PUBLICATIONS
OF THE
Modern Language Association
OP
AMERICA
EDITED BY
c.
JAMES W. BRIGHT
SECRETARY OF THE ASSOCIATION
VOL. XIV.
NEW SERIES, VOL. VII.
BALTIMORE -*<
PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION
PRINTED BY JOHN MURPHY COMPANY
1899
v-lf-
THIS VOLUME
IS RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED .
TO THE MEMORY OF
DAVID LEWIS BAKTLETT,
OF BALTIMOKE,
A BROAD-MINDED AND A PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN, A MAN
OF CULTIVATED TASTE, AND A SYMPATHETIC AND
GENEROUS PATRON OF EDUCATION, OF THE
ARTS, AND OF LITERATURE.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
I. A Study of the Romance of the Seven Sages with special
reference to the Middle English Versions. By KILLIS
CAMPBELL, _... _._._!
IT. A Study of Goethe's Printed Text: Hermann und Dorothea.
By W. T. HEWETT, - 108
III. Zum Speculum Humanae Salvationis. By H. SCHMIDT-
WARTENBEBG, 137 /
IV. Color in Old English Poetry. By WILLIAM E. MEAD, - 169
V. From Franklin to Lowell. A century of New England
pronunciation. By C. H. GBANDGENT, - 207
VI. The Work of the Modern Language Association of America.
By C. ALPHONSO SMITH, - - - - - - - 240
VII. Are French Poets Poetical ? By P. B. MABCOU, - - - 257
VIII. Luis De Le6n, the Spanish Poet, Humanist, and Mystic.
By J. D. M. FORD, 267
IX. The Latin and the Anglo-Saxon Juliana. By JAMES M.
GARNETT, '- - 279
X The Semasiology of Words for 'Smell' and 'See.' By
FRANCIS A. WOOD, 299
XI. Proper Names in Old English Verse. By JAMES W.
BRIGHT, - 347
XII. Nicholas Grimald's Christus Redivims. By J. M. HART, - 369
XIII. Pepper, Pickle, and Kipper. By GEORGE HEMPL, - - 449
XIV. A hitherto unnoticed Middle English manuscript of the
Seven Sages. By A. S. NAPIER, 459
XV. Elizabethan Translations from the Italian: the titles of
such works now first collected and arranged, with annota-
tions. By MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT, - . . * - - 465
V
/
VI CONTENTS.
APPENDIX I.
PAGE.
Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Modern
Language Association of America, held at the University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., December 27, 28, 29, 1898.
Addresses of welcome, - - iii
Address of the President of the Association, ALCEE FOBTIEB.
Subject: Historical and social forces in French litera-
ture, iii
1. Are French poets poetical ? By P. B. MARCOU, - xii
Discussion : By T. ATKINSON JENKINS, - xii
2. A neglected field in American philology. By THOMAS FITZ-
HUGH, xiv
Report of the Secretary, xiv
Eeport of the Treasurer, ' - - xiv
Appointment of committees, xv
The Goethe celebration, xv
The Philological congress, - - - xv
3. La vie de Sainte Catharine d' Alexandrie, as contained in the
Paris MS. La Clayette. By H. A. TODD, xvi
4. Luis de Le6n, the Spanish poet, humanist, and mystic. By J.
D. M. FORD, xvi
5. German- American ballads. By M. D. LEARNED, - - - xvi
6. The Latin and Anglo-Saxon Juliana. By JAMES M. GAR-
NETT, xvi
7. Transverse alliteration in Teutonic poetry. By O. F. EMER-
SON, xvi
8. Modern poetry and the revival of interest in Byron. By
GEORGE L. RAYMOND, xvi
9. The sources of Cynewulf's Christ, Part I. By ALBERT S.
COOK, xx
Report of the Auditing Committee, ------ xx
10. Lemercier, and the three unities. By JOHN R. EFPINGER,
JR., ^ xx
Discussion : By A. COHN, ; xx
CONTENTS. Vll
PAGE.
11. Adversative-Conjunctive relations. By R. H. WILSON, - xxi
12. The sources of Opitz's Buck von der deulschen Poeterei. By
THOMAS S. BAKER, - - - - - - xxi
13. The origin and meaning of 'Germani' (Tac. Germ. 2). By
A. GUDEMAN, -...._._ xxi
14. The International Correspondence. By EDWARD H. MAGILL, xxii
The Committee on the International Correspondence, - - - xxii
15. Old English musical terms. By F. M. PADELFORD, - - xxii
Annual Meeting of the American Dialect Society, - - - xxii
Social Reception, xxii
Report of the Committee on Place of Meeting, .... xxii
16. The origin of the Runes. By GEORGE HEMPL, ... xxiii
The Report of the Committee of Twelve, xxiii
Election of Officers, xxiv
17. The influence of the return of Spring on the earliest French
lyric poetry. By W. STUART SYMINGTON, ... xxv
18. From Franklin to Lowell. A century of New England pro-
nunciation. By C. H. GRANDGENT, .... xxv
19. Some tendencies in contemporary English poetry. By COR-
NELIUS WEYGA.NDT, - xxv
20. The development of the long u in modern English. By
EDWIN W. BOWEN, xxv
21. Experiments in translating Anglo-Saxon poetry. By J.
LESSLIE HALL, xxv
22. The influence of German literature in America from 1800 to
1825. By FREDERICK H. WILKENS, - xxvi
23. Archaisms in Modern French. By T. F. COLIN, ... xxvi
Final vote of thanks, xxvi
List of Officers, xxvii
List of Members, xxviii
List of Subscribing Libraries, xlii
Honorary Members, xliv
Koll of Members Deceased, xlv
The Constitution of the Association, xlvi
CONTENTS.
APPENDIX II.
PAGE.
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Central Divi-
sion of the Modern Language Association of America, held
at Lincoln, Nebraska, December 27, 28, 29, 1898.
Addresses of welcome, and the President's address, ... H
Keport of the Secretary, Hi
Report of the Treasurer, liii
Appointment of Committees, ------- Hy
1. Certain structural peculiarities of the I-novel. By KATHA-
RINE MERRILL, Iv
2. The stem-changing verbs in Spanish. By A. H. EDGREN, - Ivi
3. Leonard Cox and the first English rhetoric. By F. I.
CARPENTER, Ivii
4. The tense-limitations of some of the modal auxiliaries in
German. By W. H. CARRUTH, ----- Ivii
5. The poetic value of long words. By A. H. TOLMAN, - - lix
6. The origin of some ideas of sense-perception. By F. A.
WOOD, ---------- lix
7. Historical Dictionaries. By A. H. EDGREN, - lix
8. Dramatic Kenaissance. By M. ANSTICE HARRIS, lix
9. A method of teaching metrics. By E. P. MORTON, - Ix
10. Wilhelm M tiller and Italian popular poetry. By PHILIP S.
ALLEN, Ixi
11. The history of the Sigf rid legend. By JULIUS GOEBEL, - Ixi
Keport of the Committee of Twelve, ------ Ixvi
12. Le Covenant Vivien. By RAYMOND WEEKS, - Ixvi
13. The Finnsburgh Fragment, and its relation to the Finn epi-
sode in Beowulf. By LOUISE POUND, - Ixvii
14. Poe's critique of Hawthorne. By H. M. BELDEN, - - Ixvii
15. The concord of collectives in English. By C. ALPHONSO
SMITH, --- -- Ixix
16. The true relation of the Belfagor novels of Machiavelli,
Doni, and Brevio. By A. GERBER, - - - Ixx
Election of Officers, Ixxi
Report of the auditing committee, Ixxi
Vote of thanks, ---------- Ixxi
PUBLICATIONS
OF THE
MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA,
1899.
VOL. XIV, 1. NEW SERIES, VOL. VII, 1.
I. A STUDY OF THE ROMANCE OF THE SEVEN
SAGES WITH SPECIAL REFEKENCE TO THE
MIDDLE ENGLISH VERSIONS.
A WORD OF INTRODUCTION.
The main object of this study has been to investigate
thoroughly the relations of the Middle English versions of
the Seven 'Sages of Rome.
As preliminary to this investigation, a review of the history
of the romance in the several stages through which it has
passed before reaching English has been made. This survey,
a recapitulation of the results which modern scholarship has
attained in the study of the romance, has been made im-
partially, and with a view to set forth the most approved
views that have been held rather than to advance any new
theories of my own. Where these views are conflicting, as is
particularly the case with respect to the eastern versions, I
have endeavored to sift truth from error, though here
naturally some difficulty has been encountered. It is only
on the question of transmission of the romance that a view
differing from that of the best authorities has been taken.
The chapter on the French and the Italian versions has been
based in large part on the work of Gaston Paris, whose Deux
I
2 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Redactions has superseded all previous contributions, repre-
senting as it does the most recent and the best results that have
been attained in this branch of the study of the romance.
Additions which have been made consist largely in informa-
tion as to a number of manuscripts which were unknown to
Paris, or which have since been found.
The second and major part of the study has been devoted
to the Seven Sages in English. Here I have been preceded
by Petras and Buchner, the one dealing mainly with the
Middle English group, the other especially with the relations
of the Wynkyn de Worde and Eolland versions. The
dissertations of these two scholars are the only real contri-
butions which have been made to the study of the English
versions. It is therefore not surprising that many of the
current theories with regard to these versions are shown on
closer examination to be erroneous. The most far-reaching
of these misconceptions is, I believe, that which regards the
Wright version as independent of all other English versions.
My investigations lead me to the conviction that at least seven
of the eight Middle English manuscripts are related to each
other through a common Middle English original.
I regret that I have been forced to forego consideration of
one of the Middle English versions, the Asloan. I was
denied access to this manuscript by its owner, Lord Talbot
de Malahide, and learned of the existence of a transcript of it
in the University Library at Edinburgh when it was too late
to avail myself of it. Prof. Yarnhagen believes it to have
had an immediate basis on some Old French manuscript;
there are reasonable grounds for doubting this belief, however,
and I am unwilling to subscribe to it until a further comparison
with the remaining Middle English versions has been made.
This study leaves undone the most interesting, if not the
most valuable part of the work I had planned, a comparative
study of the stories themselves ; for not even the stories of
the Bidpai collection have enjoyed a wider vogue than those
of the Seven Sages. The task of tracing these in their travels
THE SEVEN SAGES. 3
and of collecting their analogues will be attempted in a future
publication, when it is hoped that an edition of one or more
of the unpublished Middle English manuscripts may also be
attempted.
I. THE EARLIER HISTORY OF THE EOMANCE.
I (a). The Romance in the Orient.
It is universally held to-day that the great collection of
popular stories known in the West as the Seven Sages of Rome,
in the East as the Book of Sindib&d, is of Indian origin.
This was well established by Deslongchamps already in 1838,
in his Essai sur les Fables Indiennes, 1 and has never since been
seriously brought in question. The Indian original, however,
has not yet been discovered, nor is it probable that it ever will
be; and it even admits of very considerable doubt whether
the romance ever existed in India in a form very near to that
in which it is first found.
All attempts, too, to show a kinship between the romance
and some surviving Sanskrit story have proved in large part
futile. Benfey first pointed out the analogy between the
introduction to the Pantchatantra and the framework of
the Sindibdd, 2 but he very justly concluded that the Pantcha-
tantra was indebted to the Sindibdd rather than the Sindibdd
to the Pantchatantra. In a later publication, 3 he called atten-
tion to the similarity between the Sindibdd and the legend
of Kunala and Asoka, and Cassel has boldly assumed this
legend to be the ultimate basis of the romance. 4
The story of Kunala is widely known in Sanskrit litera-
ture. Asoka, a famous Indian king, had, after the death of
his first wife, married one of the latter's attendants. The
1 Published at Paris, 1838, in conjunction with Leroux de Lincy's edi-
tion of the Sept Sages de Rome.
8 Pantchatantra, Leipzig, 1859, i, \ 8; also Melanges Asiat., ill, p. 188 f.
3 Orient and Occident, in, p. 177 f.
4 Mischle Sindbad, Berlin, 1888, pp. 10 f., 62.
4 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
new queen had been rejected previous to this by Kunala,
the son of Asoka by another wife, and bore in consequence the
greatest hatred toward him. The prince is sent by Asoka to
one of the provinces to put down a rebellion, where he wins
great distinction for himself. In the meantime the king is
stricken with a fatal disease, and determines to recall the
young prince and place him on the throne. The queen,
realizing what this would mean to her, offers to cure the king
provided he grant her one favor. Having been restored to
health through her agency, the king agrees to grant her what-
ever she may desire. She asks to be permitted to exercise
supreme authority for seven days, during which time, at her
instigation, the prince's beautiful eyes l are put out. Kunala
subsequently presents himself before his father in the guise
of a lute-player, and is recognized. The queen is burned in
expiation of her crime. 2
Such in brief outline is the legend, which, if it is indeed
the ultimate origin of the Sindibdd, at least does not suggest
an obvious relation to it.
Abundant proof of a Sanskrit origin of the Sindibdd, how-
ever, is had in the nature or content of its stories and, in
particular, of its framework, which is distinctly Buddhistic.
Cassel has treated this aspect of the problem at great length. 3
He would concede as the result of his investigations that some
of the many varying stories were not found in the hypotheti-
cal original, and that no one of the extant versions faithfully
represents this original. Nor is it strange that this should be
the case, for it would be a very miracle had the collection
remained intact throughout a possible half-dozen redactions.
It is, accordingly, impossible to determine which of the stories
were in the original, or which not; this, for the present at
least, must remain largely a matter of conjecture. Still, this
. 10.
2 For further details of this legend, see Burnouf, Introduction d Phistoire
du Buddhisme indien, Paris, 1844, pp. 144 f., 406.
3 Mischk Sindbad, p. 82 f.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 5
much may be accepted as established, that some of the original
stories, the ethical purpose, and many of the general charac-
teristics of the Indian prototype have been preserved.
The Eastern group comprises a Hebrew, a Syriac, a Greek,
an Old Spanish, two closely related and a third somewhat
anomalous Persian, and three cognate Arabic versions. All
these differ more or less from each other, but, as compared
with the Western group, with which they have in common
only four stories and the framework, they distinctly stand
apart and make up a separate group. There are many
important details in which the two groups differ, but the
most marked features which characterize the Eastern group
are, first, that each sage tells two tales as against one each in
the western versions 1 a feature which was probably not
in the Sanskrit original ; and, secondly, in contradistinction to
the entire western group with the exception of the Dolopathos,
that the prince has only one instructor, the philosopher Sindi-
bad. This illustrious teacher is the central figure of all
versions in the East, where by general consent the romance
is called after him the Book of Sindibdd. 2
The origin of the name Sindibdd is in dispute. Benfey
traces it back to *Siddhapati, 3 Teza to *Siddhapala; i Cassel,
on the contrary, holds that the word was coined first after
leaving India, and is neither Siddhapatl nor Siddhapala, but
*Sindubadhjdja = Indian teacher. 5
The name of the prince has not been preserved, but the
king is named in each one of the representative eastern texts.
In the Syriac and the Greek he is called Kurus; in the Old
1 This is the case in all eastern versions save the Seven Vezirs and the
version of Nachshebi : in the former some sages tell one, some two stories ;
in the latter each sage tells only one.
2 Prof. Khys Davids in his work on the Jatakas (Buddhist Birth Stories,
Boston, 1880, vol. i, pp. XLI, xciv) seems to have confounded this romance
with the story of Sinbad the Sailor of the Arabian Nights. The two are in
no way related.
3 Pantchatantra, I, \ 5 (p. 23).
4 II Libro del Sette Savj, ed. D'Ancona, Pisa, 1864, p. XLVTI.
6 Mischle Sindbad, p. 66.
6 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Spanish, Alcos, which may be considered a variant of Kurus
(Al-Curus), since the Spanish holds very closely with the
Greek and Syriac, and goes back to the same original. The
Hebrew version, on the other hand, calls the king Pal Pur,
or, as Ben fey has suggested, Kai (king) Pur, and Cassel
would identify this Pur with the Indian king Porus, ruler
of India at the time of the Alexandrian invasion, and third
before King Asoka of the Kunala story. Porus, Cassel
maintains, is a substitution for the less famous Asoka of the
original a transference of the Asoka tradition to Porus. 1
The Kurus of the Greek and Syriac he would explain in like
manner as a similar transference, after leaving India, from
Porus, or Asoka, to the far-famed Cyrus of the Persians. 2
The route of transmission from India westward is very
generally assumed to have been through Pahlavi into Arabic. 3
There seems to be little evidence, however, of the existence of
a Pahlavi version, unless the current tradition to that effect,
or the fact that the Kalila wa Dimna had such an inter-,
mediate stage, be regarded as such. Hence Cassel takes a
radically different view from that generally held, maintaining
that the lost Arabic text goes back not to a Pahlavi but to
a Syriac version, which, in its turn, goes back to the San-
skrit, the collection, then, having been transmitted westward
through the agency of the Manicheans in the third or fourth
century of our era. 4 The Hebrew and the lost Arabic versions
he conceives to be coordinate redactions of this early Syriac
version, finding support of this theory, so far as it concerns
the Hebrew text, in the Syriac influence which the language
of the latter exhibits. At the same time, although he thus
claims for the Hebrew version the greatest antiquity of any
text which has been preserved, Cassel admits that, in addition
to the Syriac influence, the Hebrew text also contains traces
of a Greek influence (as, for instance, in the names of the
1 Ibid., pp. 63, 212. 2 Ibid., p. 61 .
3 So Comparetti, Noldeke, Clouston, and others.
4 Mischle Sindbad, pp. 61, 310.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 7
sages)/ which is of itself sufficiently indicative of the lack of
conclusive proof of his thesis. 2
The Arabic text, unlike the early Syriac, is in no way
hypothetical, but the evidence that it once existed, even as
late as the thirteenth century, 3 is conclusive. Its influence
has been very wide, and, until Cassel, it has been generally
assumed to be the source, either mediate or immediate, of the
entire Eastern group. The Syriac Sindban and the Old
Spanish version are believed to be its closest representatives.
Its author, according to the testimony of the introduction to
the Syntipas, was a certain Musa, and its date has been con-
jecturally placed by Noldeke 4 and others in the eighth century.
Only ten versions belonging to the Eastern type have sur-
vived. These are the Hebrew Mischle Sindbad, the Syriac
Sindban, the Greek Syntipas, the Persian Sindibdd-ndmeh and
its source, the text of As-Samarquandi, the Old Spanish Libro
de los Engannos, the three Arabic versions of the Seven Vezirs,
and the eighth night of the Tuti-ndmeh of Nachshebi. 5
The relative age of these is not definitely known. Early
scholars as a rule held that the Hebrew version antedated all
others ; but this view was summarily rejected by Comparetti 6
and his followers, who claimed greatest antiquity for the
Syntipas, a distinction of which it was robbed by Rodiger's
discovery of the Syriac version. The Nachshebi version has
also been held to be the oldest, 7 and Clouston in recent years
1 These are, according to Cassel (p. 219 f.), Sindibad, Hippocrates, Apu-
leius, Lucian, Aristotle, Pindar, and Homer.
2 Mischle Sindbad, pp. 222, 310.
3 The Old Spanish version was made from it in 1253.
4 In his review of Baethgen's edition of the Sindban in Zeitschrift d. d.
Morg. Gesellschaft, xxxni, p. 518.
5 A11 these, with the exception of the text of As-Samarquandi, have been
rendered accessible either in the original or in translations, and in most
cases in both.
6 Comparetti, Book of Sindibad, p. 53 f. Citation is made from the English
translation by Coote, for the Folk Lore Socy., London, 1882. The original
Eicerche appeared at Milan in 1869.
7 Brockhaus for example.
8 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
has contended for the Sindibdd-ndmeh as representing most
closely the hypothetical original. 1 The result of the latest
investigation, as has been seen, is to return to the view of
early scholars, which gives to the Hebrew text first place both
as regards date and fidelity to the lost original. Such is
CassePs conclusion, which, although somewhat revolutionary,
is arrived at by argument which at least serves to invalidate
Comparetti's assumption that the Hebrew text stands for a
late and very free version of the romance. It is hardly legiti-
mate to conclude, from the circumstance that the Mischle
Sindbad stands apart from the remaining members of the
Eastern group, that it is, on that account, less faithful to
the original tradition. Nor is Comparetti's argument for the
identification of the Joel to whom the work is attributed by
Rossi and the British Museum manuscript, with the Joel
who is reported to have translated the Kalila wa Dimna into
Hebrew, and the consequent establishment of a thirteenth
century date for this version, any more valid. 2 At the same
time, it is to be regretted that Cassel has attained no definite
results as to chronology. 3
The Mischle Sindbad 4 contains twenty stories, three of
which, Absalom, The Disguised Youth, and The Humpbacks
(amatores), appear in no other version of the Eastern group.
Its first three stories come in the same order as in the Syriac,
Greek, and Old Spanish versions. Other agreements which
are evident on reference to a comparative table serve appar-
ently to hold these four texts together; 5 this, however, is
probably rather due to a more faithful preservation of the
1 Clouston, Book ofSindibdd [Glasgow], 1884, p. L f.
2 Comparetti, Book of Sindibad, p. 53 f. * Mischle Sindbad, p. 310.
4 The Hebrew text has undergone the following editions: Sengelman
(with German translation), Halle, 1842; Carmoly (with French transla-
tion), Paris, 1849; and Cassel (German translation and copious notes),
Berlin, 1888.
6 For the most complete comparative table, see Landau, Quellen des Deka-
meron, 2d ed., Stuttgart, 1884; see also Cassel, p. 362 f., and Comparetti,
p. 25.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 9
y
ultimate original on the part of these than to any very close
relationship with the Hebrew, and comparison will show not
only that these three have much in common which does
not appear in the Hebrew, but also that the latter has many
features (the naming of the sages, for example) which are
peculiarly its own. Additional importance attaches to the
Hebrew text from the fact that it probably bears a closer
relation to the Western group than any other known eastern
version. 1
The Syriac Sindban was discovered by Rodiger in 1866,
and was published with a German translation by Baethgen in
1879. 2 The text is unfortunately fragmentary, especially at
the end. Although at first doubted by Comparetti, it has
been satisfactorily shown by Noldeke to be the Syriac basis
of the Syntipas, alluded to in the prologue of the latter. 3 The
immediate original of the Sindban must then be the last
Arabic text of Musa. Noldeke believes it to belong to the
tenth century.
The Greek Syntipas is, in interest and importance, second
only to the Hebrew text. As compared with its Syriac origi-
nal, it is much more full and ornate, an almost unfailing
characteristic of a later text. Its author was, as the prologue
establishes, a certain Michael Andreopulos and the translation
was made at the command of one Gabriel /AeXcovv/jLos. Com-
paretti would identify this Gabriel with Duke Gabriel of
Meliteue, and thus establish the date of the work as the
second half of the eleventh century; 4 but this, while a gain
in a measure, is little more than a happy suggestion. Far
less probability has CassePs proposition that the reference is
to the angel Gabriel. 6 The text was first published by
J See the next chapter on "The Transmission of the Romance to the
Occident."
8 Baethgen, Sindban, oder die Sieben Weisen Meister, Leipzig, 1879. An
English translation by H. Gollancz appeared in Folk Lore, vin, p. 99 f.,
June, 1897.
3 ZeUschr. d. d. Morg. Gesellschaft, xxxin, p. 513 f.
4 Book of Smdibdd, p. 57. Mischle Sindbad, p. 368.
10 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Boissonade, and has been lately critically edited by Eberhard. 1
A modern Greek adaptation of the older text is of little value
in a comparative study of the romance. 2
The Libro de los Engannos, like the Syriac text, was not
known until late in the century. It is, according to its pro-
logue, a translation from the Arabic, made in the year 1253.
The text is complete, but very corrupt. Its closest affinities
are with the Greek and Syriac versions, with both of which it
exhibits intimate agreement in content and order of stories. It
seems to have had no influence at all on modern Spanish litera-
ture. The first edition of the text appeared in Comparetti's
P,icerche,'m 1869; a second edition, with an admirable Eng-
lish translation appended, appeared in the English edition of
this book in 1882. 3
The Persian Sindibad-ndmeh 4 " dates from the year 1375.
It purports to be based on a Persian prose text which goes
back to the Arabic. Clouston first suggested that this origi-
nal was the text of As-Samarquandi, which was known in the
early part of the century, but which had subsequently been
lost sight of. By the rediscovery of a manuscript of this
version in 1891, he has been enabled to establish this conjec-
ture as a fact. 5 The As-Samarquandi text agrees closely with
the Sindibdd-ndmefi in content, the only important difference
being the substitution on the part of the latter of one or two
extraneous stories for those it found in its original. The
agreement in order of stories is close throughout. The date
of the prose text falls late in the twelfth century. It differs
considerably from the rest of the Eastern group, but is nearer
1 Eberhard, Fabulae Romanenses Greece, etc., I (Teubner), Leipzig, 1872.
2 For the Syntipas in later literature, see Murko, " Die Geschichte v. d.
Sieben Weisen b. d. Slaven," Wiener Akad. Sitzungsb., Ph. Hist. CL, cxxn,
No. x, p. 4 f.
3 Book o/Sindibad, pp. 73-164.
4 This text has not yet been edited. An abstract of it was given by
Falconer in the Asiatic Journal, xxxv, p. 169 f. and xxxvi, pp. 4 f., 99 f. ;
a complete translation into English appears in Clouston's Book of Sindibdd.
5 Athenaeum for Sept. 12, 1891, p. 355.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 11
to the Syriac, Greek and Spanish versions than to the Hebrew.
There appears to be no evidence to support Clouston's sugges-
tion that it represents the Sanskrit prototype more faithfully
than any other known version ; neither is Modi's contention
for a close relation with the story of Kaus, Sonddbeh, and
Sidvash 1 by any means convincing; but the tradition which
makes its origin in the Arabic text is doubtless well founded.
Under the head of the Seven Vezirs fall three versions which
have been introduced into the frame of the Arabian Nights.
These are the texts of Habicht and Scott, and the Boulaq
edition. 2 They are of late composition, and of comparatively
slight value for the present purpose.
The text contained in the eighth night of Nachshebi 3 is
one of the most interesting of the Eastern group, and has
given rise to much speculation. It differs considerably from
all other related versions, having but six stories, only five
of which appear elsewhere in the Eastern group. All five of
these in the fuller versions are second vezir's tales, and as
they were also found originally in the Sukasaptatl (though
not connected as with Nachshebi), it has been conjectured by
Comparetti that they were first introduced into the Sindibdd
after leaving India, and that Nachshebi, observing this, again
inserted them in his free translation of the Tutl-ndmeh. and
practically in the same form in which he found them in the
Sindibdd. 4 Comparetti would further identify the collection
before and after this addition with the ' Greater ' and ' Lesser 9
Sindibdd referred to by the tenth century Mohammed Ibn el
Warrak. A radically different theory has been advanced by
Noldeke, who maintains that the ' Greater ' Sindibdd has been
lost. 5 As for the version of the Sindibdd whence Nachshebi
1 Modi, Dante and Viraf and Gardis and Kaus, Bombay, 1892.
2 1001 Nights, Breslau, 1840, xv, pp. 102-172; Scott, Tales, Anecdotes and
Letters, Shrewsbury, 1800, p. 38 f. ; 1001 Nights, Boulaq, 1863, in, pp. 75-124.
3 Brockhaus, Nachshebl's S. W. M., Leipzig, 1845; translated by Teza,
D'Ancona ed. of Sette Sayj., p. xxxvn f.
*ook of Sindibdd, p. 37 f.
6 Zeitschr. d. d. Morg. Gesellschaft, xxxiu, p. 521 f.
12 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
drew, both Comparetti and Noldeke concur in the belief that
it was the text on which the Sindibdd-ndmeh was based, or
that of As-Samarquandi. The date of the Nachshebi version
is late, as its author died in 1329.
Besides the ten versions catalogued above, the existence of
certain others which have been lost is proved by sundry refer-
ences from oriental writers. A Persian text is attributed to
Azraki by Daulat Shah, and there are several references from
the ninth and tenth centuries to works which do not seem to
be identical with anything which has been preserved. The
best-known of these, probably, is Masudi's (943) statement
that in the reign of Kurush " lived es-Sondbad, who is the
author of the book of the seven vezirs, the teacher and boy,
and the wife of the king. This is the book which bears the
name Kitdb-es-Sindbdd." l A still earlier reference is that of
Al-Yaqubi (880). Both of these may refer to the Arabic
text of Musa, though this is by no means certain. Most
perplexing of all is the reference, already mentioned, to a
f Greater ? and a ( Lesser 7 JBook of Sindibdd.
Doubtless many more versions have been lost than this
would indicate ; but since nearly a third of the known texts
have been revealed only within the last generation, it may be
hoped that the near future has in store many revelations
which will materially serve to dispel the mist which now
surrounds almost the entire question of relations in the East.
I (b). Transmission of the Romance to the Occident.
The Greek Syntipas and the Old Spanish Libro de los
Engannos are the only representatives of the Eastern group
which have arisen on European territory. Neither one of
these, however, can be considered a connecting link in the
chain of transmission; nor can, in fact, with all certainty,
any one member of the Eastern group claim this distinction.
1 Masudi, Meadows of Gold, translated by Sprenger, London, 1841, p. 175.
Masudi was not well acquainted with the romance, as follows from the fact
that he attributes its authorship to Sindibad.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 13
The question of transmission is, and must doubtless always
remain, very much shrouded in darkness. The two groups,
having in common only four stories and the framework, and
having in these, also, many radical differences, cannot be
thought of as connected through free or literal translation,
nor by intermediate redactions; the only valid explanation
of the enormous gap existing between them must repose in
the assumption of a basis for the western original in popular
tradition. This alone can explain the difference between the
two groups.
But this assumption should not carry with it (as with
Comparetti apparently; 1. c., p. 2) the further assumption
that, since the medium of transmission was oral, all possi-
bility of ever determining the specific original of the Western
group is thereby done away with. This need not follow at
all. The oral tradition on which the western parent version
had its basis, must itself have had some basis, and this cannot
have been the entire Eastern group, nor with any degree of
probability any two of its members ; it was some one member
of the Eastern group. Accordingly it is legitimate to endeavor
to determine which one of the Eastern versions is the origi-
nal, or the closest representative of the original, of the Western
group.
Modern scholars in general have refrained from any investi-
gation of this stage of the history of the romance. With a
single exception, the only judgments upon the problem date
from the earlier part of the century. Dacier, Keller, Deslong-
champs, Wright, D'Ancona, and others put forth claims for one
or another of the Eastern group (some for the Greek, others
for the Hebrew), as the original of the western type. But
all these claims were unsustained by any evidence adduced,
and were in every case scarcely more than conjectures. The
modern scholar who alone has put himself on record here is
Landau ; * and he is, at the same time the only one of the
1 Marcus Landau, Quellen des Dekameron, 2d ed., Stuttgart, 1884.
14 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
i
whole number who has made a serious effort to sustain his
position. At the basis of Landau's work, however, lies the
assumption that the Latin prose Historia Septem Sapientum
(H) is the parent version of the Western group, an assump-
tion which is entirely gratuitous, for surely Gaston Paris has
succeeded in demonstrating that H is not the original western
text; while the majority of Landau's arguments therefore hold
also in a comparison of the oldest texts with the Eastern
group, it is in view of this fundamental misconception on his
part that he has in reality proved nothing more than that the
fourteenth century Historia is nearer the Hebrew than to any
other eastern version.
With the proof of the unoriginality of H, the question
as to the nearness of the various sub-types of the western
group to the parent version has been left open. The oldest
text preserved is the Dolopathos; but this is a unique version,
and, as will be shown in the next chapter, cannot with the
slightest probability be looked upon as the western original,
though it is assuredly connected in some way with the pre-
vailing, type of the Western group, the Seven Sages of Rome.
Next to the Dolopathos the Scala Coeli (8) and Keller (K)
texts have been treated as the oldest by the latest and best
authorities ; to these, in view of its prime importance and the
uncertainty as to its relations, we should like to add the type
A*. 1 No proof of the priority of any one of these has yet been
brought forward ; moreover, the earliest dating proposed for
any of them is the first half of the thirteenth century. We
may begin, then, with the assumption that the immediate
parent version of the Western group has been lost. At the
same time, since the Dolopathos, which dates from the last
quarter of the twelfth century, is evidently based on some
version of the prevailing western type, we may assume for
1 The Old French versions A, C, D of Paris (Deux Redactions) have been
" starred " throughout in order to avoid confusion with the Middle English
(M. E.) versions A, C, D.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 15
this lost original a date not later than the middle of the
twelfth century.
A twelfth century original having been assumed for the
Western group, the Libro de los Engannos (xin cent.), the
Sindibdd-ndmeh (xiv cent.), and the Seven Vezirs (very late)
may be eliminated from the investigation ; likewise the unique
text of Nachshebi for reasons that are obvious. There remain
the Misdde Sindbad, the Sindban, and the Syntipas, no one
of which can be dated later than the eleventh century, if
we accept CassePs view as to the comparative antiquity of
the Hebrew text. Further, since the western original of the
Western group has been lost, comparison can be made with
the latter only on the basis of the constant elements appearing
in its most ancient versions, 8, K, A.* Accordingly, the
comparison must be instituted between the Hebrew, Syriac,
and Greek versions, on the one hand, and 8, K, JL* on the
other.
The framework of the romance has undergone a radical
change in the course of its transmission westward. There is
no longer mention of a philosopher Siudibad, but the seven
sages of Eome become the central figures, and play the double
r6le of instructors and defenders of the prince. Sundry other
characteristic features of the Eastern group, such as the prince's
early stupidity, the multiplicity of the king's wives, etc., have
been lost; but the most far-reaching change consists in the
curtailment of stories, each sage telling only one story in
the Western group as against the prevailing number of two
in the Eastern.
In these variations the Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac versions
present essential agreement ; but there are several features in
which these three texts do not agree, and it is significant here
that where the Western group preserves any of these features,
it is always in agreement with the Hebrew, and in no single
instance with the Greek or the Syriac.
16 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
The following features peculiar to the Hebrew text as
compared with the rest of the Eastern group reappear in the
oldest western versions : l
(1). The seven sages are not referred to simply as such,
but are mentioned by name 2 (Landau, p. 48).
(2). They vie in their efforts to secure the office of instructor
of the prince 3 (Landau, p. 48).
(3). These sages, and not the vezirs or counsellors of the
king as with the rest of the Eastern group, relate the stories
which preserve the prince's life 4 (Landau, p. 48).
The mode of punishment of the guilty queen offers nothing
determining. The eastern texts have little in common here
'All these several bits of argument adduced here and on the following
pages, with the exception of those under the story avis, have been advanced
by Landau (pp. 47- 50) ; in addition to these, owing to his false hypothesis
of the originality of H, Landau has made use of two other features in which
H agrees with the Hebrew text versus the remainder of the Eastern group,
but which must be cancelled, since they are also peculiar to H. These are
( 1 ) the disguised-youth incident of H, which Landau (p. 48 f.) inclines to trace
back to the seventeenth story of the Mischle Sindbad, and (2) amalores, the
twelfth story of the Historia, which is ultimately the same as the Hebrew
story of the Hunchbacks (M. S. 18 ; see BeMier, Les Fabliaux, Paris, 1893, p.
201 f.). Neither of these appears in any other western version, whence
the only legitimate inference that they were not in the lost western original,
but are late incorporations on the part of if into the frame of the collection.
2 This, a characteristic feature of the Western group, appears in all
western texts save those (as S) which have been abridged. The names
of the sages in the Mischle Sindbad are Sindibad, Hippocrates, Apuleius,
Lucian, Aristotle, Pindar, and Homer (Cassel, p. 253); in the Western
group, Bancillas, Ancilles, Malquidras, Lentulus, Caton, Jesse, and Meros.
For variants of these, see Landau, Quellen des Dekameron, p. 60 n.
3 In the Hebrew (see Cassel, p. 255 f.) one proposes to instruct him in
five years, another in two years, a third in one year, and finally Sindibad
offers to make him wisest of all men in six months. The term of years
proposed by the sages in the western versions varies from seven to one.
4 Carmoly (p. 65) states expressly that these were the king's counsellors,
and not the sages, who, he says, were now in hiding to avoid the king's
anger; but, as Landau (p. 48) points out, the sage Aristotle is referred to
by name at the end of the third story as having saved the prince's life by
his stories on the preceding day (Cassel, p. 267); accordingly, although
there is a slight confusion, it is evident that Carmoly is in error.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 17
beyond the bare outline. In the Greek and As-Samarquandi
texts, the woman is condemned to wander through the streets
on an ass, with her head shaved and her face soiled, and with
two criers proclaiming her shame. In the Hebrew text, she
is, at the prince's request, pardoned unconditionally. The
Syriac text is fragmentary here. Of the western feature of
condemning the queen to die the death prepared for the
prince, there seems to be no hint in the eastern versions.
A comparison of the four stories (canis, aper, avis, and
senescalcus) common to the two main groups also shows many
variations, but here, too, where the Mischle Sindbad differs
from the Syntipas and other versions of the Eastern group, it
will be seen to accord in several particulars with the Western
group.
(1). Canis. The story canis, the only one found in all
versions of the Seven Sages, both eastern and western, exhibits
in the earliest western versions no noteworthy variations from
the prevailing type of the story in the East. In the Sindibdd-
ndmeh it is a weasel or ichneumon which attacks the sleeping
child ; in all other versions it is a snake. The child is left in
charge of nurses in the western versions, a feature entirely
foreign to the Eastern group. The derivative types, Dolo-
pathos and Historia, introduce a bird (Dolop., a goshawk;
H, a falcon) which wakes the child on the snake's approach.
This and several other additions, especially to the Dolopathos,
are not found in the types 8, K, and J.*, a circumstance which
well warrants the inference that they were not in the western
parent version.
(2). Aper. This story, like canis, has been subjected to
considerable alteration in the course of transmission, e. g., in
the East, the boar comes to his death as the result of holding
up his head in the expectation of more fruit (the sinews drying
up) ; in the West, he is slain by the shepherd, who, descending
the tree until in reach of him, " claws " him on the back until
he falls asleep, and then dispatches him with his knife. But
2
18 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
the special value in the collation of this story lies in the fact
that the Hebrew text coincides with the Western group in
having a man chased up the tree, while in the remaining eastern
versions it is a monkey who thus flees from the boar. This
coincidence, first noted by Deslongchamps (I. c., p. 110 n.),
is one of the most striking agreements of 'the Hebrew text with
the Western group.
(3). Senescalcus. A comparison of the various versions of
senescaleus reveals no eastern motive reproduced in the West
which is not common to the entire Eastern group. The
western version of the story agrees in general outline with
the eastern, but is distinguished from it by the introduction
of even more objectionable details than those which characterize
its oriental original. The western texts vary in the method
of punishing the seneschal : in S he is hanged ; in jfiT, JL*,
and the prevailing sub-groups, he is banished by the king on
pain of death in case he return. In the East the bathman
(=: seneschal) dies by his own hand.
(4). Avis. The essential features of this famous story have
been preserved remarkably intact thoughout all versions.
There are, however, two features which occur in the East
only in the Misehle Sindbad which have been preserved in
the western texts. These are (1) that the wife goes on the
house-top in order to sprinkle water over the bird's cage, and
(2) that she is aided and abetted in her efforts to deceive the
bird by her maid. Of the first of these we have in no other
eastern version any hint ; likewise, for the second, there is no
real suggestion in any of the Eastern group besides the Misehle
Sindbadj for, although there is mention elsewhere of the maid,
it is only as having been suspected of informing on her mis-
tress, and never in the r6le assigned her in the Hebrew and
the western versions. 1
1 The arguments made by Landau under avis are not valid. That the
bird speaks Hebrew as well as Latin, is not true of any of the oldest
western versions, but appears to be peculiar to H; while the argument
from the killing of the bird in H and the Hebrew text is altogether in-
THE SEVEN SAGES. 19
To recapitulate then, the features peculiar to the Hebrew
and the oldest western texts are as follows :
(1). The seven sages are mentioned by name.
(2). There is a rivalry between the sages in their efforts to
secure the tutelage of the prince.
(3). The sages, not the king's counsellors, defend the prince.
(4). In aper, the adventure happens not to an ape, but to a
man.
(5). In avis, (a) the deception is practised on the bird
through an opening in the house-top, and (b) the maid appears
as an assistant of the faithless wife.
A comparison with the Syntipas fails to bring out any
feature exclusively common to it and the Western group.
The same holds for the Syriac and later versions. The
question is then narrowed down to the significance of the
agreements between the Hebrew and the western texts. Are
they only accidental, or have they a real significance ? Cer-
tainly they do not prove a direct relationship between the
Hebrew and any western version, as Deslongchamps and
Landau have maintained ; nor are they sufficient to justify
the thought of a connection of the Eastern and Western groups
through intermediate literary stages; indeed, they yield no
conclusive proof of anything with regard to the problem of
relationship. Nevertheless, they are in a measure significant ;
though some of them are in all probability accidental, yet it
does not seem possible that all of them can be mere coinci-
dences. They justify, at least, the negative conclusion that
neither the Syntipas (nor the Sindban) was the eastern original
whence sprang the tradition which culminated in the parent
version of the Western group. And while they do not prove
the Hebrew text to represent this eastern original, they
do, nevertheless, establish this as a probability, with the
only other alternative in the supposition that the eastern
original of the Western group has been lost.
valid, since the same feature is found in all eastern versions save the
Syniipas, and would be in any case of little value for the purpose to which
Landau would put it, since it is a simple and natural variation.
KILLIS CAMPBELL.
I (c). The Romance in France and Holy.
Between the eastern and western types of the Seven Sages,
as has been seen, there is a very wide difference. Four of the
original stories and the main outline of the eastern framework
have been preserved in the western versions, but, as Comparetti
has aptly said, " there is no eastern version which differs so
much from the others as the whole Western group differs from
the Eastern, whether it be in the form of the fundamental
story or in the tales which are inserted in it." In explanation
of this wide difference a basis has been assumed for the Western
group in oral accounts.
Where these oral accounts first took literary form has not
been, and probably never will be, satisfactorily determined.
Some have maintained an origin on Latin territory ; but the
probabilities favor a French origin, though it is more than
possible that the parent version was written in the Latin
language.
The oldest form, apparently, under which the western type
has come down to us is the Dolopathos. There can be little
doubt, however, that the more widely known Sept Sages de
Rome, of which there survive many manuscripts dating from
a period but a little later than that of the earliest version of
the Dolopathos, preserves more nearly the form and contents
of the western parent version. And it is under this form that
the romance has acquired its marvellous popularity in France,
whence it has penetrated into nearly every other country of
Europe.
With regard to the relationship of these two forms or groups
under which the romance appears in the West, early scholars
were very much in error. For a long time it was believed
that the poetical version of the Dolopathos found its source in
the Latin prose Historia Septem Sapientum-, 1 again, it was
always assumed as fundamental that the Historia antedated
1 The most widely known of all versions of our romance ; see below.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 21
and was the ultimate western original of the entire Western
group, these two misconceptions pervaded the entire litera-
ture on the romance during the first half of this century. The
error of the first was first shown by Montaiglon in 1856, 1 and
its utter absurdity was conclusively proved a few years later
by Oesterley's discovery of the Dolopathos of Johannes, from
which Herbert had made his poem. 2 The second was current
even until the appearance of Gaston Paris's Deux Redactions'
in 1876, in which the comparatively recent date of the His-
toria, and its immediate dependence on J.*, has been placed
beyond question.
1 . The Dolopathos. The Dolopathos exists in two versions,
the Latin prose of Johannes de Alta Silva and the Old French
poem of Herbert. The latter is preserved, so far as is known,
in but three manuscripts ; 4 of the former, there are known,
besides the original manuscript discovered by Oesterley, three
late copies pointed out by Mussafia, 5 an Innsbruck, 6 and
1 In the preface to his edition of the Herbert version : Li Romans de
Dolopathos, ed. Brunei and Montaiglon, Paris, 1856.
8 This manuscript was discovered by Oesterley in 1873, and was published
by him in the same year: Johannis de Alta Silva Dolopathos . . . ., Strasburg.
See reviews by Paris, Romania, u, p. 481 f. ; by Studemund, Z.f. d. A., xvn,
p. 415 f. and xvin, p. 221 f. ; and by Kohler, Jahrb. f. rom. u. engl. Lit.,
xiu, p. 328 f. Several manuscripts discovered by Mussafia ( Wiener Akad.
Sitzungsb., Ph. Hist. Cl., XLVIII, p. 246 f., 1864) prior to this, and at first
supposed to be original, were soon shown to be fifteenth century copies
of the older manuscript.
'Published in the Soc. d. Anc. Textesfr. for 1876. For the Historia, see
pp. XXVJII-XLIII.
4 See Paris in Romania, n, p. 503. A leaf of a fourteenth century MS. of
the Herbert version has been lately acquired by the BibliothSque Nationale
Nouv. Acq.fr. 934, No. 6 (Bulletin de la Soc. d. Anc. Textesfr., for 1896, p.
71 f.). See also Haupt's Altd. Blatter, I, p. 119 f., for a' German version of
six stories of the Dolopathos.
6 See Wiener Akad. Sitzungsb., Ph. Hist. Cl., XLVIII, p. 246 f.
6 Also brought to light by Oesterley.
7 Usually overlooked ; see Ward, Catalogue of Romances, London, 1893, n,
p. 228 f.
22 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Johannes de Alta Silva, the author of the Latin original,
was a Cistercian monk of the monastery of Haute Seille. His
work bears the title Dolopathos, sive Opusculum de rege et
septem Sapientibus. It was dedicated to Bishop Bertrand of
Metz, who had jurisdiction over the monastery of Haute Seille
from 1184 (when it was transferred from the see of Toul to
the see of Metz) to 1212, during which period, since Johannes
would naturally dedicate to his own bishop, we may safely
place the composition of his work. Paris favors a dating
between 1207 and 1212 (Romania, II, p. 501).
The Old French poem of Herbert was made from the Latin
prose text of Johannes toward the end of the first quarter of
the thirteenth century (Montaiglon, 1223-1226 ; Paris, before
1223).
This type of the romance diifers from all other western
types in having only one instructor for the prince. For this
reason it has been conjectured that it was founded on some
oriental original, but there is no real evidence in support of
this. In the suppression of the queen's stories, a feature in
which it agrees with the JNachshebi version, equally as little
indication of an immediate eastern original is to be found.
The Dolopathos has only one story (cam's) in common with
the Eastern group, and inasmuch as this, together with three
other of its stories (gaza, puteus, and inclusa), is also found in
the Sept Sages de Rome, it is reasonably certain that the monk
Johannes was acquainted with some version of the latter type. 1
There is only one alternative supposition, viz. that both types
grew up independently of each other and almost contempo-
raneously, the one drawing only one story from the traditions
brought from the East, while the other drew this and three
others in addition, with the further coincidence that both
receive, as the result of like influence and environment, three
stories (gaza, puteus, and inclusa) in common which were not
1 See Comparetti to the contrary ; Vergil in the Middle Ages, translated by
Benecke, London, 1895, p. 234 f.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 26
in the eastern framework. That such was the case is, to say
the least, very improbable.
But, in any case, the prose Dolopathos was made not from
written, but from oral sources. This is expressly stated by
its author who says he wrote non ut wsa, sed ut audita and
is borne out by the introduction of the Lohengrin story, which
appears here for the first time, 1 as well as by the variations to
which both framework and stories have been subjected.
The poetical version of Herbert is based directly on the
Latin prose version of Johannes. It contains many details
and several important episodes which do not appear in the
text discovered by Oesterley, chief among which additions are
(1) the story inclusa, which has been fused with puteus in
the poem, and (2) a very interesting episode with which gaza
has been supplemented. Gaston Paris 2 thinks that these were
contained in Herbert's original, which he believes to have
been an enlarged copy of the first draft of the work as seen
in the Oesterley manuscript ; but whether they are to be thus
explained, or are to be attributed to the independence of the
poet, has not yet been definitely settled.
The Herbert version is very long, containing nearly 13,000
lines. In both length and style it stands in striking contrast
to the Keller metrical version of the Sept Sages de Rome (K), B
which, although it has nearly twice as many stories, has only
5,060 lines. The Dolopathos has an introduction of about
4,800 lines where K has but 68.
The king in this branch of the Western group bears the
name Dolopathos, and rules over the island of Sicily. The
prince is called Lucinius. Before his birth it is predicted that
he will become very wise, but will undergo many hardships,
and will ultimately become a worshipper of the true God.
1 See Todd, La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne, Introduction, p. in f., in
Publications of the Mod. Lang. Assn. of America, vol. iv, 1889. See also Paris's
review in Romania, xix, p. 314 f.
2 Romania, u, p. 500.
3 See the dissertation of Ehret, Der Verfasser des Roman des Sept Sages und
Berbers, Heidelberg, 1886.
24 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
The prince's instruction begins when he has reached the age
of seven. He is sent to Rome, and put under the care of the
poet Vergil, whose figure is supreme throughout the romance,
and gives to it one of its strongest claims upon our interest. 1
The sages, who are, owing to Vergil's prominence, placed
somewhat in the background, come up as in the other western
versions, one each day and in a most mysterious fashion,
always just in time to save the prince's life. The prince
relates no story at all, but Vergil tells the eighth and last.
The order of stories is as follows : (1) cam's (Dog and Snake),
(2) gaza (King's Treasury), (3) senes (Best Friend}, (4) creditor
(the Pound of Flesh episode of the Merchant of Venice), 2 (5)
viduae filius (Widow's 8on), (6) latronis filius (Master- Thief \
(7) cygni eques (the fabled origin of Godfrey de Bouillon), (8)
inclusa-puteus (Two Dreams and Husband Shut Out). 3
2. The Sept Sages de Rome. The Sept Sages de Rome, in
contradistinction to the Dolopathos, comprises a very large
number of more or less closely related versions. Probably
one hundred manuscripts of its type are already known, and
many others, we may be sure, remain to be revealed by further
research. The immediate source whence these have sprung
has not come down to us. The date, too, of the parent ver-
sion is uncertain, but, in view of its influence on the Dolopathos
and the comparatively large number of thirteenth century ver-
sions, it must be placed as early as 1 1 50, and it may fall in a
time considerably anterior to this.
The normal number of stories in this branch is fifteen ; of
these the queen relates seven, the seven sages one each, and
1 See Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages, p. 232 f.
'Ward, Catalogue of Romances, n, p. 122, makes the slight oversight of
asserting that the casket-episode of the Merchant, of Venice is also intro-
duced into the Dolopathos.
3 These stories have had a wide currency, and, in several instances, a
most interesting history. For the fullest collections of analogues to them,
see the editions of Montaiglon-Brunet and Oesterley, and the appendix to
the latter's edition of the Gesta Eomanorum.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 25
the prince the fifteenth. The scene of action is prevailingly
Rome, though in two instances K and D it is Constanti-
nople. 1 The emperor's name is Diocletian. 2
The interrelation of the various sub-types into which the
Sept Sages falls has been the subject of almost continuous
investigation for more than half a century. The first serious
attempt at an orderly classification was made by Goedeke in
1866 (Orient und Occident, m, p. 402 ). He was followed
two years later by Mussafia, 3 in a study which possesses great
merit, and which served very much to clear the way for sub-
sequent investigation. But it is to Gaston Paris above all
that credit is due here for bringing order out of chaos. The
Preface to his Deux Redactions is by far the most significant
contribution to the study of the Seven Sages which has yet
been made, and leaves but the one regret that he has not
extended his investigations so as to include the problems of
the origin and propagation of the romance. It goes without
saying that the excellence of Paris's work has been recognized
on all sides, and that his conclusions have been almost uni-
versally adopted.
Paris classifies in five sub-groups, as follows :
1. S. The Scala Coeli abridgment published by Goedeke.
2. K. The well known metrical version of Keller.
3. H. The very large group, of which the Historia is the
type.
* 4. J. The Versio Italica.
5. French prose versions (other than H), including A*,
L, D* (V\ and M.
1. 8. The first of these, the text contained in the Scala
Coelij a compilation of the early fourteenth century by the
Dominican Johannes Junior, is a Latin prose abridgment of a
lost Liber de Septem Sapientibus. For the latter, Goedeke
1 This is only partly true of D; see Paris, Deux Redactions, p. 1.
8 There are several exceptions to this : in K he is called Vespasian ; in
D*, Marcomeris, son of Priam (I) ; in H, Pontianus, the name Diocletian
being transferred to the prince.
3 Wiener Akad. Sitzungsb., Ph. Hist. 01., LVii, p. 37 f.
26 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
(who has published the text according to the Scala Coeli in
Orient u. Occident, m, p. 402 f.) conjectures a date in the first
half of the thirteenth century. An extract in the Summa
Recreatorum (xv cent.), which agrees very closely with S, has
been pointed out by Mussafia (Wiener Akad. Sitzungsb., Ph.
Hist. 01., LVII, p. 83 f.).
8 differs materially from H, and is almost as far from K
and Z)*. It stands nearest to L, having in common with it
the two stories filia and noverca in the place of Roma and
inclusa of the remaining types. The agreement with D*, in
that the queen is defended on the last day by a champion, is
doubtless a mere coincidence (Paris, I. c., p. vm). Its only
influence seems to have been that exercised on L. For
Goedeke's claim that it is the closest extant representative
of the western original no sustaining argument has yet been
brought forward. 1
2. H. The type of the second group is the well-known
Historia Septem Sapientum Romae. Buchner 2 enumerates six-
teen manuscripts in which the Historia has been preserved.
Its first edition appeared at Cologne in 1472, and the bibli-
ographers report many of subsequent date. The latest edi-
tion, and only nineteenth century reprint, is that of Buchner. 3
An Old French translation, printed at Geneva in 1492, has
recently been republished by Paris as the second text of
his Deux Redactions (pp. 55-205). The Historia Calumnia
Novercali (Antwerp, 1496) differs from it mainly in the
omission of all Christian features.
The Historia is by far the most widely known of all
western versions, having had equally as great a vogue in
some other European countries Germany for instance as in
France. In English the Wynkyn de Worde text (to which
1 Ward, Catalogue of Romances, n, p. 200, erroneously states that Paris
upholds Goedeke here.
3 Erlanger Beitrage zur englischen Philologie, v, p. 1. Of these six were
first pointed out by Paris, /. c., p. xxxix, eight by Varnhagen, Eine Ilal.
Prosaversion d. Sieben Weisen, p. xv.
3 Erlang. Beitr., v, pp. 7-90. An Innsbruck MS. which dates from 1 342.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 27
the many English chap-book versions owe their origin), the
Copland, and the Holland versions found in it their ultimate
original. With the Germans the Historia type is practically
the only one which has found acceptance, and the number of
versions, either in Latin or German, which are contained in
their libraries is very large. 1 It is under this form, also, that
the romance has acquired its popularity in other Germanic
and in the Slavonic languages. 2
The history of opinion with regard to this type of the
romance possesses much interest. Until quite recently, as has
been seen, H was supposed to be the oldest member of the
Western group. Goedeke, in 1866, was the first to break
with this tradition, but without showing why. Paulin Paris
followed in 1869, throwing the question open. 3 Comparetti,
also, in the same year, expressed the opinion that H was far
from representing the western original. 4 The matter was not
satisfactorily cleared up until the appearance of Gaston Paris's
book in 1876. The results of Paris's investigation (L c., p.
xxvui f.) are to entirely dethrone H from the position which
had been traditionally accorded it, and to establish for it a
date in the first half of the fourteenth century, and an im-
mediate basis on type .A*. 5
The distinguishing features of jfiT, aside from its slight
difference from A* in the order of stories, are the introduction
1 For the first general discussion of the romance in Germany, see the
preface to Keller's Li Romans des Sept Sages, Tubingen, 1837. A more
comprehensive discussion of the German versions accompanies his edition
of the Hans von Buhel metrical version, Diocletianus Le/jen (Quedlinburg,
1841).
8 Keller enumerates versions, either in manuscript or in print, in Dutch,
Welsh, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, and Arme-
nian ; see the prefaces to his two editions cited above. See, also, Murko,
"Die Geschichte v. d. Sieben Weisen b. d. Slaven" in Wiener Akad. Sit-
zungsb., Ph. Hist. Cl., cxxn, 1890, and " Beitr. zur Textgesch. d. H. S. S."
in Zdtschr.f. vergl. Lit.-gesch., pp. 1-34, 1892.
*Biblioph. Fran$ais, IV, p. 69 f. *Book of Sindibad, p. 47.
5 It is hard to see how Landau, Quellen des Dekameron, 2d ed., p. 51 f.,
and a few others, can still persist in their adherence to the old view.
28 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
of the stories amatores and amid (the latter appended to
vatidnium), the fusion of senescalcus and Roma, and its
unusual mass of details.
3. K. The Old French metrical version, Li Romans des
Sept Sages, was published by Keller, at Tubingen, in 1836.
Of this version there exists only one complete manuscript, to
which its editor gives a date in the late thirteenth century.
A fragment of a metrical text agreeing closely with it in
content, but differing slightly in order of stories, is preserved
in MS. 620 of the Library of Chartres. 1 An edition of this
has been promised by Paris.
K has the same stories as Z)* and -A* 9 but in a different
order. The agreement in order, as also in incident, is, as a
rule, closest with jD*; in the stories vidua, Roma, inclusa, and
vatidnium, however, K exhibits a very close, at times even
verbal, agreement with A*. In explanation of this, the possi-
bility of an influence of K on A* is precluded by the fact that
the former is of earlier date ; hence it is necessary to posit for
A* and K a common source, designated by Paris as V.
4. /. The Versio Italica was first so styled by Mussafia in
his study of the Italian versions, in Jahrb. f. rom. u. englische
Lit., iv, p. 166 f., 1862. This group consists of six versions,
three of which are in Latin. One of the latter has been
brought to light only within the last few years; 2 one was
published by Mussafia ( Wiener Akad. Sitzungsb., Ph. Hist.
CL, LVII, p. 94 f.) in 1868, and is well known; and the third
is the British Museum MS. Addl. 15685. 3 Of the Italian
versions one is in verse, 4 but of late date, Rajna in his
description (Romania, vii, pp. 22 f., 369 f. ; x, p. 1 f.) plac-
1 See Paris, I. c., p. in n., and Paul Meyer in the Bulletin d. I. Soc. des
Anc. Textes fran$ais, 1894, p. 40 f. The order of stories here is tentamina,
Roma, avis, sapientes, vidua, Virgilius, inclusa, vatidnium. For the order in
K and other versions, see the comparative table, p. 35.
2 By Murko ; see Romania, xx, p. 373.
3 Ward, Catalogue of Romances, n, p. 207 f. Hitherto unnoticed in this
connection.
4 Edited by Kajna, Storia di Stefano, Bologna, 1881.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 29
ing it between 1440 and 1480. The two remaining Italian
versions early underwent publication, one in 1832 by Delia
Lucia/ the other by Cappelli in 1865. 2
The order of stories in I is materially different from that
in any other group or version. The queen in this group,
instead of relating the first story, follows in each instance the
sage, thus reversing the order, 2 becoming 1, 4-3, and so
on. In consequence of this innovation, the number of stories
is reduced to fourteen, the seventh being crowded out. 3
In the absence of the filia-noverca and amatores-amici
features, I groups itself with K, JD*, and A*. Its closest
agreement in incident 'is with J.*, in which recent scholars
believe it to have had its source. 4
The modern Italian Erasto, which at one time was placed
by itself as representing a free adaptation of the romance,
and as bearing a somewhat similar relation to the remaining
Italian versions as the Dolopathos to the prevailing French
type, is now universally acknowledged to be an offspring of
the Versio Italica. The Erasto has been very popular in its
own country, and has been translated into other languages.
The first edition of it appeared at Venice in 1 542, the last in
1841. An English translation was made by Frances Kirkman
in 1674.
5. French Prose Redactions. The number of French prose
redactions is very large. Paris already in 1876 knew of nine-
teen manuscripts in Paris, besides the four in Brussels, and
one in the Cambridge University Library. A number of
others have been since pointed out. 5
1 Delia Lucia, Novella antica scritta nel buon sec. d. lingua, Venice, 1832.
2 Cappelli, II libro dei sette savi di Roma, Bologna, 1865.
3 Jt is interesting to note here that the story thus discarded is senescalcus,
a feature in which the Versio Italica has anticipated one of the English
versions Cambridge Ff, n, 38 (F).
4 See, for the most recent opinion, Rajna in Romania, vii, p. 369 f.
5 These are mentioned under the discussion of the various groups into
which they fall.
30 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
(1). Paris classifies under the sub-groups D* (F), L, A*,
and M. Of these M the Male Marastre is of little interest
other than as showing the immense popularity of the romance
in the thirteenth century. Only three manuscripts of it have
so far been brought to light. In all these the emperor is
Diocletian and the prince, Fiseus; Marcus, son of Cato,
is given prominence; and, a feature which distinguishes this
sharply from all other groups, six new stories are substituted
for a corresponding number of those in the prevailing types.
The original of M is believed to have been made on a very
mutilated manuscript of the J.*-type. The new stories, which
are of a much lower order than those they displace, are proba-
bly the invention of the author. 1
(2). With M may be associated the numerous ' continuations ' 2
of the Sept Sages in French, of which the most important is
the Marques de Rome. This type originated in Picardy in the
thirteenth century. A version of it has been recently pub-
lished by Alton (Li Romans de Marques de Rome, Tubingen,
1889). In the introduction to this edition, the editor states
that the romance was certainly not written later than 1277,
and probably even forty years earlier (Alton, p. xiv). It
seems to have met with considerable popularity, as Alton
describes ten manuscripts which still survive. It doubtless
had its ultimate basis in A* Alton thinks with M as an
intervening stage, but Paris (Romania, xix, p. 493) denies
this, maintaining that M is posterior to the Marques.
(3). D*. The Version Derimee, a unique prose manuscript
published by Paris as the first text of his Deux Redactions
(pp. 1-55), is thus called on account of the numerous instances
of rime still discernible in the text, and which prove beyond
doubt a metrical original. 3
1 See Paris, 1. c., p. xxiii f.
s For these compare P. Paris, Les MSS.frangais de la Bibl. du Roi, Paris,
1836, i, p. 109 f. More accessible in Leroux de Lincy, /. c., p. x f.
8 This was first shown by Paris, Deux Redactions, p. V f.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 31
.D* agrees more closely with K than with any other known
version. It cannot have been based on K, however, as Paris
has shown, but the two doubtless flow from a common source,
which Paris designates as V. From this V, also, the Chartres
manuscript was in all probability made (Paris, 1. c., p. x.)
(4). There remain the two families L and A*. The first
of these comprises all versions of the type of the first Leroux
de Lincy print, 1 in which the order of stories is arbor, canis,
aper, medicus, gaza, puteus, senescalcus, tentamina, VirgiHus,
avis, sapientes, noverca, filia. Only six manuscripts (four
strictly according to L, and two slightly influenced by J.*)
were known to Paris (1. c., p. 10 f.). To these must be added
the Catalan version in ottava rima, edited by Mussafia ( Wiener
AJcad. Dmkschr., xxv, p. 185 f., 1876), and five Old French
prose manuscripts, partly fragmentary, enumerated by Paul
Meyer in Bulletin de la Soc. des Anc. Textes fr. for 1894,
p. 38 f. 2
In its employment of the stories filia and noverca, L at once
groups itself with 8. This, however, is not the only feature
which the two types have in common. A general comparison
with the rest of the Western group serves to show that (if we
may except A* for the time being) 8 is also nearest to L in
motive (Paris, I. c., p. xii). In order of stories, too, 8 and
L fall together, the only differences being the reversal on the
part of L of tentamina and puteus, and the suppression of
vidua and vaticinium. Paris has therefore concluded that L
was made on a manuscript of 8 which was mutilated toward
the end, and that the scribe has in consequence had to trust to
his memory for his last stories (L c., p. xm).
1 Leroux de Lincy, Romans des Sept Sages, Paris, 1838, pp. 1-76.
2 Meyer does not express himself definitely as to the class of but one of
these the Chartres MS., which he groups with L. He implies, however,
in his statement that the Bib. Nat. fragment (p. 39, n. 2) belongs to A*,
that all the rest belong to L. Nevertheless, his notices leave the impres-
sion that some of these manuscripts (possibly all except the two just
mentioned) have not been handled, and that a part of them may yet be
found to belong to the larger group A*.
32 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
(5). A*, the largest and most important of all French
groups, has been reserved for the last place. To this family
pertain, besides its immediate members, the groups Marques,
M, 7, and H; it is, then, the original, either directly or indi-
rectly, of four-fifths of the manuscripts and prints of the
romance which survive. It is not only the ultimate source
of all Italian versions, whether direct, as with the D'Ancona
edition, or indirect through /, but it is also, through H, the
parent of almost all the manifold versions of the Sept Sages
outside of Romance. And, what is of prime interest and
importance to the English student, it was some manuscript
of this group which furnished the immediate original of the
Middle English versions.
Under group A* Paris includes all manuscripts of the type
of the Italian version published by D'Ancona. 1 He enumer-
ates in his preface (p. xvi ), in addition to the Italian
version whence the group is named, fourteen manuscripts
in Old French, 2 several of which date from the thirteenth
century. Four other manuscripts, pointed out since the
appearance of Paris's work (Brit. Mus. Harl. 3860 [xiv cent.],
St. Jno. Bapt. Coll., Oxf., 102 [xiv cent.], 3 Cambr. Univy.
Liby. Gg. 6, 28, 4 and a fragment in the Bib. Nat.-Nouv.
Acq. fr. 1263 [xm cent.]), 5 increase the number of French
versions to eighteen. To this family, also, belongs the British
Museum Italian prose version published by Varnhagen. 6
The text of A* 7 falls into two parts, the first eleven
stories (^4i*) being textually very close to L, while the last
four (^2*)> as Paris has shown, agree very closely with K.
1 11 Libro dei Sette Savj di Roma, Pisa, 1864.
2 One of these is the manuscript 2137 of the Bib. Nat., published in part
by Leroux de Lincy, pp. 79-110.
3 For these two, cf. Varnhagen, Z.f. rom. Ph., i, p. 555 f. See also for the
first, Ward, I c., n, p. 199 f.
4 Romania, xv, p. 348.
5 Delisle, MSS. lat. et fr. ajoutees aux Fondes, etc., Paris, 1891, I, p. 259.
*Eine Ital. Prosaversion der Sieben Weisen, Berlin, 1881.
7 By this is meant the second Leroux de Lincy redaction. Other versions
of this type, as, e. g., MS. 6849 (new No. 189), are not so close to L.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 33
The composite nature of the text Paris explains as due to the
fact that the scribe primarily employed a fragment of L con-
taining only eleven tales, and that K, or its source, F, has
been used for the remaining four tales. 1 And this seems to be
borne out by internal evidence ; for A 2 * not only falls in with
K as regards incident, but, as in the case of D*, there is often
even a textual agreement in which entire lines that appear
in K are reproduced. 2 Yet, as already observed, this metrical
original of A?* cannot have been K, since there are a number
of ^.^-manuscripts which antedate the latter, especially if we
may accept Keller, who despite his maintenance of the priority
of Kj ventured a date no earlier than 1284, or later in all
probability than the composition of the English parent text.
Moreover, a comparison of A%* with K and D* will show
that each of the latter possesses features in common with J.*
which are not found in the other. The original of A^ must
therefore be sought in some other version than JT, probably,
as Paris assumes, in F. 3
1 Deux Redactions, p. xvin.
~ Ibid., p. xix, for a citation of parallel passages from A 2 * and K. Almost
as noteworthy agreement will be found in some of the remaining stories.
3 But can this be final ? Is it not possible, however improbable it may
seem, that the manuscripts of A* which have survived were ultimately
based on a metrical text which preserved the -4*-order of stories (or, at
least, was nearer the -4*-order than the K-, C*- or D*-order), and which was
closely related with F? In this case, of course, L (the first eleven stories),
would have to be explained as based on A* (rather than the reverse, as
with Paris), and A 2* as representing a prosing of a portion of the metrical
A*, to which K has very nearly approached. Against this view would
be the strong evidence submitted by Paris. In favor of it, however, are
the considerations (1) that this would better account for the popularity
of the -4*-type during the first half of the thirteenth century; (2) that the
Middle English versions both favor a metrical original and were based on
a text nearer to K in many details than is the De Lincy print of A* ; (3)
that to base A* on L, and consequently, as Paris maintains, ultimately on
S, is to connect it with a different line of tradition from that which it
seems to follow (cf. certain textual agreements with K which A*, L exhibit :
p. 16 : " comme il fist au cheualier de son leureier " = K 1141-2 : " Comme
il fist au cheualier, Ki atort occist son leurier ; " p. 39 : " II apela son senes-
chal "= K 1509 : " Lors apiela son seneschal ; " p. 40 : " Vos gerrez auec le
3
34 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Resume\ Looked at externally the Western group falls
into two main sub-groups, the Dolopathos and the Sept Sages
de Rome. The Dolopathos, however, did not develop from
the Eastern group independently, but must have had an
ultimate basis (doubtless through an oral medium) on some
version of the larger group.
The Sept Sages de Rome, as regards order and content of
stories, also falls into two groups, one represented by 8 and
L, the other by K, D*, (7*, (F), and A* and its variants, J,
H, Mj and Marques. Peculiar to the former group (8, L) are
the stories filia and noverca, to the latter the stories Roma
and indusa.
Which of these groups represents most faithfully the lost
western original is, at the present stage of our knowledge,
impossible to determine, but the fact that the Dolopathos of
Herbert contains the story indusa seems to point to the
priority of the K-, D*-, J.*-group. 1
With respect to the separate sub-groups, L may have been
based on A* and 8, though the view of Paris, that it had its
basis in 8 alone, carries with it greater probability. Either
explanation leaves the origin of S unexplained. K, D* 9 (7* go
back to the same lost metrical original, V. A* is probably to
be explained with Paris as having its source in L and F, though
this, as yet, has been by no means established. It is not
improbable that a metrical version of A* existed at some time.
roi"= IT 1531 : "Auoeques le roi vous girois;" p. 50: "Qui me ferra, je
trerai ja"=.T3938: "Ki me ferra, je trairai ia"); (4) that we may still
find in A*, what appear to be reflections of a versified original ; thus, p. 15 :
" Celz que je mout amoie et en qui je me fioie ; " p. 23 : " Li sangliers vint
vers 1'alier, si commenpa a mengier," and " quant il vit le sanglier, si s'en
volt aler;" p. 33: "Quant eles virent lor pere trainer, si commencierent
(a brre et) a crier;" p. 50: "Sire, il ot en ceste vile un clerc qui ot non
Vergile." When all this is said, however, the case is by no means strong,
and we would not presume to insist on this theory as presenting the proba-
bility, by any means, which attaches to the view set forth by Paris; it is
merely suggested as an alternate possibility, which has not yet been dis-
posed of.
1 See also, Paris, Romania, iv, p. 128, for the additional evidence in
support of this view drawn from the story Roma.
THE SEVEN SAGES.
35
Table of Stories in the Western Versions. 1
A*
L
S
K
D*
H
I
M
Dofopathos.
arbor
arbor
arbor
3*rDor
canis
canis
canis
srbor
canis
3rDor
canis
3TDor
canis
canis
canis
canis
TMPT*
or\OT
fin AT*
cuan PQP
S6H6SC
CIYIPT*
sirboi*
lT)6r
iHIVtt
medicus
opcl
medicus
dJJtJJr
medicus
OtJllt/bC.
medicus
medicus
dJJCI
puteus
medicus
medicus
gaza
gaza
gaza
gaza
aper
aper
gaza
aper
gaza
puteus
puteus
tentam.
puteus
puteus
avis
tentam.
avis
seres
senescalcus
senesc.
senesc.
sapient.
sapient.
sapient.
sapient.
films
tentamina
ten tarn.
puteus
tentam.
tentam.
tentam.
avis
vidua
creditor
Virgilius
Virgil.
Virgil.
Roma.
Roma.
Virgil.
gaza
nutrix
avis
avis.
avis.
avis
avis
medicus
inclusa
Antenor
vid. fil.
sapientes
vidua
sapient,
noverca
sapient,
vidua
gaza
vidua
gaza,
vidua
sen. Rom.
amatores
Roma
vidua
spurius
cardamum
latro. fil.
Roma
filia
filia
Virgil.
Virgil.
inclusa
Virgil.
assass.
in cl usa
noverca
inclusa
inclusa
vidua
puteus
inclusa
cyg. eq.
vaticinium
vaticin.
vaticin.
vatic, -j-
TTO-f QYVklrtl
vaticin.
vaticin.
II. THE ROMANCE IN ENGLAND.
The enormous popularity of the Seven Sages in French
found but a faint reflection in early English. So far, only
eight Middle English versions have been brought to light,
and as at least seven of these go back to the same lost origi-
nal, it appears that the romance did not at first take a very
firm root in English soil. Nor has it in more recent times
acquired the popularity in England that it enjoyed in other
countries of Europe ; for, besides the numerous chap-book
versions, all which are of a low order of excellence, there
have survived only two versions belonging to the Modern
English period.
Yet, despite this comparatively small popularity of the
romance in England, it is very evident that the English
1 The order of the fragmentary Old French metrical version C* is as
follows : tentamina, Roma, avis, sapientes, vidua, Virgilius, inclusa, vaticinium.
In the Varnhagen Italian prose version, puteus has been supplanted by a
new story, which V. calls mercator. All the Middle English versions save
F (for which see p. 62 of this study) follow the ^4*-order. The later Eng-
lish versions belong to group H.
36 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
versions have not received attention commensurate with their
importance. Indeed, there is no department of the study of
the Seven Sages, much neglected though all have unfortu-
nately been, which has been more neglected than the English.
Weber, the first in the field, offered with his edition of the
Auchinleck text practically no introduction at all. 1 Likewise
Wright, in the essay which accompanied the Cambridge text
(Dd, i, 17), while he presented an abstract of the Historia,
confined the discussion of his own text, singularly enough, to
less than two pages. 2 Besides these, Ellis in his Specimens, 3
Clouston in his Book of Sindibdd* and Gomme in the preface
to his reprint of the Wynkyn de Worde edition 5 have sub-
mitted analyses of the Weber, Wright, and Wynkyn de Worde
editions respectively, and sundry others have made incidental
references ; but there has so far appeared only one detailed
and serious investigation of the problems which the English
versions present the dissertation Ueber die mittelenglischen
Fassungen der Sage von den sieben weisen Meistern, Breslau,
1885, by Paul Petras. This scholar, in dealing with the
source and inter-connection of the English versions, has
arrived at some very gratifying results, but his work leaves
much to be desired. Three of the eight Middle English
versions have escaped notice at his hands, as also, for some
unaccountable reason, the well-known edition of Wynkyn de
Worde, and a good half of his conclusions may be overthrown
by a more thorough investigation. In view, then, of this
manifest neglect of the English versions another detailed
study of them especially of the relations of the Middle
1 Metrical Romances, Edinburgh, 1810, i, p. LV and m, pp. 1-153.
2 The Seven Sages, Percy Society Publications, vol. xvi, p. LXVIII, London,
1845; also in Warton's History of English Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, London, 1871,
i, p. 305 f.
3 Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances, London, 1811, in, pp.
1-101.
4 Book ofSindibad [Glasgow], 1884, p. 327 f.
5 The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome, published for the Villon
Society, London, 1885.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 37
English manuscripts will not, it is believed, be deemed
untimely.
II (a). The Middle English Versions.
The Middle English group comprises eight known versions,
in as many different manuscripts. All these are in verse,
and in the octosyllabic or four-stressed couplet.
They are as follows : Auchinleck (A), Arundel 140 (Ar),
Egerton 1995 (E), Balliol College 354 (B), Cambridge Ff,
n, 38 (F), Cotton Galba E, ix (O), Cambridge Dd, i, 17 (D\
and Asloan (As). 1
I. Description of the Manuscripts.
A. The Auchinleck MS. of the Advocate's Library, Edin-
burgh, denoted throughout as A. For a general description
of this manuscript, see Kolbing, Englische Studien, vii, p.
185 f. The text of the Seven Sages occupies ff. 85a-99d,
and is fragmentary at both beginning and end, only 2645
lines remaining. It has been published by Weber, Metrical
Romances, Edinburgh, 1810, in, pp. 1-153, where it com-
prises lines 135-2779, the Cotton MS. (C) having been used for
the remainder. For a collation of this edition with the manu-
script, see Kolbing, Englische Studien, vi, p. 443 f. Copious
extracts with an analysis may be found in Ellis's Specimens,
London, 1811, in, pp. 1-101. With regard to date of com-
position there is no internal evidence other than linguistic;
since, however, the Auchinleck MS. dates from about 1330,
the composition of A must fall before that time. 2 The form
1 1 have handled and made transcripts of all these manuscripts save those
which have been printed and the Asloan. Five of them (A, E, C, F, and
D) have been studied either in whole or in part by Petras, and the Asloan
MS. was also known to him through Laing's very incomplete description of
it in the preface to his edition of the Holland text, p. xn. Of the Arundel
and Balliol manuscripts Petras was apparently unaware.
2 Cf. Morsbach, M. E. Grammatik, Halle, 1896, p. xr, and Brandl in Paul's
Grundriss, n, 1, p. 635.
38 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
hardly justifies a dating earlier than 1300. In text and
metre A is, as a rule, very good, though in both there are
occasional imperfections and corruptions. 1 The dialect is
Kentish, though not of the strict type. 2
Ar. MS. Arundel 140 of the British Museum, cited as
Ar. Paper, dating from the first half of the fifteenth century.
For general description, see Ward, Catalogue of Romances, II,
p. 224. This text occupies ff. 152-165b, and is fragmentary,
beginning with the conclusion of aper (3) and ending with
the 21st line of vaticinium (15); 2565 lines remain. It is
very much faded, and in many cases illegible, especially at
the end of the b- and at the beginning of the c-columns. With
regard to initial capitalization, it is very irregular. A line
has been lost after 1. 618 ; after 1. 919 an extra line has been
introduced with no corresponding rime. The text is metri-
cally very poor, and many final e's have to be inserted in
order to secure the required four stresses; there are also a
number of imperfect rimes (such as yspede: saue, 243-4)
and other textual irregularities ; nevertheless, Ar, as is shown
below, is the closest representative of the lost M. E. original.
The dialect is Kentish. 3 The text has not been published.
1 There are many emendations which lie on the surface and which are
sustained by the closely related versions Ar, E, etc. Some of these are :
(1) for schild 1016 read schuld(e) cf. F 1487, Ar, B, E; (2) for swich 1031
read syke or seke cf. Ar 91, etc.; (3) for tol of 2050 read to to/ cf. E 2082,
etc. ; (4) for to-delue 2417 read go delaecf. B 2509, etc. ; (5) after He 2657,
insert \>ou%t cf. Ar 1782, etc.
8 A. S. y is regularly represented by the e-sound, though this may not
always be graphic. Of the 27 determining rimes, 22, or 81 per cent.,
have the e-coloring. There is nothing in other developments to contradict
this result. The only Northern forms in the rime are a pres. part, in
-and, 1977-8, and two instances of the third pers. sing, of the present tense
in 5, 615-6 and 937-8.
3 To the development of A. S. y (stable or unstable, long or short) into e,
there is only one certain exception : wyne ; syne, 691-2. Elsewhere we find
only the e-quality; cf. nede: hyde, 383-4; ifet: ifcnet, 601-2 ; gardyner : fyr,
863-4, 872-3; also 892-3, 939-40, 979-80, 1433-4, 1515-6, 1535-6, 1541-2,
1583-4, 1761-2, 1847-8, 2059-60. The additional rime-evidence is alto-
gether confirmatory of a Southern scribe : A. S. a > o unexceptionally, the
THE SEVEN SAGES. 39
E. MS. Egerton 1995 of the British Museum, 1 cited
throughout as E. Ff. 3-54b. Paper, dating from the fif-
teenth century, probably the second half. 2 Written in single
columns, with initials in red. Very regular as regards capital-
ization. Complete, containing 3588 lines, and bearing the
title Seven Sages of Rome, with the colophon Explidunt Septem
Sapientes. Before the first story, arbor, stands the simple
rubric, " He[re] begynnythe the fyrste tale of the Emperasse;"
before nine others, there is substituted for this a couplet indi-
cating the contents of the story which follows, as e. g., canis
(695-6) :
1 Here begynnythe the tale of a knyght
That cylde hys grehounde with unryght.'
The stories avis, vidua, Roma, inclusa, and vaticinium have
nothing corresponding to this. The dialect is Kentish, though
less strongly marked than in Ar. 3 No edition of E has yet
appeared. An extract, including 11. 22512358, accompanies
the monograph of Petras, "Anhang," p. 54 f.
B. MS. No. 354 of Balliol College Library, Oxford,
denoted as B* Ff. 18a-54b. Paper, belonging to the early
pres. part, (except buland : blynd, 1589-90) ends in -ng, the verb is Southern
(save cry en: mene, 2556-7, where we have a Midland form), the past part,
preserves, as a rule, the prefix, and rejects (in the case of the strong verb)
the ending, etc. Within the line, however, there are occasional Northern
forms, particularly of the pres. part., as buland, 1588, 1591, 1599, brynand,
1922; but these are by no means the rule, the Southern form being in
general preserved as well within the line as in the rime.
1 For a general description of this manuscript, see Ward's Catalogue, u,
p. 218 f.
*See the sixth article: " Gregory Skinner's Chronicle of the Mayors of
London, ending in 1469," ff. 113-122b.
3 The usual development of A. S. y is e, or the e-quality, see the rimes
of 11. 245-6, 577-8, 783-4, 845-6, 1323-4, 1545-6, 1799-1800, 1821-1822;
but occasionally y, cf. kynne: lynne (O.N. linna), 1317-8 and wynne: syne,
1635-6. The evidence is otherwise strongly indicative of a Southern scribe,
though a few Northern forms are borne out by the rime ; cf. hondys : stondys
(3d sing.), 439-40, also kynge: yonge, 93-4, and yonge: connynge, 3581-2.
* The existence of this version of the Seven Sages was first pointed out by
Varnhagen, in his Eine Ital Prosav. d. Sieben Weisen, Berlin, 1881, p. xi ;
see in the same connection his review of Petras, Eng. Stud., x, p. 279 f.
40 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
sixteenth century. 1 In single columns ; irregular in capitali-
zation. Described in Coxe's Catalogus, I, p. 110, as in the
hand of John Hyde. The text is complete, containing 3708
lines. The first rubric, which contains the title, reads as
follows : " Here begynneth ]?e prologes of the vii. sagis or
VII. wise masters which were named as here-after ffollowing."
Each story has a heading or title, as e. g., arbor: "The
empresse tale off the pynote tree." At the end of the text
stands the colophon : " Thus endith of the vn. sages of Borne,
which was drawen owt of crownycles and owt of wrytyng of
old men, and many a notable tale is ther-in, as ys beffore
sayde. Quod Richard Hill." This manuscript contains very
few abbreviations, and the language is much modernized. In
line 1761 : a On the ffall suche as fell to a old man by his
wif," we have two lines in one. The rime is, if anything,
slightly better than in A, Ar, and E, but is, nevertheless,
occasionally imperfect, cf. visage : noyse, 459-60 ; assonance,
as in all other related M. E. texts, abounds ; often four lines
rime together, and occasionally six, cf. 2583-8. The dialect
is Southern. 2 No edition of the text has yet appeared, but
the E. E. T. S. has for some time been advertising the entire
manuscript as needing editing.
P. MS. Ff, n, 38 (formerly marked More 690) of the
Cambridge University Library, denoted as F. 3 Ff. 134a-
156d. Paper, dating from about the middle of the fifteenth
century. Written in double columns of about 40 11. to the
column. Handwriting uniform ; irregular as to capitaliza-
tion, though most lines begin with a capital. The beginnings
of stories indicated merely by large initial capitals in red.
1 Cf. Art. 31, "Memoranda of Kichard Hill," and Art. 98, "Names of
Mayors (of London)."
* Southern forms are sustained by the rime almost without exception.
A. S. y is represented by both y and e, in about equal proportion ; the rimes
in e are probably to be explained, however, as reminiscences of a Kentish
original.
3 Cf . Halliwell, Thornton Romances, Camden Society, vol. xxx, p. xxxvi f.,
and the Cambridge Univ. Lib. Catalogue of MSS. } IT, p. 408.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 41
The text is fragmentary ; ff. 141 and 144 (or less than 400
11.) have been lost, and fol. 135 is in a mutilated condition; 1
2555 11. remain. Criteria for determining the dialect are not
abundant, as the manuscript is late and the forms are some-
what mixed ; but the bulk of the evidence favors a Southern
dialect. 2 The text has not been edited, although, in view
of its uniqueness, it is not uninteresting, and in its last four
stories is of considerable value. Extracts are given by Halli-
well, Thornton Romances, p. XLJII f., Wright, The Seven Sages,
p. JLXX f., and Petras, 1. c., p. 60 f.
C. MS. Cotton Galba E, ix, of the British Museum,
denoted as (7. 3 Ff. 25b-48b. Vellum ; in double columns, with
initials in blue and red, and in a very plain hand of the first
third of the fifteenth century. Complete, in 4328 11. Bearing
the title ~pe Proces of Ipe Seuyn Sages. Each prolog and each
story marked off by rubrics : in the case of the former, such
as " Here bigins ]?e fyrst proces " (called " prolong " after the
fourth story), with the latter, " Here bygins j>e first tale of
J?e whyfe," etc., the number being given in each instance,
and, in the case of the masters' stories, their names also.
The dialect is Northern. Both text and metre are very
pure; 4 the rime, especially, stands in marked contrast to the
Southern versions, being almost free of assonance and the im-
1 The Cambridge Catalogue fails to specify the leaves which have been lost.
Petras (p. 8) and others go to the other extreme in asserting that the text
is very incomplete.
*A. S. a > o, and the forms of the verb, with the exception of the strong
past part., where -en is the usual ending, are Southern. The scribe, how-
ever, probably belonged rather to the middle or western South than to
Kent, or its neighborhood ; cf. the rimes in y where the it-quality prevails :
tyme : kynne, 813-4 ; wytte : pytte, 845-6 ; hym : kynne, 871-2 ; 1348-9, 1636-7,
etc. The rimes bedd: hydd, 200-1, and kende: sende, 1890-1, are probably
to be traced to the Kentish original.
3 Cf. Ward's Catalogue, n, p. 213 f., for a general description of this manu-
script.
4 There are very few verses that are too short (among these are 84, 443,
911, 1868, 1901, 1918, 2973), and almost none that are too full (cf. 843).
Among the few inexact rimes are sages: message, 355-6; brend: assent, 2321-
2; hew: mowe, 2842-3.
42 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
perfections in which the latter abound. No complete edition
of C has so far appeared ; but lines 1-134 and 3108-4328
are printed in Weber, Metr. Rom., in, pp. 1 f. and 108 f.,
where this text has been employed to supplement A. The
story avis, comprising lines 2411-2548, appears in the "An-
hang " to Petras's monograph, p. 56 f. 1
D. MS. Dd, I, 17 of the Cambridge University Library,
cited as D. 2 Ff. 54a, col. 1 63a, col. 3. Parchment ; in
treble columns; appears to belong to the end of the fourteenth
century. 3 Textually very imperfect, and plainly the work of
a careless scribe. Thirteen lines have apparently been lost,
after 1312, 1417, 1696, 1719, 2094, 2293, 2695, 2840, 2960,
3057, 3134, 3365, 3395. Irregularities in rime are numerous,
but in most cases easily emended. 4 The dialect is southeast
Midland, with an intermixture of Northern forms. 5 The
text has been edited by Wright (Percy Society for 1845, vol.
xvi, pp. 1-118). For a collation of this edition with the
manuscript, see Kolbing in JEnglische Studien, vi, p. 448 f.
An analysis of the romance on the basis of this text appears
in Clouston's Boole of Sindibdd, p. 327 f.
As. MS. Asloan, in the possession of Lord Talbot de
Malahide, Malahide Castle, Ireland, denoted by As. For a
general description of the manuscript (quoted from Chalmers),
x An edition of this manuscript by the lamented Dr. Kobert Morris was
announced by the E. E. T. S. many years ago ; and an editor was advertised
for for some time after Dr. Morris's death, but in the recent issues of the
publications this advertisement no longer appears. It is the purpose of
the present writer to prepare a critical edition of this text within the near
future.
8 For a general description of this manuscript, see the Cambridge Cata-
logue, i, p. 15 f.; Skeat, Publications of E. E. T. S., vol. xxxvin, p. xxnr f.;
and Halliwell, Manuscript Rarities of Cambridge, p. 3.
