurative wounded soul that counsel can relieve.

Erotic wounding assigns the eye both active and passive roles. It wounds and is wounded, acting in the person looking and in the person seen. To call the eye only the victim or only the weapon loses the doubled construction. In the later consolation for jealousy, however, Burton minimizes the supposed deep wound as a blow without physical hurt, often sustained by suspicion. This is a rhetorical attempt to reduce the grievance's authority, not evidence that the preceding accounts describe no suffering.

The religious discussion identifies damaging human agents when indiscriminate preachers turn small faults and indifferent acts into unforgivable offences, tearing people's consciences. In the subsequent consolation, God is said first to wound and then heal, with patient endurance required for the present. The agents and purposes differ: the preacher's excess is criticized; the divine sequence promises reversal. Finally Burton allows good counsel to relieve the wounded soul, so the violent images do not leave the account without human means of help.

Related entries

• Chirurgery: surgery and practical treatment.
• Cautery: searing wounds and maintained discharge.
• Love: the larger meanings of love.
• Shame: reputation, disgrace and responsiveness.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Subsection 2. The Power of Imagination · paragraph 27Fresh wounds and disputed magnetic treatment.
2. Subsection 6. Shame and Disgrace as Causes · paragraph 37Reputation wounded by disgrace.
3. Subsection 4 How Mockery, Slander and Bitter Jokes Cause Melancholy · paragraph 40Slander and jokes as weapons, with response explicitly variable.
4. Subsection 2. Concerning the Patient · paragraph 34; note 5094Changing plasters as an argument for constancy; note identifies Seneca’s literary setting.
5. 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 13A fresh wound as an initially intolerable sight.
6. 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 21Timely speech as a remedy for the wounded soul.
7. Member 2 Bodily Deformity, Sickness, Low Birth, and Particular Discontents · paragraph 1A bodily wound does not penetrate inward worth.
8. Subsection 4 Remedies That Divert the Humours · paragraph 13Gordonius’s open-versus-healed wound testimony, in a last-resort context.
9. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraph 50The eye both wounds and is wounded.
10. The Cure of Jealousy: Avoiding Occasions for It, Keeping Occupied; Good Counsel; Disregarding It, Not Watching Women or Locking Them Up; Concealing It, and So On · paragraph 24Jealousy’s deep wound rhetorically minimized.
11. Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraph 39Indiscriminate preaching wounds consciences.
12. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 48Divine wounding followed by healing.
13. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 31Counsel may relieve a wounded soul.

In this edition

The edition renders green as fresh and retains many wound metaphors rather than flattening them into generic unhappiness. In “Vulnus non penetrat animum,” the Latin is translated as not penetrating the soul, then Burton's separate English gloss as not hurting it. The pair distinguishes the exact Latin image from the author's gloss; neither should be silently substituted for the other. Active and passive in the erotic passage likewise remain a two-way action.

green wounds

Fresh wounds. Green marks recent injury; the supposed magnetic remedy is openly disputed in the same sentence.

Original wording: “many green wounds”

Modern wording: “many fresh wounds”

Lookup: green wound; fresh wound.

deeply wounded

Grievously hurt in feeling through injury to reputation. The object of concern is honour and good name, not a bodily cut.

Original wording: “tender of his reputation, will be deeply wounded”

Modern wording: “sensitive about his reputation, will be deeply wounded”

Lookup: wounded: reputation.

an incurable wound

A lasting injury left by bitter or slanderous words, in the passage’s heightened language. Tongues and words supply the weapons; the passage begins by distinguishing whether the recipient notices and takes the speech to heart.

Original wording: “they leave an incurable wound behinde them”

Modern wording: “they leave an incurable wound”

Lookup: wound: words.

a wound can never be cured that hath severall plasters

A wound cannot heal under repeated changes of dressing, used as an argument against changing treatment. The modern wording makes succession explicit. The statement is a quoted maxim, not a universal modern wound-care rule.

Original wording: “a wound can never be cured that hath severall plasters”

Modern wording: “a wound can never heal when one plaster after another is applied to it”

Lookup: wound: changing plasters.

saucii animi

Of the wounded mind. Saucii agrees with animi; speech is the remedy, the mind the wounded object. Burton’s English then enlarges this to gentle, wisely administered speech.

Original wording: “Oratio, namque saucii animi est remedium”

Modern wording: “Speech is a remedy for the wounded mind”

Lookup: saucius; wounded mind.

Vulnus non penetrat animum

A wound does not penetrate the soul. The maxim follows bodily injury and a changed vocation; it denies injury’s necessary damage to inward worth, not the existence of grief.

Original wording: “Vulnus non penetrat animum”

Modern wording: “A wound does not penetrate the soul”

Lookup: vulnus; wound: bodily and inward.

so long as the wound was open

While the injury remained unclosed. The reported contrast with relapse after healing belongs to Gordonius’s account, not Burton’s own witnessed treatment.

Original wording: “so long as the wound was open he was well”

Modern wording: “as long as the wound remained open, he was well”

Lookup: open wound; wound healed.

it wounds and is wounded

The eye both acts upon another and receives the erotic impression. It refers to the eye; the active/passive doubling is explicitly distributed between the person looking and the person seen.

Original wording: “it wounds and is wounded”

Modern wording: “it wounds and is wounded”

Lookup: wound: erotic sight; wounds.

so deep a wound

An intense jealous grievance described as an injury. Burton is trying to minimize the grievance, often founded on suspicion; this does not erase the suffering previously described.

Original wording: “that it should make so deep a wound”

Modern wording: “that it should inflict so deep a wound”

Lookup: wound: jealousy.

wound mens consciences

Injure or distress people’s consciences through indiscriminate condemnation. The human preachers are the agents; small faults and indifferent matters are wrongly magnified into unforgivable offences.

Original wording: “rent, tear and wound mens consciences”

Modern wording: “rend, tear and wound people’s consciences”

Lookup: wound: conscience.

he woundeth first and then healeth

God first afflicts and subsequently restores, in the consolatory account. The pronoun refers to God. The sequence and its future relief distinguish this from the criticized preacher’s wounding.

Original wording: “he woundeth first and then healeth”

Modern wording: “first wounds and then heals”

Lookup: woundeth; divine wounding.

relieve his wounded soul

Ease an afflicted person’s inward suffering. Good advisers and their counsel are the proposed means; may preserves the sentence’s modal form.

Original wording: “relieve his wounded soul”

Modern wording: “relieve his wounded soul”

Lookup: wounded soul.