3 Morsbach, for some unknown reason, would place it earlier, "1300?";
see his M. E. Orammatik, p. 9.
4 Lines 337-9 may be explained as a triplet, but it is better to suppose
that a verse has been lost. A more probable example of the triplet in
M. E. is found in A, 915-7.
5 See Skeat, E. E. T. S., vol. xxxvin, p. xxv, and Brandl, in Paul's
Grundriss, IT, 1, p. 635.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 43
see Schipper's Poems of Dunbar, Vienna, 1891, Pt. 1, p. 5 f. 1
The text of the Seven Sages occupies ff. 167-209, and bears
the title The Buke of the sevyne Sagis. According to Laing 2 the
text is incomplete, extending to only about 2800 lines, and the
twelfth and thirteenth stories are wanting entirely. It begins,
'Ane Empriour in tymes bygone
In Kome callit Dioclesiane '
and ends,
' Syne geld till heuyn and sa do we
Sayis all Amen for cherite. 1
Its dialect is Scottish. 3 A complete transcript, made by D.
Laing in 1826, exists in the University Library, Edinburgh.
An edition, long ago promised by Varnhagen, is expected to
appear shortly in the Scottish Text Society Publications.
2. Interrelation of the Middle English Versions.
With regard to the relationship of the Middle English
versions there has been a variety of opinions, and, as in the
case of the French versions, there has existed no little ignor-
ance and error. The general tendency has been to consider
any and all versions of the M. E. period independent trans-
lations from the French. This has been nowhere better
demonstrated than in Petras's dissertation, where it has been
boldly maintained that at least four of the M. E. versions
(Ay C, F, D) are unrelated save through a common foreign
original. And while others have been more conservative
than Petras, the prevailing opinion seems to have been that a
majority at least of the M. E. group are independent of each
other. It will be one of the results of this study, however, it
is believed, to show that seven of the eight M. E. versions
*A further description, together with an extract containing the story avis,
has recently appeared in Englische Studien (xxv, p. 321 f.), through the
kindness of Prof. Varnhagen.
z The Seven Sages in Scottish Metre ( Holland), Edinburgh, 1837, p. xn.
3 Chalmers says of it: " Evidently written by a Scotish versifier in the
reign of James IV, as a number of Scotish terms occur, which would not
have been introduced by a Scotish transcriber of an English work."
44 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
are ultimately related through a common M. E. parent ver-
sion (x), and it is held not improbable that the eighth (As)
is also thus related to x.
All the M. E. versions, however, do not represent the same
line of tradition. One of the texts, D, as later shown, is a
development from #, independent of the rest of the M. E.
group, and Varnhagen holds that As was made directly from
the Old French. The remaining versions fall together into
one connected group, all related through a common original
(y), which goes back to x, but which was not identical with
it. This group will be designated as Y.
The close relationship of the texts which constitute this
group Y is confirmed by evidence from all sides, but it can be
no more effectively illustrated than by a comparative table of
lines. For this purpose a line-for-line comparison of the
section which the five most important texts of this group (A,
Ar, E, B, C) have in common has been made, the comparison
being restricted to identical lines and similar rimes, with the
following results : l
(1) 4 = 1816 11. (4) 5=1931 11.
Total IL Ident. II. Sim. rimes. Total II. Ident. II. Sim. rimes.
Ar ..... 1916 234 722 A ..... 1816 154 537
E. ...... 1843 125 636 4r...l916 137 646
B ...... 1934 154 537 -E.....1843 83 558
C ...... 2067 26 * G ..... 2067 13 281
(2) Ar = 1916 11. (5) C= 2067 11.'
A ...... 1816 234 722 A ..... 1816 26 *
E. ..... 1843 169 746 4r...l916 19 413
B ...... 1931 137 646 E ..... 1843 11 352
C ...... 2067 19 413 B ..... 1931 13 281
(3) E= 1843 11.
A ...... 1816 125 636
Ar ..... 1916 169 746
B ...... 1931 83 558
11 352
1 An illustration of the method by which these figures have been arrived
at may be found in the appendix to this study. F, owing to special features
which are discussed below, is excluded from this comparison.
2 Petras, p. 11, finds A and C t the entire texts being compared, to have
1096 similar rimes.
THE SEVEN SAGES.
45
But this comparison, while valuable as far as it goes, serves
only to show a connection between the texts compared ; it
does not suffice to show the nature of this connection.
Accordingly, in addition to this, a comparison of motive or
incident as a safer basis for classification has been made
for the entire Middle English group ; and it is by means of
this, in the main, that our results as to the interrelation of the
M. E. versions have been reached. The limits of this publi-
cation, however, preclude the submitting this except in part,
so that only the tabulation for the story vidua (Matron of
Ephesus) appears here.
(1) A certain knight had a
A
Ar
E
B
G
F
D
A* 80, u un
wife. (A, Ar, B, D state
vicomte en
that he was a sheriff.)
Loherainne."
(2) They loved each other
A
(Ar)
E
B
C
F
A*
exceedingly. (Ar only
relates that he loved her.
In F, he will not permit
her to go half a mile
from him, "neither to
church nor to cheping.")
(3) A new sharp knife is
A
Ar
E
B
G
A*
given them.
(4) While playing with this,
f in the
i t \ th limb
he cuts her < .?
E
B
[ womb.
A
Ar
A*, "el
(C, in the finger; F, in
pouce."
the hand; D is silent
as to part. F adds that
the wife was paring a
pear.)
(5) For dole he dies on the
A
Ar
E
G
D
A*
morrow. (F adds that
he asks for a priest be-
fore he dies.)
(6) This was great folly.
A
Ar
E
B
A*
46
KILLIS CAMPBELL.
(7) He was richly buried
A
Ar
E
(*)
C
(V)
A*
on the morrow. (B does
not specify that it was
on the morrow. E, B, C
state that this occurs
after a mass. D adds
that the place of burial
was outside the city,
since there were objec-
tions to his being buried
within the city.)
(8) The wife refuses to leave
A
Ar
E
B
C
F
D
A*
the grave.
(9) Her friends try to com-
A
Ar
E
B
C
D
A*, "ses lig-
fort her.
nages."
(10) They suggest that she is
A
Ar
B
C
(4*),"jueneet
young, and may marry
bele." (No
again, and beget chil-
mention of
dren.
marryingin
A*, but see
K and the
D'Ancona
text.)
(11) She rejects their sugges-
A
Ar
B
G
A* 81.
tions, assuring them that
she will die on his grave.
They are sorry.
(12) They make for her a
A
Ar
E
B
C
A*, "une
"logge" on the grave.
loge."
(13) Also, a fire. (D, she
A
Ar
E
C
(D)
A*
makes the fire herself.
An addition of D is
that she sends for her
clothes.)
(14) Her friends leave her;
A
Ar
E
B
G
D
\A*
she moans.
(15) On the same day three
A
Ar
(E)
(B)
G
(F)
D
A*, "a celui
thieves have been taken.
jour."
(E, on a day before ; B,
silent ; F, one thief.)
(16) They were knights who
A
Ar
E
B
G
JL*
had wasted the country,
and had been hanged as
soon as captured.
THE SEVEN SAGES.
47
(17) A certain knight was to
guard the bodies for the
A
Ar
E
B
G
F
D
A*,"un chev-
alier la
first night. (A adds that
premiere
he was to watch for three
nuit."
nights.)
(18) Becoming cold, he spies
the fire in the " church-
A
Ar
E
B
G
F
D
A*, " cime-
tiere."
haw," goes thither, and
finds the lady.
(19) He asks to be let in.
A
Ar
E
B
F
.4*82.
(20) She refuses his request.
A
Ar
E
B
G
A*
In A she swears by St.
(John, in Ar, E, B, by
"St. Austyn.")
(21) He assures her that he
A
Ar
E
B
G
A* (K 3768,
will do her no harm,
"JesuiGe-
and that he is a knight.
rart le fil
Guion;"
also D* 37.)
(22) She lets him in; he
A
Ar
E
B
G
F
D
A*
warms by the fire. (In
D there is no mention
of the wife's refusing
to permit the knight to
enter.)
(23) He sees her making
A
Ar
E
B
C
A*
dole, and tells her she
is foolish to do so, that
she may yet marry some
knight. She replies that
he was so kind that she
may not love any other.
(D adds that she begins
to love him when she
finds him to be a knight ;
and that he lies with
her.)
(24) By and by he thinks of
A
Ar
E
B
G
(4.*)
his charge.
(25) And fearing guile, he
A
Ar
E
B
G
F
D
^4*83.
rides fast to the gallows,
only to find one of the
bodies stolen. (A, Ar, E,
B, he rides on a foal.)
48
KILLIS CAMPBELL.
(26) He fears he will lose his
A
Ar
E
B
C
D
A*
advancement if unable
to recover the body.
(27) Bethinks himself that
A
Ar
E
B
A* (the order
"wimmen cou}>e red."
of 26-7 re-
versed in the
French.)
(28) So going to the widow,
A
Ar
E
B
C
F
D
A* (cf. K,
he asks counsel of her.
3817).
(29) She agrees to help him if
A
Ar
E
B
G
F
A*
he will marry her. (B,
E, she proposes only that
he be her "leman,"
he suggests matrimony.
In Cj she asks if he has
a wife. )
(30) This being agreed to, she
A
Ar
E
B
C
F
D
A*
advises that they dig up
the body of her husband,
which is done.
(31) But the knight objects
A
Ar
E
C
F
A*
to hanging up the body.
(32) The lady puts a rope
A
Ar
(E)
B
C
F
A*
round the neck of the
corpse. (E, the knight
does it.)
(33) She draws the body up,
A
Ar
C
F
A*
and hangs it fast.
(34) The knight is aghast at
A
Ar
E
B
this.
(35) The knight recalls that
A
Ar
E
B
C
F
D
A* 84, " une
the thief had a wound in
plaie en la
his head, and fears that
teste."
the " guile may be per-
ceived" unless the hus-
band have a similar one ;
this the wife advises him
to make with his sword.
(36) He declines to do it.
A
Ar
E
(B)
(C)
D
(37) She asks for his sword,
A
Ar
E
B
C
F
A*
proposing to do it herself.
THE SEVEN SAGES.
49
(38) She smites with all her
A
Ar
E
B
(0)
F
D
A*
strength " amid the
brayn." (In A she
wounds him with a
knife.)
(39) The knight now knows
A
Ar
E
B
C
her to be false.
(40) He remembers that the
A
Ar
E
B
c
(F)
(D)
A*
thief's fore-teeth had
been broken out. (Z>,
F, in agreement with
A*, K, have two teeth;
but see D* 39, toutes les
dens.)
(41) She proposes that he dis-
figure her husband inlike
A
Ar
c
D
(A*)
manner, but he refuses.
(42) She does it herself with
A
Ar
E
B
c
F
D
A*
a stone. (In A, Ar, E,
J5, F, she knocks out all
his teeth ; in Z), only two.
F inserts here another
disfiguration the loss of
two fingers. In Z>, the
body is not hung up till
after the mutilation. )
(43) The wife states that she
A
Ar
E
B
F
(A*)
has now won his love,
which he denies, adding
that he would marry her
for no treasure, lest she
serve him as she has
served her lord.
(44) The sage wishes Diocle-
A
Ar
E
B
c
F
D
A* 85.
tian such fortune if he do
not respite the prince.
(45) He asks that judgment
A
Ar
(E)
B
G
A*
be suspended till the
morrow, when the prince
will speak for himself.
(46) The emperor agrees to
this, and the crowds dis-
A
Ar
B
G
D
A*
perse.
4
50
KILLIS CAMPBELL.
(47) The emperor goes to
A
Ar
E
B
C
F
D
A*
his bower; the empress
" lours " on him. ( A, Ar
add that his " sergeants
make solace " with him.)
(48) The emperor is brought
abed with riche baudekines.
A
Ar
(49) The empress is silent till
A
Ar
E
B
c
D
the morrow.
(50) When she asks if he has
A
(Ar)
E
B
(D)
A*, K 2347,
heard the "geste," etc.,
" feste aus
why men made a feast of
fox."
fools. 1 (Ar, "HowKome
was in great dread." D
likewise makes no men-
tion of the feast of fools.)
A. A is naturally the most valuable of all Middle Eng-
lish versions, since it is found in the oldest manuscript which
has come down to us, and doubtless in many respects best
preserves the original. In view of its age one would at least
hope to find in it either the parent English text or the closest
representative of it, but a close collation with the remaining
manuscripts shows that it is neither the one nor the other.
It is not even a link in any one of the chains of development.
This is established by the fact that A often abridges where all
the other texts of Fare true to the French. 2
There are, however, some features in which A appears to
reflect the original more faithfully than any other member
of its group. Thus, we find in A 666, "Deu vous doint
bonjour" = jL 15, " Diex vos doint bon jor," where none
approximate A save B 652, "And sayde, deux vous garde
bonjour;" or, in A 743, "The levedi stod in pount tournis"=
1 For the origin of this feature, see Paris, Romania, iv, 128.
2 This phenomenon does not seem to be confined to our text, but appears
also in other poems of the Auchinleck MS., as has been already observed
by Kolbing ; cf. his Arthour and Merlin, iv, p. GLUT, and his Bevis of Ham-
toun, E. E. T. S., Ex. Ser., LXV, p. XLI.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 51
L 17, "sur le pont torneiz," where C reads "on a vice," and E,
J5, " in the castle on high." And there are sundry details of
the original which A reproduces in common with only one
other text ; but these are easily explained by the circumstance
of A's closer proximity in time to the parent text, in conse-
quence of which it has suffered less from the ravages of time, or
at the hand of the modernizer, than have some of the later texts.
The abridgments of the original which characterize A fall
chiefly in the conclusions of certain stories. In fact it is a
noticeable feature due probably to the desire to avoid repeti-
tion that it is almost entirely in the ' epilogaciouns ' (as some
of the H- texts name them) that A has made any serious altera-
tions, while there is a very marked agreement, and only
occasional freedom, exhibited in the body of its stories.
This tendency to abridge is manifest throughout the ^L-text.
It is most violent, however, in the stories aper y gaza, Vlrgilius,
and avis. Chief among the passages in other versions which
find nothing corresponding in A, are the following : (1) aper,
AT, 1-20 = E 949-968 = B 933-948 = C 1041-1058 =
Z, p. 25 ; (2) Virgilius, AT 1280-1288 = E 2204-2212 = B
2244-2252 == C 2370-2376 = L, p. 55 ; (3) avis, AT 1433-
1446 = E 2367-2372 = B 2401-2414 = Z, p. 59.
There is, in addition to these, in the conclusion of gaza, a
fourth passage which A abridges radically, and which, since it
is a comparatively close paraphrase of the Old French, may
be cited here as giving a graphic illustration of this pecu-
liarity of A, and, at the same time, as showing once for all
its unoriginality, and its subordinate importance in settling
the question of the interrelation of the English versions.
This passage is, in Ar, 11. 456479 ; the corresponding lines
are, in E 1401-1426, B 1393-1420, and C 1472-1490. Cita-
tion is made from Ar as best representing the lost text Y.
Ar 456 ' Loude )>ei gonne on hym to crye, L 34. ' Chascun li escria :
And saide, lentylyon kyj>e >y mastry, Ha! mestre, or pansez de
Helpe >y disciple at Ms nede. vostre deciple.'
pe master a-lyjt J>o of his stede, . . . ' et descent de son
cheval.'
52 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
460 And grete )>e Emperowr on his kne. '. . . et s'en vient devant
UnneJ>e wold he hym see. l'empereur, si le salue : . .
pe Emperour saide, J>ou fals man, Li empereres respont au
Be hym J>at al men-kynde wan, salu qui li a dit : Ja dex
pou art fekell and fatour, ne vos beneie.'
465 Losenger and eke traytow.
A, why syr leue lord ? 'Avoi ! fet messires Lan-
So nas I neuer, saue \>j word. tules, pourcoi dites vos ce?
Syr, J?y gentyll wyue late us her, ' Ge le vos dirai, fait li
And with goddes helpe we schull us empereres, je vos avoie
skor. baillie mon fil a aprendre
470 I gow toke my son to loke et a endoctriner, et la pre-
And for to tech hym on boke, miere doctrine que li avez
And Km first bygan to tech, faite, si est que vos li avez
By-nome his tong and his spech, la parole tolue ; 1'autre qui
And taugt hym sith with mor stryf, veult prendre ma fame a
475 Ffor to nyme forth my wyf. force. Mes ja Dex ne vos
ge schull wite >eir-of nougt ; en doint joir ; et bien sa-
Bot when he is to de)>e brougt, chiez que tantost comme
I schull dampne J>e and \>j feren il sera morz, vos morroiz
479 To drawe and honge by )>e swyren.' apres, et seroiz destruit
ensement.'
As against this A has only the following lines (1387-92) :
'And th' emperour wel sone he fond :
He gret him faire, ich understand. (= Ar 460)
Th' emperour saide, so God me spede, (= AT 462)
Traitour, the schal be quit thi mede !
For mi sones mislerning,
Ye schulle habbe evil ending ! '
Other less important omissions occur in the conclusions to
aper and puteus : aper the people invoke the master to help
his disciple (L 25, C 1064, E, B); puteus the empress
threatens, on learning of the respite of the prince, to leave on
the morrow. Ar 6245, "And saide scho wold away at
morowe. Nai dame, he saide, jef God it wyll. . . ." = L 38,
"je m'en irai le matin. Non ferois, dame . . . . se dieux
plest." The same incident is omitted in the J.-text of avis ;
cf. L 59, AT 1440-1.
In the body of the stories, as already observed, this tendency
is not nearly so marked. There is in fact no significant
THE SEVEN SAGES. 53
feature of the stories of the original which has been preserved
in any other English version that does not appear also in A.
The nearest approaches to such are the following, both from
the story Roma: (1) An old wise man (= J.* 86, "un home
viel et ancien. . . .") makes the proposition that the city be put
in charge of seven sages, a bit of detail which is omitted by no
other English version ; (2) after these sages have kept the
city for a month, the food supply is exhausted ; cf. Ar, E, B,
C, F, and A* 86, " vitaille failli a ceuls." In addition to
these there are certain other minor details in which one or
more of the related English versions preserve the French
more closely. For example, in medicus (A 1149), Ypocras
pierces the ton in 1000 places, as against Ar (208), E, B, F,
which agree with L 28, -c- broches. Likewise in Virgilius,
A (1977-8) translates the O. F. "arc de coivre et une sajete,
bien entesse " (L 50) as " arblast .... and quarel taisand,"
while the remaining members of group F render more literally
bow and arrow; in sapientes, C, Ar, E, B have the masters
ask Merlin his name, in agreement with L 60, u et li demand-
fcrent commant il avoit a non," where A abridges ; to which
add that A makes no mention of the divine service at the
burial of the husband in vidua, where E, B, C, fall in with
J.* 80, and that in the same story, A (2618) has the knight
come to the gallows to watch three nights, while Ar, E, B, C
fall together in their adherence to the French A* 81, " la
premiere nuit," and we have the sum of A's noteworthy
variations within the body of its stories.
Additions in A are even less numerous. An occasional
extra couplet (so far as the evidence of the remaining English
versions goes) now and then crops out, as e. g., 645-8, and we
also find here and there additional details, such as (1) in Vir-
gilius, where the poor, in addition to warming themselves at
the magician's wonderful fire, are represented as also prepar-
ing their food by it (A 1973); and as (2) in sapientes, Herod
is described as the richest man in Christendom (A 2340),
neither of which appears in any other text, whether English
54 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
or Romance. But such additions are very few in number,
and, in any case, too insignificant to play a prominent part in
solving the problem in hand. They are, nevertheless, con-
firmatory of the evidence already adduced, with which they
unite in demonstrating conclusively the unoriginality of A.
We have, then, in A a secondary development from the
lost y. It cannot have been based on any manuscript of which
any other text of Y is a close transcript, since it preserves
the original in some places more faithfully than any other
M. E. text. On the other hand, it cannot have been the
source of any of the known M. E. manuscripts, since all these
preserve features of the French which A omits.
Ar. Nearest to A stands the fragmentary text from MS.
Arundel 140. This version, while most important as repre-
senting in all probability the lost y more closely than any
other known text, has been singularly neglected by former
investigators. Petras makes no mention of it, whence we
draw the inference that he was unacquainted with it. And
apparently the only notice which has been accorded it, beyond
Varnhagen's several references to it, 1 is that of Ward in his
Catalogue of Romances (u, p. 224 f.). From a comparison
of the introductory lines of Ar with the corresponding passages
in A y E, C, Ward observed that its affinities seemed closest
with E-, and this indeed holds for the conclusions of several
of the stories (Ward deals with a conclusion ; cf. our parallel-
ling of lines for medicus, in Appendix), where A has been seen
to be often free, and where Ar, in consequence, frequently
agrees more closely with any other text than with A. It does
not hold, however, as regards the stories themselves, where
E yields the first place to A.
Except in these conclusions, Ar agrees with A very closely.
Their intimate relation is evident at once from our line-for-
line statistics on p. 44. Of the 1916 lines of the Jr-section
(= A 1816), 234 are identical with lines in A, and there are
1 First referred to in his Eine Ital. Prosaversion d. Sieben Weisen, p. xi,
and later in his review of Petras, Eng. Stud., x, p. 279.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 55
722 similar rimes. Next comes E (1843 11.) with 169 iden-
tical lines and 746 similar rimes, a slightly larger percentage
of rimes than for A } and an apparent discrepancy, which is,
however, easily reconciled by the fact of A's characteristic
curtailments; B (1931 11.) has 137 lines identical with Ar
and 646 like rimes, and (7, which comes last, has only 19 lines
identical and 413 similar rimes.
But the closer relationship of Ar to A develops conclusively
only from a comparison of details. Here, while a careful colla-
tion of Ar with all other members of Y reveals no noteworthy
bit of detail in common with any other single text when con-
trasted with A y there are several interesting and significant
agreements of Ar with A against the rest of Y. Among these
are the following : (1) A 1462, " Ich wille bicome wod and
wilde," which is identical with Ar 552; in E 1498, the
empress (who is speaking here) seeks to slay herself (cf. L 36,
"seroie-je morte"). (2) A 1580, "And he com als a
leopard " = Ar 668, "pane cam he rynnyng as a lyvarde."
(3) A 1588, "Bihote hem pans an handfolle " = Ar 676,
" Behote heme pens a pours full." (4) A 2396, "Al to loude
thou spak thi latin " = Ar 1518, "To loude ]?ou spake J?y
latyn." (5) A 2744, "Withe riche baudekines i-spredde" =
Ar 1868, "With rich clones all byspred." None of these
verses have anything corresponding in any other English text.
Doubtless some of them are only accidental, but such cannot
be the case with all. Their evidence is well supported by
such further agreements as in senescalcus, where A and Ar
unite in retaining the twenty marks of the original, other
M. E. texts varying, or as in vidua where these two agree in
that the wife is cut in the womb, while E, B preserve the
French in the thumb (A* 80, el pouce), C states that the
wounded part is a finger, E the hand, and D is indefinite.
Of these agreements there can be only one explanation, namely
in the assumption of a connection between the two texts.
What the nature of this relation is, however, can be best
56 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
determined after a collection of corresponding data for the
other manuscripts.
In comparing the remaining texts with Ar, one is at once
struck with the remarkable agreement of B, E with A, Ar.
These four versions have a number of features in common
which do not survive in C, F, or D. Thus (1) in gaza, the
son stabs himself in the thigh (= L 33, en la cuisse), where
C, F are free, the one reading cheke, the other honde. (2) In
senescalcus, the king falls sick " by God's vengeance " (not in
L also omitted by C, D, F omitting the entire story). (3)
Again in the same story, the king offers twenty marks or
pounds for a lady to lie with (= L 40, xx mars), where C
reads ten pounds, and D simply " gold and silver." And this
is still more apparent in a line-for-line collation, as is suffi-
ciently demonstrated in the Appendix.
At the same time, also, one cannot but remark certain
occasional agreements of Ar with E, B in opposition to J., For
instance, (1) the king in senescalcus, with the former, has
great delight in women, where A on the contrary, in agree-
ment with the O. F., as also with C, D, describes him as
disdaining women above all things (L 39, " II desdaingnoit
fame seur toutes riens "). And (2) in sapientes, the sages in
Ar, E, B ask respite for seven days, where A, C give four-
teen days, F 12, L 4-8, and K 15. Likewise (3) the servants
of the king in sapientes dig under his bed " four feet or five "
in Ar, E, B, while A makes no mention of the distance, but
says ten or twelve men dig ; so L 62, xx homes. To which
is to be added (4) the agreement of Ar, E, B in having the
husband in vidua (Ar 1756) swear by 8t. Austyne; by
St. Johain in A (2630). Nevertheless, these are not of such a
nature as to contradict the classification of Ar with A, but
merely indicate that in such cases, Ar best preserving the
original, independence has been asserted by the poet of A.
But in view of these and of A's frequent abridgments, we
cannot look for the basis of Ar in A, nor as it is hardly
necessary to add, after the citation of textual agreements with
THE SEVEN SAGES. 57
A in E or jB, and still less, for even more obvious reasons,
in C or F. The marked agreement of AT with A, however,
begets the assumption of a development of the former, parallel
with the latter, from a common source r, through which
they both go back to y.
Certain agreements of Ar with E against all other versions
including A (treated more at length under E) are not alto-
gether easy to reconcile, but owing to Ar's nearness to other
texts A in particular as against E, it is impossible to con-
sider Ar as derived from it ; we are led rather to the converse
assumption, of a partial connection, or contamination, of E
with Ar, or, in more likelihood, with the latter's immediate
source r.
That Ar so far as it goes, best preserves the lost M. E.
original is borne out on all sides : (1) by its close agreement
with the texts A and E, which otherwise best reproduce this
source ; (2) by the fact that F in the last four stories (in
which we should expect a close adherence to its original) is
closer to it than to any other text; and (3) that while A,
especially, and E, B, in a less degree, often add or omit lines,
Ar almost never adds, and in only rare cases abridges. 1
However, that no manuscript which has survived was based
on Ar follows from its occasional freedom, as e. g., (1) its
rimes to 171-2, 227-8, 463-4, etc., which are parallelled by
no other text, and (2) in Roma the names of Julius and July,
where all other texts better preserve the Genus (Janus) and
January of the French.
E. With the exception of Ar, the Egerton MS. would be
of most value in preparing a normalized text, since it next
best preserves the original, and especially since it is complete.
The value of E is considerably impaired, however, by the
fact that its author or more probably its scribe has made
an unusual number of textual abridgments, as a rule for
1 The only addition in the first 1900 11. is 1871-2 :
' When day bygane to sprynge,
And j>e foules mery to synge.'
58 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
single couplets only, yet in a few cases for a half-dozen or
more lines. Some of these are the following : (1) after 996
= A 991-2, (2) 1024 =J. 1019-20, (3) 1216 =A 1211-2,
(4) 1400= A 1385-6, (5) 1500= A 1465-6, (6) 1530 =A
1500-1, (7) 1558 =A 1529-30, (8) 1578 =A 1549-50, (9)
1646 =J. 1615-6, (10) 1652=^1 1623-4, (11) 1662 =.4
1633-4, (12) 1784 =J. 1749-50, etc., and, most radical of
all, (13) after 2472= .A 2424 f., where ten lines have been
lost. 1 In consequence of this, E is somewhat shorter than
either of the other complete texts, B and C. For the 2564
lines of the Arundel fragment, it has only 2365 ; and this
number in reality should be reduced 18 lines, since the couplets
with which E heads nine of its stories, and which have been
included in this numbering, did not belong to the original, it
is safe to assume, and should not, for purposes of comparison,
be regarded as part of the text.
But beyond these slight abridgments, the author of E has,
in the handling of his original, exhibited almost no independ-
ence. One looks in vain for such abridgments as characterize
A, as also for significant additions such as are found in F and
C. Excepting such occasional freedom as the assigning to
the incident in Roma the date of the first of January, and the
changing of the barber in tentamina into a borowe a scribal
error, doubtless we shall find scarcely one other feature ex-
clusively peculiar to E, until we have reached almost the end
of the poem, when the poet for once appears to assert his inde-
pendence, and we have in consequence the very interesting
addition that
' whenne that his fadyr dede was,
He lete make a nobylle plas,
1 The additions are less numerous. Among those which are parallelled
by no more than one other text, or are peculiar to E, are (1) 986-7 (after
A 974), (2) 1015-6 (a. A 1012), (3) 1245-6 (a. A 1238), (4) 1621-2 = A
1591-2, (5) 1693-6 (a. A 1664), (6) 1761-2 (a. A 1726), (7) 1809-10 (a. A
1780), (8) 2097-2103 (a. A 2068), (9) 2291-4 (a. A 2246), and (10) 2349-
51 (a. A 2298).
THE SEVEN SAGES. 59
And a fayre abbeye he lete begynne.
And vii. schore monkys brought thereyn,
And euyr more to rede and synge
For hys fadyr wit^-owte lesynge.' (3561-6)
All other important variations in E are repeated in some
one or more of the related M. E. versions. The agreement
here is closest with B and Ar. Its near relation to the latter
has already been shown, and it has been pointed out that
there are features in which the two are alone ; and there are
also cases in which the two are alone in textual abridg-
ments : e.g. Ar 227-8 =.#1171-2. It has also been seen
under Ar, that B in several instances falls in with E, Ar, as
against A, C, F.
It remains to point out some of the motives common to
E, B versus the remaining texts of Y. The most important
of these are the following: (1) arbor lords and ladies begin
to weep when they see the prince led forth to be hanged ;
(2) arbor Bancyllas assures the emperor that the prince
will recover his speech; (3) sapientes both omit the detail
of A, Ar, C that Merlin declines the offer of money made
by the man whose dream he has interpreted; (4) vidua
the wife is cut in the thumb, where other texts have vari-
ously womb, finger, and hand ; as also (5) vidua the knight's
disregarding the widow's suggestion that he knock out her
husband's teeth ; (6) Roma the sage who makes the propo-
sition for saving Rome is called Junyus (A, C, F, Gemes ; Ar,
Julius; D, Gynevcr). In several of these, to wit 3, 4, 5, it will
be observed, E, B are truest to the French.
Such evidence as this precludes the thought of a basis of E
in Ar, but in view of the agreements between the two already
noted, and, especially, of the fact that there is a greater num-
ber of Jr-lines than of .ZMines identical with E's (cf. p. 44),
it does not seem improbable though I am unable to prove it
that the author of E has known and been partly influenced by Ar.
On the other hand there is abundant evidence of an all but
immediate connection between B and E\ (1) in the agree-
ments in details just cited, and (2) in the textual omissions
60 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
and additions which the two have exclusively in common.
Thus, of the thirteen .J-omissions collected above, six (1, 7,
9, 10, 11, 12) are also in B; and of the ten additions cited in
the foot-note (p. 58), three (1 , 8, 9) are common to J9, or a
total of 9 out of 23 a remarkable showing when it is borne
in mind that in ten of these cases E is alone, agreeing in only
one case (abridgments 9) with any other text than B.
Despite these, however, E cannot have been based on J5,
since it preserves in agreement with other texts notably
Ar features of the original which B omits.
In the next section it will be shown, also, that B was not
based on E, and it will be further demonstrated that the two
are related through a common source.
B. The Balliol text, like E, is complete and of late com-
position. The analogy between the two does not stop here,
however ; there are many things which bind them together,
not only when looked at externally, but also from an interior
point of view. One of the most striking phenomena which
they have in common, and which one cannot but remark in
comparing them with Ar and the remaining F-texts, is the
tendency to reverse the order of words, or to substitute
synonymous or analogous expressions, in consequence of
which the identity of the line and often the rime is destroyed.
This is equally as prominent in B as in E, if not more so.
In B especially, the change of epithet often flows, one feels,
from a desire to modernize, rather than from a conscious
effort, as might be supposed, to conceal the source.
In some other respects, however, B and E are very unlike.
For instance, while it is characteristic of E to drop out one
or more couplets for every column, B is exceptionally free
from such slight curtailments, while its additional couplets
are comparatively numerous. 1 Moreover, while E is at first
l ln the first 1000 lines of the part selected for a line-for-line comparison
(=B 933-1951), B has 16 couplets which do not appear in any other
manuscript, and which were accordingly, in large part in all probability,
its own additions. E, on the contrary, has only 4, or one-fourth as many
(1015-6, 1245-6 and 1693-6).
THE SEVEN SAGES. 61
close to the original more so by far in the first thousand
lines than anywhere else and becomes more and more free, B
exhibits just the reverse tendency, and we find it in the last
third of the poem textually almost as close to the original
as is E.
As regards incident, B is usually more free than any
one of the texts so far treated. Its chief variations in the
nature of additions largely are the following : (1) aper
the herd fills both arms and sleeves (later laps) with the haws;
A, E, laps = L 23, girons; C, Z), hood. (2) medicus the ille-
gitimate father of the sick prince, called in the remaining
members of Y either the earl or the king of Naverne (= L 27,
li quens de Namur) is not named. (3) puteus besides the
feature peculiar to F, viz. that the burgess would only marry
some one from a distance, B adds that he also would marry
no poor woman, with the additional information that he
already had had two wives. The feature of A, E, Ar } that
he made a covenant with the bride's father, does not appear in
B. (4) senescalcus while in the remaining texts the steward
is banished, in B he is put to death and by pouring molten
silver and lead down his throat. This incident, which consti-
tutes the most violent freedom of -B, is apparently borrowed
from Virgilius, where Crassus dies a similar death. The
punishment in either case is fitted to the crime. (5) tenta-
mina the wife wishes to love the parish priest, where A, Ar }
E, F, C have simply priest = L, provoire (but see D* 27,
Messire Guillaume le chappelain de la parroise). (6) sapientes
they meet with the old man after two days; other texts not
definite as to time. (7) Roma the town is put in charge of
two wise men; in other texts it is seven. (8) inclusa the
knight has travelled only one month before he comes into
the land of his lady ; according to other M. E. versions it is
three months (K, D*, A* 89 3 trois semaines; but cf. Varn-
hagen's Ital. Prosaversion, p. 36, tre mesi. (9) inclusa the
wife's ring had been given her as a New Year's gift, an
invention of B.
62 KILLIS CAMPBELL,
But while B has thus many features peculiar to itself, it
possesses very few exclusively peculiar to itself and any one
other text, a circumstance which renders the problem of its
relations somewhat difficult of solution. We may resort,
however, to the verse-omissions or additions, and it is signifi-
cant here that the evidence from motive -comparison (submitted
already under E] which pointed to a relation with E, receives
very strong confirmation. In almost every instance in which
B agrees in an addition or omission with only one other text,
this text is E. Thus, in the first thousand lines of the con-
stant element in Y (= B 934 f.), there is a total of ten such
variations, of which nine are in agreement with E the tenth
being with (7, an agreement which can only be explained as a
coincidence or, at least, as signifying nothing. The agreements
with E, however, cannot well be accidental. They offer strong
confutation of the evidence of the line-collation (p. 44), which
seems to indicate a closer relationship with A or Ar.
That B was not based on either of the latter A, Ar
follows from the fact that it preserves certain features of the
original (cf. 3, 4, 5 of motive-agreements of E, B, p. 59) which
they have either lost or altered.
And that both B and E go back to y independently of each
other is rendered improbable in the highest degree by their
agreements in omissions and additions. We are forced then to
the assumption of the existence at some time of a manuscript
denoted by s which served as the common source of B
and E.
F. There is no one of the M. E. texts of the Seven Sages
which has been more imperfectly reported than that contained
in the Cambridge University MS. Ff, n, 38. Wright as early
as 1845 was acquainted with this version, and printed in the
introduction (p, LXX) to his edition of D the opening lines,
but vouchsafed no further description of the text than that it
presented many different readings from A and was much
mutilated. And Petras, on the basis of this description, and
with the aid of about 190 lines of the text, has inclined to the
THE SEVEN SAGES. 63
view that F is nearer to C than to any other M. E. version. 1
Neither Wright nor Petras, however, has made reference to
the description of Halliwell in his Thornton Romances (Cam-
den Society Publications, xxx, p. XLII f.), and both were
evidently ignorant of it.
The description of Halliwell is the most reliable which has
up to this time appeared ; yet in one or two instances it, too,
is inaccurate. For example, the thirteenth story of F has
been overlooked entirely; again it implies that there is only
one new story introduced into this version, the one which
he prints on p. XLIII f. In reality there is a second story in
F which is peculiar to it, the ninth story, to which Halliwell
gives the name The Squyer and his Borowe. This tale is
complete and runs as follows :
' Hyt was a squyer of thys centre,
1115 And full welbelouyd was he.
Yn dedys of armys and yn justyng [145 b.]
He bare hym beste yn hys begynnyng.
So hyt befelle he had a systur sone,
That for syluyr he had nome,
1 120 He was put yn preson strong,
And schulde be dampned, and be hong.
The squyer faste thedur can gon,
And askyd them swythe anon
What byng he had borne a-way ;
1125 And they answeryd, and can say,
He had stolen syluyr grete plente ;
Therfore hangyd schulde he bee.
The squyer hym profurd, permafay,
To be hys borowe tyll a certen day,
1130 For to amende that he mysdede,
Anon they toke hym yn that stede,
And bounde hym faste fote and honde
And caste hym yn-to preson stronge.
They let hys cosyn go a-way
1135 To quyte hym be a certen day.
Grete pathes then used he,
And men he slewe grete plente.
Moche he stale and bare a-way,
And stroyed the centre nyght and day.
a See his dissertation, p. 31. Cf. also Varnhagen, in his review of Petras,
Englische Studien, x, p. 281 f.
64 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
1140 Bot upon J>e squyer )>oght he nothyng
That he yn preson lefte lyeng,
So that tyme came as y yow say,
But for the squyer came no paye.
He was hanged on a galowe tree.
1145 For hym was dole and grete pyte,
When the noble squyer was slon, [145 c.]
For hym morned many oon.
That odur robbyd and stale moche )>yng,
And sethyn was hangyd at hys endyng.
1150 Thus schall be-tyde of )>e, syr Empmmr,
And of thy sone, so gret of honour.'
Otherwise HalliwelPs description is characterized by the
strictest accuracy, and leaves no room for the assumption,
apparently made by Petras, of an identity in the order of
stories between F and the remaining M. E. versions.
The correct order of stories in F is as follows : (1) arbor,
(2) puteus, (3) aper, (4) tentamina, (5) gaza (end of), (6) vidua,
(7) Riotous Son (beginning of), (8) canis (end of), (9) Squyer
and Borowe, (10) avis, (11) sapientes, (12) medicus, (13) Roma,
(14) inclusa, and (15) vaticinium. Eight stories then (1, 3, 5,
10, 11, 13, 14, 15) retain their usual order. The two new
stories, 7 and 9, supplant senescalcus and Virgilius, taking their
respective order. For the remaining five stories, 2 changes
place with 8, 4 with 12, 6 with 2, 8 with 4, and 12 with 6.
For this order there is no parallel either in other English or
in foreign versions, and there can be little doubt that it was
original with the ^-redactor.
In content, also, .Fis very unique. In some cases the orig-
inal story has been altered almost beyond recognition. This
alteration consists largely in textual abridgments, but it is also
very evident in the many new incidents that have been intro-
duced.
The introduction, in contradistinction to the stories of the
first part, is but slightly abridged. It exhibits several more
or less interesting variations, but the only one of any signifi-
cance is the assigning to the king's steward the distinction
THE SEVEN SAGES. 65
(accorded the king's retinue in the other texts) of making the
petition which saves the prince's life the first day.
'Then come forthe the steward,
And seyde, syr, thys was not forward,
When that y helde the thy londe,
When ii. kynges bade )>e batell with wrong,
And then ]>ou swere be heuen kyng
Thou schuldest neuer warne me myn askyng.
Geue me thy sones lyfe to-day,
Yentyll Emperour, y the pray,
And let hym to-morowe be at J>y wylle,
Whethur K>u wylt hym saue or spylle.
I graunt the, seyde the Emperour,
To geue hym lyfe be seynt sauyowr.' (380-391)
Arbor is very much abridged, the story proper comprising
only twenty lines. There is no mention of the burgess's going
away from home, nor of the trimming away of the branches
of the old tree.
Of cam's only a short fragment is left, for which compare
Halliwell, Thornton Romances, p. XLIV.
Aper has to do with a "swynherde" who has lost a "boor,"
and who
' durste not go home to hys mete
For drede hys maystyrs wolde hym bete,'
but climbs a tree, and is making a repast of acorns when the
wild-boar of the forest comes up.
Medicus is one of the last four stories, hence agrees faith-
fully with its original.
Only the conclusion of gaza has been preserved.
Puteus has undergone radical alteration: (I) The curfew
of the original is omitted. Instead of it there is a law in
Rome that whosoever shall be found away from home at
night with any woman other than his wife shall be stoned
to death on the morrow. (2) The lover here is a " squire of
great renown." (3) The burgess uses a rope in trying to get
his wife from the well. (4) He has already had two wives
before his marriage with the one who figures here. This
5
66 KILL1S CAMPBELL.
feature has been transplanted from the introduction to tenta-
mina, where it properly belongs.
Senescalcus and Virgilius do not appear in F.
Tentamina is characterized by the addition of a fourth trial,
the killing of the knight's hawk. Other features are (1) the
assigning to the wife the office of the gardener in the first
trial (she fells the tree, and sets " dokys and nettuls " in its
stead), (2) the omission of mention of the church as the meet-
ing-place of mother and daughter, and (3) the transference to
puteus of the ' two- wives '-feature.
Avis, though textually free, contains no unusual details
other than (1) that the lover is a priest, and (2) that the wife
is killed by the enraged husband.
In sapientes, however, there are several striking variations :
(1) The sages build a " horde-house" just above the city gate,
which renders the emperor blind whenever he tries to pass it
in going out of the city. (2) There is no mention of Merlin's
first dream-interpretation, a feature in which F agrees with
D, an agreement, however, which can only be accidental
since F contains the search for and meeting of the sages with
Merlin, which we find no hint of in D.
Vidua has the following peculiar features : (1) The husband
will never let his wife go a half-mile from him, " neither to church
nor to cheping." (2) The wife is paring a pear when she cuts
herself. (3) There is mention of only one thief, and he is not
alluded to as a knight. (4) A " pyke and spade " are used in
digging up the corpse. (5) In addition to the mutilations
usually recorded, F adds a fourth, the cutting off of two
fingers which the knight claimed that the thief had lost.
The last three stories, Roma, inelusa, and vaticinium, offer
essential agreement in detail with the other texts of Y.
The variations of F are thus seen to be very numerous.
Yet, significant though many of them are, they tell only half
the story. The whole truth is revealed only when it is con-
sidered that along with these, and partly consequent upon
THE SEVEN SAGES. 67
them, the length of the poem has been reduced by about
one-third, or to little more than 2500 lines.
And what is most noteworthy about this abridgment is
that it is not carried through the entire text, but extends only
through the eleventh story. Up to the conclusion of this
story the greatest freedom prevails, old incidents are rejected
and new ones introduced at will, and, again resorting to
figures for forcible illustration, the text is reduced from a
normal 2500 lines to scarcely more than 1000. 1 In the
remaining four stories, however, there is, as has been seen,
close agreement with the remaining texts of Y.
How to account for this wholesale mutilation to which F
has subjected its original is not an easy problem. One would
think of a basis for the first part in oral accounts, but this is
rendered extremely improbable by the fact that throughout
this part there is frequent agreement of rimes, and not unusual
identity of lines, with other M. E. versions. Or again, there
is a possibility that F was made from some very fragmentary
manuscript, but there is no substantial basis for this supposi-
tion, and the changed order of stories is distinctly against it.
The most probable view, by far, seems to be that the poet had
before him a complete manuscript, which, for some reason,
possibly to conceal his source, he has for the first eleven stories
arbitrarily altered ; and that beginning with the twelfth story,
having grown tired of his task, he has for the remaining stories
reproduced his original with fidelity.
'With the acceptance of this explanation, the problem of F'a
relationship is rendered comparatively simple; for, if the
variations of the first part are attributable to the poet, this
part is of little value for purposes of comparison, and we are
accordingly restricted to the last part as the basis for any
investigation.
For this part there is comparatively close textual agreement
with E, jB, C, Ar, and A (the last two unfortunately frag-
mentary here in part). No single important detail and a very
1 For the corresponding part, E has 2593 lines, and B, 2658.
68 KILLIS CAMPBEL.L.
small percentage of the rimes have been changed, while lines
identical with one or more of the other texts are numerous.
The agreement is closest with Ar as a rule, with E next in
order ; thus, for the 845 lines (F 1440-2285) which the three
texts have in common, only 53 lines of F are identical with
lines in E, while the corresponding figure for Ar is 116.
Again, for this section Ar has agreement with F in 26 couplets
which do not appear in .#(^1476-7, 1490-1, 1694-5 [B, A\,
1714-5, 1726-31, 1738-9, 1754-5, 1774-7, 1790-1, etc).
But despite this affinity with Ar, .F cannot have been based
on it, for in one case (F 2280-1) Ar lacks a couplet which both
Eand .Fhave preserved, and in other cases, it has made inde-
pendent additions (cf. Ar 1896-7, 2374-7, 2384-5). This
slight evidence is everywhere well supported : on the one
hand we. find B, though much farther removed than E or Ar,
nearest F (cf. B 1095 = F 1578); again A will be found to
be nearest (cf. A 997 = F 1464, A 1016 = F 1487, A 1048
= F 1518, A 1088-9 = F 1553-4) ; while in other instances
several will agree as against Ar (cf. A 2762 = B 2848 F
1679, and A 2751 = E 2762 = B 2833 = F 1662).
In the face of this otherwise contradictory evidence, it is
impossible to find the source of Fin any one known manuscript.
At the same time there is nothing to indicate a partial basis
on any two of them, since some exclusive agreements with
each of the other closely related texts are found. On the
contrary, the evidence from all sides combines to show that F
goes back to y independently of any other known manuscript.
C. Petras, although he showed a close agreement of C
with A 52 lines identical and 1296 with similar rimes
classed it apart from A, and as only related with it through
a common O. F. source. 1 His own figures, however, as
Varnhagen has already pointed out, justify quite another
conclusion ; for it is inconceivable that two independent trans-
lations from a foreign source should have 52 out of about
2500 lines identical, or 1300 with like rimes. The rather are
1 See his dissertation, p. 21.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 69
we to conclude that C is ultimately based on the ultimate
common original of A, Ar, E, B, F, and belongs with them
to group Y.
Of all M. E. texts C is the fullest and, from a literary
point of view, the most perfect. At the same time it is, with
the exception of F, the freest of the texts which comprise Y.
This freedom, however, does not consist in the changed order
of stories nor the wholesale mutilation of text which charac-
terize F- nor is it violent or spasmodic. It flows from
an independence or individuality of a much higher type, which
neither eliminates old motives nor introduces new ones of a
startling nature, but which contents itself, on the one hand,
with a slight variation of the episode (generally in the nature
of additions), on the other, with the enlargement and embellish-
ment of the often more or less lifeless language of its original,
in both cases with the purpose of heightening the poetic effect.
So that, while we see in A the most important of the M. E.
texts from an historical viewpoint, in AT the most faithful
representative of the lost y, we have in C preeminently the
most perfect poem, holding, as it does, in language, style, and
metre, the first place in the early English group.
As regards fidelity to the original, as already suggested, C
does not occupy a very high rank. Its variations, however,
consist rather in amplification than in invention, as is well
illustrated by the fact that, while 600 additional lines have
been interwoven into the text, there are only the following
noteworthy variations of incident : (1) The step-mother in
bringing about the prince's downfall seeks counsel and assist-
ance from a witch (297). (2) In arbor, the tree with which
the story deals is a pineapple-tree ; A, E, B y F read pynnote-
tree, and D, apple-tree. (3) The queen in medicus states that
it has been twelve years since the Earl of Naverne had visited
her (1167) ; other texts indefinite. (4) The patient in the same
story is advised to " Ete beres fless and drink ]?e bro " (1184).
A, AT, E, B, " beef's flesh with the broth " (E, " with the
blood ") ; L 27, char de buef. (5) There is mention of only
70 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
two clerks mgaza, where the remaining English and the French
texts have seven, five of whom are stationed away from the city
(1319). (6) In the same story the father alone goes into the
tower Cressent, while in the other texts both father and son
go (1340). (7) In tentamina, the history of each of the two
deceased wives is related separately; in other texts it is simply
stated that the husband had survived two wives (1879). (8)
In the same story, also, it will be noted that only the right
arm of the wife is bled. (9) In VirgiHus, the two brothers them-
selves fill the two " forcers " ; elsewhere the King has them filled.
Other variations here are the changed order of incident in
burying the treasure, and the omission of the name of the
Emperor (Crassus). (10) There is, in avis, no mention of a
maid as assisting the faithless wife. (11) The lord of the
castle in inclusa is playing chess when the knight rides up
(3294). (12) The son in vatidnium learns of the whereabouts
of his father through a vision (4135).
"We may judge from this enumeration how faithfully C has
reproduced the subject-matter of the original. It has altered
very few details, and none radically, while no single significant
feature, either from the body or from the end of its stories,
has been omitted ; at the same time, only an occasional bit of
detail has been added, a remarkable showing, indeed, when
the large increase in the number of lines is considered.
But there is more specific evidence of C's fidelity to its
original. There are certain details in which it appears to give
a more faithful reflex of the Old French than any other M. E.
text. Thus, in aper, the boar on reaching the tree finds
" hawes ferly fone " (987) ; cf. L 23, " s'il se merveille mult
durement de ce qu'il ne pot autretant trover des alies comme
il soloit faire devant." According to other M. E. versions the
boar finds no haws at all. Another illustration may be had
from inclusa, where C (3264) preserves the Hongrie of the
French (A* 89) as the land into which the knight finally
comes in search of his lady ; M. E. variants are Pktys in Ar,
and Poyle in E, F, and D.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 71
And there are also instances in which C is in agreement with
only one other text in its preservation of the French : (1) With
A in its rendering blanche leuriere (K 2604 ; L 45, only leu-
riere} by gray bitch, where Ar, E, B render greyhound, F
simply hound. (2) With F in giving, in Roma, the informa-
tion as to the origin of the word January at the beginning of
the Janus-episode ; other M. E. versions, where they preserve
this detail, depart from the O. F. order in placing it at the
conclusion of the story.
It is to these facts in the main that we have to resort to
determine C's immediate relations ; for the theory of a direct
translation from the O. F. can no longer be defended in the
face of the evidence from a comparison of rimes, etc. From
this comparison it is evident that C is nearly related to the
other versions of group Y. That it cannot have been based on
any one of them, however, follows from its agreements (just
cited) with the French where the remaining M. E. texts are
free. And this also derives confirmation from the features
which it has exclusively in common with only one M. E. ver-
sion and the O. F., for neither of the two M. E. versions in
point here (A and F} can possibly have been its original.
We have, accordingly, to assume for C an independent basis
in the lost text y. Whether one or more manuscripts inter-
vene between C and y cannot be determined so long as they
are not forthcoming ; in any case there seems nothing to sup-
port Varnhagen's proposition (Eng. Stud., x, p. 280) of a
" miindliche Ueberlieferungsstufe " between the two.
D. Version D, as compared with the texts so far con-
sidered, is unique, and cannot be classed with them in group
Y. Though it is written in the same metre as the remaining
M. E. versions, and while it preserves, also, the .A-order of
stories, it differs from each and every text of Y much more
radically than any one of these differs from any other. And
so great has this difference seemed that scholars have been
unanimous in assuming for D an immediate basis in the Old
French. The thought of a near kinship with any other M. E.
72 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
version appears never to have been entertained. "Wright's
testimony is to the effect that "The two English metrical
versions (by which he meant A and D) are altogether different
compositions ; but .... were evidently translated from the
same original. . . ." l And the views of Petras (p. 44 f.) and
others are of like import. Scholars without exception seem
to have blindly accepted Wright's view, with no effort what-
ever to test its validity.
That Wright's assumption is unwarranted, however, may
be demonstrated, it is believed, beyond question. And it
will be the purpose of the following pages to make good this
assertion. With this end in view, we may first bring together
the chief variations in incident which D exhibits.
The introduction of D contains no significant alteration
of the original. A unique feature is the naming of the queen
Helie (variant Elye, 223) where the French is silent, but
where I^has the name Milicent (or Ilacenf). In not giving a
name to the prince it falls in with the French ; other M. E.
texts call him Florentine. There is a slight enlargement in
the account of the meeting of the father and son, in which
we have possibly a more faithful preservation of the French
than in Y. Other slight variations are the additional nature-
touch in having the queen ask to see the prince " In a myry
mornyng of May" (261), and the requiring the sages to
come to court within three days after the receipt of the royal
message (312).
Arbor preserves all the essential motives of the French.
A slight abridgment is the omission of mention of the knight's
going away for the sake of " chaffare " ( A, E, _B, C, L).
Canis, on the other hand, contains a number of interesting
variations : (1) The infant has only two nurses ; in A, E, jB, C,
K, L, there are three, cf. L 17, "Li enfes avoit -in- norrices."
(2) D also fails to catalogue the duties of the nurses, which is
otherwise a constant feature in both English and French (cf.
7, K, L 17). (3) A third curtailment is the complaint of the
1 See the preface to his edition of the D-text, Percy Soc., xvi, p. LXVIH.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 73
knight against women when he finds his child alive. (4) A
very original addition is that the knight drowns himself for
sorrow in a fische-pole in his garden (883) ; L 21 and Fhave
him go on a pilgrimage by way of atonement.
Aper exhibits comparative agreement with F, except in the
conclusion which has been much abridged.
The tale medicus is very much condensed. The ton-motif
is cancelled altogether (L 28 f., A 1142 f.), and there are
numerous less important omissions : e. g. (1) mention by name
of the Earl of Navern ( F, L 27, " li quens de Namur ") ; (2)
the cure of the invalid (F, "beef's flesh," etc. ; L 27, "char
de buef"); (3) specific allusion to the prince as an avetrol
(L 27, avoltres, so F, except JF, C read Jiorcopp). A single
addition is that the queen of Hungary is accompanied by ten
or twelve maids (1082).
Gaza. Omissions are (1) the names of both emperor and
tower (Octavian and Oressent, respectively, in A, Ar, E, B, O 9
L 30), and (2) the warden's finding the headless body, and his
endeavor to identify the same, a feature which is preserved
and worked out in detail in all other related versions (cf. L
32 f., A 1319-48).
Puteus. (1) No mention of the Roman law until late in
the narrative (1413 f.) ; in other versions it appears at the
beginning of the story ( F, L 36). (2) This law is not alluded
to at all as curfew (cf. L 36, coevrefeu). (3) The wife makes
no threat of drowning herself in the well ( F, L 37). (4) The
husband's excuse for being out thus late is that he thought he
heard a spangel, which he had " mysde al thys seven-nyght "
(1448-9).
Senescalcus. (1) Much abridgment of the scene between
the seneschal and his wife on the former's announcing his
infamous purpose. (2) Abridgment also of the early morning
scene, notably the dialogue between the king and his seneschal.
(3) An omitted detail is the bestowing the wife on a rich earl,
which is found in F, but which seems not to have been in
the Old French.
74 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Tentamina variations are (1) the wife herself contrives the
" tentamina." In all the related versions, they are proposed
by the mother. (2) A brother of the sage assists in the blood-
letting. Omissions are (1) mention of the sage's having sur-
vived two wives (cf. L 43 and all M. E. versions except F\
and (2) the wife's third visit to her mother, and the implied
r6le of the parish-priest of the original and the remaining
M. E. versions.
Virgilius. (1) A. striking and altogether unwarranted alter-
ation is the substitution of Merlin for Vergil (1880). (2)
Allied with this is the very radical variation probably the
most radical of all in D in the omission of the entire first
episode, the incident of the mirror-pillars alone being preserved.
Other less striking variations are (3) the two coffers of gold
are buried, not as in the remaining M. E. versions, at the gates
of the city, but in " lyttyl pyttys twaye" (1926); (4) the
emperor is not asked to divide half with the brothers, nor does
he accompany the latter to their place of digging, but sends
one of his men with them (1932 f., 1950) ; (5) the brothers set
fire to the foundation of the pillar before going to their inn,
and even visit the emperor to bid farewell before taking final
leave of the city; (6) instead of pouring molten gold down the
emperor's throat, a ball of gold is ground to powder and his
eyes, nose, and throat are filled with it (2067-71).
Avis. Instead of the pie of other texts we have a popynjay
(2145), and (2) instead of the maid, a boy as the wife's assist-
ant. (3) Only the boy goes on the house-top. (4) He breaks
great blown bladders in imitation of thunder. (5) There is
no mention of the husband's discovery of the wife's deception.
Sapientes. Important omissions are the search for, and find-
ing of, the child Merlin and the incident, dependent thereon,
of the interpretation of the dream.
Vidua. (1) An interesting invention is the husband's burial
" withouten the toun at a chapel " (2484), since, in view of
the manner in which he met his death, "In kyrkejarde men
wolde hym nout delve " (2482) ; A* 80, simply au moustier. (2)
THE SEVEN SAGES. 75
The wife herself kindles the fire and makes her bed beside the
grave (2502 f.), having first sent after her clothes (2500). (3)
The knight is permitted to enter immediately on knocking ;
in other texts, he has to repeat his knocking and petitions.
(4) The wife does not, as in other texts, propose matrimony
to the knight.
Roma. (1) There are three heathen kings instead of seven
as in the original (2649). (2) The page is not named till
towards the end of the story, when he is called Gynever (2730);
cf. ^L* 86, Genus; A, B, C, F, Gemes; E, B, Junyus; Ar.
Julius.
Inclusa. This story presents remarkable agreement with
Y, the chief and only important variation being the temporary
omission of the knight's explanation of the reason for his flight
from his native land in that he had slain there another knight.
This excuse is employed later in the story, but originates with
the lady (2961).
Vaticinium. (1) The father also has the power of inter-
preting the language of birds (3138). (2) The name of the
father is omitted (A* 101, 7T4919, Girart lefts Thierri; B,
C, F, Jerrard Noryes sone; E } Barnarde Norysshe) y and there
is otherwise much condensation of the narrative.
Such are some of the variations of D. And these are doubt-
less what led Wright to his classification of this version. But
since all these variations are peculiar to D they can in no way
be held to confirm Wright's view. They are in fact of no
value whatever in determining Z>'s relations, except in so far
as they put one on guard against laying too much stress on
any agreements which D may be found to have exclusively in
common with any particular group or version.
Wright's theory, however, does seem to derive some sup-
port from another quarter, namely that Z), in a number of
instances, preserves the Old French more faithfully than any
other M. E. version. 1 These are as follows : (1) In senescalcus,
the king rules in Apulia (so L 39) ; in Y 9 he rules over both
1 Wright, however, has not adduced any of this evidence.
76 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Apulia and Calabria. (2) In sapientes, after all the sages
have been slain and the cauldron has become clear, Merlin and
Herod ride out of the city by way of testing results ; the king,
on reaching the gate, regains his sight (D 2409 f., L 63).
Other M. E. texts omit this feature. A less significant agree-
ment of D with the Old French in the same story is that the
king remains blind from the time he goes outside the city
gates, where F represents him as being blind only when with-
out the city, and as always recovering his sight on his return.
(3) D 2803, J.* 89 have the knight in inclusa travel three
weeks in a fruitless search for the lady of his dream. Ar, E,
C y F have him travel three months, J5, one month. 1 (4) In
vaticiniunij the father and the son, at the beginning of the
story, are on their way to visit a hermit on an island in the
sea (3141 f.). This feature is suppressed in the remaining M.
E. versions, but appears in all the important O. F. versions ;
.A* 98, " por aler a -i- reclus qui estoit seur -i- rochier," and
jST4693 4, " Naiant en vont a un renclus, ki en un rochier ses-
toit mis." (5) In the same story (3327), the city to which
the father comes in his poverty, is, in agreement with J.* 101,
Plede (cf. also .IT 49 18, "Ales moi tost au plaseis" which
Godefroy identifies with plaisseis = cldture). The city is not
named in Y.
Of these agreements two (the 2d and 4th) are very signifi-
cant, and serve at least to show that D was not based on the
common original (y) of the six versions so far treated. They
do not prove, however, that D goes back to the French unre-
lated with these, for there still remains the possibility of a
connection of D with y through a common M. E. original (x),
which y does not for these features faithfully reproduce. Yet
it must be granted that this explanation would seem to
have little in its favor could not some agreements of D
with certain members of Fas against the French be shown.
1 The Italian prose text published by Varnhagen agrees here with the
M. E. versions ; see p. 36, tre mesi.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 77
Among these agreements are : (1) with A and (7, in canis,
in that the knight cuts out the dog's rygge-boon (D 859) ; in
the French, he cuts off his head (L 20, "si li cope la teste") ;
(2) in aper, with (7, in that the herd fills his hood with haws
(D 945), J., E, B, L, his laps; (3) in Virgilius, with the entire
group Yj in that there are only two brothers who bring about
the overthrow of the image (D 1899) ; L 51, on the contrary,
"in- bachelers"; (4) in vidua, with F, A* 84, in that the
wife is called on to knock out only two of her husband's teeth
(D 2592) ; according to A, Ar, E, B, C, all are knocked out;
see also D* 39, toutes les dens; (5) in inclusa, (a) with the
entire group F, in the substitution of Hungary for the Mon-
bergier of A* 89, K, as the land whence the knight comes (D
2787), (b) with E, F in the substitution of Poyle for the
illogical Hungary of the French (A* 89, K) as the land into
which the knight finally comes (JD 2805), and (c) with F in
the additional detail, that the earl had been warred against
for two years (D 2849).
But here it is possible that these agreements were accidental.
Furthermore, inasmuch as the ultimate O. F. original of the
M. E. versions has in all probability been lost, 1 it may be
argued that those features in which D and other M. E.
versions are in accord as contrasted with the Old French may
have been just those in which their common original varied
from the known O. F. manuscripts. Hence no final conclu-
sion may be had from this quarter.
There remains the evidence of phraseology and of rime, and
it is in this that we have a final proof of the error of Wright's
assumption.
The following are some of the parallel passages revealed by
a comparison of A and E with D. 2 Others might be cited,
but these will suffice for the purpose.
1 See the section devoted to a study of the source of the M. E. versions.
* Where A is fragmentary, E has been selected in preference to Ar, since
the latter is also largely fragmentary.
78 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
D. E.
In Kome was an emperour, Sum tyme >ere was an Emperoure,
A man of swyth mikil honur. That ladde hys lyfe with moche
Is name was Deocdicius. honowre.
Hys name was Dioclician.
(1-2, 4) (3-5)
Uppon his sone that was so bolde, The chylde wax to -vii- yere olde.
And was hot sevene wyntur olde. Wyse of speche ande dedys bolde.
(13-14) (15-16)
The emperour for-thoght sore Hys ffadyr was olde and ganne to
Tha the child ware sette to lore. hoore,
His sone thoo he sette to lore.
(15-16) (19-20)
Whilk of thaym he myght take To hem he thought his sone take
Hys sone a wyes man to make. Forto knowe the letters blacke.
(23-24) (23-24)
The thirde a lene man was. The -m- mayster was a lyght man.
(49) (51)
And was callid Lentulus. His name was callyd lentyllous.
Hee sayed to the emperour thus. He sayde a-non to the kyng.
(51-2) (54-5)
And er ther passe thre and fyve, Uppon payne of lemys and lyfe,
Yf he have wyt and his on lyve, I shalle teche hym in yerys -v.
(55-6) (59-60)
And inred man he was, The -mi- mayster a redman was.
And was callid Maladas. Men hym callyd Malquydras.
(61-2) (61-62)
The sevent mayister answerd thus, The -vii- mayster hette Maxious,
And was hoten Marcius. A ryght wyse man and a vertuous.
(91-2) (99-100)
D. A.
Evermore wil he wooke, Whan o maister him let, another him
When on levede, anothir tooke. tok;
He was ever upon his bok.
(159-60) (189-90)
By God, maister, I am noght dronken, Other ich am of wine dronke,
Yf the rofe his nougt sonken. Other the firmament is i-sonke.
(209-10) (211-2)
Hym byfel a harde caes. Ac sone hem fil a ferli cas.
(222) (222)
And to have anothir wyf, Ye libbeth an a lenge lif :
For to ledde with thy lif. Ye sholde take a gentil wif.
(231-2) (227-8)
THE SEVEN SAGES.
79
A good childe and a faire,
That sal be oure bothe ayere.
For sothe, sire, I hold hym myn,
Also wel as thou dost thyn.
(267-70)
Than sayd mayster Baucttlas,
u For soth this his wondir cas :
Tharefore take counsel sone
What his best to don,
The childe answerd ther he stood,
" I wyle gyf sou counsel good ;
Seven dayes I mot forbere
That I ne gyf no answere ;
(360-3, 368-71)
I schal saue thy lyf a daye.
(381)
Thus they were at on alle,
And wenten agayen into the halle.
(388-9)
By hym that made sone and mone,
He ne hade nevere with me done.
(46'4-S)
" Kys me, yf thy wylle bee,
Alle my lyfe hys longe on the."
(474-5)
Callid to him a tormentour.
(509)
Also mote bytide the
As dyde the fyne appul-tre.
(582-3)
Than sayde Baucillas,
"A ! sire emperour, alas ! "
(688-9)
And hir clothes al to-rent,
Afte the thef wold hir have shent.
(700-1)
That knave kest hym frnyt y-nowe,
And clam a-doune fra bough to boghe.
(972-3)
And rent hys wombe with the knyf,
And bynam the bore hys lyf.
(982-3)
"A ! sire," quod mayster Ancilles,
" God almighty send us pees ! "
(1018-9)
Hit is thi sone, and thin air ;
A wis child, and a fair.
For thi sone I tel mine,
Alse wel als ton dost thine.
(283-4, 289-90)
Than seide master Bancillas
Here is now a ferli cas I
Counseil we al herupon ;
How that we mai best don.
Than seide the schild, Saunz fail,
Ich you right wil counseil,
This seven daies I n'el nowt speke;
Nowt a word of mi mowht breke ;
(371-8)
I schal the waranti o dai.
(389)
With this word, thai ben alle
Departed, and comen to halle.
(401-2)
I swere bi sonne and bi mone
With me ne hadde he never to done.
(451-2)
Kes me, leman, and loue me,
And I thi soget wil i-be.
(457-8)
And cleped forht a turmentour.
(498)
Ase wel mot hit like the
Als dede the pin,note tre.
(543-4)
Than seide maister Bancillas,
Sire, that were now a sori cas.
(683-4)
Th' emperour saide, I fond hire to-
rent:
Hire her, and hire face i-schent ;
(689-90)
He kest the bor doun hawes anowe
And com himself doun bi a bowe.
(921-2)
The herd thous with his long knif
Biraft the bor of his lif.
(933-4)
Than saide maister Ancilles,
For Godes love, sire, hold thi pes.
(977-8)
80
KILLIS CAMPBELL.
That ge bytyde swilk a cas
As bytyde Ypocras,
That slow hys cosyn withouten gylt.
(1026-8)
With my lordefor to play,
And love wax bytwen us twey.
(1100-1)
Oppon a day thay went to pleye,
He and hys cosyn thay twey.
(1118-9)
And mad hym myry, and spendid
faste,
Al the wylle that hit wolde laste.
He that lokyd the tresour,
Come a day into the tour.
(1220-3)
Bot hastilich smy t of my hede.
(1255)
Byfore the dore, as I gow telle,
Thare was a mykyl deppe welle.
(1381-2)
To do thy wyl by a-night,
Yf I schal helle the aryght.
(1546-7)
Now he slakys to lygge above ;
I wyl have another love.
(1686-7)
Er the myrrour be broght a-doune,
And than gyf us oure warrysoun.
(1906-7)
And sayed, we wyte, sire emperour,
About this cite gret tresour.
(1932-3)
And dolvyn a lytyl withinne the
grounde,
And the tresour was sone founde.
(1952-3)
The ton sayed, sire emperour,
Undir the pyler that berys merour.
(2002-3)
Gladlich, sayed scho,
The bettyr yf hyt wylle bee.
(2287-8)
And hadde seven clerkys wyse,
(2293)
On the falle swich a cas
Als fil on Ypocras the gode clerk,
That slow his neveu with fals werk.
(994-6)
With mi louerdfor to plai;
And so he dede, mani a dai.
(1083-4)
So bifel upon a dai
He and his neveu yede to plai.
(1113-4)
And beren hit horn wel on hast,
And maden hem large whiles hit
last.
Amorewe aros that sinatour,
And sichen to-bregen his louerdes
tour.
(1265-8)
And hastUiche gird of min heved.
(1299)
But thou me in lete, ich wille telle,
Ich wille me drenchen in the welle.
(1463-4)
Have womman to pleie aright,
Yif ye wil be hoi aplight.
(1577-8)
Ich moste have som other love !
Nai, dowter, for God above !
(1753-4)
Who might that ymage fel adoun,
He wolde him yif his warisoun.
(2029-30)
And said, al hail, sir emperour !
It falleth to the to lof tresour.
(2049-50)
And ther thai doluen in the gronde ;
A riche forcer ther thai founde.
(2079-80)
Than saide the elder to the emperour,
Under the ymage that halt the mirour.
(2091-2)
Bletheliche, sire, so mot ich the,
So that ye wolde the better be.
(2337-8)
He hadde with him seven wise.
(2343)
THE SEVEN SAGES.
81
Who so army swevene by nyght,
O morne when the day was bryght.
(2296-7)
The emperour and Merlyn anoon
Into the chambyr thay gonne gone ;
(2339-40)
Hyt was a knyght, a riche schyreve,
That was lot hys wyf to greve.
He sate a daye by hys wyf,
And in hys honde helde a knyf.
(2471-4)
Bot sayed for non worldlys wyne
Schulde no man parte horn a-twyne.
(2487-8)
In hyr hoond scho took a stoon,
And knockyd out twa teth anoon !
(2601-2)
D.
Made to fle with hys boste
Thre kyngys and hare hoste.
(2732-3)
The knyght that met that sweven at
nyght
Of that lady was so bright, . . .
Ryght a lytyl fram the toure
Thare was the lady of honour,
And ate the wyndow the lady he see.
(2822-3, 2826-7, 2831)
He bytoke undyr hys hond,
And made hym stywarde of al hys londe.
Oppon a day he went to playe,
Undir the tour he made hys waye.
(2869-72)
Lenand to the mykyl toure,
To do in hys tresour.
Thorow a q weyntyse he thout to wyne
The lady that was loke there-inne.
(2895-8)
That who that mette a sweven anight,
He scholde come amorewe, aplight.
(2349-50)
The emperour him ladde anon,
Into his chaumbre of lim and ston ;
(2453-4)
Sire, he saide, thou might me leue,
Hit was a knight, a riche scherreue,
So, on a dai, him and his wif
Was i-youen a newe knif ;
(2563-4, 2569-70)
The leuedi saide, for no wenne,
Sche ne wolde neuer wende thenne.
(2581-2)
Than wil ich, she saide, and tok a
ston,
And smot hem out euerichon.
(2713-4)
E.
And made more noyse and boste
Thenne wolde a kyng and hys hoste.
(2812-3)
And soo there come rydyng thys
knyght
That had sought the lady bryghte.
He lokyd uppe into the toure,
And say that lady as white as flowre ;
And anon, as he hyr say,
(2914-8)
And toke hym hys goodys in-to hys
hande,
And made hym stywarde ouyr alle hys
lande.
So oppon a day, with moche honoure,
The knyght come playnge by the
toure.
(2944-7)
To make a chambyr byfore the toure
That may ben for my honoure.
Thenne thought he uppon sum quent
gynne
Howe he myght to that lady wynne.
(2962-3, 2968-9)
82 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Oppon a day stylle as stoon The knyght toke workemen a-non,
He sent eftyr masons anoon. And made a chambyr of lyme and
ston.
(2901-2) (2966-7)
And sate stille and made hym glade. And bade hym ete and be glad,
And thus hys wyf made hym made. And euyr he sat as he were mad.
(3021-2) (3110-1)
Into Plecie when he was comen, Amorowe the kyng thedyr came,
Ner hysfadir hys in was nome. And with hysfadyr hys in he name.
To mete when he was redy to gon, He and hys baronys euerychone
After hys fadir he sent anoon. Wente to mete vrith hym a-non.
(3336-9) (3473-6)
It is impossible to account for these agreements as mere
coincidences, or as flowing from a translation from the same
O. F. source. Some of them may indeed be, and doubtless
are, due to the often stereotyped style, or the fondness for like
epithets or collocations which characterize the M. E. romance ;
but all of them cannot be so explained. They warrant this
assumption alone, that D and y are related either through
the derivation of one from the other, or through a common
M. E. original.
And inasmuch as D cannot have been based on y or on any of
the texts which have developed from it, since in all the latter
some of the O. F. features are lacking which are preserved in
D, or, conversely, y on Z), in view of the very many inde-
pendent variations of the latter where y is faithful to the
French, we can only conclude that both y and D go back to
the same lost M. E. version x.
We may accordingly sum up our results as to D as follows :
(1) it is remarkably free, and exhibits many unique variations;
(2) it does not represent an independent translation from the
French, but is connected with at least six other M. E. versions
through a common M. E. source ; (3) this source was not the
same as the more immediate common original of these six
versions (y), but was a version one or more stages nearer the
Old French.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 83
As. The Asloan version is at present inaccessible in the
original manuscript, 1 and, as only about 200 lines of it have
been printed, 2 any discussion of its relations must be very
unsatisfactory. We may be permitted, however, to bring to-
gether the few facts which are known about it, and to draw
from these such conclusions as their evidence may justify.
From the descriptions which have appeared, it is established
that As, so far as it is not fragmentary, preserves the usual
M. E. order of stories, but that beyond this it is, in many respects,
extremely free. The names of the sages are much garbled,
and they vary in the introductory enumeration from their
form in the stories themselves. They are, moreover, in no
case close to those of any version now in print, or to those of
the remaining M. E. manuscripts.
Avis, too, the story which has been printed, exhibits very
radical variation from other versions, both textually and as
regards incident. There are apparent no significant agree-
ments in rime or phraseology with any other M. E. version,
while two new episodes, 3 well-known in other collections, but
otherwise foreign to the Seven Sages, are woven into the narra-
tive. And there are other variations, besides, such as the intro-
duction of the wife's mother as a go-between, and mention of
the burgess's name first Annabili, later Balan.
But none of these serves to shed any light on the question
of relationship. All the new features of As, as compared with
the remaining M. E. versions and the accessible Romance ver-
sions, are peculiar to it, and hence afford no grounds for deter-
mining its connections.
1 As already stated in my " Word of Introduction" (p. 2), Lord Talbot de
Malahide declined to permit my consulting this manuscript. His reasons
for doing so are, I understand, the same as those given by certain other
possessors of valuable M. E. manuscripts, for which I beg to refer to Dr.
Furnivall, Temporary Pref. to the Six-Text Ed., Chaucer Soc., 1868, Pt. I, p. 6.
*ln a contribution by Prof. Varnhagen (Englische Stvdien, xxv, p.
321 f.), who will edit the text for the Scottish Text Society.
3 See Englitche Sludien, xxv, p. 322.
84 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Prof. Varnhagen claims that As was made directly from
some O. F. version, 1 and the lack of textual agreement between
it and other M. E. versions in the story avis may seem to offer
some support to this view, but by no means necessarily, since
it is evident that the author of As worked very independently. 2
And that the evidence offered by Varnhagen in support of his
claim, viz., the agreement in order of stories with the O. F.
J.*-type, is not adequate, he himself, I believe, will concede
on reconsideration.
3. Authorship of the Middle English Versions.
It has been assumed in the preceding chapter that the Eng-
lish original (x) of the seven M. E. manuscripts A t Ar, E, B, F,
C y and D, has been lost. It remains to inquire when, where,
and by whom this original was made. For this purpose we
unfortunately have almost no data at all, and can only resort
to indirections to find directions out.
(1) For the determining the date of x the Auchinleck MS.
(A) is of first importance. This manuscript dates from around
the year 1330 ; this, then, must be the superior limit for the
dating of y. And since, as has been shown, A was not derived
directly from y, but rests in all probability on a lost manuscript
r, which may have been based on y directly or through an inter-
vening manuscript, and since, moreover, it is highly credible
that A had already been composed some time before the Auch-
inleck copy was made, it is not probable that the date of y
would fall later than the beginning of the fourteenth century.
And inasmuch, now, as y cannot have been this parent version,
since D, though closely akin to it, was neither based immedi-
ately on it nor on any of its derivatives, but was connected with
it through a common source, which source we may assume to
be either identical with, or based directly on, the translation
1 Ibid., xxv, p. 322.
' F offers even more radical variation from other M. E. versions in some
of its stories than does ,4s in avis.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 85
from the French, it is necessary to assign to this parent ver-
sion a date before the year 1300. The year 1275 would, it
is believed, represent a conservative conjecture.
(2) Available material for determining the place of transla-
tion of this parent text is somewhat more satisfactory. Of the
entire group of seven versions which have been shown to be
based on x, only one is in the Northern dialect, and this ((?)
is of comparatively late date. One other (D) belongs to the
south-east Midland, while the rest (A, Ar, E, B, F) belong to
the South, a fact which well justifies the assumption that x
was also Southern. Furthermore, inasmuch as three of these
versions (A, Ar, E) possess marked Kentish features, and two
others (B, F) show a Kentish influence, but less marked, we
seem justified in a further restriction to the eastern South
Kent or its neighborhood as the home of the parent text. It
is further confirmatory of this view that just those versions
(Ar, E) which are most faithful to x are most distinctly
Kentish. 1
(3) But while we are thus justified in indulging in conject-
ure as to the time and place of composition of x y in the mat-
ter of its authorship we have no grounds for such an indulgence.
The nature of the subject might establish a slight probability
in favor of lay authorship, but not at all necessarily ; and the
same is true of the references to priests, in tentamina and avis,
as adulterate lovers, especially since in the only story in
which it is a constant feature (tentamina), it was also in the
Old French ; so that, in respect to this side of the problem
in hand, we have, for the present at least, and probably for all
time, to content us with absolute ignorance.
With regard to the authorship of the texts which have been
preserved, we are equally at a loss for definite information.
An ingenious and praiseworthy effort has been made by Dr.
Kolbing to demonstrate a community of authorship for the
JL-text and the Auchinleck texts of the Arthur and Merlin,
1 The dialect of D southeast Midland also offers support to this view.
86 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Kyng Alisaunder, and Richard Coer de Lion ; l but without
meaning to discredit his conclusions in general, it is necessary,
we regret to say, to reject them in so far as they concern the
Seven Sages. Kolbing's argument is made on the basis of
features (rime, language, etc.) exclusively, or almost exclu-
sively, peculiar to these poems. The only part of his argu-
ment which holds is that which concerns the expletives cert
and vair. These appear only in the A-text, being either orig-
inal with it, or, if in y, having been displaced in the remaining
texts by other rimes. On the other hand, of the 18 rimes
which Kolbing cites 2 (one of which, 2803-4, bataitte: mer-
vaile, should be cancelled, since it is taken from (7), a com-
parison with the remaining members of Fshows 12 to reappear
in the corresponding lines in Ar, 9 in E, etc. The evidence
to which Kolbing attaches most importance, that of certain
textual agreements between Arthur and Merlin (1201 f.) and
A (2389 f.), 3 is likewise not valid, as is manifest from the
following parallel comparison of these passages with Ar and
E. Compare
1 Merlin in J>e strete }>o pleyd, ' On a dai >ai com ber Merlin pleid,
And on of his felawes him trayd.' And on of his felawes him traid.'
(A.M. 1201-2). (42389-90).
with
1 So )>ei come )>eir )>e child played, ' Thenne come they thorowe happe
And on of his felawes hym by trayed.' there he playde,
One of his felowys hym myssayde.'
(Ar 1511-2). (#2437-8).
Compare further, as against his citation of
' Foule schrewe fram ous go ! ' 'And cleped him schrewe faderles.'
' pou hast yseyd to loude J>i roun.' 'Al to loude >ou spok bi latin.'
pat haj> me sougt al Ms ger.' ' pat han me sought al fram Ecme.'
(A. M. 1204, 18, 20). (A 2392, 6, 8).
1 Arthur and Merlin, Leipzig, 1890, p. LX f.
* Ibid., p. LXXXII. 3 Ibid., p. civ.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 87
the following from Ar and E:
'And clepyd hym schrewe faderlese.' 'And calde the chylde fadyrles.'
1 To loude >ou spake J>y latyn.'
1 pat haue me sougt fro gret Rome.' ' That have sought me fro Rome.'
(Ar 1514, 18, 20). (E 2440, 6).
From these it is evident that any inference as to A 9 s author-
ship made on this basis will apply equally as well to Ar and
E. Accordingly the parallels pointed out by Kdlbing must
either be explained as accidental, or as traceable either to an
influence of Arthur and Merlin on the source of A, Ar, and E,
or, conversely, of some one of these on the Arthur and Merlin.
4. Source of the Middle English Versions.
The question of the ultimate source of the M. E. versions
has, to all intents and purposes, been settled by Petras. 1 We
need only present here his general argument and his conclu-
sion, inserting where deemed expedient additional proofs, and
adding here and there details which he has omitted.
But first of all it is necessary to state that such expressions
(which Petras [p. 32] inclines to accept as evidence) as A 2771,
'So seigh ]>e rime' 2 (to which add F 1690, 'as seyj? J>e ryme')
proves nothing, for by a like reasoning we might, on the basis
of Ar 1906, ' as it saij? in latyn/ prove a Latin source for the
M. E. versions. It is not on such formulae that the pre-
sumption in favor of a metrical original of the lost M. E.
original must repose ; this must rather rest on the fact that
1 See his dissertation, p. 31 f. Our investigation must differ from his,
however, in that we are concerned only with the source of the parent ver-
sion, x (As being disregarded), while Petras has assumed each of four ver-
sions (A, C, F, D) to be independent translations from the French. Since,
however, he begins with the assumption that the same O. F. version was
the source of all these, his argument is essentially the same as ours.
2 References to source in the M. E. versions are numerous: A 317, 1245,
2766, 2770; Ar 1900, 1906, 2206, 2261, 2442; #1253,2779,2784,3445;
295, 1235; F928, 1683, 1690, 1973; 622, 1324; D 1385, 1520, 2690,
2922.
88 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
this original (x) was itself in verse, and, hence probably made
from a metrical text, and that this does not permit of any
definite conclusion it is hardly necessary to add.
It is not improbable, however, that this original of x was,
like itself, composed of octosyllabic couplets, and it is needless
to state that it was in the French language.
There exist three O. F. metrical versions, the Dolopathos,
the Keller text (K), and the fragmentary version (7*. The
first of these, the Dolopathos, must, for obvious reasons, play
no part in this investigation. The unique version Z>* should,
however, since it represents a prosing of a lost metrical ver-
sion, receive equal attention with .IT and (7*. 1
The only one of this group which has ever been proposed
as a possible source of the M. E. versions is K; but a com-
parison of the two types as regards order of stories 2 reveals a
considerable difference between them, only ten stories (1, 2, 4,
6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15) having the same position in each.
Such a comparison, however, while bearing with it much
weight, can in no wise be accepted as determining, as it would
be quite natural for the redactor, or even the translator, to
change about the stories at will, either with artistic purpose or
with a view to making his source less apparent. Hence the
safest test of relationship should be from the consideration of
content, rather than of order of stories. And it is on this basis
that Petras's comparison has been made. The Cotton- Auchin-
leck (C-A), or Weber, text he finds to contain only 460 lines
which could be possible translations from the Keller text. 8
And since the latter contains over 5000 lines, it is not probable
that even numerous intermediate redactions could have made
such a difference. Besides this, there are many variations in
incident, all which unite in making it extremely improbable
that K was used by the English translator.
1 For the Dolopathos, K, C*, and D* t see the chapter on "The Romance
in France and Italy."
8 For the order of stories in the various sub-types of the Western group,
see our comparative table on page 35.
3 See p. 33 of his dissertation.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 89
The fragmentary text (7*, though differing somewhat from
JTin order of stories, seems, nevertheless, to be much nearer
to it than it is to the English.
The prose version D*, representing a lost metrical version
V y exhibits still less agreement with the M. E. type, and
possesses many unique features. In the content of its stories,
however, it is comparatively close to K, so that in denying
the claims for it, the legitimacy of any claim for D* is also
denied.
K y C* 9 and D* having been eliminated from the problem, it
is necessary to conclude that the O. F. original, if metrical,
has been lost. It remains to show whether or not the M. E.
parent text was based on any of the prose texts which have
come down to us, or, at least, which one of them nearest
approximates the lost original.
The most widely known of the prose versions, the Historic*,
must be ruled out at once, since Paris has shown that the
earliest date which can be given it is around the year 1330,
or some time after the composition of the derivative M. E.
version A. Other circumstances, such as the order of stories,
the introduction of amatores, and the amices-legend, as well
as the fusion of Roma and senescalcus, together with its many
modern touches, all unite in invalidating any claim for H.
The Scala Coeli (8) also exhibits many features at variance
with the M. E. type, and its two new stories, filia and noverca,
are sufficient to exclude it from the list of possibilities.
Likewise the first Leroux de Lincy (L) version, although
it agrees very closely with the Middle English versions for
the first eleven stories, cannot be considered their source,
since it also contains the stories filia and noverca.
Nor to the Versio Italica does there attach any more proba-
bility, its distinguishing feature the reversal of the order
of stories finding no parallel even in French.
There remains group J.*, or the family represented by the
second text of the Leroux de Lincy edition. A presumption
in favor of some member of this family is at once established
90 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
in the fact that it has the same order of stories as the M. E.
group. This circumstance has led Paris and others to see in
this group the source of the M. E. texts, but no explicit claim
has been made as to which one of the ^-manuscripts served
as this original, though Petras has made a detailed investiga-
tion with a view to arriving at some definite conclusion. 1
The results which Petras reaches, 2 however, are wholly
negative. He shows in the first place that MS. 6849 [new
No. 189] of the Bibliotheque Rationale, which Ellis had
suggested as the probable source of the M. E. versions, is not
even a possible source, but belongs to group L. He next
endeavors to show that the Leroux de Lincy text of J.* (the
only one of the O. F. manuscripts of this type yet published)
is not as close to the M. E. versions as are some of the
unpublished manuscripts belonging to this family. Among
the latter, he finds the MS. 4096, Laval. 13, to be nearest
to the M. E. versions ; thus, by way of illustration, where L,
A* call the seventh sage Merons, this manuscript names him
Meceneus, which approximates the M. E. Maxencius much
more closely. Despite this fact, however, he is not willing to
concede that this text was the source of the M. E. group, but
maintains that the latter had its basis in a lost manuscript
which is connected with the former through a common lost
source.
And in this conclusion Petras is probably correct, and
assuredly so as regards the Leroux de Lincy text, as is estab-
lished by certain features, which are not in J.*, but which the
M. E. texts have in common with JTand other O. F. versions.
A few of these are the following : (1) in tentamina, A, C read
gray bitch = K 2604, blanche leuriere; L (A* 45), only une
leuri&re; (2) in Virgilius, L (A* 51) has lost the feature of
VergiPs casting images also for the east and west gates of
Rome, which has been preserved in K 3960 f. and the M. E.
group ; (3) in vaticinium, the child, when discovered alone on
the island, has had nothing to eat for four days in E y B, C y
Petras, p. 37 f.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 91
and K4725 ; 4* 99 and D*, only three days. These suffice
to indicate the result which would follow from a detailed
comparison.
In view of this conclusion, the problem of the source of the
M. E. parent text must, so far as a specific source is con-
cerned, remain for the present unsolved. Examination of all
J.*-rnanuscripts will doubtless bring us nearer to the truth,
and, it is hoped, settle the question.
II (6.) Sixteenth Century and Chap-book Versions.
Under this head fall the Wynkyn de Worde version and
the many chap-books founded on it, the lost Copland text, and
the Holland metrical version, all which fall together into one
distinct group apart from the M. E. group.
1. The Wynkyn de Worde text is in prose. Its date is not
definitely known ; in the British Museum catalogue it is
entered as 1520, though Hazlitt (Handbook, p. 660) gives it
a dating fifteen years earlier. Only one copy of the original
text has been preserved, and that is imperfect. A reprint
made by Gomme for the Villon Society (1885) makes the text
accessible. 1
This version seems to have been the first prose version made
in English, and, as already noted, it can in no way be related
with the M. E. metrical versions which antedate it. In length
alone the contrast is sufficiently striking to justify a serious
doubt as to any immediate relationship between them, the
prose version comprising 180 pages in Gomrne's edition. It
is based on some member of the Historia family probably a
Latin 2 rather than an O. F. text. As a translation of H it
1 The History of the S. W. M, of Rome, London, 1885. A few pages missing
from the Wynkyn de Worde text are supplied from a chap-book version
printed in 1671.
2 Graesse enumerates a half-dozen or more prints between 1483 and 1495,
any one of which may have served as the basis of this version.
92 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
is comparatively close, though it abridges at times, and also
makes occasional independent additions. 1
2. The Wynkyn de Worde edition served as the basis of a
second prose edition, attributed to the printer Copland, which
has been lost. The superscription to this edition, which alone
has been preserved, agrees almost word for word with that
of the Wynkyn de Worde edition, and it is more than
probable, as Buchner suggests, 2 that it is only a reprint of it.
The date of the Copland text is variously placed between 1548
and 1561.
3. The Holland version is a very long poem written in
heroic couplets, and in the Scottish dialect. The original edi-
tion bears the date 1578, but Laing has shown it to be probable
that its composition dates from the year 1560. It seems to
have been very popular in its day, undergoing at least five
editions (1590, 1592, 1599, 1606, 1620) in little more than
half a century after its first publication. A modern reprint
was edited by Laing for the Bannatyne Club in 1837.
Sundry conjectures as to the source which Holland employed
have been made. Laing maintained that he used either the
Copland print, or some O. F. or Latin text of H. Petras,
who did not know of the Wynkyn de Worde version, and who
makes the Holland version his " Redaction C," investigated
the question at some length, 3 and concluded in favor of the
O. F. translation of H as Holland's original. 4 But that
neither of these views is correct, and that the Holland text
was the rather based on the Wynkyn de Worde version, has
been conclusively proved by Buchner in his dissertation in the
Erlanger Beiirage, v, p. 93 f. This he established by show-
ing that where there are differences between the three versions
H (either Latin or French), the Wynkyn de Worde, and the
Holland the last two are in almost every instance in accord
1 See Buchner, Erlang. Beitr., v, p. 95.
*Erlang. Beilr., v, p. 96. * See his dissertation, p. 47 f.
4 The second text of Paris' s Deux Redactions. Its date is 1492.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 93
with each other. A large number of textual parallels be-
tween the two English versions are cited in further support
of this.
(4) The English chap-book versions merit but little atten-
tion. They have been numerous, but of poor quality, the
later versions especially having deteriorated from the original.
In some of these, new stories have been introduced, and in
almost all of them the old stories have been abridged in
some of them, so as to be scarcely more than epitomes of their
prototypes. That they were very popular for a long time,
however, is indicated by the fact that the British Museum
alone contains at least twelve various prints, one of which
purports to have reached its twenty-fifth edition. Another
was published at Boston in 1794, the most recent at War-
rington in 1815.
All versions of the chap-book group contain the distinctive
features of H. They doubtless go back to the Wynkyn de
Worde, or to the Copland, text.
In addition to the four versions or groups already described,
there is evidence that there once existed another sixteenth cen-
tury version, which, like the Copland text, has not survived.
This is a dramatic version, bearing the title The Seven Wise
Masters of Rome, which is mentioned in Henslowe's Diary l as
having been made by Dekker, Chettle, Haughton, and Day,
and as having been acted at London in March, 1599-1600.
No later notice of its presentation has been pointed out, how-
ever, and it is altogether probable that the work was lost
without undergoing publication. 2
1 Ed. Collier, London, 1845, pp. 165, 167. See also the Dramatic Works
of Dekker, ed. Shepherd, London, 1873, I, p. xn.
* The enumeration of the late English versions should also include refer-
ence at least to the Seven Wise Mistresses of Rome, a chap-book modelled
after the chap-book version of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome, and a sort of
counterpart to it. The English libraries contain several versions of this
type, but, though very interesting, they possess little value.
94 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
APPENDIX.
[Containing the story medicus according to Ar (1-228), with a tabulation
of the corresponding lines in A, E t B, (7, -P.]
Hys comaundement J?ei dide be-lyve. 152a.
]?ane wex J?ei? mochel stry ve
Be-tuen kynge and baron,
ffor J>e Emperowr wold scle his son,
5 J?e Emperowr hym nold save.
He lete a-none to spoile j>at knaue,
And with scourges hys body swynge ;
To foul dethe thei wold hym brynge.
A-none after that, god it wote, 1
10 He bade hem to hange hym fote hote.
With scourges J>ei dide hym swynge,
To foull de]?e ]>ei wold hym brynge.
He was lade forj?e with-oute pite
Jjorouj-oute all ]?at fai? cite ;
15 J>ei? be-gan a rewfull cry
Of many gentyll lady.
All J?e folke oute of Rome
A-jeyne ];at gentyll child come.
Waleway, J?ei saide, with wronge
20 Schall )>is child nowe be honge.
Rygt a-mydward J?at like pres
Come rydynge Maxilles,
And he sawe ]?at rewfull cas ;
Hys second master forsoj?e he was
25 Hys scole? to helpe and to rede
All J>e folke to hym J?ei bede ;
A-none to court he gan ryde,
And with ]>e Emperowr in reson chide
ffonde to let J?e Empero^r wronge
30 )?at his son be noujt an-hange.
1 This line is repeated after 1. 12, but is erased.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 95
SwyJ>e fast fro J>e folke he rode,
His palfray a-none to J?e paleys glode :
]?o come he by-fo? |?e Emperoitr,
And grete hym fai? with honour.
35 J?e emperour by hym styll stode,
And by-helde hym with steren mode
he saide to hym, " master, j?ou haue
]?e cors of god for techyng of ]>is knaue.
je haue by-nome my sone his spech ;
40 ]?e devyll of hell I J?e be-tech,
Thyn felows and ]?ou be my swye? ! 152b.
je schull haue lytyll hye?."
" O Syr Emperowr, knyjt of prys,
In dedes J?ou schold be wa? and wyse.
45 It is no wysdome no lyuys hale
To by-leue no womans tale.
Mo? to harme ]?ane to note
A womans bolt is son schote.
ffor jef J?ou sclest hym, I be-sech
50 On J?i heued fall J?at, ilke wrech
J>at fell on Ypocras, J>e good clerk,
)?at sclewe his scole? J?orouj fals werk."
" Master, I pray J>e, tell f>at cas
Of J?at clerke Ypocras."
55 " Sy?, )?is tale is noujt lyte ;
ffor jef J?ou wyllt jef J?y son respyt,
A-for to-morowe day lyjt,
I wyll ]>e tell a-none ryjt,
A-jenst ]>e lawe, with grete wowe,
60 How Ypocras his nefew sclowe."
" I jeue hym respyt," said J?e Emperowr,
And saide anone with-oute soiou?,
Mon schold a-jeyne feeche his son,
And put hym in-to preson.
65 J>e chyld was brougt oute of ]>e ton
With well grete procession.
96 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
}>o he cam to )?at hall,
He a-loutede ]?e barons all ;
And in to prison y-put he was.
70 Now tell we for];e of Ypocras.
ly?," saide Maxillas, " paramour,
Ypocras was a clerke of grete honnottr ;'
Of lechcraft was none his pe?
Neuer jit in J>is londe he?.
75 He hade with hym his nefewe
J?at he schold leren of his vertue.
He saw J?at child comyng of lo?,
J?at he nold tech hym no mo? ;
ffor he j?oujt, and saide also,
80 J>at he in lo? wold to-fo? hym go.
J>e childe perseuyd full well, I-wis,
And hid it full wele in hert his.
His nefys herte he gan a-spye, 152c.
When he couj>e all |?e mastrye.
85 Ypocras gins understonde,
J>orouj werkes of J?e childes honde,
J?at he couj?e all his mastrye.
He ba? to hym grete envye.
Sy by- fell apcw a J?ynge,
90 Of hongre ]mt ilke kynge,
Hade seke a son gente ;
To Ypocras a messenge? sente,
]?at he schold come his son to hele,
And haue he schold of gold full a male,
95 Ipocras wend ne myjt ;
He clepyd his nefewe anone ryjt,
And bade hym wende to J?at londe,
To nyme J?at chylde under honde ;
And whane he hade so i-do,
100 He schold come ajeyne hym to.
J?e child was set on a palfray,
And rode hym for];e on his way.
THE SEVEN SAGES. 97
j?o he to J?e kynge came
)?e kynge hym by ]>e honde name,
105 And lade hym to |>e seke childe.
Ihesus cryst to us be mylde !
J>at jonge man sawe J>e childes payne,
He tastes his armes and his veyne ;
He asked an urynall, as I wene,
110 And schewed fat uryn kenge and qwen,
Of J?e childe all god it wyt,
And saide it was mys-by-get.
He gan ]?e qwene on side drawe,
And saide, " dame, a-knawe,
115 What man haj>e by-gete ]>is childe?"
" Bel amy," scho sayde, " art ]?ou wylde ?
Who schold bot j?e kynge ? "
" Dame, say |?ou for no Vj n g e >
He was neue? of kyngges streen."
120 " Lat," scho saide, " soch wordes ben ;
Or I schall do J>e bete so,
J>at ]?ou schalt neuer ryde no? go."
" Dame," he saide, " with soch tale,
]>y childe schall neue? be hale.
125 Tell me, dame, all ]?at cas,
How J>e childe by-gete was."
" Bel amy, saist fou so ? "
" Sertes, dame," he saide, "no." 152d.
He schoke his hede upon j? e qwene,
130 And saide, " J?ouj ]?ou do me to-scleyne,
May I noujt do J?y childe bote,
Bot je me tell hede and rote,
Of what man he was be-geten."
" No man," scho saide, " may it weten ;
135 ffor jef my counseill we? un-hele,
I schold be sclowe with ryjt skyll."
" Dame," he saide, " so mot I the,
No man schall it wyt for me."
98 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
"Syr," scho saide, "it so by-fell,
140 ]?is oj?er day in Auerell,
J>e kynge of nauerne come to Jns J>ede,
On fai? hors and in rich wede,
With my lord for to play,
And so he dide many a day.
145 I gan hym son in herte to loue,
Oner all J?ynge so god aboue ;
So J>at for grete drewrye,
I late ]>e kynge be me lye ;
So it was on me by-gete :
150 Sy?, late no man J?at i-wete."
" Nay, madame, for soj>e, i-wys,
Bot for f>at childe was gete a-mys,
He mot both drynke and ete
Contrarious drynke and contrarious mete,
155 ffresch beef and drynke J>e brop>e."
He jaf a-none ]?e child forso|?e.
);e childe was heled fai? and wele.
];e kynge hym jaf many Jewell,
A wer hors i-charged with siluer and gold,
160 A Is moch as he nyme wold.
He dide hym forj>e a-none ry^t,
And come home in J>at nygt.
J>e master hym asked gef he we? sond
" ja si?," he saide, " be seynt Symond ! "
165 )?o asked he, " what was his rnedecyne?"
He saide, " fresch beef good and fyne "
" )?an was he a nauetroll."
" )?ou saist so)?e, be my poll ! "
" O," qwod Ypocras, " be goddes dome !
170 J?ou art by-come a good grome."
I 70 by-gan Ypocras to ];ench
To sole his nefewe wM some wrench.
)?ei?-afte?, J?e }>ride day, 153a.
With his nefew he went to play,
THE SEVEN SAGES. 99
175 Yn-to a fai? grene gardyn ;
J>ei? wex many an erbe fyn.
]?e childe sawe an erbe on J>e grounde,
]?at was myjty of mochell monde ;
He toke it and schewed to Ypocras,
180 Bot he saide a better J>ei? was ;
For he wold J>at child be-cach.
He stoupyd soch on to rech.
J>o fyle Ypocras with a knyf,
He nome his nefewe of his lyf.
185 He dide hym bury unkonnynglych,
As he had dyed sodeynlych,
And afte?-warde, swy]?e jerne,
He dide his bokes all to-bryne.
God of heuen, J?e hyje kynge,
1 90 J?at is oue?-sea? of all J^ynge,
Sende Ypocras for his treson,
J;e foul rankkeland menyson.
Ypocras wyst wele, for his quede,
];at he schold son be dede ;
195 Bot for no )>ynge J?at he couj?e }>ynch
)?e menyson he no myjt quench.
A nempty ton he dide for|?e fett,
And full of clene water he it pyt,
Also full to |?e mou)?e ;
200 ffor he wold it we? cou]?e,
And dide after sende mochell and lyte,
Nejboitrs hym to bysyte.
He saide to-fore hem euerchon
J?at ]>e de]> was hym apon,
205 All with ryjt and noujt with wouje,
ffor his nefewe J?at he sclowje.
J>at treson he gan hym reherce.
On J>e tone a C. holes he gan perce.
When ]?e holes we? mad so fell,
210 He dide hem stope with dosell,
100 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
And saide to hem once or tweye,
" je schall see of my ruastrye."
He smered ]?e dosells all a-boute,
And made he me after- ward drawen oute.
215 A droj?e J?ei?-of oute ne came;
]?a?-of merveiled many man.
Ypocras saide, " water y can stope,
J>at it ne may unej>es drope ; 1 53b.
But y ne may stope my menyson.
220 All it is for ]?at foul treson,
J?at y my nefewe sclewe vylengly,
ffor he was wyse? man J>ane y.
I no? no man unde? eon
geue me helpe ne can,
225 Bot my nefewe o-lyue we?.
Ryjt it is ]?at y mys-fai?.
To soiFre wo it is skyll
ffor y sclouj my lyuys hele."
TABLE OF CORRESPONDING
AT A
E
949
950
951
B C
933 1041
934 1042
1043
952
1044
953
(1045)
954
(1046)
955
956
(1047)
(1048)
(957"!
\ V(JI )
C958^
QfiQ
/1AK1\
(1436)
10 (958) (1438)
J An identical line is indicated by an asterisk (*), an omission by a dash
( ), an addition by brackets ([]), a corresponding but not similar line
by leaders ( ), and altered rimes by parentheses ().
THE SEVEN SAGES. 101
AT A E B C F
960 (1052)
961 942 1054
15
963
943
Q44
1057
Q4-7
20
QflS
Q4R
963
969
Q70
949
1059
1060
25
966
965
972
971
Q74
952
951
1062
1061
1440
1441
973
(W7\
QR7*
no6*ft
(968)
975
958
^ '
QQ
977
Q78
959
QfiO
979
(961)
35
40
969
970
(971)
(972)
(973)
(974)
(975)
981
982
983
984
985
986
[87-88]
989*
QQO
963
964
965
966
967
968
[69-70]
971
Q79
1067
1068
(1069)
(1070)
1071
1072
(1442)
(1443)
(1444)
(1445)
(1446)
(1447)
[48-49]
1450
14^1*
(976)
(977)
(978)
[79-88]
991
992
993
994
(973)
(974)
975
976
(1073)
(1074)
(1452)
(1453)
1454*
1455*
102 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Ar
45
A
989
990
E
995
996
B
(977)
(978)
C
F
1456
1457
QQ1
1458
/OQO'N
Q70
1460
50
(994)
995
996
997
998
997
998
980
981
982
983
984
(1085)
(1086)
(1087)
(1088)
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
55
999
1001
985
(1466)
1000
1001
1002
1003
986
(987)
(1091)
(1467)
1468
inr>9
1O04.
\ /
1469
^ '
1470
60
fifi
1004*
1005
1006
1007*
1008
1009
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
989
990
(991)
(992)
993
(1093)
(1094)
1095
1096
1471
1472*
1473
1474
1475
1476
1010
994
1477
1011
995
1478
1012
996*
1479
ini 1
mi*}
QQ7
1480*
70
75
1UJL
1012
1014*
1013
1015*
1016
1017
1018
1014
1017
1018
1019*
1020
(1021)
(1022j
1023
1024
998
999
1000*
1001*
1002
1003*
1004
1005
1006*
1101
1102
(1103)
(1104)
1105
1106
[1107-8]
1109
1110
1481
1482
1483
1484*
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489*
THE SEVEN SAGES.
103
AT
A
E
B
C
F
(1019)
(1007)
(1111)
(1490)
80
(1020)
(1008)
(1112)
(1491)
1021
1025
1009
(1113)
1492
1022
1026
1010
(1114)
1493
1023
1027
1011
1116
1494
1024
1028
1012
1115
1495
85
1025
1029
1013
1496
1026
1030
1014*
1497
1027
10^1
1015*
1498*
JL\Jl 1
1028
JLV/O.L
1032
JLVJ. tj
1016
_____
JL ^r t/O
1499
1029
1033
1017
1117
1500
90
1030
1034
1018
1118
1501
1031
1035
1019
(1119)
1502*
1032
1036
1020
(1120)
1503
1033
(1037)
1021*
1121
1504*
1034
(1038)
1022
1122
1505
95
1035
1039
(1023)
(1123)
1506
1036
1040
(1024)
(1124)
1507
1037*
1041
1025
1125
1508*
1038
1042
1026
1126
1509
1039*
1043*
1027*
1510*
100
1040
1044
1028
1511
1041*
1045
1029*
1129
1512*
(1042)
1046
1030
1130
1513
(1043)
1047
1031
(1131)
1514
1044
1048*
1032
(1132)
1515*
105
1045
1049*
1033*
1133
1516*
1046
1050
1034
1134
1517
1047
1051
(1035)
1135
1519
1048
1052
(1036)
1136
1518
1049
1053
1037
(1137)
1520
110
1050
1054
1038
(1138)
1521
1051
1055
1039
(1522)
1052
1056
1040
V. /
(1523)
[41-42]
104 KILLIS CAMPBELL. .
AT A E B C F
1053 1057 (1041) (1143) (1524)
1054 1058 (1042) (1144) (1525)
115 1055* 1059 1043 (1145) (1526)
1056 1060 1044 (1146) (1527)
1057 1061 1045 1147 1528
1058 1062 1046 1148 1529
1059* 1063 1047 1149 1530
120 1060* 1064 1048 1150 1531
1061* 1065 1049 1151 1532
1062* 1066 1050 1152* 1533*
1063 (1067) 1051 (1153)
1064 (1068) 1052 (1154)
125 1065 1069 1053* 1155
1066* 1070* 1054* 1156
1067 1071 1157
1068 1072* 1158
1069 1073* 1534
130 1070 1074 1535
1071 1075 1055 1159 1536
1072 1076 1056 1160 1537
1073* 1077 1057* (1161) 1538*
1074 1078 1058 (1162) 1539
[59-60]
135 1075 (1079) (1061) (1163) (1540)
1076 (1080) (1062) (1164) (1541)
1077* 1081 1063 1165 (1542)
1078 1082 1064 1166 (1543)
1079 1083 1065 1167 1544
140 1080 1084 1066 1168 1545
1081 1085 1067 1169 (1546)
1082 1086 1068 1170 (1547)
1083* 1087 1069* 1171 1548*
1084* 1088 1070 1172 1549
145 1085 1089 1071 1173 1550
1086 1090 1072 1174 1551
THE SEVEN SAGES. 105
Ar A E B OF
1087 1091 1073 1175 1552
1088 1092 1074 1176 1553
1089 1093 1075 1177 1554
150 1090 1094* 1076 1178 1555
[56-59]
1091 1095 1077 (1179) 1560
1092 1096 1078 (1180) 1561
1093* 1097 1079* 1181 1562*
1094 1098* 1080 1182 1563*
155 1095 (1099) 1081 1183 1564
1096 (1100) 1082 1184 1565
[85-90]
1097 1101 1083 1191 1566
1098 1102 1084 1192 1567
1099 1103 1085 1193 1568
160 1100* 1104 1086 1194 1569
1101 (1105) (1087) (1195) 1570
1102 (1106) (1088) (1196) 1571
1103 1107 1089 (1197) (1572)
1104* 1108* 1090 (1198) (1573)
165 1105 1109 1091 1199 1574
1106 1110 1092 1200 1575
1107 1111* 1093* (1201) (1576)
1108 1112 1094 (1202) (1577)
1109 1113* 1095 1203 1578
170 1110 1114 1096 1204 1579
(1111) (1115) (1097) (1205) (1580)
(1112) (1116) (1098) (1206) (1581)
1113 1117 1099 1-207 1582
1114 1118 1100* 1208 1583
175 1115 1119* 1101 (1209) 1584*
1116 1120 1102 (1210) 1585
1117 1121 1103 (1211) (1586)
1118 1122 1104 (1212) (1587)
1119 1123 1105 1213 1588
106 KILLIS CAMPBELL.
Ar A E B OF
180 1120 1124 1106 1214 1589
1121 1125 1107 (1215) (1590)
1122 1126 1108 (1216) (1591)
[17-20] [92-93]
1123 1127 1109 (1221) 1594
1124 1128 1110 (1222) 1595
185 1125 1129 1111 1223 1596
1126 1130 1112 1224 1597
1127 (1131) (1598)
1128 (1132) (1599)
1129 1133 1113 1225 1600
190 1130 1134 1114 1226 1601
1131 1135* 1115* 1227 1602*
1132 1136 1116 1228 1603
1133 1137 1117 (1229)
1134* 1138* 1118 (1230)
195 1135 1139 1119 1231
1136 1140* 1120 1232
[cf. 1142] [33-34]
1143 (1141) 1121 " 1235 1604
1144 (1142) 1122 1236 1605
1145 1143 1123 1606
200 1146 1144 1124 1607
1137 1145 (1125) (1237) 1608
1138 1146 (1126) (1238) 1609
1139 1147* 1127 1239 1610
1140 1148 1128 1240 1611
205 1141 1149 (1129) (1241) (1612)
1142* 1150 (1130) (1242) (1613)
[cf. 1136]
1147 1151 1131 1614
1148 1152 1132 1615
1149 1153 1133 1243 1616
210 1150 1154 1134 1244 1617
1155* 1135*
THE SEVEN SAGES. 107
Ar A E B C F
1156 1136
1151 1157 1137* 1245 1618*
1152 1158 1138 1246 1619
215 1153 1159* 1139 1247 1620
1154 1160 1140* 1248 1621
1155 1161 1141 (1249) 1622
1156 1162 1142 (1250) 1623
1157 1163 1143 1251 1624*
220 1158 1164 1144 1252 1625
[59-60] [53-54]
1161 1165 1145 1255 1626
1162* 1166 1146 1256 1627
1163* 1167 1147 1628
1164 1168 1148 1629
225 1165* 1169 1149* 1257 1630
1166 1170 1150 1258 1631
(1172)
(1171)
This partial table will serve to illustrate the correspondences
between the various members of group Y. The array of
figures may look repellent, but I have preferred to submit
the tabulation for an entire story rather than to give only a
part of it, or to resort to any printer's devices to compress it,
and thereby incur the risk of impairing its value.
KILLIS CAMPBELL.
II. A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT:
HERMANN TJND DOROTHEA.
The standard Weimar edition of Goethe's works is based
upon the final edition of his collected works, Ausgabe letzter
Hand, which was published 1827-30, and contained his
latest revisions. Forty volumes appeared during his life.
As regards the form and appearance of the edition, the
editors state that their purpose is to adhere strictly to what-
ever is known to have had Goethe's personal authorization.
" The Ausgabe letzter Hand is his legacy, and he himself
regarded it as the conclusion of his life work. With great
circumspection, and with a care such as had been employed
in the case of no other edition of his writings, he exerted
himself for the purity and perfection of this edition. The
evidence of his active participation is shown in his corre-
spondence with K. Gottling, to whom he entrusted the
examination and correction of his manuscript, and with
Reichel, the foreman of the Cotta press. We can follow his
cooperation, first, in the single volumes of the Taschenaus-
gabe (C), and, similarly, later in the octavo edition (C),
which was based on a revision of the previous edition, and
constitutes his final survey of the text." " No departures
were to be made from the readings of C except for impera-
tive reasons. Changes based upon the manuscripts or earlier
editions, or upon independent criticism must be shown to
be necessary." As regards changes, however, which Gottling
admitted in various places, silently or without Goethe's
express authority, fuller liberty was granted to the editors to
amend, where a criticism of the text was based on the poet's
use of words. In case of necessity a return to the former
reading was allowed. The octavo edition was made authori-
tative for orthography and punctuation. A slavish adherence
108
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 109
to this text was not contemplated so that the new edition
should be a mere reprint of the old. Defects, inconsistent
usages, and lack of uniformity in printing were to be banished,
so far as was practicable, while everything that was necessary
to illustrate the sound and the pronunciation, especially in
foreign words, was to be retained. In cases of doubt regard-
ing readings, the general usage of the poet was to be con-
sidered, and where no clear and unequivocal usage was
evident, preference was to be given to modern forms. 1 No
other basis for a standard edition can be conceived than that
it should rest primarily upon that form which presents the
author's final revision. To make an earlier edition the founda-
tion of the text would be to ignore the apparent wish of the
writer, and not to follow his final judgment as regards literary
form. At the same time, in the absence of the original auto-
graphs, or of the revised text which was submitted to the
printer, it is impossible to determine accurately how far
Goethe actually participated in the revision of any given
work, how far changes received his approval, or occurred in
the progress of a volume through the press. Goethe was not
indifferent to the purity of his text, but, on the contrary,
insisted on the greatest fidelity to the original. He wrote to
Cotta, relative to the first edition of his works, saying that he
desired that it should present an attractive appearance, " but
correctness is of far more importance to me, and for this I
most urgently entreat. You see that the copy has been gone
over and corrected with the greatest care, and I should be in
despair if it should again appear disfigured. Have the kind-
ness to entrust the proof-reading to a careful man, and I
enjoin expressly that the volume which I send should be
accurately followed, that nothing in the orthography, punctua-
tion or aught else be changed, and that even if an error
should remain, it be printed with the rest. In short, I
desire and require nothing save the most accurate copy of
] See the Vorbericht to the first volume of the Weimar edition, where the
general principles which should guide the editors were laid down.
110 W. T. HEWETT.
the original which I transmit." l With a manifest desire for
accuracy, Goethe entrusted the revision of his works largely to
others, and he often failed to take the most obvious measures
for securing the purity of his text. In publishing the
Schriften, he took, as Professor Bernays has pointed out,
the corrupt Himburg reprint as the basis for a portion of his
text. From this reprint, numerous errors passed into the
edition of his Schriften in eight volumes. Similarly, the edi-
tion of the Schriften in four volumes with its numerous errors
became, in part, the foundation of the corresponding sections of
the Werke (A). Certain works he subjected to careful, personal
revision; others he entrusted mainly to his literary assistants,
Kiemer, Eckermann, Gottling and others, or to his amanu-
enses. Detailed work of this nature was irksome to him, and
a long habit of dictation and working through others caused
him to place an unjustifiable reliance upon men whose train-
ing and literary judgment were unequal to the task. He
himself had no fondness for strife about verbal questions, and
could detect " no grammatical vein in himself." 2 In many
cases it must remain unsettled what amendments were actually
authorized by the poet. Where an autograph revision is not
preserved, the various editions often show changes due to
accident or to the caprice of compositors. Goethe did not
always have his own printed works at hand. He was often
also without copies of his separate works, and on several
occasions sought to buy or borrow a copy of Hermann und
Dorothea? In a letter to Sommering of August 21, 1797,
he stated that he had not had a complete copy of his writings
in his house for years, and desired him to purchase at auction
in Frankfurt the ten volumes of his Schriften, even prescribing
the price which should be paid. His own writings were like
emancipated children which would not abide with him. 4
1 Briefe, xix, 65. See also his letter to Gotta of Feb. 7, 1805.
2 Letter to W. von Humboldt of July 16, 1798.
3 Letter to Eichstadt of Oct. 22, 1804.
4 Letter to Eichstadt of Feb. 19, 1806. See also Eckermann, vol. nr,
p. 196 (Jan. 31, 1830).
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. Ill
In studying Goethe's poem of Hermann und Dorothea,
various readings appeared, and I have examined the suc-
cessive editions in order to determine when these amended
forms first constituted a part of the text. The history of the
collected works in which this poem appeared has been investi-
gated, mainly to ascertain their relation to the poem.
Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea was published in Sep-
tember, 1797. It is possible that the successive steps in its
composition can be more continuously traced in it than in
any one of his longer poems. In the whole poem there was
a definite purpose as regards the unity and perfection of the
metrical form. It therefore presents a definite material for
the study of Goethe's printed text. As its form had been
carefully elaborated in the beginning, so we may assume that
later changes must have been made with a definite purpose.
An examination, therefore, of the various forms which the
text of this poem assumed will illustrate possibly, but in a
limited field, some features in the history of the printed text
of all of Goethe's works, and also of his personal relations
to the successive editions.
Goethe's earliest mention of the poem is contained in his
letter to Schiller of July, 1796. He chose in the poem the
purest material in order to accomplish, as regards form, all
of which his powers were capable.' The immediate work of
composition was begun, as appears from his diary, on Sep-
tember 11, 1796. He had carried about with him the subject
of the poem for several years, but the execution, which, as
Schiller says, took place under his own eyes, 1 occurred with
a lightness and rapidity incomprehensible to him. Goethe
wrote at one time over one hundred and fifty hexameters
daily for nine days in succession. Even a month earlier, the
first four of the six cantos, which were originally planned,
were substantially complete in their earliest form. 2 After
further revision it was sent, on June 8, to the publisher,
Vieweg, in Berlin. There were long periods in which Goethe
1 Letter to Korner of Oct. 28. * See Goethe's diary from Sept. 9 to 19.
112 W. T. HEWETT.
was apparently engaged in simply perfecting the mere form
of the poem. As its composition progressed, it was read at
court and to the groups of friends in Jena and Weimar.
The relation of Schiller and of Wilhelm von Humboldt to
the poem was especially intimate. They entered heartily into
its spirit, and were helpful in the discussion of the verse.
The poem was also read to Wieland, Bottiger, Knebel, Mac-
donald, Brinckmann, and others.
At the same time Goethe studied carefully the master-
pieces of ancient poetry, and especially their metrical form.
He read Hermann, On the Metres of the Greek and Roman
Poets; SchlegePs Greeks and Romans; Voss's poems and
translations of VergiPs Eclogues; Wolf's Prolegomena; Aris-
totle's Poetik; Homer, the Elegies ascribed to Cornelius Gallus ;
Propertius, Tibullus, Aeschylus and Klopstock. The discus-
sion of classical verse and of classical metres in German
verse, and the characteristics of epic and idyllic poetry were
subjects of constant discussion and investigation. Under such
influences as these, Goethe sought to embody his views of
poetic art. The first four cantos were sent to the printer on
April 17. While proof-sheets were returned to the author, a
supervision of the poem during its progress through the press
was entrusted to Wilhelm von Humboldt, who was in Berlin,
Dresden, and Vienna during the printing. He was permitted
to make any corrections that seemed necessary to him. The
conclusion of the poem was sent to the publisher on June 8.
The correction of the proof seems to have been shared equally
by the poet and his friend. Humboldt expressed his amaze-
ment at the marvelous care which Goethe dedicated to the
details of the poem. 1 It was not, however, certain that
the final proofs were received by Goethe before he left for
his Swiss journey at the end of July, for we find him request-
ing Bottiger to send the last sheets of his epic poem as soon
as possible to Meyer in Zurich. 2
' See his letter of June 28, 1797, to Goethe, in Goethe's JBriefwechsel mil
den Gebrudern von Humboldt, edited by Bratranek.
3 See his letter from Frankfurt of Aug. 16, Goethe's Briefe, xn, 241.
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 113
Goethe did not receive the Calendar which contained Her-
mann und Dorothea until after his arrival in Nuremberg
on November 6. His friends were not satisfied with the
appearance of the poem in the form which the size of
the calendar imposed, and an arrangement was made with
Vieweg to publish an octavo edition in Roman type after
the Easter Fair of the following year. The second edition,
however, appeared early, in May, 1799. Goethe wrote that
he had no corrections to communicate for it. 1
The first edition of Goethe's collected writings was, as is
generally known, not arranged by himself, but was made
without his authority by a bookseller in Berlin, of the name
of Himburg. Two parts were issued in 1775 the first con-
taining Werther, and Goiter, Helden und. Wieland, and the
second, Gotz, Clavigo and Erwin und Elmire. As small as
the collection was, it seems to have had a successful sale, for
two subsequent editions were issued in 1777, and 1799. A
third volume was issued in 1776, 1777, and 1779, and a
fourth in 1779. Several reprints of these volumes followed,
at Carlsruhe, at Frankfurt and Leipzig in 1778-80, at Reut-
lingen in 1784, and at Carlsruhe again in 1787.
In the announcement of the first authorized edition of the
Schriften, Goethe wrote in June, 1786, saying: "You are
familiar with the causes which finally compel me to issue a
collection of all my writings, both of the published and of
those as yet unpublished. On the one hand, I am threatened
again with a new edition, which, like the preceding, seems to
have been planned without my knowledge and consent, and
may possibly be like them in misprints and other defects;
and, on the other hand, a beginning has been made of printing
in fragments my unpublished writings, of which I have occa-
sionally communicated copies to friends. As I cannot give
much, I have always wished to give that little well, and to
make my works which are already known more worthy of
1 Letter to Vieweg of July 12, 1798.
8
114 W. T. HEWETT.
approval, and to devote my final attention to those in manu-
script which are now complete; and, with greater freedom
and leisure, to finish in a favorable mood those which are as
yet unfinished. But in my situation, all this seems to remain
a devout wish ; year after year passes, and even now only a
disagreeable necessity could determine the resolution which I
desire to announce to the public." l Having been thus forced
to prepare a collected edition of his writings for the press, it
became necessary for him later to include in a new edition all
that he had subsequently published.
As early as in May, 1799, he considered the possibility of
a new edition of his works. 2 Schiller had also urged him to
undertake this task. Goethe's thoughts turned naturally
to the publisher Cotta, whose intimate relations with Schiller
he knew, and whose honorable and generous character made
him prominent among German publishers.
Goeschen in Leipzig had published the first authorized
edition of Goethe's Schriften in eight volumes (1787-90), but
the continuation in seven volumes in the Neue Schriften
(1792-1800) had been entrusted to Unger in Berlin. When
the latter urged Goethe to submit material for an eighth
volume, Goethe answered that he could not consent, because
his most recent works had been promised to Cotta, with
whom he had every reason to be content. 3 Unger, however,
died before definite arrangements had been made for the
publication of the Werke (A).
Goethe's personal acquaintance with Cotta had begun dur-
ing the latter's visit to Weimar in May, 1795, and had been
increased during his own visit to Stuttgart, on his journey
to Switzerland in 1797. On September 22, 1799, Goethe
promised to Cotta a preference in the publication of his
works in the future. In the following year Cotta assumed
the publication of the Propylaea (1798-1800), and, a little
later, of several separate publications of Goethe, as Was wir
1 Hempel edition, vol. 29, p. 275. * See his diary of May 23.
3 See Goethe's letter to Zelter of Aug. 29, 1803.
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 115
bringen, Mahomet, etc. (1802). Schiller's intervention was
active in arranging with Cotta for the first collected edition
of Goethe's works (A). 1
On April 19, 1805, Goethe wrote to Schiller and enclosed
his former agreements with Goeschen, in order to determine
whether any obstacle existed to an arrangement with Cotta
for the new edition. As none appeared, on May 1, 1805,
Goethe wrote formally to Cotta announcing his purpose to
publish a new edition of his works and enclosing the contents
of the twelve volumes proposed. The terms were agreed
upon at Lauchstedt on August 12.
It was Goethe's intention to send the text and manuscript
for this edition in three parts, each containing four volumes.
As early as on September 30 of that year, the text of Wilhelm
Meister was forwarded, which was designed to constitute the
second and third volumes ; other volumes followed rapidly,
according as the material was new or already in print; volume
first, containing the poems, the first part of which was in
manuscript, was not sent until February 24, 1806. The
fourth volume, with the exception of Elpenor, was dispatched
on August 19, 1806. Elpenor followed on October 27, but
volumes five, six and seven, which were apparently ready on
October 27, were not sent until December 8. Faust had
probably been given to Cotta personally during the latter's
visit in Weimar, April 25, 1806. The contents of the sepa-
rate volumes as published followed, in the main, the original
order. The eighth volume, however, contained Faust, instead
of the tenth, as originally proposed. 2 The ninth contained
what had been intended for the eighth, viz., the Gross-Cophta,
Triumph der Empfindsamkeit, Die Vogel, Der Burgergeneral,
the Gelegenheitsgedichte, etc. The matter for the ninth, and
1 See Schiller's letters of Oct. 16 and Dec. 30, in Vollmers Briefwechsel
zwischen Schiller und Cotta (1876), also Goethe's letters to Cotta of May 1,
and Aug. 12, and to Schiller of April 19, 1805. Briefe, Bd. xix.
2 Faust was once destined to constitute the fourth volume. See Goethe's
letter to Cotta of Feb. 24, 1806.
116 W. T. HEWETT.
for the eleventh volumes ( Werther and Brief e aus der Schweiz)
was also sent at this time. 1 All the material for the entire
edition had now (December 8, 1806) been sent, save that for
volumes ten and twelve. The twelfth volume followed on
May 7, 1807. 2 The first four volumes bear the date 1806.
Their publication occurred near the end of February in the
following year. 3 We find Goethe writing to Cotta on January
23, 1807, saying that the proof of the first, third and fourth
volumes had been received, but that of a portion of the
second was still lacking. He had not been able to revise
these volumes seriously. Many things impressed him at the
first glance as needing change, but this might pass. The first
four published volumes were forwarded to the author on
March 2. 4 Only two volumes bear the date 1 807, the fifth
and sixth. The tenth volume which contained the epic
poems, Reineke Fuchs, Hermann und Dorothea, Achitteis and
Pandora seems to have been the last volume sent. 5 On
November 1 a single volume remained to be sent to the pub-
lisher. On September 21 and 22 he was engaged in the
revision of Achilleis. We find in Goethe's diary of December
7, 1807 : "The epic poems gone through. . . . After dinner,
proceeded with the epic poems, and discussed various points.
December 8 several things in the epic poems arranged and
this volume packed. . . . The last volume dispatched to
Dr. Cotta in Tubingen." The sixth, eighth and subsequent
volumes bear date 1808.
The publication of the remaining volumes (vi-xn) of
Goethe's works was long expected and long delayed. The
1 See Goethe's Briefe, Bd. xix. Letters of Sept. 30, 1805 ; Feb. 24, June
20, Aug. 19, Oct. 27, and Dec. 8, 1806; and the corresponding lists in the
Lesarten, pp. 505 and 512. See also the Tagebiicher, Bd. in.
8 See also Goethe's letter to Zelter of May 7, 1807.
3 The publication of these works was announced in the Morgenblatt of
Feb. 27, and they were received by the poet on March 16. On Dec. 16 he
wrote to Zelter that the second installment of his works had not been
received, and again on May 3, 1808.
4 See the letters to Cotta of March 18, and to Zelter of March 27.
5 Letter to Cotta of Nov. 1, 1807.
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 117
two divisions were issued at the same time, about May 12,
and were received by the author about the end of June,
1808. 1 The first four volumes were subject to much con-
temporary criticism on account of the typographical errors,
which they contained.
It is now of interest to determine how far Goethe con-
templated, and how far he actually revised Hermann und
Dorothea for this edition of his works. Goethe sought to
make the poem the instrument for testing how far the rules
of classical verse might be illustrated in German verse. In
announcing the order of the proposed edition of his work to
Cotta, May 1, 1805, Goethe wrote that Reineke Fuchs and
Hermann und Dorothea were to be published ft revised in
accordance with his later convictions of prosody." During
the previous year he had again reverted to the questions of
metre, possibly incited by the presence of the younger Voss,
with whom he had read the Greek dramatists, especially
Sophocles.
Goethe says in the Tag- und Jahreshefie for 1806 : "The
proposed new edition of my works compelled me to go over
them all again, and I devoted appropriate attention to each
separate production, although adhering to my old purpose to
actually remodel nothing, or change it in any considerable
degree." He hoped once more to write in hexameters, and
to proceed with greater assurance in this form of verse,
also to execute his long cherished purpose, "conceived on
Lake Lucerne and on the way to Altorf," to write an epic of
William Tell. The amount of attention which he paid to
individual works was by no means uniform.
His former interests having been thus revived, he entrusted
a revision of Hermann und Dorothea to the young Heinrich
1 See his letters to Zelter and to Keinhard of June 22.
It does not seem possible in all cases to accept the view that the presen-
tation copies were the earliest. In many cases it can be shown that they
were the latest, and were, on several occasions, not received until some
months after the first publication.
118 W. T. HEWETT.
Voss, at that time a professor in the Gymnasium in Weimar,
in whose advancement Goethe was especially interested. A
certain unjustifiable respect which the great poet often showed
to the judgment of his works by others was manifested here. 1
Voss's effort had reference to the metrical structure of the
poem.
" Goethe is occupied with the publication of his collected
works. Riemer and I have likewise received our task in
connection with it. Goethe has given to me an interleaved
copy of Hermann und Dorothea. I am to review the hexa-
meters, and to indicate all my suggestions under the names
' changes ? and ' proposals.' We shall afterward hold confer-
ence and discuss the readings. You can readily conceive that
this is to me both an agreeable and instructive occupation." 2
" Hitherto I have not devoted myself seriously to the work
entrusted to me, namely, Hermann und Dorothea; but in
these days I have made a beginning. The six following
days I purpose to undertake it with all zeal. I notice (1)
the quantity of separate words, (2) the regular structure
of the separate hexameters, and finally (3) the connection of
the hexameters with one another. I frequently find six
unexceptionable hexameters in succession, which, if I mistake
not, recur with a monotonous effect ; I then reflect how this
is to be remedied without the diction suffering at the same
time. I .write my suggestions upon them, and in certain
passages I have already been so successful as to discover an
improvement." 3
He wrote again later : " Within the last fortnight I have
had a work of a peculiar kind, which has occupied me
entirely and from which I steal but a few moments, viz.,
when I write to you [Abeken and Solger]. Goethe has
entrusted to me the revision of his Hermann und Dorothea,
and I am permitted to change where and as I will [in it].
1 Knebel to Goethe. Dec. 22, 1795.
An K. Solger, Archivfur Lit.-Gesch., xi, 126. May 22, 1805.
3 H. Voss to Goethe, July 31, 1805. G.-J., v, 48.
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 119
With this object he has given to me his manuscript, where
the single lines are so far apart that I can write much between
them. I was at first timid in connection with it, but now I
have corrected furiously since he would not have it otherwise.
" Seek to remove not only the sins which I have committed,
but also the sins of omission." I now lay every hexameter
on the scales (Goldwage) and seek also to make the poem
perfect in this respect, without sacrificing at the same time
its naive language and perfect diction. Goethe is now in
Lauchstadt : I report to him every week how far I have
advanced, and when he returns we intend to go through the
poem together. Goethe is satisfied with the beginning of my
work, which he has seen, and has said it was well considered
(besonnen) and accompanied by insight into his meaning, and
this testimony gives me courage to proceed unweariedly. 1
The manuscript entrusted to Heinrich Voss is preserved
in the Goethe-Schiller Archives. It is not the original manu-
script, but was written by his secretary, Geist. Its early date
is shown by the fact that it contains the poem in its original
division into six cantos. The division into nine cantos,
according to the Nine Muses, was made before April 8, 1797,
when the first mention of that fact is made, and after March
21, when it was still in the original form. 2 The manuscript
presents various tentative readings in Goethe's hand, entered
at different times; also amendments suggested by Voss. It
is not certain that Goethe ever intended definitely to publish
the poem in this changed form. The proposed readings were
experimental. In any case, the work which had proceeded
so far was finally abandoned and was not made use of for
subsequent editions. It shows, however, how earnestly the
poet was occupied with his poem after its rapid composition.
This edition (A) is the only one of which a definite revision
of the poem by Goethe himself can be positively predicated.
1 Biedermann, Goethes Gesprdche, Bd. vin, pp. 292-93. From a letter of
H. Voss to Abeken, dated Aug. 3, 1805.
*See Schreyer, Goethe-Jahrbuch, x, 204; also the Introduction to my edi-
tion of the poem, 1891.
120 W. T. HEWETT.
But before the publication of A, a long series of pirated
reprints had been issued, which influenced the text. No
uniform law of copyright was then enforced throughout
Germany. One of the Wahlcapitulationen of the Emperor
Leopold II. in 1790, had been the promised enactment of a
law in behalf of property in literary works. As a matter of
fact every state possessed the right to control all publica-
tions within it's borders. Some states openly favored these
unauthorized reprints. Cotta made energetic protests to the
Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and to the Austrian government,
in order to protect Schiller's works against the lawless inter-
vention of printers in those states. Even the Free Cities
exercised the right to control publication within their borders,
and at the beginning of the Goethe-Zelter correspondence,
issued after the poet's death, there are copyright privileges
from the kingdom of Wiirtemberg and the eity of Frank-
furt. 1 In the year in which Hermann und Dorothea was
published, reprints were issued in Berlin, the city of the
original publication. Of the two reprints which appeared in
1798, one bearing the place of publication (Berlin), and the
other having simply the date, the former presents numerous
differences in readings from the latter, but these do not seem
to have influenced so much the later text. 2 The second, issued
1 The Act of the German Parliament of Nov. 9, 1837, seems to have been
the first adequate measure for establishing a general copyright law. See
Schiirmann, Die Rechtsverhaltnisse der Autoren und Verleger, 1889.
2 A few of these differences may be noted. The date 1798 as here used
refers to the original text in the Taschenbuch, and 1799 to the reprint of
that year. The Berlin edition gives I, 24, manchen for manchem; 70, andre
(1798, A) for andere (1799, 1806, etc.) ; n, 98, keineswegs (1806) for keines-
weges (1798, A); in, 20, schmutzigen for schmulzigem; iv, 14, von for vom;
42, niemal for niemals; 100, sollen for sollten; 120, verbirgest (1798) for
verbirgst (1806, A) ; 187, Garten for Garten (1806, A) ; 225, erscheinet (1798)
for erscheint (1799, 1806, A) ; vi, 7, reinerem for reineren ; 88, zeigt' for zeig';
130, Pfarrer (1798) for Pfarrherr (1806, A) ; 169, Andre for Andere; 175,
gesehenket for gesehenkt; 205, ernahrt for erndhret (1798, 1806, A); 210,
zuruckbleibet for zurilckbleibt (1798, 1806, A) ; 251, darauf for drauf; 291,
dem (1798) for den (1806, A); 295, den for dem; 302, Pfarrherr (1798) for
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 121
without the place of publication, has been the fruitful source
of corruption in the text. The false readings introduced by
the second reprint (apart from mere differences in orthography),
perpetuated in later editions and which constituted finally a
part of the accepted text are : IV, 120, verbirgst for verbirgest;
187, Garten for Garten; v, 225, erscheint for erscheinet; VI,
130, Pfarrherr for Pfarrer ; 271, andern for anderen; 291,
den for dem ; 302, Pfarrer for Pfarrherr ; 314, Staubes for
Staubs; 156, steht for stehet : ix, 65, Pfarrherr for Pfarrer;
77, im guten Sinne for in gutem Sinne; 161, stillen for s^e;
265, uns for wnd, etc. The reprint of 1799 which was from
different types, contains all these errors, and even reproduces
such crude mistakes as vin, 101, Fern for fern; ix, 286, Fus
for Fusz. Errors which originated in the reprint of 1798 (b)
and which survived for some time but were eliminated
in A are : I, 70, andre for andere ; n, 53, thut for thu' ; vii,
155, zerstreuen for zerstreun. From this date to the publica-
tion of A in 1808, nine reprints were issued, all save the first
apparently based on some previous unauthorized edition, and
perpetuating or introducing new errors.
The culmination of these reprints is found in the edition
of 1806, which was published at Reutlingen about ten miles
from Tubingen, where A was issued. 1
Pfarrer (1806, A); 314, Staubs (1798) for Staubes (1799, 1806, A) ; vn, 55,
hieher for hierher ; 63, notiget for notigt; 73, darauf for drauf (1798, etc.);
83, freun for/rewen; 155, zerstreun for zerstreuen (1799, 1806); 156, Stehet
(1798) for steht (1799, 1806, A) ; 176, gesehen for gesehn; vin, 19, kluges for
gutes; ix, 65, Pfarrer (1799, A) for Pfarrherr (1806); 77, in gutem (1798)
for im guten (1806, A); 97, den Armen for der Armen; 141, Stille (1798) for
stillen 1806 (stitt A) ; 252, an for am; 255, Erinnerung (1806) for Erinnrung
(1798, A); 261, gehen for gehn; 265, und (1798) for uns (1799, 1806 A) ;
266, vom for von; 299, Erschiitlerung for Erschiitlrung. Other errors, chiefly
orthographical and not affecting the metre, are found as in : i, 24, 71, 89,
168, 173; ii, 11, 247; in, 31, 39, 66, 88; iv, 29, 136, 176, 184, 223; vi, 30,
114, 164, 283, 309; vii, 17, 26, 56, 57 (2), 154, 164, 203; vm, 180, 261,
277, 286.
1 My own copies of this edition (A) do not correspond as regards the dates
of publication with the statement made by E. Schmidt in the Goethe-Jahrbuch,
Bd. xvi, 262. He states that in A, volumes vi and vn bear the date 1807,
122 W. T. HEWETT.
Out of sixty or more readings in which A differs from 1798,
the first edition (A) introduces forty-six original readings, or
what may be so regarded, and presents, at least, twenty
readings based upon this reprint. These readings are : n, 29,
75; iv, 103, 120, 122, 187; v, 188, 225; vi, 130, 271,
291, 293, 302, 314; vn, 16, 156; vm, 19; ix, 42 (?),
72, 230, 265, 317, which remain as a constituent part of
the text.
If the text of A, including both the syntactical and metri-
cal forms, was affected by the reprint of 1806, we should
expect that the orthography would also be affected with
greater or less uniformity. The preterit of gehen (ging,
gingen), is so printed in the edition of 1798 in sixteen
instances: I, 145, 165; n, 24, 60, 204; iv, 2, 4, 22, 39, 77;
V, 130; VI, 170, 189; VII, 14; vm, 1; ix, 55. In the
edition of 1808 (A) the same forms are printed gieng, giengen,
save in four cases, viz., in I, 145; iv, 77; v, 130; ix, 55.
If we compare the parallel readings in the reprint of 1806,
we find that the same orthography prevails, save in a single
instance (i, 145) ; that is, the orthography of A is based, in
this particular, upon the reprint, and in the four instances
in which it differs, corresponding variants are, in three cases
(iv, 77 ; v, 130 ; ix, 55), found in its prototype, the edition
of 1806. Similarly if we compare the preterit forms of
hangen (king, hingeri), in 1798, and in A (iv, 29 and vm, 88),
we shall find that they are printed in A, hiengen and hieng, as
previously in the reprint of 1806, and as in no preceding
while in A x the same volumes bear the date 1808. In one of my copies,
volumes i-iv have the date 1806, vols. v and vn 1807, and vols. vi, vin
and the remaining volumes 1808. In a second and third copy (A 7 ?) the
dates of the foregoing volumes are, i-iv, 1806 ; v and vi, 1807 ; vn-xn,
1808. The readings of the first copy correspond with those given by
Strehlke (Hempel edition, vn, 196-299, quoted by Minor, Weimar edition,
vm, 341-2), except that on p. 255, 1. 25, Vertraue (W. and No. 1) stands
for Vertrau (No. 2) ; p. 292, 1. 11 liettts (W. and No. 1) stands for lies't
(No. 2) ; and p. 299, 1. 25, Streit (Nos. 1 and 2) stands for Schritt (W.).
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S FEINTED TEXT. 123
authorized edition. The reprints of 1803 and 1804 have,
however, these forms. 1
Similarly if we compare the form dies and die$ in the
editions of 1798 and 1808 (A), we shall find that in 1798 dies
is used either alone or in diesmal, in at least six cases (rv, 108;
V, 81; vn, 153; vui, 36; ix, 307, 313), and die$ four times
(i, 19; vn, 20, 30; ix, 195). If we turn, in these selected
instances to A, we shall find that dies, alone or in compounds,
is used in seven instances (i, 19; iv, 108; V, 81; vn, 20,
30, 153; ix, 195), and diefy in three instances (vin, 36; ix,
307, 313). Comparing now these readings with the reprint
of 1806, we find that the reprint uses the form dies and die$
in exactly the same passages; that is, where 1806 changes the
spelling of the first edition (1798), A coincides with it; and
where 1806 fails to make a uniform change, A follows it pre-
cisely and exhibits the same readings. Schreckliche is thus
printed in 1798, but Schrekliche in 1806 and 1808; Reizen
(i, 88) is printed Reitzen in 1798, but Reitzen in 1806 and
1808 (A); Ernie is thus printed in 1798, but Erndte in 1806
and 1808 (A); Schwert is so printed in 1798, but Schwerdt in
1806 and 1808 (A) ; Eretter appears in this form in 1798 (i,
126), but in ix, 38 and 42, asBreter and breterne; it is spelled
uniformly in 1806, and also in 1808 (A).
A does not follow in all cases the orthography of the reprint
of 1806 ; Ungeberdig in 1798 and 1806 is spelled Ungebdrdig
in A; Grenze in 1798 and 1806 is Grdnze in 1808 (iv, 54,
94, 99) ; Heirath (n, 102; ix, 70) in 1798 and 1806 is Heirat
in A, but Heirath again in B. Parthey in 1798 and 1806
(v, 113) is Parte in A (owing to a typographical error), but
Parthei in 1799 a , and Parley in 1799 b . But these changes
1 The name Gothe is thus spelled in the authorised editions of 1798, 1799
(2), 1803, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1808, 1812, 1814 V [1816], 1820, 1822 [1823],
1826, 1828, 1829 V (2), 1830, and in the reprints of 1798 (2), 1799, 1801,
1803, 1804 (but Goethe on the portrait), 1806, 1810 Wien. and Prag. and
Koln, 1814 (?) ; it is printed Goethe in the Schrift&n (1787-90), N. S., n. s.,
A., a., 1814 C., 1816 Bauer, 1817, B'., B., 1829 C., C'., C., Q., and in the
reprints of 1822 Tr., 1822 Stuttg., 1823 Prose, 1823 Luxem., 1828 Trans.
124 W. T. HEWETT.
are no greater than occur naturally in the usage of different
printing offices, or through the varying standards of composi-
tors. A certain uniformity not exhibited in the first edition is
shown in the orthography of A ; as in the case of the numerals,
zwey (iv, 40, 229); zweyte (vn, 197; vm, 254; IX, 254);
drey (i, 163; IV, 40), also in beyde (i, 65; II, 226; vn, 56,
106, 113; vm, 7, 39; ix, 50, 53, 184, 189); in the forms of
the verb to be, seyn (i, 39; IV, 160); sey (vi, 147, 275; ix,
100, 234), and seyd (v, 66) ; iufrey (iv, 115 ; V, 173 ; VI, 7,
141; vm, 62; ix, 173, 277); Freyheit (vi, 10; ix, 259);
freylich (i, 35, 96 ; n, 254; in, 91 ; vi, 253 ; ix, 101, 157 ;
and befreyen (ix, 135).
The question arises how this reprint could have become in
part the basis of the accepted text, and at the same time per-
mit Goethe's amended readings to be incorporated. We have
seen that the tenth volume containing Hermann und Dorothea
was the last to be sent to the printer, and was not forwarded
until nearly six months after all the other volumes had been
sent (December 8, 1807). There is no positive evidence in
Goethe's diaries or in his correspondence in the absence of
his letters to Cotta that he revised the proof of the epic
poems. It is, however, possible, yet the uniformity of men-
tion of such revision previously, makes it uncertain. It seems
probable that the poem was sent to the printer, not in manu-
script, but in a volume of Vieweg's edition, with the changes
indicated in the margin, but that these changes were not all
transferred to the cheap reprint, published in the vicinity,
which was used for convenience, at least, in part by the com-
positors as the basis of the text, and so in numerous cases the
more correct forms of the earlier editions were not incorporated
in the new volume.
An edition of Hermann und Dorothea without date, pub-
lished in the Spitz'sche Buchhandlung / Cologne, from which
1 The widow of a book-binder, Joh. Wilhelm Spitz, had a stationery shop
in 1797 ; Wilhelm Spitz was a book-binder in 1813 ; later he was a printer,
and in 1819 he conducted a circulating library. He issued reprints of
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 125
so many unauthorized reprints emanated, presents a divided
text. It follows in part the pre-Cotta editions and in part
the later editions. A comparison of its readings shows that
the early text before A obtains with great uniformity in
certain cantos or parts of cantos, while the later Cotta text is
employed in the remaining parts. This would show that the
work of composition was entrusted to two compositors and
that editions of different dates were assigned to them. The
date of this reprint is, therefore, subsequent to 1808, and may
be placed approximately at 1814.
The copyright of the first edition of Goethe's works (A)
extended from Easter, 1806, to Easter, 1814, and the poet
entered actively upon the preparation of a second edition (B)
at the beginning of the latter year. In the first two months he
was engaged in the revision of his minor poems. In July, the
order of the new edition was determined and further revision
of the first volumes undertaken. Cotta visited Goethe in
May, and the final arrangement with him for the publication
of his works was apparently decided in the January following.
It is not certain when the eleventh volume of Goethe's
works, which contained Hermann und Dorothea, was sent to
the printer, 1 but it probably occurred in the late summer or
early autumn of 1816. Goethe was busied at Tennstadt,
from July 20 to September 10, with the preparation of his
works for the press. On July 25 the first book of Reineke
Fuchs was revised ; on August 24 he took up Hermann und
Dorothea and considered the suggestions for changes which
Hermann und Dorothea, Iphigenie, Wilhelm Tell (1816), and of Goethe's
Gedichte (1814).
1 The text of the new edition of Goethe's works was sent to Cotta, so far
as I can determine: 1815, Feb. 20, Vols. 1 and 2; March 27, Vols. 3, 4, 5,
6: 1816, March 11, Vols. 7 and 8; May 11, Vol. 9; July 8, Vol. 10; Aug.
31(?),Vol. 11; Oct. 23, Vol. 12; Dec. 18, Vols. 13 and 14 : 1817, Feb. 24,
Die guten Weiber ; April 18, Vols. 17-19 ; (?), Vol. 20. The publication of
the first volumes was delayed, so that Zelter wrote that the sale of the
Vienna reprint, in spite of its defects, was increasing in Berlin. Letter
of Feb. 18, 1816.
126 W. T. HEWETT.
had been proposed. He wrote in his diary : " Old plans
of epic poetry revised." The third division of his works,
volumes nine to twelve, was published at Easter, 1817. The
eleventh volume contained Hermann und Dorothea. No per-
sonal revision of this poem on the part of the poet can be
shown. The text follows A with great exactness and the few
differences are probably due to printers 7 errors, among which
were the readings gern for gerne, I, 84 ; wolltest for wollest, n,
263 ; the omission of the semicolon, n, 98 ; ein for cZem, m,
46 ; the insertion of er, vn, 181, which errors have remained
permanently in the text. Certain changes in the orthography
are manifest, following probably the usage of the Gotta press
at this time. The preterit forms of gehen and hangen were
printed ging (i, 145, 165; II, 24, 60, 204; iv, 2, 4, 22, 39,
77; v, 130; VI, 170, 189; vn, 14; vm, 1; ix, 55) and
king (iv, 29 ; vm, 88) ; the spelling die$ (iv, 108 ; VII, 20,
30; vm, 36; IX, 195, 307), when used alone, and in diefymal
(i, 19; v, 81 ; vn, 153; vm, 36; ix, 313), is made uniform;
the form giebt of A is printed gibt (n, 31 ; iv, 145, 236 ; v,
53, 172). Numerous minor changes appear: as, schreckliohe
(n, 112) for shrekliohe in A; Klavler (n, 221, 244, 270) for
Clavier in 1798 and A ; Kattun (i, 30, 32 ; vi, 133) for Cat-
tun in 1798 and A; Kollegen (iv, 176) for Collegen in 1798
and A ; Heirath (n, 102 ; ix, 70) for Heir at in A ; Schwert
(vi, 181) for Schwerdt in A; did$ (iv, 108) for dies in 1798
and A ; diefymal (v, 81) for diesmal in 1798 and A ; Ernie (i,
47, 52 ; iv, 38) for Erndte in A ; breterne (ix, 38) and Breter
(ix, 42) for bretterne and Bretter in A ; giebt in A is printed
gibt in B and C; there is also a tendency to use more
frequently a capital letter in Jeder (n, 163 ; in, 105 ; v, 200,
272 ; ix, 21, 270), and Jeglicher (vi, 273 ; vn, 35) ; and
Niem, and (iv, 6) which are written without a capital in 1798
and A. One peculiarity of this edition is the employment of
two single s's ff (Idtft, IV, 221) for the compound character .
The Vienna edition of B (B') has attracted interest of
late as possibly presenting an independent revision of cer-
127
tain of the poet's works. 1 In the present poem it differs
from B in II, 140, where it has hierher for hieher, an unusual
reading which, however, occurs in the reprint of 1816, but
not in the Cotta edition of 1817; in n, 263, where it has
wollest, thus agreeing with the earlier authorized editions, and
also with the above-mentioned reprint; in IV, 122, where it
has den for dem, thus following all editions prior to 1808,
except the reprint of 1806. This, however, is an error, whose
correction would naturally suggest itself to an intelligent
compositor; the form, allzu gelind (v, 113), coincides with
the reprint of 1816, in which alone these words are printed
in this manner. B' avoids the errors of B also in having
dein (in, 46) ; und bereuet (vii, 181).
If we note peculiarities of orthography, there are certain
general features which are common to both 1816 and B',
which may be due to the dominant orthography in Vienna 2
at that time, or, possibly, to the fact that the two editions
sustain a certain relationship. Thus the two editions coin-
cide in printing the following words : Clavier (11, 244, 270) ;
Candle (m, 30); Collegen (iv, 176), but not Kattun (1816, I,
30; VI, 133) ; Mahl in Seeks Mahl (m, 33) ; jemahls (ix, 267,
270) ; einmahl (ix, 87, 263) ; niemahls (iv, 158) ; tausendmahl
(ix, 291); zweyten Mahl (ix, 254); Ofimahls (iv, 164); die$
Mahl or diefymahl (v, 81); erste Mahl (vni, 30); gebiethen
for gebieten (v, 197; vn, 198; IX, 115); hohlen for holen (il,
196 ; IX, 81) ; triegen for trugen (vi, 16 ; IX, 289) ; Altern or
Aeltern for Eltern (iv, 159; VI, 255 ; vii, 163 ; vni, 12 ; ix,
56, 60, 248). The spelling in these cases does not agree with
that in B. Other differences weigh against any connection,
at least in certain cantos; as in the readings in 1816, rolW
(i, 194); gerne (i, 84); Pfarrherr (i, 185) ; Verbirgest (iv,
120); Andern (v, 235); anderen (vn, 133) ; stehet (vii, 156);
1 Seuffert, B., Goethes Erzahlungen, " Die gut&n Weiber," Goethe-Jahrbuch,
Bd. xv, 148.
* It may not be without interest to note that vol. vni of the reprint of
the Neue Schriften presents in many points a like orthography (1801).
128 W. T. HEWETT.
ahndungsvolle (vm, 4); kluges (vin, 19); gerne (ix, 21);
Frende (ix, 230) ; andern (ix, 251). There are also minor
differences ; as in spazieren (m, 96) ; Grdnze (iv, 54), etc.
The Vienna edition (B') presents further an extended and
independent series of textual errors for which it is alone
responsible; as, Drum for Darum (11, 155); soil for soltte
(178) ; den for der (179) ; eigenes for eignes (181) ; sadeln for
sadeiten (207) ; swm schmutzigen for zw schmutzigem (in, 20) ;
mahles for ma/ifc (iv, 57) ; ezgwis for eigenes (74) ; treffliche for
trefflichste (v, 120) ; acA (in, 77) for lachte; vom for von (ix,
266); Graben (in, 14) for Grdben; stehen (in, 84) for ste/w.
The contract with Cotta for the second edition of Goethe's
works (B) expired at Easter, 1823, and, as before, prepara-
tions were immediately begun for a new and final edition
of all his writings. Riemer, who had been Goethe's main
assistant in the revision of the preceding editions of his
works, was again called to his aid, and Eckermann, a young
scholar and poet from Hannover.
Goethe's acquaintance with Eckermann began on June
10, 1823, soon after the latter's arrival in Weimar. Goethe
expressed a wish for him to establish himself there for
a time, and entrusted to him two volumes containing his con-
tributions to the Frankfurter gelehrte Anzeigen in the years
1772 and 1773; he asked him to estimate the value of these
early productions for a future edition of his works, since he
himself could form no proper opinion of their present merit
as they were now so remote from him. In the period which
followed, the relation between the two became more intimate,
and much preliminary work on the new edition of his works
was entrusted to Eckermann. 1 Goethe desired that Ecker-
mann and Riemer might aid him in this task, and, in case of
his death, assume the work in question. Goethe's earlier
purpose was to entrust the revision of his works to Schubarth
in co-operation with the preceding. In his letter to Staatsrath
*See Eckermann's Gesprache mil Goethe, for June 11, and Oct. 2, 1823,
and May 6, 1824.
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 129
Schultz he defined the task of the corrector. He desired the
revision of the twenty volumes which had already been printed
as well as of those which were to be issued later. The
volumes were to be read with a grammatical eye, and to be
examined with critical discernment, to determine whether any
typographical error was concealed ; in that case a conjecture
was to be noted, and so the whole would rest upon a sure
foundation which it would retain. At the same time no effort
was to be made to improve the expression in any considerable
degree, however possible it might be to do so. This work
was entrusted later to Gottling. 1
Gottling (1793-1869), whom Goethe had called to his aid
in this responsible task, was a young professor in Jena, a
scholar of attractive personality and of keenness in criticism,
whose wide learning and later services in behalf of classical
study gave a high reputation to the university. 2 Gottling's
training in the study of ancient manuscript had given to him
certain definite theories, and with these he entered upon his
work. Goethe's invitation to him to participate in this final
revision was made in his letter of June 10, 1825. His actual
work began when Goethe entrusted to him on January 22,
1825, the first two volumes of the preceding edition of his
works for revision. It is not possible, until the complete
treasures of the Goethe Archives are published, to determine
when the fortieth volume of Goethe's works, containing
Hermann und Dorothea, was sent to Gottling, probably after
September 12, 1830, the date of the return of the thirty-sixth
volume which contained Rameaus Neffe.
Goethe was not permanently satisfied with the changes
which Gottling made, even although they may have been
1 See Goethe's letter to Staatsrath Schultz of June 28, 1824, in the Berlin
collection, Goethe's Briefe, Bd. in, Abt. IT, p. 1324 ; also to Schubarth of
March 21, 1825, in Brief e Goethes an K. Schubarth in the Deutsche Rundschau,
Vol. 5, p. 38 (1875).
*For the history of Gottling's relation to this edition of Goethe's
works, see Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und K. Gottling in den Jahren, 1824-
31, Miinchen, 1880.
9
130 W. T. HEWETT.
admitted with his consent. A more exact adherence to
classical theories pleased the reviser, but not the poet. 1 Thus,
on May 28 Goethe wrote to Gottling: "You must indulge
me in one idiosyncrasy. I cannot give up the inflexion Kost-
lichen Sinnes; it is interwoven with my whole being, so that
I must regard it as expressing myself (mir gernajjachten),
even if not correct." He had reflected how such an impres-
sion could, in his case, have originated. Lessing's Briefe
antiquarischen Inhalts and other examples had occurred to
him, and therefore he found more occasion to hope that he
might be indulged. And again he asked for a certain con-
sideration in the use of particular forms as a native of Upper
Germany. 2 In another letter Goethe made a mild protest
against Gottling's procedure, saying that he knew how to
value the profession of the grammarian, but, as a poet, he
craved from him certain liberties.
Goethe published a prospectus of the new edition dated
March 1, 1826. 1 He gave in detail the contents of the first
thirty-eight volumes, save for volumes xxx-xxxm, which
were to contain articles of a literary and biographical charac-
ter, reviews from the period of the Frankfurter Anzeiger (1772)
to those of the JeimAllegemeine Zeitung (1804); there would
possibly be room for instructive earlier studies on Gotz von
Berlichingen, Iphigenia, etc. While this order was in the
main adhered to, certain volumes required greater space than
was anticipated, and the contents of the volumes as published
does not coincide with the numbers to which they were origi-
nally assigned. In this prospectus Hermann und Dorothea
was intended for the twelfth volume as in the preceding edi-
tion (B). It was, however, actually published in the fortieth
volume, Faust taking its place. The expression, "Ausgabe
letzter Hand," was interpreted as meaning that the author
had contributed his best and final touches to the edition with-
out, at the same time, being able to regard it as perfect. "As
1 See Eckermann, March 17, 1830.
1 Letter to Gottling of Oct. 8, 1825.
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 131
was to be seen from the previous editions of his works, he
was little inclined to make changes in his writings, and few
would be found in this edition. That in which he had origi-
nally succeeded, he was not afterward successful in improving. 1
Goethe applied to the representatives of the German Con-
federation for a copyright on this edition that he might be
protected from unauthorized reprints. This was unanimously
granted by the Diet on March 24, 1825, but the ratification
by the separate states was not immediately obtained. This,
however, was effected, for the most part, during the year
1825. 2 The business details for this edition with Cotta were
completed on January 30, 1826. 3 From this time Goethe
was constantly engaged in perfecting this final edition of his
works. Eight volumes were to be issued at uniform inter-
vals. Printing began in October, and the first instalment
was announced for Easter, 1827. The first four volumes
were issued so as to be received by the poet on February 17,
and the remaining four on April 22. In July, 1830, thirty-
five volumes had appeared, and five more were issued at
Michelmas of that year. The final volume contained Her-
mann und Dorothea.
The Taschenausgabe of 1830 (C') and later the octavo
(C) present the results of Gottling's revision. They show a
text based upon B, the errors of which are in many cases
retained, with a regulated but not entirely uniform orthog-
raphy. Many of the caprices and inconsistencies which dis-
1 Boas, Nachtrdge zu Goethe's sdmmllichen Werken, Bd. u, 224-232.
"See Goethe's letters to the Saxon Minister of Nov. 1, and to Staatsrath
Schultz of Dec. 18. Goethe's Brief e, Berlin, in, 2, p. 1372.
3 For Cotta's relation to this edition, see the correspondence between
Goethe and Boissere'e in Sulpiz Boisseree, Bd. n, from Dec. 12, 1823 to Sept.
29, 1826.
Goethe continued his labor on the as yet unpublished volumes, and on
Jan. 5, 1831, had ten new volumes almost ready for the press.* On May
15, he signed, in connection with Eckermann, a contract containing the
terms under which Eckermann should publish after Goethe's death the
volumes which were already complete, as well as the remaining.
*To Miiller, Jan. 5, 1831, Biedermann, vm, 3; the same, vni, 84.
132 W. T. HEWETT.
figured B were removed. Both of these final editions of
Goethe's works were issued with type especially cast, and
upon better paper than that employed in the earlier collected
editions, the quality of which had been severely criticized.
When compared with the first edition of 1798, C presents
three hundred or more variants from the first edition. Of
these about one-third are in the spelling of words, and a less
number in capitalization and in the use of the apostrophe.
Other changes affect the text, syntax or metre. The changes
in spelling from B are confined to a limited number of words.
Certain systematic changes were, however, carried out. There
was an effort to limit the excessive use of capitals in the indefi-
nite pronouns and pronominal adjectives; as in the words, all,
ander, beide, jeder, jeglicher, niemand, viel, etc. The contrac-
tion of the preposition with the article in the accusative was
uniformly indicated; as an's, vii, 190; auf's, in, 49; durch's,
VI, 270; vii, 152; vm, 86; in's, n, 264; v, 118, 240; VII,
2, 7 (ins C'), 180; vm, 108; ix, 48, 220, 232 (ins C'); vor's,
n, 16; also with the dative in bei'm, in, 31 ; IV, 182; v, 2,
61 ; Vii, 104, 201 ; IX, 30, in C, but beim in C' ; but not in
am, ix, 22; im, vm, 11, 84, 87; ix, 41 ; vom, vm, 94, or
zum, vm, 9. The elision of the vowel e is indicated ; as, er's,
VI, 55 ; ich's, n, 220 ; Ihr's, VI, 207 ; ist's, I, 6 ; m, 107 ;
vm, 30 ; mich's, n, 215 ; mir's, in, 107 ; ix, 221 ; war's,
VI, 182; versteht's, vii, 182; lass', vii, 153; los'te, II, 48; V,
109; VI, 38; ix, 169, 265; bess'rer, m, 5, etc.
Minor changes in orthography are apparent ; frey and its
derivatives freylich and befreyen were spelled with ei, but not
freyen, marry (vi, 169 ; 272) or its derivative Freyersmann
(VI, 257, 267); beyde, Schreyn (i, 140; vii, 196); Geschrey
(i, 131 ; IX, 193) ; Schkyer (vm, 3). The suffix -ley in man-
cherley (i, 117; n, 167; vii, 170) of the earlier editions was
spelled with ei ; so, also was the preposition bey when used
alone or in compounds : echt of the earlier editions became
dcht (i, 168). 1 The octavo edition of 1830 (C) is, in general,
lr The canon of orthography which Gottling followed in this edition is
reprinted in the Weimar edition, vol. i, p. xxii.
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 133
a faithful reproduction of the Taschenausgabe of the same
year, which preceded it. There are, however, minor differ-
ences, and the marks of a revising hand are manifest in a few
instances: as in i, 19, where rolW appears for rollt; n, 186,
where und has been restored before dieZeiten; VI, 314, where
we find Staub's for staubes (Staubs, 1798); vii, 187, bessere
for the corrupt bessre; IX, 230, Freude for the corrupt Freuden.
A. slight difference in orthography is noticeable in a few words :
as in i, 30, 33 ; vi, 133, 175, where we find Kattun for Cattun
(in 1798, A, B and C'); and in in, 30, where the Kandle of
1798, A and B is printed Candle in both C and C', as in B' ;
Kaffe, 1798, A and B is printed Kaffee (in, 90); feiern (i,
199) in 1798, A and B was printed feyern; erwiedern (ii, 11),
erwiderm; Clavier and Collegen (iv, 164), and Candle (in, 30)
were printed in their earlier forms, as in 1798, and A, and
not with K as in B; Wochnerin (n, 43, 54; vii, 131, 186)
was printed with a single final n; the plural of Schar (i,
49; VI, 310) is Sehaaren in distinction from 1798, A and B
(Schareri). The capitalization of Ihr, l you/ was not uniform
in 1798, but is so in C'.
From the year 1814 two parallel editions of Hermann und
Dorothea were issued by the original publisher Vieweg and
by Cotta, the editions of the former being based after 1808
upon the revised text in Cotta (A). While there was a
conservative adherence to the latter, the Vieweg editions,
especially after the appearance of the royal octavo edition in
1822, presented a revised text which avoided some of the
changes, and, occasionally, the errors in A. This edition
shows: I, 19, rollt 7 for rollt; 185, Pfarrherr for Pfarrer;
II, 29, erblicket for erblicklet; 75, Durfiigste ; 155, Herrmann;
163, period at end instead of comma; iv, 103, tiefen; 120,
verbirgest; 122, den; 187, Garten; VI, 150, erfahrnen; 217,
Pfarrer; 225, von; Vl\,anderen; 291, dem; 293, ihn; 314,
Staubs; vii, 1 1 , betrachtet'; 55, hieher ; 105, schwatzen; 133,
anderen; 163, wie es ; vin, 19, kluges; ix, 43, harrte;
141 and 161, stille; 230, Freude; 317, stdnde, in which there
134 W. T. HEWETT.
is a reversion to the earlier type. An intelligent deviation
from the later accepted text is noticeable, however it is to be
explained.
In many cases it is easy to see how errors were introduced.
Thus the reading ihn fuhrte (vi, 293), appears in the first
edition where ihn seems to relate to Fuszweg, ' along the path.'
The Neue Schriflen, possibly finding something obscure in
this use of the personal pronoun alone to express distance,
transposed the letters so that it read hinfuhrte, ' conduct
thither ; ' the edition of 1806 changed this form to heimfuhrle,
'to conduct home;' which has remained as the permanent
reading. Another interesting case is found in the use of
Iduges for gutes (vni, 19). Dorothea asks Hermann how she
can satisfy the claims of both father and mother. Hermann,
recognizing the wise foresight of the question, answers :
"O, wie geb', ich dir recht, du kluges, treffliches Madchen," etc.
The compositor, glancing at the word gute in the line above,
set this in type, and the form has been preserved to the
present time. Similarly, Dorothea assures Hermann that the
wants of the ' most needy ' (n, 75) shall be relieved. The
reprint of 1806 changes Durftigste to Durftige, making the
statement that the relief shall be general and not confined to
the ' most needy/ thus destroying the idea of discriminating
care which was originally expressed.
It seems therefore established that there was only a single
elaborate revision of the poem by the author, which was made
for the collected edition of his works (1806-8); that a series
of errors were introduced from two reprints, one of 1798,
and one of 1806, which latter was used in part for the text
of 1808. It has also been shown that these unauthorized
editions followed one another, the later ones adopting almost
invariably the readings of the preceding.
A STUDY OF GOETHE'S PRINTED TEXT. 135
In the collation of the text of Hermann und Dorothea, I
have used all the editions issued by Goethe's authorized pub-
lishers during his lifetime, as given in Goedeke's Grundriss,
IV, 689-690, except the editions published by Vieweg in 1811
(k), 1813 (1), 1814 (m), 1815 (p) ; the Gotta edition of 1829
(w) 1 ; and the reprint at Bonn of 1806, which I have been
unable to find in any library in Germany, the existence of
which is at present uncertain. 1 have also collated the Vie-
weg edition of 1803 without illustrations, which is identical
with that catalogued by Goedeke, but is not a mere Titelauflage
of the edition of 1799, 2 as he states ; and an octavo edition of
1812, pp. 235, not mentioned by either Goedeke or Hirzel ;
also the following unauthorized reprints which are of interest
in studying the history of the text : Herrmann und Dorothea,
von J. W. von Gothe, Berlin, 1798, 8vo, pp. 176; the same,
without place, 8vo, pp. 152, differing from the preceding; 3 the
same, Zweite verbesserte Auflage, 1799, without place, 8vo, pp.
152, differing from the preceding; the same, Koln bei Heinr,
Rommerskirchen, 1801, small 16mo, pp. 181; the same, in
Goethe's Neue Schriften, Achter Band, neue Aufl. Mannheim,
1801; the same, Stuttgardt, 1803, pp. 166, I2rno, with six
woodcuts. This reprint was also issued in the same year,
without place or illustrations, but corresponding in the text ;
the same, 1804, without place, small 8vo, pp. 97, with Goethe's
portrait engraved by Oberkogler, with three engravings ; the
same, Reutlingen in the J. J. Macken'schen Buchhandlung,
1806, small 8vo, pp. 164; the same, Wien und Prag, 1810,
1 There were two editions of this poem which appeared in 1799 one
containing 235 pages (1799 a ), and one 231 pages (1799 b ). These two
editions present the same text, but minor differences in orthography ; as,
ergotzend (1799 b ) for ergelzend (i, 60; iv, 188); betrachtet' for betrachtet (vn,
11) ; dringet for dringt (n, 32).
2 The two Vieweg editions, royal octavo, of 1822 and 1829, show ortho-
graphical differences; as, Hermann (1829) for Herrmann; Pfarrer for
Pfarrherr (i, 185).
3 The errors originating in the first unauthorized reprints of 1798 and of
1806 were recognized, and removed in my fifth edition of the poem (1895).
136 W. T. HEWETT.
8vo, pp. 127; the same, Gothe's Hermann und Dorothea,
Koln in der W. Spitz'schen Buchhandlung, date about 1814;
Hermann und Dorothea von Goethe, in Goethe's Gedichte,
Dritte Abtheilung, Neueste Auflage, Wien, 1816, bey B. Ph.
Bauer; the same, Stuttgart bei A. F. Macklot, 1822, 8vo,
pp. 1 20 ; the same, Mit einer Eeurtheilung im Allgemeinen,
Luxemburg, 1823, 8vo, pp. 75,
In the references in this investigation to Goethe's works,
I have followed the usual designations : the capital letters
A, B, B', C', C, indicate the various authorized editions of
Goethe's complete works, 1806-10; 1815-19; 1816-22
(Wien); 1827-30, 16mo, and 1827-30, octavo. Q denotes
the edition revised by Riemer and Eckermann after Goethe's
death, 1836-37. The small letters, n. s., represent the reprint
and continuation of the Neue Schriften, and a the Vienna
reprint of A by Anton Strauss (1810-17) in twenty-six
volumes. In the dates of the various editions, C. and V.
indicate Cotta and Vieweg as the respective publishers, and
Tr. indicates the text in the translations of 1822 and 1828.
W. T. HEWETT.
III. ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS.
Das speculum humanae salvationis gehort zu der grossen
anzahl theologisch moralisirender gedichte des mittelalters,
denen zwar vom aesthetisch literarischen standpunkt aus nur
geringer wert beigelegt werden kann, die aber kulturgeschicht-
lich eine nicht zu unterschatzende bedeutung gehabt haben.
Wie sehr diese dichtung dazu beigetragen hat has geistige
interesse des volks rege zu erhalten, erhellt, ganz abgesehen
von dem kiinstlerischen beiwerk der illustrationen, schon aus
dem umstande, dass sie mehrfach gegenstand der iibersetzung
und iiberarbeitung gewesen ist, nicht nur in Deutschland, wo
das werk hochstwahrscheinlich entstanden ist, sondern auch
in den nachbarlandern.
Vor langer zeit schon ist das speculum gegenstand der
untersuchung gewesen zur schlichtung einer rein technischen
frage. Es existiren narnlich mehrere incunabeln, darunter
als alteste zwei lateinische und zwei hollandische ausgaben,
letztere unter dem titel Speghel onser behoudinisse, von denen
einer neben dem bilde Costers die jahreszahl 1428 enthalt.
Diese spater als falschung erkannte angabe war der anlass zu
dem lange gefuhrten streit iiber den erfinder der buchdrucker-
kunst. Dieser hollandische druck ist jetzt als die jiingste der
vier ausgaben erwiesen, die Utrecht 1470-1483 datirt werden,
ohne dass fur die einzelnen drucke genaueres anzugeben ware.
Der zweite lateinische druck ist noch teilweise xylographisch
hergestellt. Uber die ganze sehr interessante frage orientirt
jede moderne darstellung der geschichte der buchdruckerkunst.
Eine ziemlich vollstandige bibliographic giebt P. Poppe in
seiner dissertation Uber das speculum humanae salvationis und
eine mitteldeutsche Bearbeitung desselben, Strassburg, 1887,
p. 9-10, et passim. Zu den dort angefuhrten werken fiige
ich noch hinzu : Aretins Beitrage, v, 170; Samuel Leigh
Sotheby, Principia lypographica, wo band I, 145-180, der
137
138 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
frage eine ausfiihrliche untersuchung gewidmet wird ; Xylo-
graphische und typographische Incunabeln der Koniglichen
offentlichen Bibliothek zu Hannover, beschrieben von Eduard
Bodernann, Hannover, 1866. Weigel, DieAnfdnge der Buch-
druckerkunst, vol. i, 220 ; u, 145 ; Adelungs Magazin, II, 3,
p. 90 ; J. H. Hessels, Haarlem the Birth-Place of Printing,
not Mentz, 1887.
Das speculum wird durch einen prolog eingeleitet, der den
zweck und die anlage des buches bespricht und an dem
gleichnis vom eichbaum, der abgehauen zu verschiednem
gebrauch dient, zu illustriren versucht. Dem eigentlichen
prolog folgt dann noch eine kurze summirung des inhalts.
Die folgenden 42 kapitel erzahlen dann die gescbichte der
schopfung des menschen, des falls, sowie das leiden Christi
bis zu den ereignissen nach dem gericht. Und zwar wird
von kap. 3 ab jedes kapitel in vier abschnitte geteilt. Der
erste bespricht ein begebnis des neuen testaments, mit dem
dann drei ereignisse des alten testaments oder auch der pro-
fangeschichte in verbindung gebracht werden, als anzeichen
oder prophezeihung dessen, was spater zu Christi zeiten
kommen solle. Ein beispiel aus dem inhaltsverzeichniss des
berliner codex qrt. 1246 moge das illustriren ; dort heisst es
fol. 7a : ' In dem 29 cp. wirt gesagt wie christus den tufel
vberwant ; vnd daz het vns vilnt der starke bananias vor
beziechnet, der zu dem lowen gieng ab in sin cisternen vnd
strakt in dar nider mit siiiem stab vnd er tod in. Vnd
daz ist vns och vorbeziechnet bi sampson, da er den lowen
zerzart, vnd bi ay och, der den kunig aglon den aller weisesten
durch stach mit sinem swert.' Die letzten drei kapitel
handeln von den leiden Christi, den sieben leiden und freuden
Mariae, ohne typus und antitypus. Samtliche kapitel sind
nun mit bildern geziert, und zwar ist jeder typus und anti-
typus durch je ein bild vertreten ; kapitel 43 bis 45 haben
je die doppelte anzahl, also acht bilder, was fur den voll-
staudigen codex die zahl von 192 illustrationen ergiebt.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 139
Nach Piper, Mythologie der christlichen kunst, p. 151 seq.,
und Guichard, Notice sur le speculum humanae salvationis,
p. 9 seq., zahlt Poppe (p. 70) sieben entlehnungen aus der
profangeschichte auf. Hinzuzufugen ist noch das beispiel
vom straus (strucio liberavit pullum suum de vitro per sangui-
nem vermiculi, kap. 28, iv) zu stellen, das jeden falls aus
einera physiologus stammt. Die kremsmiinster handschrift
citirt die historia scholastica; der berliner quarto 1246 bezieht
sich auf die biicher Salomonis.
Tiber den verfasser des speculum ist bis jetzt irgendwie
zuverlassiges nicht bekannt; auch sind die verschiedenen
lateinischen handschriften noch nicht auf ihren inhalt genauer
untersucht. Es ware irnmerhin moglich, dass verschiedene
autoren oder iiberarbeiter daran tatig gewesen sind, sodass die
divergirenden deutschen redactionen auf bestimmte lateiu-
ische originale zuriickgingen. Ebenso wenig steht liber die
zeit etwas fest. Man hat die entstehung in den anfang des
vierzehnten jahrhunderts verlegt ; gewohnlich wird das jahr
1324 nach den zwei lateinischen handschriften der arsenal-
bibliothek und der nationalbibliothek in Paris als entste-
hungszeit angegeben. Erwahnt werden von den schreibern
als quellen Jacobus de Voragine, Petrus Comestor und
Franciscus von Assisi ; das datura der historia scholastica
ware demnach der terminus a quo.
Das speculum fand bald die weiteste verbreitung, zunachst
in Deutschland, spater auch in andern landern. Das in
leoninischen reimen abgefasste gedicht wurde wahrscheinlich
gegen ende des vierzehnten jahrhunderts in prosa aufgelost.
Die alteste, genau datirbare handschrift auf deutschem boden
ist der miinchener codex num. 33, aus dem jahre 1356 ; auch
die wiener bibliothek besitzt vier manuscripte aus diesem
jahrhundert (nos. 883, 1311, 1636, 3352). Iin.ganzen zahlt
Poppe 85 handschriften auf, von denen mehrere nur frag-
mente sind. Ihre zahl ist wie der verfasser auch bemerkt-
Jbedeutend grosser, da sich die zusammenstellung nur auf
140 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
die gedruckten handschriftenkataloge bezieht. Ich habe mir
noch die folgenden lateinischen codices angemerkt :
Wigan, Bibliotheca Lindesiana, lat. 27, pergament, xiv
saec., speculum h. s. in versen ; die handschrift gehorte nach
der buchmarke friiher Volprecht von Schwalbach, Statthalter
der Boley Francken, Comrnenthur zu Ellingen vnd Nurin-
berg, Teutsch Ordens ; cf. Priebsch, Deutsche Handschriften
in England, Erlangen, 1896, p. 189, anm.
Karlsruhe, handschrift St. Blasien 78, dat. 1440; in versen.
Bodleiana, coll. Francis Douce, ein lat. ms. mit 184 bildern,
cf. Sotheby, loc. cit., I, 145 seq.
Wolfenbiittel, helrastadter handschrift 588, quarto, fol.
100-164 (1454-58 ?). x Sie ist mit den beiden andern von
Poppe erwahnten gleichlautend, ebenfalls in prosa und ohne
illustrationen. Zu korrigiren ware Poppes notiz dahin, dass
cod. helm. 291 den text des speculum erst auf blatt 126b
beginnt. Unter den ms. germ, der koniglichen bibliothek zu
Berlin befindet sich eine handschrift, die den lateinischen
versifizirten speculum nebst deutscher prosaiibersetzung ent-
halt. Dergleichen doppelausgaben finden sich haufiger ; cod.
5893, sowie 7450, der miinchener bibliothek gehoren zu
dieser klasse, wie wir spater genauer sehen werden. Ich
bespreche die handschrift an dieser stelle. Ms. germ, quarto
1246 ; wasserzeichen : an drei bandern hangendes horn, und
zwei andere damit wechselnd; 224 blatter zu 22x15 cm.;
einspaltig von einer hand geschrieben und von derselben
hand rubrizirt, XV jahrhundert.
Bl. la: 'Incipit prohemium cuius nomen intytulatur specu-
lum humanae salvationis. . . . Hie vahet an ein vorlauf eins
busches einer nuwen zesamen legung, des nam vnd vber
gescrift ist genemp ein spiegel alles monschliches geslechtes
behaltung .... gantzes ' und darauf das register iiber kap.
1-50, bei jedem erst lateinische verse, dann deutsche prosa ;
schluss: bl. lla: 'rich sol weren.' Der rest von bl. lla, ferner
erganzung meiner notizen aus der bibliothek zu Wolfenbiittel
verdanke ich der giite des herrn dr. G. Milchsack.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 141
bl. lib und 12a, sind leer. Bl. 12b, einleitung: 'Ad justiciam
qui erudiunt multos fulgebunt. . . . Welche vil lut vnder
wisend zu der gerechtigheit .... da von ban ich gedacht ze
samen legen dis buch zv einer anwisung vil luttes dar an
ovch die lesenden mugen in selben nemen ler vnd andren
luten auch ler geben. Aber in disem gegen wertigen leben so
weis ich, daz dem monschen nut nuczers sie den sineu got
vnd sinen sopher vnd sin eigen wesen erkennen. Vnd daz
wesen mugen die gelerten haben von gescriften, aber die
leigen vnd die vngelerten sollen vnder wiset werden mit
legen bucheren, daz ist mit gemelde. dar vmb ze eren vnd zv
vnderwisuug der vngelerten so ban ich betrachtet mit gottes
helfe ze samen legen (bl. 134a) (Ich ban betrachtet mit
gottes hilf ze samen legen) ein buch den legen. daz ez aber
phaffen vnd legen moge ler geben, so wil ich mich flissen
dise buch mit etlichen lichten gedichten zeluchten/ etc. Mit
bl. 15b beginnt das eigentliche werk ; es steht zunachst jedes
kapitel lateinisch, dann folgt ihm die deutsche prosaiiberset-
zung. Schluss : bl. 223b : vnd an helf von im belip amen.
Auf dem innern deckel steht Speculum humane saluacionis
in latino et uulgari. antonius anneberger. Auf dem hinter-
deckel : Georgius Wittmansdorjfer de hallis fallisem frater
ordinis thewtunicorum. Johannes Weitmansdorffer de hallis
frater thewtunicorum; auf bl. 224b federproben, und hinter
einem lustigen verslein der name Johannes de Kampidona
Studens erfurdensis.
Interessant ist die handschrift besonders wegen der gros-
seren kapitelanzahl. So ist zunachst nach kap. 34 als kap. 35
das symbolum Athanasii eingeschoben. Dass dies moglicher-
weise vom schreiber selbst herriihrt, wird durch die doppelte
zahlung der erwahnten abschnitte als kap. 34 wahrscheinlich
gemacht, ein irrtum, der erst beim 39. kap. verbessert wird.
Das letzte (45.) kapitel der vollstandigen specula ist in
dieser handschrift also das 46. ; als eigentliches schlusskapitel
bezeichnet es auch der schreiber in dem proemium, bl. lOb :
142 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
In XLVI capitulo agitur de septem gaudiis eiusdem gloriose
virginis.
Et terminantur capitula huius libelli et voluminis.
Predictum prohemium de contentis huius libri compilaui
Et propier pauperes predicatores apponere curaui,
Quot si nequunt forte totum librum coraparare,
Si sciunt hysterias, possunt ex ipso prohemio predicare.
Wir haben hier ein direktes zeugnis fiir den zweck des
speculum : Das lateinische original war ahnlich den tractaten
und raanualen ein studienbuch fur den theologen. Noch
deutlicher geht das hervor aus dem schlusspassus des prologs,
bl. 15b: Vnd dar vmb han ich disu merkliche ding hie her
gemerkt, wand ez mich den, die in disem buch studierent, han
gedacht nutz ze sin, dar vmb vb die studenten in disem buch
vinden, daz su denne wissen, daz disu wise des vslegens der
serif I also si vnd daz si mir daz nut verkehren. Die pauperes
predicatores konnten ihrem gedachtnis durch einsicht in den
ausfiihrlichen index zu hilfe kornrnen ; fiir dieselben war
jedenfalls auch die biblia pauperum zusammengestellt, trotz
der versuchten andersdeutung des namens. Illustrationen
hat der urspriingliche lateinische speculum wol nicht ent-
halten ; dieselben warden erst hinzugefiigt, als man das buch
dem laien zuganglich machte. Fiir das neue publikum
war natiirlich iibersetzung in die muttersprache bedingung.
Parallelausgaben mogen studenten willkommen gewesen sein,
wie ja auch unser codex eigentum eines studiosen gewesen ist. 1
1 Nachdem das obige bereits geschrieben, kam mir der artikel von pro-
fessor dr. F. Falk, " Zur Entwickelung und zum Verstandnis des speculum
humanae salvationis" zu gesicht (Centralblattfur Bibliothekswesen, September,
1898). Angeregt durch die bezeichnung der im monacensis num. 4523 ent-
haltenen armenbibel als speculum ein, nebenbei gesagt, schon von andern
gehegter verdacht und gestiitzt auf die im proemium sich findende charak-
terisirung des speculum als 'nova compilatio,' kommt er zu dem schluss,
dass das speculum eine nachahmung der armenbibel ist. " Diese sogenannte
Biblia pauperum ist wesentlich dasselbe wie das speculum h. s., jene ist alter
als dieses, und dieses ist eine Ausdehnung jener nach riickwarts. Das
speculum beginnt mit dem Neuen Testament, die Biblia mit dem Alten und
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 143
Nach dem 46. kap. zahlt der cod. 1246 folgende weitere
abschuitte auf, die ich nach dem proemium citire :
In XLVII capitulo agitur de septem horis canonicis brevissimis.
In XL viu capitulo agitur quomodo christus edificauit suam
sanctam matrem eclesiam.
In XLVIIII capitulo agitur de bona et nobili prosapia,
Que orta est de beata anna et de virgine matre Maria.
In dem L capitel(!) agitur quomodo christus mundo horribilem
finem dabit,
Et de ortu antichristi et de ipsius vita et quam diu regnum
eius durabit.
Der deutsche text giebt nun nach dem 47. kap. eine reihe
anderer zutaten, die der materie des speculum fremd sind :
Die sieben gaben des heiligen geistes, die sieben sacramente, die
6 werk der erbermde, die 8 seligkeiten, 5 sinne, van zwifaltiger
geselschaft, die 2 strassen, von dem weg der JBosen, du samenung
der bosen(ty, etc., etc. Man sieht, der schreiber geht seinen
eigenen weg. Es war bereits Poppe aufgefallen, dass das
typus und antitypusschema mit kap. 42 wegfallt ; von hier
ab schwinden entweder die illustrationen oder werden in den
sogenannten vollstandigen speculis auf die doppelte anzahl
erhoht. Der jenenser codex bringt anstatt der letzten drei
kapitel ein gedicht iiber die funfzehn zeichen vor dem jiingsten
gericht, ein gegenstand, der im mittelalter haufig behandelt
ist und sich auch neben andern in der helmstadter handschrift
332, fol. 1 13-114 befindet. Es unterliegt kaum einem zweifel,
dass das speculum in seiner urspriinglichen fassung mit kap.
42 abschloss. Spatere bearbeiter fiigten drei fernere abschnitte
hinzu, denen dann aus erbauungs- und gebetbiichern weitere
zusatze sich anschlossen.
Wenden wir uns nunmehr den deutschen handschriften zu.
Yon einfachen prosaversionen verzeichnet Poppe zwolf, acht
schreitet fort bis zum Neuen, dasselbe einschliessend ; Variationen sind
da, aber unwesentlich, sie diirfen die gesamtauffassung nicht storen." Der
verfasser hat meiner ansicht nach damit das richtige getroffen.
144 H. SCHMIDT- WAKTENBERG.
davon sollen sich in der nmnchener bibliothek befinden. In
den wiener sitzungsberichten, bd. 88, p. 809, spricht Schonbach
von sieben miinchener iibersetzungen in deutscher prosa.
Beide angaben bediirfen der berichtigung. Es existiren in
Miinchen zehn handschriften. Cgm. 252 ist von Poppe
iibersehen; zu cgra. 1126 bemerkt er: "Diese Hs. ist a. a. O.
verzeichnet als gereimte deutsche Ubersetzung. Das ist sie
aber nicht ; vielmehr enthalt sie nur den lateinischen text in
den bekannten gereimten Versen und eine deutsche Uberset-
zung in Prosa. Die Angabe im Kataloge ist also danach zu
berichtigen." Trotzdem fiihrt er sie unter no. 103 unter
den gereimten versionen auf! Die von ihm registrirten
miinchener codices num. 5893 und 7450 gehoren zu den
latinij die das werk auch deutsch en thai ten, ersterer nur als
bruchstiick. So erklart sich auch der irrtum Schonbachs.
Unter den bearbeitungen in versen erwahnt Poppe (no.
108 und 109) zwei wolfenbiittler codices ; " die erste ist eine
papierhandschrift des XV jh., 47 Bl. mit schwach illumini-
erten Federzeichnungen ; die andere, ebenfalls mit Feder-
zeichnungen des xv. Jh., findet sich unter den Blankenburger
Hss." Er stiitzt sich dabei auf die angaben Schonemanns
(Zweites und drittes Hundert Merkwiirdigkeiten der Herzog.
Bibl. zu Wolfenbuttel, p. 34). Die erste von Schonemann
genannte handschrift ist heute 1. 12 Aug. fol. (vergl. den
wolfenbuttler handschriftenkatalog, n, bd. 1, no. 1622). Diese
handschrift ist aber in prosa und ganz verschieden von der
andern (blankenb. 127a), sowohl im text als in den bildern.
Geffckens bilderkatechismus, auf den sich der verfasser gleich-
falls beruft, handelt sp. 176 nicht vom spiegelder mensehlichen
seligkeit, sondern von stiicken des kateehismus. Der blanken-
burger codex wird dort wegen des zwei ten in ihm enthaltenen
stiickes (bl. 78-86b, lob der messe) angefuhrt, aus dem einige
verse abgedruckt werden.
Schonbach bemerkt (a. a. o., p. 809), dass die hofbibliothek
zu Wien neben der versifizirten auch eine prosafassung des
speculum aus dem fiinfzehnten jahrhundert bewahre. In
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 145
meinen excerpten finde ich keine notiz dariiber und muss
mich rait diesem hinweis bescheiden.
Von den poetischen bearbeitungen halt Poppe die mittel-
deutschen fiir die altesten ; dafiir spricht jedenfalls das hohe
alter der handschriften, von deneu die karlsruher aus der
mitte des vierzehnten jahrhunderts stammt, wahrend die
jenenser gegen ende desselben geschrieben wurde. Dazu
kame noch die spater zu nennende berliner handschrift, die
ebenfalls in diese periode gehort. Auch der engere anschluss
an das original deutet auf friiheren ursprung. Freier wurde
das speculum benutzt von Konrad von Helmsdorf, dessen
werk, um das jahr 1400 entstanden, in einem st. galler
fragment auf uns gekommen ist. Ungefahr um dieselbe zeit
verfasste auch Andreas Kurzmann, ein steiertnarker monch,
seinen heilsspiegel, dessen 8000 verse uns ein vorauer codex
iiberliefert hat. Im jahre 1437 vollendete Heinrich Laufen-
berg sein 15000 verse umfassendes gedicht; leider ist die
handschrift, vielleicht von dem dichter selbst herriihrend, auf
immer verloren gegangen : sie wurde beim strassburger brande
im jahre im 1870 mit andern biicherschatzen vernichtet.
Mit einschluss der die erweiterte fassung enthaltenden
zahlt Poppe zwolf handschriften auf. Er scheint sie samtlich
fiir hoch- resp. mitteldeutsch zu halten, wahrscheinlich ver-
leitet durch Schonbachs benierkung : " Es giebt auch zwei
niederdeutsche gereimte Bearbeitungen, vergl. Oesterley," etc.
(a. a. o., p. 809). Sein verzeichnis enthalt mehrere unge-
nauigkeiten ; zudem sind, wie zu erwarten, inzwischen einige
weitere handschriften ans tageslicht gezogen, so dass die
bibliographic des versifizirten heilsspiegels zur zeit ein ganz
anderes bild bietet. Ich gruppire der besseren iibersicht
wegen das material nach dialekten.
Die bibliographic der niederdeutschen iiberlieferungen hat
Jellinghaus in seinem artikel iiber die mittelniederdeutsche
literatur (Pauls Grundriss, n, 424) einigermassen richtig ge-
stellt, nachdem sich falsche und unzulangliche angaben lange
10
146 H. SCHMIDT- W A RTENBERG.
zeit durch die literaturgeschichtsbucher geschleppt batten.
Wir besitzen folgende niederdeutsche manuscripte :
I. Alteste handschrift in Kopenhagen, aus dern vierzehnten
jahrlmndert ; nach Jellinghaus ins niederlandische schim-
mernd. Probe bei Nyeru p, Symbolae ad literaturam teutonicam
antiquiorem, Havniae, 1787, p. 446452; abgedruckt davon
ist diepraefatio und ein teil des ersten kapitels von Oesterley,
Niederdeutsche Dichtung im Mittelalter, p. 4951.
II. Handschrift der alten handschriftensammlung der
koniglichen bibliothek zu Kopeuhagen, No. 17, fol., bl. 1-
82a, vierzehntes jahrlmndert.
III. Konigliche bibliothek zu Kopenhagen; fiinfzehntes
jahrhundert. Probe bei Nyerup, I. c., p. 454-459 ; die danacli
bei Oesterley veroffentlichte stelle (p. 52) ist ein teil des 34.
kapitels. Jellinghaus entdeckt in ihr bedeuteude abweich-
ungen von den andern versionen.
IV. Wolfenbiittel-blankenburger handschrift 127a, in 2,
fiinfzehntes jahrhundert. Dieser wertvolle codex, der unter
anderm auch Ludolph von Suchens Itinerarium in terrain
sanctam, sowie das leyen doctrinal enthalt, bringt bl. 2-75
den speghel der mynsliken salichet. Er ist mit federzeich-
nungen illustrirt, welche das obere drittel jeder seite ein-
nehmen, die ersten sechs auch mit farben. Eine praefatio ist
nicht vorhauden. Das erste kapitel beginnt folgendermassen :
Rubrum : Lucifer superabitur diabolus sit (!) dominus in
celo sedes eius.
Dyt boek ys den vnghelarden luden bereyt
Vnde het eyn speghel der mynslyken salicheyt.
Dar an mach men prouen, dorch wat sacken
God den mynschen wolde maken ;
Wo de mynsche vordornet wart van des duuels valszheyt
Vnde wedder salich wart van godes barmherticheyt.
Lucifer vorhuff sik jeghen synen heylant;
Do wart he vorstot jn de helle alto hant.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 147
Dar vmme wolde god den mynschen schapen,
Dat he myt em den val mochte maken.
Dat hate de duuel vnde dachte in synen moet,
Wo he den mynschen bedroghe, dat dochte em goet.
He koes vt alle creaturen ene slanghe,
De hadde eyn mynschen houet vp ghericht to ganghe.
Dar in so wande de dusentlystige droghenere
Vnde sprak to deme wyue ene droghenaftighe mere.
He vorsochte dat wyff vnde nicht den man,
He vruchte dat em to kloek were vader adam.
He sochte dat wyff, dar he se alleyne vant wanderen.
Enen allene bedrucht men bat wan sulff andere !
So brochte de duuel moder euam to valle,
Dar vmme worden vordomet ore kyndere alle.
De man wart vt dem paradyse ghemacht,
bl. 3b. Kubrum : Deus fecit euam de costa Ade dormientis.
Dat wyff wart jn deme paradyse ghewracht;
Dat dede god to eren der vrowen vnde to prise, etc.
Diese kurze probe moge geniigen um zu zeigen, dass die
blankenbnrger handschrift von no. I abweicht und sich an
einigen stellen eng an den wortlaut des mitteldeutschen texts
anschliesst. Doch hat sie einige lesarten nur mit dem nieder-
deutschen (I) gemein.
V. Ms. I, 85 der koniglichen bibliothek zu Hannover;
papier, wasserzeichen : ochsenkopf mit stern ; I + 68 bl.,
20 x 1 4 cm., von einer hand sehr sorgf altig geschrieben, ein-
spaltig in ca. 25 zeilen ; die verszeilen sind abgesetzt ; fiinf-
zehntes jahrh. Jedes kapitel fullt, wie bei den meisten
handschriften, vier seiten und beginnt mit roter initiale.
Einband : holzdeckel mit riicken von rotem leder, der innen-
deckel mit beschriebenem pergament beklebt (bruchstiick
einer lateinischen grammatik). Auf bl. 67b unten rot : Si
quis inuenit alberto hertogen reddere debet.
Die praefatio fehlt ; bl. la beginnt mit dem ersten kapitel.
Von den 45 kapiteln fehlen die folgenden : 14, 15, 35, 36,
148 H. SCHMIDT- WARTEN BERG.
37, 38, sowie alles nach 40. Da Poppe das 25. kapitel nach
der mitteldeutschen karlsruher handschrift, mit den varianten
der jenenser, als textprobe veroffentlicht hat, so gebe ich hier
denselben abschnitt nach dem hannoverschen manuscript.
bl. 45a. Rot : ludei deriserunt christum in cruce veritas.
WI hebben gehort, wu vse ihesus cryst
Van den bosen joden ghedodet ist.
Dar en noghede den bosen mordern [nicht] an,
Se wolden on na synem dode to spotte han.
5 Dat was ok vor bewyset wol
An konige dauites wyue nycol.
Dauid sprak vnd harpede gode to eren ;
Dat wolde om sin ffrowe nycol vorkeren.
Se sach dorch eyn venster vnd belachede oren man ;
10 Dar en noghede or noch nicht an
Se bespottede on noch dar nach
Mit smeliken worden vnd sprach,
Dat he hedde spelet nicht erlik,
He hedde dan eynem bouen gelik.
15 By nycol de jodesschop bewyset ist
Vnd by dauite vse here ihesus crist.
De harpe, 1 dar he vppe sangk,
Dat iis sin cruce breyt vnd langk,
Dar vp on de joden ut breyden
20 Vnd reckeden on alz eyne seyden.
Do sangk he eynen vtermaten soten sangk,
De bouen an dem ouersten trone klangk.
He wenede vnd rep myt luder stympne
Vnd bat vor vse sunde dar jnne.
25 He sangk ok ghar soter wiis
bl. 45b. Rot: Nicol derisit regem dauid psallentem in
citara prima figura.
1 MS. He harpede.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 149
Do he dem scheker louede den paradiis
Vnd do he johanse gaff sine moder,
Dat he scholde sin ore sone vnd hoyder.
Dat was ok gare eyn sote sangk,
30 Do he an dem cruce esschede den drangk,
Wen om dorstede na vser salicheyt ;
Vnse vorderffnysse was om van herten leyt.
De sangk was allerbest,
Do he sprak : consumatum est.
35 Et iis nu allent vullenbracht,
Dat myn vader hadde gedacht
Vnd wat he van my hebben wolde,
Dat ek vor den mynsschen lyden scholde.
Mit dessem soy ten sange vnd martir vil
40 Hadden de joden ghe noch ore spil.
Dar en nughede on nicht an ;
Se wolden on ok to spotte han,
Do he al rede was dot ;
Se bespotteden on smeliken ane nod.
45 Dat was ok vor bewyset an dem schonen absolon ;
Men vyn bescreuen also dar von,
Dat he an eyner eke hingk
Vnd van joab dre sper sin herte vntffyngk.
Dar genoghede dem knecht nicht an,
50 Se wolden on ok myt den swerden slan.
By absolon is betekent crist,
bl. 46a. Rot: Absolon pulcherrimus confessus in arborem
confixus tribus sagittis.
De ju de schoneste was vnd 1st.
De hadde an synem herten dre sper,
Dat was drygerhande herte swer.
55 Dat erste was van sines sulues pyn,
Dat ander van der droffnisse der moder sin,
Dat drytte was vmme de to der helle komen,
150 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
Den sin bytter [pin] nicht scholde vromen.
Dar genoghede den joden nicht an,
60 Se wolden on noch mer to spotte ban,
Do se on nach synem dode dorch steken
Vnd raenych sundich wort vp on spreken.
Dat sulue don se hute
Vsera leuen heren alle lute,
65 De motwillens sundeghen weder got
V^nd vorsman ores schippers gbebot,
De lude cruseghen vsen leuen beren anderweit
Vnd vor nyghen om sin herteleyt.
De lude sint ok vore bewyset,
70 Alz men van eynem koriige lyset,
Embuerodach (!) was sin nara ;
De to hau sines vader licbam
An dre hundrert partenyn
Vnd gaff ed eten den ghirin.
75 Also don vele bose cristen l lude
bl. 46b. Rot : Dux emmedorach corpus patris secuit in
300 partes dans volucribns.
Orem hymelschen vader hude,
Wen se vorsman sin ghebot
Vnd sundeghen ieghen om sunder nod.
Dyt deyt om wers, de on vorsmat in dem hymelrike,
80 Wen de on doden vp dem ertryke.
We sek ffrowet vnd romet siner sunde,
De vornyget vnsem heren sine wunde.
De lude beyden vsem heren schimp vnd spot,
De gud don dorch ydel ere vnd nicht dorch got.
85 De lude halsvlecken vsen heren,
De andern lude achter kosen vnd vneren.
De lude slan god an syne wangen,
De vp ander lude vnder or oghen reden schande.
1 MS. crislen bose.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 151
De lude schengken cristo gallen drangk vnd rayrren,
90 De van vnrechtem gude almesen gheuen dorren.
De coplude willen gode de oghen vorbynden,
De vngheue gud witliken kunnen gewynnen.
De man dorch drucket cristo myt dornen dat houet,
De kerken vnd godeshus berouet.
95 Dem vor reder judas is ghelik de man,
De myt houet sunden to godes dissche darn gan.
De lude bespigen dat antlat vses heren,
De on vmme sine gaue nicht louen vnd eren.
O sote ihesu, help vns, dat we dy beyden alsolke ere,
100 Dat wy van dy gescheyden werden numbermere.
Dass die sprache des originals nicht niederdeutsch ist,
zeigen die reime. Anfiihren liessen sich folgende formen :
han : an (v. 4, 42, 60) versus hebben ausser dern reime; von :
absolon (v. 46), wahrend sonst van die regelmassige form ist ;
ist : Grist (v. 2, 52) ; sprach : nach (v. 12) ; och : toch (bl. Ib).
Verdachtiger sind hute : lute (v. 63 ; cf. 75 !), sowie das eben-
falls aus dem original mechanisch herubergenommene drytte
(v. 57). Wir haben aber noch einen weiteren beweis fur
die abhangigkeit von einem mitteldeutschen original : der
spater ausfiihrlich zu behandelnde berliner codex fol. 245
iibergeht dieselben kapitel.
VI. Ms. I 84a, ebenfalls der koniglichen bibliothek zu
Hannover gehorig ; papier, 497 bl., 31 x 21 cm., bl. l-165a
zweispaltig ; drei hande, die bl. 1, 14b und 169 beginnen ; rot
rubrizirt; holzband mit gestempeltem leder. Bl. 340b : Ex-
pliciunt quinque liberi(ty Moysi sub anno domini MCCCCLXXVJ.
Aus dem reichen inhalt hebe ich hervor: bl. 1 168b, Der
zelen trost; bl. 410a-417a, Hir na heuet an sik wo de sele stridet
mit dem licham; bl. 426a-440a, Incipit sibilla; bl. 440b-464b,
eine dorotheen, katherinen und margarethenlegende. Der rest
enthalt sermones, exempla, recepte nnd dergl. Das speculum
findet sich auf bl. 363b-410a. Die verse sind fortlaufend
wie prosa geschrieben ; im allgemeinen bietet die handschrift
152 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
denselben text, wie die vorhergehende, mit auslassung der
selben kapitel : doch linden sich kleine abweichungen. Die
iiberlieferung ist sehr fehlerhaft. Nach einer notiz auf dera
inneren vorderdeckel gehorte das buch dem kloster Marien-
stuhl (bei Egeln).
Die beiden ihm bekannten mitteldeutschen bearbeitungen
hat Poppe untersucht ; es sind dies die codices in Jena und
Karlsruhe. Erwahnt aber nicht mitgezahlt, da er auf eine
anfrage hin auf der grossherzoglichen bibliothek trotz der
eifrigsten nachforschungen nicht gefunden werden konnte,
wird ein darmstadter codex 1 des fiinfzehnten jahrhunderts
(1436). In Haupts altdeutsche Blatter, i, 380, wird die hand-
schrift kurz beschrieben ; nach den dort angegebenen ein-
leitungsversen ist der spiegel mittelfrankischer herkunft.
Ein weiteres exemplar ist inzwischen von Keuffer auf der
stadtbibliothek zu Trier entdeckt worden ; er giebt dariiber
nachricht im CentralblattfurBibliothekswesen, IX, 235. Falsch-
lich wird der spiegel Heinrich von Laufenberg zugeschrieben ;
es handelt sich in wahrheit um eine ubersetzung des latein-
ischen originals. Allerdings ist in it dem inhalt ziemlich frei
geschaltet, wie aus Keuffers beschreibung. die jedoch auf
falschen praemissen beruht, hervorleuchtet. " Dabei, so aus-
sert er sich, folgt nicht regelmassig einem Bild des neuen
Testaments ein solches des alten, sondern beiderlei Arten
flechten sich zwanglos ineinander; so zwar dass der Prototyp
vorausgehen und die Erfiillung folgen kann und umgekehrt.
Manchmal treten 2 bis 3 Vorbilder zu demselben Stoffe
hintereinander auf. Es sind im ganzen 96 Bilder und Vor-
bilder, fol. 2'-26." Welche kapitel das speculum birgt, wird
nicht angegeben ; nach der kurzen probe beginnt er mit dem
ersten kapitel und ist ebenfalls mittelfrankischen ursprungs.
*Es ist um so mehr zu bedauern, dass dieses manuscript verloren
gegangen zu sein scheint, als der zweite teil eine niederdeutsche iiberset-
zung des gewohnlich Jan de Clerk zugeschriebenen dietsche docirinale ist.
Von dieser iibersetzung existirt sonst nur eine kopie in der blankenburger
handschrift 127a ! Da einer meiner schiiler z. z. an diesem thema arbeitet,
werden weitere nachforschungen nach diesem manuscript angestellt werden.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANA E SALVATIONIS. 153
Weiteres material habe ich auf der berliner koniglichen
bibliothek gefunden. Im sommer 1896 machte mich dr. W.
Seelmann auf eine im handschriftlichen katalog als nieder-
deutsch aufgefiihrte magdalenenlegende aufmerksam, 1 deren
sprache vielleicht mitteldeutsch sei. Der augenschein lehrte,
dass Seelmanns vermutung richtig war. Der codex enthalt
nun in seinem ersten teile einen heilgspiegel, der gleichfalls
als niederdeutsch bezeichnet war, jedoch dem mitteldeutschen
sprachgebiet angehort. Ich gebe hier eine kurze beschreibung.
Ms. germ., fol. 245. Starkes papier (wasserzeichen : zwei
gekreuzte schliissel; lamm mit fahne in einem kreise), 122 bl.
40x27J cm., einspaltig, in wechselnder schrift, aber wahr-
scheinlich von einem schreiber geschrieben, funfzehntes jahr-
hundert. 2 Jede zeile begin nt mit grossem, rot durchstrichenem
buchstaben. Auf bl. la und 71a grosse blau und rote ini-
tialen ; alle iibrigen initialen (je zwei zeilen hoch), sowie die
iiberschriften sind rot. Bl. la-70a auf jeder seite oben em
bild (schwarze zeichnung, kolorirt), in dem abschnitt 71-122
sind 34 ebensolche bilder.
Bl. la : Speculum humanae salvationis in deutschen versen.
Bl. 71 a : Legende der heiligen Maria Magdalena in deutschen
versen.
Auf einem vorgehefteten pergamentstreifen steht (15. jh.):
Item Dyt boich iss gehoerende zo steynuelt ynt doester jnd Nyss
kelner dess cloesters geweest iss y vnd broeder symon schrijnmecher
ind eyn conuers broeder geweest iss ym seluen doester vu (rse ?=
vurscreuen ?) vnd hant dyt boich langh jairen vnder yn beiden
gehat geleesen ind wael verwart hant. got haue loff ind ere.
JJiesus Maria Potentinus.
1 Diese handschrift ist die einzige bis jetzt bekannte, anscheinend voll-
standige fassung in mitteldeutscher sprache. Ein fragment von 132 versen
wurde von Steinmeyer in ZfdA., xix, 159 veroffentlicht und von Zupitza
in AfdA., vi, 111 identifizirt. Die tiberlieferung der berliner version ist
sehr fehlerhaft und ohne weitgehendste konjekturalkritik kaum lesbar ;
sie wird in einer vom verfasser vorbereiteten ausgabe der deutschen mag-
dalenenlegenden ihre stelle finden.
* Der berliner katalog setzt das 14. jh. an.
154 H. SCHMIDT- WAETENBERG.
Auf bl. la steht erne altere bibliothekssignatur (17/18
jh.): LOG. 2%3tius N. 7 mo ; auf der ruckseite des streifens,
anscheinend von derselben hand : Joannes Paulus Easier.
Alter holzband mit braunem, gestempeltem lederiiberzug,
ehemals mit messingbuckeln und zwei schliessen.
Von dem inhalte des vollstandigen werks bringt das ber-
liner manuscript das folgende : Prolog ; er bricht auf bl. 2b
mitten in der erzahlung von Simson ab, wahrscheinlich weil
der text fast wortlich auf bl. 6 la (kap. 32, n) wiederkehrt.
Von den kapiteln hat er dieselbe auswahl wie die beiden
niederdeutschen handschriften aus Hannover. Es fehlen also
zuvorderst kap. 14 und 15; da das erstere als typus die
Maria Magdalena aufweist (Maria Magdalena egit penitentiam
laerimans lavans et crinibus tegens pedes domini), so schien mir
vor einsicht in die andern handschriften der gruiid ziemlich
sicher : der schreiber liess mit riicksicht auf die noch folgende
legende die erzahluug von der grossen siinderin aus und
iiberschlug dabei gleich aus versehen das nachste kapitel, was
bei der oft unterbliebenen numerirung wol nicht unwahr-
scheinlich ist. Ich mochte jetzt diese erklarung fiir das
original der codices, denen diese abschnitte fehlen, aufrecht
erhalten. Es scheint mir die annahme, dass eine altere
handschrift ausser dem speculum noch die magdalenenlegende
enthielt, dafiir aber auf kap. 14 verzichtete und, wie ver-
mutet, auch das folgende kapitel ausliess, die wahrscheinlichste
losung der frage zu bieten. Ein ahnlicher grund lasst sich
auch fiir die weglassung der andern kapitel geltend machen ;
es sind dies kap. 35-38 inch, sarntlich die jungfrau Maria
betreffend, wie aus den iiberschriften der kapitel zu ersehen
ist : ' Conversatio beatae virginis post ascensionem domini ;
Oristus rex celorum assumpsit Mariam in celum; Maria
mediatrix nostra placat iram Dei contra nos ; Maria est
nostra defensatrix et protectrix.' Das original dieser ver-
kiirzten spiegel mag eine die jungfrau Maria betreffende
hymnen- oder gebetsammlung enthalten haben, wie solche
im mittelalter in unzahl vorhanden war. Ein ansatz dazu
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 155
findet sich schon in kap. 44 and 45 nach unserer friiher
begriindeten auffassung. Die septem tristitia und gaudia,
sowie die horen passen kaum in den ramen des speculum, sie
sind erst spater zu kapiteln geworden.
Kapitel 40 (extremum judicium) beschliesst das ganze.
Ich gebe hier als probe den prolog, den anfang des ersten
kapitels, sowie das 25. kap. vollstandig.
bl. la. Dit buch ist der paffheit vvol bekant,
Speculum humane saluacionis ist iz genant.
Hie hebet sich an des buches prologus,
Das ist eyn vorrede vnd bedudet alsus :
1 Qui ad iusticiam erudiunt multos
Fulgebunt quasi stelle in perpetuas eternitates.
5 Wer vil lude leret die gerechtekeit,
Der luchtet als die sonne der ewekeit.'
Dar vmb wil ich machen eyn buch zu duden,
Dar vsz man leren mag die lude.
Daz ist des menschen notz uber alle wyszheit,
10 Daz er got bekenne vnd sin eygen krangheit.
Disz bekentenisz hant die phaffen vsz der schriffl
Genomen ; da(s) dis den leyhen zu swere ist,
Den wil ich machen eyn lere buchelin
Das sal mit bilden intworffen sin.
15 Do wil ich bedudunge schriben mit der schrifft ;
Des biden ich dich zu helffe, herre ihesu christ.
Eyn lerer sal die schrifft nit me usz geben,
Want yme noch der redde der czijt komet eben.
Daz ander sal er vnder wegen laszen,
20 Das sin lere icht werde virdroszen.
Das ir diese rede destabaz moget virstan,
So wil ich uch eyn glichenisze vorsan.
In eyner aptie eyn grosze eyche stunt,
Die sulde man abe hauwen vnd machen runt.
25 Da quamen die amptlude gegangen,
156 H. SCHMIDT- W A RTENBERG.
Eyniegelicher 1 wolde sin deyl do von intphangen.
Der smyde meyster den vnderstam vsz kousz
bl. Ib. Dar uff fast er syn ambesz.
Der schuchmeister liesz dy rynnen ab schelen,
30 Da von macht er lowe zu synen fellen.
Der swein meister lasz zu hauff dy eichelin, 2
Da myde wolde er mesten dy swein.
Der zymerman den rechten balcken nam,
Der ym zu syme buwe eben qwam.
35 Der schiffman daz krum holtz usz suchte,
Daz yn zu dem schiffe eben duchte.
Der mollen 3 meister daz krum holcz vsz suchte,
Daz yn zu der sclyp schybeu eben duchte.
Der back meister hiesz die czwige zu hauff lesen,
40 Die yn zu backen duchte gut wesen.
Der kirch meister dy gruneu bleder abe brach,
Da midde er dy kirchen ynwendig bestach.
Der schryber 4 lasz usz dy eich eppeliu,
Dy ym zu syner dinten solden eben sin.
45 Der kelner daz bodem holcz zu ym nam,
Daz ym zu synen fassen eben qwam.
Zu lest qwam der bademeister 5 myt syme wagen
Vnd furt dy spene alle zu samen. 6
Ein yeclicher amptmain syn deyl usz laz,
50 Daz ym zu sym ampt eben waz.
Ein ieclicher lerer sal haben dy wyse ;
Der sich an nucz vnd 7 ere wyl pry sen,
Der sal van der schryfft daz wort usz lesen,
Daz ym kompt zu syner lere eben,
55 Vff daz syn lere nit werde droszam.
Heldet ir daz, so wirt syn lere eben.
1 ie als ei spater hinzugesetzt. 3 n aus r korrigirt.
2 i aus e korrigirt. 4 schreiber ausgestrichen.
5 aus balckmeister geandert.
6 hiernach gestrichen : Eyn ieclicher meyster sal haben dy wyse.
1 vnd iiber der zeile zugefugt.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMAN AE SALVATIONIS. 157
bl. 2a. Ir sollet auch wissen, daz dy heylyge schryfft
By weichem waz beczeichent ist,
Daz so gedan bilde an im l inphehet,
60 Dy in dem ingesygel geschriben stent,
By wilin einen arin, by wylen eynen leben.
Sa plecht man dy schrifft vsz zu legen.
Eyn dyng beczeichent by den wylen vnsern schopper, 2
Daz auch vnder wylen bedudet luczefer.
65 Da dauid gude werck beginck vnd behilt dy gebot,
Da beczeichent er 3 vnsern herren got ;
Da er aber eyn morder vnd vor reder waz,
Da beczeichent er den bosen sathanas.
Auch wyssent, daz vnser herre ihesus christ 4
70 Auch etwan by eym bosen raenschen beczeichent ist,
Vnd by des menschen myssedat,
Der er so vil an ym hait.
Absolan hatte vil boser list,
Doch waz by ym beczeichent crist.
75 Absolon ist der schonste gewesen,
Von dem wir in der schrifft lesen.
Wir lesen, daz er an eyrne baurae 5 hing,
Da ane 6 er synen dot enphing.
Also ist vnser her ihesus crist
80 Der schonste gewesen vnd noch ist,
Vnd starp hangende an dem baum.
Wir horen eyn ander glichenisz von samson.
Sampson qwam in siner vinde stad
Vnd slieff by eyme wybe dy nacht.
85 Syn vinde sloszen dy porten zu
bl. 2b. Vnd wolden yn 7 doden des morges fru.
Zu mytter nacht stunt er uff von sloffe,
Als man her nach findet dy rechte mase.
1 iiber der zeile zugefugt.
*Dazsdbe beczeichent vnsern schopper gestrichen.
3 iiber der zeile. 5 bnume vel aste spater iiber die zeile gesetzt.
4 spater zugefugt. 6 das e von spaterer hand. 7 MS. urspriinglich in.
158 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBEKG.
Kap. 1.
Dysz buch ist gelorten luden bereit,
Es heiszet spjgel menschlicher selikeit.
Hy mag man pruffen, durch waz sachen
Got den menschen wolde machen ;
5 Wy er verdumet waz von des dufels falscheit
Vnd wart selig von gotes barmherczikeit.
Luczifer erhup sich gein got sym heylant
Vnd wart gestoszen in daz apt grunde zu hant.
Dar vmb wolde got den menschen schaffen
10 Vnd mit ym den val wyder machen.
Daz hassete der vint in synem rnudt 1
Vud gedochte, wy er den menschen betruge yn
duchte gut.
Er erkosz usz alien creaturen ein slangen,
Der hat menschen heubet vnd plag dick zu gande. 2
15 Er versuchte daz wip vnd nit den man,
Er fochte, daz zu klug wer adam.
Er versuchte isz also vil, bisz er sy fant ;
Den appel gap er ir in dy hant.
Also brocht der dufel eua zu falle;
20 Da waren wir verdammet alle.
Der man wart vsz dem paradisze gemacht,
Daz wip wart in dem paradyse follen brocht.
Daz det got der frauwen zu pryse,
Daz er sy macht in dem paradyse.
25 Er machte nicht sie also von erden,
Er wolde sy von fleisch vnd von beynen lassen
werden ;
Nicht von den fussen, daz sy der man nicht
versmehet,
Noch von dem heubet, daz sy den man icht vber
gebe.
1 verbessert aus mude. 2 der schreiber hatte zunachst gende geschrieben.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANA E SALVATIONIS. 159
bl. 3a. Got brach eva von adaras syten ;
30 Sy wolde werden sin genos vnd syn gesellin.
Wer daz wyp in den groszen eren blyben stan,
So belt ir der man nymer leit gethan.
Da folgete sy des tufels lere,
Des ist der manne vber sy herre.
35 Daz wyp glaubete dem tufel vnd nicht dem man,
Vnd der man wart von dem wybe vnderthan, etc.
Kap. 25.
bl. 46b. Wir ban gebort, wy ihesus crist
Von den juden gedodet 1 ist.
Do gnuget den morderen auch nicht an,
Sy wolden in noch dem dode iren spot ban.
5 Daz waz auch vor bewyset wol
An konig dauides wybe nicol.
Dauid sprang vnd harpete got zu eren,
Daz wolt ym sin wyp verkeren;
Sy sprach durch ein fenster vnd belachte iren man.
10 Da in gnugete er dannach nicht an ;
Sy spotte sin auch dar noch
Mit smehen worten vnd sprach,
Er hette gespylet nicht erlich,
Er hette getan eyme buren glich.
15 By nicol dy judischeit betczeichent ist,
By dauid vnser her jhesus Crist.
Dy harffe, da er uff sang,
Daz ist daz krutz 2 breit vnd lang,
Dar an in dy Juden bereitten
20 Vnd deneten in alz man dut den seiten.
Da sang er vsz der mossen ein guden sang,
Daz iz in den obersten tron er klang.
Er weinde vnd rieff mit luder stymme
Vnd bat sin vater vor vnser sunde.
1 MS. godet. * MS. kurtz.
160 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBEBG.
25 Er sang auch gar susse wysz,
Da er dem schecher labete daz pardysz,
Da er Johann befaliich sin muter,
bl. 47a. Vnd er sin sulde ir son vnd huter.
Daz waz auch gar ein susser sang,
30 Da er an dem krutze hiesz den drang,
Wan in durste noch vnser selikeit
Vnd vnser betrupenisze was ym leyt.
Der sang was auch aller lest,
Da er sprach : consommatum est.
35 Es ist nu follen brocht,
Daz myn vater hatte (er) erdocht
Vnd waz er von [mir] haben wolde,
Daz ich vor den menschen lyden solde.
Mit dyesen suszen sengen hatten die juden ir spil
40 Vnd verspotten sin gnug vnd vil.
Da benuget in aber nicht an,
Sy wolden in zu spotte han ;
Da er gereyde waz dot,
Sy sprochen ym gar smehe wart,
45 Daz vor bewyset waz an absolon ;
Man findet geschriben also da von,
Daz er an einer eychen hyng
Vnd von Joab dru sper enphing.
Da gnugete den knechten nicht dar an,
50 Sy wolden in auch mit swerten slan.
By absolon ist beczeichent Crist,
Der ye der schonste waz vnd ist.
Der hatte in syme herczen dru sper,
Daz waz druwer hande hercze swer.
55 Daz erste waz von sines selbes pin,
bl. 47b. Daz ander von dem betrupenisze der muter sin ;
Daz [dritte] ist, die zu der hellen sollen komen,
Den sin pin l nicht mochte fromen.
Da gnugete den Juden aber nicht an,
1 MS. phin.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 161
60 Sy wolden in auch noch me zu spotte ban,
Da sie in nach syrue dode sachen
Vnd sraehe wort uff in sprachen.
Daz selbe dunt auch noch lude
Vnsem lieben herren hude,
65 Dy mit mutwillen sundigen wyeder got
Vnd versmehen ires schappers gebot,
Dy lude cruczigen got an der weyde (!)
Vnd ir nuwen ym sin herczeleit.
Dy lude sint auch vor bewyset,
70 Alz man von eyme konige leset.
Euylmeradach l waz ein man,
Der zu hiewe synes fater licham
In dru hundert quateren
Vnd gap in zu freszen green vnd dieren.
75 Also dunt vil boser lude
Irem hiemelschen fater hude,
Wan sie vor smehen sin gebot
Vnd gegen in sundigen ane not.
Im dut weres, der in versmehet in hiemelrich,
80 Wan dy judeu, die in doten uff erterich.
Wer sich rumet siner sunde,
bl. 48a. Der ernuwet vnsem herren sin wonden.
Dy lude byden vnsem herren spot,
Dy gut dun durch der werlde rum vnd nit durch got.
85 Dy lude halszslagen zu rucke vnsern herren,
Dy affter sprache dunt mit vneren.
Dy lude slagen vnsern herren got an synen wangen,
Dy ander lude besprechen mit schanden.
Dy lude schencken vnsem herren gallen vnd mirrcn,
90 Dy von vnrechtem gude almusen geben durren.
Dy kauffiude wollen gode dy augen verbinden,
Dy bose gut mit falsche gewynnen.
Der man durch drucket got sin heubet,
Der kirchen vnd godes huse beraubet.
1 MS. Eyulmeradach.
11
162 H. SCHMIDT-WARTENBERG.
95 By judas ist geglichet der man,
Der mit heubet sunden getar zu godes leichenam gen.
Dy lude verspotten vosern hern,
Dy ym syner gobe nit dancken vnd eren.
O Jhesus, giep, daz wir dir byden soliche ere,
100 Daz wir von dir numer gescheiden werden.
Nu sprechent alle samen
In godes namen amen.
Aus einer vergleichung des obigen mit den andern mittel-
deutschen handschriften ergiebt sich der engere zusammen-
hang mit der karlsruher iiberlieferung. Vorlage kann sie
nicht gewesen sein, da sich auch ubereinstimmungen mit
dem jenenser codex vorfinden. Anlehnungen an den ersteren
finden sich im 25. kap., v. 7, 11, 13, 14, 17, 20, 34, 36, 39,
51, 58, 63, 69, 70, 72, 73, 85, 98, 99 ; an den letzteren in v.
2, 3, 6, 29, 32, 65, 76, 87. Mehr oder weniger genaues
zusammentreffen in der diction des Ms. I 85, Hannover, und
der karlsruher und jenenser handschrift verteilt sich auf
folgende verse: karlsruher, v. 7, 11, 13, 14, 17, 28, 32, 34,
51, 58, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 95; jenenser, v. 2, 3, 6, 24, 27,
29, 36, 39, 56, 63, 65, 76, 85, 86, 87, 89, 93, 98, 99. Das
jenenser manuscript steht mehr abseits; ihm allein fehlen auch
die verse 43-50, 77, 78, 88.
Was die sprache anbelangt, so steht der berliner folio 245
dem niederdeutschen lautstande naher als die beiden erwahn-
ten iiberlieferungen, fiir die Poppe schlesischen ursprung
wahrscheinlich zu machen sucht. Unser codex ist sehr
stark vom mittelfrankischen beeinflusst. Falls die auflosung
der schwer lesbaren abkiirzung (' vurscreuen ') richtig ist,
entstand die handschrift in Steinfelden bei Schleideri, im
ripuarischen gebiet. Interessant ist wie der schreiber zu
werke ging. In der iiberschrift zum prolog kornnit sein dia-
lekt zur vollen geltung ; in den mir zur verfiigung stehenden
excerpten findet sich kein weiterer fall eines unverschobenen
t. Beispiele des unverschobenen d sind sehr zahlreich, e. g.,
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 163
kap. 25: dode, v. 4, 61, dut, v. 20, guden, v. 21 ; luder, v.
23; drang, v. 30; byden, v. 83, 99; bleder, prol. v. 41, etc.
Gegen labiale affricata straubt'sich der schreiber wenigstens
in der gemination und nach liquiden, auch anlautend bleibt p
gelegentlich, e. g., kap. 1 : plag, v. 14; appel, v. 18; kap.
25 : harpete, v. 7 ; schappers, v. 66 ; prol. : porten, v. 85 ;
eppelin, v. 43 ; schopper, v. 63. Von den diphthongen ist
ie haufig erhalten, auch gelegentlich fur i eingetreten (cf.
Weinhold, mhd. gr., 48), so z. b. kap. 24 : hiemelrich, v. 79,
hiemelschen, v. 76, giep, v. 99. Von den neuen diphthongen
findet sich ei an vielen stellen, narnentlich auf den spateren
seiten. Dass dies der vorlage entstammt, geht wol aus dem
verbesserten 'schreiber' hervor (cf. prol., v. 43 anra.). Inter-
essant ist auch die form waz mit geschwundenem guttural
(pro!., v. 58). Vieles andere liesse sich noch anfiihren, was
mit sicherheit auf den westen weist ; das gegebene geuiige
als beweis fur die abschrift eines codex des funfzehnten
jahrhunderts aus dem ostlicheren mitteldeutschland von
mittelfrankischer hand.
Auf der berliner bibliothek befindet sich noch ein frag-
ment, welches als quarto 574 verzeichnet ist. Es umfasst
nur vier blatter, 15x22 cm.; auf jeder seite oben ein bild
mit lateinischer unterschrift und 25 zeilen deutschem text.
Die bilder sind von spater hand z. t. karrikirt und mit
scherzworten glossirt. Das fragment scheint friiher in besitz
Hoffmanns von Fallersleben gewesen zu sein ; von ihm stam-
men noch vier blattchen nachweise zum speculum, die nebst
einem kalender aus den jahren 1432-63 dieser nummer
beigelegt sind. Soweit die literaturnachweise nicht schon
bei Poppe sich finden, gebe ich sie hier der vollstandigkeit
halber :
Dibdin, bibliogr. decameron. I, 345 ; Celsii histor. bib-
lioth. Stockholm, p. 208, 59 ; And. Sam. Gesneri progr. de
speculo hum. salv. in seinen exercit. ph. varii argument!.
Nrb. 1780, 8, p. 322; Frankische acta erudita et curiosa,
15. sammlung, Nrb. 1729, 8, p. 256-260 ; Hamburger
164 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
vermischte biblioth., bd. 2, p. 81 ; Heller, geschichte der
holzschneidekunst, p. 375 seq. ; Home's Introduction to the
study of bibliography, t. 2, append., p. x seq. ; Murr's
Journal, in, 10 ; Meermanni orig. typogr., i, 100 seq. ;
J. E. Noweitz(?), verniinftige gedanken iiber histor., etc.,
materien, Frankf. a. M., 1739, 8, p. 34-44; Santander,
dictionn., m, 362 seq. ; Seelens abhandlung in der nova
biblioth. Liibeck, vol. 1, No. 4.
Die textblatter sind nicht richtig geordnet, wie sich
aus der folgenden inhaltsangabe ergiebt. Von den bildern
scheinen zwei iibergangen zu sein ; der deutsche text bezieht
sich nicht auf das daruber stehende bild.
Bl. la. Bild, mit der unterschrift: Lapidem quern repro-
bauerunt edificantes hie faetus est in caput. Dies gehort zu
kap. 32, iv ; den text bildet kap. 32, n, und entspricht dem
berliner codex fol. 245, bl. 61a.
Bl. Ib. Bild mit unterschrift: Jonas fuit in venire ceti
tribus diebus et tribus noctibus = kap. 32, in ; text : kap. 32,
i = fol. 245, bl. 60b.
Bl. 2a. Bild : Hie regina interficit regem abimeleeh = kap.
38, in ; text : kap. 38, I ; im berliner fol. nicht vorhanden,
wie auch die andern teile des kap. 38.
Bl. 2b. Bild : Rex saul misit seruos ad Interficiendum
dauid = kap. 38, iv ; text : nach der karlsruher iiberlie-
ferung sollte der inhalt sich auf die iiberschrift moyses belegete
di stat sabba alumme beziehen. Der berliner quarto 1246
giebt als inhalt des 39. kap. folgendes an : 'In dem 39 c. wirt
gelert wie Maria vnser behutterin ist von dem zorn gottes vnd
von den striken des tufels vnd von der akust der welt vnd von
der anvechtigung vnsers vleses behut su vns. das erst ist offenbar
durch die frowen tharbis du die stat saba behub vor moysij etc.
Diese erzahlung wird aber hier mit dem vorhergehenden
abschnitt verbunden und sehr kurz abgetan, an seine stelle
tritt eine lang ausgesponnene aufzahlung von des teufels
anfechtungen.
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 165
Bl. 3a. Bild : Cristus ostendit patri volnera orans pro mundo
= kap. 39, i ; text : kap. 38, in.
Bl. 3b. Bild : Antipater ostendit volnera cesari prima figura
kap. 39, ir ; text : kap. 38, IV.
Bl. 4a. Bild : Homo abijt in regionem longinquam prima
figura = kap. 40, n ; text : kap. 39, iv == fol. 245, bl. 67b.
Bl. 4b. Bild: Extremumjudicium kap. 40, 1; text: kap.
39, m = fol. 245, bl. 67a.
Das fragment hat also nur das 38. kap. und zwar, wie es
scheint, in eigener ausfuhrung vollstandig bewahrt. Von kap.
32 ist die erste halfte, von kap. 39 die zweite halfte iiberliefert.
Die sprache ist mitteldeutsch und zeigt in alien fallen den
neuen diphthongen ; auch monophthongirung ist eingetreten.
JSTach sprache und schrift ist sie ans ende des funfzehnten jahr-
hunderts zu verweisen, bildet also zeitlich den abschluss der
soweit bekannten mitteldeutsehen heilsspiegel. Ich lasse den
ersten teil des 38. kap. folgen.
bl. 2a. Wir ban gehort, wie maria ist vnsir sunerynne.
Nu hore wir, wie sie ist vnsir beschirmerynne.
Sie beschirmet vns vor gotis czorn vnd grymmikeit,
Vor des teufils anuechtin vnd vor der werlde valscheit.
5 Das vns maria beschirmet vor gotis czorn,
Das was beweiset in der aldin ee hy vorn.
Moises belegete di stat czu einer czeit,
Vnd do was nymant, der di stai hette gefreit.
Moises was ein wundir schoner man,
10 Den sach des koniges tachter von der mawer an ;
Das werte also lange, bis sie en lip gewan.
Czu leczte lis sie eren vater di rede vorstan ;
Sie sprach, sie welde sich ym gerne czu weibe gebin,
Vnd also machte man das orlew vor ebin.
15 Dem konige behayte der rot vnd tet also,
Di stat wart irlost vnd di gefangen fro.
Got hatte mer wenn tausunt yar
Kein desir werlide ein orlewge czwar.
Vns kunde nymant seine holde irwerbin,
166 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
20 Her wolde vns alien ewiclichen vorterbin.
Czu leczte quam maria, vnsir beschirmerinne,
Vnd machte das orleuge czu sune vnd czu mynne,
Do sie den allirgeweldigen got so lip gewan,
Das her sie czu einer mutir wolde enpfan.
25 Also hat vns maria beschirmet vor gotis czorn.
bl. 2b. Wer das nicht geschen, wir weren alle vorlorn.
Maria beschirmet vns auch vor des teufils list,
Wenn seine bekorunge mancher hande ist.
Etliche leute bekoret her mit der hochfart,
30 Alzo ysabel, balthazar, holofernus bekort wart.
Mit hasse bekorte her cayn, der sein brndir irslug,
Jacobs sone vnd andir leute genug.
Mit roche bekorte her absolon vnd semey,
Sante iacob, sante iohannes, di sone zebedei.
35 Mit crankem glowben bekorte her moyses, den guten
man.
Konig achab, achas vnd konig yerobeam.
Mit wedirstrebikeit vnd mit vngehorsam
Bekorte her datan vnd abyron, kore vnd cham.
Mit bosem rote bekorte her balaam vnd yonadab
40 Vnd anathophel, der kein konig dauid bosen rot gab.
Mit vntrewe bekorte her triphon vnd iudas
Vnd yoab, der ein vngetrewer morder was.
Etliche bekorte her mit morden, alz manasses,
Tyrus vnd antyochus, dooch vnd herodes.
45 Etliche bekorte her, das sie sich toten vnd lossen slan,
Alz iudas vnd antiophel, abimalech vnd saul han
getan.
Dese bekorunge vnd manche bose list
Hat der vint, der vnsir wedirsache ist.
Adir(!) gotis muter maria, di mayt reine,
50 Mag vns beschirmen vor desir bekorunge algemeyne.
Ob unter den andern bei Poppe erwahnten handschriften
sich noch eine mitteldeutsche befindet, vermag ich nicht
ZUM SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS. 167
anzugebeu. In betracht kamen der prager codex num. la.
37 und der wiener num. 3085 ; nach den von Kelle im
serapeum, xxix, 117, mitgeteilten spriehwortern, die sich
im prager manuscript vorfinden, haben wir wol das speculum
als oberdeutsch anzusetzen und auch der wiener codex diirfte
seinem aufbewahrungsort sprachlich nahe stehen. Von der
miinchener bibliothek geht mir die nachricht zu, dass der cgm.
5249 (no. 44) ein bruchstiick enthalt von 3J bl. pergament
in quarto, gereimt und mit bildern, aus dem f iinfzehnten jahr-
hundert. Schonbachs bemerkung, dass er auf der leipziger
universitatsbibliothek eine bearbeitung 1 in versen eingesehen
habe, bezieht Poppe auf den lateinischen text; es ist aber
eine deutsche version gemeint. An derselben stelle wird auch
als wahrscheinlich einen speculum en thai tend die handschrift
genannt, welche in ZfdPh., ix, 108, erwahnt ist. Dieses von
director Schauenburg in Paris erworbene manuscript aus
dem ende des vierzehnten oder anfang des fiinfzehnten jahr-
hunderts scheiut allerdings dem inhalt des speculum sich
stark anzuschliessen ; nach der beschreibung kann man aber
zweifelhaft sein, ob es sich um einen echten speculum humanae
salvationis handelt. Schauenburg sagt dariiber : " Es ist, wie
verschiedene lesefehler beweisen, die abschrift eines alteren
originals. Die sprache ist alemannisch. In diesem manu-
script befindet sich eine ziemliche anzahl nicht ungeschickt
behandelter bilder, wobei auf je einer seite neben einem bilde
aus dem neuen testament immer ein entsprechendes aus dem
alten steht, und so symbolisch das verhaltniss des alten testa-
ments zum neuen als ein prophetisches bezeichnet wird."
Sollte dies vielleicht eine altere ' compilatio ' sein, dem spater
der heilsspiegel konkurrenz machte? Das manuscript ware
einer genaueren untersuchung wert.
1 Diese handschrift war schon Hoffmann von Fallersleben bekannt, der
in seinen oben genannten excerpten dariiber eine notiz hinterlassen hat.
" In einer handschrift der pauliner bibliothek zu Leipzig wird der
verfasser Henricus de Lichtenstein genannt, siehe Freytag, anal, litt.,
p. 891."
168 H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
Noch zwei andere handschriften finde ich erwahnt ; v. d.
Hagen und Biisching, litterarischer grundrisz zur geschichte
der deutschen poesie, p. 455, nennen ein zu Elchingen
befindliches manuscript, wobei auf Adelungs magazin, n, 3,
p. 90, verwiesen wird. Den andern verzeichnet Hoffmann
von Fallersleben in seinen handschriftlicheu notizen als
" papierhandschrift, 1433, fol. no. 31." Ich habe ihn hier-
nach nicht identifiziren konnen.
Den beriihrten fragen weiter nachzuforschen oder gar auf
eine filiation der iiberlieferungen einzugehen, sehe ich mich
bei dem mangel an literarischen hilfsquellen und ausreich-
endem handschriftlichen material ausser stande. Hoffentlich
beschaftigt sich jemand, der den quellen naher ist, bald
eingehend mit diesem interessanten gegenstande.
H. SCHMIDT- WARTENBERG.
PUBLICATIONS
OP THE
MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA,
1899.
VOL. XIV, 2. NEW SERIES, VOL. VII, 2.
IV. COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY.
I.
It is a somewhat singular fact that although students of
our language and literature have been carefully gleaning
their chosen fields and leaving scarcely any entirely new
theme for investigation, there should remain practically un-
touched a subject of high interest and aesthetic importance,
I mean the use of color in poetry. To some extent the
matter has attracted attention in the study of other literatures
than ours. Critics often remark upon the brilliant color-
sense of the Celtic poets and of the writers of the Old Norse
sagas and poems. Gladstone devoted a long section of his
Homeric Studies to the color-epithets in the Iliad and the
Odyssey; and a German scholar, with characteristic thorough-
ness, has made an exhaustive study of the color-words in the
entire body of the Latin and Greek classics. But an ade-
quate investigation of the development of the color-sense in
English poetry is yet to be written. I know of but one
paper that treats the matter in any detail, and that paper * is
confessedly tentative and leaves the older periods untouched.
1 H. Ellis, The Colour-sense in Literature, Cont. Rev., LXIX, 714-730.
169
170 W. E. MEAD.
As for color in Old English poetry, a few words by Pro-
fessor March * and a few more in a very rare paper by Dr.
Sweet 2 exhaust about all that has been said on the subject.
The scientific study of color has strangely lagged behind
that of other natural phenomena. In fact, it is only of recent
years that men of science have attempted to construct a scien-
tifically accurate color nomenclature. Most of us have a very
limited color vocabulary, and we differ hopelessly in our
terminology as soon as we move away from a few sharply
defined colors. There are now listed (in Biedermann's
Chemiker Kalender) about three hundred and fifty com-
mercial dyes, of which probably less than a twentieth could
be properly named by the average person. When we con-
sider, furthermore, that the number of shades produced by
mixing is practically unlimited, and that nature proceeds in
her work without much regard to the deficiencies of our
vocabularies, we can understand how there may be an initial
difficulty in assigning an exact value to the color-words in
Old English poetry. Aelfric's Nomina Colorum (Wright-
Wiilcker's Vocab., I, 163) and other glossaries aid somewhat,
but the Latin equivalents have not always a settled color-
value.
The remarkable fact about a great number of the Old
English words that possibly are to be taken as color-words,
is that they are so indefinite in their application as scarcely
to permit us to decide whether a color-effect is intended or
not. 3 Take for example the word Adr, hoary or gray, or,
secondarily, aged. Does the emphasis of this word when
applied to persons lie upon the grayness or upon the age
implied by it? The answer is by no means certain. On the
1 The World of Beowulf in Trans, of Am. Phil. Soc. for 1882, p. xxi.
*H. Sweet, Shelley's Nature Poetry, Lond., 1888. Twenty-five copies
printed.
3 The peculiar fondness of Old English poetry for formal, conventional
phrases adds an element of doubt, in many cases, as to whether the color-
word is to be regarded as anything more than an epithet, without a special
color-value.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 171
other hand, when the word is used in describing a stone or a
suit of armor, a color-effect is doubtless intended the dull
mixture of black and white which we call gray. Similar
questions arise in regard to the words deorc, mire, nvpan,
ivan(n), gold, blod, and others.
To discuss all the problems that are suggested by the topic
would far transcend the limits of this paper. I shall be
compelled, therefore, in this preliminary discussion to leave
many important matters altogether untouched, or at most
merely referred to in passing. In a full discussion, the rela-
tion of each poem to its source, with a consideration of the
probability of a large transfer of borrowed color-epithets,
should hold a prominent place. But such an investigation,
if made at all, must be made in detail, and must therefore be
reserved for another occasion.
One of the first things that strike the reader of Old
English poetry is the comparatively small number of genuine
color-words that it contains. Some important colors do not
appear at all. Blue, for example, is practically non-existent,
although one instance occurs. 1 This color, by the way, has
never been much used in English poetry until our own cen-
tury. Yet in a single page Tennyson uses it twice, and
Byron and Shelley and Browning and others find it useful.
This early neglect of blue is the more remarkable, since
modern psychological tests have shown that in some quarters
blue heads the list of favorite colors. 2 Possibly, however,
what we distinguish as blue our ancestors were content to call
merely dark. 3
1 Ex. 476. Wses seo hsewene lyft heolfre geblanden.
3 Sixty -six Columbia students, tested for preference of color, gave the
following results:
blue, . . 34.9 per cent. yellow, . . 7.5 per cent,
red, . . 22.7 " green, . . 6.1 "
violet, . 12.1 " white, . . 6.1 "
no preference, . . 1 0.6 per cent. Psych. Rev., 3, 635.
I am indebted for this note to Dr. C. H. Judd.
a Cf. Ellis, The Colour-seme in Lit., p. 727.
172 W. E. MEAD.
If we take the entire body of Old English verse we find
that the most frequent of the genuine simple colors is green ;
next comes red, and then yellow. But violet, indigo, and
orange do not appear at all. These last three colors are, in
fact, very slightly represented in the English poetry of any
period. Violet is almost wholly used as the name of a
flower ; indigo is too technical a term for poetry ; and orange
has only now and then appeared, more perhaps in our own
century than in any other. Of the mixed colors, fealv,j brun,
and hunt are most pronounced. These will be discussed in
their proper place.
The list of Old English colors is at best a rather short one,
and its meagreness is the more striking as soon as we begin
to compare it with the richness of color that appears in
Chaucer, or the mediaeval romances, or in Shakespeare. The
difference is seen not merely in the greater amount of color
used by the later poets, but in the greater vividness and
freshness with which the color-words are applied. Look for
a moment at Chaucer's Prologue, which contains 858 lines.
The color-words are indeed simple, black, white, brown,
blue, green, grey, pers (sky-blue), red, yellow, but they
are deliberately employed for a picturesque effect, which is
enhanced by the use of comparisons, a device never used for
this purpose in Old English poetry. The Frankleyne's beard
is as white as a daisy ; a purse is as white as morning's milk ;
the monk's neck is white as the fleur-de-lys. The mere men-
tion of this lack of comparisons tells us much in a negative
way with regard to the Old English use of color. The
nearest approach to anything like comparison with color-
words appears in the use of such compounds as blodfdg, gold-
fag, and in the words descriptive of brightness heofonbeorht,
sigelbeorht, sigeltorht, heofontorht, swegltorht. It is not too
much to say that after the Norman Conquest and after the
contact with French literature, English poets acquired a new
sense, which enabled them to see (or at least to express)
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 173
things only dimly apprehended before. How great the differ-
ence is can be shown only by detailed comparison.
If we had authoritative tabulations of the colors used by
the English poets in different periods, with a list of the
objects to which the colors are applied, we should have a
solid basis for generalization. This is in part supplied by
the concordances to Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope, but the
lists found in these books should be supplemented by a great
number of others. In the lack of such tabulations I have
limited my comparison mainly to Old Saxon, Old High
German, and Icelandic poems, and to the Celtic poems con-
tained in the so-called Four Ancient Books of Wales.
The comparative lack of color in Old English poems does
not necessarily mean that they are without poetic value. A
lavish use of color is not necessarily an excellence. Over-
luxuriance is rather a token of weakness and of immature
taste. The Latin poets of the decadence, such as Statius and
the mediaeval imitators of Ovid, are far more free with their
color-phrases than is Horace or Vergil, and they try to make
up for their lack of imagination by a liberal use of the paint-
pot. An almost colorless poetry may have life, movement,
imagination, strength, picturesqueness, but it will lack pic-
torial richness and be less alluring to the general taste. In
Old English poetry the appeal to the senses is common
enough, but some of the best passages of the Beowulf m The
Battle of Maldon, though almost Homeric in life and vivid-
ness, are well-nigh destitute of color. Yet they have a vigor
of conception and a depth of feeling that amply compen-
sate for the lack of superficial glitter. A brilliant instance
occurs in Beow., 1896-1913, where the voyage of Beowulf is
described, yet there is not a word of color in it, unless we
count the phrase fleat famig-heals. There is opportunity
enough in all of the poems that are not religious hymns or
versified sermons for far more color than is used. The Old
English mind was evidently fixed upon something else.
174 W. E. MEAD.
II.
In marked contrast with the small number of color- words
1 is the great variety of terms expressing light and darkness.
These are in many cases used symbolically, and find their
proper place in the religious poems or in passages having a
religious turn. That this is still true of religious poetry may
be verified by any one who will turn the leaves of a collection
of modern hymns. One may almost say that the charac-
P teristic words in Old English religious poems are such terms
\ as beorht, leoht, torht, sunne, s&r, sclnan, and such as deorc,
I niht, ]>iestre, sweart. It is to be noted also that a large number
of these words are used conventionally.
The relative frequency with which these two groups of
words are used is shown by the following rough lists, which
are approximately correct as far as they go. In the first list
I include the words expressing light or brightness.
Beorht (with its compounds or derivatives, beorhte, beorhtian,
beorhtllc, beorhtlice, beorhtnes, beorhtu, selbeorht, eallbeorht,
efenbeorht, goldbeorht, heafodbeorht, heofonbeorht, hiwbeorht,
rodorbeorht, sadolbeorht, sigelbeorht, sigorbeorht, sweglbeorht,
wlitebeorht) is used 204 times ; blican, 26 times ; hador, hadre,
13 times; leoht (sb.), leoht (adj.) (together with leohte (adv.),
leohtbaire, leohtan, in-, on-leohtan, onlyhtan, aifenleoht, fyr-
leoht, heofonleoht, morgenleoht), 193 times; leoma, 33 times;
lixau, 25 times; scinan (and its compounds), 73 times; scima,
9 times; scir (adj.), scire (adv.) (and compounds), 45 times;
sunne, 59 times; sun-wlitig, once; scyne (and compounds),
29 times ; torht (and compounds), 88 times. These make an
aggregate of 798, and still do not entirely exhaust the list of
words that suggest brightness. 1
1 For example, more words for flame and fire might have been added,
compounds like fyrleoma, kennings for sunne, the word glaeshluttur (Run.
30), the verb glitinian, etc. See also the discussion of the words in the
" white group."
For some remarks on "verba des leu ch tens, glanzens, scheinens," see
Sievers, Paul and Braune's Beitrage, xn, 196-197.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 175
The total number of passages in which light or brightness
is mentioned or suggested considerably exceeds 800. But if
now we estimate the whole amount of extant Old English
poetry at about 30,000 lines, we see that on an average we
have one word suggesting light or brightness in every thirty-
seven lines. When we consider that the great majority of
these words occur in the religious poems, we find that the
actual frequency is considerably greater.
If we turn to the words denoting or implying darkness,
we find an equally striking group. As in the preceding list,
there is difficulty in deciding where to draw the line of exclu-
sion. I have, however, included such words as sweart and
wann, on which, along with some others, I remark later. A
great number of words of this class are used symbolically and
conventionally, but I cannot take the space necessary for
illustration. For the sake of brevity I present merely the
base-words, and do not specify compounds.
blaec 13 niht 131 J>eostre |
deorc 43 mpan 6 (bystre) )
dim 15 sceadu 11 warm 37
drysmian 1 scuwa 9
heolstor 16 swearcan 12 448
mire 7 sweart 84
Of course not all these words (particularly dim and niht)
have a distinct color value. The most notable fact is that
the words expressing light or brightness are about twice as
numerous as those expressing darkness, even though we
exclude such words as dceg and hwlt from the first list. The
words in the second list, as well as those in the first list,
occur mostly in the religious pieces.
When we take out these two groups of words, we have
comparatively little color left. We may not very inaptly
describe Old English religious poetry as a series of studies in
black and white, or, rather, darkness and light, the darkness
applying to hell and devils, and the light, to heaven and
angels and saints. Blackness and darkness meant to the
376 W. E. MEAD.
primitive Germanic mind something fearful and terrible.
Light, on the other hand, was symbolic of joy and bliss. 1
III.
Having thus cleared the ground by excluding a large
number of words that are in the strictest sense colorless, we
may look at the color-words proper. The simplest and, on
the whole, the most satisfactory method of treatment will be
to arrange the color-words in groups, and to specify the
frequency with which they are used and to what objects they
are applied. The list of examples is intended to be practi-
cally complete, and it contains several passages overlooked
by Grein. 2
1. WHITE. The words belonging to this group are hwtt,
blaCy blanCy and possibly fdmig, and fdmigheals. 3 Nearly all
the passages where these words are used imply something
bright or shining. Blanc is used but three times, 4 and is
1 Cf. Gummere, "The Use of Black and White in Germanic Tradition,"
Haverford College Studies, I, 12.
2 Most of the abbreviations referring to O.E. poems will be recognized
without further explanation. The following may need expansion :
A. = Andreas (Grein-Wulker).
B. = Beow. = Beowulf ( Wyatt).
B. D. D. = Be Domes Dcege (E.E.T.S.).
C. and S. = Christ and Satan (Grein-Wulker).
Sol. = Solomon and Saturn (Grein).
Wyrde = Be Manna Wyrdum.
The texts used are as follows : Grein-Wulker, Bibl d. ags. Poesie, I, II
( except Beow.) ; Gollancz, Exeter Book, Part I ; all others from the older
Grein.
3 If blat, livid, pale, ghastly, can be counted as a color-word, it should be
included in this group. Examples occur, A. 1090, 1281, Chr. 771. Cf.
bldtende ni, Gen. 981.
4 B. 855. mearum ridan
beornas on blancum.
El. 1183. se e foran IsedeS
bridels on blancan.
Eid. 23:17. brohte hwatfre
beornas ofer burnan and hyra bloncan mid.
,
COLOB IN OLD ENGLISH POETEY. 177
applied to the white, well-groomed steeds that shine in the
sun. The word is the same as the mod. Ger. blank, bright
or shining.
Bide is merely an ablaut form of the stem of btican, to
shine, and perhaps hardly means white at all. In a few cases
it evidently means pale or ghastly. It is properly applied to
the fire, 1 or the fire-light, 2 and even to the red flame, 3 or to the
lightning, 4 or to the light of the stars. 5 Of the twenty-eight
instances where the word occurs, either alone or as part of
a compound, nearly all seem to lay emphasis on the bright-
ness rather than on the whiteness. The word is used in
describing the bright spots on the tail of the Phoenix, 6 and
in referring to armor 7 or clothing. In such expressions as
blachleor ides? when referring to Judith, or bldcne, when
describing the ghastly face of the dead Holofernes, 9 the near-
1 Dan. 246. bseron brandas on bryne blacan fyres.
*B. 1516. fyr-leoht gesah
blacne leoman beorhte scinan.
A. 1540. Him >set engel forstod,
se fta burh oferbrsegd blacan lige.
.8^.4:44. blacan lige.
Eun. 16. Cen byj> cwicera gehwam cu> on fyre
blac and beorhtlic., byrnefl oftust.
3 Chr. 808. blac rasetteS
recen reada leg
4 Az. 105. wolcna genipu
and J?ec liexende ligetta hergen
blace breahtum hwate
Dan. 380. and >ec ligetu,
blace, berhtmhwate, >>a J>ec bletsige.
*Met. 4 : 8. blacum leohte beorhte steorran
*Ph. 295. }x>nne is se finta fsegre gedseled
sum brun, sum basu, sum blacum splottum.
^Ex. 212. sseton sefter beorgum in blacum reafum
Rid. 11:7. brimes and beames on blacum hrsegle
*Gen. 1969. Sceolde forht monig
blachleor ides bifiende gan
on fremdes fseiSm.
Jud. 128. blachleor ides
9 Jud. 278. funde "Sa on bedde blacne lic^an
his goldgifan.
178
W. E. MEAD.
est approach is made to suggesting whiteness. But even in
these there is no pure white.
Other instances of the use of bide, and of the occurrence
of flodbldc, heorobldc, mgbldc and of the verb blddan are
given below. 1
The form blcec = bide occurs, Dom. 56, Pan. 26, An.
1264.
The word hunt occurs thirty-one times, commonly with a
suggestion of brightness or light, though some instances of a
literal use of the epithet in the modern sense appear to be
109.
Ex. 120.
EL 91.
B. D. D. (Exon.) 66.
Wyrde 41.
Almosen (Grein, II, p.
Ex. 496.
B. 2487.
Ex. 204.
Run. 90.
Seaf. 91.
beheold
ofer leodwerum lige scman,
byrnende beam. Blace stodon
ofer sceotendum scire leoman,
scinon scyldhreo'San,
neowle nihtscuwan neah ne mihton
heolstor ahydan. Heofoncandel barn
Hsefde foregenga fyrene loccas,
blace beamas, bellegsan* hweop
in J?am herej>reate, hatan lige.
wses se blaca beam bocstafum awriten
beorhte and leohte
on ful blacne beam bunden fseste
blac on beame bide^S wyrde
350) 6. leg adwsesce, )>aet he leng ne mseg
blac byrnende burgum sce'SiSan.
sawlum lunnon
faeste befarene, flodblac here
gu"S-helm to-glad, gomela Scylfing
hreas [heoro-] blac.
werud waes wigblac
Ear [tir] byb egle eorla gehwylcun,
"Sonn fsestlice fliesc onginne]>
hraw colian, hrusan ceosan
blac to gebeddan bleda gedreosaj>
wynna gewita>, wera geswicaK
Yldo him on fare's, onsyn blacaft
gomelfeax gnornai5.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 179
unquestionable. The apparently literal instances are cited
below. 1
In addition to these literal uses of the word, there are a
number of cases in which hunt is used to emphasize the shin-
ing of light, or of a roof, or a helmet, or a gem, or the gleam
of silver. 2
On the border between mere white and shining may be the
use of hwit to describe the raiment of the blessed. 3 In such
cases some degree of symbolism is doubtless introduced, a
symbolism as old as Christianity. Largely symbolic too
must be the instances in which hmt is applied to the angels
l Zaubersegen, I, 54. and >aere bradan here waestma
and J?sere hwitan hwsete waestma
Brun. 62. J>one hasu-padan
earn, seftan hwit
PA. 297. sindon >a fi>ru
hwit hindan-weard
Eid. 16 : 1. Hals is mm hwit and heafod fealo.
Rid. 41 : 98. ne hafu ic lu heafde hwite loccas
Chr. 1110. J>a hwitan honda and >a halgan fet.
Run. 25. Haegl byj> hwitust coma ; hwyrft hit of heofenes lyfte.
*Gen. 614. nu scmeS J> leoht fore
glsedlic ongean, \><xt ic from gode brohte
hwit of heofonum.
Gen. 1820. Abraham maftelode, geseah Egypta
hornsele hwite and hea byrig
beorhte blican
B. 1448. ac se hwita helm hafelan werede
Rid. 11:8. sume waeron hwite hyrste mine.
Met. 19:22. gimmas
hwite and reade.
Ex. 301. Hofon hereciste hwite linde,
segnas on sande.
Reim. 66. graft hafaiS
searo hwit sola>, sumur hat colaiS.
Gen. 2731. ac him hygeteonan hwitan seolfre
deope bete.
3 Chr. 447. >89t J>ser in hwitum hraaglum ge werede
englas ne ofteowdun
Chr. 454. J>set hy in hwitum \>ser hrseglum o^5y wden.
in )>a aej>elan tid swa hie eft dydon.
180
W. E. MEAD.
who live in the light of heaven. The examples explain
themselves. 1
Famig, foamy, occurs nine times, 2 always in a literal sense.
l Oen. 254. Hsefde he hine swa hwitne geworhtne ;
Swa wynlic waes his waestm on heofonum, \>ai him
[com from weroda drihtneV
Gelic waes he >am leohtum steorrum.
Gen. 349. Wses aer godes engel,
hwit on heofne, oft hine his hyge forspeon
Chr. 895. engla and deofla
hwitra and sweartra
Gen. 265. cwaeS, beet his He waere leoht and scene,
hwit and hiowbeorht.
EL 72. Jnihte him wlitescyne on weres hade,
hwit and hiwbeorht haele'Sa nathwylc.
Chr. 1017. iSonwe sio halge gecynd
hwit and heofon-beorht heag-engla masgen.
B. D. D. 289. paer hsera hwittra hwyrf maedenheap.
blostmuw behangen.
Gen. 603. \>(Kt hire >uhte hwitre heofon and eoriSe
and call J>eos woruld wlitigre and geweorc godes
micel and mihtig.
Chr. 545. aer J?on up-stige, ealles waldend,
on heofona gehyld hwite cwoman,
eorla ead-giefan, englas to-geanes.
C. and S. 200. and ymb \>cet hehsetl hwite standa
engla feftan and eadigra.
8 Gen. 1417. For famig scip 1 and c
nihta under roderum
Mel. 26 : 26. ferede on fifelstream famigbordan
i>riereiJre ceol.
A. 1524. famige walcan
mid aerdsege eor^San >ehton.
El. 237. Leton )>, ofer fifelwaeg famige scriftan,
bronte brim^isan*
Sol. 156. o$ j?83t him heortan blod
famig flodes baatJ fold an gesece"S.
Rid. 4 : 19. famig winners
waeg wi"S wealle.
Rid. 4 : 32. feore bifohten fsemig ridan
ytJa hrycgum
Gen. 1452. hwae'Ser famig see
deop >a gyta dael senigne
grenre eorftan ofgifen haefde.
Gen. 2213. famige fiodas
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 181
Fdmig-heals, 1 foamy-necked, the beautiful epithet applied to
the ship, is found three times. Fdmig-bosma, fam and fam-
gode occur once each. 2 These words may not in the strictest
sense be regarded as color-words, but they certainly suggest
color, and white more definitely than any other. The ex-
amples given below are grouped according to their relations.
2. BLACK. To the black group belong blcec, sweart, swear-
tian, (ge)sweorcan, gesweorc, wann, salowigpad, earp, and
probably some of the other words already given in the list of
terms denoting darkness. Just as the words of the white
group pass by insensible stages into meanings that suggest
light, so the words of the black group shade insensibly into those
suggesting a mere absence of light. The indefiniteness with
which words like mire and deorc are used leaves us some-
what in doubt as to whether a color-effect is really intended.
Opinions on this matter will necessarily differ, and the de-
cision must be subjective.
BlcBG is our modern black, and is used comparatively
seldom once in describing the black sea-roads, 3 once as
*. 218. flota fami-heals fugle gelicost.
B. 1908. sse-genga for,
fleat famig-heals forS ofer yfle.
A. 496. is J>es bat ful scrid,
faereS famigheals fugole gelicost.
*Ex. 493. Famigb5sma flodwearde sloh.
Rid. 3 : 3. gifen blS gewreged,
[flod afysed], fam gewealcen.
Ex. 481. flod famgode
9 A. 1261. is brycgade
blsece brimrade
B. 1799. reced hlluade
geap ond gold-fah ; gaest inne swaef,
oj> )>aet hrefn blaca heofones wynne
bliiS-heort bodode ; fta com beorht scacan
[sunne ofer grundas].
Sol. 471. blodige earn as and blace nasdran
Bid. 58 : 1. peos lyft byre-S Htle wihte
ofer beorghleotSu, J>a sind blace swfSe,
swearte salopade.
182 W. E. MEAD.
applied to the raven, once in referring to adders, and a few
times in other cases cited in the examples. Conventional and
symbolical is the use of black in mentioning evil spirits. 1
The most characteristic word for black is sweart, which is
used more frequently than all the other words of this group
combined. Eighty-four instances occur, if we count the adv.
swearte. In the religious poems its use is mainly symbolic,
figurative and conventional, and it is applied to hell and
black souls. But it is also used literally of black nights, of
the black raven, of black mists, of black water. Nine times
it is used as an epithet with %, flame. In these cases we
may have to do with a pitchy, smoky flame, such as was
doubtless very familiar to the Old English people, or pos-
sibly we may assume a certain degree of symbolism in the
expression. The conception has long been a familiar one in
English poetry. Compare Milton's lines :
A dungeon horrible on all sides round
As one great furnace 11am' d ; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe. Par. Lost, I, 61-64.
Quarles (Emblem xv) presents the same image :
Rid. 88 : 18. Nu ic blace swelge
wuda and waetre.
Rid. 52 : 1. Ic seah wrsetlice wuhte feower
samed siftian : swearte wieran lastas
swaftu swiSe blacu.
1 C. and S. 196. hu >a blacan feond
for oferhygdum ealle forwurdon.
C. and S. 71. Blace hworfon
scinnan forscepene
geond \>wt atole scref
Chr. 895. engla and deofla,
beorhtra and blacra
C. and S. 721. blac bealowes gast
Sol. 25. worpafl hine deofol
on domdsege draca egeslice
bismorlice of blacere li$ran.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 183
a dying spark
Of Vulcan's forge, whose flames are dark,
A dang'rous, dull, blue-burning light,
As melancholy as the night.
We now pass to the cases under examination. The great
number of examples, many of which are essentially of the
same sort, makes it impracticable to present all of the cita-
tions in full. The more striking instances, however, are
given, and all the examples and references are arranged in
groups. As might be expected, the literal and symbolic uses
of the word are not in all cases kept sharply apart, and some
of the examples belong as much in one group as in another.
(1). In the first group the literal meaning is in the fore-
ground, though the use of the word is doubtless influenced
somewhat by conventionality and symbolism. 1
l Gen. 1449. He ha ymb seofon niht sweartum hrefne
of earce forlet aefter fleogan
ofer heah wseter haswe culufran
on fandunga, hwsefter famig sse
deop H, gyta diel senigne
grenre eorftan ofgifen hsefde.
Gen. 1438. let >a ymb worn daga,
1441. sunu Lameches sweartne fleogan
hrefn ofer heahflod of huse ut.
Hid. 50 : 4. Hwilum on J>am wicum se wonna >egn,
sweart and saloneb
Soul and Body 54. ne nsenigum gesybban, J?onne se swearta hrefen.
Brun. 61. sweartan hrefn.
Finns. 35. Hrsefen wandrode
sweart and sealobrun, swurdleoma stod
swylce eal Finnsburuh fyrenu wsere.
.Rid 13: 3. festebinde
swearte Wealas
Rid. 22: 10. and mm swaeS sweotol sweart on 6$re
Rid. 58 : 1. J>eos lyft byreS lytle wihte
3. swearte salopade
Met. 4 : 22. ser se swearta storm
Jul. 472. sweartum scurum
Gen. 1413. lago ebbade,
sweart under swegle
184 W. E. MEAD.
(2). Conventional and symbolic are the following cases: 1
Oen. 1299. )>u scealt friS habban
mid sunum Jnnum, "Sonne sweart wseter,
wonne waelstreamas werodum swelgaft.
Gen. 1325. symle bi"5 >y heardra, J>e hit hreoh wseter,
swearte ssestreamas swifter beataft.
Oen, 1374. egorstreamas
swearte swogan
Oen. 1354. )>a be utan beoft earce bordum,
bonne sweartracu stigan ongmne'S
B. 3144. wud[u]-rec astah
sweart ofer swioftole
Rid. 4 : 46. feallan lta
sweart sumsendu seaw of bosme
Rid. 41 : 31. and ic fulre com J>onne >is fen swearte.
Rid. 41 : 92. se micla hwsel
se )>e garsecges grund bihealde'S
sweartan syne.
Rid. 42 : 1. edniwu
|>set is moddor monigra cynna,
]>aes selestan, j'aes sweartestan
Rid. 42 : 94. sweartan syne
Gen. 118. sweart synnihte
Met. 4 : 6. swylce seo sunne swear tra nihta
Chr. 870. scire gesceafte swa oft sceatSa faecne
}>eof ]>rlstlice \>& on ]?ystre fareiS
on sweartre niht.
Other examples occur, B. 167, B. D. D. 198, Chr. 934, Gen. 109, 134,
Guth. 678.
Gen. 390. hafa us god sylfa
forswapen on >as sweartan mistas
Met. 5 : 45. sunne for J?8em sweartum mistum
Met. 23 : 5. and of him selfum >one sweartan mist.
B. D. D. 104. Eal bitS eac upheofon
sweart and gesworcen, swifte ge>uxsa^5
deorc and dimhiw and dwolma sweart.
Rid. 52 : 2. swearte wseran lastas.
Rid. 27:1. si^ade sweart-last.
l Chr. 1605. t5aet sceolon fyllan firen-georne men
sweartum sawlum
0. and S. 51. Da him cwtdsweradan atole gastas,
swarte and synfulle.
Chr. 895. onhSlo gelac engla and deofla
beorhtra and blacra weorJ>e"S bega cyme
hwitra and sweartra
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY.
185
(3). Hell is five times referred to in the interpolated por-
tion of the Genesis with the accompanying epithet, sweart,
Chr. 1104. swearte syn-wyrcend.
Sol. 148. manfullra heap
sweartne geswencan
Guft. 650. mine myrftran and man-sceaj>an
swearte sigelease
Jul. 468. sweartra gesyrede
Partridge, 6. and ge hellfirena
sweartra geswicaft
Soul and Body, 73. swearte wihte
Chr. 268. se>elan rice,
Jjonan us ser J>urh syn-lust se swearta gsest
forteah and fortylde
Jul. 311. }>us ic wraj>ra fela
mid minum brojrum bealwa gefremede
sweartra synna
C. and S. 639. hu hie him on edwit oft asettaft
swarte suslbonan
Gu%. 666. "Sa eow se waldend wra^e bisencte
in \>(xt swearte susl
El. 930. ond J>ec \>onne sendeft in }>a sweartestan
and J>a wyrrestan witebrogan
Gen. 72. heo on wrace sy"5iSan
seomodon swearte sifte
Gen. 732. ac hie to helle sculon
on }>one sweartan si^.
Chr. 1411. sar and swar gewin and sweartne dea"5
Gen. 477. ponne wses se oiSer eallenga sweart,
dim and )>ystre : \>cet wses deaftes beam.
A few miscellaneous examples, not especially notable, occur, Rid. 13 : 13,
18 : 7, 71 : 9, Sol. 488, C. and S. 704, Gen. 487.
The following instances of the figurative use of the adverb swearte seem
to belong to group (2) :
C. and S. 371.
0. and S. 445.
C. and S. 578.
Gu*. 625.
2
Satanus swearte ge]>5hte
and heo furftor sceaf
in \><xi neowle genip nearwe gebeged,
J>aer nu Satanus swearte Hngaft
him \>(zt swearte forgeald
earm seglseca inn on helle.
swearte beswicene, swegle benumene.
186 W. E. MEAD.
but this precise combination appears not to be found else-
where in O.E. poetry. 1
Scarcely to be distinguished from genuine color-words are
such terms as gesweorc, (ge)sweorcan, sweartian, but the| literal
uses shade easily into the figurative and the symbolic. 2
*Gen. 312. on J>a sweartan helle.
Gen. 345. Satan siiSiSan, het hine t>sere sweartan helle.
Cf. Gen. 529, 761, 792.
Jul. 553. Da hine seo faemne forlet
sefter J>raec-hwile J>ystra neosan
in sweartne grund
Ps. 142 : 7. wese ic earmum gelic,
\>e on sweartne grund siftftan astigaft.
With these cases may be compared the following, which might, perhaps,
have been put into group (2):
Gen. 1925. for wera synnum wylme gesealde
Sodoman and Gomorran, sweartan lige.
Gen. 2414. \><xi sceal wrecan
swefyl and sweart lig, sare and grimme
Gen. 2504. Unc heht waldend for wera synnum
Sodoma and Gomorra sweartan lige,
fyre gesyllan,
Gen. 2538. pa sunne up,
folca fritScandel furftum eode,
ba ic sendan gefrsegn swegles aldor
swefl of heofnum and sweartne lig
werum to wite.
Gen. 2856. and blotan sylf
sunu mid sweordes ecge and >onne sweartan lige
leofes lie forbsernan.
Chr. 983. fsere-S sefter foldan fyr-swearta leg
weallende wiga
Chr. 1531. \>at on J>set deope dsel deofol gefeallaft
in sweartne leg.
Cf. also Chr. 966, 994.
S J5. 1789. Niht-helm geswearc
deorc ofer dryht-gumum.
A. 372. wedercandel swearc
Gu^S. 1279. swearc norft-rodor
Ex. 461. lyft up geswearc :
fsegum stsefnum flod blod gewod.
Gen. 807. gesweorc up
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 187
Wann, 1 dark, dusky, is also a favorite word, being found
thirty-seven times. Unlike sweart it is commonly used in a
literal sense. It is thus applied to a variety of objects, to
the raven, to the dark waves, to the gloomy height overlook-
ing the sea, to the murky night, to the dark armor, etc. The
examples given below supply the details. Now and then
the word seems to be a mere conventional epithet and to be
introduced largely for the sake of the alliteration. 2
B. D. D. 108. and seo sunne forswyrcS sona on morgen
ne se mona nsefS nanre mihte wiht,
\xzt he J>aere nihte genipu msege flecgan.
C. and S. 78. he sweartade, ftorme he spreocan ongan,
fyre and attre.
Gv&. 1052. hefige set heortan hre^er innan swearc
B. 1766. o^Se eagena bearhtm
forsiteiS ond forsworceS.
Jul. 78. geswearc J?a swift-ferft sw5r sefter worde
Wand. 58. for)>on ic ge}>encan ne mseg geond |)as woruld
for hwan mod-sefu mm ne gesweorce.
Deor. 28. SiteiS sorgceorig saelum bidiSled
on sefan sweorce^.
1 For brunwann, see brun.
*B. 3024. ac se wonna hrefn.
Gen. 1983. Sang se wanna fugel
under deore'Ssceaftum, deawigfe'Sera
hrses on wenan.
Jud. 205. pses se hlanca gefeah
wulf in walde and se wanna hrefn
EL 52. hrefen uppe gol
wan and wselfel.
Ex. 164. wonn wselceasega.
B. 3154. wael-fylla wonn.
Rood. 52. J>Jstro haafdon
bewrigen mid wolcnum wealdendes hrsew,
scire sciman ; sceadu for^Seode,
wann under wolcnum.
B. 702. Com on wanre niht
scrlSan sceadu-genga
Gu%. 1028. in l?isse wonnan niht
Rid. 85:8. wudubeama helm wonnan nihtum
Mel. 11 : 61. Hwset ! t>a wonnan niht
mona onlihte'S
188 W. E. MEAD.
S. 649. oj>i$e nipende niht ofer ealle,
scadu-helma gesceapu scriftan cwoman,
wan under wolcnum
Wand. 103. hrfS hreosende hrusaw bindeft
wintres worn a bonne won cymei5
mpeft niht-scua nor)>an onsendeft.
hreo hsegl-fare haeleftum on andan.
PA. 98. seo decree niht
won gewiteft
Gen. 108. geseah deorc gesweorc
semian sinnihte, sweart under roderum
wonn and weste
Gu$. 1279. swearc nortS-rodor
won under wolcnum
A. 886. sceadu 8we"Serodon
won under wolcnum
Met. 5 : 4. gif him wan fore wolcen hangaft.
Gen. 118. wonne wsegas
Gen. 1301. wonne wselstreamas
A. 1168. pa for J>sere dngo'Se deoful setywde
wann and wliteleas, hsefde weriges hiw.
Gen. 1378. wreah and ]>eahte
manfiehtSu beam middangeardes
wonnan wsege.
Gen. 1460. Gewat se wilda fugel
on sefenne earce secan
ofer wonne wseg
Gen. 1429. )>a hine on sunde geond sidne grund
wonne yfta wide bseron.
Rid. 4 : 37. won wsegfatu
B. 1373. )>onon yi5-geblond up astige'S
won to wolcnum.
Bid. 4 : 19. famig winne-S
wseg witS wealle ; won ariseiS
dun ofer dype.
Gen. 210. Fsegere leohte
\>cet li^Se land lago yrnende,
wylleburne ; nalles wolcnu fta giet
ofer rumne grund regnas bseron
wann mid winde.
Chr. 1422. and mec H on heostre alegde
biwundenne mid wonnum claj>um
Rid. 54 : 7. wonuum hyrstum.
Rid. 50:4. Hwilum on )>a,m wicum se wonna |>egn.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 189
Salowigpdd, 1 dark-coated, is applied a few times as an
epithet to the raven, the eagle, and to gnats: Wyrde 37,
Jud. 211, Brun. 61, Rid. 58:3. Salo and salonebb are also
slightly used. Earp (eorp), dusky, dark, is used three times :
Rid. 4:42, earpan gesceafia; Ex. 194, eorp werod (of the
Egyptians) ; Rid. 50 : 1 1 , eorp unwita.
3. GRAY. Remarkable in Old English poetry is the
fondness for mixed and neutral colors. A group of such
colors is found in the wordsf^rce^, flodgrceg, flintgrceg, hdr, ^
haw, blondenfeax, gamolfeax. The color gray lies somewhere
between white and black, with nothing to determine pre-
cisely where.
Grceg is used seven times, and its compounds are found
once each. 2 In every case it is used literally. It describes
Eid. 41 : 105. Mara ic com and fsettra, >onne amsested swm
bearg bellende on boc-wuda
won wrotende wynnum lifde
Hid. 85 : 14. is mm bsec
wonn and wundorlic.
Chr. 1564. won and wliteleas hafaft werges bleo.
Rid. 53 : 5. J>ara oftrum wses an getenge
wonfah Wale
A parallel to the expression, se swearta leg, is found in se wonna leg ;
and a similar explanation doubtless applies to both.
B. 3114. Nu sceal gled fretan
(weaxan wonna leg)
C. and S. 715. hwilum se wonna leg
liehte wi^ J?es laj>an
Chr. 964. "Sonwe eal J>reo on efen nimeiS
won fyres wselm wide tosomne
se swearta lig
1 For the etymology of sa/o, see Uhlenbeck in Paul and Braune's Beitrage,
20, 564.
2 Gen. 2864. ac hine se halga wer
gyrde grsegan sweorde.
B. 2680. Naegling forbterst,
geswac set ssecce sweord Blowulfes,
gomol ond grseg-msel.
Finns. 6. gylleft grseghama, guiSwudu hlynne^,
scyld scefte oncwy'S.
B. 333. fsette scyldas,
grsege syrcan ond grim-helmas.
190
W. E. MEAD.
the sword, the shirt of mail, the wolf, the seamew, the flood
of the sea, the ash-spear with the gray bark still left on the
shaft, the curling smoke, the hoar-frost. Especially pictur-
esque is the mention in one of the Riddles (4:19) of the
flintgrcegne flod.
Hdr, hoary, is used more conventionally than grceg, and
appears at times to be chosen more for the sake of the
alliteration than for the sake of the color. Har occurs
twenty-seven times, 1 and unhdr, feaxhdr and rceghar once
each. Seven times hdr is applied to the hoary, gray stone,
once to the gray cliff, four times to armor, once to a sword,
once to the ocean, once to the gray heath, three times to the
wolf, twice to the frost, and seven times to warriors, in each
case with some touch of conventionality and with an appar-
ently slight feeling for the color. Even unhdr seems to
emphasize the age of Hro^gar quite as much as his grayness.
In feaxhdr cwene the color element appears to predominate.
Brun. 64. \>aet grsege deor,
wulf on wealde
Onom. (Ex.) 149. Gryre sceal for greggum, graef deadum men.
Hungre heofeS, nales J>aet heafe bewindeS
ne huru wsel wepeft wulf se grffiga.
A. 370. horufisc plegode,
glad geond garsecg and se graega mSw
wselgifre wand ; wedercandel swearc.
Onom. I. 30. Ea of dune sceal
flodgrseg feran.
Met. 7. Swa oft smylte sse su'Serne wind
grsege glas-hluttre grimme gedrefed
B. 330. sesc-holt ufan grgeg.
Rid. 4 : 19. Ic sceal to stafte J>y wan
flintgrsegne flod.
1 B. 887. he under harne stan,
B. 1415. ofer harne stan.
B. 2552. stefn in becom
heafto-torht hlynnan under harne stan.
B. 2743. Nu iSu lungre geong
hord sceawian under harne stan,
Wiglaf leofa.
A. 841. ymbe harne stan
tigelfagan trafu
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 191
Ruin. 40. weal eall befeng
beorhtan bosme, >ser )>a baj>u wceron
hat on hre}>re ; \>(Kt wses hyflelic :
leton )>onne geotan .... ofer harne stan
hate streamas
Rid. 41 : 74. se hara stan
Met. 5 : 12. Swa oft sespringe ut aweallefl
of clife harum col and hlutor.
Heil. 210. paenne embe eahta niht
and feowerum \>cette fan gode
besenctun on ssegrund sigefsestne wer,
on brime haran
Jud. 327. Iseddon
to Ssere beorhtan byrig Bethuliam
helmas and hupseax, hare byrnan,
guftsceorp gumena golde gefraetewod
Wold. II. 16. feta, gyf u dyrre,
aat "Sus hea'Sowerigan hare byrnan.
B. 2153. hare byrnan
B. 2988. hares hyrste Higelace bser.
Wold. I. 2. huru Welandes geworc ne geswicefl
monna senigum, "Sara "Se Mimming can
hearne gehealdan.
Ex. 117. }>y Ises him westengryre
har hse^
Rid. 22 : 3. har holtes feond
Wand. 82. sumne se hara wulf
deaSe gedselde.
Wyrde. 12. sceal hine wulf etan
har hseftstapa.
Rid. 88 : 7. hwilum hara scoc
forst of feaxe.
A. 1257. swylce hrim and forst,
hare hildstapan haelefta e$el
lucon, leoda gesetu.
Brun. 38. on his cy^Se nor Constantinus,
har hilderinc ; hreman ne florfte
meca gemanan.
B. 1306. J>a W83S frod cyning
har hilde-rinc
B. 3135. Keeling boren,
har hilde [-rinc], to Hrones nsesse.
Maid. 168. pa gyt \>cet word gecwas'S
har hilderinc
192 W. E. MEAD.
Haso, 'gray/ is found seven times, 1 and the compounds
hasofdg, hasupdda, haswigfeftra, once each. Haso is used
with an apparent definiteness of color-feeling, and is applied
to the dove, to the eagle, to the curling smoke, to the leaves
of plants, and even to the heresfrceta, the highways with their
dusty, dirty-white surfaces. The examples are not suffi-
ciently numerous to enable us to decide whether it was often
used conventionally, but there is certainly little evidence in
the instances cited that such was the case.
Blondenfeax, blended-haired, that is, gray-haired, is hardly
a color- word at all, but it occurs four times in Beowulf, twice
B. 1677. Da wses gylden hilt gamelum rince,
harum hild-fruman, on hand gyfen.
Ex. 240. Gamele ne moston,
hare heaftorincas, hilde onj>eon
Ex. 181. hare heorawulfas hilde gretton
B. 356. pser Hroflgar sset
eald ond un-har.
Rid. 73 : 1. Ic waes faemne geong, feaxhar cwene.
The picturesque word rceghdr, meaning gray with moss or lichen, i&
used in describing a broken wall in the Ruin 9-10.
Oft )>aes wag gebad
rseghar and readfah rice aefter 6J>rum.
l Gen. 145. has we culufran
Rid. 25 : 4. hwllum ic onhyrge J>one haswan earn
PA. 121. swa se haswa fugel.
beorht of J>aes bearwes beame gewitefl
Rid. 12:1. Hrsegl is mm hasofag.
Brun. 62. J>one hasu-padan
earn, seftan hwit
PA. 153. -Sonne biiS gehefgad haswig-feftra
gomol gearum frod [g]rene eorftan
Rid. 2 : 6. recas stigatS
haswe ofer hrofum.
Rid. 14 : 8. meahtum aweahte mu'Sum slitan
haswe blede.
Rid. 41 : 60. swylce ic eom wraiSre >onne wermod sj,
[J>e] her on hyrstum heasewe stondeft.
Ex. 283. Wegas syndon dryge,
haswe herestrseta.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 193
in Genesis and once in the Battle of Brunanburh with about
the same meaning as har. 1 Gamolfeax, old-haired, gray-
haired, occurs three times, Beow. 608, Seafarer, 92, Edg. 46.
4. BROWN. Brown is an indefinite color, which may
shade through various degrees of duskiness into black or red.
We may, however, properly enough speak of a brown group,
though the variants brunfdg, brunwann, sealobrun occur but
once each. Brun is used eleven times, apparently with a
variety of meanings. 2 Brunecg is found twice. When applied
to helmets or to the edge of the sword the term brun possibly
1 .B. 1593. J?set wses yft-geblond eal gemenged
brim blode fah. Blonden-feaxe
gomele ymb godne on geador sprsecon
B. 1790. DuguS eal aras ;
wolde blond en-feax beddes neosan,
gamela Scylding.
B. 1872. hruron him tearas
blonden-feaxum.
B. 2961. pser weart> OngeniSIow ecgum sweorda
blonden-fexa, on bid wrecen.
Gen. 2600. Ne wiste blondenfeax
Gen. 2340. self ne wende, \>at him Sarra,
bryd blondenfeax, bringan meahte
on woruld sunu.
Brun. 44. gylpan ne horfte
beorn blandenfex billgeslihtes.
*B. 2614. ond his magum setbser
brun-fagne helm.
Jud 318. hyrsta scyne,
bord and brad swyrd, brune helmas,
dyre mad mas.
Hid. 18 : 7. hwilum ic sweartum swelgan onginne
brunum beaduwsepnum.
B. 2577. \>set sio ecg gewac
brun on bane.
B. 1545. Ofsset )?a J>one sele-gyst, ond hyre seax geteah
brad, brun-ecg.
Mold. 162. Da ByrhtnotS breed bill of sceSe,
brad and bruneccg [sic]
Ex. 69. wiston him be suSan Sigelwara land,
forbserned burhhleo'Su, brune leode
hate heofoncolum.
194 W. E. MEAD.
means bright, glittering, or flashing, with a suggestion of
redness. In the Ep. Gloss, burrum is glossed by bruun, and
burrum is the equivalent of rufus. As applied to the sword-
edge, the word appears to be used somewhat conventionally.
In the Exodus the Ethiopians are called brune leode, brown
people. In the poem on the Phoenix (296) that wonderful bird
has a tail partly brown. But the Latin original (1. 31) reads :
Caudaque porrigitur fulvo distenta metallo,
which implies a reddish-yellow or tawny cast. The raven is
referred to in the Fight at Finnsburh, 36, as sweart and
sealobrun, which means a sallow or dusky-brown. This I
take to be the dull, rusty, brownish black color which dark
feathers may assume in some lights. In the Andreas, 1306,
night is described as brunwann, a color that can scarcely be dis-
tinguished from ' dark/ Milton twice uses a similar expression :
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown that Sylvan loves.
// Pens., 133, 134.
and where the unpierc't shade
Imbrown'd the noontide bow'rs.
Par. Lost, iv, 245.
PA. 295. ponn is se finta fsegre gedseled
sum brun sum basu sum blacum splottum
Ex. 497. fteste befarene, flodblac here
siSSan hie onbugon brun yppinge
Sid. 88 : 9. Siftftan mec isern innanweardne
brun bennade.
Sid. 27 : 8. spyrede geneahhe
ofer brunne brerd.
A. 519. se "Se brimu bindeft, brune yfta
Sid. 61 : 6 ac mec uhtna gehwam y$ sio brune
Mel. 28. pa weard ceald weden
stearc storma gelac : stunede sio brune
yft wi^S oftre.
Finns. 35. Hrsefen wandrode
sweart and sealobrun
A. 1304. 0$ iSset sunne gewat to sete glidan
under niflan nses: niht helmade,
brunwann oferbrsed beorgas steape.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 195
The passages where the waves are called ' brown' may
mean simply that they are dark, with perhaps a trace of
muddiness. Yet possibly the suggestion of Merbach 1 has
some force, when he says that the waves may mirror the sky
and thus seem like a molten mass of bronze.
Brown was a favorite color with English poets of the
eighteenth century, 2 but it appears in our own time to be
much less popular.
5. RED. No color is more distinctive than red, yet its
use in Old English poetry is comparatively restricted. The
only words properly belonging to the red group appear to be
read, read/ah, and baso. Such words as blod, blodig, blodfdg,
swdtig, have only a secondary claim to be regarded as color-
words.
1. Head. Of the twenty passages in which read occurs,
all but four are found in the religious poems. The four
exceptions occur in the Riddles. But the word read does not
once occur in the Beowulf or in any other heroic poem or in
the lyrics. In the Ruin (10) occurs the compound readfdh,
describing the shattered walls of the desolate city.
The various objects with which the word is used are as
follows : Flame or fire is five times described as red, partly
perhaps for the sake of the alliteration. Roses are twice
called red. In Exod. 296 the waters of the Red Sea are
referred to as reade streamas, as though the poet really
imagined them to be red. 3 We have also four passages in
which gold is called red. This is a familiar convention of
the Middle Ages, which may be due to the fact that the gold
of that time was often darker than that of our own, and con-
tained a considerable alloy of copper. Red trappings are
referred to in the Riddles. The cross, reddened with blood,
is mentioned in Chr. 1101; the red edges of the sword are
A .Das Meer in den Dichtungen der Angelsachsen, p. 16.
2 Ellis, The Colour-sense in Lit., p. 720.
3 This is very different from the cases in which the Red Sea is merely
referred to by name. Cf. Ex. 134; Ps. 105: 8, 9, 18; 135: 13, 15.
196 W. E. MEAD.
spoken of in describing the sacrifice of Isaac (Exod. 412).
Some other miscellaneous examples are found in the list
given below. 1
We see, then, that the color which is strongest and most
effective has a relatively restricted use, and that an obvious
convention has determined the choice of the word in many
passages where it occurs.
Red is probably suggested now and then by the words
l Ruin. 9. Oft J>aes wag gebad
rseghar and readfah rice aefter 6J>rum
ofstanden under stormum.
Gen. 41. pa he hit geare wiste
sinnihte beseald, susle geinnod,
geondfolen fyre and fsercyle,
rece and reade lege.
Chr. 807. \>onne frsetwe sculon
byrnan on baele ; blac rasette'S
recen ; reada leg re)>e scribed.
B. D. D. 149. readum lige
bi"S emnes mid J>y eal gefylled.
Donne fyren lig blaweiS and brasla^S
read and refte
Wyrde, 46. read re$e gled.
Met. 9 : 12. gif >aet fyr meahte
lixan swa leohte and swa longe eac
read rasettan.
-B. D. D. 286. J>ser )>a serendracan synd selmihtiges godes
and betweoh rosena reade heapas
}>ser symle scinaft.
pser bsera hwittra hwyrfS msedenheap,
blostmum behangen, beorAtost wereda.
Ex. 295. nu se agend up arserde
reade streamas in randgebeorh.
Rid. 49 : 6. Ryne ongietan readan goldes
guman galdorcwide
Gen. 2403. gesawon ofer since salo hlifian,
reced ofer readum golde.
Jud. 338. sweord and swatigne helm, swylce eac side byrnan
gerenode readum golde.
Dan. 59. bereafodon t>a receda wuldor readan golde
Met. 18 : 5. HwseiSer ge willen on wuda secan
gold >set reade on grenum treowum ?
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 197
blodig, blodfdg, dreorig, heolfor, swdtig, which in the
aggregate are used much more frequently than read. One
cannot always be sure that a color effect is intended, but
some passages appear unmistakable. I present a few selected
examples : *
6. YELLOW. From the frequent reference to gold in Old
English poetry one might perhaps expect yellow to be often
Rid. 12 : 1. Hrsegl is mm hasofag, hyrste beorhte
reade and scire on reafe [ramum].
Reden der Seelen. 57. Ne magon J>e nu heonon adon hyrsta J>a readan.
Chr. 1101. "Sonwe sio reade rod ofer ealle
swegle seined on Here sunnan gyld
on J?a forhtlice firenum fordone
swearte syn-wyrcend sorgum wlitaft
Ex. 411. wolde slean eaferan sinne,
unweaxenne ecgum reodan.
Met. 19 : 22. seftele gimmas
hwite and reade and hiwa gehwaes.
Rid. 27 : 15. Nu >a gereno and se reada telg.
Chr. 1174. "Sa wearft beam monig blodigum tearum
birunnen under rindum reade and Mcce
sep wear?? to swate.
Rid. 70 : 1. Ic eom rices seht reade bewsefed,
stift and steap wong.
BttsOy purple or crimson, occurs twice, once in Dan. 724, baswe bdcstafas,
and once in the Phoenix 296, in describing the bird's tail :
>onne is se finta fsegre gedseled
sum brun, sum basu, sum blacum splottum.
J S. 484. Donne waes J?eos medo-heal on morgen tid
driht-sele dreor-fah, ]>onne dseg lixte,
eal benc-helu blode bestymed,
heall heoru-dreore.
B. 847. Dser wses on blode brim weallende,
atol yfta geswing eal gemenged
baton heolfre, heoro-dreore weol.
B. 446. ac he me habban wile
d[r]eore fahne, gif mec deaft nime'S
byre blodig wael.
B. 934. J>onne blode fah,
husa selest heoro-dreorig stod.
B. 1416. wseter under stod
dreorig ond gedrefed.
198 W. E. MEAD.
mentioned. But of the use of geolo only four instances occur,
and three of these are plainly conventional. Twice the word
is used in the compound geolorand, once alone in referring to
linden shields, and once in describing fine cloth. 1
Fealo. This is a somewhat indefinite color which occurs
seventeen times. The prevailing meaning appears to be a
pale yellow shading into red or brown, and in some cases into
green. Two compounds, fealohilte and appelfealu, occur once
each. A tolerably clear use of the word is in the Battle of
Maldon, 166, where the sword is called fealohilte. This evi-
dently means ' golden-hilted.' Fealwe mearas (Beow. 865) are
probably bay horses of a golden color shading into red.
Fealwe strcete (Beow. 916) may be roads covered with pale
yellow sand or gravel. Fealwe linde (Gen. 2044) probably
means the yellow borders of the linden shields (cf. geolo),
which were either painted or gilded. The most common use
of fealo is in connection with water. Some of the examples
already cited appear to involve a genuine realization of the
color. But the various passages in which the sea is referred
to as the fallow flood seem to be more conventional and to
introduce the word, in part, perhaps, because of the con-
venient alliteration. I hardly think that in these passages
the word means dusky, as is sometimes suggested, but per-
Ex. 448. Wseron beorhhliftu blode bestemed,
holm heolfre spaw.
Ex. 571. Gesawon hie >ser wealles standan ;
ealle him brimu blodige buhton
Chr. 934. sunne
on blodes hiw
Chr. 1085. beacna beorhtast blode bestemed
Wold. 153. se full caflice
braid of )>am beorne blodigne gar.
1 B. 2609. bond rond gefeng
geolwe linde, gomel swyrd geteah.
B. 438. geolo-rand to gu$e
El. 118. garas ofer geolorand on gramra gemang
Rid. 36 : 9. Wyrmas mec ne awaefan wyrda craeftum
J>a J>e geolo godwebb geatwum frsetwaft.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY.
199
haps yellowish green, a common color in the English and
Irish channels.
A more vivid sense of color is found in fealo fag (Ph. 218),
the yellow flame in which the Phrenix is consumed, and in a
few other examples cited below. 1
1 J5. 1949.
A. 420.
Brun. 35.
A. 1536.
A. 1588.
Wand. 45.
Gnom. II. 51.
Bl Monna Or&flum, 53.
B. 865.
B. 916.
Oen. 2043.
Ph. 217.
PA. 310.
PA. 74.
Rid. 72 : 15.
Rid. 56 : 9.
Rid. 16: 1.
Maid. 166.
B. 2163.
hio Offan flet
ofer fealone flod be feeder lire
sifte gesohte.
Lang is bes siftfset
ofer fealuwne flod
cread cnear on flot, cining ut gewat,
on fealone flod feorh generode
Weox wseteres )>rym ; weras cwanedon,
ealde sescberend ; wses him ut myne
fleon fealone stream.
J>ser in forlet
flod fseftmian, fealewe wsegas.
Donne onwsecneft eft wineleas guma
gesih'S him beforan fealwe wsegas
Storm oft holm gebringej>
geofen in grimmum sselum ; onginna'S grome
fundian,
fealwe on feorran to lande.
sum fealone wseg
stefnan steore^.
on geflit faran, fealwe mearas
Hwilum flitende fealwe strsete
mearum mseton.
\>cet meahte wel seghwylc
on fyrd wegan, fealwe linde.
hreoh onette'S
fealo lig feormetS and Fenix byrae'S.
sindon J?a scancan scyllum biweaxen
fealwe fotas
ne fealle-S Sser on foldan fealwe blostman
and swiora smsel, sidan fealwe.
J>ser wses hlin and ac and se hearda iw
and se fealwa holen.
Hals is mm hwit and heafod fealo.
feoll >a to foldan fealohilte swurd
Hyrde ic, }>83t J>sem frsetwum feower mearas
lungre gelice last weardode,
appel-fealuwe.
200 W. E. MEAD.
Gold. In addition to the strict color- words we may have
to include in the yellow group the word gold, which in some
passages appears to suggest a color effect. 1 There is room for
much difference of opinion as to how many of the passages
are genuine instances of the use of the word for this purpose,
but such compounds as goldfdh, goldtorht, goldbeorht appear
unmistakable. The primary word with its various deriva-
tives is used something like a hundred times in Old English
poetry. How many of these cases are to be taken as clear
instances of color-words can be shown only by detailed dis-
cussion, for which I have not space here. I will, therefore,
reserve the topic for later examination.
7. GREEN. As might perhaps be expected, the favorite
color in Old English poetry, taken as a whole, is green, the
color of growing plants. The extraordinary fondness for this
color in English ballads has been often pointed out. But,
singularly enough, the examples in Old English poetry are
found almost wholly in the religious poems, one-third in
the Genesis alone. Yet not a single example occurs in the
Beowulf or in any other heroic poem. In the religious poems
the word is commonly used in a somewhat conventional way,
and seldom with a keen appreciation of the color. The earth,
the fields, the grass, the trees, the hills, and other objects are
mentioned, but the color-word appears to be added in many
cases as a mere epithet. Now and then, however, the color-
word seems to be used in order to make the passage more
vivid. Thus the rod of Moses is called a grene tdne (Exod.
281). Green streets leading to the home of the angels are
once mentioned (C. and 8. 287). Two instances of the
deliberate use of green for descriptive purposes are found
in the Phoenix, a somewhat artificial poem based upon a still
more artificial Latin original, but nevertheless containing a
greater variety of color-words than any other Old English
poem. We read (1. 293) that the back of the bird's head is
1 Etymologically, gold is, of course, " the yellow metal."
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 201
green, heafod hindan grene, and then (1. 298), se hols grene
nioftoweard and ufeweard. In these passages the Old English
poet is evidently trying to reproduce the viridante zmaragdo
of his Latin original (1. 135). Yet in no passage do we find
anything like the easy mastery of color-phrases that is so
marked in Tennyson and Shelley and Keats.
The examples given below are intended to be complete, and
they are self-explanatory. 1
l Gen. 1517. eorfle aelgrene and eacen feoh
Chr. 1128. eorftan eal-grene and up-rodor
A. 797. hwa set frumsceafte furSum teode
ecu-San eallgrene and. upheofon.
Gen. 1453. J>a gyta dSl senigne
grenre eorSan ofgifen hsefde.
Ph. 154. [gjrene eor'San
Gen. 1560. }>a him wlitebeorhte wsestmas brohte,
geartorhte gife grene folde.
Ex. 311. wod on wsegstream, wigan on heape
ofer grenne grand.
Rid. 67 : 3. sses me sind ealle
flodas on faeiSmum and }>as foldan bearm,
grene wongas.
Guti. 476. Ssegde him to sorge J>set hy sigelease
J>one grenan wong of-giefan sceoldan.
Heil. 206. \><xi us wunian ne mot wangas grene
foldan frsetuwe.
Gu?8. 746. Stod ee grena wong in godes waere
Gen. 1655. Gesetton >a Sennar sidne and widne
1657. heora geardagum, grene wongas.
Rid. 41 : 50. Eom seghwser brsedre
and widgielra >onne )>es wong grena.
Rid. 13 : 1. Fotum ic fere, foldan slite,
grene wongas, >enden ic gaest bere.
Rid. 16 : 5. ordum ic steppe
in grene gras.
Gen. 1137. si'SSan Adam stop
on grene grses, gaste geweor^od.
Gen. 116. Folde wses >a gyt,
graes ungrene : garsecg J>eahte,
sweart synnihte side and wide
wonne wsegas. pa wses wuldortorht
202
W. E. MEAD.
IV.
We have thus gone through the color-words found in Old
English poetry and rapidly observed the way in which they
are used. If the list is somewhat disappointing, it is at all
events far more striking than anything that the Old High
heofonweardes gast ofer holm boren,
miclum spedum. Metod engla heht,
lifes brytta, leoht forft cuman.
Oen. 510. brade synd on worulde
grene geardas and god site's
on J>am hehstan heofna rice
Gen. 1017. forSon heo J>e hr6$ra oftih-S
glaemes grene folde.
Oen. 1920. Him >a Loth gewat land sceawigan
be lordane, grene eorftan :
seo wses wsetrum weaht and wsestmum Jeaht,
lagostreamum leoht
PA. 33. sun-bearo lixeiS
wudu-holt wynlic waestmas ne dreosa'S
beorhte blede, ac >a beamas a
grene stondaft swa him god bibead.
PA. 78. on >am grses-wonge grene stonda>
gehroden hyhtlice haliges meahtum,
beorhtast bearwa.
Gen. 1479. ac heo land begeat,
grene bearwas.
PA. 13. J>set is wynsum wong, wealdas grene
Gen. 841. on )>one grenan weald
Sal. 312. Lytle hwile leaf beoS grene.
Met. 19 : 5 Hwsefter ge willen on wuda secan
gold j>set reade on grenum triowum.
Gen. 1472. IfSend brohte
elebeames twig an to hande,
grene blsedae.
Dan. 517. o$ \>cet eft cyme
grene bleda
Ex. 280. hu ic sylfa sloh and J>eos swiiSre hand
grene tane garsecges deop.
Gen. 2548. Lig call fornara,
\>(Kt he grenes fond goldburgum in.
PA. 293. heafod hindan grene
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 203
German literature has to offer, for this, as represented by
Otfrid and other versifiers, is almost utterly destitute of
color- words. The Old Saxon, as represented by the Heliand 1
is almost equally barren. The equivalents of O.E. blcee, brun,
feala, grceg, hdr and haso are not found at all. Blek (O.E.
bide) occurs four times; gelo (O.E. geolo) once; rod (O.E. read)
once ; groni (O.E. grene) six times ; swart (O.E. sweart) five
times. Berhi and torht are also found, but they play a minor
role. Not much perhaps is proved by such a comparison,
for if more poems, of a different type, had been preserved, we V
might have a different story to tell. But there is nevertheless
some interest in finding that several of the rarer color-words
of Old English poetry are rare or non-existent in Old Saxon
poetry, and that green and black (swart) hold a prominent
place in Old Saxon, as they do in Old English poetry.
In so far, then, as Old English poetry is compared with
contemporary Germanic poetry it more than holds its own.
When, however, it is put beside the Celtic poems contained in~]
the so-called Four Ancient Books of Wales or the Icelandic
poems found in the Corpus Poetieum Boreale, it is seen to be i
lacking in vividness and richness of color. In the Welsh
^
Ph. 297. sindon )>a fi>ru
hwit hindan-weard and se hals grene
nioj>o-weard and ufe-weard.
Ps. 141 : 4. On J>yssum grenan wege.
C. and S. 286. Gemunan symle on mode meotodes streng$o,
gearwian us togenes grene strsete
up to englum.
A. 775. foldweg tredan
grene grundas.
Guff. 231. sceoldon wraec-msecgas
ofgiefan gnornende grene beorgas.
Onom. 1. 34. Beorh sceal on eorj>an
grene standan.
Eid. 22 : 9. me bi"5 gongendre grene on healfe
Met. 11 : 57. leaf grenian.
1 The recently discovered O.S. original of the interpolation (11. 235-858)
in the O.E. Genesis, is of course to be credited with all the color- words
occurring in that long passage.
204 W. E. MEAD.
poems we meet twelve times the color blue which is found
but once in Old English poetry. In every case the word
seems to be used with a sharp definition of the object, even
though the exact shade of color may vary. Note these lines :
A shield, light and broad,
Was on the slender swift flank,
A sword blue and bright,
Golden spurs and ermine 1
or this,
With his blue streamer displayed, while his foes range the sea.*
Yellow occurs thirteen times ; black, fourteen times ; brown,
seven times ; green, nineteen times ; red or purple, thirty-five
times; white, fifty-three times. Lack of space forbids further
illustrations, but they would show brilliantly beside almost
any example from Old English poetry.
Very different too from the Old English color-scheme is
that presented by the Old Icelandic poems. I have gone
through the first volume of the Corp. Poet. Bor. (comprising
374 pages) and collected all the color-words. The first
notable fact is the comparative lack of words for light and
darkness, words which play so prominent a part in Old
English poetry. The symbolic use of color is also less
marked than in Old English. The leading color in Icelandic
poetry is red the most brilliant color of all. This occurs
forty-six times, and, it must be confessed, is often used some-
what conventionally. The suggestive phrase, to ' redden the
spear/ or to ' redden the sword/ occurs more than once.
t Red rings ' and ' red gold ? are also favorite expressions.
White occurs thirty-one times, usually with a keen appre-
ciation of the value of the color. We find the phrases
'sun-white/ ' swan-white/ * drift-white maid/ ' whiter than
egg-film/ ' linen-white/ ' white-throated/ ' red and white
shields/ and the like. Black occurs thirteen times. We read
l Four Anc. Books, I, 374.
Tbid., i, 402.
COLOR IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 205
of bears wfth black hide, of something blacker than a raven,
of black targets, of a coal-black ox, and so forth. Gray is
found eight times, in every case apparently used for the sake
of a genuine color-effect. The wolf is once called ' the gray-
coated beast/ as in Old English poetry, and the eagle is
referred to as ' the gray bird of carrion.' A novelty is found
in the mention of a gray mouse and of gray silver. Blood
is used eight times, and bloody five times, with a sort of
color-effect ; but the favorite way of referring to blood is to
suggest it by indicating the color which it gives to the sword
or to the field. Green occurs but six times, and is used in
the most commonplace way. It is applied as a mere epithet
to the fields, to paths, herbs, and the forests, once to the
ash -tree Yggdrasil, and once to the city of the gods. When
we remember how freely green is used in Old English poetry,
we see that the difference is remarkable. 1 Brown is found
only three times, and twice is used as an epithet describing
hair. Yellow occurs twice, once as an epithet for the sword
and once in describing hair. A fallow steed is mentioned
once. Blue is twice used, once to describe a coverlet and once
to describe a sark. But this blue was probably not blue in
our sense, but more like a deep raven black hrafnbldr. 2
I need hardly say that this sort of numerical comparison
is very rough and arbitrary, and that it attempts merely to
point out some broad lines of difference in two or three con-
siderable bodies of poetry. In order to make the comparison
perfectly fair, we ought, if possible, to take pieces of about
the same length and of the same general type, but in so rapid
a sketch as the present one I can do no more than call atten-
tion to salient characteristics. I cannot undertake in the
present paper to make generalizations or to enter upon theo-
retical explanations of the facts, and I cannot, therefore, make
further comparisons, for which I have collected material. I
'Yet the rarity of green in most of the O.E. secular poems must be
remembered.
8 Of. Paul's Grundriss der germ. Phil, II., n, 237.
206 W. E. MEAD.
realize clearly the tentative character of the paper in its
present form, but I cannot do more without opportunity for
more extended discussion. The two notable facts to consider
j are, that the color-sense in the Old English poets is compara-
tively feeble, and that conventionality plays a large part in
the passages where color is used at all. Genuine freedom
~~ln the employment of color-phrases does not come until long
after the Norman Conquest, but the tendency to individuality
in this respect is one of the most striking characteristics of
Elizabethan poetry, as it is also of nineteenth century literature.
WILLIAM E. MEAD.
V. FKOM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL.
A CENTURY OF NEW ENGLAND PRONUNCIATION.
So hwen sBm endjel, brai div^in komsend,
wrS reizig tempests /^ks e gilti Isend
(set/ aez ov lt or p^l Britaenye psest),
kselm aend sirln hi drmvz 'Si fyuries blaest ;
send, pllzd -S olmmtiz orderz tu perform,
reidz in "Si hwerlwind aend d^irekts "Si storm.
So %i pytir limpid strlm, hwen fQul wrS st^nz
ov ri3/irj torents aend disendig r^nz,
wrarks itself klir, aend sez it renz, rifeinz ;
til, b^i digrlz, 'Si flotig mirer/Binz,
riflekts It/flgur 'Saet on its border groz,
send e nti hevn in its f^r b^zem /oz.
This passage from Addison, reproduced, in a slightly modi-
fied version of the American Dialect Society's alphabet, 1 from
1 Phonetic spellings and all phonetic symbols (except/) will be printed,
in this article, in Roman type. A dot and a hook under a vowel letter
(as e, e) indicate respectively the close and the open sound. The only
characters that require explanation are the following :
a : a in father 1 : ea in beat
8 : u in hut g : ng in sing
a : French a in patte o : o in hot
a : French d in pdte d : New England o in whole
se : a in hat 6 : o in hole
K : Western a in fast o : German o in Sonne
dg :j in jug o : German oh in Sohn
ft : th in this o : o in born
eieinbet u:oomfoot
a : a in sofa u : oo in boot
& : ai in bait fishin ship
e : German ee in See tf: ch in chip
e : French e in Ule \> : th in thin
e : it in hurt y : y in yet
i : i in bit 5 : si in vision.
207
208 C. H. GRANDGENT.
a phonetic transcription by Benjamin Franklin himself, may
be taken as a sample of Franklin's pronunciation. Angel was
more commonly sendjel in the 18th century, and chamber,
danger had the same vowel ; 6ndjel, t/kmbar, dendjar, accord-
ing to Noah Webster, were less elegant. The use of $i before
consonants as well as vowels is noteworthy, and may be due
to carelessness. For tu = to } Franklin also said to. Bszam
was perfectly good in his day.
From Franklin to Lowell is almost exactly a century, 1790
to 1891, if we reckon from the death of each. A longer
period 1706 to 1819 separates their dates of birth. As to
the qualifications of these men to represent New England, no
one will question those of Lowell ; but as Franklin went to
I Philadelphia in 1^23, one may at first be inclined to doubt
the purity of his Boston accent. He had, however, at least
one trait that (according to Webster) was peculiar to the
East the pronunciation -eiftar for t$ar = either ; and he had,
as far as we can tell, no characteristic that was foreign to his
birthplace. It should be added that in his day Boston and
Philadelphia were linguistically far closer together than they
are now. The distinctive features of the present New Eng-
land speech are the suppression of consonant r unless it
precede a vowel, the use of a and o where other dialects have
respectively se and o, and the shortening of 6 to 6 : all these
phenomena, except perhaps the last, have developed since
Franklin's time.
The purpose of this paper is to trace, as well as may be
with the scanty material available, the history of the principal
changes in Yankee pronunciation from the middle (roughly
speaking) of the last century to the middle of our own, and
even, in many cases, to the present day. The period of rapid
transformation, from 1775 to 1825, will receive especial atten-
tion. My treatise, though limited thus in scope, may be
regarded as a continuation of the investigations of Victor, 1
1 Die Aussprache des Englischen nach den deutsch-englischen Grammatiken
vor 1750, Marburg, 1886.
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 209
Bohnhardt, 1 Lowisch, 2 Holthausen, 3 and Luick, 4 or as a small
supplement to the monumental work of Ellis 5 and the invalu-
able compendium of Sweet. 6 I need hardly say that it is
very imperfect, as many sources of information must have
escaped me; subsequent research may, therefore, invalidate
some of my conclusions.
Franklin's pronunciation is known to us through A Scheme
of a New Alphabet and Reformed Mode of Spelling? which he
prepared in 1768. His phonetic alphabet is ingenious and
simple, although it calls for several new characters, and leaves
at least one important sound unrecognized. The remarks on
the vowels and consonants and their symbols are very brief;
the chief value of the little work lies in a few texts, written
in the proposed orthography, which represent the author's
pronunciation. They were reprinted (from a very faulty
edition) by Ellis in the fourth volume of his Early English
Pronunciation. There is in Franklin's alphabet no letter for
a, which is noted sometimes e, sometimes v ; a, also unmen-
tioned, probably did not exist in his language; e and -B were in
his speech distinguished only by quantity; i, ti were monoph-
thongs, and " long a," " long o " were respectively $ and 6.
The Lowell who concerns us here is the Lowell of the
Biglow Papers. The two series appeared in 1848 and 1867,
and each contains some interesting remarks on pronunciation
in the introduction. As the Papers are based on the poet's
recollection of the rustic speech he heard during his boyhood,
we may infer that they represent the country usage of eastern
Massachusetts from 1825 to 1835. A sample of the Biglow
'"Zur Lautlehre der englischen Grammatiken des XVII. und XVIII.
Jahrhunderts," in Phonetische Studien, II (1888), 64.
*Zur englischen Aussprache von 1650-1750, Kassel, 1889.
3 Die englische Aussprache bis zumJahre 1750 nach ddnischen und schwedischen
Zeugnissen, Goteborg, 1895.
4 Untersuchungen zur englischen Lautgeschichle, Strassburg, 1896.
5 On Early English Pronunciation, London, 1869-89.
6 A History of English Sounds, Oxford, 1888.
7 Works of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks, Boston, 1840, vi, 295.
210 C. H. GRANDGENT.
pronunciation will be found at the end of this article. Many
features of this dialect had certainly found a place, at that
time, in the language of the well-educated. Holmes, in his
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1857, gives us a few hints
concerning the Boston practice of the forties and fifties.
Between these two extremes we find, published in Boston
in 1789, a treatise of great importance for our subject,
Noah Webster's Dissertations on the English Language, which,
although it has been carefully examined by Ellis, in his Early
English Pronunciation, iv, is not widely known. Another
authority, of considerable interest but of less weight than
the preceding, is an Essai Raisonne sur la Grammaire et la
Prononciation Angloise, d, I'usage des Francois qui desirent
d j apprendre I'Anglois, par Duncan Mackintosh et ses deux
filles, Boston, 1797. This work has, I believe, never before
been utilized. Its value is somewhat impaired by the dogma-
tism of the author, who advocates a very elaborate style of
utterance, and has a tendency to describe what should be
rather than what is. Moreover, his pronunciation is unmis-
takably Scotch in some respects.
In addition to the sources mentioned, we have at our dis-
posal not only the dictionaries of Webster and Worcester, but
a host of grammars, primers, and spelling-books published
between 1777 and 1840. Not less surprising than the multi-
tude of these text-books, and the great number of editions
attained by many of them, is the variety of places of publi-
cation : no hamlet in those days was too insignificant to
support a printing-office and aid in the diffusion of learning.
The best known works of this class are those of Noah
W'ebster and Lindley Murray and the American (frequently
more or less Americanized) editions of Perry and Walker.
Authorities of this sort are, of course, to be used with
caution. The orthoepist is by nature conservative, more given
to copying his predecessors than to recording actual usage.
Occasionally, however, we come upon an author whose inde-
pendence or ignorance enables or forces him to listen for
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 211
himself; and even in the more conventional treatises we
sometimes find innovations, which can immediately be dis-
cerned if we are well versed in the foregoing literature.
The present study is based on an examination of some two
hundred text-books, most of which are contained in the
Library of Harvard University. Nearly all were printed in
New England, but I have in some rare cases taken the
testimony of a work published in a neighboring state. I
have, moreover, consulted a score of German grammars
written in America. As was to be expected, the great
majority of these volumes yielded no results whatever. In
fact, only twenty-two of them are worth quoting. I give
below a chronological list of these and of the other authorities
I have mentioned, with the abbreviations which I shall use
in referring to them hereafter :
FRANKLIN. Benjamin Franklin : A Scheme of a New Alphabet and He-
formed Mode of Spelling, 1768. Franklin was born in Boston in 1706.
GR. INST. Noah Webster : A Grammatical Institute of the English Language,
Hartford, Conn., 1784 (3d ed.). Webster was born in Connecticut in 1758.
PERRY. W. Perry : The Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue, Worcester,
Mass., 1785 (8th ed.). The work was originally written in Edinburgh in
1777. Perry was "Lecturer in the English Language in the Academy,
Edinburgh."
ASH. John Ash : Grammatical Institutes^ orcester, Mass., 1785 (new ed.).
THOMAS. Isaiah Thomas : New American Spelling-Book,WoTcester, Mass.,
1785.
Diss. Noah Webster: Dissertations on the English Language, Boston,
Mass., 1789.
AM. SP. B. Noah Webster : The American Spelling-Book, Boston, Mass.,
1794 (9th ed.).
BINGHAM. Caleb Bingham : The Young Lady's Accidence, Boston, Mass.,
1794 (8th ed.).
FRASER. Donald Fraser : The Columbian Monitor, New York, 1794.
DEARBORN. Benjamin Dearborn : The Columbian Grammar, Boston,
Mass., 1795.
Y. L. G. SP. B. The Young LadieJ and Gentlemen's Spelling-Book. Title-
page lacking. Probably published in Boston, Mass., about 1795.
MACKINTOSH. Duncan Mackintosh (and Daughters) : Essai Raisonne,
etc., Boston, Mass., 1797.
HALE. E. Hale : A Spelling-Book, Northampton, Mass., 1799.
212 C. H. GRANDGENT.
MURRAY. Lindley Murray: English Grammar, Boston, Mass., 1802 (2d
Boston ed.). Murray was born in Pennsylvania in 1745, went to England
in 1784, and died there in 1826.
COMPANION. Caleb Bingham: The Child's Companion, Boston, Mass.,
1805 (llth ed.).
WEBSTER. Noah Webster: A Compendious Dictionary of the English
Language, Hartford and New Haven, Conn., 1806.
ALDEN. Abner Alden : An Introduction to Spelling and Reading, Boston,
Mass., ] 813 (6th ed.).
WARE. Jonathan Ware: A New Introduction to the English Grammar,
Windsor, Vt., 1814. This book has, for correction, texts spelled phoneti-
cally according to the rural pronunciation.
CUMMINGS. J. A. Cummings: The Pronouncing Spelling-Book, Boston,
Mass., 1822 (3d ed.).
HAWES. Noyes P. Hawes: The United States Spelling-Book or English
Orthoepist, Portland, Me., 1824. Based on Walker.
KIRKHAM. Samuel Kirkham : English Grammar, New York, 1830
(20th ed.).
CLARK. Schuyler Clark: The American Linguist, Providence, K. L,
1830. Clark has a curious system of phonetic notation, in which sounds
are represented by dots, dashes, and curves.
WORCESTER. J. E. Worcester: A Comprehensive Pronouncing and Ex-
planatory Dictionary of the English Language, Boston, Mass., 1830.
FOLLEN. C. Follen : A Practical Grammar of the German Language,
Boston, Mass., 1831.
FOSDICK. David Fosdick : An Introduction to the German Language,
Andover, Mass., 1838.
WILLARD. Samuel Willard : The General Class-Book, Greenfield, Mass.,
1840 (19th ed.) . Willard was the author of the Franklin Primer and Reader.
He was a much better observer than most of the authors enumerated.
MONTEITH. A. H. Monteith : A Course of Lessons in the German Language,
New York, 1844.
LOWELL. James .Russell Lowell: The Biglow Papers, 1848 and 1867.
Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1819.
HOLMES. Oliver Wendell Holmes : The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,
1857. Holmes was born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1809.
If, now, we compare Franklin's pronunciation with that of
the Biglow Papers, or with that of our own childhood, we
are struck by several marked divergences; and there are
many others that are not so apparent. These various differ-
ences I shall now consider in detail, treating first the vowels,
next the diphthongs, and then the consonants.
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 213
A.
[a in father."]
In England, from 1550 or 1600 down to about 1780, there
was no long a, except perhaps in a few foreign words. The
Middle English a had become se. Sheridan, 1780, has no a in
his vowel-scheme. In Nares' Elements of Orthoepy, London,
1784, we find a vowel resembling our a before f, s, )?, n -|-
consonant, 1m, and even in trans- and -graph, but apparently
not before r, as clerk and sergeant have se. Walker, in 1791,
is the first to report a return of the full a-sound : according
to him, a was used universally before an r that was final or
followed by a consonant ; before spirants, usage was divided ;
before n -f- consonant, a was going out of use, and was
regarded as inelegant. This would seem to indicate a very
sudden incursion of a into London pronunciation between
1780 and 1790 ; it may have existed a decade or so earlier in
vulgar speech. But for many years after Walker a and se
struggled for the supremacy. The German grammars written
in English in the early years of our century give as the
equivalent of German a either English aw or something
between 'aw and a in father. In our own time, before an r
that is final or precedes a consonant, we find that a has pre-
vailed everywhere, except in some rural dialects; before a
voiceless spirant, and before n followed by a consonant, a has
gained the upper hand in southern England, but not in
the north.
In America a was apparently slower in making its way.
Franklin did not know it : he said fseiSar and hserdli ; and
Thomas, 1785, said som for psalm. Nowadays a is universal
before r final or + consonant ; moreover, in the greater part
of New England, in about 150 words, for a (or au) before a
voiceless spirant, 1 a nasal + cons., 2 or an Im = m, 3 a is in
1 Laugh, pass, path, etc. 3 Calm, salmon, etc.
9 Aunt, branch, can't, chance, etc.
214 C. H. GRANDGENT.
common use, and prevails in about fifty of them. But west
of the Connecticut River, as in almost all the rest of the
United States, a is scarcely heard, except before r, in father,
and occasionally before m = Im. In words that have au
followed by nch, nd, or nt, 1 a has had to contend both with 3d
and with o : in New England a prevails decidedly, & being
almost unknown ; all the rest of the country favors o, although
a and sd may be heard in most regions.
I have found but few traces of a in America in the 18th
century. Perry, 1785, recommends what is probably Je in
bask, blanch, blast, brass, chant, glance, etc., and also in aunt,
craunch, daunt, flaunt, haunch, jaunt, paunch, scraunch,
although he admits o as well in haunch and paunch; part
has se (possibly &). Webster, Diss., 1789, prefers se in aunt,
jaunt, sauce, although the English use o. Fraser, 1794, has
"aa" (se or a?) in aunt, launch. Mackintosh, 1797, gives se
before spirants and nasals (ba3J>, da3ns, kwsef) and generally
before r (33 rt, fser, fsers, Iserdj), but a in arm and are; 2 in
augment, aunt, balm, qualm, vaunt he uses o; he ascribes a
pronunciation with a to many words of French or Latin
origin (clamor, claret, Paris, etc.), but I do not feel sure that
this represents the New England practice of his day. Hale,
1799, seems to have short 33 before r (gserd, ks3rv, maBrt/",
pa3rt, skserf), long se before spirants and nasals (seft, bsem,
bsesk, draft, gient, hsef, taint, etc.).
Early in our own century, however, a had established itself.
Murray, to be sure, 1802 (2d Boston ed.), mentions no a :
with him aunt, flaunt, gauntlet have 83. And Alden, 1813
(6th ed.), does not recognize our vowel : his back and bark
have respectively short and long a3 ; draught, laugh have p.
But Webster, in 1806, finds a place for "Italian a," and
sharply criticizes Sheridan for " omitting " it; he says it is
^Launch, laundry, haunt, etc.
* This is the only instance of a in are that I have found 'before 1830.
The word is regularly eT or ser in the 18th century. Franklin always
writes it er.
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 215
used in such words as ask, dance, demand, father, psalm.
Kirkharu, N. Y., 1830 (20th ed.), has "Italian a" in bar,
farther, but & in glass. Willard, 1840 (19th ed.), speaks of
" long Italian a," as in aunt, calf, cart, gaunt. Clark, 1 830,
knows our a, and prescribes it in aunt, father, guard, heart,
ma, pa. In the same year appeared Worcester's first dic-
tionary, containing both a and the intermediate &, which
latter sound he uses before spirants and nasals : he declares
that " to pronounce the words fast, last, glass, grass, dance,
etc., with the proper sound of short a, as in hat, has the
appearance of affectation ; and to pronounce them with the
full Italian sound of a, as in part, father, seems to border
on vulgarism." This compromise vowel, which was recom-
mended also in England, does not seem to have been adopted,
in actual speech, by any considerable number of Americans;
it may be heard, however, on Cape Cod. Lowell, 1848,
shows an extension of a to some words outside our class, such
as handsome; and Holmes, 1857, condemns as vulgar such
pronunciations as " sahtisfahctory," " a prahctical mahn."
One may still hear, from elderly New England rustics, apl,
harna, mata, pantri, satdi for apple, hammer, matter, pantry,
Saturday. It seems likely that the present cultivated eastern
New England usage was established between 1790 and 1800,
although there were doubtless sporadic cases of our vowel
before that. Whether the a was a native growth, or was
imported from England, I cannot say. In vulgar Yankee
speech the a may have developed, or been adopted, a little
earlier, and it certainly spread with great rapidity, forcing its
way into many words that have since cast it out. It was
probably at the height of its popularity between 1830 and
1850. At present it seems to be declining, both in urban
and in rural speech. The vicissitudes of this vowel afford a
striking refutation of the doctrine that a phonetic develop-
ment cannot retrace its steps.
216 C. H. GRANDGENT.
fi, 1, 0, tr.
[Ai in baity ea in beat, oa in boat, oo in
These vowels were certainly monophthongs in the 18th
century : 1, 6, u were probably close ; was doubtless in
England until 1750 or thereabouts, and then gradually
became e. With Franklin, 6 is still open : he describes it
as a long e. In Mackintosh, 1797 : e in scene is like French
i; oa in boat is like French 6; u in rule is like French ou in
roule; a in hate is like French 6, but English ai and also
a in -age, -are, -ation, -ave and in acre, april, bathe, cane,
capable, range, same, tame, and many other words, are like
French e. The change from to e probably took place in
New England during the last quarter of the century.
All these vowels, unless they be followed by r, are now
strongly diphthongal in southern England, and more or less
so in America. The amount of breaking depends, with us,
on the length of the vowel, and that is regulated by its posi-
tion in the word or phrase. The extreme types, in New
England, rarely go beyond 6e, ii, 60, tiu, but , 6 may some-
times reach the stage 6i, 6u. When did this development
take place? Smart, in 1810, identifies English a with
French 6, and French and German grammars of 1814, 1821,
1823, and 1832, written for Englishmen, describe the " long
a " as French ^ or German eh or ee. Readers of Miss Edge-
worth will remember that the Irish lady, in The Absentee,
who tries to affect an English accent, substitutes i for her
native Q in such words as taste; this could hardly happen
unless the sound imitated were e. I do not know when the
breaking began in England. In America the first mention
of it that I have been able to find is in Willard (19th edition
in 1840); he is very explicit : "o begins with a sound, which
is never heard alone, except in the New England pronuncia-
tion of such words, as whole, home, stone, which they pronounce
shorter than hole, comb, bone," and ends with u, "as in do; "
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 217
the a of cane begins with the e of men and ends with the e of
me. He says nothing about 1 and u, but the diphthongal
character of these sounds is not so easily recognizable. By
1820, then, the development of 6, 6, and doubtless of all four
vowels, was complete in New England. Follen, 1831, says
that the German e is " nearly like a in fate, yet closer, and
without the sound of an e which is slightly heard at the end
of long a in English."
In a great many words 6 is shortened and slightly advanced,
in rustic New England speech, becoming 6. This vowel is
used by educated New England speakers in about fifty common
words and their derivatives, and it certainly prevails in the
cultivated usage of this region in Polk, polka, whole, and
probably in both, folks, Holmes, most, only, and some others.
Franklin does not mention the sound ; but Webster says in
his Diss., 1789 : " o is sometimes shortened in common par-
lance, as in colt." Among Dearborn's "Improprieties/' 1795,
we find "hum." Hale, 1799, remarks: "the short sound of
6 is found in too few words to make a distinct class : they
are home, none, stone, whole, and their compounds." Willard's
observation concerning " the New England pronunciation of
such words, as whole, home, stone" has already been quoted.
Dearborn's " hum " is doubtless intended to represent horn,
not hem, although U is actually used in Connecticut ; I have
never heard it elsewhere, and Lowell once told me he had
never heard it. Similar, in a way, to short 6 is the short u
in such words as hoof, proof, roof, room, soon. It goes back
to the last century, but was probably regarded until recently
as a vulgarism. Dearborn, 1795, gives "huff, ruff, spunfull"
in his list of " Improprieties."
When these vowels are followed by r, as in pare, peer, pore,
poor, their fate is different : the vowels do not break, but an
indistinct vowel-glide develops before the r. This glide will
be discussed under r; it goes back certainly to Franklin's
day, and probably much farther. The " long a," under these
4
218 C. H. GRANDGENT.
circumstances, retains either its old or its older se sound ;
the pronunciations pe^ar and psear exist side by side, se being
perhaps the commoner in New England. They have both
been in use during our whole period : Franklin notes fair as
fi$r, there both as iSsear and as $<*r. Hale, 1799, has before r
a sound that is probably se. Cummings, 1822, gives a in
layer, mayor, & (= ?) in care, pair. Willard observes : " a
in care, and a in carry, are exactly alike in everything, but
the time that is spent in pronouncing them, as much alike as
a dollar and a half-dollar." " Long e " is frequently lowered
to i ; and, although none of our informants mention it, we
may be tolerably confident that a pronunciation piar has
existed beside piar throughout our period. Similarly, pore
may be either pgar or poar. The southern English pro-
nunciation poa has become very popular in the vicinity of
New York and Boston ; I have found no trace of it before
1850, but it may have existed very much earlier as a vulgar-
ism. Such words as for, short, where o precedes an r that is
final or followed by a consonant, form a different class, and
in them o has been o for a couple of centuries or longer ; the
exceptional cases, such as porch, pork, port, sport, in which
the o is sounded 6, have, as far as I can discover, been pro-
nounced substantially in the same way, in New England,
during our whole period, 1 although nowadays, in the neighbor-
hood of Boston, they share the fate of words like pore. " Long
oo," like i and 6, may have either the close or the open pro-
nunciation, puar or puar. In some dialects this u is further
lowered to o, Q, and even o ; in New England this practice
exists only for a few words, such as sure and your, and is
frowned upon everywhere but in Boston, where yoaz = yours
is very common. It certainly goes back to 1795, when we
find /oar for sure noted as an " impropriety."
1 Dearborn, 1795, condemns "coard" for cord. Hale, 1799, has 6 in four,
hoar, hoard, store, worn, and o (!) in forge, horse, snort. Willard has 6 in roar,
etc., but, very curiously, o in board.
FKOM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 219
AND O.
[Au in caught, o in cot.~\
These two vowels, in England, are rounded, and are uttered
with a tongue-position similar to that of o and Q, but lower.
This was doubtless the American practice in the 18th century,
although some speakers, while sounding the o of or as o,
apparently gave to au and aw the value a, Nowadays Ameri-
can o is nearly always unrounded, and is formed by drawing
the tongue as far back and as low down as it will go;
American o has generally become a retracted a, or a, but in
Maine, and with many speakers in all eastern New England,
it retains a little rounding.
Franklin makes no distinction between the vowel of storm
and that of awl; moreover, according to him, the o of ball
and the o of folly differ only in quantity, both of them
" requiring the mouth opened a little more [than for 6], or
hollower." Mackintosh, 1797, identifies o in dot with French
6; o in born is the same sound lengthened ; but au in haul is
like the French d, " mais plus long encore." Our other
authors throw but little light on the subject: Ware, 1814, in
his clumsy phonetic spelling, represents D by aw, o by au;
Willard describes o as " the long German sound," o as short
o. If this last description is to be trusted, o and o must have
lost their lip-modification by 1820; but they evidently had
not acquired their present character, for our o and o could
never have been regarded by a careful observer, like Willard,
as the long and short of the same sound. It is possible that
our unrounded o is the descendent of Mackintosh's a = au,
aw, which has attracted and swallowed up the original rounded
o = o(r) ; in Franklin's pronunciation, on the other hand, o
had apparently absorbed &.
In very many cases there is in America a difference of
usage between o and o. The doubtful words may be classified
220 C. H. GRANDGENT.
as follows : those containing a or au before 1 -+- consonant ; l
those containing o (or, after w or u, an a) before a voiceless
spirant, 2 a voiced spirant, 3 a nasal, 4 a voiced stop, 5 an 1 or
an r. 6 All these words commonly have o in England. In
America those of the first class have o almost universally,
although o is sometimes heard in New England ; those of the
third and sixth classes, and most of those of the fourth and
fifth, have o in New England, but long, etc., dog, gone, want,
and a few others are usually pronounced with o ; those of the
second class have both sounds in New England (o predomi-
nating), and almost always o everywhere else. This confusion
has probably lasted through our whole period, but I find
nowhere any mention of the third and fifth classes, nor any
recognition of the sixth except solv (Perry) : in these the
o was doubtless regarded as vulgar. Perry prescribes o in
cloth, cross, loft, moth, off, etc., and also in solve. Mackintosh,
1797, gives the sound o to the a of salt. Hale, 1799, has o
in cost, dross, frost, froth, moth, scald, soft, tongs, o in fault, 7
gone, halt, malt, swan, vault, 7 wand, wash. It seems likely
that o has gained a little, in the last hundred years, in culti-
vated New England pronunciation.
E AND V.
[ U in hurt, u in hut.~\
These two vowels, e and , are now generally distinguished,
although both of them are differently pronounced in various
localities. In central New York and southern New Jersey
they are said to be regularly identical, both being sounded B ;
this may be the case in some other regions ; it is also the
Irish pronunciation. On the other hand, the substitution of
e for B before r -f vowel, as in courage, hurry, is very common
1 Also, alter, fault, scald, etc. *Long, on, romp, etc.
2 Cloth, lost, often, wash, etc. *Dg, Ood, squab, etc.
3 Bother, novel, rosin, was, etc. *Doll, horrid, quarrel, swallow, etc.
7 The earlier 18th century pronunciation was fot, vot.
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 221
in the West and South. The vowel B in England and in
Maine is formed nearly as far back in the mouth as 6 ; in the
greater part of the United States it is less retracted, and in
the South it has a decidedly " mixed " quality. The English
e is unrounded, and is described by Sweet as " low-mixed ; "
the American sound is very often slightly rounded, and
requires the tongue a little higher than the English variety.
By the middle of the 18th century "short u" had probably
been unrounded and lowered into v, and it has not materially
changed since then, except before r final or -f- consonant.
Here, also, in the neighborhood of 1750, u (and o in word, etc.)
had the sound TS while e and i vacillated between v and e.
In the second half of the century popular usage tended to
level all these groups to BF, and good speakers were divided
between this practice and an effort to keep the value er, or
something approaching it, for at least a part of the words
with er, ir. Sheridan, 1780, seems to follow no method in
this matter : he has e, for instance, in firm, herb, pearl, stern,
V in fir, first, her, stir. Walker, 1791, says that er, ir -f- con-
sonant have " the sound of short u exactly," except in birth,
firm, girl, girt, girth, mirth, skirt, whirl; er, ir at the end of a
syllable (and in the words just mentioned) "approach the
sound of short u;" many people "corruptly" give the sound
B to er, ir, ur indiscriminately. We should like to know more
of the nature of the vowel resembling B a sound obscurely
described by several authors long before our period : was it a
stressed a, or was it already the American type of e ? Some
kind of e was in regular use in 1810, when Smart wrote his
Practical Grammar of English Pronunciation : ur, he says,
"has an open 1 which corresponds with the shut 1 sound,"
B . . . ; " this open sound is never heard on any other occa-
sion ; " er, ir, he adds, are usually pronounced like ur, " but
with polite speakers, we hear a deviation from the latter
pronunciation," approaching er. The foreign grammars of
1 With Smart, "open" means dose, and "shut," open.
222 C. H. GRANDGENT.
English that I have been able to examine, down to 1832,
make no distinction between is and e ; Gratte, Cours de Langue
anglaise, Brussels, 1814, for instance, says that i in birch,
bird, fir, third, etc., is "comme o ouvert," which is also his
definition of " short it." Ollendorff, in 1839, defines German
6 as English i in bird. We may safely infer that e was
developed and came into general use in England between
1780 and 1810 j 1 but whether it grew out of rar, or out of er,
or, as is far more likely, out of a compromise between Br and
er, we cannot be sure.
When did e first appear in America ? Franklin does not
distinguish it from 12 ; both ur and er, ir he sounds rar. The
Gr. Inst., 1784, tells us that "the proper sound of e and i
before r " is " short e, nearly," a vowel different from e and
from TB, as in birth, earth, firm, person; but 12 is heard in bird,
fir, her. Perry, 1785, defines er, ir, ur as rar, without excep-
tions. Ash, 1785, has 'e in bird, third. In the Diss., 1789,
Webster informs us that " rnarcy," etc., is common in the
vulgar dialect of New England (and "dark, sargeant" in
cultivated speech), while " murcy " is an error of " fine
speakers," the correct form being mersi. Fraser, 1794,
recommends i for i before r final or -}- consonant, but cites
numerous exceptions. Mackintosh, 1797, says that the French
e ofje is used in but, cur, fir, her, under; he gives no excep-
tions. Hale, 1799, prefers i in whirl. Murray, 1802, gives
us ra in first and flirt. The Companion, 1805, makes no dis-
tinction between fir and fur. Alden, 1813, has E in birch,
*A sound resembling e, probably accented a, must have existed^ in the
dialect of some speakers at a much earlier date. Boiling (cited by Holt-
hausen in his Englische Aussprache), a Norwegian, whose Fkddkommen
Engelske Grammatica was published in Copenhagen in 1678, says that first,
thirst have Danish 0, while church, nurse have u. Sterpin, a Frenchman
living in Denmark, brought out, about 1665 or 1670, a French-English-
Danish grammar called Institutiones glotticce, in which ir is said to be
equivalent to Danish 0r: see Holthausen in the Archivfur das Studium der
neueren Sprachen u. Lit., xcix, 3-4. See also Sweet, History of English
Sounds, pp. 264-5.
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 223
bird, dirty first, flirt, shirt, sir, stir, third, thirst, e in chirp,
dirge, firkin, firm, gird, girl, girt, mirth, skirmish, skirt, smirk,
stirp, twirl, virge, virgin, virtue, whirl. Ware, 1814, in his
popular pronunciation, always has ur (" btird," "purfec,"
"survant," "vurtoo"), except in earth, which is "arth."
Willard affirms that " e before r in serve, sermon, serpent, and
the like, is to have the same kind of sound, which it has in
berry, but it is to be nearly twice as long ....;" " it is not
to be pronounced like u in surly, nor like a in Sardis, nor
like a in care; " ur in burst, on the other hand, has long a,
or, as he tells us, a vowel of the same quality as that of bur,
burrow, dove, worry. In Worcester, 1830, we find e recog-
nized as a vowel distinct from all others, and as the regular
pronunciation of er, ir, ur. Turning to the German grammars,
we find in Follen, 1831, that 6 has "no correspondent sound
in English ;" while Fosdick, 1838, regards 6 "nearly as the
English u in /Mr." Monteith, 1844, says: "6 is pronounced
like the French eu. The inflection given by a native of
London to ir, in such words as birth, mirth, is a still more
correct pronunciation of the 6." We may gather from all
this testimony that a sound approaching e was sometimes
used by 1784, but that Br (and, in artificial speech, er) pre-
vailed until the neighborhood of 1820; that e was fully
developed and much employed by 1830, but that it could
still appear a foreign sound in New England in 1844. In
America, as in England, it seems likely that er first belonged
to the er, ir words, and was the result of a conscious or
unconscious compromise between -er and er.
U AND YU.
[0o in food, eu in feud.~\
The pronunciation of "long u" has long been* a source of
trouble to orthoepists. At present, in New England, the
sound is : yu at the beginning -of a word or after h * (in this
1 Use, hue, etc.
224 C. H. GBANDGENT.
latter case the y is often unvoiced) ; yu (rustic i'u) after b, f,
g, k, m, p, v ; l regularly u (but sometimes, especially in the
country, i'u) after 1, r, s, /, y, z, 5 ; 2 u or i'u (about equally
common) after d, n, t, J>. 3
Franklin probably pronounced iu in the first two cases, u
in the last two : we find in his texts fiu, nu, rul, tru. Webster,
Diss., had a diiFereut pronunciation : according to him, " long
u" always had the same sound, which was neither u nor a
diphthong, but " a separate vowel, which has no affinity to
any other sound in the language," and is best pronounced by
countrymen and children ; in new, he says, no e is heard,
except in Virginia, where they affect to say " ne-oo, fe-oo."
In Webster's Connecticut pronunciation, apparently, some-
thing resembling the old ii still remained, perhaps a " high-
mixed" vowel. This sound, though doubtless foreign to
Franklin's Boston pronunciation, was probably common in
rural New England, and must have been an important factor
in the later confusion of u and i'u in rustic speech. Some of
the English country dialects point to a similar preservation
of a " high-mixed " vowel. Perry calls for " long u " (does
he mean i'u or ii?) in June, luce, prune, ruse, spruce, strew,
sure, truce, truth, yew, and condemns u in absolute, presume,
true. Walker, on the other hand, advocates the three treat-
ments of "long u" represented by tyun, flt/ar, rud, for which
he is roundly abused by Webster in 1806.
There is no doubt that the counsels of Perry and Webster
were misunderstood by later orthoepists, and led to an intro-
duction of yu or i'u, in polite speech, after dentals, and to
heroic attempts to pronounce one of these groups after all
consonants. The ensuing confusion probably did much to
mix up u and i'u in the rural dialect. This mixing we see
already in Ware's representation of Vermont speech in 1814 :
" tu "= two, " trooth," " hooman," " redoosing," " obskoor,"
1 Scanty, few, Gulick, cue, muse, pew, view, etc.
2 Lure, rheum, sue, sure, yew, resume, juice, etc.
3 Due, new, tune, thews, etc.
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 225
"noomerator," "dootee," "dispooted," "constitooshun," "du"
= do. Hawes, 1824, gives as words pronounced alike rood
and rude, room and rheum. The Biglow Papers are full of
instances. Willard says of eu, ew, ue: "these diphthongs,
when they follow r, Mr. Walker pronounces like o in do, as
in brew, true, etc. In most other cases, they have the natural
sound of u [i. e. i'u], as blue, blew." He criticizes the pro-
nunciation " juty, chune, multichude," which, he says, " is
affected by some persons, who pretend to follow Mr. Walker."
Djuti, t/un, etc., which are mentioned by Webster, 1789, as
common but undesirable pronunciations, are no longer used
here, except by the Irish. The confusion between u and i'u
was probably at its height about 1820; the present tendency
seems to be to revert to Franklin's practice.
When " long u " follows the principal or secondary accent,
it is, of course, shortened to yu or u, and frequently obscured
to ya or 9. After n, as in continue, the suppression of the
y is now vulgar. Otherwise this "u" is treated like the
accented one, unless it be preceded by t, d, s, or z : in this
case the consonant combines with the first element of the "u,"
and tu, du, su } zu become t/a, dga, /a, ja. This pronunciation
is practically universal among good speakers, in spite of the
efforts of modern orthoepists to force upon the public such
combinations as ne^tyur, verdyur, isyu, plezyur; in the country,
however, a different treatment of tu, du is to be found, namely,
the omission of the y, and the development ta, da. These last
two groups are probably the only ones whose pronunciation
has changed during our period. But for these two the de-
velopments ta, da (or til, du) and t/a, dja existed side by side
in the 18th century, and in New England the former certainly
prevailed. Franklin said nsetaral. Webster, 1789, declares
that ne"tur, v^rdiir (or netar, v^rdar ?) is the only good usage.
Thomas, 1785, says century is pronounced like sentry. Perry,
1785, condemns both n6tar and n^t/ur (as well as /uprlm).
The Y. L. G. JSp. B. has : captor = capture, coulter- = culture,
"feter" (defined as "a bad smell ") = feature, jester = gesture.
226 C. H. GRANDGENT.
Murray, 1802, favors dyu in verdure. Ntar, etc., probably
became vulgar early in this century.
Ware's Vermont forms, 1814, show the same confusion
for unaccented as for accented " u : " " vallooing," " vurtu,"
"figyur," " misfourtins," " unokkoopiid," "kreetyoor," "abso-
loot," "kontinoos," "naychoor," "nayter," "nacher," "sitooa-
shun," " kontribbited." The forms without y prevail in the
Biglow Papers. Cummings, 1822, gives as identical captor
and capture, valley and value. Kirkham, 1830, tells us that
d is to be sounded " j " in educate, grandeur, verdure. Willard
says : (f tu, in the syllable following the accent, has a sound
resembling that of chu, as in nature, virtuous; " the d in
assiduous, he remarks elsewhere, has " very nearly the sound
THE SHORT VOWELS.
, e, o, i, u : a, e, a, i, oo in fat, fet, sofa, fit, fooL~]
The short B, as in hut, and o, as in hot, have already been
discussed. There remain se, e, a, i, u, which have probably
not changed in sound during the epoch we are studying.
Early in the 18th century, " short a " was perhaps , but it
must have become se before Franklin's time. Mackintosh,
1797, informs us that a in arc (" short a") is like French &,
that e in bed is equivalent to French e, that the vowel in bit
is "plus breve et plus gutturale que Yi Frai^ois le plus bref,"
and that u in pull is the same thing as French ou iupoule;
he does not speak of 9. Franklin confuses a both with e and
with B. We have no specific mention of this sound until we
reach Willard, who says it is identical with B.
The rustic use of e for i, so common in Lowell, can be
traced back to the 18th century: Dearborn, 1795, criticizes
" sense" for since and "sperrit" for spirit; Hale, 1799, has
"ben" for been; in Ware, 1814, we find "entu" for into;
Cummings, 1822, mentions without condemnation "desk"
for disc, " set " for sit. Lowell's use of e for B, in words like
brush, such) is exemplified in Webster, who says that " shet "
FROM FKANKLIN TO LOWELL. 227
for shut "is now becoming vulgar/' and condemns "sich"
for such; in our century it has existed only as a dialect
pronunciation, and it seems now to be disappearing. The
substitution of e for SB in certain words, now a characteristic
of rustic speech, we find in Franklin, who said hez for has;
The Y. L. G. Sp. B. has keif for catch; Ware has " hev " and
" hed ; " Lowell furnishes numerous examples. According to
Webster, Diss., quadrant, qualify, quality, quandary, quantity,
shall are pronounced both with SB and with o ; he prefers 83.
Webster tells us also that such words as drop, oft, soft are
often spoken with SB among the descendants of Scotch and
Irish. In a few words, such as friend, get, yes, yesterday, the
(or ie) was usually sounded i in the 18th century : Franklin
said frind and git; Mackintosh has blis for bless; in the 19th
century this practice ceased to be fashionable, but git still
lingers among the uncultured, and i for e is a regular feature
of the Irish brogue.
THE DIPHTHONGS.
[Ai, oi, au : y, oy, ough in by, boy, bough."]
" Long i," in New England, is now generally sounded ai,
less frequently m or sei. Franklin pronounced it Bi, as in
/einz = shines, rarSar = either. Webster, 1789, defines it as
ai, and condemns a fashionable pronunciation " keind, skey
gueide," meaning kyseind, skysei, gyseid, forms that flourished
through the first quarter of our century, and have not yet
entirely gone out of use. Mackintosh, 1797, says i in ice is
like French ai. Clark, 1830, tells us that mine is equivalent
to ma in in the sentence " is ma in ? " Willard, on the other
hand, has rai, the vowel of bur -j- that of me.
The usual pronunciation of oi is now oi. This is also
the sound given to it by Webster, 1789, and Perry, 1785.
Mackintosh, 1797, says that the oi of point is like French oi
in pointe probably an erroneous statement. Ware, 1814,
228 C. H. GKANDGENT.
represents oi as " aw-i : " joys = " jawis." Willard describes
it as made up of the vowel of north -f- that of pin.
The confusion of ai and oi, which has now become very
vulgar, was extremely prevalent throughout the 18th century.
Fraser, 1794, contains this couplet :
" The sound of o i custom reconciles
With that of i spoke long ; as, witness toils."
All lists of words pronounced alike contained such pairs as
bile boil, engine enjoin, file foil ', pint point, tile toil. These we
find, without condemnation, as late as 1822. Dearborn, 1795,
on the other hand, mentions " bile" and " brile" as " impro-
prieties/ 7 and Willard calls "ile, pint, line," for oil, point,
loin, " very old-fashioned."
The diphthong ou was "ou" (probably QU) in the speech
of Franklin and of Webster, From the Diss., 1789, we
learn that ou, especially after p and c, is often improperly
sounded " ion," as " kiow," " piower ; " but ground, round,
etc., are pronounced "with tolerable propriety" by "the most
awkward countryman." Mackintosh, 1797, analyzes ou as
French aou, which may indicate a3u, but more probably
stands for au. Willard defines it as ou, and remarks : " many
persons give to the o in this diphthong the Italian sound of a
in car : and what is unspeakably worse, many others give it
a flat sound, as in care." He adds careful directions for the
pronunciation of cow. Lowell shows regularly the form yseu
or aeu, which has become a striking feature of our rural dia-
lect. The urban pronunciation is now au.
H.
The suppression of initial h followed by an accented vowel,
a vulgarism that has flourished for some time in England,
perhaps existed here toward the end of the 18th century.
Franklin has no trace of it, and I do not find it mentioned in
Webster. Perry, 1785, says that the h in hewer, human, etc.,
" sounds as if it began with ay;" does this mean that the h
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 229
is silent ? The Y. L. G. Sp. B. gives as words pronounced
alike : alter halter, am ham, and hand, arbor harbor, ark
hark, arm harm. Murray, 1802, says : " From the faintness
of the sound of this letter, in many words, and its total
absence in others, added to the negligence of tutors, and the
inattention of pupils, it has happened, that many persons
have become almost incapable of acquiring its just and full
pronunciation." It is very likely, however, that this was
written with reference rather to English than to American
usage; and the list of homophones just quoted may have
been copied from an English book. The practice certainly
never took root in America; there is no evidence of it in
Lowell.
NG.
In the 18th century, both in England and in America,
final unaccented -ing was currently pronounced -in. Frank-
lin, however, has -in, and the American authorities do not
countenance -in, being stricter in this respect than the Eng-
lish. Dearborn, 1795, classes it among his " Improprieties."
Murray, 1802, says: "The participial ing must always have
its ringing sound; as, writing, reading, speaking. Some
writers have supposed that when ing is preceded by ing, it
should be pronounced in; as, singing, bringing should be
sounded singin, bringin : but as it is a good rule, with respect
to pronunciation, to adhere to the written words, unless
custom has clearly decided otherwise, it does not seem proper
to adopt this innovation." In Lowell, -in is regular, and
this is still the rustic and the vulgar urban usage; among
cultivated people it has become rarer and rarer, although it
is still occasionally heard from educated speakers.
In the reaction against -in, the sound g was substituted, by
the ignorant, for the n of final unaccented -in, as in curtain,
fountain, mountain. This pronunciation, which is still alive
in many rural dialects, goes back at least to the latter part of
the 18th century. Dearborn, 1795, includes in his " Impro-
prieties : " " brethering," " linning," " sarting," "severing."
230 C. H. GRANDGENT.
R.
At present, with most speakers in eastern New England,
r is sounded as a consonant only before a vowel; before a
consonant, or at the end of a phrase, it is either silent or
pronounced as a vowel ; in the speech of old-fashioned rustics
it is sometimes omitted even before a vowel, as in bei = bury,
fam =from, wei = worry. But in most of Connecticut and
Vermont, and in Massachusetts west of the Connecticut River,
r, with the majority of speakers, always has its consonantal
value, although of course it is never trilled. This is the
practice in the rest of the North and the West, while the
South agrees with eastern New England. The r-country
seems to be increasing rather than diminishing; and even in
the r-less region, especially in cities, consonant r is probably
gaining ground, partly through school training and partly
through Irish influence.
In southern England the usage is almost identical with
that of eastern New England and our South ; in northern
England r has been better preserved, although the r of that
region is not so strong as the usual American type. The loss
of consonant r, both in England and in America, probably
took place, in the main, during the latter part of the 18th
and the first years of the 19th century. Sheridan's dictionary,
1780, and Smith's Attempt to Render the Pronunciation of the
English Language easy to Foreigners, London, 1795, admit for
r only one sound, doubtless meaning the tip-trill. Noehden's
German Grammar, however, in 1800, informs us that r "is
deprived of much of its force and shrillness by the English
mode of pronunciation . . . . ; " "in English the sound is
particularly slight at the end."
Meanwhile Walker, 1791, distinguishes two kinds of r: 1
" the rough r is formed by jarring the tip of the tongue
*Ben Jonson's English Grammar, 1640, says that r is "sounded firme in
the beginning of the words, and more liquid in the middle, and ends " a
statement that lends itself to various interpretations. It indicates, at any
rate, a difference in the sound of r according to its position.
PROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 231
against the roof of the mouth near the fore teeth : the smooth
r is a vibration of the lower part of the tongue, near the root,
against the inward region of the palate, near the entrance of
the throat ; " the first is to be used before vowels, the second
under all other conditions ; but " in England, and particu-
larly in London, the r in lard, bard, card, regard, etc., is
pronounced so much in the throat as to be little more than
the middle or Italian a, lengthened into laad, baad, caad,
regaad." This statement, if it be at all correct, teaches us
three interesting things : in the first place, r before a vowel
was still sounded, in 1790, as a tip-trill ; secondly, r before a
consonant (and r final ?) had already been reduced, in London
and elsewhere, to a vowel glide; thirdly, in the speech of
many Englishmen, r final or -f- consonant was a sort of velar
spirant, possibly a trill. In some regions a " burred " r still
persists, having crowded out the lingual roll ; l while in other
dialects a weak open velar consonant, a kind of unrounded
w, takes the place of " rough r," the " smooth " variety being
completely lost or vocalized. 2 With most speakers, however,
r not followed by a vowel first developed into our modern
unrolled type, which then supplanted the "rough r" before
vowels, at the same time weakening into an a when no vowel
followed.
This development is indicated by Smart, in his Grammar
of English Pronunciation, London, 1810. The "rough r"
he defines as a trill of the tongue-point against the gums ; the
" smooth r is produced by curling back the tongue till its tip
almost points toward the throat, while its sides lean against
the gums of the upper side teeth and leave a passage in the
middle for the voice" an excellent description of the modern
consonant r. " Rough r," he says, is to be used before vowels,
" smooth r " under all other circumstances. This consonant,
he adds, "is more frequently the cause of a defect in pronun-
^ee Sweet's Primer of Phonetics, Oxford, 1890, 211.
8 1 have noted this pronunciation in nearly all the Oxford men I have
met. It is occasionally heard in America.
232 C. H. GRANDGENT.
ciation than any other." In London, he continues, t( smooth
r " is often substituted for " rough," and a vowel sound for
the "smooth;" the Irish, on the other hand, use the "rough"
for the " smooth ; " some persons can pronounce no r, others
have a guttural " burr."
Just when the " rough r " was discontinued in England,
and the London substitution of a vowel glide for "smooth r"
ceased to be a local peculiarity, I cannot tell. The actual fall
of r before a consonant, in many cases, must have begun long
before Walker's time. It doubtless disappeared first before
s and /: in harsh its fall dates back to Middle English, in
marsh at least to the 17th century. In many other words it
must have vanished before s, in the vulgar speech of England
and America, before ^r became er and before ser became ar
that is, probably, before 1780 : witness burst = b^st, curse =
kiss, first = fust, nurse = m?s, purse = pss, worse = wras, and
arse = aes, dar'st = dses, scarce = skaes.
Let us now trace the history of r in New England.
Franklin's r is made with "the tip of the tongue a little
loose or separate from the roof of the mouth, and vibrat-
ing ; " the word there he writes both $$r and iSaeer, the latter
form indicating the development of a glide before the r.
Perry observes : " If r be preceded by a vowel, and followed
by e in the same syllable, in spite of every effort to the con-
trary, there will appear two distinct sounds in that pretended
syllable, as in Hare, sere, dire, etc." Webster says in the Gr.
Inst., 1784, that r "always has the same sound, as in barrel,
and is never silent;" higher and hire he pronounces alike.
In the Diss., 1789, he remarks: "Some of the southern
people, particularly in Virginia, almost omit the sound of r,
as in ware, there. In the best English pronunciation the
sound of r is much softer than in some of the neighboring
languages, particularly the Irish and Spanish." In the Am.
Sp. B., 1794, he repeats the statement that "r has only one
sound, as in barrel." Bingham, 1794, cites as a vulgarism
" voff " for wharf. In the Y. L. G. Sp. B. we find among
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 233
the pairs of words " similar in sound : " bust burst, calk cork,
dust durst, father farther, fust first. Dearborn's list of "Im-
proprieties," 1795, contains: " dazzent," " gal," "kose" =
coarse, " skase " scarce, and also " feller," " lor," " sor,"
"taters," "widder," "winder," showing the addition of r,
now very prevalent in eastern New England after 9, a, o,
especially when the next word begins with a vowel. Hale,
however, in 1799, tells us that r "is formed by turning up
and quickly vibrating the end of the tongue in the middle
of the mouth."
Passing to our own century, we find Murray, 1802, follow-
ing Walker: (( r has a rough sound; as in Rome, river, rage:
and a smooth one; as in bard, card, regard." "Re, at the
end of many words," he adds, " is pronounced like a weak
er ; as in theatre, sepulcre, massacre." In Ware, 1814, occur
the forms "galz," "konfeeld." Cummings, 1822, includes
among his homophones : alms arms, bust burst, calk cork, dust
durst, father farther, fuzz furze, pillow pillar. Hawes, 1824,
repeats Webster's statement with a significant modification :
" r has one sound only, with little variation, as in barrel, and
is never silent." According to him, dire, hire, lore, lyre are
pronounced like dier, higher, lower, liar. Kirkhain, 1830,
copies Murray. Willard is more independent: "R, is never
silent. In the beginning of a word, and when it comes
between two vowels, as in rag or very, it has a great deal of
sound ; but when it comes before a consonant, as in harm or
bird, it has very little sound. After several vowels, however,
it is heard almost as a distinct syllable, thus hire, more, and
the like are necessarily pronounced like higher, mower, while
feared, corn, etc., differ little in pronunciation fromfe-ud and
caw-un." " The long common sound of i, o, and u," he says
elsewhere, meaning e, "is often pronounced short, so as to
make first appear like fust, worth like wuth, and burst like
bust. This is very improper." According to Lowell, "the
genuine Yankee never gives the rough sound to r when he
can help it, and often displays considerable ingenuity in avoid-
5
234 C. H. GKANDGENT.
ing it even before a vowel." From his spellings (" ap'il/*
" Pom," " fust/' " the winta of"), and from the actual prac-
tice of his generation, it seems tolerably clear that the "rough
sound " meant to Lowell merely the unrolled consonant r, the
trill being unknown to him as an element of English speech.
Some of the 19th century orthoepists who copied Walker or
Smart may have used " rough " in the same sense.
Can we draw any conclusions from this testimony? In
the first place, we can, I think, safely assume that from the
beginning of our period an r final or -\- consonant, when pro-
nounced with a consonantal value, has been preceded by an
indistinct glide, which, however, is hardly noticeable after
the low and " mixed " vowels, a, E, ss, e, e, and o ; this glide
was probably short and weak as long as the r was trilled, but
became conspicuous as soon as the rolling ceased, and in
modern New England speech has taken the place of the r.
We may infer, moreover, that in Franklin's day r was trilled
under all circumstances ; that Webster always pronounced it
as a consonant, but perhaps without vibration, although the
rolled r remained in use in some regions until the end of
the century; that the modern practice was established at
least as early as 1820. There is no trace of velar r, nor
of the peculiar New York i*. In the vulgar dialect (and
doubtless sporadically in cultivated usage) r was frequently
vocalized or lost before consonants in the latter part of the
18th century; this weakening of r final or + consonant
probably became universal in the rustic speech, and was
extended to many cases of r -|- vowel, during the first ten or
twenty years of our century.
V AND W.
Webster wrote, in 1789 : "The pronunciation of w for v is-
a prevailing practice in England and America ; it is particu-
larly prevalent in Boston and Philadelphia. . . . Many
people say weal, wessel for veal, vessel." He adds that this-
pronunciation is not heard in Connecticut, his native state.
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 235
We have abundant evidence that the substitution of w for
v (and, in a misdirected effort at correctness, of v for w) was
very general in England in the second half of the 18th
century, and was not necessarily a sign of illiteracy. In the
first half of our century this practice came to be regarded as
a Cockney vulgarism, and it has now almost disappeared.
In America I find no traces of its existence except in
Atlantic seaport towns, whither it was doubtless imported
from the mother country. Bingham's Young Lady's Acci-
dence, Boston, 1794, contains, in a list of incorrect sentences :
"I cotch a werry bad cold" and "The wessel lays at the
voff." This pronunciation must have died out in Boston
early in our century. In New York, judging from dialect
stories, it lingered in the slums as late as the sixties. In
Philadelphia it could still be occasionally heard, about 1850,
from elderly and not necessarily ill-educated people.
T7AND WH.
In the 18th century most speakers, both cultured and
ignorant, used w for hw, and this practice still prevails in
southern England. However, the pronunciation hw (or voice-
less w) either was kept alive by some purists, or was resusci-
tated (in America, at least) about the time of the Kevolution.
Perry, 1785 (Edinburgh, 1777), says that h is silent in wharf,
but not in which. Thomas, 1785, tells us that weal and wheel,
wet and whet, wight and white, witch and which are " nearly
alike in sound." " Voff" and " wether" (= whether) are given
as vulgarisms in 1794 and 1814. Cummings, 1822, puts
into a list of homophones wet and whet, wight and white, witch
and which. Lowell, in 1848, declares that the Yankee "omits
altogether" the "h in such words as while, when, where."
This practice has almost died out in New England, even
among the uneducated. It is still to be found, however, in
Salem and Gloucester. In the words whoa ! and why ! the
use of w for hw is common everywhere, and woaf for wharf
is usual in seaport towns.
236 C. H. GRANDGENT.
ACCENT.
One of the striking differences between American and Eng-
lish pronunciation is due to our development (or the English
loss) of a secondary accent in such words as difficulty, necessary,
where the main stress is on the fourth syllable from the end.
It is interesting to read in the Gr. Inst. y 1784: "It is a
general rule that every third syllable has some degree of
accent. . . . When the full accent is on the first syllable,
there is generally a half accent on the third." In the Diss.
he mentions also the New England drawl.
I quote the following passage from Murray, 1802 : "There
is scarcely anything which more distinguishes a person of a
poor education from a person of a good one, than the pro-
nunciation of the unaccented vowels. When vowels are under
the accent, the best speakers and the lowest of the people, with
very few exceptions, pronounce them in the same manner;
but the unaccented vowels in the mouths of the former, have
a distinct, open, and specifick sound, while the latter often
totally sink them or change them into some other sound."
INFLUENCE OF SPELLING.
The printed form of words has long had, both in England
and here, a powerful influence on their development. That
influence seems, at the present day, to be considerably stronger
in America than in the old country. Webster complained of
it in 1789. He cites as instances kuld, wuld, plrt, n6taiv in
the Eastern States, and in the Middle States " prejudice " and
" practise." Pirt is still to be heard in the country.
MISCELLANEOUS.
The following pronunciations, noted between 1788 and
1814, perhaps deserve special mention :
again : Alden, ogen ; so always in the 18th century,
beard : Diss. approve brd, condemn bird.
FROM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 237
because : Diss. say bik6z is frequent in N. E.
chaise : Diss. condemn /e\
china : Alden, t/6na.
chorister : Alden, kwiristar ; common in English manuals.
clerk : Alden, klserk.
clothes : Alden and Y. L. G. Sp. B., kl6z.
colonel : Perry, Mackintosh, Alden, kernel.
deaf: according to Diss., the English say def, the Americans
usually dlf.
deceit (conceit, receipt) : in 1ST. E., according to Diss., the
accented vowel is 6, in the Middle and Southern States
and in England, i.
door (floor) : Y. L. G. Sp. B., u.
either (neither) : Diss., ai only in N. E., in Middle and
Southern States and in England, i; Murray, 1.
European : Diss. approve accent on the o, but say that the
modern fashion is to stress the e.
ewe : Diss., yu in America, y6 in England.
fierce (pierce, tierce) : Diss., e in England, 1 in Middle and
Southern States.
heard : Diss., American pronunciation is bird, but since the
Revolution fashionable people imitate the English
herd or h^rd.
immediate (comedian, commodious, tragedian) : Diss., dj for
di is common in good society, but not to be recom-
mended.
keg : Alden, kaeg.
leap : Diss., Up in America, lep in England.
leeward : Alden, li'uard.
oblige : Diss., ai and i equally good.
once (twice) : Diss., in Middle States wenst, t waist, these pro-
nunciations being common among well educated people
in Philadelphia and Baltimore.
quay : Alden, k.
quote : F. L. G. Sp. B., k6t.
238 C. H. GRANDGENT.
raisin : Diss., rizn very popular in two or three principal
towns in America ; often recommended in text-books.
Rome : Diss., 6 and u both in good use.
sacrifice : Diss., in America in first syllable.
salad (ballad) : Perry, d = t ; common in English manuals.
schedule : Murray, sch = s.
sewer : Alden, /6ar.
sigh : Perry, saiiS ; condemned by Dearborn.
tempt (empty) : Murray, p silent.
to : Franklin, t6 ; cf. Lowell, also Dickens in Martin Chuz-
zlewit.
tyranny : Diss., in America ai in first syllable.
vat (veneer) : Alden, v = .
wound : Diss., in England u, in America generally QU.
wrath : Diss., in America nearly always se.
yellow : Alden, se.
zealous : Diss., ziles in America.
In Dearborn's Columbian Grammar, Boston, 1795, is a list
of " Improprieties," some of which are quoted below :
acrost furder
artur = after gin = given
bamby = by and by ginerally
batchelder hankicher
bekays = because hearn = heard
cheer = chair hizzen = his
chimbley housen =houses
clostest = closest keer = care
cornder = corner keerds = cards
cotch = caught kivver = cover
crap = crop larnin
disjest = digest lemme = let me
drap = drop mild = mile
dreen = drain neest = nest
drownded nunder = under
FKOM FRANKLIN TO LOWELL. 239
ourn sildom
outdacious sitch
pardener = partner sot
parson = person sparrowgrass
quoin'd = coined speek = spike
reasons = raisins study = steady
riz = risen theirn
rozom = rosin townd = town
scythe = sigh want = was not
seek = sex war = were
seed = saw water mi ly on
shear = share week = wick
shot, shet = shut yourn.
THE BIGLOW DIALECT.
In the introduction to the First Series of the Biglow Papers,
Lowell gives the opening speech of Richard III in the rustic
New England pronunciation, as well as he could reproduce it
injthe ordinary characters. Here it is in phonetic spelling:
Nseu iz $9 winta av a3ua diskantent
med g!6rias s^ma ba Sis sun a Yok,
sea ol fta klaBudz Sat Iseuad apun seua ha3us
in Sa dip bezam a Si 6/in berid ;
nseu ea a3ua brseuz bseund iS viktdrias riSz
aeua bri'uzid amz h-Bij 'Bp fa monimans ;
seua stan alaramz t/sendjd ta meri mitinz,
aeua drefl mat/iz ta dalaitfl m^jaz.
Grim-vizidjd wo he); smiuSd hiz rigkld fi"Bnt,
sen na3u, instid a mseuntin beabid stidz
ta frait Sa s6lz a fefl edvaseriz,
hi k^paz nimli in a ldiz t/aamba,
ta Sa lasivias plizin av a Itit.
C. H. GRANDGENT.
VI. THE WORK OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA. 1
In one of his most characteristic essays Matthew Arnold
has discussed the literary influence of academies. He reminds
us that " In the bulk of the intellectual work of a nation
which has no centre, no intellectual metropolis like an
academy .... there is observable a note of provinciality.' 9
This note of provinciality, he further says, is due to one or
both of two causes : (1) To remoteness from a " centre of
correct information ; " and (2) to remoteness from a " centre
of correct taste." Remoteness from a centre of correct infor-
mation gives rise to provinciality of ideas ; while remoteness
from a centre of correct taste gives rise to provinciality of
style. Arnold declares, for example, that Addison, though
free from provinciality of style, is yet provincial in his ideas.
He is not a moralist of the first rank, says Arnold, because
"he has not the best ideas attainable in or about his time,
and which were, so to speak, in the air then, to be seized by
the finest spirits. . . . He is provincial by his matter, though
not by his manner."
I have quoted these words of Arnold because they seem to
me to express with admirable clearness the purpose of our
Association. That purpose is by united effort to establish a
centre of correct information for the settlement of questions
relating to the Modern Languages and Literatures. We wish
to make accessible to every advanced student and to every
teacher of the Modern Languages " the best ideas attainable
in or about his time." When Sir Isaac Newton was asked
why he was able to see into the secrets of nature farther than
other men, his reply was, " Because I stand on the shoulders
l Address of the President of the Central Division of the Modern
Language Association of America, at its Annual Meeting held at the
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb., December, 1898.
240
WORK OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. 241
of giants." And so the teacher of Modern Languages who
does not stand upon the heights already reached, who does
not utilize the results already attained, not only misses the
Pisgah sights but dooms his own labor to the realm of
the provincial and the fragmentary.
Of course books may do much, but I question whether any
number of books can create the atmosphere that one finds at
an association of representative scholars. The various points
of view represented, the unexpected suggestions, the stimu-
lus of personal contact and intercourse, the assaults upon
positions long considered unassailable, the very titles of
papers read, will often do more toward lifting the teacher
out of the routine of thought or method into which he may
have drifted, than any book or books can possibly do.
Teachers and students of language are in constant danger
not only of working in grooves, but of announcing discoveries
that are not discoveries. The editors of philological, educa-
tional, and literary journals all agree that the articles that
fill their waste-baskets and "go the primrose way to the
everlasting bonfire," owe their rejection not to lack of con-
scientious and prolonged effort on the part of those who write
them, but to lack of enlightened up-to-date effort. Every
department of Modern Language study is to-day occupied by
busy workers, the results of whose labors must be known, at
least in part, to every teacher or student who aspires to
eminence or influence in his work.
Let us take a practical illustration. I do not believe that
our country has ever had a more devoted toiler in philology
than Noah Webster; but, largely on account of conditions
unalterable by him, he was an isolated toiler. He died in
1843, and all his etymological work had at once to be revised,
for it was hopelessly behind the times. He had access to no
" centre of correct information ; " he was not in touch with
" the best ideas attainable in or about his time."
Where can you find a better illustration of the note of
provinciality than in Webster's labored and conscientious
242 C. ALPHONSO SMITH.
efforts to explain the linguistic difficulties that confronted
him? He noticed, for example, that his New England
countrymen said kiow instead of cow and he declared, after
due meditation on the subject, that the New England people
owed this peculiarity of pronunciation to " the nature of their
government and the distribution of their property." With
this clue can you divine his meaning ? It is in substance as
follows : The country people of New England have few
slaves, few large fortunes, and few social distinctions. Hence
they have a "drawling nasal tone" instead of that air of
authority found among those who own slaves and pride
themselves on social distinctions. Thus in the South the
master says to his slave, " Milk the cow ; " but in New Eng-
land they advise : " Will you please milk the kiow ? "
Now I do not censure Webster for not belonging to the
Modern Language Association of America, but I use his
revered name as an illustration of the misdirection and
futility that so often attend the best laid efforts of those who
have access to no centre of correct information and who are
therefore not in touch with the best ideas attainable in or
about their time. Webster lived at a time when Jacob Grimm
had laid securely the foundation of historical grammar, when
August Wilhelm von Schlegel had laid the foundation of
Sanskrit philology, when Franz Bopp had laid the founda-
tion of comparative grammar, and when August Friedrich
Pott had laid the foundation of scientific phonetics ; but, like
Gallic, Noah Webster " cared for none of those things."
Arnold tells us again that the provincial spirit invariably
"exaggerates the value of its ideas for want of a high standard
by which to try them." Hence we find Webster declaring
that he has pushed his philological inquiries " probably much
farther than any other man," and has made discoveries that
will " render it necessary to revise all the lexicons Hebrew,
Greek, and Latin now used as classical books." But it
need not be further emphasized that in a department so broad,
WORK OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. 243
so varied, so filled with illustrious names, as that of language
study, isolated effort means futile effort.
Now the Modern Language Association of America stands
for united effort. It seeks by annual meetings and by publi-
cations to organize the agencies and to elevate the standard
of Modern Language study in every State and County of the
Union. It endeavors to educate public sentiment in regard
to the Modern Languages so that the note of provinciality
shall no longer characterize either the investigations of Ameri-
can scholars or the methods of American teachers. This
Association does not believe that the profoundest scholar or
the most successful investigator is always the best teacher;
but it does believe that without the atmosphere of investiga-
tion, without the spirit of research, teaching becomes formal
and learning fragmentary.
That there is need for an Association of this sort, will be
apparent to any one who will review, even cursorily, the
trend of opinion in regard to the Modern Languages. It is
astonishing to see how slow these languages and literatures
have been in coming to their own. Every inch of ground
has been contested. There was not a professorship of Modern
Languages in this country until 1816, when the Smith Pro-
fessorship of French and Spanish was founded at Harvard.
There was no regularly appointed tutor of French at Harvard
before 1806, though Harvard was founded during the life-
time of Corneille, Moli&re, and La Fontaine ; nor was there
an official teacher of German before 1830. The Modern
Languages, says an honored President of the Modern Lan-
guage Association of America, James Russell Lowell, were
not deemed worthy to be taught except " as a social accom-
plishment or as a commercial subsidiary." It has been shown
by statistical investigation that, in the Southern States of the
Union, the study of the Modern Languages did not find a
recognized place in higher education until after 1870; that
before 1860 there were, in the South, probably not more
than three Modern Language professorships.
244 C. ALPHONSO SMITH.
English, on the whole, has fared, I think, worst of all.
"It was in 1874," says President Eliot, "that we established,
for the first time, an examination in English for admission to
Harvard College." It is well known that in the Grammar
Schools of England, from the foundation of Winchester in
Chaucer's time to the present day, Latin has been the domi-
nant subject of study, and in many cases the only subject.
The first book ever used for the formal teaching of English
grammar was Dr. John Colet's Introduction to Lily's Latin
Grammar written in the beginning of Henry VHFs reign.
This book remained the standard of grammatical reference in
England for over two hundred years. Now the significant
fact is that neither Colet's Introduction nor any book emanat-
ing from it was properly an English grammar at all. They
were translations of Latin grammars and were designed to
introduce the pupil to the study of Latin, not to the study
of English. Colet himself calls his book "An Introducyon of
the Partes of Spekyng for Chyldren and Yonge Begynners
in to Latyn Speche," and there is no reason to believe that
he ever anticipated the use of his Introduction except as an
elementary text-book of Latin.
It hardly needs to be said that the teaching of English
out of books like these was simply Procrustean, because the
grammatical rules of a highly inflected ancient language were
foisted upon a Modern Language that had been steadily
dropping its inflections from the dawn of its historical period.
English grammar was defined as an art, but it was taught as
a science ; for there was no attempt made to give practice in
composition or to increase the range and fulness of the pupil's
power of interpretation. And it is only in recent years that
English grammars have begun in some measure to throw off
the incubus of a servile adherence to Latin grammars, and to
claim the right of a separate and independent language to a
separate and independent treatment.
And yet one becomes somewhat reconciled to the neglect of
English grammar in Renaissance times when one considers the
WORK OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. 245
remarkable treatment that other Modern Languages received
at the hands of the Englishmen of that day who essayed
to write popular text-books. One of the French grammars
most widely used in England during the sixteenth century
was prepared by John Palsgrave, a native Londoner. Pals-
grave, it seems, had made some original investigations in
French phonetics, and had arrived at the conclusion that
the French people covet harmony in their speech above all
else. By way of simplifying the matter to young and tender
minds Palsgrave thus explains how the Parisians attain their
harmony of speech : " To be armonyous in theyr speking,
they use one thyng which none other nation dothe, but onely
they. That is to say, they make a maner of modulation
inwardly ; for they forme certayne of theyr vowelles in theyr
brest and suiFre not the sounde of them to passe out by the
mouthe, but to assende from the brest straight up to the palate
of the mouth, and so by reflection yssueth the sounde of them
by the nose." Palsgrave taught French to Henry VHFs
sister. She died early.
The vicissitudes of the Modern Languages in their struggle
for recognition by the side of the Classical Languages form
an interesting and in certain aspects a unique chapter in the
history of education. It is held by all writers on the origin
of grammatical study that grammars were first written for
the purpose of expounding to later generations some great
literary masterpiece that had made its language the norm
for the period. Grammars were at first, therefore, merely
expository, not at all regulative. Thus if a Shakespeare or
a Dante should happen to be born among the negroes of the
South, the negro dialect would soon have its grammar so as
to make possible to a wider circle the interpretation of its
dramatic or epic literature. Literature naturally precedes
grammar, or rather grammar follows literature, for grammar
is the key by which we unlock the treasures of literature.
And yet when it could no longer be denied that masterpieces
of prose and poetry had been produced in the Modern Lan-
246 C. ALPHONSO SMITH.
guages, when Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Luther, Moli&re,
and Cervantes had spoken into existence a sovereign litera-
ture, responsive to the newer needs and pulsing with the
newer life of their centuries, the language of this literature
was deemed unworthy of scientific study. The literature had
come, but the language in which this literature lay incarnate
had to plead for centuries for even the most meager recogni-
tion, and still pleads for adequate recognition.
The most significant lines, in my judgment, that Ben Jonson
ever wrote, are those in which he confidently pits the work of
his dead friend, William Shakespeare, against the sum
"Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Kome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come ; "
and yet a reading of Ben Jonson's English Grammar demon-
strates that his appreciation of the height to which English
literature had risen in Shakespeare had yet left him an unbe-
liever in the corresponding worth and dignity of the language
that Shakespeare used. Indeed the only writer throughout
the whole of the sixteenth century, so far as I know, who
dared to raise his voice in behalf of English as against Latin
was the now forgotten Richard Mulcaster (died 1611). "I
love Rome," said he, "but London better; I favor Italic,
but England more; I honor the Latin, but I worship the
English."
I shall not enter into any discussion of the relative merits
of the Ancient and the Modern Languages. The task is
one of peculiar difficulty, and, like the fox in the fable, I find
some tracks leading into this den, but none leading out. The
Socie"te" de Linguistique de Paris, founded in 1865, wisely
forbids in its constitution the reading of any paper devoted
either to the origin of language or to the creation of a uni-
versal language.* We would do well to incorporate these
inhibitions into our constitution (though I believe we have
never violated either of them), and to add a malediction
on him who should essay to hold the balance between the
WORK OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. 247
Modern Languages and the Classical. This Association does
not seek to depreciate any language, far less the almost sacred
tongues of Homer and Vergil.
But I wish to touch upon a certain attitude of mind toward
the Modern Languages that has served, I think, to retard a
proper estimate of their structural peculiarities. These lan-
guages differ most obviously from the Classical Languages
in retaining but a small number of their earlier inflections.
Now comparative philologists habitually speak of the loss of
inflections as a sign of decay, a sort of autumnal stage through
which some languages pass. The Modern Languages, there-
fore, are but worn-out relics of their originals, whether these
originals be the Classical or the earlier Teutonic tongues. The
throwing off of inflections is regarded as a form of degenera-
tion and corruption. Phonetic change is called phonetic
decay. The earliest known form of a language is taken not
only as the starting point, but as the standard. Accordingly,
such poor languages as French, English, and Danish, which
have lost most of their patrimony of inflections, are looked
upon as prodigal sons, who have wasted their substance with
riotous living.
Ampere, in his recent Histoire de la langue frangaise (2nd
ed.), speaks of the processes necessary " to repair the ruins,"
"to remedy the disease," " to avoid the confusion," caused by
the dropping of inflections. Schleicher, whose influence has
dominated Indo-Germanic philology since the publication of
his famous Compendium in 1861, declares that the languages
spoken now are " senile relics ; " that in historical times " all
languages move only downhill." Schleicher was doubtless
led to these extreme views from two causes : first, from
the emphasis that he placed on the Indo-Germanic parent
language, or " Ursprache " (he being the first to introduce the
term); and, second, from his conception of* language as an
organism, not unlike a tree. His estimate of a language,
therefore, was purely the morphological estimate. He even
instances modern English as an example of " how rapidly the
248 C. ALPHONSO SMITH.
language of a nation, important both in history and litera-
ture, can sink." One of his expressions deserves especial
notice, for in it Schleicher seems to me to reduce his own
theory perilously near to absurdity : he speaks of " the sub-
jugation of language through the evolution of the mind."
A few dissident voices, but only a few, have from time to
time been raised. Madvig, the Danish grammarian of Latin,
affirms that the analytic languages are just as good as the
synthetic, because thought can be expressed in both with
equal clearness. Jacob Grimm maintained fifty years ago
that the Modern Languages, though they have fewer means
than the ancient, are more effective. The most decided state-
ments on this subject have been made by two scholars in
the last decade, Krauter (in Herrig's Archiv, 57, 204) and
Jespersen (in his Progress in Language, p. 14). Krauter
asserts that " The dying out of forms and sounds is looked
upon by the etymologists with painful feelings : but no
unprejudiced judge will be able to see in it anything but
a progressive victory over lifeless material. Among several
tools performing equally good work, that is the best which
is simplest and most handy." Jespersen takes still more
advanced ground : " The fewer and shorter the forms, the
better ; the analytic structure of modern European languages
is so far from being a drawback to them that it gives them
an unimpeachable superiority over the earlier stages of
the same languages. The so-called full and rich forms of the
ancient languages are not a beauty but a deformity."
An American scholar, widely known as an appreciative
commentator on Shakespeare and as a popular writer on the
use and abuse of words, has called English "a grammarless
tongue;" but English is not a grammarless tongue, nor is
even Danish a grammarless tongue. Their grammar is not
the grammar of elaborate inflections nor of varied verb-forms,
but it is none the less grammar. Every falling away of
inflection, provided the linguistic consciousness does not take
a different turn, is followed at once, or rather is preceded, by
WOEK OF THE MODEEN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. 249
some equivalent syntactical formation. Language maintains
its old function of expressing thought. As the mood-endings
are dropped, the auxiliaries take their places; as the case-
endings weaken, the prepositions step into the breach ; and if
the nouns lose their terminal distinctions of subject and object,
the order in which these nouns stand in the seritence pro-
claims their relations as plainly as if they wore the frontlets
of inflection. There is no loss, there is only replacement.
Grammatical distinctions have come to be differently ex-
pressed ; but tense, mood, case, subject and predicate are still
there, because these things are of the very essence of thought
itself. Grammatical facts are mental facts, because they
express logical processes.
The insistence on these simple truths is the more important
because the opinion is almost universal that the analysis of
the Modern Languages does not furnish the mental discipline
offered by the Classical Languages. I believe, on the con-
trary, that while Latin and Greek make heavier demands on
the memory, the uninflected languages make the stronger
appeal to the reasoning faculties. You can see syntactical
distinctions in the ancient languages, because each word wears
the inflectional badge of its function; but in the Modern
Languages you must feel these distinctions. It is for this
reason Jhat I have always considered the study of Old Eng-
lish as valuable not merely as an historical introduction to
the structure of Modern English, but as a logical introduction
through patent forms to the implied relations of our unin-
flected speech.
It is only in this sense that the words of Whitney find
their justification. " Give me a man," says he, " who can
with full intelligence take to pieces an English sentence
brief, and not too complicated even and I will welcome him
as better prepared for further study in other languages than
if he had read both Caesar and Vergil, and could parse them
in the routine style in which they are so often parsed."
6
250 C. ALPHONSO SMITH.
It is thus seen that the claims of the Modern Languages
and Literatures have met with determined opposition ; but
their course has been steadily onward. Not a backward step
has been taken, and no position once gained has ever been
lost. It was only after vigorous fighting that science was
given a place in the schools, the champions of science being
usually the champions also of the Modern Languages. To
a reader of Combe's famous lectures on Popular Education,
delivered in 1833 before the Edinburgh Philosophical Asso-
ciation, there is much significance in the fact that during
the second meeting of the Modern Language Association of
America, a committee from the Society of Naturalists for the
Eastern United States presented the following resolution :
"That the Society of Naturalists of the Eastern United
States, recognizing the great importance of a thorough knowl-
edge of Modern Languages, especially of German and French,
to students of Natural History, regard it as a hopeful sign
that a Conference of Professors in this department is now
assembled at Columbia College, and hereby express their
hearty sympathy with this work."
But science was not the only ally that came to the aid of
the Modern Languages; a little later, the study of history
was extended so as to include modern movements, modern
social developments and sociological questions. Both of
these advances, the scientific and the historical, have been
of great service in accelerating the recognition of the Modern
Languages; for it is beginning to be perceived that these
languages and literatures are a part of modern history ; that
they alone bind nation with nation, and link the present with
the past; that they furnish worthy material for most rigid
scientific study ; and that so far from diminishing the interest
in the Ancient Languages, they add to that interest by furnish-
ing an invaluable basis for comparative study. They exhibit
the principles of linguistic growth, of phonetic change, of the
influence of race and environment on idiom and vocabulary,
WORK OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. 251
in a way that makes their study indispensable to the investi-
gator in any department of language.
These are some of the considerations that make the student
of the Modern Languages enthusiastic in his work and justly
hopeful of the future.
I have stated what I conceive to be the central purpose of
our Association, and have enumerated some of the difficulties
and misconceptions that the Modern Languages have had to
contend with in their struggle for academic recognition. It
remains now to trace briefly some of the movements that
facilitated the founding of the Modern Language Associa-
tion of America, and some of the results that it has already
attained ; for, though it is true that our Association finds the
reason of its existence in the problems that still confront it,
it finds no less surely the warrant of its perpetuity in the
results that lie behind it. Few if any language associations
have better vindicated the wisdom of their founders or attested
the timeliness of their organization.
The Modern Language Association of America is not of
a fortuitous birth, but is the product and continuation of
forces that have found increasing expression from the very
beginning of our century. The centuries that are gone have
had their renaissance, their new learning ; and this century,
too, has ushered in a new learning, but it is the learning
stored in the Modern Languages not in the tongues of Greece
and Rome.
In the earlier part of the century, the influence of Walter
Scott's writings was an important factor in the formation
of numerous Scotch clubs and societies organized for the
purpose of publishing the historical and literary material
which, till his time, had been almost totally neglected. One
of these clubs, the Bannatyne, Scott himself founded, and
became its first president. The publications of these societies
marked a new era in the efforts made in English-speaking
countries toward the rescue of the materials on which the
study of our vernacular must be based. Attention was thus
252 C. ALPHONSO SMITH.
called afresh to the vast stores of inedita that lay idle in the
libraries of Scotland and England. In 1842 the English
Philological Society was organized, and fifteen years later
began to agitate the publication of a great dictionary that
should trace the life-history of every word that forms, or has
ever formed, a part of the English vocabulary. The appear-
ance in 1884 of the first instalment of this dictionary, known
as The Oxford Dictionary, marks an epoch in English. Such
a work as this, however, would have been impossible had it
not been for the beneficent activity of Dr. Furnivall, who in
1864 organized the now famous Early English Text Society.
The publications of this society alone have not only made
possible the scientific study of Old English and Middle
English, but have stimulated a new interest in the whole
subject of dialectology. " Members of the Society will learn
with pleasure," said Dr. Furnivall, in 1890, "that its example
has been followed, not only by the Old French Text Society
which has done such admirable work under its founders,.
Professors Paul Meyer and Gaston Paris, but also by the
Early Russian Text Society, which was set on foot in 1877 r
and has since issued many excellent editions of old MS.
Chronicles, etc." It is gratifying to know that amid all the
discouragements incident to the work of the Early English
Text Society, Dr. Furnivall has found "aid and cheer" in
the sympathy and ready help extended by scholars in the
United States.
In 1869 the American Philological Association was organ-
ized, the influence of which has been felt not only in the
Classical and Oriental Languages, but in the Modern Lan-
guages as well. Its annual meetings are held during the
summer months, and its membership is now about four
hundred and twenty-five. In 1876 the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity was founded and the scientific study of the Modern
Languages first introduced. It would be hard to overesti-
mate the influence of this University in giving full academic
recognition to the Modern Languages, in stimulating original
WORK OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. 253
research by basing it on purely scientific methods, and in
bringing about a more enlightened attitude toward these
languages in other centres of learning. In 1880 the American
Journal of Philology was founded, and Professor Gildersleeve
became its editor. It is open to original communications in
all departments of philology, classical, comparative, oriental,
and modern. The name of its editor is a sufficient guarantee
of the standard of scholarship that it has maintained ; but I
wish to add a personal tribute to the suggestiveness of its
articles and reviews to the student of the Modern Languages.
To the domain of English syntax, at least, the American
Journal of Philology has made permanent contributions.
But a growing need had long been felt for some organi-
zation devoted exclusively to the Modern Languages and
Literatures, and in December of 1883, at Columbia College,
New York, the first meeting of the Modern Language Asso-
ciation of America was held. To no two men does the
Association owe so much as to Professor A. M. Elliott, who
laid its foundation and shaped its policy, and to Professor
James W. Bright, whose loyalty to its interests and whose
exacting labors in its behalf have made every member his
debtor. The Association has grown steadily from the begin-
ning and now numbers about five hundred members. The
list printed after the second meeting of the Association,
December, 1884, shows an enrolment of one hundred and
thirty-five, twenty per cent, of whom represent states lying
west of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. These states now
furnish forty per cent, of the total membership, having just
doubled their quota.
It was evident, therefore, almost from the start, that the
formation of a Western, or Central, Section or Division
would eventually become necessary. The meetings were very
naturally held almost exclusively in the East. Distance
and consequent expense thus made it impracticable for the
members in the Western and Middle States, as well as for
those along the southern course of the Mississippi, to attend
254 C. ALPHO.NSO SMITH.
as regularly as they desired. They received the Publications
of the Association, but were deprived of the privilege of
personal acquaintance and the mutual exchange of ideas
enjoyed at the annual meetings. The initiative in the new
movement was taken by representatives of the Universities
of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa; and in December of 1895,
at the University of Chicago, the first meeting of our Central
Division was held.
Such has been the history of the Modern Language Asso-
ciation of America. I wish that it were in my power to
portray its influence as clearly as I recognize it and as
strongly as I feel it. It found the Modern Language forces
wholly unorganized ; there was no centre, no cooperation ;
teachers in adjoining States or in the same State knew noth-
ing of one another's methods except by the most casual
intercourse. Able teachers were, of course, found here and
there, but Modern Language instruction was not receiving,
nor seemed likely to receive, the academic recognition that
it merited ; and scientific research, with a few exceptions, was
practically unknown.
During the fifteen years of its existence, it has united and
consolidated the Modern Language forces into an agency
whose influence is recognized as paramount by the leading
Colleges and Universities of thirty-nine States. It has not
only caused the formation of smaller associations of like
character in the different States, but has led to the organi-
zation of the first American Dialect Society. This Society
issues independent publications, or Notes, and is gathering
material for a compendious American Dialect Dictionary,
similar to the English Dialect Dictionary now in process of
publication.
Not only have graduate courses in the Modern Languages
been introduced into many institutions since 1883, but funda-
mental courses also have been added, such as those in Old
English, Middle English, Old Norse, Old High German,
and Old French. In 1875 there were only twenty-three
WORK OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. 255
Colleges and Universities in the United States in which any
instruction was given in Old English. The subject was not
taught at such institutions as the University of Michigan,
Dartmouth, Princeton, and Vanderbilt. To-day a college
giving no instruction in Old English or in Chaucer is the
exception rather than the rule. In 1887, as a further indi-
cation of the progress that the Modern Language sentiment
had made, Harvard led the way in placing advanced admis-
sion examinations in French and German upon a level with
those in Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and all other subjects.
For admission to Harvard, examinations must be passed in
at least two advanced subjects. " These advanced subjects,"
said President Eliot, addressing the Modern Language Asso-
ciation in December, 1889, " used to be with us, as in most
other American institutions, only Latin, Greek, and Mathe-
matics; but .... now any candidate for admission may
present as advanced subjects, French and German, if he
chooses .... and I submit to you that this is a considerable
step towards the introduction of advanced teaching of these
languages into the secondary schools."
It is only in the last fifteen years that the latest results of
French and German investigation have begun to find wide-
spread and appreciative welcome in the American centres of
Modern Language instruction ; and more gratifying still has
been the reciprocal influence of American thought. The
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
not only take their place in the libraries of foreign Universi-
ties as aids in advanced investigation, but prove that the day
has come when the organized efforts of our own country in
behalf of the Modern Languages are beginning for the first
time to receive accredited recognition wherever these lan-
guages are studied.
We make our appeal for cooperation, therefore, to all who
are interested in the Modern Languages, to the teacher in the
Secondary School as well as to the professor in the College
and University. Ours is a common cause and we press
256 C. ALPHONSO SMITH.
toward a common goal. The good of the one is the good
of the other, for the triumph of the one is the triumph of
the other. Let us take with us into the discussions in which
we are about to engage, and into the class-rooms that we have
left for a season, these brave words of Milton : " The light
which we have gained, was given us not to be ever staring
on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from
our knowledge."
C. ALPHONSO SMITH.
VII. ARE FRENCH POETS POETICAL?
The question is not an idle one. At least many persons
of discernment have answered it in the negative, and it may
be worth our while to try to find out what grounds there
may be for a judgment which strikes a Frenchman as little
short of stupendous. And first, when French poetry is criti-
cized, we may be sure that popular poetry or folk song cannot
be meant. Surely that country cannot be barren of folk poets
which has given us such gems of folk song as Jean Renaud,
and Derri&re chez mon p&re, to mention only two of the best.
France has always had plenty of popular poetry that appealed
to the masses and fulfilled its function of intensifying their
emotion. William's Frenchmen of Normandy rushed at
their English foes with the song of Roland on their lips,
and Beaumarchais' " tout finit par des chansons " is still true.
Stand near a big factory in Paris between eleven and twelve
when the workmen are having their midday meal : you will
as often as not find them listening to a fiddler playing and
singing a song on the latest event of public interest. To cite
two cases that came under my observation, the death of Pasteur
and the loss of La Bourgogne were thus commemorated.
As far as popular poetry is concerned there can be no
question ; that, at least, has always been poetical in that it
has always fulfilled its function ; it has always multiplied the
people's emotions and set their hearts throbbing.
But the charge is rather made against the literary or artistic
poetry of France.
When as kindly and humane a philosopher (or shall we say
a poet ?) as Emerson can write :
When France, where poet never grew,
Halved and dealt the globe anew,
Goethe, raised o'er joy and strife,
Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life.
Emerson, Solution.
257
258 P. B. MARCOU.
When one of England's greatest poets, who surely was any-
thing but a foe to France, conies right out with this
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow
No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre,
That whetstone of the teeth monotony in wire !
Childe Harold, Canto IV, St. 38.
surely something is amiss. Either the charge is true, or some
fatal dimness blinds the eyes of these men as soon as they
take up a book of French verse.
That the first alternative is correct, no one whose heart
has ever throbbed to the noble idealism which has made of
France a beacon light of cheer to downtrod men in every
land, and who has beheld the eyes of a French crowd light
up as the rhythm of some mighty line stirred their very souls,
will admit for one moment. Surely, he will say, both the
substance and the form of poetry are here. Have we not
love-sorrow breaking into verse through its very intensity in
de Musset, the largeness of vision and rythmic sweep of Hugo,
the intense coloring and noble world-sorrow of Leconte de
Lisle, the white heat zeal for duty and honor of old Corneille,
the fearless gaze and matchless song of Villon ?
We are thus perforce driven on to the other horn of our
dilemma ; it must be that these men of English speech whom
we have quoted, when it comes to French verse have eyes
that see not, ears that hear not. Now what is this blindness
and deafness of theirs due to ? Perhaps some less sweeping
judgments may assist us in reaching a conclusion.
First, to go for once beyond English or American expres-
sion of opinion, hear what one of the very greatest German
lyric poets has to say.
Heine, protesting against the charge that he has become a
Frenchman, writes :
"Ich habe auch nicht eine Borste meines Deutschthums,
keine einzige Schelle an meiner deutschen Kappe eingebiisst,
und ich habe noch immer das Recht, daran die schwarz-
rothgoldene Kokarde zu heften. Ich darf noch immer zu
AKE FRENCH POETS POETICAL? 259
Massmann sageu : ' Wir deutsche Esel ! ' Hatte ich mich in
Fraukreich naturalisieren lassen, wiirde mir Massmann ant-
worten konnen : ' Nur ich bin ein deutscher Esel, du aber bist
es nicht mehr' and er schliige dabei einen verhohnenden
Purzelbaum, der mir das Herz brache. Nein, solcher Schmach
habe ich mich nicht ausgesetzt. Die Naturalisation mag fur
andre Leute passen; ein versoffener Advokat aus Zweibriicken,
ein Strohkopf mit einer eisernen Stirn und einer kupfernen
Nase, mag immerhin, um ein Schulmeisteramt zu erschnappen,
ein Vaterland aufgeben, das Nichts von ihm weiss und nie
Etwas von ihm erfahren wird aber Dasselbe geziemt sich
nicht fur einen deutschen Dichter, welcher die schonsten
detitschen Lieder gedichtet hat. Es ware fur mich ein ent-
setzlicher, wahnsinniger Gedanke, wenn ich mir sagen miisste,
ich sei ein deutscher Poet und zugleich ein naturalisierter
Franzose. Ich kame mir selber vor wie eine jener Miss-
geburten mit zwei Kopfchen, die man in den Buden der
Jahrmarkte zeigt. Es wiirde mich beim Dichten unertrag-
lich genieren, wenn ich dachte, der eine Kopf finge auf ein-
mal an, im franzosischen Truthahnpathos die unnatiirlichsten
Alexandriner zu skandieren, wahrend der andere in den
angebornen wahren Naturmetren der deutschen Sprache seine
Gefiihle ergosse. Und, ach ! unausstehlich sind mir, wie
die Metrik, so die Verse der Franzosen, dieser parfumierte
Quark kaum ertrage ich ihre ganz geruchlosen besseren
Dichter, Wenn ich jene sogenannte Pofaie lyrique der
Franzosen betrachte, erkenne ich erst ganz die Herri ich keit
der deutschen Dichtkunst, und ich konnte mir alsdann wohl
Etwas darauf einbilden, dass ich mich ruhmen darf, in diesem
Gebiete meine Lorbern errungen zu haben. Wir wollen auch
kein Blatt davon aufgeben, und der Steinmetz, der unsre
letzte Schlafstatte mit einer Inschrift zu verzieren hat, soil
keine Einrede zu gewartigen haben, wenn er dort eingrabt
die Worte : ( Hier ruht ein deutscher Dichter.' " H. Heine,
Sdmmtliche Werke, Hoffman and Campe, Vol. 10, pp. 74-75.
260 P. B. MARCOTJ.
Here we find the "Alexandrin " held up to special ridicule.
Again in Byron's note to the passage we have quoted we
find, "Perhaps the couplet in which Boileau depreciates
Tasso, may serve as well as any other to justify the opinion
given of the harmony of French verse :
"A Malherbe, & Kacan preTe*rer The*ophile,
Et le clinquant du Tasse & tout Tor de Virgile."
Again the unhappy "Alexandrin" is held up to our scorn.
Emerson once said that the only French poetry he appre-
ciated was the song recited by Alceste in Le Misanthrope.
Si le roi m'avait donne*
Paris, sa grand' ville
Et qu'il me fall At quitter
L' amour de ma mie,
Je dirais au roi Henri :
Reprenez votre Paris,
J'aime mieux ma mie, O gue" !
JPaime mieux ma mie.
and this is far removed from "Alexandrin " verse.
Finally here is what one of the most conscientious and
painstaking of English verse writers as well as one of the
greatest of English poets, Tennyson, has to say :
" I never could care about the Alexandrines. They are so
artificial. The French language lends itself much better to
slighter things. Some of Beranger's chansons are exquisite,
for example, his lyric to Le Temps with the chorus " O par
pitie, lui dit ma belle, Vieillard epargnez nos amours."
Alfred Tennyson. A Memoir. Vol. II, p. 422.
So we see that Tennyson, like Thackeray and so many
other Englishmen, considers that Be"ranger is the French
poet /car e^o^v. Let us read the first stanza of this ' lyric '
which he admires so much :
Pres de la beaute* que j'adore,
Je me croyais e*gal aux dieux,
Lorsqu'au bruit de Tairain sonore
Le Temps apparut & mes yeux.
ABE FEENCH POETS POETICAL? 261
Faible comme une tourterelle
Qui voit la serre des vantours,
Ah ! par pitie", lui dit ma belle
Vieillard, e*pargnez nos amours.
There we have them, the eighteenth century poetical plati-
tudes which Beranger clings to so fondly : the beauty I
worship, the sounding brass ; and the dove and the vulture.
If that is the kind of verse Heine is thinking of when he
speaks of " Poe"sie lyrique," his " parfiimierte Quark " comes
very near hitting the mark.
Each poet then we find, either directly or by implication,
especially damns the "Alexandrin," and those poets in whose
eyes some French poets find favor chose poems with short
lines, and this peculiarity makes them willing to overlook
many obvious blemishes.
From all this it seems fair to presume, that the one
unpardonable sin is the sin against rhythm. To the foreign
poet's ear the "Alexandrin" has a fatal monotonous sing-
song not to be endured. They crave a varied rise and fall of
stress, which their reading of the French "Alexandrin " does
not give them, and which they fancy they get in the short-
line pieces. Here we touch, I think, the fundamental reason
for the widespread lack of appreciation of French poetry.
Rhythmic sound moves the human animal and intensifies
his life. Some kind of drum beat lies at the base of all
poetry and music. At first they are hardly distinguished,
though the music is by far the most moving of the two, and
even now if we take the songs that stir men most, we shall
find that it is the tune and not the words which give the
heave, as it were, to the ground-swell of human passion. To
take a very familiar instance, in John Brown's Body the poor
words are nothing, the march is everything. This is so true
that when Mrs. Howe wrote to the same tune the Battle Hymn
of the Republic, a song of distinct poetical value, the old words
were still sung by the marching thousands, just because it was
easier not to change, and each one could voice his unspoken
262 P. B. MARCOU.
passion in the almost meaningless jingle. And it is always
so. In every large city, each year, above the hum and din
of the street there rises some tune or other that seems to
make the whole town vibrate ; the words are but froth on the
stream, most people hardly know more than the first line,
and yet this silly song intensifies for the time being the
passion and struggle of daily life and makes men's souls ring.
For that is the function and use of song and poetry ; they
strike, as it were, a human sounding board, set it quivering,
and so multiply our joy and sorrow. But in order that
poetry may have this effect, the right sound must strike the
right sounding board ; otherwise no vibration, no emotion,
and the poor poem is nothing but sorry, artificial prose, per-
fumed curds, strutting turkey-cock and the like. The whole
fantasmagory of poesy fades away unless this first condition
be fulfilled. Now that is just the trouble with French verse :
it fails to make the English or German sounding board
vibrate. The flow of French verse, like the flow of French
speech in general, is too even, the rise and fall of stress are
too slight to stir the pulse of those not to the manner born.
The speech measure of French is the last thing a foreigner
acquires. Though his French be otherwise flawless, some-
thing in the emphasis of his sentences will betray him. His
emotional howl, to use a familiar though forcible expression,
has not the right length or intensity ; and so, when he reads
French verse, he unconsciously uses the cadences of English
or German verse : he exaggerates the emphasis, brings it
out strong where he has been told it comes, and swallows up
sounds which should be dwelt upon. And even if he hears
French verse read as it should be, by a native, though it may
not repel him, though it may even please him somewhat, it
does not move him. He looks in vain for the rhythm of his
own land and if he has learnt his prosody, he may, like Mr.
Saintsbury, pity the French poet who has only iambics, and
must struggle along without anapest or trochee.
ARE FRENCH POETS POETICAL? 263
We have thus a physical reason. Is this reason sufficient
to account for this damning faint praise or absolute dislike of
most people, sufficient to account for the opinion of the poets
we have quoted? We should expect them at least to base
their judgment not wholly on this ground ; we should hope
that they at least could perceive other poetic qualities in verse
besides those of rhythm. Perhaps the relation of English to
French, and the history of French poetry as influenced by the
history of the language itself may throw some light on the
question, and show that our English poets are not without
some excuse at least for their harsh judgment.
English, ever since the French or Norman conquest of
1066, has been flooded by successive alluvia of French and
Latin words, which have wonderfully increased its efficiency
and delicacy ; but the backbone of the language is still
Germanic, and elevated passion and deep-felt emotion are
almost wholly expressed by words of Germanic origin. The
words of French and Latin origin, weighed in the emotional
scale, are lighter than the words of kindred meaning which go
back to Anglo-Saxon : compare love and amour, foe and enemy,
heathen and pagan. Hence for the English reader an impres-
sion of lightness, of trifling, of flimsiness almost, when the
same French words are used by the French poet to express
the deepest feelings of man.
There is one more fact which may be urged as an excuse
for the English poets I have quoted ; but I bring it forward
with considerable diffidence, because it is difficult to measure
its influence with any approach to accuracy ; I mean the flood
of borrowed words which covered the language during the six-
teenth century and the resulting new poetic literary language
of the seventeenth century. When we read Rabelais or
Ronsard, we are astounded at the tropical exuberance of the
speech which these men wield. The limited, but expressive
and forceful vocabulary of Villon is replaced by a boundless
virgin forest of struggling shoots ; the language is a turbid
though rich vintage and sorely needs clarifying. And sure
264 P. B. MARCOU.
enough with the next century the woodman and clarifier
conies " Enfin Malherbe vint " and what was left of this
vigorous young life when he had done his work? In the
first place, by his hard and fast rules forbidding hiatus
between words and enjambement he made the writing of
verse so difficult that any patient workman who succeeded
in putting down line after line of stiff cold writing of the
required pattern thought himself a poet and, what was worse,
made other people think him a poet, and that doubtless many
a poetic temperament chafed and fretted against the bars of
the new prosody and died with its message untold.
Then, in spite of what he said about going into the market-
place to test your words, he did not, as Villon had done, use
the old vigorous vernacular he would have found there.
Was he not the king's poet, and a gentleman of ancient
name? His verse must be noble, and so he may be said to
have founded a new style. The bad taste of Konsard is
eliminated, but his exuberance, his life, his poetic sweep, and
noble aspirations are gone too. Save in a few passages where
the frenzy of passion bursts the bounds of artifice, the seven-
teenth and eighteenth century poetic language is pallid even
to many modern Frenchmen who have been taught to admire
it. The crowning of flames, the beauties and charms of the
lady, and the rest of strange, vague love-terminology fling an
ash-gray pall over the radiant muse of the Pleiade. The
abstract learned words crowd out the old concrete words
redolent of the soil, and for two hundred years French
writers of verse stalk about on stilts, wondered at, admired,
but rarely loved. And yet it would be a great mistake to
deny that they were useful in their day, and that the splendid
lyric blossoming of the present century owes much to them.
They are pallid, for their speech is often painfully artificial,
and they are a reflex of a reflex, a moon of the moon, as it
were. They copy the Romans, who copied the Greeks ; but
they are at least thoroughly imbued with the sobriety, the
measure and method of classic writers. They know and
ARE FRENCH POETS POETICAL? 265
observe the rules of that necessary skeleton of all successful
writing, rhetoric, they have learned to discard diffusiveness,
and dilution, those besetting sins of the Renaissance poets.
The qualities of clearness and of logical sequence which in
our day have won for the French drama and the French
novel a unique preeminence beyond the borders of France,
those qualities which are termed the essentially French quali-
ties, became a part of the intellectual inheritance of France
during those two centuries.
And so, the pendulum having at last swung back, we have
seen in our own day in France a renewal of the exuberance
of the sixteenth century, but, in the best poets, the bad taste
and diffuseness are delightfully absent. A modern French
Browning is inconceivable. Rhythm has been enriched, color
and music have flung their witchery over the best French
verse of our day, delicacy and force and depth are all there.
The strivers after art for art's sake, like the strivers after
science for science's sake, have builded better than they knew.
They have done their part towards making the present poetic
speech of France a matchless instrument for a master hand.
We may excuse Byron and Emerson, we may even excuse
Heine ; having no ear for the music of French verse, to them
its melody was a jingle, its as yet imperfect art was artifice.
They doubtless would have agreed with Verlaine :
Oh 1 qui dira les torts de la Eime ?
Quel enfant sourd, ou quel negre fou
Nous a forge* ce bijou d'un sou
Qui sonne creux et faux sous la lime?
They would have agreed with this, exaggerated though it be,
and would have shaken their heads pityingly at the next
stanza :
De la musique encore et toujours,
Que ton vers soit la chose envole'e
Qu'on sent qui fuit d'une ame en alle'e
Vers d'autres cieux a d'autres amours.
Verlaine, Art Poetique.
7
266 P. B. MARCOU.
What an impossible dream for a French poet, they would
have said ?
But such talk will soon cease ; it is ceasing already. No-
where is there such vigorous and delicate poetry written as
in France to-day. Nowhere is the idealistic side of life
preserved as it is in France to-day. If I might venture to
prophecy I would say that somewhere in that sweet land
of beauty and love the future genius is even now struggling
who is to join the band of the great world poets, and would
call out to him :
Si qua fata aspera rumpas, tu Marcellus eris.
P. B. MARCOU.
VIII. LUIS DE LEON, THE SPANISH POET,
HUMANIST, AND MYSTIC.
In the domain of Spanish letters, where the earnest student
of literary history still finds himself lacking many necessary
tools, there is a crying need of a new and critical edition of
the works, and particularly the poetical works, of the monk
Luis de Le6n. One of the greatest of the Castilian lyric
poets, and, as such, a fellow to Garcilaso de la Vega and
Herrera, one of the most eminent among the masters of
flexible and harmonious Spanish prose, which flows from his
pen with none of the customary turgidness, he is best repre-
sented to-day only by the meritorious but rare edition of his
works published by Merino in the early years of this century,
and by the unsatisfactory edition of the Biblioteca de autores
espanoles, Tome xxxvn, which has not made the proper use
of Merino's collection. 1
This neglect is astonishing, if aught can astonish in the
present state of early Spanish texts, when we consider the real
worth of this scholar and poet, the great interest and admira-
tion which he excited in his contemporaries, and the influence
which he has undoubtedly exercised upon later writers of
prominence.
In the Galatea (libro vi.), published while Le6n was still
alive, Cervantes terms him
" Un ingenio que al mundo pone espanto,
Y que pudiera en entasis robaros,"
and affirms himself a disciple of so great a master. Some-
what later, Lope de Vega, dwelling at greater length in his
Laurel de Apolo (Silva, 4*) upon the excellent work done by
the illustrious friar, and the persecution to which he had been
1 The writer of the present sketch is preparing a monograph upon the
life and work of Le6n, and hopes, also, soon to render all his lyrics easily
accessible in a new edition.
267
268 J. D. M. FORD.
subjected, heralds his fame as one of the first to recognize the
dignity of the vulgar tongue, by placing it on a par with
the language of Rome :
Tu prosa y verso iguales
Conservaran la gloria de tu nombre
# * * * * *
Tfi fuiste gloria de Augustino augusta,
Tli el honor de la lengua castellana,
Que deseaste introducir escrita ;
Viendo que a la romana tanto imita,
Que puede competir con la romana.
So, also, the first editor to publish the lyrics of Luis de Le6n
was no less renowned a personage than Quevedo Francisco
de Quevedo Villegas who, in 1631, sought to stem the tide
of Gongoristic production, by opposing to its flood of insi-
pidity and Browningesque obscurity the wholesome influence
of a writer whose poems united clearness and graceful perfec-
tion of form to real solidity of content. The desired result
was not at once attained, for even Quevedo himself yielded
sometimes to the Gongoristic current ; but when the Gongorists
and conceptists did finally relinquish their hold upon Spanish
letters, the regenerators who established a saner poetical style
must have drawn much of their inspiration from the lyric&
of Le6n. Nor did his influence stop there, for in the eigh-
teenth century he has had Diego Gonzalez for a follower,
and in the nineteenth century such disciples as Cabanyes, and
especially Judn Valera, in whose work more than one note
is an echo of the lyre of Le6n.
The main facts of Leon's life are free from obscurity.
They may be traced, with reasonable certainty, from his birth
in 1527, through a childhood spent in Madrid, his early
novitiate in the Augustinian Order and his student days at
Salamanca, his successful career as the occupant of chairs of
Thomistic philosophy and theology at that same university,
his persecution and long imprisonment by the Inquisition, his
acquittal and triumphant return to the University, and his
LUIS DE LEON, THE SPANISH POET. 269
constant rise to new honors in his Order, which culminated
in his election as Provincial for Castile, but a few days before
his death, in 1591.
There has been some uncertainty as to the place of his
birth, the early biographers hesitating between Granada or
Madrid, on the one side, and Belmonte in La Mancha, on the
other; but reference to the documents of his trial before
the Inquisition shows that he there declares himself a native
of Belmonte. A point, too, which appears not to have been
properly raised as yet, concerns the exact form of his name
and, consequently, the real nature of his family connections.
Of late it has been the habit to speak of him as Luis Ponce
de Le6n, and this name, if true, would make him a member
of the noble Ponce de Le6n family to which belonged the
venturesome explorer Ju&n Ponce de Le6n. 1 It seems, how-
ever, that his name was simply Luis de Le6n, the sole form
appearing in the papers relating to his trial, and the only one
to be found in so early a biographer as Nicolas Antonio. At
all events he was apparently of noble extraction, both on the
side of his father, the jurisconsult and magistrate Lope de
Le6n, and of his mother, Ines de Valera. There is just
a suspicion of Jewish blood in his veins, which may, in a
measure, explain the vindictiveness of the Inquisition with
respect to him.
At Salamanca, then one of the four great universities of
Europe, he gained much respect for his scholarly attainments,
ranking high as a theologian and as a linguist deeply versed
in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. At that time it was customary
that the professors should be chosen by the students, and so,
by the votes of the latter, he was in 1561 elected Professor
of Thomistic Philosophy, with a large margin over his seven
competitors. He apparently represented a strongly progres-
sive party in the University, then rather a dangerous attitude
for a man in his position, since, considering the close relations
(Parnaso espafiol, v, p. xviii, Madrid, 1771) already connects
him with the antiguos Ponces de Leon, Senores de Marchena.
270 J. D. M. FORD.
between things academic and things ecclesiastical, it would
not be difficult for his enemies to construe any theory of his
reflecting upon older methods in matters of the purely learned
world into an heretical disapproval of certain religious beliefs
exacted of all the faithful. They soon found a chance to do
so, for, in 1572, he was accused to the Santo Oficio, by his
rabid foes, Le6n de Castro and Bartolome de Medina, of hav-
ing declared the Vulgate false in many particulars, and of
having, in contempt of the strict prohibition of the Inquisi-
tion, published a Castilian version of the Song of Solomon.
In his answer to these and minor charges, he declared that,
as to the Vulgate, he had never maintained it to be a work
containing falsehoods, but that he did consider it a somewhat
defective translation of its originals, since it is in many places
obscure, merely because it does not render all the senses of
the corresponding passages of its originals. By this reply we
recognize the theologian who is also a humanist and philolo-
gist, one whose motto is " Philologia theologiae ancilla" but
who believes that the servant deserves considerate treatment
from her mistress. As to the publishing of a Spanish trans-
lation of the Song of Solomon, he admitted having made the
translation for the benefit of a nun then living in Salamanca,
but affirmed that the publication had taken place without his
knowledge or consent. In truth, the orthodoxy of Le6n
cannot be questioned for a moment; he never left the path
of necessary faith and obedience to ecclesiastical authority.
The chief arguments of his enemies fell of their own male-
volent weight, but, nevertheless, the trial dragged on for five
years, during which time he was kept in prison at Valladolid,
until, in 1576, he was finally set free by a decree of the High
Court of the Inquisition overruling the condemnation of the
lower court, which had even voted to put him to the torture.
At the beginning of his imprisonment he was treated with
the harshest severity, but later on this rigor was so far relaxed
as to allow him writing materials and certain books. Then,
LUIS DE LEON, THE SPANISH POET. 271
" On evil days tho' fallen, and evil tongues,
In darkness and with dangers compassed 'round,"
he placidly annotated the works of St. Jerome. In the
volume of St. Jerome which he used in the prison, there are
found certain verses that indicate an intention on his part
of composing an epic poem on the reign of Alfonso VI.
This design he did not carry out, but he undoubtedly wrote
in prison several prose works (los Nombres de Christo, etc.),
and some exquisite devotional poems, especially those in
honor of Mary, and above all, the excellent one beginning
Vfrgen que el sol mas pura.
Here also, as the time of his liberation drew near, he com-
posed the verses
Aqui la envidia y la mentira
Me tuvieron encerrado ;
Dichoso el humilde estado
Del sabio que se retira
De aqueste mundo malvado.
Y con pobre mesa y casa
En el campo deleitoso,
A solas su vida pasa,
Con solo Dios se compasa,
Ni envidiado ni envidioso.
Though that retirement from the world, and that com-
munion with only God and nature, of which he sings in these
quintittas, would have suited well the mystic side of the man,
he was not destined to sink thus from public gaze. Envy
now hung her head, as his Order and the University, both
constantly loyal to him, welcomed him back with unfeigned
delight. The civic, academic and clerical authorities marched
out to meet him and escorted him into Salamanca in proud
triumph. The University reinstated him in his honors and
he began to teach again. Of course the curious flocked to his
first lecture, hoping to hear some allusion to his recent perse-
cution, or even, perchance, a fierce invective upon his enemies.
But their hopes were dashed when Le6n, taking up the thread
272 J. D. M. FORD.
of his last discourse delivered five years before, and beginning
very simply with the words "As we were saying yesterday,"
ignored the intervening period of unmerited suffering.
Continuing to hold various posts at Salamanca, he published
several works at the express command of his Provincial; drew
up the constitution for the reform of his Order; commenced,
but did not live to finish, a life of St. Theresa, that beautiful
figure so closely akin to him in mysticism ; applied himself
with ardor to the study of that other noble mystic, Luis de
Granada; and became successively Vicar-General and Pro-
vincial of the Augustinians of Castile, dying rather suddenly,
it would seem, in 1591.
Such was the life of a man who gave himself up entirely
to the service of Mother Church and the cause of learning, a
man of sincere piety, as well as deep culture and devotion to
the arts. If we may believe a story set afloat by Pacheco, he
was skilled even in the fine arts, and at one time painted a
portrait of himself.
As a figure in the history of Spanish literature, he must be
judged by his works in Spanish, and therefore it is hardly neces-
sary to enumerate his Latin works of expositive theology. Suffice
it to say, that they give ample evidence of his humanistic bent.
Of his works in Castilian prose, the most important are ;
the Nombres de Christo, a devout discussion of the various
terms by which reference is made to Christ in the Scriptures ;
the Exposid6n del libro de Job ; a Spanish translation of his
Latin Commentary on the Song of Solomon; and the interest-
ing and even entertaining treatise, la Perfecta Casada. The
last-named is really a series of sermons on the manifold duties
of a wife, based upon texts from the book of Proverbs and
addressed to a newly-married lady. This work alone could
give an idea of the comprehensive reading of the man, who
cites, in the discussion of his theories, Euripides, Phocylides
and Simonides, 1 Homer, Plutarch, Aristotle, Vergil, Nau-
x His knowledge of these two writers was probably derived from the
Anthology of Stobaeus.
THE SPANISH POET. 273
machius, etc., as well as SS. Basil and Cyprian, and other
Fathers of the Church. He shows considerable insight into
feminine character, and common sense in dealing with it, now
jeering at the devotee wife who neglects her household duties
to go and " warm a seat " in church, and again chiding the
woman who paints her face, now laughing at her who " seeing
her contrivances upon another ," one may fancy him speaking
of a new bonnet, " begins to hate them and lies awake nights
seeking to devise others/' and again pouring out a passionate
flood of vituperation upon the head of a wife untrue to her
husband. He has also the idea that the less priestly inter-
ference there is in a family, the better. His point of view is
never that of the ascetic, for he is the pupil of Horace, to whose
doctrine of measure, or moderation in all things, borrowed
from the Greeks, he adds but the necessary Christian modifi-
cations. Thus with regard to the boundaries between virtue
and vice, he says :
"Just as there are certain vices which have the appearance
and semblance of certain virtues, so also there are virtues
which are, as it were, provocative of vices ; for although it be
true that virtue consists in the mean, yet as this mean is not
measured by inches, but by reason, many times it departs
more from the one extreme than from the other, as appears
in the case of liberality, which is a virtue measured off by
reason between the extremes of avarice and prodigality, and is
much less distant from prodigality than from avarice. What
is this but the Horatian " Virtus est medium vitiorum " l
adapted to the requirements of Christian doctrine? Here,
also, we find him striking the note of common sense, which
resounds through all his work.
The style of Le6n's Castilian prose is singularly pure and
clear. His phrases are rhetorically constructed, sometimes
rather long, but seldom unwieldy. He has a certain felicity
in the handling of similes, of which he makes frequent use.
I Epistolarum, Lib. I, Ep. xvm, v. 9 :
Virtus est medium vitiorum, et utrinque reductum.
274 J. D. M. FOKD.
Important as his prose works are, they do not possess for
us a tithe of the charm which his lyrics afford. These
their author long looked upon as the frivolous amusement
of his earlier years, and neglected to edit properly, until
the complaint of a friend presumably the theologian Arias
Montano who was annoyed at the ascription of certain of
them to him, led Le6n to make a collection of his authentic
poems. He divided the collection into three parts, contain-
ing, respectively, his original poems ; those translated from
profane poets, classic and modern ; and those translated from
sacred sources.
The third division, embracing, chiefly, versions of many of
the Psalms, in various meters ; of certain chapters of Job and
a portion of the Book of Proverbs, in terza rima ; and of the
hymn Pange linguam, in quintillas, proves him a hymnologist
of no mean order, wherein there is a resemblance between him
and that other, but rebellious Augustinian, Martin Luther.
Not included by the author in this division, and first pub-
lished only by Merino in 1806, is his admirable translation
of the Song of Solomon, composed in terza rima and arranged
in the form of a pastoral poem. 1
The second division displays well the humanistic range
of his literary studies, and a fine appreciation of the spirit of
beauty and balance found in the ancient world. The render-
ing of his originals is sufficiently close, and the Spanish form
is well-nigh perfect in rhythm and smoothness of diction.
Here, he has not only made versions of many odes of Horace,
but he has rendered into Castilian, out of the Greek and
Latin classic world, using terza rima, octaves and other
measures, the Bucolics, the whole of the first and part of
the second Georgic of Vergil ; an elegy of Tibullus ; an ode
of Pindar ; portions of the Andromache of Euripides and a
fragment of the Thyestes of Seneca. 2 From the Italian cinque
*It is of interest to note that Milton, in his Reasons for Church Govern-
ment, also considers the Song of Solomon a pastoral poem.
2 The last two are not free from some doubt in their attribution to Le6n.
LUIS DE LEON, THE SPANISH POET. 275
cento, he has taken a canzone of Pietro Bern bo and another
of Giovanni della Casa. Petrarch he did not directly trans-
late, but imitated in a poem of several stanzas.
This work of translation prepared the way for his original
poetry, which, written in diverse metres but chiefly in his
favorite quintillas, and always sweetly melodious, derives
from classic models its exterior correctness of form, and from
sacred models that spirit of devout aspiration which charac-
terizes so many of his lyrics. To these qualities we must
add an element of gentle mysticism, inherent in the man and
indigenous to the soil whence he sprang. In the novel
Halma of Perez Gald6s, the cleric Don Manuel, protesting
against the importation into Spain of Russian mysticism,
says : " Why bring from so far that which is native to our
home, that which we have in our soil, in our atmosphere, in
our speech? Are abnegation, love of poverty, contempt for
material goods, patience, self-sacrifice, an aspiration towards
self-annihilation, all natural fruits of our land, as our history
and our literature demonstrate, are all these to be brought
from foreign countries ? An importation of mysticism, when
we have enough of it to supply the five parts of the world !
.... Remember that we are here mystics from the cradle,
and as such we unconsciously behave. . . . Here the states-
man is a mystic, when he rushes into the unknown, dreaming
of such a thing as perfection of the laws ; the soldier is a
mystic when he longs to fight, and fights without food to eat ;
the priest is a mystic when he sacrifices everything to his
spiritual ministry; a mystic, too, is the schoolmaster, when,
dying with hunger, he teaches his children how to read."
Born and bred, then, in this land of mysticism, where in
literature the note of mysticism has sounded from Berceo
down the ages, Luis de Leon has come naturally by this
quality, but he is free from that spirit of extravagance by
which it is often accompanied, and at which Gald6s hints in
the passage cited. His mysticism is tempered by his great
common sense, by his respect for moderation or measure
276 J. D. M. FORD.
which he had gained from his humanistic studies. The
expression of the importance of measure, which we have
already noted in a passage from the Perfecta Casada, recurs
in the ode ^Que va ^ e quanto vee, addressed to his friend,
Felipe Ruiz, 1 and bearing, in one manuscript, the title, On
the Moderate and Constant Man. The fifth stanza runs thus :
Dichoso el que se mide,
Felipe, y de la vida el gozo bueno
d sf solo lo pide ;
y mira como ageno
aquello que no esta dentro en su seno.
As might be expected of a mystic poet, he esteems highly
the charms of solitude and a contemplative life, which he
praises in two remarkably beautiful odes, viz. ; that entitled
Al apartamiento 2 and the / Que descansada vida ! 8 At times,
he feels that the shackles of this life are too burdensome ; the
body is then a prison, and he longs for the final release of
the spirit from its thraldom (Ode : Alma regidn luciente)*
Under the influence of music, as he tells us in his exquisite
ode to Salinas, the famous organist, his spirit can temporarily
obtain this release, and rise in aesthetic ecstasy to that exalted
region where it can hear the harmony of the spheres (Ode :
El ayre se serena). 5 The great aim of his mystic elevation
is the attainment of perfect knowledge. He longs for the
moment when, released from this prison, he can tend towards
heaven, and, in the sphere wheeling its course most remote
from the Earth, contemplate the pure and unveiled truth
(Ode: $Quando serd que pueda?). 6 Nature is for him, as
for St. Francis, the mirror of God ; and he loves the mountain,
the stream, and the field with its trees and beauteous flowers,
all absorbed in a calm repose that is broken only by the
sweet songs of the birds (Ode : / Que descansada vida /)
Occasionally he makes a bitter reference to his unjust im-
1 Sib. de autores cap., xxxvii, p. 7. 4 Ibid., p. 8.
2 Ibid., p. 8. Ibid., p. 3.
3 Bib. de autores esp., xxxvn, p. 3. 6 Ibid., p. 6.
LUIS DE LEON, THE SPANISH POET. 277
prisonment, particularly in his songs to the Blessed Virgin
composed in prison ; but his bitterness is never very great or
long sustained, for charity was his guiding-star.
A few sonnets in the Italian style, containing some remi-
niscences of Petrarch, belong probably to his earliest tentative
period, when he must have been attracted into a momentary
connection with the Italianizing school, to which belonged
his predecessor, Garcilaso de la Vega, and his contemporary,
Herrera.
Apart from all the rest of his original lyrics, stand two
odes of a national character, the justly famous Folgaba el rey
Rodrigo, 1 which may be considered his masterpiece, and the
paean to St. James (A Santiago). 2 In these he ceases to be
merely the gentle lyric poet of a mystic temperament, and
becomes the impassioned bard who strikes the epic lyre with
tragic force. They both show what excellent results he might
have attained, had he carried out his plan of composing an
epic poem. In the former of the two, treating of the first
invasion of the Arabs, brought into Spain, says the popular
legend, by an outraged father, the Conde Julidn, whose
daughter Roderick the Goth had seduced, Luis de Le6n
imitates the situation of Horace's ode, Pastor quum traheret
per f r eta navibus. 3
Just as the sea-god Nereus prophesies the fall of Troy, as
a consequence of the rape of Helen by Paris, and apostro-
phizes the Trojan prince, so does the river-god Tagus, rising
from his watery bed, predict ruin to Spain through the sin of
her ruler, and rebuke the feeble Roderick as he lies on the
bank in the embrace of the fair but fatal Cava. It is
the song of the patriot who foresees the tragic fate of his
country, a prey to internal corruption and foreign rapacity.
Like certain others of his original lyrics, it has been trans-
lated into French, German, Italian, and English. There is
an English version by Mr. Henry Phillips (Philadelphia,
1 Bib. de autores e#p., xxxvii, p. 5. 2 Ibid., p. 11.
3 Carminum, Lib. I, 15.
278 J. D. M. FORD.
1883), who had printed but one hundred copies of his little
book containing versions of six of the chief poems of Le6n.
In conclusion, it must be obvious that the object of this
sketch deserves more general attention than that usually
accorded to him, for in the history of universal culture he is
a figure lovable as a man, admirable as a poet and humanist,
and highly respectable as a churchman and mystic. Although
Spanish literature has had no concentrated humanistic move-
ment as potent as that which directed the literary destinies of
the sister Romance lands, it furnishes, in men of whom Le6n
is the type, individual instances of humanism carried to a
noble degree of perfection. 1
J The following is a list of the more important works dealing with Le6n:
Antonio, Nicolas, Bibliotheca nova, 2nd ed., Madrid, 1783-88, ad verb.
Ludovicus de Leon.
Mayans y Siscar, Gregorio : Preface to his collection of the poems of Le6n,
published in Valencia, 1761. This account is also found in Mayans
y Siscar's Carlos de varios autores, Valencia, 1773, and in the Biblioteca
de autores espaftoles, torn, xxxvii, pp. i-xvi.
Sedano, Juan Jose* Lopez de, Parnaso espanol, torn, v, Madrid, 1771, pp.
ix-xxix.
Colecci6n de documentos ineditos para la historia de Espana, por don Miguel
Sal& y don Pedro Sainz de Baranda, toms. x, xi, Madrid, 1847-48.
This collection contains the records of Le6n's trial. A selection
therefrom is found in the Bib. de aut. esp., torn, xxxvii, pp. xvii-
cxviii.
Ticknor, George, History of Spanish Literature.
Gonxales de Tejada, Jose*, Vida de Fray Luis de Leon, Madrid, 1863.
Guardia, Joseph Michel, Fray Luis de Ledn, Sa vie et ses poesies, in Le magasin
de librairie, torn, xi (Paris, 1860), pp. 104 et seq.
Keusch, Luis de Leon und die Spanische Inquisition, Bonn, 1873.
Wilkens, C. A., Fray Luis de Leon. Eine Biographie aus der Geschiehte der .
spanischen Inquisition und Kirche im 16. Jahrhundert, Halle, 1866.
None of the more recent works mentioned can be termed really satis-
factory. There is, however, an account of Leon as a mystic from the pen
of a master in Mendndez y Pelayo's essay, De la poesia mistica (Estudios de
crttica literaria, Madrid, 1884). Senor Mene*ndez y Pelayo's definition of
mysticism would exclude Berceo and other early writers.
J. D. M. FORD.
V,
PUBLICATIONS
OF THE
MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA,
1899.
VOL. XIV, 3. NEW SERIES, VOL. VII, 3.
IX. THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON
JULIANA.
In the Ada Sanctorum, volume n for February, being
volume V of the whole work, under date of February 16th,
the assigned date of her martyrdom, we find two lives of
St. Juliana, both edited by Bolland himself. One of these lives
is by an anonymous author, and is edited from eleven MSS.,
collected by Bolland from various libraries duly specified ;
and the other is by a certain Peter, a sub-deacon, and is
edited from MSS. at Naples and at Capua. This Life is dedi-
cated by Peter to an " Egregio Patri Domno Petro sanctae
Parthenopensis Ecclesiae optimo Pastori," at whose request
it claims to have been written, and who is identified by
Bolland with Peter, Archbishop of Naples, 1094-1111. If
this identification ia correct, the second Life is much later
than the first ; and it is written in a much more ornate and
elaborate style, frequently interspersed with hexameter verses.
Cardinal Baronius, who edited the Martyrologium Romanum
at Rome in 1586, after stating that the Acts of Juliana are
extant in Metaphrastes, i. e., Symeon Metaphrastes (of whom
more hereafter), says : " We have the same in an old MS.
translated from Greek into Latin by a certain Peter, who
279
280 JAMES M. GARNETT.
addressed it to Peter, a Neapolitan bishop, as his preface
informs us." But his preface does not state that he trans-
lated his work from Greek into Latin, unless we are to infer
that from his words: "Sed ejus passio propter incompositas
dictiones in coetu fidelium legi minime praevalet." It is
barely possible that Peter may have spoken of the Greek
original, if he had one, as incompositas dictiones, and so
evidently Baronius understood him, but his Life seems to me
to be based on the first Life, though written in a more elegant
style, with some enlargement in certain parts. Symeon,
however, the Byzantine hagiographer of the early tenth
century, who lived to A. D. 965, did write in Greek, and has
left us a very full Life of St. Juliana, which was translated
into Latin by his editor Lip(p)oman, and incorporated by
Surius into his work on the Lives of Saints. The Greek
church, however, commemorates St. Juliana on December 21,
her birthday. Symeon Metaphrastes may have drawn upon
his imagination, as the older Latin writers did, but he has
given us a very graphic picture of Juliana, her talks and her
sufferings, her freedom from pain and her tears, that availed
to quench the flames by which she was surrounded. (See
Appendix II.)
But who was St. Juliana ? In brief, she was the daughter
of Africanus of Nicomedia, and was put to death, a martyr to
her Christian faith, in the time of the Emperor Maximian,
somewhere between A. D. 304 and 311, some think in 309.
She had been betrothed to Eleusius in her ninth year, but in
her eighteenth year, having become a Christian, she refused
to marry him unless he too would renounce the heathen gods
and embrace the religion of Christ. Her Acts include the
various efforts made by Africanus and Eleusius to induce her
to sacrifice and to renounce her God, both by persuasion and
by punishments of various kinds scourging, hanging by the
hair, torturing on the wheel, and imprisonment in a dungeon,
where she had a long interview with Satan arrayed as an
angel of light; but, after prayer to God, she unmasks the
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 281
deception, seizes and scourges the deceiver, and compels him
to confess his various misdeeds as recounted in the Scriptures,
and to beg for release. She is again summoned before the
tribunal of the Prefect Eleusius, and leaves the prison, drag-
ging the demon with her. She is still further tortured, but
her constancy converts 130 men and women (or, if the
omitted numeral is supplied after Metaphrastes, 500 men and
130 women) who are all beheaded by the Prefect under the
orders of Maximian. Juliana is now plunged into a bath
of molten lead, which leaves her uninjured but destroys 75
bystanders, and finally, as tortures have no effect, she is
decapitated, no remedy being found for the loss of a head.
It is very interesting to note the details of each of these
Lives, their differences, their omissions and additions, each
giving play for the individual writer's imagination, especially
so the Life by Symeon, which is not found in the Ada
Sanctorum, but in the works of Symeon Metaphrastes, printed
in Migne's Patrologia Graeca, vol. 114. The concluding
sections of these Lives inform us that a certain woman of
senatorial rank, Sophonia, or Sophronia, according to Peter,
or Sophia, according to Symeon, journeying from Nicomedia
to Rome, took with her the body of the Saint, and a tempest
arising the ship was driven to Campania, to the territory of
Puteoli (Pozzuoli), where she has a mausoleum one mile from
the sea, as the first Life states. Peter still further informs us
that, owing to imminent danger from the heathen (imminente
JEthnicaferitate), lest so great a treasure might be dishonored,
her body was transferred to the city of Cumae and there
placed in the basilica of herself and St. Maximus, where it
does not cease to confer very many benefits to the glory of
God on those seeking them even to this day.
A church was dedicated to her at Naples in 598 by order
of Pope Gregory the Great. It was in the late sixth century
that this translation was made to Cumae, and the body seems
to have rested undisturbed there until 1207, when it was
transferred to Naples, and placed in the convent of the nuns
282 JAMES M. GARNETT.
of Santa Maria Donna Romita, who bore the expense of
building a church in honor of St. Juliana. Neapolitan
writers assert that the remains are still there, but nobody
knows where they are hidden, and many other cities in Italy,
Spain, the Low Countries, Germany, and France, claim to
possess them, or parts of them as relics. Brussels is one
of the most noted of these cities.
Bolland is more occupied with giving an account of these
various translations of the body than with the origin of his
MSS., about which we should like further information. He
simply states that the Acts of St. Juliana are " very ancient,"
and were written while her body was still in the territory of
Puteoli, not later then than 568, the date of the Lombard
invasion of Italy, and perhaps of the translation to Cumae.
Hessels criticised these Acts very severely, pronouncing them
to be false, and Bolland devotes much space to refuting hi&
criticisms. He does not deny that scribes have added some-
thing to the Acts, but he affirms that they are extant in all
the MS. Legendaries and Passionals, and that he has used the
MSS. of the best character. Baillet calls it "a pitiable legend "
and thinks that the most judicious savants would agree with
Hessels.
That the meagre entries of the Marty rologies, at first
consisting merely of name, place, and date, compiled from the
Calendars of the several churches, were gradually added to,
and at last comprehended voluminous Lives of the several
Saints, more or less fictitious, is an undoubted fact ; but even
though these Lives are fictitious, they create a desire to know
their origin. Nobody now blames Geoffrey of Monmouth
for his additions to the life of King Arthur, even if William
of Newberry, writing some fifty years later, did say " no one
.... can doubt how flagrantly and boldly he lies about
almost everything."
Did time permit, it would be interesting to trace the refer-
ences to St. Juliana in the Martyrologies, but we may make
only a hasty summary. The Fragments left us by Eusebius
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 283
{Migne, vol. 20, of Pair. Graec.) do not contain her name,
which is the more to be regretted because he was a con-
temporary, and would have known the facts. Baronius
argues that the book of Eusebius on the martyrs was not
a mere compendium such as at present exists. He holds that
the first Martyrology was compiled in the time of "Pope
Clement of Rome/' i. e., the close of the first century, but it
is placed much later by others, e. g., by Baillet, who states
that it was compiled in the fourth century in the time of Pope
Liberius (352-366). Baronius states that Pope Gregory the
First (c. A. D. 600) had all the names written in one MS.,
giving merely the name, place, and date of martyrdom.
This is the form of the most ancient Martyrologies, as, for
example, the Martyrologium Vetustissimum, the so-called
Martyrology of St. Jerome (Migne, vol. 30, of Pair. Lat.),
though some deny his authorship, which has under Feb-
ruary 16, "Nicomediae, passio sanctae Julianae virginis et
martyris," nothing more ; and similarly in the Liber Comitis,
also ascribed to St. Jerome, which has " Natale Sanctorum
Onesimi et Julianae virginis," with the lessons for the day
from the Book of Wisdom and from St. Matthew's Gospel.
Beda (673-735) (Migne, vol. 94, of Pair. Lat.) is said to
have been the first who added some particulars of the
martyrdom of each saint. We have in Migne two texts of
Beda's prose work, but in the existing form it is thought to
have received additions from the work of Florus. 1 Beda's
Martyrologium Poeticum contains under February one line
[* Beda and Ado, with slight corrections, read as follows : " Et in Cumis
natale sanctae Julianae virginis, quae tempore Maximiani imperatoris,
primo a suo patre Africano caesa, et graviter cruciata, et a praefecto Eleusio,
quern sponsum habuerat, nuda virgis caesa, et a capillis suspensa, et plumbo
soluto capite perfusa, et rursum in carcerem recepta, ubi palam cum diabolo
conflixit, et rursus evocata, rotarum tormenta, flammas ignium, ollam fer-
ventem superavit, ac decollatione capitis martyrium consummavit. Quae
passa est quidem in Nicomedia, sed post paucum tempus Deo disponente in
Campaniam translata."]
284 JAMES M. GAKNETT.
referring to her (xiv Kal. Mart.) : " Sic Juliana et bissepte-
nas ornat honore" (Migne, vol. 123, of Pair. Lot.).
The Martyrology of Ado, Archbishop of Yienne (Migne,
vols. 123, 124), who flourished in the ninth century, follows
Beda almost verbatim. Usuard, of St. Germain des Pres,
Ado's contemporary, is more concise: "Civitate Cumis sanctae
Julianae virginis, quae post varia tormenta, et carceris custo-
diam, palam cum diabolo conflixit. Dein flammas ignium
et ollam superans ferventem, capitis decollatione martyrium
consummavit."
But while the Martyrologies give us in very brief out-
line the particulars of the martyrdom, we have no complete
Life, such as those published in 'the Ada Sanctorum and in
Symeon's works. How then did such Lives originate and at
what early period ? It is plain that such Lives were very
popular. In the dearth of literature they served as the
novels of the Middle Ages, and were read for the entertain-
ment, as well as for the spiritual improvement, of the monks
and nuns. In addition to the authorized Lives false Lives
arose, and the Church endeavored in vain to repress them.
Baillet tells us in the " Discours sur Phistoire de la Vie
des Saints," prefixed to his Les Vies des Saints (4 vols., folio,
Paris, 1701), that the Council of Constantinople in 692 con-
demned to the fire all the false histories of martyrs, and
anathematized all who received them, or gave them credence.
He informs us further that St. Ceran (Ceraunius) of Paris,
who lived in the beginning of the seventh century under
Lothair II., undertook to collect the Acts of the martyrs, and
spared no pains to have copies made of those that were in the
different churches of France. So, also, St. Prix (Praejectus)
of Clermont in Auvergne, who lived fifty years after Ceran,
not only collected the ancient Acts, but composed new ones.
St. Aldhelm, too, of Sherborne, England, who died in 709,
made extracts from the Acts of some of the martyrs for his
works on the praise of virginity. Unfortunately he does not
mention St. Juliana. We see, however, by the use that
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 285
Aldhelm made of them, as Baillet says, that the false or
falsified Acts of Saints of the most distant provinces of Asia
were already current in the West in his time and had even
reached England. He remarks further that almost all the
histories turned into fables in the hands of those who treated
them ; the most conscientious thought themselves compelled
to consecrate even falsehood to truth and to use pious imposi-
tions to the greatest glory of God. The Acts of Saints were
brought into the Missals and Breviaries, and read just as
the Epistle and the Gospel in the churches of the West.
They had been brought into the Martyrologies still earlier.
Baillet's work is published with the approbation and privi-
lege of the King (Louis XIV), and is dedicated to his
Eminence, Monseigneur le Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop
of Paris, so there is no question as to his orthodoxy. Much
else of interest is found in this " Discours " of Baillet, but
these quotations are sufficient to show that as early as the
seventh century collections of the Acts of martyrs were made,
both genuine and spurious, and that MSS. of these Acts had
even reached England. Hence an English poet, who desired
to extol in verse the praises of any particular saint, had at
hand a Latin Life of that saint, and it did not become him
to be very critical as to the truth or falsity of its contents.
As far as we can judge, the first Life of St. Juliana, pub-
lished in the Ada Sanctorum, is the oldest, and must have
served as the model, and MSS. of this Life must have been
scattered through the monasteries of the Continent and of
England. Such a MS. Beda must have had access to, and
after him Cynewulf, who based upon it the Old English poem
Juliana, certainly composed by him, for he has left his name
imbedded in it in Runic letters, as in the Christ, the Elene,
and the Fates of the Apostles. This is not the occasion to go
into the question of the time of Cynewulf and of his genuine
works, but we shall not go far wrong if we take him to
have been a Northumbrian of the second half of the eighth
century. He may easily have been acquainted with the
JAMES M. GAKNETT.
works of Aldhelm and of Beda, and with their sources. If a
man's name in his work means anything, he certainly wrote
the Juliana, and a close comparison of his work with the
first Latin Life of the Ada Sanctorum shows that he must
have had such a Latin MS. to draw upon as his source. I
shall not undertake now to read and to explain this minute
and more or less technical comparison, but it has been made
(see Appendix I), and with the result that, while Cynewulf at
times omits and condenses, at times expands and dresses up
the thoughts in poetical phraseology, and introduces allu-
eions to native customs, he sometimes translates expressions
verbatim, and with the poem in hand one can follow the
Latin from beginning to end, and be convinced that he had
no other source than a Latin Life similar to the one above-
mentioned ; all differences can be easily explained as due to
his poetical imagination.
The work of Cynewulf is naturally the earliest English
Life of St. Juliana, and we have to come down to the
thirteenth century before we meet with another. It was in
this century that the Legenda Aurea was compiled, but the
Life of St. Juliana in that work is very brief, a mere
epitome of the incidents, so that a translation of it is an
incomplete Life. There is no English translation, as far
as I know, of these Latin Lives of St. Juliana, or of the
Greek of Symeon (i. e., judging from the bibliographies in
Brunet (1865) and in Lowndes (I860)), and we must resort
to the originals to see with what skill, and often with what
force, the writers of the Saints' Lives have embellished
their meagre incidents. Peter is not satisfied with following
the older Life in stating that Eleusius wrote to Maximian
to inquire how the converted should be treated, and that
Maximian replied that they must be beheaded, but he gives
us in so many words the letters of each in full, as if he had
access to the original documents. But did not Thucydides
and Livy do likewise in their histories ? Saints 7 literature in
modern English seems to be very scanty, but we had much
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 287
of it in Middle English. Rev. Alban Butler's Lives of the
Fathers, Martyrs, and other principal Saints (best ed., 12 vols.,
1812 ff. ; 1st ed., 5 vols., 1745) gives ug a very brief account
of St. Juliana (vol. n, p. 163), and he remarks that "Her
Acts in Bollandus deserve no notice." On the contrary, I
think that they deserve considerable notice, although we by
no means pin our faith to them as to the truth of history.
Baring-Gould, in his Lives of Saints (13 vols., 2d ed., 1872;
3d ed., 1898), is somewhat fuller as to our Saint (2d ed., vol.
II, p. 316), but he too thinks it necessary to warn us that
" The Acts are not to be trusted. They have apparently been
interpolated by those who were not satisfied with their origi-
nal brevity." Even so, but we are very thankful to the
original interpolator, whoever he was, for having given us a
most graphic and interesting picture of the faith and perse-
verance of a saint, who attracts us by her beauty of person
and of character, who triumphs over all her enemies, her
father, her espoused, and even the Devil himself, who con-
verts hundreds by the example of her constancy amidst the
most excruciating tortures, whom not even a bath of molten
lead could harm, and who succumbs only to the inevitable axe.
Further, as to the value of the Lives of Saints, Horstmann,
who, by his several publications, has made the Middle English
Legendaries a province peculiarly his own, comments in his
Preface to the South English Legendary (E. E. T. Society,
1887) on the neglect that these Lives have experienced at
the hands of English writers, and argues for a wider knowl-
edge of them, saying in conclusion (p. xii) : " So the collection
deserves attention not only from a hagiologic, but also from a
poetic and literary point of view. In publishing it, we only
pay a just debt to the past." The Laud MS., which he prints,
does not contain the Life of St. Juliana, but he gives the
contents of some half-dozen others which do contain it. He
supports his own opinion by quoting in a Note (p. xi) from
Hunan's History of Israel, i, Preface : Les legendes des Saints,
pour la plupart, ne sont pas historiques, et ne"anmoins elles
288 JAMES M. GARNETT.
sont merveilleusement instructives pour ce qui tient & la cou-
leur des temps et aux mceurs." These Middle English
legends of saints depend for the most part on the Legenda
Aurea, but we must go back to the Latin Lives for the
earliest ones. The Middle English Life of St. Juliana is,
however, a wide subject and must be postponed for a future
occasion. It is sufficient if we have made better known the
form that Cynewulf must have used for his poem. Cynewulf
seems to have tried his 'prentice hand on the Juliana, and a
part of his poem is lost, but what we have left is sufficient to
enable us to judge of the treatment of his source, and of the
incipient poetic power which was to be still further developed
in his later works.
APPENDIX I.
The following Appendix contains a close comparison of
the poem of Cynewulf with the original Latin by sections.
It will give an illustration of the manner in which Cynewulf
condenses and expands his source. It is manifest that, as
stated above, the poet had before him a Latin Life similar
to the first one printed in the Acta Sanctorum. Doubtless
if a search were made through the collections of MSS. of the
Lives of Saints in England, such a Life could be found,
for Bolland had access to eleven such MSS. collected from
different libraries on the Continent. The comparison shows
that Cynewulf was not a slavish follower of his Latin text,
but that he worked independently.
Comparison of Cynewulf s Juliana with ike first Life
in the Acta Sanctorum.
1. Cynewulf omits the few lines of Introduction begin-
ning Benignitas Salvatoris noslri. He expands lines 1-17 on
the persecution of the Christians from the few lines, Denique
temporibus Maximiani Imperatoris persecutoris Christianae re-
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 289
ligionis; lines 17-26, about the power and wealth of Eleusius,
are expanded from the brief statement, erat quidam senator in
dvitate Nicomedia (which Cynewulf calls Commedia) nomine
Eleusius, amicus Imperatoris, which appellation is omitted ;
lines 26-37 are expanded from, Hie desponsaverat quandam
puellam nobili genere. ortam, nomine Julianam, and from the
following description of Juliana ; but the statements as to her
father and mother are omitted, that her father Africanus was
a persecutor of the Christians, and that her mother was joined
with neither the Christians nor the pagans ; lines 37-57 are
expanded from the statement that Eleusius was eager for the
nuptials, with additions about his wealth, but omission of
Juliana's first condition : Nisi dignitatem praefecturae adminis-
traveris, nullo modo tibi possum conjungi. Eleusius fulfilled
this condition by giving money to the Emperor, only to be
met by the answer to his messengers that he must believe in
her God, and worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (which is
paraphrased by Cynewulf), and the remainder of Juliana's
reply is expanded from, Quod si nolueris, quaere tibi aliam
uxorem, a much more succinct answer.
2. Lines 58-77 are expanded from the brief statement,
Audiens haec Praefectus vocavit patrem ejus, et dixit ei omnia
verba quae ei mandaverat Juliana. Here we have the graphic
touches of the battle-warriors leaning their spears together,
and Eleusius holding his spear, before his speech, which is
narrated more effectively in the first person ; lines 77-88 are
a forcible expansion of the speech of Africanus : Per miseri-
cordes et amatores hominum Deos, quod si vera sunt haec
verba, tradam earn tibi; lines 89-104 expand in Cynewulf ? s
manner, with further reference to the wealth of Eleusius,
which was evidently a powerful attraction, the simple Latin
words : Filia una dulcissima Juliana, lux oculorum meorum
(exactly rendered mmra eagna leoht), quare non vis accipere
Praefectum sponsum tuum? En vero volo illi complere nuptias
vestras.
290 JAMES M. GARNETT.
Lines 105-116 enlarge the simple repetition by Juliana
of her previous condition of marriage. The allusion to
" wealth " is here again an addition by Cynewulf.
Lines 117129 are an expansion of the Latin, Per miseri-
cordes Deos Apollinem et Dianam, quod si permanseris in his
sermonibus, feris te tradam. It will be observed that the oath
" By Apollo and Diana " is turned into " By my life " (gif
mlnfeorh leofaftl).
Lines 130139 include two speeches of Juliana, the inter-
mediate one of Africanus being omitted. Here Juliana swears,
Per Filium Dei vivi, which is softened into " By my life ! " (bl
me lifgendre) a second time.
Lines 140-160 expand the statement that Africanus at once
ordered Juliana to be stripped and whipped, asking, Quare
non adoras Deos? Juliana answering, Non credo, non adoro,
non sacrifico idolis surdis et mutis (literally translated dumbum
and deafum deofolgieldum) ; sed adoro Jesum Christum, qui
vixit semper et regnat in coelis. The concluding lines intro-
duce the names Africanus and Heliseo for pater ejus and
Praefecto sponso ejus.
3. Lines 160-174 expand the Latin, but the first lines
are almost literally translated. The Latin represents the Pre-
fect as alone seeing her beauty ; Cynewulf adds the people
too. In Eleusius 7 speech, dulcissima mea Juliana is literally
translated, but sunnan sdma, and hwcet! Ipu glcem hafast,
ginfceste giefe geogufthddes bleed, are additions of Cynewulf
with poetic touch. Cynewulf adds also sd]>um gieldum to si
sacrificare nolueris.
Lines 175-183 are an expansion of Juliana's previous condi-
tion Deum Patrem et Filium et 8piritum sanctum are rendered
wuldres God, gcesta scyppend, meotud moncynnet, in ]>ces
meahtum sind a butan ende ealle gesceafta.
Cynewulf omits a short speech of the Prefect and Juliana's
reply, and a longer speech of each, the Prefect saying that, if
he complied with her request to receive the spirit of God, the
Emperor would appoint a successor and cut off his head, and
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 291
Juliana replying that, if he feared a mortal Emperor, how
could he compel her to deny an immortal one ; let him inflict
his tortures ; she believes in Him in whom Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob believed and were not confounded.
4. Lines 184-208; 184-188 relate the scourging, but
that it was with " four rods " (quatuor virgis) and by " three
soldiers in turn" (tres milites vioissim) is not mentioned by
Cynewulf; 189-208 contain the Prefect's speech much ex-
panded from the brief command to sacrifice to the great
Diana, or by the great Apollo he would not spare her.
Cynewulf always studiously avoids any mention of Apollo
and Diana, so that these names do not occur in the poem.
Lines 209-224 are much expanded from the brief answer
of Juliana: Noli credere quod suasionibus tuis me revocare
poteris a Domino meo Jesu Christo.
Lines 225-235 describe the hanging by the hair for six
hours (per sex horas) (literally rendered, siex tlda dceges), the
taking down, and the leading to prison, but omit the injunc-
tion to sacrifice and Juliana's refusal with the boast, vincam
mentem tuam inhumanam et fadam erubescere patrem tuum
satanam, the pouring of molten brass over her a capite usque ad
talos, but nihil ei nocuit, and the binding of her limbs (jussit
ligamen per femora ejus mitti), before casting her into prison.
5. Lines 236-242 omit Juliana's long prayer for help on
entrance into prison, with its scriptural references to those
who had been preserved in the midst of torments, and its
imprecations on the Prefect and prayer that God's power may
be shown in her.
Cap. n, 6. Lines 242-257 describe the coming of the
demon, nomine Belial (name omitted by Cynewulf) in the form
of an angel, and his attempt to persuade Juliana to sacrifice
and escape the torture to come; these lines are but slightly
expanded from the Latin.
In lines 258-266, Juliana's inquiry and the devil's answer
are a slight expansion of the Latin, but angelus Domini sum
is translated verbatim, ic eom engel godes.
292 JAMES M. GAKNETT.
Lines 267-288 give Juliana's prayer to God, with omission
of ingemiscens amarissime and oculos suos levans ad coelum cum
lacrimis, graphic touches that Cynewulf overlooks, but in
general the Latin is closely followed, especially the response
of the voice to seize the demon that she may learn who he is;
7, tenuit Belial daemonem is rendered heo }>cet deofol genom,
but facto Christi signaculo is omitted. After 288 there is the
loss of a leaf in the A.-S. MS. (part of section 7), which included
the Latin from et dixit ei : Die mihi, quis es tu f et unde es ?
vel quis te misit ad me ? to ego sum qui fed oh Herode infantes
occidi, inclusive; it comprises some twenty-five MS. lines,
covering the Scriptural references to Adam and Eve, Cain
and Abel, Job, the children of Israel, Isaiah, Nebuchadnezzar,
the three children, Jerusalem, the slaying of the children
by Herod, and the death of Judas. A peculiar word is in
the devil's reply : Ego sum Belial daemon (quern aliqui
Jopher Nigrum vocant). [This sentence is omitted in Grein's
Latin.]
Lines 289-315 follow the Latin quite closely, with some
expansion, but with omission of the names Petrus et Paulus
in connection with Simon Magus, and with insertion of the
name Hegias in connection with Andrew.
8. Lines 315-344 include four short questions of Juliana
and three brief answers, with one long one, from the demon.
The names Satanas and Beelzebub of the Latin are omitted by
Cynewulf.
Lines 345-417 cover Juliana's short command, Ad quae
opera justa proficiscimini, narra mihi, and the demon's long
answer ( 9), which follows the Latin quite closely, but with
some expansion. The specific references to hearing the Holy
Scriptures and partaking of "the divine mystery" are omitted
by Cynewulf.
10. Lines 417-428 are an expansion of Juliana's ques-
tion : Immunde spiritus, quomodo praesumis Christianis te
admiscere ?, with addition of the reference to " Christ " and
to the " pit of hell " (helle sea%).
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 293
Lines 428-453 comprise the demon's reply, a partial para-
phrase of the Latin ; confidis in Christum is rendered ]>u in
ecne god .... getreowdes. Certain exclamations are omitted,
and the threat by the demon to accuse Juliana to his father ;
the allusions to the cross are inserted.
Here follows the binding of the demon by Juliana and
the scourging with one of her chains, which are omitted by
Cynewulf; also the exclamation of the demon and the adju-
ration, per passionem Domini Jesu Christi, miserere infelicitati
meae !
11. Lines 454-460 are an expansion of Juliana's com-
mand: Confitere mihi, immunde spiritus, cui hominum-injuriam
fecistif
Lines 460-530, the speech of the devil, are a consider-
able expansion of the Latin, especially the combats, beore
druncne, evidently a reminiscence of native customs, and
the allusions to Adam and Eve, but many literal translations
identify the passage. The reference to the Temptation is
omitted, and the final apostrophe : virginitas, quid contra
nos armaris f Joannes, quid contra nos virginitatem tuam
ostendisti ?
12. Lines 530-558 embrace the summoning of Juliana
by the Prefect from prison, and the prayer of the demon to
be dismissed, close to the Latin with some omissions. She
goes forth dragging the demon per forum, omitted by Cyne-
wulf, and she casts him in locum stercore plenum, paraphrased
by Cynewulf, ]>ystra neosan in sweartne grund, on mta
forwyrd.
Cap. in. After line 558 one or more pages are missing
from the A.-S. MS. They comprised 13-17 inclusive of
the Latin, and contained the Prefect's question as to how she
had overcome such tortures by incantations ; Juliana's reply
that Christ had sent His angel to strengthen her, and her
exhortation to repentance; further tortures on the wheel with
sharp swords, and by fire, which the angel of the Lord
extinguished ; Juliana's long prayer, and recounting of Old
294 JAMES M. GAKNETT.
Testament deliverances, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David,
the incarnation, betrayal, crucifixion, resurrection and ascen-
sion, and a prayer for her own deliverance ; the conversion
of the executioners and others ; the Prefect's report to Maxi-
mian and his order that the converts be beheaded; [500]
men and 130 women are executed ; the Prefect's order that
Juliana be burnt alive ; her prayer for aid, and the coming of
the angel who scatters the fire, and Juliana stands uninjured.
Lines 559-568 comprise their praise of God and the com-
ing of the angel.
18. Lines 569-606 describe the rage of the Prefect and
the bath of molten lead, which was to Juliana sicut balneum
bene temperatum; the leaping forth of the vessel and the
destruction of seventy-five bystanders ; the further anger of
the Prefect and the cursing of his gods because they could
not injure Juliana; and finally his sentence of decapitation;
the Latin is here closely followed even to the number killed.
19. Lines 607-634 comprise Juliana's rejoicing, the
coming of the devil and his urging the executioners not to
spare her ; her looking at him and his flight, crying, Heu me
miserum ! &c. Wd me forworhtum, &c., a close paraphrase
of the Latin.
20. Lines 635-671 comprise the exhortation addressed
by Juliana to the converted and the other Christians present
to build their houses on a firm rock, to watch against foes,
and to pray for her, close to the Latin. Her giving peace
to all and final prayer for herself are omitted by Cynewulf ;
decottata est is poetically paraphrased, Dd hyre sdwl wearS
dlceded of face to ]>dm langan gefean ]>urh sweordslege.
[ 21. Section 21, relating the bringing of Juliana's body
by Sephonia from Nicomedia and the landing in Campania
near Puteoli, where she has a mausoleum, is omitted by
Cynewulf.]
22. Lines 671-695 comprise the shipwreck of Eleusius
and the loss of thirty-four men (the Latin has twenty-four),
whose bodies, in the Latin, are devoured by birds and wild
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 295
beasts. Allusions to the wine-hall, the beer-seats, the rings
and appled gold, are additions after native customs ; as also
the burial of Juliana's body. The date is omitted.
Lines 695-731 are a personal epilogue, sad and grave,
appended by Cynewulf.
APPENDIX II.
Synopsis of the Life of St. Juliana in Symeon Metaphrastes.
The works of Symeon Metaphrastes, who wrote his Meta-
phrases, or Lives of Saints, about A. D. 914, are found in
volume 114 of Migne's Patrologia Graeca, together with a
Latin translation in parallel columns. The Life of St. Juliana
extends from columns 1437-38 to columns 1451-52. The
following brief synopsis will suffice for comparison with the
Latin Lives in the Ada Sanctorum and with the Anglo-Saxon
poem of Cynewulf.
Chapter I. Col. 1438. Mater vero erat in confinio utrius-
que, nempe et gentilium erroris simul et pietatis, et neutri
tribuens plus quam alteri.
II. Col. 1439. irdvra \L6ov /ai^cras, cum omnem rnovis-
set lapidem ; /cat TTO\\OV ftpvcriov rrjv ap^rjv tovrjcrdiievos, et
plurima pecunia emisset magistratum. Juliana made it a
condition that Eleusius should gain the Prefecture, and after
he obtained it, that he should worship her God, or erepav
grjrei, rrfv (rvvoiicri<Tovo-av, quaere aliam quae tecum habitet.
III. At this he became angry and informed her father.
Africanus is very angry, but at first speaks gently. Die mihi,
inquit, filia charissima, et grata lux meorum oculorum. She
repeats the condition to him. He swears by Apollo and Diana
that he will cast her body to wild beasts and dogs. She wel-
comes death and he tries persuasion and blandishments.
IV. She persists in refusing to have anything to do with
Eleusius unless he worships Christ. Africanus puts her in
prison and returns at night, but she refuses to sacrifice and
2
296 JAMES M. GARNETT.
worships Christ alone, so, after inflicting blows, he delivers
her to Eleusius to use as he pleases.
V. Eleusius, overcome by her beauty, addresses her in
soft words and begs for marriage. She refuses unless he is
baptized. He declines because the Emperor would deprive
him of honor and of life. She replies : If he fears a mortal
king, should she not fear an immortal one, who has power
over both body and soul ? How should she be joined with
His enemies ? Let him do as he pleases, kill, deliver to fire,
or wild beasts, flog, or what not, he is abominable to her.
VI. Eleusius is inflamed with anger and love, and orders
her to be flogged until the scourgers are weary. He says,
this is the beginning ; " sacrifice to Diana." She replies that
she is more ready to suffer punishment than he to inflict it.
He orders her to be hanged by the hair until the skin is
drawn from her head and her eyebrows to her forehead. He
then addresses her again, love inducing him to think that he
would persuade her.
VII. Effecting nothing, he orders iron plates, burning hot,
to be applied to her shoulders and sides, her hands bound to
her sides, and thus transfixed, she is led to prison. Lying
on the ground, she prays to be delivered from her afflictions,
as Daniel, the three children, and Thecla were from fire and
wild beasts. "Pater meus et mater mea dereliquerunt me;
tu autem, Domine, ne recesseris a me. Overthrow my ene-
mies as thou didst preserve Israel in the sea."
VIII. While she is thus praying, the enemy of all, feign-
ing to be the angel of God, appears and tries to persuade her
to sacrifice, for she cannot bear the punishments to come. She
asks who he is, and he replies "the angel of God," who sends
him that she may obey, and will pardon her on account of the
weakness of the flesh. In terror and distress, her eyes being
filled with tears, she prays that the evil one may not temper
the bitter cup, but " show me who this is that pretends to be
Thy servant." A voice is heard, " seize him and learn who
he is."
THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON JULIANA. 297
IX. Her chains are loosed, and she seizes him as a slave,
saying, "Who art thou, and whence, and by whom sent?"
She flogs him, and he confesses that Satan sent him. He had
deceived Eve, urged Cain, influenced Nebuchadnezzar, induced
Herod to slay the children, and Judas to betrayal and hang-
ing, and had caused the stoning of Stephen, and the killing of
Peter and Paul. He persuaded the Hebrews to be idolaters,
and made naught the wisdom of Solomon through his illicit
loves.
X. Juliana binds him with more chains and inflicts more
blows. He begs to be set free, and laments his calamity. He
has deceived many and inflicted many evils on them. No
one could overcome him ; but she has put chains on him and
inflicted blows. Was his father ignorant that nothing is more
exalted than virginity, nothing stronger than the prayer of a
martyr ?
XI. The Prefect sends for Juliana to be brought before
him, and she goes, dragging the demon. She stands before
him in her original beauty, as if she had suffered no harm,
but as if prepared for the bridal. He wants to know by what
art she has effected this. She replies that it is no art, but
divine power, which has made her more powerful than he
and his father Satan. Christ has weakened their strength
and prepared for him fire and hell and darkness and the
worm.
XII. Eleusius prepares for her fire, a furnace filled with
materials easily combustible, and they throw her in. She
looks up to God and sheds tears, and these small drops ex-
tinguish the flame. All the people of Nicomedia are aston-
ished at the miracle, and five hundred cry out with one voice
and mind : " There is one God, the God of the martyr Juli-
ana ; we worship Him and renounce heathen worship ; come
sword, fire, or any other death." The Prefect orders them to
be put to death, and there were also put to death one hundred
and thirty women, " for they were not inferior to the men in
piety."
298 JAMES M. GAENETT.
XIII. The Prefect, burning with anger, orders a caldron
to be prepared, and Juliana to be cast into it. Divine grace
made it a bath for her, but a Chaldaean furnace for the
attendants, for it suddenly rebounded and destroyed the by-
standers ; even the lictors were thus consumed. The Prefect
was enraged because he could not overcome a girl, and tore
his garments, and cried to his gods. As punishments were
of no avail, but the constancy of the martyr was increased,
he orders her to be beheaded.
XIV. The demon appears again, and, standing afar off,
rejoices and urges on the lictors. Juliana looks at him, and
crying out, " Woe is me ! she wishes to seize me again," he
vanishes. Juliana walks with eager face and glad eyes, talk-
ing with the attendants and persuading them that nothing is
more precious than the love of Christ. She first prays, and
then bends her neck to the blow, preserving the same joy of
mind and showing no sadness.
XV. Sophia was by chance passing through Nicomedia
and journeying to Rome. She took the sacred relics, and
carrying them home erected a temple to the martyr worthy
of her sufferings. Eleusius soon after suffers deserved pun-
ishment. As he was journeying by sea, a violent tempest
arose, and the ship with his companions was sunk. He was
reserved for a greater calamity, for being cast away in a desert
place, he became food for dogs.
XVI. Such was the martyrdom of Juliana and such her
end, for Christ attended her who had been espoused to Eleu-
sius about her ninth year, but was the spouse of Christ and
was joined to Him by martyrdom at the age of eighteen.
Maximian was then king of the wicked, but our King, God
and King of the faithful, is our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom
be glory and power "nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum.
Amen."
JAMES M. GARNETT.
X. THE SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR
'SMELL' AND 'SEE/
Since the publication, in 1879, of BechtePs Uber die
Bezeichnungen der sinnlichen Wahrnehmungen little has been
done in this field. In fact, the ground there broken seems
to have become fallow again. Perhaps this is because the
book is based on a now antiquated phonetic system. But,
in the main, the principles there advocated are none the less
true, even though many of the etymologies are no longer
tenable. This paper is intended, therefore, to rehabilitate
these principles and supply some deficiencies.
How is sense-perception expressed ? Bechtel says, p. viii f. :
"Die Wahrnehmungen durch die fiinf sinne werden ....
sprachlich in der weise zum ausdruck gebracht, dass von der
perception als solcher vollig abgesehen und statt ihrer die
tatigkeit genannt wird, auf welche die perception erfolgt oder
welche gegenstand der perception ist." This is, in the first
place, because the proethnic man, and the undeveloped mind
as well, described sense-perception as an objective phenome-
non and, secondly, 'because words come to connote much more
than they primarily denoted, often indeed something entirely
different from the root meaning. For example, when I say
" I smell," it implies not only actually, but also historically
" it smells," and this meant originally " it smokes, it exhales,
it reeks." But this is not the end of the investigation. It
remains to discover the primary meaning of ' smoke/ and
here we find what we should expect, that a word for 'smoke'
may come from any root that may describe its appearance/
It is evident, therefore, that the development of a meaning
is often brought about by the extension and then the obscura-
tion of the original idea. To discover this original idea I
see no other way than to reduce the several words of a group
to a common root and, by a comparison of the various
299
300 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
significations, find out the primary meaning. This is based
on the principle I have discussed in AJP, xix, 40 ff., that
"words of the same phonetic composition are presumably
cognate" regardless of any difference in meaning. This
principle is expressed thus by Bechtel, p. xiii : " Das, was
bis hinab in die ausserste periode, in welche wir dringen
konnen, als lautlich gleich uns entgegen tritt, muss auch
begrifflich zusammenfallen." And yet how often do our
etymological dictionaries separate words simply because of a
difference in meaning, and connect others that are phoneti-
cally unlike simply because they are synonymous. As if
form were less persistent than meaning ! No, the form often
remains when the original meaning is entirely lost sight of,
and hence the original meaning has absolutely no influence
upon the development of a secondary meaning. Thus OE.
hefig ' heavy, grievous ' is not affected in its use by its connec-
tion with OE. hebban ' raise.'
In this paper, therefore, the attempt is made to refer the
various words to their primitive roots and meanings, and to
show how these meanings have developed into expressions
of sense-perception. I shall consider only the words for
sight and smell. The examples are taken mostly from the
Germanic.
A. SEMASIOLOGY OF EXPRESSIONS FOR 'SMELL.'
I. To our early ancestors ' odor, smell ' was in many cases
synonymous with ' smoke, vapor, exhalation. 7 Odors were as
visible as the. objects of sight. They arose from the steaming
viands or the reeking fen, and appealed to the eye as well
as delighted or offended the nostrils of men and gods. They
were described, therefore, in terms of sight.
Now what terms would be used in describing ' smoke,
vapor ? ' We find a great variety of such words in the IE.
languages. As words for ' smoke ' they are, of course, not all
of equally ancient origin nor do they all go back to IE. time.
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOB ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 301
They arose from time to time just as the first word for smoke
arose a description of the appearance. How should we now
describe ' smoke ' if there were no such word? Naturally we
should say : ' It breaks forth, it rises, it eddies up, it whirls
around, it puffs out/ etc. Finally a community would settle
upon one or more of such expressions, and these would mean
from their association ' smoke/
1. Goth. daunSj ON. daunn 'odor/ OHG. toum 'vapor,
odor/ Skt. dhumd-, Lat. fumus, etc., from the root dhu-
' shake, rush/ in Skt. dhUnoti 'shake, move/ Gk. Ova) 'storm,
rage, offer sacrifice/ ON. dyja ' shake/ etc.
To the derivative stem dhu-bho- belong Ger. duft, MHG.
tuft 'exhalation, mist, dew, rime/ OHG. tuft 'frost/ Dan.
duft 'exhalation, gentle wind, dust/ MDu. duf, LG. duff,
duffig ' damp ' (Schade, Wb. s. v. tuft). To these we may add
MHG. tuften, tuftelen 'strike, beat/ OE. dubbian 'strike,
dub/ and the group to which Goth, daufs 'deaf has been
assigned, viz. : OE. dofian, OHG. toben ' rage/ Gk. rO^o?
' smoke/ TV^OCD ' smoke, stupefy/ etc. Or G. duft and its
congeners may be related more closely tq Skt. dhupa- ' smoke,
incense/ dhupdyati 'fumigate, perfume, smoke/ dhupi- 'a kind
of wind/ from the base dhu-po-.
2. Icel. hniss 'afsmak eller stark smak vid mat/ Lat.
nidor, Gk. tcvia-a, tcvia-aa ' steam and odor of fat/ from root
quid- in ON. hmta ' thrust/ OE. hmtan ' gore, clash together/
Gk. /cvlSrj ' nettle/ KVifa ' scratch/ Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v.
Kvlo-a, Brugmann, Grd., I 2 , 701.
The root qn%-dr, qnei-d- is a derivative of qne-io-, which is
from the simpler root qne-, qeno- (Prellwitz). From this
come qu3-uo-, qnu-d-, etc., in Gk. /cvv^a 'the itch/ Lett.
knudt 'itch/ Goth, hnuto 'thorn, sting/ etc. And to this
root belongs Gk. Kovva, KVV^CL 'fleabane' (a strong smell-
ing plant).
The meaning ' odor, vapor ' is from the intransitive use of
the word 'spring forth.' The same is the case with the
words following.
302 FEANCIS A. WOOD.
3. Lith. pa-kvimpti 'smell' (good or bad), kvepiit, kvepeti
' exhale/ kvdpas ' breath/ Lett. kwept ' fumigate/ ktipet
'smoke/ Lat. vapor, Gr. /caTrvco 'breathe/ KCLTTVOS 'smoke/
Goth, af-hwapjan ' smother, extinguish/ Cf. Fick, VWb. 4 I,
396 ; Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb. s. v. af-hwapjan.
The element quiz- in the root qu%-p- appears also in Skt.
kvathati ' boil, seethe/ Goth, hwafyjan ' foam ' (cf. Fick as
above), OE. hwa]>erian ' foam, surge ; ' and in OChSl. kvasiti
'fermentare/ ON. hucesa 'hiss.' Cf. author, Mod. Lang.
Notes, xni, 85 f. This element qu%- may be regarded as
shortened from qeuo-, qeue- ' beat, agitate/ for it is from this
idea that a word for 'smoke, vapor' is frequently derived.
We may, therefore, add to this group OE. heawan, OHG.
houwan 'hew/ Lith. kduti 'beat/ kova 'battle/ Lat. cu-do.
Lat. cudo contains the same elements as, and may be compared
with, Skt. cbdati, coddyati 'incite, drive/ Goth, ga-hwatjan
' incite, sharpen/ OE. hwetlan, etc. For further discussion of
this root cf. author Am. Germ., 11, no. 4.
The root form qnp- occurs also in the primary sense ' agi-
tate.' Compare Skt.. Mpyati ' be agitated, boil, be angry.'
With this have been connected Goth. OHG. hiufan 'lament/
OE. heofan, etc., and Lat. cupio ' desire.' To these we may
add OE. hwopan 'cry out, threaten/ Goth, hwopan 'boast/ and
also Gk. /CO/ATTO? <^*quompos (v. Brugm. Grd. I 2 , 313) 'noise,
din, boasting/ KOfiirew 'clash, boast/ and perhaps KOTTTCO
' strike, beat, cut/ KOTTTOPCU ' bewail, lament/ /coTrero?, tcofj,-
//,05 * wailing/ KOTTIS 'prater, wrangler.' We have in this
group, therefore, the ablaut qutp-, quop-, qeup-, qup-. The
-p- of the Germ, is perhaps from pre-Germ. -pn-. The mean-
ings of the entire group are easily derivable from 'shake,
agitate, beat.'
The same meaning and root are also in OHG. hwennen
'shake, swing/ Lat. vannus, Brugm. Grd. I 2 , 321. We have
then the following roots qeuo- ' shake, beat ; ' que-no, qud-no-
' shake, swing; que-do-, qu-do-, qeu-do- 'beat, incite;' que-tho-
' agitate, seethe ; ' que-po-, quo-po- qeu-po- ' agitate, beat, smoke,
SEMASIOLOGY OP WORDS FOB ' SMELL 9 AND ' SEE/ 303
smell ; ' que-so- ' agitate, seethe. 7 The relationship in this
group is as certain as anything in linguistics can be.
4. ON. ]>efa ' smell, sniff, emit vapor/ OE. }>efian ' pant/
Skt. tdpati 'burn, be warm, glow/ Lat. tepeo, etc., Schade,
Wb. s. v. thafjan.
A word for * burn, smoke/ etc., necessarily comes from a
verb expressing motion. A root tep- is found in several
groups of words, all of which may be combined under the
primary meaning ' shoot out, stretch out/ This we find
in Skt. vi-tapati l stretch apart, separate/ sam-tap- 'draw
together/ Lith. su-tdpti 'come together/ tamph, tdpti 'be-
come/ Gk. TOTro? ' locus extentus, regio/ roTrd^co ' aim at,
intendo/ roirelov 'cord, rope.' With these compare temp-
'stretch' in Lith. tempiU 'stretch out/ temptyva 'sinew/
OChSl. tapu 'obtusus, crassus/ ON. ]>amb 'cramming' Lat.
tempus ' time/ lempora ' temples ' (of head), templum, con-
templor ' arez/tfo/ tempto 'touch, feel, attack, try.' Fick,
VWb. 4 , I, 443; Brugm. Grd., I 2 , 366.
The root tep- occurs also in Lith. tepil 'smear/ OChSl.
tepa ' strike/ both of which are closely allied in meaning to
Lat. tempto. Here also Gk. raTrewos, from imp- or fop-,
1 low, base, abject, submissive, obedient/ NPers. thdftan
'bend, oppress/ ON. ]>6/ 'throng/ Fick, VWb* i, 56. For
these meanings compare Lat. tenuis ' poor, mean, weak, low.'
This also connects OE. ge-]>cef ' consenting to/ \afian 'consent
to, permit/ with which compare especially Gk. Taireivo?
'submissive, obedient.' Bechtel, SinnL Wahrn. 110.
5. OE. ge-stincan 'smell' (trans.), stincan 'emit vapor,
emit odor (good or bad), rise ' (of dust), OHG. stinkan ' emit
odor.' ON. stjpkkva 'jump, leap/ Goth, stigqan 'thrust.'
This is an old combination, but apparently fallen into dis-
repute. The development is right in line, however, with the
foregoing. It is evident that the meaning 'smell, stink'
came from 'emit vapor.' OE. stincan in the sense 'emit
vapor' is certainly the same as in 'rise, whirl up.' It is
simply the descriptive use of this word that came to mean
304 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
'emit vapor' and consequently 'emit odor.' OE. stincan 'rise,
whirl up 7 no one separates from ON. sfakkva, Goth, stigqan,
and, as we see here, the various meanings form a graduated
scale from one to the other. Goth, -stagqan ' strike, dash/
causative of stigqan, is formally identical with OE. stencan
' scatter/ but not with OHG. stenchan ' cause odor/ denomi-
native of stanch ' odor/ which is a derivative of the verb in
the sense ' enri^ odor/
Now this Germ, root stinq-, stanq- has developed a second-
ary ablaut as compared with Lat. stinguo, with which it has
been combined. The IE. root is properly s&'(n)<^-, to which
also belong Gk. o-reifico ' tread on, stamp ' (primarily ' leap
up and down on ' = ON. st0kkva ' leap '), o-roifir) ' a stuffing,
packing/ crrl/Bo? 'path/ etc., and Lith. stingau 'become thick/
Lett, stingt ' become compact/ stings ' stiff.' Lat. stinguo,
ex-stinguo ' meant primarily ' stamp out/ or else ' stuff full/
like E. stifle from ON. stifla 'dam up/ from stlfr 'stiff;'
and distinguo meant 'thrust asunder' hence 'separate/ like
OE. stencan ' scatter.' With this root we may here connect
OHG. irsticchan 'stifle, suffocate/ MHG. erstecken 'stuff full,
suffocate/
The root stei-g^- in o-Tei/3ct), stinguo, stigqan, etc., is in all
probability an extension of stzi-. Compare stei-g- in Goth.
stiks, OHG. stehhan, Lat. instigo, Gk. crri^a), etc. ; stei-gh- in
Goth, steigan, Gk. crret^o), etc.; stei-bh- in Gk. o-rlfyos 'heap/
<r<po9 'firm/ Lith. staibus 'strong, brave/ etc.; stei-p- in
Lat. stipes 'post/ stipo 'press, cram/ Lith. stiprus 'firm/
stipti ' become stiff/ OE. stlf ' stiff/ etc. The root stei- in
Gk. aria, o-riov, Goth, stains 'stone/ etc., probably meant
originally 'rise, spring up/ for from this the various mean-
ings of this widespread root are traceable.
6. OHG. drdhen, MHG. drcehen, drcejen, drcen 'breathe,
exhale ; smell ' (trans.) < *J?re/an, drat ' exhalation, odor/
OHG. drdho 'fragrant;' drdsen 'exhale, snort/ drdsod 'snort-
ing/ thrdsunga, same, MHG. drds, drdst 'exhalation, odor/
OE. ]?rosm ' vapor, smoke/ ]>rysman ' oppress.'
SEMASIOLOGY OF WOKDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 305
The common meaning of the above group is 'puff/ and
this probably came from 'scatter, throw out.' We may, there-
fore, refer these words to the pre-Germ. root stero-, (s)tre-,
and compare them with the base stre- which occurs in MHG.
$trcejen < *strejan ' spritzen, stieben, lodern/ strdm ( strom,
richtung, streifen, strahl/ strcemelm 'strahl/ OHG. strata
' arrow, flash/ OE. strcel ' arrow/ OChSl. strela ' arrow/
OHG. streno 'strahne/ Lat. strenuus 'brisk, quick/ Gk.
<rTpr)vr)<s 'strong, rough, harsh/ OE. strcec, strec 'violent,
mighty, stern/ with which compare OE. stearc ' rigid, rough,
severe, violent, strong/ OHG. stare ' stark/ etc.
The root stero-, stre-, ' scatter, throw out ' is found further
in Gk. crre/3609 'stiff, hard/ MHG. starren 'starr werden/
OChSl. starti < old/ Lith. storas ' thick/ ON. storr, ' large.'
These come from the meaning ' throw out, project, stand
out, be stiff/ etc., the same meaning being found in many
other derivatives. From ' throwing out, radiating ' come Gk.
<rrepoty ' flashing, bright/ crrepoTrrj ' lightning, flash/ as in
OHG. stra-la ' missile, flash/ and also do-rrjp, Goth, stairno
' star.' Finally, from ' throw out, scatter, strew ' come Skt.
strnoti ' strew/ Lat. sterno, etc. To these I should add Lat.
sternuo 'sneeze' rather than to compare it with Gk. irrdpvv^i,.
7. MHG. brcehen 'smell/ OE. brcfy 'odor, exhalation,
vapor/ OHG. bradam ' steam, vapor, exhalation/ bratan,
OE. brcedan 'roast/ ON. brdftr 'sudden, hasty/ MHG.
bruejen ' scald, burn ' come from a root bhre-, bhero-, which is
found further in Gk. (frpeap ' spring/ Lat. /return ' a raging,
swelling, violence, sea/ Skt. bhurdti 'move violently/ and
many others. Cf. Persson, Wz. 20 f.
From the above root Persson derives OE. broc ' brook/
OHG. bruoh 'swamp/ etc., connecting them with Skt. bhuraj-
' bubble, boil/ etc., though they are usually supposed to
belong to the root bhr3-g- ' break.' I see, however, no reason
for separating Skt. bhuraj- 'boil, bubble' from -bhraj- in
giribhraj- ' breaking forth from mountains.' We have in these
words the various developments of the same root. They are
306 FEANCIS A. WOOD.
not more widely separated in meaning than MHG. briezen
'swell, bud, break open' and OE. breotan ' break, destroy,
kill/ one intransitive, the other transitive. This is the expla-
nation of the variety of meanings in the root bhero-, bhre-,
which may be one in origin wherever found. Persson, Wz.
21, assumes at least three IE. roots bher- : (1) bher- 'bear/
Skt. bhdrdmi, Gk. <e/oa>, Lat. fero, etc. (2) bher- ' bore, cut ; '
' strike, fight/ Gk. <t>apdco ' plough/ Lat. ford ' bore/ etc. ;
Skt. bhdra- ' battle/ Lat. /mo, ON. berja ' beat/ etc. (3)
bher- 'move violently, bubble, boil/ Skt. bhurdti, ~Lat. fer-veo,
fre-tum, etc. (v. supra).
These three roots are easily connected in meaning. Prima-
rily bhero- probably signified a starting-up motion, which
may be loosely given as 'rise, raise' (cf. author, Jour. Germ.
Phil., I, 442). From this developed, when used intransi-
tively, various verbs expressing more or less rapid motion, as
in (3). When used transitively, bhero- splits into two main
divisions (1) ' cause to move : ' ' carry, raise, bear/ and (2)
' set in motion, strike/ whence ' cut, wound, pierce.'
With bhero- 'move, start up, arouse' compare the Germ,
root ris- 'rise, raise.' This root much more than bhero-
denoted a rising motion, and yet it furnishes several parallels
to the development of bhero-. To ris belong MHG. risen,
OHG. rlsan 'rise, fall/ Goth, -reisan, OS., OE. rlsan 'rise/
OHG. reisa, MHG. reise 'start, march, expedition/ NHG.
reise, reisen, OE. rceran ' raise, rear, build, establish, excite,
perform/ rces 'running, rush, attack/ rcesan 'rush, attack/
rdsettan ' rage ' (of fire, probably here rather than to MHG.
rdsen, Ger. rasen < root res-, as appears from the following)
OE. ge-rls ' fury/ rlsan ' seize.'
For other parallels to the development 'run, flow, bubble:'
' strike, cut ' see below under the root p$u-.
8. OE. sfleman ' emit odor, smell sweet/ steam ' exhalation,
hot vapor, steam/ Du. stoom, EFrs. stdm have been referred
to Gk. O-TVCO 'erect, make stiff.' This etymology is quite
possible, but I suggest another which seems to me more
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 307
probable: Lith. stumiu 'thrust/ Skt. stoma- ' throng/ Notice
the following parallels : Skt. dhunoti ' shake : ' Lat. fumus
< smoke ; ' OHG. toben ' rage ' : Gk. rvfos ' smoke ; ' ON.
hnita ' strike : ' Gk. /cvicra ' steam ; ' Skt. Mpyati ( be agi-
tated : ' Gk. Kairvo^ ' smoke ; ' OChSl. tepa < strike : ' ON.
]>efa { emit vapor ; ' Goth, stigqan ' thrust : ' OE. stincan
' emit vapor ; ' Skt. strnoti ' scatter : ' OHG. drdhen ' exhale ; '
Skt. bhurdti 'agitate/ Lat./m*6 ' strike :' OE. brcfy 'vapor;'
Lith. stumiU ' thrust : ' OE. steam ' vapor.'
This means that when we find the same root meaning
' strike ' and ( smoke ' the latter is the intransitive use of the
word employed as a descriptive term. What we really have
is ' strike : ' ' leap forth.' Therefore the intransitive use of
any word expressing motion, especially quick or violent
motion, may produce a descriptive term, and consequently
a word, for fire, smoke, wind, water. But while they give
these, they may develop in as many different ways as they
may be descriptively applied. And this is only the begin-
ning. Every secondary term thus formed develops new
words whose derived meanings cocne from the secondary not
the root-meaning. From the derived words spring others with
with new significations, and so on, theoretically, without limit.
To OE. steam ' vapor/ Lith. stumiu ( thrust ' we may refer
OHG., OS. stum, Du. stom 'dumb, silent.' Compare Gk.
TV(j)6a) 'smoke; stupefy/ Goth, daufs 'deaf/ dumbs 'dumb.'
The root stti- upon which these are based may be defined
'strike, thrust; leap forth.' It is the base of a large family
of words for 'strike; spring forth ' with their various derived
meanings. It is quite within the possibilities that OHG.
stouwen ' scold/ Gk. o-rvco ' erect/ Skt. stduti ' praise/ Goth.
stojan 'judge' are all from the same root. The root stu-
then may be an extension of std-, ste- ' stand, set.' Hence
stu- (from ste-uo- or std-uo-) would properly mean ' set up,
fix, make stiff ; ' ' cause to start up, thrust, strike ; ' ' start
up, spring forth/ etc. OHG. stouwen 'scold' is 'thrust' in its
figurative sense (cf. OHG. sceltan ' scold : ' scaltan ' thrust ') ;
308 FRANCIS A. WOOD. .-
Gk. (TTVCO ' erect, make stiff 7 preserves the literal meaning
'raise;' Skt. stduti ' praise' is paralleled by Lat. extotto, exalto,
etc. ; Goth, stojan ' judge' is equivalent to 'set, establish.'
Corresponding to Lith. stumiti 'thrust:' OE. steam 'vapor'
are Gk. TVTTTO) ' strike,' Lat. stuped ' am astonished,' OHG.
stioban 'scatter,' MHG. stouben 'beat up, chase:' OHG. stoup
'dust,' OE. stofa 'bath-room,' stof-bce}> 'vapor bath,' OHG.
stuba ' stube,' etc. (cf. author, JGPh., n, 227 f. ; and, on the
possible extension of the root ste- } std-, Persson, Wz. passim).
9. Skt. ghrdti, jighrati ' smell,' ghrdna- ' odor,' Gk. 6(7-
(fipaivo/jLcu ' smell, scent, track,' Lat. frd-grd-re ' emit odor '
(good or bad). Brugmann, Grd., I 2 , 591.
These words from the root g^hrd- we may compare with
Lith. <7aras ' steam, ' gartiti 'emit vapor,' OChSl.goreti 'burn,'
greti ' warm,' Skt. ghrnomi, jigharmi ' shine,' Gk. 0epo/j,cu
' become warm,' Oeppos ' warm,' Lat. formus, etc. The root
g^hero-j g^hre- to which these words belong probably meant
at first ' spring forth ' (cf. author, AJP., xix, 49). In any
case it denoted rapid motion. Of that we may be sure from
the developed meanings. The same root is therefore in
Gk. (frep-repos 'stronger, braver, better,' Lith. geras 'good,'
primarily ' active ; ' in Gk. $prjv ' midriff, heart ' (as seat of
passions), OHG. grun ' sorrow,' OE. gryn ' trouble,' ON.
grunr 'presentiment' (Brugmann, Grd. I 2 , 614), in all of
which 'agitation' is the underlying' idea; in Gk. (frop-fcos,
Germ, gre-ga-, gre-wa- 'gray,' ablaut g^hr-, g^hre-, cf. OChSl.
gre-ti 'warm,' Skt. ghr-noti 'shine;' possibly also in Skt.
jigharti 'sprinkle, drip,' primarily 'cause to spring forth,'
like G. sprengen, so that after all Skt. ghrd- 'smell' and
ghar- ' sprinkle ' may be related as Sonne supposed (cf.
Bechtel, p. 54), though not in the manner there assumed.
10. OHG. riohhan 'smoke, steam, exhale, smell,' ON.
rjfika ' smoke, reek,' OE. reocan ' smoke, steam, stink,' E.
reek, OHG. rouh, OS. rok, ON. reykr ' smoke ' belong to a
Germ, root ruk- 9 which according to Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 , has not
been found outside of Germ.
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND l SEE.' 309
The Germ, root rule- ' smoke 7 is the IE. root rug- ' break
forth, emit, exhale.' Properly the meaning is ' break forth/
as this is certainly an extension of the root reu- 'break.'
The other significations are secondary or descriptive. This
root is found in Gk. epevyco, epevyo/jLcu ' burst forth, belch,
bellow,' Lat. e-rugo-, e-ructd ' belch, cast out, emit, exhale,'
eructdtio ' exhalation,' Lith. rugiu ' vomit,' OHG. it-ruchen
'ruminate,' O*E. roc 'cud,' roccettan 'belch, utter' (words),
ed-rocian 'ruminate.' Cf. Kluge, Et. Wb? s. v. rauspern,
and for the connection between Germ, ruk- ' smoke ' and IE.
rug- ' break forth,' cf. the author, JGPh., n, 226 f. This
connection I supposed original with myself, but afterward
discovered it was given by Schade, Wb. s. v. itaruchjan.
To the same root rug- ' break forth ' belong Lat. rugio
' bellow,' Gk. tfpwyov ' bellowed.' Cf. OE. bealcan ' belch
forth, utter,' bcelcan 'vociferate.' Here also OE. reoc 'fierce,'
primarily ' bursting out, outbreaking.' For other connections
cf. author, JGPh., I, 449 f.
11. E. smell: Du. smeulen 'smolder,' ME. smolder 'stifling
smoke' are probably from a pre-Germ. root smu-lo-. This
may be further connected with the root smu-ro- in G. schmoren,
Du. smoren 'roast, steam, smother,' OE. smorian 'suffocate;'
and with smu-go- in OE. smeocan, smocian, MHG. smouch
' smoke,' etc. These are from the simpler root smti- ' rub.'
This gives 'wear away, consume, devour' (cf. Persson, Wurze-
lerw. 181), and when used descriptive of fire came to mean
'burn,' especially of a slow fire. In Germ., therefore, these
several roots developed the meaning ' smoke/ and, in the case
of smulo-, 'smell.' The root smu- occurs in Germ, in the
sense ' devour, eat/ in G, schmaus, Du. smullen ' carouse/
smuisteren ' feast/ etc. Cf. Kluge, s. v. Schmaus.
12. Olr. bolad ' odor/ Lett. bu y ls ' hazy, sultry air, vapor '
(Fick, VWb. 4 , n, 180). These evidently belong to the root
bheu-lo- ' swell : ' Goth, uf-bauljan ' cause to swell, make
haughty/ OHG. bulla 'pustule/ MHG. biule, OE. byte 'boil/
Ir. bolack (cf. as above), OE. byled-breost ' puff-breasted/ Gk.
310 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
<f>v\ov ' troop, race/ from the root bhu- l spring up, arise be : '
Skt. bhdvali, Gk. (frvco, Lat./iw, etc.
13. OE. ge-swceccan ' smell/ swcecc l smell, odor, flavor,
taste/ OHG. swehhan ' smell, stink ; boil, gush out.' The
pre-Germ. suego- from which this group came evidently
meant 'flow, gush out.' It is therefore the same as sugo-
' cause to flow, suck:' Lat. sugo, OE. sucan 'suck.' Compare
also suqo- in Lat. sucus ' sap, juice/ OHG., OE. sugan 'suck.'
(Cf. Persson, Wz. 8, 22.)
The idea ' taste ' comes from ' suck, drink/ and from this
the meaning ' savor, smell.' Compare Lat. sapor ' taste,
flavor, savor, scent, odor.' Or the pre-Germ. *suogo- ' flow-
ing, juicy ' developed the signification ' good-tasting ; taste,
flavor/ * etc. The meaning ' stink ' of swehhan is a later
growth. Any word for f smell' may come to mean ' stink.'
With OHG. swehhan Schade, Wb. connects swach, Goth.
sinks 'weak, sick/ etc. This is a good example of the
superiority of phonetic comparison over such as are based
on similarity of meaning. We must, however, explain the
meaning differently. Pre-Germ. *seugo-, *suogo- meant pri-
marily ' flowing out, drained, exhausted/ hence ( weary, weak,
sick.' In the sense ' exhaust ' Lat. sugo is used. So also G.
aussaugen. Similarly G. erschopft, Lat. exhaustus. More
proof is not needed.
With Persson (cf. as above) I believe these words are from
the root $-, and in its various senses. For the primary
meaning we may assume ' cast, pour forth ; flow out.' Here
belong Skt: suvdti ' impel, set in motion/ the transitive of the
root su- ; sute ' generate, bring forth/ primarily ( pour out,
seminare; east, bring forth;' sunoti 'press out ' = 'cause to
flow ; ' and a host of derivative roots.
14. MHG. smecken 'try, taste, smell, perceive,' OHG.
smecken 'taste/ smacken 'savor of/ OE. smceccan 'taste/
ODu. smaken, OFrs. smakia, OHG. gi-smah ' taste/ MHG.
smac ' taste, smell/ etc.
a Cf. Gk. xv\6s, XV/A& ( juice, liquid': 'flavor, taste.'
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOB ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 311
These words are connected with LG. smacken ' smack the
lips/ MHG. smackezen y smatzen ' smack/ But ' smack' did
not come from ' taste/ but ' taste ' from * smack/ and pri-
marily ' smack' meant ' strike, touch.' We may therefore
compare OE. smacian ' pat.' The development ' touch : '
1 taste ' is natural and easy. Compare It. tastare, OFr. taster
'feel/ whence G. tasten: E. taste; Lat. tango ' touch:' ' taste.'
* Tasting ' implies ' touching, trying, choosing.' Germ. smaka-,
smakka from pre-Germ. smo-go-, smo-gno- may be compared
with sme-gho-, smo-gho- in Gk. cr/i^w ' rub/ <ryu,<w%&> ( rub,
grind with the teeth/ from the root sme- ' rub.'
15. Lat. oleo { smell, emit odor' is generally supposed to
be for *odeo. I doubt it. The supposition is gratuitous and
improbable. For why should *odeo become oleo while odor
remained. The existence of olor ' odor ' makes it still more
improbable.
A root el-, ol- in a sense entirely adequate to explain oleo
occurs in Lat. ad-oleo ' burn, sacrifice/ ad-olesco * grow up,
burn, blaze up/ olesco 'grow.' The meanings ' grow : '
' burn ' both come from ' spring up, rise.' (Compare Kluge,
Et. Wb. 5 s. v. lodern ( emporflammen : ' ' iippig wachsen.')
Perhaps here also Goth, alan 'grow/ Lat. aid, etc., from
*aft> ; and certainly OE. celan ' burn, kindle/ tiled ( fire, fire-
brand/ OSw. eledh, ON. eldr ' fire/ and OHG. eh < *efyo-
< yellow.' (Cf. Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v. eXai'a.) To these add
OE. ealu, OS. alo, ON. ol 'ale/ OSlov. olto 'cider/ Lith. alus
6 beer/ primarily ' brewed, fermented.'
Lat. oleo therefore came to the signification 'smell' through
' rise, exhale/ and the root el-, ol- is the same as that in Gk.
e\-0elv ' go/ e\v-rai- ep^erai (Hesych.), e\avva) ' drive.'
Cf. Persson, Wz. 236 ; author, JGPh., I, 452 f. Here also
belongs the root ol- ' pass away, destroy : ' Lat. ab-olesco
' decay, vanish/ ab-oleo ' destroy/ Gk. O\\V/M ' destroy, lose/
o\\vfiai l pereo.' Compare the similar development in G.
vergehen, umkommen, Goth, us-qiman t kill , ' OS. witan ' go/
OE. ge-mtan ' depart, die/ etc.
3
312 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
From el- 'rise, run, flow 7 come perhaps Gk. e\awv 'oil/
e\aid ' olive/ Lat. oleum, etc., and also Gk. o\-7rrj, oX-??
' oil-flask, eX7T09* e\(uov, o-reap (Hesych.), which are usually
connected with Goth, salbon, etc. Similarly Goth, salbon
may be referred to the root sel- 'flow. 7 Cf. Persson, Wz. 110.
16. ON. fnykr, OSw. fnuk,fnok 'stench, filth/ pre-Germ.
*pnu-go-, from the root pn$uo- in Gk. irvevpa ' wind, breath,
scent/ Trvor) ' wind, blast, exhalation, odor, fragrance/ Trvew
'blow, breathe, emit odor, smell/ with which compare pneu-so-
in OE. fneosan ' sneeze/ Du. fniezen, Sw. fnysa, ON. fnysa
'snort/ ON. fnidskr, Sw. fnoske 'punk, touchwood/ pre-
Germ. *pneusqo-, *pnusqio- ' blowing : blazing 7 (cf. Goth.
blesan ' blow : 7 OE. blcese ' blaze, torch ; ' blcest ' wind, blast :
flame, glare; 7 Gk. irvovr) 'H^atVroto, II. 21, 355; Trvpb?
Trvoai, Eur. Tro. 815); and pneu-to- or pneu-dho- in OHG.
fnoton ' quassare. 7
These are reducible to a root pne-, peno-, which appears in
ON. /nasa, /n0sa, OE. fncesettan ' snort/ ge-fnesan i sneeze/
fncest ' breath, blast 7 (of tire), fncestian 'breathe hard/ OHG.
fndstod ' anhelitus/ etc.j base pnE-so- pnd-so- ; and in OHG.
fnehan 'breathe, pant,' fndhtente 'snorting/ base pnl-go-, with
which compare pen-qo- in OChSl. patfiti se ' inflari. 7 Cf.
Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v. Trviyco. Gk. Trviya) ' stifle ; stew/
Trvfyo? ' stifling, stifling heat/ etc., represent a base pnl-go-, a
derivative of the root pne-io-. The morphological develop-
ment was peno-,pne-; pn<luo-,pnti-; pneu-go; pnZu-so-, etc.;
peno-, pne-; pneio-; pnl-go-, etc. : peno-, pene-; pne-go-;
pn$-so-, etc. These are types of various possibilities in the
growth of roots.
17. OChSl. achati 'odorari/ vonja 'fragrance/ Lat. (li)dla
< *an-s-lo (Brugmann, Grd., n, 1026), Skt. dniti, Goth, -anan
' breathe/ Gk. dve/jios ' wind/ etc., root an- ' breathe, blow. 7
18. OE. fyian < *p(n)Jncm, tr. ' smell, blow on, intr.
' breathe ; rush, rise 7 (of flame) or-(o)]? ' breath/ or]>ian
' breathe, pant/ ON. or-ende, ande, ond ' breath. 7 Noreen^
UL. 138. The Germ, root an]>-, and- is perhaps from pre-
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 313
Germ, ant-, an-to-, from an- ' blow ; ' to which, according to
Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 , belong OE. anda < anger, zeal/ OHG. anto,
anton, G. ahnden, etc. Cf., however, Brugmann, Grd., I 2 , 315.
The connection of Goth, ansts ' favor ' with the root an-
' breathe/ which Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb., declares ' kaum denk-
bar/ has its parallel in Lat. adspiro ' breathe upon : favor,
assist, sustain/ and in Gk. Trveco ' breathe : breathe favorably
upon/
19. OHG. wdzan ' smell, exhale, blow, storm/ MHG. wdz
1 sense of smell, odor, exhalation, wind, gust, storm/ wdze ' a
blowing/ OHG. wdzen, MHG. wcezen 'exhale, puff out,
bubble, spout. 7 These certainly belong to OE. w&t, ON.
vdtr ' wet/ OE. wceter, Goth, wato ' water/ etc., from the
IE. root u%-d-, u-d- 'wave, blow/ from the simpler root ue-,
euo- ' wave, roll.' IE. *ue-ti, which came to mean 'it blows/
was primarily ' it waves, it rolls/ describing the effect of
the wind. The same root with various suffixes described the
rolling, waving, flowing of water, and hence came to mean
' water.' The root ued- occurs also in the sense ' utter, speak,
sing.' See Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v. vBeto.
20. MHG. witeren, ON. viftra 'get wind of, smell' are
closely connected with OHG. wetar, ON. ve$r, OE. weder,
OS. wedar, Germ. *wedra- ( wind, weather/ OChSl. vetrti,
' air, wind/ Lith. v'etra ' wind, storm/ from the root u$-t-
' blow/ Skt. vdla ' wind/ Gk. atfrrjs ' wind/ avr^rj ' breath,
exhalation/ Germ, winda- ' wind/ etc. Cf. author, Am.
Germ., II, no. 4.
21. Skt. vdsas 'fragrance/ vdsdydmi 'perfume' contain a
root u%s-, aus-, us- 'wave, blow, blaze, flow.' This root
describes the waving produced by the wind, the blowing or
blazing of the flame, and the flowing or gushing out of
water. These ideas are frequently combined under one root
because they all represent a similar motion. The foliage
waves in the wind, the flame waves or flickers, the water
waves or rolls. Hence to this root we may refer Skt. us,
' burn/ Lat. uro, Skt. vas- ' shine/ Lat. aurora, OE. east,
314 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
etc. ; OHG. waso ' damp ground, ooze/ i. e., where water
springs up r wasal f rain ; ' Gk. avw, Lat. haurid, ON. ausa
'draw water/ i. e., ' cause to flow, drain off/ cf. Prellwitz, Et.
Wb. To these belong OHG. wesanen l become dry, rotten/
ON. visenn < *wisinaz < *uesenos ' withered/ OE. wisnian,
weornian ( dry up, wither/ MHG. verwesen ' disappear, detroy .'
This shows us the development of ues- 'consume, devour, eat.'
Compare Lat. haurid in the sense ' consume, devour, swallow,
drink ' with Goth, wisan ' consume, spend, eat, feast/ wizon
1 live, enjoy life/ Lat. veseor, etc. Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb. s. v.
wizon, regards ues- l devour ' and ues- ' be ' as identical. This
is doubtless correct, but the connection in meaning should be
differently explained. On ues- i be ' compare author, JGPh.,
n, 219.
II. A group of words signifying ' rottenness, filth, fetid-
ness' is derivable from words that are descriptive of the
conditions accompanying putrefaction, such as ' break open/
' gush out/ ' fall to pieces/ l waste away/ ' be consumed/ ' be
slimy/ etc. Thus E. decay, OFr., Span, decaer, It. deca-
dere < Lat. de -j- cadere; Germ, morseh: MHG. zer-mursen
' crush/ Kluge, Et. Wb.; Gk. tycoa ( rottenness, putrid stench : '
A^wft) ' rub/ root pse-, psd- from bhse-, bheso- in Skt. bhdsati
1 chew, crush/ Prellwitz, Et. Wb.; Lat. rodo ' gnaw : ? ' cor-
rode; 7 Lat. fistula 'pipe:' ' ulcer, fester,' primarily, in both
cases, ' that from which something flows ; ' Gk. PVTTO? ' filth/
base sru-po- from sreuo- ' flow/ Skt. srdvati, etc., Prellwitz,
Et. Wb. ; OE. spryng ' ulcer : ' ' flux, spring ; ' G. eiter : Gk.
ol&da 'swell;' Gk. (fiKvarw 'a breaking out, eruption:' (f>\va)
'overflow;' OHG. wesanen 'become dry, rot:' wasal 'water/
root ues- ' flow.'
1. OE. rotian 'rot, ulcerate/ OS. roton, OHG. rozzen 'rot,
become soft/ ON. rotinn 'rotten/ etc., Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 s. v.
rosten 2 . The old comparison of the Germ, root rut- 'rot'
with rut- ' weep, wail/ as in Schade, Wb. s. v. OHG. riuzzan,
is undoubtedly correct, though one was not derived from the
other directly but both from the primary idea ' break forth.'
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE/ 315
For the development ' break forth : ' ' lament ' compare the
root rug- above. The change from ' break out ' to ' ulcerate,
rot 9 is so simple that there can be no doubt as to the connec-
tion. We still describe cutaneous eruptions as l breaking out.'
So Lat. eruptio ' a breaking out, eruption of morbid matter.'
The IE. root reu-do-, an outgrowth of reu- * break/ occurs
in Lat. rudus ' broken stones, rubbish ; ' rudis (' broken ')
1 rough, rude ; ' rudens (' breaking, restraining ') ' stay, rope '
(with which last compare reu-dho- in Skt. runaddhi ' hold
back, hold'); and in Lith. rudynas 'swamp, marsh,' in which
the development of meaning is the same as in OHG. bruoh,
MHG. bruoch, G. bruch 'swamp, bog/ MLG. brok, Du. broek
i marsh, pool/ OE. brdo l brook/ Kluge, Et. Wb. 5
The base roudo- occurs perhaps in Lat. rodo 'gnaw, eat
away, waste away, corrode. 7 If so, this may be compared
directly with rot, both from the primary meaning ' break up,
break open, the former transitive, the latter intransitive.
Here also probably OHG. rost, rosta ' gridiron.'
2. Gk. Taryyrj, rdyyos 'putrid swelling, rancidness/ rayylfd
'be rancid, have ulcers.' With these compare reyyco ' moisten,
soften/ Lat. tingo, OHG. thunkon, MHG. dunken 'tunken.'
The common meaning for the group is ' flow.' This makes it
probable that this root teng- ' flow ' is related to teq- 'run,
flow : ' Lith. tebb, OChSl. teka ( run, flow/ Skt. tdkati ' hasten.'
To these belong OE. ]>egen ' attendant, warrior/ OS. ihegan
' degen/ etc. (cf. Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb. s. v. jmts), but not Goth.
]>ius, since the root teq- contains rather a pure velar (v. Brg.,
Grd., i 2 , 575, 578).
3. OE. dylsta ' matter, pus/ dylstiht ' festering, mucous '
may be referred to the base dhu-lo-, dhue-lo- and compared
with Gk. #0X09 ' mud, filth/ floXepo? < muddy, foul/ and
further with Goth, dwals 'foolish.' (Cf. Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb.)
The primary meaning of dhue-lo- is ' agitate/ as in the simple
root dhu-. Applied to water it gives ' muddy/ hence ' thick,
viscous;' to the air, 'dusty, cloudy.' (So G. trube is used in
this double sense.) When used of persons it signifies ' move
316 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
about/ as in OE. dwelian ' lead astray ; go astray, wander/
dwolian ' stray, err.'
4. OE. adela ' putrid mud, filth/ adelsecfy ' cesspool, sewer/
E. (obs. and prov.) addle ' liquid filth, mire ; lees, dregs/ as
adj. ' putrid/
These should come from a base meaning 'flow.' Such a
base may be furnished by Skt. dtati ' go, wander, run/ dtya-
6 hastening. 7 With this compare Gk. ao-to? < *arto9 ' slimy,
miry/ primarily ' flowing/ avis ' slime ; ' OHG. ata-haft ' con-
tinuous/ atar ' quick, sharp, sagacious/ OS. adro, OE. cedre
'at once.' We have in these words the ablaut I, 5, a, and
may add here Gk. fjrop ' heart/ yrpov ' belly/ rfrptov ' warp/
OHG. ddara i artery, sinew/ OE. azdre ' vein, nerve, sinew/
in pi. ' kidneys, spring ' (of water), wceter-cedre ' spring, tor-
rent/ ON. ceftr ' vein.' These names for ' vein, entrails,
spring ' plainly come from the meaning l flow, gush out.'
Compare OE. geotan 'flow : ' geotend 'artery/ guttas 'entrails;'
Gk. <Xe> ' vein : ' t^Xeeo ' overflow ' (Prellwitz, Et. Wb.) ;
Lat. vena < *uesnd- : compare OHG. wasal ' water/ wesanen
' become dry '=' flow out ' (v. supra).
Here also belongs et- ' breathe.' Compare Lat. /return
' swelling, violence, sea : ' OE. brcfy ' exhalation, breath ; '
Gk. <j>\eco 'overflow/ Lat./eo 'weep/ OHG. bldjan 'swell;'
' blow/ OE. bldwan < blow.' So et- ' flow : ' ' breathe.' For
derivatives of et- 'breathe' see Kluge, Et. Wb. s. v.Atem.
All these meanings, as we see, may have developed from
' go, run,' whence ' flow, issue, blow/ &c. To et- ' go, run '
we may also refer Skt. dti ' beyond, across/ Gk. en ' besides,
still/ Lat. et, etc. Compare Gk. irepd ' beyond/ irkpi ' over,
around/ Lat. per, etc. : root pero- ' go, cross : ' Lat. trans :
root tero- * go through.'
Closely connected with Skt. dti ' beyond ' is a word mean-
ing ' end, boundary.' Compare Gk. rep/jua ' end, boundary/
Lat. termo, terminus, root tero- ; Gk. irepas, irelpap ' end/
root pero-. So to et- 'go/ eti 'beyond' we may join Skt. dtd-
' edge, boundary/ with which compare OHG. etar, MHG.
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOB ' SMELL ' AND ( SEE/ 317
eter < *et-r6- ' fence, boundary, edge, enclosure/ OS. edor
6 fence/ OE. e(o)dor ' fence, hedge, enclosure, court, dwelling,
region, zone, prince, king/ Lat. atrium ' court ' < *9trio-.
As ' boundary ' easily passes into ' enclosure, country, region/
as above, and then into ' people, race/ we may add here OE.
o\d y e\el ' country, native land/ OHG. uodal, OS. oftil;
OHG. adal < race, noble race/ etc. (See further Kluge, Et.
Wb. s. v. Adel.) Compare Skt. vrjdna ' enclosure ; commu-
nity, people/ Or this group may be more directly connected
with the meaning 'go, wander/ For ' wander, move in'
meant among our ancestors ' dwell in, possess/ Thus : Lat.
verso ' turn, pasture, dwell in ; ' Skt. cdrati ' move about,
pasture/ Gk. ireKo^au ' move/ Lat. cold ' inhabit, cultivate/
Av. cardna i field/ Gk. reXo? ' end, limit (i. e., ' the place to
which one goes or where one turns, as in Lat. terminus and
others) dignity; troop/ OChSl. koleno, Skt. kulam ' family,
community/ Olr. eland ' clan ' (cf. Prellwitz, Et. Wb.) ; Skt.
valgati ' spring/ OE. wealcan ' roll/ ge-wealcan ' traverse/
Lat. volgus l people/
5. The IE. peu-, pu-, rot, stink ' and- peu-, pu- ' cleanse '
are doubtfully connected by Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v. irvm.
Of the root pu < rot ' Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 , says : " Die Grund-
bedeutung von der idg. Wz. pu war ' den Geruch der
Yerwesung von sich geben/" Did then our IE. ancestors,
when they first described putrefaction, use a word that
already meant ' putrefy t ' Certainly not. The term used
was descriptive, and only by usage came to mean what it
does. This remark is of the widest application. It involves
a principle that is at the very base of semasiological de-
velopment.
The root pft-, as we see from Lat. pus, Gk. TTVOV 'pus/
TTvea) ' cause to suppurate/ etc., had a development similar to
that of the root rud- i break out : ' ( ulcerate, rot/ Primarily
p$u- f pu- ' suppurate, rot ' meant ' spring out : ' ( issue, flow/
Consequently this is the same root as pu- ( cleanse/ primarily
with water but secondarily in any way. Since pu meant
318 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
' spring out/ it gave various words for l fire ; ' for words for
1 fire/ ( burn ' are regularly formed from such terms. Thus
we have Gk. Trvp, OHG./m'r; Goth, fu-nins, Skt. pdva-kd-s.
These words do not necessarily go back to IE. time. Of
course the root pu- does, but more than that cannot be
affirmed. In any case 'fire' was described as ' springing out/
This gives also ' shine, be bright ' as in Lat. purus ' clear,
bright ' (sun). Lat. purus therefore contains both the ideas
' cleansed, washed ' and ' shining, bright.' Another idea of
cleansing is seen in Skt. pdvana-s i purifying wind/ pdvana-m
1 winnowing-fan ' and in OHG. fowen ' sift/ (' winnow '). In
this sense the root gave Gk. Trvpos ' wheat/ Lith. purai, etc.;
or the word may be compared directly with Lat. purus, just
as wheat is related to white. Cf. Fick, VWb*, I, 483.
From pu- ' spring out, issue ' come several words for
' offspring, issue/ Examples are : Skt. pu-trd-s ' child/
son, whelp/ po-ta- ' whelp/ Lith. pau-ta-s ' egg/ pu-tytis
' chicken/ OChSl. pu-to ( chicken/ Lat. pu-tus 'boy/ pu-er
1 boy/ pu-llus < *pulno- ' young animal, chicken, sprout,
shoot 7 (Fick, VWb.\ i, 249), Goth, fula 'foal/ etc.
From pu- ' spring out, flow ' come Lat. pu-teus ' well/
Lith. puta, Lett, putas ' foam/ Gk. irvap, TTVOS, Trveria ' first
milk, beestings.' Closely connected with this idea is pu
'suppurate, rot.'
From pu ' flow ' come Lett, pups i female breast/ Ir. ucht
<^ *pwptu- (Fick, VWb.*, 11, 55). Of the same origin are
several words for ' buttocks.' For this development of mean-
ing compare IE. *orsos, Gk. 0/0/909, etc., from the root erso-
'flow;' Gk. TTpw/cTos 'anus:' Trpwf 'drop/ Prellwitz, Et.
Wb. Similarly OE. bcec, ON., OS. bak, OHG. bah ' back/
which Persson, Wz. 190, refers to Lith. begti 'run/ Gk.
$e/3o/jL(u ' fear/ <f>6/3r) ' mane, hair/ Skt. bhaj- ' go, flee/ and
which Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 s. v. Backe 1 , connects with OHG.
bahho ' ham, bacon/ etc., are probably also related to OHG.
bah, OS. beki ' brook/ etc. In like manner we may derive
breech, breeches, OE. brec, OHG. bruoh, etc., from pre-Germ.
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE. 7 319
*bhrogo-, *bhrogi-, root bhrZg- ' break/ to which brook belongs.
In that case the Gallo-Lat. brdca is from the Germ, as Kluge,
Et. Wb. 5 , supposes.
We may therefore safely refer to pU- /spring, flow 7 the
following : Gk. TTVVVOS' 6 TrpcoKros (Hes.) < *7rvcrTvo-, Skt.
putdu ' buttocks/ MHG. vut, ON. fa$ 'cunnus 7 (Brugm.,
Grd.j I 2 , 659), base pu-to-; Gk. Trvyij 'rump/ with which
compare Skt. puccha- ' tail 7 < *puk-sko-, base pti-go-. Goth.
fauho ' fox/ which is commonly connected with Skt. puccha-
(cf. Persson, Wz. 23; Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 s. v.Fuchs; Uhlenbeck,
Et. Wb. s. v. fauho) I should combine rather with Gk.
'close, secret, concealed, wise, shrewd, crafty. 7 Germ.
fohs meant therefore ' the crafty one/ a very fitting appella-
tive for the fox, and ON. fox 'deceit 7 from pre-Germ.
*puk(e)s- was primarily ' secrecy, deceit 7 not ' foxiness. 7 The
base pu-ko- in these words was probably from the root pu- as
we shall see below. To this group we may also add Skt.
pu-nar ' back 7 (adv.), Gk. Trv-^aro^ ' hindmost. 7 Of. Prell-
witz, Et. Wb.
Of the same origin as pen- l spring, flow 7 is pen- ' strike/
i. e., ' cause to spring. 7 The two significations are simply the
intransitive and the transitive use of the same verb of motion.
Compare the following :
Skt. galati 'drip, fall/ OHG. quellan 'gush out: 7 Gk.
/3aXXft> ' throw, hit, strike, wound ; 7 Skt. srjdti ' pour out : 7
' throw/ sarga ' stream : 7 ' shot ; 7 Skt. sisarti ' flow : 7 ' run,
rush/ Gk. op^r) 'assault, attack; 7 Skt. dhdvati 'stream, pour: 7
' run/ dhundti ' shake/ Gk. 6vco ' rush ; 7 Lat. /undo ' pour
out : 7 ' cast, hurl ; 7 Goth, rign ' rain : 7 cf. Skt. rghdvan ' rag-
ing, stormy/ rghayati 'rage, tremble/ Gk. o/o%e'a> 'shake/
opxeofjuai, 'leap, dance/ root oregh- : orgh- : regh- ; Lith. pllti
'pour: 7 Lat. pello 'drive, strike; 7 Lat. pluit 'it rains/ Gk.
TrXew ' sail/ TT\VVCO ' wash : 7 ' beat ; 7 OE. fleotan ' float, flow/
E. fled, flit, etc. : Lat. plaudo < *pbu-do- ' beat ; 7 Q-. worpen
'rolling waves/ OE. ge-weorp 'surf: 7 'a tossing, throwing/
weorpan ' throw/ root uer- ' turn, twist, hurl : 7 OHG. welc,
320 FEANCIS A. WOOD.
OE. wlcec ' moist/ primarily ( rolling out, gushing forth/ Lett.
wtlgans ' moist/ etc. (Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 ) : OHG. walkan ' beat/
ON. valka ' roll, move back and forth ; ' OHG. wetta ' wave/
wallan ' bubble, spout : ' wallon ' wander ' (Kluge, Et. Wb. 5
s. v. wallen 2 ) ; Lat. fer-veo ' boil : ' Skt. bhurdti ' stir, jerk,
struggle/ Lat./en'o f strike ; ' OChSl. rinati ' flow : ' ' thrust/
To this list we may safely add p<lu- ' spring forth, flow : '
pu- ' strike, cut/ Here then belong Lat. pavio, Gk. Traico
1 strike ' from *paw-jo-, Lith. piduju ' cut, mow ' from *peu-io-.
Cf. Fick, VWb*, I, 470. From peu- come the enlarged roots
peu-ko-, peu-go- ' thrust, pierce, strike' in Gk. TrevicdXifjLos
{ sharp, piercing/ Trvyfjurj ' fist/ Lat. pungo, etc. From ' strike,
pierce ? come 'compact, close; sharp, shrewd 7 in Gk. TTVKVO?.
Cf. Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v. irvtca. Here also belongs Lat.
puto 'cut off, trim, consider, think/ base pu-to- 'cut.' Cf.
Brg., Grd., n, 1126.
6. Lat. foeteo ' stink/ base bhoi-to-, may well be referred
to the root bhl-bh^i- ' thrust, strike, cut ' in OChSl. biti
'strike/ fyrpos 'piece of wood/ OHG. bihal, OE. bill 'ax.'
Cf. Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v. ^09; Brugm., Grd., i 2 , 636.
Here also, with Prellwitz, I should add Lat. foedus <
*bhoi-do- ' foul, filthy, horrible/ from the same root as in
~La,t.findo ' split/ Goth, beitan ' bite/ baitrs ' bitter/ etc. Cf.
Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 s. v. bitter.
The strong or foul odor is here described in terms of the
sense of feeling. (Cf. Bechtel, SW. 57.) Thus we may speak
of odors as sharp, pungent, penetrating, offensive.
7. Lith. smirdeti ' stink/ smdrve, stench/ OChSl. smrUdeti
1 stink/ smradti, ' stench, filth/ Lat. merda ' dung/ base smer-
do- (Fick, FTF6. 4 , I, 576) may be further connected with Gk.
o-fjiepSvos, cryite/oSaXeo? 'terrible/ OHG. smerzo 'pain/ OE.
smeart 'painful/ etc. (Persson, Wz. 65). These may all be
referred to the root smer- ' rub/ from which develops ' rub/
i smear/ ^ befoul/ ' stink/ and ' rub/ ' crush/ ' pain/ etc. The
first set of meanings is found also in OHG. smero 'grease/
Goth. smair]>r ' fatness/ smarna 'dung/ etc.
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 321
8. ON. hnykr 'stench, filth/ pre-Germ. *qnu-go-, Skt.
Icn&yaU ' be damp, stink ' have probably developed through
the ideas 'rub/ 'smear/ 'befoul/ etc., as in smerdo- We
may therefore refer these words to the root qnU-, qnZuo- in
Gk. KVVW 'scratch, scrape/ ON. hnyggja 'beat/ etc. (Of.
Perssou, Wz. 134.) Though these are reducible to the root
qne-j qeno-, from which come Icel. hniss, hnita, etc. (cf. above),
from the base qnld-, the development of meaning is not
the same.
Other words for smell which are only specializations of a
general term of sense-perception are not considered here.
That would lead us too far, since almost any general term
of sense-perception may be restricted in this way. Thus, we
perceive, observe, notice, are aware of, odors, and occasionally
such general expressions may become fixed in the sense
' smell/ So E. scent as compared with Fr. sentir, Lat. sentire.
But for the most part words for ' smell ' are from terms
descriptive of smoke or odor or putrefaction. In words for
'see/ however, the case is different. There is nothing to
describe except the attitude or appearance of the person look-
ing. But this, as we shall see, is an important factor, for
from such a description come many words for ' see.'
B. SEMASIOLOGY OF EXPRESSIONS FOR 'SIGHT.'
Seeing in the sense of ocular perception is, in the very
nature of the case, a secondary development of meaning.
One large group is composed of words whose meanings have
been specialized from general terms of sense-perception. The
underlying ideas of this group are therefore manifold. When
traced to their original significations they are found to mean
grasp, aim at, turn, stretch toward, seek, be alert, active,
watchful, etc. Thus with the eye we perceive, discern, dis-
tinguish, make out, discover, descry, scan, examine, scrutinize,
notice, mark, watch, regard, behold, etc. Such expressions
for seeing occur in all periods and are sometimes restricted in
322 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
usage to ocular perception. Thus E. behold compared with
G. behalten. Other examples of such restricted usage are
Gk. arevL^o) ' gaze at : ' arev^ ' stretched ' (Prellwitz) ; Lat.
contemplor ( gaze at : ' Lith. tempiit i stretch ' (Fick, VWb. 4 ,
I, 443) ; Lith. matyti ' see : ' Lett, matit ' feel, notice/ Gk.
parevto ' seek ' (Prellwitz) ; Skt. bddhati ' be awake : notice,
perceive ; ' Lat. animadverto ' turn the mind to, attend to :
see ; ' Lat. tueor ' gard : regard, look at ' (cf. Bechtel, Sinnl.
Wahrn. 163); Typea ' guard, watch : look at intently; 7 Lat.
sentio, percipio, etc. Words for seeing, therefore, may be as
various in their origin as there are different ways of express-
ing sense-perception. Examples of this character are given
under nos. 1 to 16. Besides these there are other verbs for
' look, see ' which describe a certain expression of countenance
and then, by implication, mean look with such an expression.
Examples under 17 to 20. No hard and fast line, however,
can be drawn between these two classes.
1. Goth, saihwan, OHG. sehan, OE. seon, ON. sjd 'see'
are from an IE. root seq-, in regard to which opinions differ.
We find the root seep- with four principal meanings : (1)
'point out, show;' (2) 'see;' (3) 'say;' (4) 'follow.' I
know of no one who connects them all. Kluge, Et. Wb. s
s. v. sagen, connects (1) and (3), and s. v. sehen, (2) and (4).
Brugmann, Grd., I 2 , 601, combines (1), (2), and (3). The
old comparison between seq- 'see' and seq- 'follow' is
doubted by Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb. s. v. saihwan, and seems to be
abandoned by Brugmann. As to the identity of these two
roots I have not the least doubt, though I do not connect
their meanings in the usual way. And yet the old explana-
tion of 'see' as 'to follow with the eye' is not without
parallel. Gk. eiro^ai is used in the sense of 'perceive with
the intellect, understand.' In the same sense we use follow.
Compare ' I cannot follow his arguments,' ' I cannot under-
stand his arguments,' 'I cannot see his arguments.' We
might therefore assume the development ' follow : ' ' under-
stand, perceive : ' ' see.' Compare Gk. rjyeo/jiai, ' lead, guide,'
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR * SMELL ' AND 'SEE.' 323
Goth, sokjan ' seek/ Lat. sdgio ' perceive quickly.' From
such a meaning, 'see' could easily come, as in Gk. fjuarevco
' seek : ' Lith. matyti ' see. 7
However, I should explain the relation between these
roots differently. I regard 'point out, show' as the primary
meaning of the root seq- in its various significations. The
development was : (1) ' point out, show : ' * see; ' (2) ' show : '
' say ; ' (3) ' show : ' ( guide, attend, follow.' These are found
in OChSl. so&ii ' anzeigen,' Lat. slgnum ' zeichen, token ; '
Goth, saihwan 'see;' Lith. sakfiti, OHG. sagen 'say,' Gk.
v-e7rco ' say, mention,' Lat. in-sectiones ' narrations ' (with
which compare OE. in-siht 'narrative'); Gk. eiropai, Skt.
sdcate, Lat. sequor 'attend, follow,' socius 'attendant,' OE.
secg ' man.'
For similar development of meanings compare Gk. (f>pd^o)
' point out, show ; speak, tell, declare ; notice, watch, observe,
keep in one's eye, see ; ' Skt. digdti ' point, direct, show,' Gk.
SeiKWfjii, ' point out, show, explain,' Lat. died ; OHG. sinnan
' go, travel, endeavor, think,' Lat. sentio ' feel, perceive, see.'
Such examples show plainly that there is no semasiological
reason for dividing the root seq%- ' point out, show ; see ; say ;
follow.'
This root, which we may give as se-qo-, meaning in its
functions as adjective, noun, and verb ' pointing, pointer, point
out/ is perhaps a derivative of the pronominal stem so-.
The demonstrative or deictic pronouns are eminently suitable
to form words signifying ' point out/ ' show/ ' see/ ' say/ etc.
If we wish to call attention to an object, how can it be more
simply done than by saying ' there ? ' This is the explana-
tion of Goth, sai, OHG. se, se-nu ' behold ! see ! ' from *so-id.
(Of. Osthoff, PBB., vm, 311 ff.) Similarly to the deictic
pronoun mo-, ono- Fick, VWb*, I, 366, refers Gk. tfv, Lat.
en 'behold!' and to the same stem belong Gk. ovo-pa,
Lat. no-men, Goth, na-man, etc., ' name/ and Gk. ovo-fjuat
'blame, scorn/ etc., primarily 'point out, point at/ like G.
324 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
bezeiehnen, anzeigen, zeihen. Cf. Prellwitz, Et. W. s. v. OVO/JLO,,
ovo/jLai.
2. Gk. elSov 'saw/ Lat, video, OChSl. videti 'see/ Goth.
witan, -aida, ' watch, give heed to/ OHG. ga-wizen, etc., con-
tain the IE. root ueid-, uoid-, which is also in Goth, wait,
Gk. olSa, Skt. veda, ' know/ etc. These are further compared
with Skt. vinddti ' find, get hold of, obtain/ to which I should
add the Germ, verb witan 'go' in OS. gi-wltan 'go/ Hild. 18
gi-weit ' went/ OE. ge-wltan ' go, depart, die/ To the root
ueid- in this sense belong OHG. wlsan 'guide, lead, teach,
show/ primarily ' cause to go/ ON. visa ' direct, show/ OHG.
wlsa ' way, manner.'
Now these and related words show the following develop-
ment : ' go, go after, go to ; reach, obtain, find, get hold of,
grasp ; comprehend, perceive, know, see.' It is evident from
the various developed meanings of this root that ' know ' did
not mean ' having seen/ but that ' see ' and ' know ' are both
from the more general idea ' comprehend, perceive/ and that
this depends on the earlier signification 'go, go to, reach.'
In Germ, this primary meaning is especially prominent.
Compare OS. gi-wltan 'go;' Goth, ga-weison 'go to, look
after, visit ; ' witan (' go to ') ' pay attention to, give heed to,
look after ; ' -weitan ( pay attention to, punish ; ' OHG. wlsan
('cause to go') 'guide, show;' Goth, -weis 'expertus, erfahren,
bewandert ; ' wait ' know/ cf. Goth, lais ' know/ MHG. leise
' trace, track/
The root uei-d- is together with many others possibly an
outgrowth of the root uMi- in Skt. veti 'seek, strive to get, fall
upon/ to which perhaps also Lat. via belongs.
3. Gk. opdco 'watch, see/ $povpd < *7rpo-opa 'a guard-
ing' is usually referred to the root uero- 'guard' in Goth.
war ' cautious/ OE. wcer, etc. But on account of the rough
breathing of the Gk. words, they should rather be compared
with Umbr. seritu 'servato/ anzeria- 'observe/ Lat. servo
' protect, watch, observe/ from the bases sero-, seruo-.
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ^ SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 325
These then belong to the root sero- ' schiitzen ' given by
Fick, VWb*, i, 562. On the same page Fick gives sero-
' gehen, stromen ' and sero- ' reihen.' These three roots are
the same as can be shown. Primarily sero- meant t go, run,
move.' This in its transitive sense would be ' set in motion,
move on, extend, string out.' This secondary meaning of
sero- when transitive is found in Lat. sero ' string out, string
together, join, combine, compose, contrive/ series ('a stringing
together') 'row, succession, line/ sors, sor-ti-s (' a casting')
' lot/ etc. (but not Gk. el'/o&> * string, join together/ etc.). To
this root Goth, sariva l armor ' < pre-Germ. *soruo- has been
referred. Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb., declares arbitrarily that this
is impossible. I assert that it is quite possible and very
probable. If we turn to Lat. sero we shall find, among
others, the definitions ' join together, plait, interweave ; com-
bine, compose, contrive, make, prepare.' Under OE. searo
are given in Sweet, Diet, of AS., ' armor, arms, machine,
work of skill ; device, skill, contrivance, cunning, treachery.'
I have rearranged the definitions as given by Sweet. The
first set represent the literal meaning of *soruo- 'a joining
together, something put together, woven.' It is quite possi-
ble that the armor meant was originally a woven or plaited
shield. ON. sorve ' string of beads ' also preserves the literal
meaning. In the second set of definitions given above the
word is used figuratively as in Lat. sero ' contrive.' So also
in OE. sierwan ' devise, plot, conspire.'
As we have just seen in Lat. series how the signification
' row, line ' arose, so we may assume the same development
for Gk. 0/009, Dor. opFo? ' boundary, limit, frontier/ 6pia)
1 mark out, limit, bound.' From this easily comes ' enclose/
whence 'protect, guard, watch, observe, see/ as in Umbr.
seritu, Lat. servo, Gk. opdco.
Lith. sergeti ' guard,' sdrgas ' watcher ' and sergh, slrgti i be
sick/ primarily ' confined, shut in ' are from the base ser-go-
(or ser-gho-), and should not be compared directly with Lat.
servo (cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 601), and much less with Goth.
326 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
saurga, OHG. sworga, sorga 'care/ pre-Germ. suer-qo- or
suer-gho-.
4. Goth, gaumjan 'see, perceive, observe, attend to/ ON.
geyma, OE. gleman ( take care of/ OHG. goumjan, goumon,
OS. gomian ' attend to, wait on, entertain' (as host), far-
gumon, OE. for-gieman ' not heed, neglect ' are based on ON.
gaumr ( attention/ OHG. gouma ' close attention, entertain-
ment, feast/ OS. goma ' feast.' (Cf. Balg, Cpv. Gloss, s. v.
gaumjan.)
These words are not, as I have shown in Am. Germ., n,
no. 4, to be referred to OChSl. umu ' intelligence 7 (so Johans-
son, PBB. 15, 228), but are rather from pre-Germ. g^hu-,
g^hou- (or perhaps g^hdu-) and are next akin to Lat. faveo,
faustus ' protect, favor/ Lith. gausus ' abundant/ OChSl.
goveti l revere, worship, venerate, respect/ OSorb. hovic ' be
serviceable, favor/ (Cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 600.)
OE. gorettan ' gaze, stare ' is possibly from the same root,
pre-Germ. *g y 'hus-adio-. Compare Lat. faus-tus, Lith. gaus-
us. For a different explanation see below, no. 18.
5. OHG. spehon 'spahen/ spdhi ' discerning/ Lat. specio
'look at, behold/ Skt. spag- ' watcher/ spastd- ' visible, plain/
pagyati ' behold, perceive/ Av. spasyeHi ' see/ OChSl. paziti
'give heed to 7 (cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 725) contain a base spe-ko-
whose primary meaning must be sought outside of the words
given above. This base is probably derived from the root
sepo- in Gk. eirco ' busy over/ apfa-eTra) l be busy about, wait
on, care for, guard/ Si-eTro) 'drive about, sway/ iieO-tira)
'attend to/ Skt. sdpati 'attend, follow, serve/ saparydti
' serve, honor/ (Cf. Prellwitz, Et. Wb.) The derived root
spe-ko- therefore meant 'attending to, watching, guarding/
and hence 'watching, looking at, seeing/ Perhaps to sepo-
belong also Goth, si/an ' rejoice ' and OE. sefa ' mind/
6. OE. locian, OS. lokon ' look, see ' < pre-Germ. *loqn
(Brg., Grd., I 2 , 384), OHG. luogen 'lugen' have been com-
pared with Skt. laksayati ' notice, perceive/ (Cf. Kluge, Et.
Wb. s. v. lugen.) But this does not give us the primary
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 327
meaning. For that we must look for a root leg- used in a
concrete sense. We come one step nearer to the primary
meaning by comparing Skt. rdksati ' ward off, protect, guard,
watch/ Gk. aXefw ( turn away, ward off, defend/ a\a\icelv
< ward off/ OE. ealgian ' protect. 7 (Cf. Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb.
s. v. alhs; and for this connection, author JGPh. y 11, 229.)
The root legs- ' turn away, ward off, guard ' is undoubtedly
from leg- 'turn aside, bend:' Gk. Xofo? ' oblique/ Xe/eo?
'pot/ Lith. linldi 'bend/ etc. (Cf. Fick, VWb.', i, 535;)
The development in meaning is therefore ' turn aside, ward
off, guard, watch, behold, look.'
7. G. gewahren, wahrnehmen ' perceive, see/ MHG. war
nemen, OS. wara nemen 'give heed to, perceive/ MHG. warn,
OHG. biwaron, OS. waron i give heed to, notice, guard, pro-
vide with/ OE. warian ' guard, watch over, guard against,
ward off/ Goth, war 'caulious/ OE. wcer, etc., contain a
widespread Germ, root war- ' guard, watch, heed.' The same
root is also in OE. warnian ' beware of, warn, refrain/ OHG.
warnon l beware of, guard against, warn/ ON. varna ' refuse.'
Of these Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 s. v. warnen says : " Sichere Be-
ziehungen sind noch nicht gefunden." If it is not certain
that OHG.-waron and warnon are from the same root, then
nothing in linguistics can be certain. It would be interesting
to know on what semasiological principles these words are
declared unrelated.
The same root is also in Goth, warjan 'forbid, hinder/ OE.
werian ' defend, ward off/ ON. verja ' protect, defend/ OS.,
OHG. werian ' hinder, defend/ Gk. epvcrOai, ' guard, watch,
draw, hinder, save/ pvo/juai, ' protect, save/ Skt. varutdr ' pro-
tector/ Lith. veriu ' close, open/ Av. var- ' cover, check/ Skt.
vrndti 'cover, surround, check, defend.' Cf. Prellwitz, Et.
Wb. s. v. epvaOau ; Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb. s. v. warjan.
To the root uero- in Goth, war are generally referred Gk.
ou/)09 ' watcher/ opo^au ' watch.' These I admit, but not
opdco. The root uero- did not mean primarily ' look at/ nor
' guard/ but probably ' turn.' At least this is the significa-
4
328 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
tion that is most common and the one from which the others
are most easily derived. Now from the primary meaning
'turn' come 'turn in, enclose ' and 'turn off, ward off, defend/
For this double development compare Lith. veriu l close,
open/ and Gk. e'lpyco < *uer-go 'shut in, confine, enclose,
bound ; shut out, drive off, hinder, abstain from/ Lat. vergo
' turn, bend/ Skt. vrj- ' turn, twist off, turn aside, avoid, leave
out, exclude/ So throughout the simple root uero- we find
regularly developed meanings from ' turn in ' or ' turn away/
From which of these a particular meaning may come it is not
always possible to say. Thus ' guard ' may mean primarily
' enclose, surround ' or ' ward off, defend/ So ' forbid/
( hinder/ ' check 9 are capable of a double explanation.
From uero- ' turn ' come the following : Goth, wardja
'watchman/ OHG. warto, etc., from 'turn in, enclose, guard;'
OE. wor]> ' enclosure, courtyard, farm/ OS. wur% ' boden/
OE. wryndan ' found ? (a house) ; Goth, wairdus ' wirt/ per-
haps in the sense of 'holder, possessor/ cf. OE. warian
'guard, inhabit, possess; 7 Lat. verto 'turn/ Goth. wair]>an
' werden/ base uer-to-; Goth, wairpan ' werfen/ base uer-bo-
' turn, twist, throw ' (cf. OE. ]>rdwan ' twist : ? E. throw),
OE. wyrp ' recovery ' (' return, turn for the better/ cf. Gk.
vkoiiai ' return : ' Goth, ganisan ' recover '), cf. Lat. verb-era
'blows/ Lith. virbas 'rod, twig/ virblnis 'snare/ Gk. pdpbos
' sprout, rod ' (Prellwitz, EL Wb.) ; OE. weorc ' pain, grief,
work/ OHG. werlc y Gk. epyov 'work/ etc., base uer-go- 'turn,
twist, writhe, suffer, work/ also in OE. wcerc ' pain ; ' ON.
ver 'sea/ ur 'dampness/ OE. wcer, ear 'sea/ Skt. vdr 'water/
Gk. ovpew, etc. (cf. Prellwitz, Et. Wb.\ base u%ro- ' turn, roll,
flow/ from which uer-go- in Gk ; opyds ' well-watered spot,
teeming, fertile/ 0/9777 'passion, anger/ oprydco 'swell with
moisture, be excited ; ' Lith. vlrli, OChSl. variti ' cook/ varu
' heat/ to which perhaps belong OHG. warm, etc. (Bezzen-
berger, BE. \ 6, 257), closely connected with ON. ver ' sea/
etc. (cf. OE. weattan 'boil, be hot, flow, go in waves, be
agitated'); Goth, waurts 'root/ OE. wyrt 'wort/ etc., base
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOB ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 329
uer-do- 'turn, roll, swell, grow' (cf. Goth, walus 'staff:'
-walwjan ' roll,' and Gk. pd/38o<? ' shoot, rod : ' Goth, wairpan
' throw,' E. warp, etc. v. supra) ; Goth, wrtyus, OE. wroty
/herd,' Skt. vrdta-, vrd ' troop,' uero- 'turn, confine,' with
which compare Skt. vrdjd- ' troop, band,' vrajd- 'troop, band;
fold, stall,' vrjdna- 'enclosure; community, people,' vdrutha-
' protection; herd, troop.' So E. band 'something to bind
with,' and ' company, troop.'
To uero- 'turn, twist,' whence 'fasten, bind, tie,' etc., I
should refer Gk. elpco 'tie, bind, fasten together,' ep/j,evo$
' bound.' These are usually compared with Lat. sero (v.
supra), but phonetically they are more easily explained as
here given, and in meaning cause no difficulty. Compare
OE. wrfyan ' twist : bind ; ' Gk. \vyifa l bend, twist : ' OE.
lucan .' interlace, join together, close, shut.' That elpw and
sero are synonymous is no evidence whatever that they are
cognate unless it can be shown that etpco is from *serio, which
I do not believe. If then elpco 'join' is from *uerio, it is
phonetically identical with eipw ' speak.' For this root uero-,
which is also in Lat. verbum, Goth, waurd 'word,' Lith.
vardas 'name,' etc., we may therefore assume the develop-
ment ' turn, twist, join together, converse, speak.' (Compare
Lat. sero 'join together:' sermo 'speech.') The root uero-
'join together, agree, speak,' is also in Gk. prj-rpd 'agree-
ment,' Cypr. Fprj-rd, and in Gk. elptf-vrj 'peace' (Prellwitz,
Et. Wb.) if this is from *euere-nd. With this uero-, ure- of
the Gk. compare the uer- of the Germ, in OE. woer 'agree-
ment, treaty, promise, faith, fidelity, friendship.' This is, of
course, the same as OE. wcer 'true,' OHG., OS. war, Olr.
fir, Lat. verus ' true,' OChSl. vera ' faith,' Goth, tuz-werjan
' doubt,' OHG. wdrjan ' verify,' etc., Goth, un-werjan ' be
displeased,' primarily 'disagree,' un-werei 'indignation' ('dis-
agreement'). With the above explanation of the IE. uero-
' joining together, agreeing, faithful, true,' the "auffallende
bedeutungsentwickelung " of Goth. *unwers (Uhlenbeok, Et.
Wb.) is entirely cleared up. Uhlenbeck and Kluge should
330 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
also have given in their EL Wbb. ON. vcerr ' gentle, friendly '
(' agreeing, agreeable'), of which Goth. *unwers is the nega-
tive. Cf. Balg, Cpv. Gloss, s. v. *wers.
The natural conclusion from the above comparisons is that
the roots uero-, uer-to-, uer-do-, uer-dho-, uer-go-, etc., in all
of which the primary meaning ' turn ' can be traced, are one
in origin. From uero-, ure- are also formed, with the
suffixes -io- and uo-, the roots ure-io-, uri-; ure-uo-, uru-.
These are the bases of other formations, as ur<!i-to-, ur^i-do-,
etc. Hence it is possible, indeed probable, that all IE. roots
beginning with uero- or an ablaut thereof are derivatives of
the root uero- ' turn.' Of course I do 'not include analogical
formations or later sporadic words. By sporadic words I
mean words that are composed of sound-elements which, from
association, express a certain idea. Common speech is -full of
such words, and from time to time some of them become a
part of the language. (Cf. Bloomfield, AJP. 16, 409 ff.)
But aside from such formations I believe we are justified in
assuming that " words of the same phonetic composition are
presumably cognate/' and that it is the form and not the
meaning that should decide whether or not words are related.
For it is certain that the meaning of a root is not an inherent
and inseparable part of it. Indeed it is impossible to fix the
original meaning of a root. The most that can be done is to
establish the common idea from which the various significa-
tions have diverged. But the starting point no, that is lost
in the darkness of the past. When, therefore, I speak of the
original or primary signification of the root uero-, I mean
only the common idea from which the various meanings have
sprung. But this common idea, loosely expressing a certain
thought, may be the generalization of a particular term. And
this process may be repeated again and again. Thus G.
schenken ' give, present ' is a generalization of ' give to drink,
pour out ; ' and ' pour out ' is a generalization of f pour from
cup ' (OE. scene ' cup/ etc.) ; and this word for ' cup ' is a
generalization from some other term descriptive of a hollow
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 331
bone or shell, pre-Germ. *skongio- or skonqhnio-, Lat. congius
f measure for liquids/ Skt. $ankhd-s ' shell/ etc. Cf. author,
Am. Germ., n, no. 4. Hence it follows that we must rely
upon the phonetic composition of a word to determine . its
derivation, not upon its meaning. But the various meanings
are important in enabling us to find out the common point of
divergence ; and the greater the variety, the more easily is
this point found.
Now a root of the form ureito- is so evidently the result of
repeated composition, and words of this type are so easily
derived from a simpler root uero-, that it is hard to escape
from the conviction that the root-form uero- is the base of
the others. Hence OE. wrfyan ' twist, bind' as well as
wridan, wrfyan 'grow' (that is 'turn, become, change, grow'),
pre-Germ. urei-to- <[ ure-io | to-, are from the simple root
uero-, just as Lat. vertd is from uer-to-. In each case the
derivative becomes the base of new formations.
If etymologists would follow the method here indicated,
they would be surprised at the ease with which words may
be traced. And this ease is not secured at the cost of dis-
regarding phonetic laws or of violating the principles of
psychology. I venture to say that, if the exact phonetic
composition of a word is known, there will be little left to
explain. For example G. reiben from the Germ, root wrib-,
which Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 , says has not been found, is probably
from a pre-Germ. base url-po-, and may be compared with
Gk. piTTTO) ' throw.' Both are easily explained from the
primary meaning ' turn.' For ' turn : ' ' throw ' compare G.
drehen: E. throw; Lat. torqueo 'turn, twist:' 'hurl, throw/
etc. The meaning 'turn, twist, plait' is implied in pty,
/ot7r-o9 ' wicker-work, mat/ /6t7ro9 ' mat, wicker-hurdle/ and
various secondary meanings in plirri 'swing, rush, whir,
twinkling light' (of stars), etc. With these compare OHG.
(w)riban, MHG. riben * turn, rub (so still in Bav. reiben
'reiben, wenden, drehen'), dance (whirl, toss about), be las-
civious,' ODu., MLG. wrlven 'rub/ ON. rlfa 'tear/ E. rive.
332 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
Here we have the development ' turn, move back and forth,
rub, scratch, tear.' (Compare tero-, ire- 'turn, rub, bore/
Kluge, Et. Wb. 6 s. v. drehen.)
The base url- in Gk. pl-Tros (gen.), etc., is found in many
other derivatives with similar meanings or at least with such
as are derivable from ' turn/ Thus : Gk. pl-wrj ' file/ pl-vb-s
'hide/ OHG. rlzan Hear, wound, write/ OE. wfitan 'engrave,
write 7 (Brugmann, Grd., II, 1052), with which compare OE.
wrfett < *wraitjo- ' ornament, work of art ; ' Gk. poi-ico-s
'crooked/ pi/cvos 'bent, crooked/ cf. ME. wrie 'twist/ E.
wry, OE. wrigian ' strive, tend toward/ and also OHG.
-rihan, OE. wreon ' wrap up, cover ; ' Goth, wraiqs, Gk.
pcu/36<; 'crooked/ from *ur2i-g%6-s y etc. For further possi-
bilities in analyzing the root u$-ro-, cf. Persson, Wz. 66, and
the author, Jour. Germ. Phil, I, 302 ff.
8. OE. wMan, ON. fata 'look/ leita 'look for, search/
OE. wldlian ' look, gaze/ Goth, wlaiton ' look round about '
from the Germ, base wHt-, which is also in Goth, wlits ' face/
OE. wlite 'brightness, beauty, form/ OS. wliti, etc., I have
elsewhere compared with Gk. l\\i%w ' look awry, look askance,
leer' from *ui-ulidio (JQ-Ph., I, 303). The base ulld- is
extended from uelo-, ul- ' turn ' with the suffix -id-, as in
Gk. tyiS-, amS-, etc. (Cf. Brg., Grd., n, 383.) The base
of iXXifs) is seen in l\\is, tXXt'S-o?, the fern, of tXXo? 'squint-
ing ' < *ui-ulo-, from which l\\alvw ' squint/
The development of meaning in Greek is ' turn, look aside,
squint;' in Germ., 'turn, look around, look at, look/ from
which ' looks, appearance, beauty/ etc. The verbal ablaut in
Germ, is a growth from the basal form ulid- as it is seen
in Germ, wliti- ' appearance/ For the meaning we may com-
pare Lat. vol-tus 'appearance/ which may likewise be derived
from the root uelo- ' turn/
The root uelo- is given by Fick, VWb. 4 , I, 551, as five
distinct roots. These, however, are easily combined under
one. To enumerate them as given by Fick, they are : (1)
uelo- 'wahlen, wollen/ primarily 'turn toward, look for;'
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 333
(2) uelo ' drehen, wenden, umhiillen, umringen ; ' (3) uelo-
' wallen ' = ( turn, roll, boil, bubble ; ' (4) uelo- ' drangen,
zusammendrangen, versammeln,' another development of (2),
'drehen, zusammendrehen, zusammendrangen;' (5) uelo- 'be-
triigen ' = ' verdrehen, distort, pervert.' So we may refer
every word containing the root uelo- to this one root. Cf.
author, JGPh., I, 302 f.
9. OE. be-sclelan < -*sceolhjan ' look at,' MHG. schilhen,
schilen ( schielen : ' OE. sceolh ( wry, oblique,' OHG. scelah
' crooked, oblique, squinting,' ON. skjalgr ' sloping, squint-
ing' contain a pre-Germ. base skel-q^o- or sqel-q^o- which
Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 , s. v. scheel, compares, through a root skel-,
with Gk. <TKO\IO<; ' crooked, bent.'
This root skel- or rather sqelo- I take to be identical with
sqelo- 'cut, divide, separate' in ON. skilja ' split, separate,'
Lith. skeliit ' split,' Gk. o-rcd\\a) ' stir up, hoe.' The develop-
ment in meaning is simple : l cut, divide, separate, make
slanting or crooked.' Likewise to the root sqero- ' cut, sepa-
rate' in OHG. sceran ' shear, cut off,' Lith. skiriu 'cut,
separate,' etc., we may refer Lith. skersa-s f oblique, squinting,'
Gk. eTTi-fcdpo-ios l crosswise, athwart.' (Brg., Grd., I 2 , 581.)
10. Gk. Sei/-8tXXft) < -*dilip 'turn the eyes about, glance
at, make a sign to ' contains a base di-lo- ' turning, whirling,
hastening,' which is also in OLG. tilon, OHG. zilon ' hasten,'
OE. tilian ' strive after, intend, attempt, obtain,' OS. tilian
'erzielen,' Goth, and-tilon ' cleave to' = ' turn to,' ga-tils
' fitting,' OE. til ' fitting, good, gentle,' Olr. dil ' agreeable'
(which Uhlenbeck strangely enough disallows), ON., OE. til
'to' = ' turned toward' (cf. Goth, -walrus '-ward,' Lat. versus
1 toward,' root uert- ' turn '), OHG. zlla ' line, row ' = ' a
turning,' cf. Lat. versus 'line, row.' These are referred to
a root dl- (cf. Kluge, Uhlenbeck, EL Wbb.) in OE. tima
1 fitting time, season, time,' ON. fame, OE. tid ' fitting time,
time,' OS. fid, OHG. zlt 'zeit,' Skt. d-diti ' unending ' =
1 unturning, interminis.'
334 FKANCIS A. WOOD.
This root dl- must have meant 'turn, whirl: hasten. 7 The
ideas expressed by ' whirl ' and ' hasten ' are closely related.
So E. whirl l turn rapidly, rotate : move hastily ; ' OHG.
dweran ' whirl : ' Skt. tvdrate i hasten. 7 We may, therefore,
compare Gk. Sivy, Sivo? 'vortex, whirlpool, eddy/ Blvevm,
Slveco 'whirl, spin round, drive; wander/ Slvoco 'turn with a
lathe, round/ Siefjuai 'hasten/ Skt. dlyate 'soar, fly. 7 Cf.
Prellwitz, Et. Wb. To this group we may add Goth, tains
' twig, branch/ ON. teinn ' twig, spindle/ OE. tan ' twig,
branch/ OHG., MHG. zein 'rod, reed, arrow/ pre-Germ.
*doi-no- ' twisting, twisted/ hence, like OE. wfyig ' withe,
withy/ a flexible twig, vine, sprout. From *doino- came
*doinid- ' made of withes/ Goth, tainjo ' basket/ &c. Here
also OHG. zeinen, zeinon 'point out/ either directly from
the meaning ' turn toward ' or else primarily by divination.
Compare OE. tan 'twig used in casting lots/ tdn-htyta
'diviner. 7 More directly connected in meaning are OHG.
zeinnan 'einen zein (metal Istabchen) machen/ MHG. 'beat
out (zeiri), plait/ ON. teina 'in fila ducere. 7
From 'turn 7 also come 'rub, scratch, comb' and 'rub,
caress. 7 (Cf. tero- ' turn : 7 ' rub. 7 ) Here belong OHG. zeiz
' tender, gentle/ ON. teitr, OE. -tat ' cheerful, pleased/ tcbtan
'caress/ primarily 'rub/ base *doido-; and OE. tcesan 'card,
comb (wool), pull to pieces, wound, soothe 7 (once), OHG.
zeisan 'quarrel, card/ OE. ge-tcese 'pleasant, convenient.'
Germ, taisa- is perhaps from *taissa- < *doid-to-. The base
*doido- probably arose by reduplication and may be also in
Gk. SoiB-vf ' pestle 7 = ' rubber, crusher. 7
The root dl- appears in the sense ' radiate, beam, shine/
and is undoubtedly the same as dl- 'whirl, move rapidly.'
(Cf. Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v. BU/uu and Searat.) Here we
may give OE. tlr, OS. tir, ON. tlrr ' glory, honor 7 < *dei-ro-,
OHG. zenri, ziari ' splendid, beautiful/ ziarl ' splendor, beauty,
ornament 7 < *dei-rio- ) perhaps Lith. dai-ltis ' beautiful ; '
Skt. dide-ti 'gleam, shine; 7 OE. fiber 'sacrifice, offering/
OHG. zebar 'opfertier/ MHG. ungezibere 'ungeziefer/ base
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOE ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE/ 335
*dlp-r6- i burnt offering, animal for sacrifice:' Skt. dlpra-
1 flaming/ dlpyate 'flame, blaze, burn/ with which compare
also Gk. Stya ' thirst/ Styios 'parched, dry, thirsty/ Si^dco
' be parched, thirsty.'
Gk. Sev-Si\\co is especially interesting in its formation as
it is composed of two synonymous roots de-no \- di-lo-.
We have seen that dl-lo- is a derivative of dl-, that is d<$-io.
It is therefore among the possibilities that de-io- and de-no-
go back to a common root de-. (So explained by Prellwitz,
Et. Wb. Soveco.) The root dgno- is seen in Gk. Severn ' shake,
agitate, stir/ Sovag 'reed, arrow' (compare Gk. Slveco 'whirl:'
Goth, tains ' twig '), a\i- Sovos ' sea-tossed/ and perhaps in
the first syllable of Sev-Spov 'tree.' Gk. 8ev-Si\\a> and
Sev-Spov are types of compounds that are formed from
synonymous roots. This may explain some cases of irregular
reduplication. Compare Gk. Svo-7ra\i%(o 'swing, fling about'
with Sove(D ' shake ' and vraXXw ' shake, brandish ; ' Sap-
SaTTTO) 'devour' with Sepco 'flay' and Sdirra) 'rend.' For
other examples see Persson, Wz. 21 6. 1
11. Lith. regeti 'perceive, look at' is compared by Bechtel,
Sinnl. Wahrn. 158, with the Germ, root rak-, rok- 'attend
to, care for/ in OE. reecan ' care for, reck/ MHG. ruochen,
OHG. ruochan 'direct attention to, care for, care, desire/ OS.
rokjan, ON. rcekja ' care for.' This comparison, ignored by
Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 s. v. geruhen, is unimpeachable, for it shows
the quite common development ' turn attention to, give heed
to:' 'look at, see.' But 'turn attention to' is not the primary
meaning, since no expression denoting a mental emotion can
be original as such.
For this root rego-, therefore, I assume the primary mean-
ing ' stretch out.' We have then the natural development :
' stretch out, give attention to/ from which ' see ' or ' desire.'
Compare from the root r$go-, which is undoubtedly related
and to which the Germ, forms could also go back, Gk. opeyco
' stretch/ ope/cro? ' stretched out : longed for, desired ; ' G.
langen: verlangen. Besides r%-go- and re-go- occurs r<l-qo-
336 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
for which the same primary meaning may be assumed. These
may all be referred to the primitive root ero-, re- 'go, move,
extend/ Compare OHG. rdmen ' aim at, have one's eye on/
OS. romon, same, MHG. ram 'aim, object/ OE. romian
'possess' (i. e., 'er-langen, er-zielen'); Lat. re-rl 'reckon/
Goth, -re-dan 'reflect upon, counsel/ etc. (Brg., Grd., II,
1047).
The various significations of the root ero-, re- developed, in
part, as follows: (1) 'go, move:' ON. arna 'go, run/ Gk.
opvvjjLiy Lat. orior ' rise/ OE. recan ' go, rush ; ' (2) ' move,
separate, tear apart : ' Lith. Ir-ti ' separate/ ro-nd ' wound/
OChSl. oriti 'separate, destroy/ ra-na 'wound;' Skt. dr-da-ti
'move away, separate/ arddyati 'shatter, injure;' (3) 'go
forward, move forward, stretch out, direct : ' Gk. ope-yco
'stretch/ Lat. rego 'direct;' (4) 'go for, aim at, attack,
assail : ' Gk. opeya) ' attack/ OE. reccan ' reprove ; ' ON. rjd
< *re-io- 'abuse/ Lith. re-ti 'shout;' rekti 'cry out;' Gk.
e/^-9, e/M-8-09 'strife/ epet-So) 'thrust, press upon/ from
which ' prop up, support ' (so Lith. remti ' support ') ; (5)
' stretch out, reach, get : ' OE. romian ' possess ; ' Goth, rikan
'collect/ OE. racu 'rake;' (6) 'stretch toward, aim at:'
OHO. rdmen; (7) 'stretch toward, desire, enjoy:' Gk.
epafjuai 'desire, love/ epacr-rb-^ 'lovely, pleasant/ epav-vbs,
same, from epaa-vos, OHG. rasta 'rest, stage/ Goth, rasta
' stage/ razn ' house ' < *(e)ras-n6 = Gk. epav-vbs, -ov, while
rasta < *(e)rdsta- = epacrro?, -?;, erd-s- being an extension of
ero-, re- in Gk. epcorj, OHG. rdwa 'rest/ from which also
re-mo- in Goth, rimis 'rest/ Lith. rlmti 'be quiet/ Skt.
rdmate 'stand still, rest;' (8) 'aim at, give heed to, con-
sider : ' Lat. reor.
These are only a few of the numberless derived meanings
that may spring from the simple root ero-. The numbers
given do not indicate relative time of development but
simply diverging lines. These were often simultaneous,
the same root branching into various distinct uses. Thus the
base re-mo- produced (1) MHG. ramme 'pile-driver/ ram,
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR < SMELL ' AND f SEE.' 337
OE. ramm ' ram/ ON. rammr ' strong ' (Kluge, EL Wb. 5 s. v.
Ramme), base rem- ' thrust, strike; 7 (2) Lith. remti ' support/
Olr. forimim ' lay, set ' (given by Uhlenbeck, s. v. rimis), cf.
OHG. rama ' prop/ MHG. rame, ram ' prop, support, frame '
(cf. Gk. epeiSco thrust, strike, set against, prop up, sup-
port) ; (3) OE. rima ' border, rim/ rand < *rom-ta- ' border '
(properly ( support, frame ') ; (4) OHG. rdmen ( aim at : ' (5)
OE. romian (' reach ') ( possess ; ' (6) Skt. rdmate l rest, take
pleasure/ Goth, rimis ' rest/
12. Skt. ciketi ' look, investigate, notice, observe/ root
q^$i- 9 cetati 'look at, observe, consider, be intent upon, under-
stand, know/ root q^ei-to-, OChSl. Ua ' count, reckon/ Olr.
ciall ( understanding/ Welsh pwytt Census, prudential Brug-
mann, Grd., I 2 , 605.
It will certainly be admitted that the root q^ei- in the
above group does not appear in its original meaning. We
find a phonetically identical root in Skt. ci-noti ' arrange in
order, pile up, build ; collect, get possession of/ kaya-s
1 body/ OChSl. inti ' arrangement/ Serb. in ' form/ tiiniti
' make/ Gk. iroiea* ' make' (cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 589 ; Prellwitz,
Et. Wb. s. v. TToieco) ; and in Skt. cdyate ' avenge, punish/
dpa-citis ' recompense/ Gk. rlo-is ' atonement, penalty/ nroivri
' price, fine, ransom, penalty/ rivco, rlvco i requite, recompense/
rico ' esteem, honor/ rlfjurj ' worth, honor/ Av. kaena i punish-
ment/ Lith. pus-kainiu i at half price/ OChSl. cena ' price/
Brg., Grd., I 2 , 588 f., 592 ; Prellwitz, Et. Wb.
These three groups are as closely related in meaning as in
phonetics, the second group given above preserving the root
in the most primitive sense : ' arrange in order.' From this
developed ' count, calculate, consider, observe, look at ; ' and
' count, pay, requite, make atonement.'
Here, too, I should add the root qei-, q^ie- in Goth, hweila
' while/ Lat. quies, quietus, tran-quilus, Skt. Gird- ' lasting,
long/ OChSl. po-tfti 'rest/ etc. (Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb. s. v.
hweila, hweilari). The growth in meaning is : ' arrange in
order, continue, remain, rest.'
338 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
To qei- we may refer Lat. quaero < *q2i-so ' look into,
investigate, seek for, desire, want, need.' These meanings
are closely connected with those of Skt. ciketi, and also
explain those of Lat. cura ' attention, care/ Paeligu. coisatens
1 curaverunt,' base *q*oisa. (Cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 185.) With
this compare Goth, us-haista ' very needy, in great want,'
base *qois-to- ( seeking, desiring, wanting, needing.' This
is the same derived meaning as in Lat. quaero ' want, need,'
curiosus ' wasted, emaciated, lean,' with which compare OHG.
Am, MHG. heisj heiser ' weak, faulty, rough, hoarse.'
For other Germ, words that have been referred to q^ei- cf.
Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb. s. v. haidus; Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 s. v. heiter.
From these we must separate Goth, heito ' fever' on account
of the lack of labialization, and consequently ON. heitr i hot,'
OE. hat, etc. But we may refer to this root Goth, haims
( village,' OE. ham ' home,' Lith. kmas ' yard, farm.' Pri-
marily *qoimo- may have meant ' watched, guarded.'
Compare, for this explanation, Lith. kaimene 'herd' < *qoi-
mend- ' watched/ From the primary meaning i guarded,
kept ' may come MHG. geheim, heimelich. Notice also
MHG. heim-garte ' eingefriedigter garten.' From i guarded,
kept' could also develop ' cherished, loved. These may all
be reduced to the root qei~.
13. Gk. Sep/co/jbcu ' perceive, behold, see,' Skt. daddrga
'have seen,' dr$ ' seeing,' Goth, ga-tarhjan 'mark out,' OE.
torht ' bright, famous,' OHG. zoraht, etc., contain a root
der-k-, which may be compared with der-p- in Gk. fywTrafor
eyu-ySXeTTO), $p(t)7TT(0' SiafcoTTTO) r) SiacrKOTTW, OHG. zorft
'bright, clear,' zorfii, zorftel 'brightness.' Cf. Persson, Wz. 11.
These are evidently derivatives of the root der- ' separate,
tear,' as explained by Bechtel, SW. 165. But they are
probably not from the signification ' separate,' although that
might easily yield ' understand, distinguish, unterscheiden,'
and then 'see.' The primary meaning I take rather to be
'grasp, comprehend, perceive, behold,' and this comes from
'break off, tear, pluck.' For this development of meaning
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE/ 339
compare Lith. kerpti ' shear :' Lat. carpo 'gather, seize/ base
qer-p- ' cut. 7
We may therefore connect Gk. SpaiTrd^co ' behold, look at '
with SpeTTco i gather, pluck.' The two meanings are as closely
allied as hold: behold; percipio l seize, gather:' perceive/
and certainly S/HWTTT&V SiatcoTTTO) is the same as SpcoTrrco'
Siacr/coTra). From the base dre-p-, der-p- ' pluck, gather '
come Gk. SopTrov, 0/971-09, SopTrnj ' supper ' (cf. Prellwitz).
Compare Lat. carpo ' gather : ' l devour ; ' and MHG. zern
1 verzehren/ MLG. teren ' verzehren, mahlzeit halten/ etc.
Or S6p7rov may be from *dor-q#o-, cf. Alb. darke ' supper/
Brg., Qrd., i 2 , 620.
In like manner Gk. &epico/j,ai i behold/ Spotcrd^ew irepi-
(cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 431) may be compared with Gk.
' grasp, seize/ 8paf, Spatc-os ' hand, handful/ base
der-k-, and with Skt. drhyati ' be firm/ Lith. dirsztu ' become
tough/ Gk. Spaxpr) ' drachma/ OHG. zarga ^rirn, shield/
etc., base der-gh-. Cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 463 ; Prellwitz, Et.
Wb.; Schade, Wb. With these compare der-gh- in OE.
tiergan l irritate, annoy/ G. zergen, Russ. dergatt i tear.'
Persson, Wz. 26.
A base der-bh- i pluck, cut ' may be assumed for Skt.
darbhd- 'grass-tuft,' ON., LG. tarf, OE. turf, OHG. zurba
' turf/ An other base der-bh- with the intransitive meaning
' go rapidly, whirl ' is found in OHG. zerben ' turn, whirl/
OE. tearflian ' turn, roll/ MHG. zirben ' whirl/ zirbilwint
' whirlwind/ Lith. drebeti, Lett, drebet ' tremble/ Cf. Schade,
Wb. s. v. zarbjan.
The meaning whirl probably comes from ' go rapidly back
and forth/ and such a meaning we find in the simple root
der-. Compare MG. zarren 'reissend hin und her ziehen,
zerren/ which is the active of 'go back and forth/ Here
then belong the roots drd-, dru-, drem- ' flee, run/ which are
simply intransitive uses of the root der- ' separate, burst
apart, draw away/ Semasiologically there is no reason for
separating Skt. dar- ' bersten, zerstieben, zerspreugen ' from
340 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
drd- ' springen, laufen/ From ( spring ' develops the inten-
sive ' spring about, tremble.' This occurs in Skt. dari-
drd-ti ' run about, run hither and thither/ and, from the
same root drd-, in Gk. SiSpdcrtcco 'run. 7 With the Gk.
SiSpd- compare the Germ, titro- in OHG. zittaron ' tremble/
ON. titra ' shake, twinkle/ E. teeter ' auf und nieder schau-
keln/ Prov. E. titter ' seesaw, tremble/ E.. titter ' giggle,
tremble with suppressed laughter/ For this interchange of
meaning compare OS. thrimman ' spring, hop : ' Lat. tremo
' tremble ; ' Gk. rpea ' flee : ' ' tremble/ For other deriva-
tives of the root der- ' spring, run/ cf. Kluge, Et. Wb. s. v.
treten. These, however, may represent the development
' draw off : ' l go/ as in G. ziehen or OE. dragan l draw : '
' go/ This is certainly the case in MHG. trechen ' draw/
Du. trekken ' draw, travel, march/ E. track. With Goth.
trudan ' tread/ OHG. tretan, etc., compare MHG. tratz,
trotz 'trotz 7 < pre-Germ. *drotn6-, *drtno- ' trampling upon,
zertretung/ and MG. trotz ( confidence ' = ' a stepping on,
relying on/
From der- ' tear off' comes ' hold/ as in Gk. SpeTrco f tear
off, pluck, seize, grasp/ From the sense ' hold ' develops the
signification of the base dreu-, drU- i holding firm, steadfast,
strong, true : ? Gk. Spoov ' firm/ Goth, trauan ' trust/ trausti
* covenant/ triggws ' true/ etc., OE. trum ' firm, strong, stead-
fast, healthy/ ge-trum, truma ' a force, troop/ etc. Whether
Prus. druwis ' belief/ OChSl. su-dravU ' strong, sound ; belong
here is doubtful, since they may just as well be compared
with Skt. dhruvd- ' firm, steadfast, trustworthy/ from the
root dher- ' hold/ But to compare Skt. dhruvd- with Goth.
triggws (as is done by Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb.) is entirely out of
the question. For similarity of meaning is absolutely no
ground for connecting words, since any given meaning might
arise in a hundred different ways. If we combine Skt.
dhruvd- with Goth, triggws because they are synonymous,
then by all means let us add OE. ]>rymm ' strength, might/
l strength, might, troop/ and we shall have the dental
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOR ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE/ 341
series complete in tru-, dru-, dhru- ' strong/ We shall then
have reached a point where the phonetic laws will cause no
more difficulty. Any comparison will be possible if only the
words are synonymous.
Another outgrowth of the meaning ' hold ' is f hold back,
delay, aufhalten, sich aufhalten/ hence 'rest, sleep/ This
occurs in Skt. . drdti, Gk. SapOdva), Lat. dormid, OChSl.
dremati ( sleep/ Compare Gk. e\i,vva) ' rest, keep holiday :
sleep/ Of the same origin is the Germ, base tr3-ga-, pre-
Germ. *dre-gho- or *dr%-k6-, ' holding back, slow, sluggish ;
held back, oppressed, grieved : ' Goth, trigo ' reluctance,
grudge, sorrow/ ON. tregr ' reluctant, slow/ tregi 'pain/
trega * grieve/ OE. trega, trdg l affliction/ OHG. trdgi ' trage/
etc. With these compare OE. tiergan 'afflict, annoy/ Du.
tergen ' zerren/ Russ. dergati ' tear, annoy/ G. zergen, Kluge,
Et. Wb. 6 Notice also OE. torn 'anger, indignation, grief/
OHG. zorn, etc., perhaps from pre-Germ. *drno-, root der-,
as usually explained. But this does not mean ' zerrissenheit
des gemiites/ A primitive race would describe mental emo-
tion from its outward effects as seen or heard, not as felt.
Compare the similar meanings in OChSl. lupiti, Lith. Itipti
'peel, strip off:' Gk. \VTTTJ 'grief, pain/ \v7rea) 'distress,
annoy, grieve ; ' Gk. \vyi^a) ' bend, twist, writhe, suffer/
Lith. Ifaztu 'break/ Lat. lugeo 'mourn/ Gk. Xu^aXeo? 'sad,
wretched/ Lat. luctor 'struggle/ luclans 'struggling, reluc-
tant/ (Cf. Prellwitz,^.TT6.) Perhaps OE. trceglian < pluck/
E. trail are genuine Germ. (cf. Kluge, Et. Wb. 5 s. v. treideln).
In that case they may belong to Goth, trigo, etc.
From der- ' tear away, spring forth y comes dre-so- ' sprinkle : '
Gk. Spocros 'dew/ Goth, ufar-trusnjan 'besprinkle/ ON. tros
'abfall/ Lett, di'rst 'cacare/ di'rsa 'buttocks/ ( Prell-
witz, Et. Wb. s. v. Spocro?.) Compare E. spring: sprinkle;
G. zersprengen : besprengen ; OE. scddan ' separate, scatter,
sprinkle, shed (blood), fall/
In this manner every IE. root der-, der-k-, der-p-, etc.,
may be shown to be one in origin. And certainly the changes
342 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
in meaning assumed are natural and easy. To the words
above given we may add : MHG. tropfe ' simpleton/ pre-
Germ. *drpn6~: Skt. darpa- ' wild ness/ drpyati 'be crazed,
wild/ base der-po- ' tear about/ which is really the same as
Gk. Spe7r&> 'tear off;' OHG. zart 'tender, weak, soft, be-
loved ; 7 l tenderness, fineness, caress, love/ zerten ' caress 7
pre-Germ. base dor-t6- ' scratched, rubbed, caressed, made
tender/ for meaning compare Gk. reipco, Lat. tero ' rub : 7
Gk. repnv 'soft, delicate 7 (cf. Schade, Wb.).
14. OHG. scouwon 'sehen, schauen, betrachten/ OE.
sceawian i see, scrutinize, regard, select, provide/ Goth.
us-skaus ' prudent/ skauns ' well-formed, beautiful/ OHG.
scuwo 'shade/ scuchar 'mirror/ etc., from the Germ, root
sku-, skau-, pre-Germ. sqouo- in Gk. Ovo-cr/coos ' priest/ /coea)
' mark, hear 7 (with which compare qou-s- in Gk. a-/cova),
Goth, hausjan 'hear 7 ), Skt. kavi- 'sage/ d-kuvate 'intend/
Lith. kavdti ' guard against/ OChSl. #uti ' feel, perceive/ Lat.
caved, etc. (Cf. Kluge, Prellwitz, Uhlenbeck, Et. Wbb.)
This root squ-, sqouo I regard as a derivative of seqo-, sqe-
' cut. 7 From this develops ' mark, notice, perceive, hear,
see/ etc. In this way the various significations are easily
explained. Thus OE. sceawian ' regard (with favor), select,
scrutinize 7 = 'mark, mark out; 7 Goth, skauns ' well- formed 7
= ' cut out, shaped, shapely ; 7 MHG. schone ' schon 7 =
' shaped, prepared, ready ; 7 Gk. KOCCD ' mark 7 needs no expla-
nation. ' Cut, prepare 7 explains the following, which may
be added to the above : Gk. cr/ceOo? ' tools, trappings, rustungj
a/cevri ' apparatus, equipment, dress/ cr/cevdco ' prepare, dress,
equip, supply. 7 Observe also that Lat. caved (which I should
explain as *<pw- not qdu-, as done by Brugmann, Grd., I 2 ,
155) meags ' ward off 7 = ' strike, cut 7 in adversos ictus cavere
ac propulsare, alicui cavere, etc.
From s-qeuo- 'cut, cut out 7 comes the signification ' cover,
protect. 7 This develops through ' something cut out, skin,
garment, shield 7 or ' something dug out, cave, shelter 7 or
directly from 'cut, strike, ward off, protect. 7 For examples
SEMASIOLOGY OF WOEDS FOB ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 343
of this meaning cf. Prellwitz, Et. Wb. s. v. O-KV\OV, cr/cvros ;
Schade, Wb. s. v. scur; Kluge, s. v. Scheuer.
I think there can be no doubt that in one or other of these
ways the idea ' shelter, protect' arose. Compare Goth, sldldus
' shield/ Lith. skittis ( disk : ' skeliu i split ; ' E. shed ' scheide,
schuppe ; ' MHG. schutzen, beschilten ' protect : ' schute ' wall/
schutten ' schiitteln, schiitten.' And so numberless cases. It
is impossible, indeed, even to suppose that there was an unde-
rived root of any kind meaning ( cover.' Such an idea would
be expressed, not by seizing a ready made word out of the
air, but by describing the method of covering, sheltering,
protecting. Such a word being once formed, it would develop
according to its derived not its primary meaning. So we may
assume all words arose. But the absolute origin, whether
exclamatory or imitative grunt, is beyond our ken. One
thing is certain : if we cannot rely upon the phonetic com-
position of a word, we have no ground to stand on.
It is probably from the idea ( cut off, separate ' that the
signification ' shadow ' originated. The ' shadow ' was thought
of as a separation, shelter, protection from the sun. Thus :
OE. scuwa ' protection, shadow;' scead ' protection, shade/
sceadu ' protection, arbor, shadow ; ' OHG. sour ' wetterdach,
schutz/ sciura ' scheuer/ Lat. ob-scurus, with which compare
Goth, skura ' storm,' OE. scur ' shower' (of rain, hail, missiles),
ON. skur, OHG. scur ' schauer/ base squ-ro- ' thro wing, ward-
ing off, separating, protecting' (cf. E. shed, ' scheide, schuppe;'
MHG. schutten ( schiitteln/ beschiiten ( beschiitzen ') ; Gk. a-Kid
' shadow/ base sqe-io-, sqi- ' throwing off, protecting, shad-
ing;' ' irradiating, shining.' Gk. o-/aafo> ' shade, overshadow,
cover/ Kavfjba CTK. = ' aestatem defendere/ Goth, skeinan
f shine/ etc., with which compare OE. sccenan ' break/ scla,
scinu ( shin/ G. schiene, etc., primarily l something cut off/
hence i splint, splinter, strip, shin/ etc. ; Goth, skeirs ' clear/
OE. scir ' clear, bright/ MHG. schir, etc., base sql-ro- ( cut-
ting, marking off; throwing off, radiating/ also in OE. sdr
' shire, office/ Gk. crtcipov * cheese-paring/ cr/a/ao? ' any hard
5 '
344 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
coat or crust/ a-Kipos f hard ; 7 and further in OHG. skero,
sciaro ' quick/ stiari, sceri ' quick-witted/ pre-Germ. *sqei-ro-,
cf. Gk. cr/ci-vag ' quick, nimble/ Lat. scio ' know. 7 These
examples are enough to make it quite probable that the
' shadow 7 in many cases is thought of as a covering, protec-
tion, thrown over or cast by some object.
Now we see in the above roots the bases sqo-uo-, sqU- ;
sqe-io-, sql- ; sqo-to-, in all of which the meaning ' shadow *
is found. After the explanation given I take it that it is not
too much to assume that they may all be derivatives of the
root seqo-, sqe- ' cut off, separate, throw off/ etc.
15. Gk. o-KOTreo), a-Keirrofjiai ' search out, inquire, examine,
look at, behold/ GIOTTO? ' watcher 7 are connected by Prell-
witz, EL Wb., with cr/ceTra? ' covering, shelter/ a-Kejrr], same,
cr/ce7rda) f shelter.' This is certainly preferable to the con-
nection with Lat. specio (cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 873), but the
explanation of the meaning as given by Prellwitz is hardly
correct.
The base sqo-po-, sqe-po- meant primarily ( cutting off,
separating ; cut off, separated/ Used literally this gave
< separating, protecting, sheltering ; 7 figuratively, ' separating,
searching out, examining/ etc. Such a development of mean-
ing is too common to need illustration. It is the same as we
saw above in OE. sceawian 'seek out, select, reconnoitre,
scrutinize, see.'
16. Lat. cer-no, cre-vl ' separate, distinguish, perceive, see/
Lith. sJciriil ' separate/ Gk. /celpa) 'cut off, shear/ OHG.
sceran ' shear/ etc., root sqe-ro- ' cut. 7 (Cf. Persson, Wz. 29,
62.) Compare ON. skil ' discernment/ ME. skil ' reason/ E.
skill, ON. skilja i separate/ Lith. skeliu ' split/ Gk. o-/cd\\co
' dig, hoe/ root sqe-lo- ' cut ; ' and Lat. scio ' understand, per-
ceive, know/ de-scl-sco ' separate/ root sq%-io-, sql- ' cut/
(Id., ib. 38 ; 112.) So also Lat. distinguo ('thrust apart/ v.
supra) ' separate, discriminate, distinguish. 7
17. OE. starianj OHG. star en, MHG. starn, G. starren
' stare. 7 These words express the fixedness of body and
SEMASIOLOGY OF WORDS FOE ' SMELL ' AND ' SEE.' 345
features occasioned by a sight that causes surprise or astonish-
ment. Hence OHG. stara-blint, MHG. star-blint ' starrblind/
OE. steer-blind ' quite blind/ primarily with eyes ' fixed and
glazed/ To these are related Gk. o-repeo? ' stiff, hard/ OChSl.
staru 'old/ Lith. storas ' thick/ ON. storr ' strong/ Goth.
stairo ' sterile/ etc. Cf. Kluge, Et. Wb. s. v. starr, Stdrke.
Stare is a good example of a class of words which described
primarily a certain expression and only by implication meant
' look at/ So E. gape ' yawn : 9 ' look at with open mouth/
G., MHG. gaffen, ON. gapa ' yawn ; ' E. squint ( look at
with a squint ; ' leer ' look at with a distorted expression ; '
peep 'peer, as through a crevice/ Similarly we may say
frown at, smile at, sneer at, etc., implying ' look at with a
frown, smile, sneer/ etc.
18. OE. gorettan 'gaze, stare/ like OE. starian, OHG.
staren, E. stare, denotes a fixed glance, and has probably
come to its signification in the same way. Its etymon, there-
fore, may be a word expressing stiffness. I find a group of
words whose meanings go back to the common idea * brist-
ling/ and this gives the meaning sought. These words are :
OE. gyr ' fir-tree/ gorst l gorse, furze ' (compare ON. fyra
t fir : ' OE. fyres ' furze '), Lith gaUras i hair on the body/
gaurutas ' hairy/ Skt. ghord- ' horrid, awful, violent ' (com-
pare Lat. horridus 'bristly, shaggy; horrid, frightful, savage').
From these I should separate Goth, gaurs ' sad. 7 That is
better taken as suggested by Uhlenbeck, Et. Wb., and may
further be referred to the root ghu- ' pour, flow/
1 9. MHG. gucken, gucken, G. gucken, ' look at with curi-
osity, peep/ This word implies either stealth or* foolish
curiosity. In either case it may be referred to OHG. gouh(h),
ON. gaukr, OE. geao ' cuckoo/ MHG. gouch ' cuckoo, gawk/
So also E. gawk is used colloquially as a verb meaning ' look
at like a gawk/ The -ok- of MHG. gucken, gucken causes
no difficulty . It occurs also in MHG. gucken, OHG. guccon
' call cuckoo/ We have then two derivatives of the word for
'cuckoo/ *gukkdn 'call cuckoo' and *gukkjan 'act like a
346 FRANCIS A. WOOD.
cuckoo or gawk.' The -kk- as well as the -k- of the Germ,
stem gauka- < *gaukka- is from pre-Germ. -kn-. Compare
MHG. guggug, guggouch ' cuckoo/ which are reduplicated
forms, and gugzen < *gugatjan ' call cuckoo/ The stem
guga-, gukka-, gauka- may be compared with Skt. ghuka-
' owl/ and these may be referred to the root ghu- ' shout,
cry/ Skt. gho-sa- ' noise, shout/ ghosati ' cry, shout/
20. E. gloat, MHG. glotzen 'glotzen/ ON. glotta ' smile
derisively ' come from a Germ, base *glotto < *ghludna- (or
-dhna- or -tnd-) ' jesting, derision/ which is from ghiu- in
OE. gleow ' glee, jest, ridicule/ gleam, ON. glaumr ' gayety,
wantonness/ Gk. %Xeu?? 'jest/ %Xeuao> 'jeer, scoff at/ Lith.
glauda-s ' sport/ (Cf. Brg., Grd., I 2 , 573.)
By the side of the base ghle-uo- occurs ghle-io-: Lett.
glaima 'jest/ glaimut 'jest, caress/ MHG. gfaen 'cry' (of
birds), Gk. /a%\o) 'giggle/ These are from the root ghelo-,
gU%-: ON. glam(m) 'noise, hilarity/ glama 'be hilarious/
galm 'sound/ OHG. gellan 'resound, yell/ galan 'sing/ etc.
(Cf. Persson, Wz. 69, 195f.)
Another class of verbs for 'see' is connected with words
meaning 'shine/ (Cf. Bechtel, SW. 157.) These are, for the
most part, like those just discussed : they are descriptive of
an expression of countenance. Thus beam, gleam, glare as
nouns may denote a certain expression of eye or feature,
as verbs they may mean to look with such an expression. So
also glance and to glance; G. blick, blicken; Gk. Xev/co?
' bright, glancing/ \evcrcrw ' glance at, look at ; ' Lith. zvilg'eti
'glanzen, blicken/ The further discussion of these words
would require an investigation into the origin of the ideas
underlying ' shine, gleam/ This is reserved for another
occasion.
FRANCIS A. WOOD.
XI. PKOPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE.
It is true that the poets often allow proper names to
disturb the rhythmic character of verse ; but there are limits
beyond which few versifiers will be found to push any special
license that they may be disposed to exercise in the use of
names. The famous Shakespearean crux in the line,
"Lucius, Lucullus, and SemproniusVllorxa,"
[Timon, III, iv, 112.]
illustrates, for example, that degree of metric excess which
establishes the final right of excision. However, in spite
of the difficulties encountered in the rhythmic handling of
names, it is the prevailing practice of the poets to conceal
difficulty in smoothness of workmanship, 1 the current pro-
nunciation of the name is with nicety wrought into the
rhythm of the verse, and the marks of labor disappear.
With this principle in mind one may turn to Old English
poetry with the reasonable expectation of finding names,
without violation of their accepted pronunciation, properly
1 There is regal advice upon this subject which is so refreshingly nai've
that it will always appraise itself:
"That ge eschew to insert in gour verse, a lang rahle of mennis names,
or names of tounis, or sik vther names. Because it is hard to mak many
lang names all placit together, to flow weill. Thairfore quhen that fallis
out in jour purpose, ge sail ather put bot twa or thrie of thame in euerie
lyne, mixing vther wordis amang thame, or ellis specific bot twa or thre
of them at all, saying ( With the laif of that race} or ( With the rest in thay
pairlis,) or sic vther lyke wordis : as for example,
" Out through his cairt, quhair Eous was eik
With other thre, quhilk Phaeton had drawin.
" ge sie thair is bot ane name there specifeit, to serue for vther thrie of
that sorte."
James VI of Scotland, I of England, The Essayes of
a Prentise, in the Divine Art of Poesie, Edinburgh,
1585 [Arbe^s English Reprints, No. 19, p. 62].
347
348 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
fitted into the structure of the verse. One should, therefore,
not be expected to hesitate in reading the following lines
in this manner :
Abimeleche swd hine Abraham bced. [Gen. 2758.]
X & | uX || X X X -^ I X X X
]>d Abraham Abimeleche. [Gen. 2831.]
X JL | x ^ || x & | 6 x.
\a glen wees yrre god Abimelehe. \_Gen. 2741.]
x x x ^|x -^ || x vx | ux.
But this scansion ignores the primary law of alliteration ;
the assumed rhythm of the name Abimelech must therefore be
revised, and three of the half-lines just cited must be scanned:
Abimeleche,
6 | & fc x.
This is accordant with all the remaining occurrences of the
name:
[ Gen. 2621 a .] under A bimelech, x x u | 6% x.
[Gen. 2716 a .] ]>d ongan Abimceleh, x x x u | u x.
[Gen. 2668 a .] eorlum Abimeleh, 2 (x) | 6 ^x x.
The alliteration is indeed now correctly restricted to the
ictus, but there still remains a serious violation of the law
of rhythm in the quantity of the stressed syllable. Is the
scansion of these lines therefore to be further revised, and are
we to infer the change of Abimelech into Abimelech ? There
is no strong presumption in favor of an affirmative answer to
this question, for we have to assume the persistence of the
Latin accentuation of the scriptural names. In the case
of Abimelec, the Hebrew compound Xbi-M6lekh (' father of
the king') has conformed to Latin accentuation, and the
Latin Melchisedech in like manner represents the Hebrew
MalM-Ce'deq (' King of righteousness '). Now it is this Latin
PROPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 349
accentuation under which all Scripture was brought into Eng-
land. The Anglo-Saxons said Melchlsedech for the same
reason that they said Gregorius (more accurately, with the
secondary accents, Melchisedech, Gregorius, or, on occasion,
as will be shown, Melchisedech, Gregorius), and accordingly
scanned these names, after the pattern ofAbimelech, as follows:
[_Chr. 138.] swd se mcere lu Melchlsedech.
xx 2\x2 || 2 \2x (D 2 ).
[Gen. 2102.] \ad wees se mcere Melchlsedech.
x x| - x || 2 2x .
[Men. 39.] Gregorius in godes wcere.
d ^xl|| x & 2x.
[Men. 101.] Gregorius ne hyrde ic gumenafyrn.
u|^xl||x x xx vjx |x 2.
This formula of accentuation is also illustrated by Bethulia :
[Judith 138.] Bethuliam Hie %d beahhrodene.
6\JL xl || x x 2 | ^x x.
[Judith 327.] to ftcere beorhtan byrig Bethuliam.
x x x 2\ x & || vj|^x 1.
That the Latin accent is always retained as an ictus requires
no further proof; but it may still be doubted whether the
additional initial ictus in the type of names just considered
does not demand lengthening of the vowel. In names like
Jacob, Joseph, Satan, etc., the required length is given ; such
names therefore furnish no evidence pertinent to the inquiry.
On the other hand, names like Babtlon and Holofernes, in
which the first two syllables are short, are significant in per-
mitting scansion without change in syllabic quantity.
Babilon is of frequent occurrence in Anglo-Saxon poetry,
and the metre never requires length of the initial syllable.
Thus,
350 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
[Dan. 689 a .] tycet he Babilone, x x & | + x,
represents the scansion of Dan. 700 a ; 660 a ; Gen. 1633 a ;
1707* ; Ps. 86, 2 a ; 136, l a ; 136, 8 a .
Babilon burga, ux \- 1 ^x (A 2a), or perhaps better ux x | _^x,
of Dan. 694 a , is to be compared with Babilone burh, u>$ 1 x | 2
(E) of Dan. 601 a , which is also the rhythm of Dan. 47* ;
99 b ; 104 b ; 117 a ; 209 b ; 229 b ; 256 a ; 449 b ; 461 a ; 488 a ; 642 a .
The hyper metric rhythm of Dan. 455 a , wees heora bleed in
Babilone, is satisfactorily interpreted by Sievers (Altgerm.
Metrik, p. 142) as being x x x -^ x & | -^ x (BC). In the
remaining three occurrences of this name we have to assume
synizesis of ia=ja; ie=je (cf. Sievers, ibid., p. 126,
79, 2):
[Dan. 70 a .] to Babilonia, x Jx | 2 x.
[Dan. 164 a .] bleed in Babilonia, 2 x | & 1 x (D).
[Dan. I73 a .] bresne Babilonige, -^x|uxlx.
Two instances of the occurrence of Holofernes (Holofernus)
present the rhythmic elements already considered :
[Judith 7 b .] Gefrcegen ic %d Holofernus.
xx xx x ux | - x.
[Judith 21 b .] Da wear& Holofernus.
X X uX|-^ X.
To complete the data for the study of this name, we have
now to consider four instances of its occurrence as a complete
half-line (Judith 46 a ; 180 a ; 250 a ; 337 b ). This takes us back
to the question of the permissibility of a short initial ictus,
which now assumes this form, shall we retain Holofernus,
6 x | J- x, in these four instances, in accordance with the
inference established by all the occurrences of Babilon and
reenforced by two of Holofernus f Our answer is affirmative,
inasmuch as it unifies a principle of scansion not only for the
names already considered, but also for all others. Before
PROPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 351
discussing this principle itself, it may be desirable to increase
the illustrations of its application.
The name Maria has been fitted into almost all the principal
rhythmic types. The simplest conditions are present in type C :
\Elene 775 a .] and ]>urh Marian, x x u | ^ x.
So also in Elene 1233 a ; Men. 20 a ; Chr. 445 a ; Ho. 84 ft .
In Chr. 88 b , Sanda Maria, 2xx 2x, and Hym. 10, 13 a ,
Sanctan Marian, the name does not alliterate, and the scan-
sion indicated is therefore to be preferred before a possible D,
-^x | ulx ; on the other hand, the double alliteration in mrngft
Maria, Chr. 176 a , establishes a preference for D 3 (Sievers,
Altgerm. Metrik, pp. 34, 157). However, mceg Ddvides, Chr.
165 a , in which the name does not alliterate, and the rhythm
is therefore intended to be - x | 2. x (rather than 2. \ JL \. x), in
accordance with the word-accent of the oblique case, clearly
shows that the presumption in favor of mceg^> Mafia, -. \ u 1 x,
is not strong enough to make it inadmissible to regard the
double alliteration in this instance as merely a superadded
grace which does not affect the rhythm, and to scan -^ x ^ x.
Type E is represented in Sat. 438 b , ]>urh Marian had,
x | u 1 x | 2. and again in Chr. 299 b , and \e, Maria, /or3,
x x | u 1 x | -^, in which it is to be particularly noticed that the
vocative, requiring the emphatic utterance of the name, per-
mits a partial reduction of the chief word -accent. Is it the
recessive accent of the vocative that is operative here? How-
ever that may be, there is nothing in the present instance to
warrant the assumption that this recession was strong enough
to reduce the usual word-accent still further so as to result in
x x u | x x X But this partial reduction of the word-accent,
a reduction of the primary to a secondary accent, is also the
characteristic feature of the following rhythms of A 2 :
[Men. 51 a .] Marian mycle, u 1 x | - x.
[Er. 92 b .] Marian sylfe, 6 1 x | J. x.
[Ho. 9 b .] Maria on dcegred, 6 1 x x | J. 1.
{And. 688 b .] Maria and Joseph, 6 1 x x 1 2. !.
352 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
In the quantity of its initial syllable, the name Judea
presents that variation from Maria which has been supposed
to favor the shifting of the chief stress to the initial syllable.
But here too, as in the case of Maria, it is not a shifting but
rather a reduction merely of the word-accent that has taken
place. The accented syllable is no longer supreme in its
capacity to receive the ictus, but it at most shares this func-
tion equally with the initial syllable, to which it may also,
on occasion, be subordinated.
The varieties of rhythm in which Judea occurs are very
unequally represented. Type C embraces the largest share :
in Judtum, x ^ | J. x, Ho. 99 b ; 103 b ; 128 b ; 131V ]>one
Judeas, Chr. 637 a . swylce he Jud&a, x x x 2. \ 2. x, And. 166 a ;
similarly And. 12 a ; 968 a ; 1410 a ; Fata 35 a ; Elene 216 a ;
268 b ; 278 a ; 328 a ; 977 a ; Ps. 75, l b (cf. 68, 36 b ; if the prepo-
sition is to receive the ictus, Elene 278 a is also to be compared).
Type D is represented by werude Judea, $% (x) | ^lx, Ps. 113,
2 b , and hceleft Judea, Ho. 13 b ; and type E by Judea cyn,
JL L x | J., Elene 209 a (cf. 837*).
In scanning Jerusalem (Hierusalem, Gerusalem) it is to
be borne in mind that.; alliterates with h and with g.
The most simple formula is found in the complete half-line
Hierusalem, d|^xl (D 4), Ps. 121, 3 a ; so also Sal u. Sat.
201 b ; 234 b . This is frequently varied by the admission of
anacrusis: to Hierusalem, Elene 273 b ; Chr. 533 b ; Guft. 785 b ;
similarly Dan. 2 a ; Fata 70 b ; Elene 1056 a ; Ps. 78, 3 b ; 101,
19 a ; 121, 2 a ; 124, l b ; 127, 6 a ; 134, 22 a ; 146, 2 a . The
anacrustic beat is expanded in \od is on Hierusalem, Ps. 67,
26 a , and in like manner in Ps. 64, l a ; 115, 8 a ; 121, 6 a ; 136,
6 a ; 136, 7 a . This expansion is perhaps not to be regarded
as resulting in a hypermetric rhythm in Gif ic ]>m } Hierusa-
l&m, J. x x | 6 \ + x ^- (AD 4), Ps. 136, 5 a (cf. Hwcet, \u eart 9
JBabilone, Ps. 136, 8 a ), although this rhythmic phrase paves
the way to gold in Gerusalem, Dan. 708 a , which may be
scanned as hypermetric, ^ x 6 \ ^ x 1 ; this would be equally
true of Herige Hierusalem, Ps. 147, l a . But in these two
PEOPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 353
instances it is better to exclude the name from the alliteration
and accordingly to scan thus : ^ (x x) | ^ x L, and u^ (x x) | - x 1,
as is to be inferred from :
[Chr. 50.] Eald sibbe gesihft sancta Hierusalem.
xx ^|x x J. || ^ (x x)|^x 1
[Ps. 78, 2.] Settan Hierusalem samod anllcast.
J. (x x) ^ x ^ || & I 2. 1 x
Here the name is released from sharing the alliteration, and
is scanned according to its prose-accents. These are two
important facts which at once make manifest the persistence
of the word-accent, and the special character of the initial
ictus of names not accented on the first syllable. The same
phenomena will be observed in :
[Ho. 23.] sigefcest and snottor. Scegde Johdnnis.
[.Ho. 50.] Geseah ]?d Johdnnis sigebearn godes.
[And. 691.] suna Josephes, Simon and Jdeob.
Confirmation of this rhythmic use is furnished by that of
the title tipdattilus in its Anglo-Saxon forms :
[Men. 122.] Petrus and Paulus: hwcet, ]>d apdstolas.
JL x x| 2 x || x xx^|x.^
[Fata 14.] Petrus and Paulus. Is se apostolhdd.
[And. 1653.] \urh apdstolhdd Platan nemned.
This riming of apostle on p is also found in JElfric (Biblio-
ihek der ags. Prosa, in, p. 52, 1. 51) :
swd swd se apostol Petrus on his pistole dwrdt.
It will be to the present purpose to add from -ZElfric's
freer rhythms further illustrations of the employment of the
alliteration of an interior syllable which has the chief word-
354 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
accent : Isaias alliterates with s (Bibliothek der ags. Prosa, in,
p. 21, 1. 188); Judeiscan with d (ibid., p. 66, 1. 26; p. 71,
1. 162; p. 101, 1. 309); Amanes with m (ibid., p. 101, 1. 311);
Sebastianus with b (Lives of Saints, Part I, p. 122, 1. 104;
p. 138, 1. 339; p. 144, 1. 437); Chromatius with m (ibid., p.
126, 1. 152; p. 132, 1. 257); Policarpus with c (ibid., p. 128,
1. 199); Tiburtius with 6 (i6id., p. 140, 1. 379) ; Lucina with
c = s (ibid., p. 146, 1. 468); Mediolana on I (ibid., p. 116,
1. 2) ; Agathes on # (ibid., p. 198, 1. 45) ; Basilissa on Z (i&id.,
p. 92, 1. 52 ; p. 96, 1. 99). We have thus in the decline of
the classic regularity of the native versification an increasing
tendency to scan names according to word-accent only, just as
the versifier of the Metres of Boet/iius has, by way of varia-
tion, in one instance done with the name Aulixes :
\Metr. 26, 21.] \GL \a Aulixes leafe hcefde
(cf. Rieger, Verskunst, p. 11, note).
With this partial exhibition of the manner in which the
Anglo-Saxon poet handled foreign names with Latin word-
accent, it will be possible to consider the theory of rhythmic
stress which has been assumed in the scanning of the selected
illustrations. In stating this theory there will be no occasion
to restate in detail the well known and generally accepted
induction of Sievers (Beitrdge, x, 492 f., xix, p. 448 note,
p. 456 note; Altgerm. Metrik, p. 124 f.), and of Pogatscher
(Zur Lautlehre der griechischen, lateinischen und romanischen
Lehnworte im Altenglischen, p. 16), which has been applied
by Kauifmann to the scansion of the Heliand (Beitrdge, xn,
349 f.).
After Sievers had so successfully revealed the structure of
Old English verse, and had deduced therefrom the rhythmic
function of secondary accents, confirming and extending the
less complete conclusions of Rieger and others, there was
naturally nothing to expect of the Latin names in verse
except exact conformity to the fixed laws of the five types
of rhythm. Of these laws none was believed to be more
PROPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 355
inflexible than that of the syllabic quantity of the ictus;
and whatever difficulties appeared to arise in bringing the
accentual phrases of foreign names under the dominion of
the rigid law of the native ictus, these were overcome by an
appeal to the Germanic word-accent, as a further consequence
of which the condition for the required lengthening of short
initial syllables, it was held, was forthwith at hand. Sievers,
in other words, concluded (in agreement with Rieger) that
the initial unaccented syllable of foreign names received an
accent (indeed the principal accent) in Old English, and that
under this accent a short syllable became long ; this law was
then extended by Pogatscher so as to embrace all learned
loan-words (p. 31) : " In gelehrten Entlehnungen gelten die
haupttonigen Silben als lang." But, exclusive of the proper
names, there are very few learned loan-words which may be
supposed to affect the present inquiry. It is therefore better
first to consider the law in question in its application to
the proper names only. This is the particular purpose of the
present discussion.
In the first place, it is pertinent to ask those who may be
unwilling to substitute the mode of scansion illustrated above
for that of Sievers and Pogatscher to explain, on the one
hand, the tendency exhibited by ^Elfric to reclaim for ictus
the original Latin stress to the exclusion of the new initial
stress, and, on the other hand, the continuance in the language
to the present day of the Latin accentuation of many of these
names, such as Abimelech, Jerusalem, Elizabeth, Judea, etc.
Lachmann's observation of the disturbing influence of the
Germanic versification in this province led him to say (KL
Schrifien, I, 387) : " Nur dies will ich noch bemerken, dass,
ware in der deutschen Poesie die Form der Alliteration
herschend geblieben, die fremden Namen sich immer mehr zu
der deutschen Accentregel wiirden bequemt habeu." How-
ever that may be, it is to be kept in mind that JElfric,
whatever his innovations may be, was still under the reign
of the old system of versification, although in justice to
356 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
Lachmann it should also be carefully noted that he saw in
the alliterative verse merely that force which tended to bring
about the change gradually which it could possibly never
wholly accomplish.
A more complete interpretation of Lachmann's words will
furnish the true basis for further investigation. It is unmis-
takably this, that the alliterative verse forced its peculiar
demands, with more or less uniformity, upon the foreign
rhythm of names, just as would be expected in the case of
any other system of versification. That under varying types
and fashions of rhythm, or of versification, experience in
incorporating foreign elements will beget correspondingly
varying categories of structural license. All rhythmic usage
of the names here considered, be it furnished by Cynewulf,
by Chaucer, by Shakespeare, by Milton, or by Browning,
must therefore be subsumed under this general principle.
In the statement of the general principle which has now
been arrived at, the term ' license ' implies, of course, that the
poet's use of foreign names, while its main features will
reflect the current pronunciation, will occasionally make dis-
cernible possibilities of stress which are in part, or altogether,
obscured in prose ; besides, other more or less artificial effects
may be admitted which will remain inoperative in moulding
the accepted form and pronunciation. A capricious accentua-
tion of names by Chaucer and by Shakespeare, for example,
have not disturbed the normal history of these words, but the
average practice of these and of all the poets bears surest
testimony to the validity of the laws of persistence and of
change written in that history.
Self-evident as these general propositions may be, the
present argument will be promoted by an illustration of those
accentual possibilities which, obscured or neglected in prose,
are conserved by rhythm.
Iterated acknowledgment is due Sievers for his fine dis-
crimination in classifying secondary word-accents and in
proving their rhythmic function in Anglo-Saxon. He has
PKOPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 357
left for future inquiry some questions relating to an apparent
conflict between this rhythmic function and the laws of
grammatical inflection, but for the historic study of English
rhythm he has made the right beginning. But, although
Sievers has opened the way, no one has hitherto consistently
and completely pursued the rhythmic function of secondary
word-accents along the entire course of English versification.
From Swinburne back to the Beowulf there remains to be
retraced an unbroken continuity in the principal categories
of what may be called the notes of the more subtile harmo-
nies of the language. The poets have always exercised the
right, and their art has always demanded that they should,
to place the ictus upon the second member of substantive
compounds, and in like manner to call forth the suppressed
note of such derivative syllables as -lie (-ly), -ness, ig(y), -er,
-en, -el, -or, -est, -ing, etc.
In the following lines the marked ictus will illustrate the
foregoing statement :
With low | grape-blos|som veil|ing their | white sides.
But coloured leaves | of latjter rose- [blossom,
Stems of | soft grass, | some withered red | and some
Fair and | flesh-blood |ed ; and | spoil splen|dider
Of mar|igold | and great | spent sun [flower.
There grew | a rose|-garden | in Florence land.
Swinburne, The Two Dreams.
That hath | sunshine | on the | one hand |
And on | the ojther star- [shining.
Id., The Masque of Queen Bersabe.
Bread failed ; | we got | but well-| water.
Id, The Leper.
358 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
It is the halting line (as it is sometimes called) that attracts
notice and excites inquiry into the principles of rhythmic
structure, while the correct line (to borrow another erroneous
designation) pleases the unquestioning ear (it is urged) and is
accepted without a thought of its workmanship. This lack
of ' correctness ' thus negatively makes manifest the quality
violated, just as in the case of that indescribable quality called
tact : if one has tact no one notices it, if one lacks tact, it is
observed by all.
Bysshe in his Art of English Poetry (London, 1714, p. 6)
illustrates the poet's lack of rhythmic tact in the following
lines from Davenant :
I I I I I
" None think Rewards rendered worthy their Worth."
"And both Lovers, both thy Disciples were."
"In which," he says, "tho' the true Number of Syllables
be observed,, yet neither of them have so much as the Sound
of a Verse : Now their Disagreeableness proceeds from the
undue Seat of the Accent." Watts had also cited these two
lines (Works, 1812-1813, vol. ix, 442 f.) and declared that
" worthy " and " Lovers," placed as they are, " turn the line
into perfect prose." Bysshe proceeds to obviate " the undue
seat of the accent," and presents the lines in "smooth and
easy form : "
I I I I I
" None think Rewards are equal to their Worth."
II III
"And Lovers both, both thy Disciples were."
But surely the poet must be allowed to have his own way :
/ /
" None think | Rewards | render'd | worthy | their Worth."
/
"And both j Lovers, | both thy | Discip|les were."
From these lines we may select lovers and render as repre-
senting the two principal classes of secondary word-accents
(native and foreign), which have been at all times and are
PROPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 359
still available for ictus. Nouns of agency in -er have been
studied with regard to rhythmic value in the early periods
of the language by ten Brink (Anglia, v, 1 f.), and the
poets of to-day are aware of the old value. The extension of
this capability of ictus from nouns of agency and compara-
tives through nouns of relationship (father, mother, brother,
sister) and formations like after, never, until even water is
overtaken, is comprised within the extremes indicated by
Poema Morale 250, "Ne mei hit quenche salt water," and
Rossetti's Honeysuckle, "And fouled my feet in quag- water,"
and the line already cited from Swinburne. As to render,
the O.F. rendre coming into English should have lost its
infinitive termination (cf. defend, offend), but it did not do so,
presumably in conformity to the rhematic noun render. A
dissyllabic form was thus obtained which was subject to that
play of stress which is characteristic of French words in
English. However, this is not the occasion to pursue the
history of secondary word-stress. The additional law of
rhythm which permits ictus upon logically subordinate words,
such as the articles, the pronouns, the prepositions, and the
inflectional endings, may also, for the present, be dismissed
from minute attention.
Professor Hale (Proceedings of the American Philological
Association for July, 1895, p. xxvi) asks, "Did verse-ictus
destroy word-accent in Latin poetry?" Surely not, as he
then proceeds to show. Both varieties of stress are conserved
in the music of verse, for verse is not an aggregation of
syllables mechanically marked off by beats or by foot-measure,
but it is an artfully planned succession of syllables rhythmi-
cally marked off by beats or by foot-measure with a strictness
of uniformity that may appear to be mechanical when the
rhythmic swing, the lilt, is neglected. It must therefore be
admitted as a fundamental rule that verse, which is con-
structed with an artistic regard to the conflict of ictus and
6
360 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
word-accent, must also be read in a manner that will render
it possible to observe the ' conflict.'
But let us return to Dr. Watts. It is not to be supposed
that the author of the Horae Lyricae was unwilling to admit
at least some of the usually approved variations of rhythm.
Indeed he is at special pains to caution against monotony of
movement, and is bold enough to say of Mr. Dry den, that he
observes the iambic measure "perhaps with too constant a
regularity. So in his Virgil he describes two serpents in ten
lines, with scarce one foot of any other kind, or the alteration
of a single syllable : "
"Two serpents rank'd abreast, the seas divide,
And smoothly sweep along the swelling tide.
Their flaming crest above the waves they show,
Their bellies seem to burn the seas below :
Their speckled tails advance to steer their course,
And on the sounding shore the flowing billows force,
And now the strand, and now the plain they held,
Their ardent eyes with bloody streaks were fill'd ;
Their nimble tongues they brandished as they came,
And lick'd their hissing jaws, that spattered flame."
There is therefore, according to Dr. Watts, an occasional
substitution of other feet necessary to produce the best
harmony of iambic verse. " In the lines of heroic measure/'
he says, " there are some parts of the line which will admit
a spondee, * * * ; or a trochee, * * *. A happy intermixture
of these will prevent that sameness of tone and cadence,
which is tedious and painful to a judicious reader, and will
please the ear with a greater variety of notes; provided
still that the iambic sound prevails." The spondee may be
admitted in the place of any of the five feet of a line, " but
scarce any other place in the verse, besides the first and
the third, will well endure a trochee, without endangering the
harmony, spoiling the cadence of the verse, and offending
the ear."
PROPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 361
Professor Browne (Modern Language Notes, IV, col. 197f.)
is concerned with this same question of how to secure rhythmic
variety in the iambic pentameter line " without letting go the
design ; " but his answer differs widely and significantly from
that of Dr. Watts. "Any variation is allowable," says Pro-
fessor Browne, "that does not obscure or equivocate the
genus." The permissible variation may be obtained (1) by
dropping one, or by dropping two of the five accents; (2)
by reversing one, or by reversing two of the five accents;
and (3) " by combining omissions and reversals."
Although the way has now been opened to a discussion of
the opinions held of the manner in which poetry should be
read, it will be sufficient, as will appear from what follows,
to dismiss from further consideration in this connection the
teaching that poetry should be. read as one reads prose. This
doctrine shall be called the sense-doctrine, its advocates main-
taining that it alone enables the reader to ' bring out' the
meaning. It is thus that the relation of the art of poetry to
music is ruthlessly pushed aside by the assumption that the
harmony of the ' numbers ? must not be regarded as much as
the logic of the sense. But it is a welcome fact that these
disciples of logic do not press to a logical conclusion an
application of their rule for poetry to the sister art, for that
would result in demanding that music written for words (or
music supplied with words) be rendered in recitativo.
Opposed to the sense-doctrine is that which more than
the word-play might justify one in naming the commonsense-
doctrine; but let it be known as the rhythm-doctrine. In
its baldest form it may be stated thus : Read poetry like
poetry. This, it may be thought, means either nothing, or
next to nothing. Even after the suppressed contrast 'not
like prose ' is added, the statement remains vague, and this
vagueness has, without doubt, indirectly begotten the first
doctrine. Without success in finding an acceptable manner
for reading poetry like poetry, the myopic doctrinaire has
concluded that it must be read like prose.
362 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
There is a third teaching which is also begotten of the
second, but the unsatisfactory result of its application has
perhaps been the more direct begetter of the first. It may be
styled the ictus-doctrine, for it consists in the demand that,
in reading verse, stress shall uniformly and exclusively be
confined to ictus.
It is thus seen that in the attempt to follow the second
doctrine, as here enumerated, failure has resulted in bringing
forth two additional doctrines. Failure in fundamentals does
not usually lead to success, nor has it done so in this instance.
The second doctrine is therefore still the true one, although it
may stand in need of exposition and inculcation.
That the rhythm-doctrine is in general better known in
theory than observed in practice has perhaps been made suffi-
ciently manifest. Classical scholars report an experience with
it in reading Greek and Latin verse which is full of interest-
ing variations in degree of satisfactory achievement ; and
recent discussion of the theory as applied to Latin is still
full of that unrest which is indicative of an inconclusively
handled problem.
An attempt shall now be made not to vindicate this
doctrine by reasoning from the essential laws of rhythm,
particularly as related to music, but rather to discover for
English the manner in which the accents and vocal inflec-
tions of our language allow and require it to be put into
practice. To free the problem from unnecessary complication
certain factors, important enough from another point of view,
shall be at once eliminated. The argument will not be
invalidated by excluding from consideration the so-called
trochaic beginning of iambic verse, or the equally well
authorized first foot without a thesis. The effects of caesura
shall also be passed by, and it will not be necessary to draw
the distinction at every step between word-accent and sentence-
accent. Moreover, the rhetoric of verse, as it may be called,
shall not be narrowly inquired into, important as it is for the
full appreciation of rhythm.
PROPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 363
Such ( regular' lines as those quoted from Dryden comprise
no ' conflict/ and consequently give no occasion for dis-
tinguishing between the second and third doctrines, and*
almost none for noting differences between these and the first.
But such ' regularity ' in excess is a violation of the artistic
demands of English versification which can be satisfactorily
met only by the employment (not a uniform nor a systematic
employment, yet with variation of degree a constant employ-
ment) of ' conflict.' Admitting the artistic use of ' conflict '
in English verse, it is reasonable to expect to find within the
limits of the accents and vocal inflections of the language,
when unrestrained by verse, an indication of the manner in
which, with least violence to its natural utterance, the language
may be subjected to artificial rules. In other words, it is
prose that must teach us how to read poetry. Verse-accent,
or ictus, when in * conflict' reveals the language in responding
to the exigencies of verse. In doing this the language yields
a new class of stresses (new from the point of view from
which the prose-stresses are usually observed). Now, if
similar, that is, in some sense corresponding, exigencies arose
in prose, and these were found also to yield a new class of
stresses, something would surely be gained for the determina-
tion of the nature of these two classes of new stresses. Such
exigencies do not arise in prose, as we shall next proceed
to show.
In Carlyle's spirited, though not invariably accurate, repro-
duction of the delightful Chronicle of Jocelin de Brakelondf
the election to the abbacy of the incomparable Samson is
urged with a special emphasis upon " ungoverned : " " What
is to hinder this Samson from governing? * * * There exists
in him a heart-abhorrence of whatever is incoherent, pusil-
lanimous, unveracious, that is to say, chaotic, -wngoverned "
(Past and Present, Bk. II, chap. ix). The same variety of
emphasis is employed upon another ecclesiastical occasion :
l Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda de rebus gestis Samsonis Abbatis Monasterii
Sancti Edmundi. London, The Camden Society, 1840.
364 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
" 'Pre-eisely ' remarked the senior trustee " of the Methodist
Church of Octavius ( The Damnation of Theron Ware). Some-
thing akin to an ecclesiastical occasion evoked the following
reflection and m-flection of Young Ben Lee as he left the
deanery after his first visit : l< Je-rusalem ! if my sainted
parent isn't a first-rate actor and a cool hand !" (The Silence
of Dean Maitland). Under totally different conditions and
amid other associations, Ben Gunn is recalling the piou&
teaching of his mother, and finds a new emphasis necessary
to assure his hearer that she was " re-markable pious "
(Treasure Island).
The examples cited give an indication of a wide-reach-
ing and permanent phenomenon in our natural manner of
employing special stresses in prose. The unaccented prefixes,
under demands (among which contrast holds an important
place) for special logical prominence, are easily made promi-
nent without disturbing the fixed word-accent. The same is
true of derivative and inflectional elements, and of the second
member of substantive compounds. Corresponding to these
variations which cluster around the word-accent as super-
additions, there is in the domain of sentence-accent a class
of new stresses which is familiar in the emphatic use, on
occasion, of words usually unimportant and without accent,,
such as the prepositions, the pronouns, the articles, the
auxiliary and the copulative verbs, etc.
It will now be apparent that the new class of prose-stresses
under consideration are suggestive of the new poetry-stresses
which the exigencies of rhythm call into prominence. And
since the rhythmic use of the language must be supposed to-
be equally subject to the inherent character of the language
with the corresponding special prose-use, the inference is to-
be drawn that the resultant new classes of stresses agree in
character. Moreover, it will at once be recognized that the
new prose-stress is not a word-stress, equal to the regular
word-stress in expiratory force, nor a reduced form of the
expiratory word-stress (which would be nothing more than
PROPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 365
a secondary-accent in prose), but a stress with a rising inflec-
tion, a 'pitch-accent.' Therefore, the complete inference is
that the verse-accent, the ictus, when in ' conflict/ is attended
by a pitch-accent.
The conclusion arrived at may be restated in a manner
which will assist verification. Under the assumed exigencies,
tm-governed, p*e-cisely, re-markable, and Je-rusalem (in the
passages quoted), are naturally pronounced with a pitch-accent
upon the first syllables, and with the undisturbed expiratory
word-accent upon the second. It will of course be under-
stood that when the word-accent is defined as expiratory this
term does not exclude the inherent pitch of English stress.
Force, quantity, and pitch are combined in our word-stress
(or word-accent), both primary and secondary; but in the
secondary stress used as ictus there is a noticeable change in
the proportions of these elements, the pitch being relatively
increased. An answer is thus won for the question : How do
we naturally pronounce two stresses in juxtaposition on the
same word, or on adjacent words closely joined grammati-
cally? This is further illustrated in the specially emphasized
words of such expressions as, ' The idea ! ' (the symbol " shall
be used to mark the pitch-accent) : ' In that case one should
/ / " / / "
say not good but goodly, not brave but bravely;' 'Altho' he
/ /" / /"
writes, he is not a writer ; ' ' Not praise but praising gives
him delight : 9 ' He promised to do so, and now he denies it ; 9
I // /
* They were not coming to him, but going from him. 1 Expres-
sions of this type reveal the law that secondary word-accents
may become pitch-accents, and that pitch-accents may also be
required for words ordinarily unaccented.
This interpretation of ( conflict ' in prose (conflict between
the usual accents of prose on the one side, and on the other
side the accents of prose under exigencies), may be confidently
accepted as applicable to the rhythm of verse, and the conclu-
366 JAMES W. BRIGHT.
sion is reached, that verse is to be read with an uninterrupted
observance of its fundamental rhythm. Thus,
/ " / " /
Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit.
Ill 1 ' I
To be, or not to be : that is the question.
" I I " I
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
/ " / " /
No traveller returns, puzzles the will.
Here, if the prose secondary-stress of the last syllables of
" traveller" and "puzzles" were uttered just as in prose, with
reduced expiratory force, the ictus would not be satisfactorily
indicated. Again, if, for the sake of the regularly recurring
ictus, these secondary word-accents were made equal in ex-
piratory force to the chief word-accent, the result would, in
one instance (traveller), preserve the ictus by admitting an
unnatural and an inadmissible utterance of the word ; in the
second instance (puzzles) the inadmissible utterance would
render uncertain the place of the ictus. Two equal word-
accents on the same word are therefore as impossible in verse
as they are in prose. But the secondary word-accent may
in verse be retained unchanged, and in that character be
employed in the thesis; or it may naturally (i. e., in
accordance with acceptable utterance) be converted into
a pitch-accent for ictus, in which character it leaves the
chief word-accent undisturbed by inadmissible rivalry. The
/ \
rhythmic use of dis-o-be-dience, in the first line cited above,
illustrates with its four syllables (as here used) as many
recognizable varieties of stress. The first syllable has a
secondary word-accent, raised to a pitch-accent for ictus ; the
second is wholly unaccented ; the third has the chief word-
accent, employed as ictus (the accent of the preceding word,
"first," is subordinated to the rhythm); the fourth has a
secondary word-accent which remains unchanged in the thesis.
PROPER NAMES IN OLD ENGLISH VERSE. 367
The conclusion that ictus in 'conflict' requires a pitch-
accent, is perhaps applicable to Old English verse, in which
the rhythmic use of the secondary word-stress, now in the
arsis, now in the thesis, coincides in essential details with
the use just described. It is possible, for example, that in
the case of the secondary word-stresses of 2\2x (A), and
x 2 | 1 x (C) the pitch-accent distinguishes the secondary
word -accent as ictus from the same accent when it remains
in the thesis. But suggestions leading in this direction cannot
be pursued at this time.
The second and final suggestion to be made embraces an
application of the laws ascertained to be inherent in English
rhythm to the scansion in Old English verse of those proper
names which, as shown at the beginning of this study, do not
with the exclusive metrical use of the chief word-accent meet
the requirements of the rhythm.
" / \
It has already been shown, in the case of J-ru-sa-lem, that
a proper name in prose under exigencies yields a pitch-accent
for a syllable not entitled to the chief word-stress. In the
manner of this example the unaccented initial syllable of all
proper names may on occasion receive a new stress, and this
may, as in the case of the prefixes considered, be used for
verse-ictus. But inasmuch as there is no grammatical analogy
between these syllables and the prefixes, it remains to be
shown what inherent quality of the initial syllable of a proper
name produces the result which thus makes conspicuous the
absence of such analogy. This inherent quality of a proper
name which easily begets an accentual prominence of the
initial syllable may be called its vocative quality, inasmuch
as every proper name is ipso facto a vocative.
Whatever place (removed from the initial syllable) in a
name its chief word-stress may hold, its initial syllable is
constantly prominent in the mind by reason, apparently, of
this vocative quality. In the distinct calling out of names
(of the form in question) the natural emphasis given to the
JAMES W. BRIGHT.
name as a whole will be found to consist of a rising inflection
on the initial syllable, followed by a strongly stressed word-
" / \ " / \ " / \ " /
accent. Thus, Elizabeth, Alexander, Matilda, Marie, etc. This
vocative stress, it is now seen, finds its true analogy in the
secondary word-stress, and is like it therefore available for
ictus, as has been assumed in the earlier portion of this study,
and as may be observed in modern verse in the case of names
" / \
with the stresses distributed as they are in Alexander.
In Old English verse proper names can with difficulty
(some not at all) be used without the rhythmic aid of this
vocative ictus. But because of the special character of
this secondary accent (as by analogy it may be called), and
because of the further fact that the types of rhythm, as they
are now generally interpreted, abound in the employment for
ictus of secondary word-accents without regard to syllabic
quantity, it must be maintained (until new evidence for the
opposed view may be produced) that this ictus-use of the
initial unaccented syllable of foreign proper names does not
involve lengthening of the short vowels.
JAMES W. BRIGHT.
XIL NICHOLAS GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS
REDIVIVUS.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The existence of the Christus Redivivus of Nicholas Grimald
was questioned by Herford, Literary Relations, &c., and denied
by the writer of the life of Grimald in the National Dictionary
of Biography. We now know, from Goedeke, Grundriss,
second ed., that a copy is in the Wolfenbiittel Library. See
my letter in the London Academy, February 9, 1895. Soon
after the appearance of that letter I received, from Herrn
Spirgatis, the well-known antiquarian-dealer in Leipsic, a
friendly note, in which he called my attention to Bahlmann,
Die lateinischen Dramen seit Wimpfeling's Stylpho, in which
Bahlmann mentions the existence of a copy in the Berlin
Royal Library.
Thus there are three copies : the Wolfenbiittel, the Berlin,
and my own.
In view of the growing interest taken in the Latin drama
of the sixteenth century, I have thought it worth while to
reprint my copy, thereby rendering the Christus Redivivus
generally accessible to students.
Of the merits of the Christus in comparison with other
plays, of its general significance, I am not competent to
speak ; my knowledge of the Renaissance drama is too slight.
I venture upon one or two suggestions only. The Epistola
Nuncupatoria ought to have some value for the study of
scholarship in England. The four characters : Dromo, Dorus,
Sangax, Brumax, milites gloriosi, so to speak, are an evident
attempt at the comic. Christ's revelation of himself to Mary
Magdalen, in the single word " Maria/ 7 Act. Ill, sc. 5, may
have been taken of course directly from John, xx. 16. The
entire situation, however, seems to me an imitation of the old
369
370 J. M. HART.
liturgical drama. Is the word Orcicolce, Act IV, so. 4, a
coinage by Grimald, in imitation of the Ccelicolce, &c., of the
liturgical drama? I do not remember seeing the form before.
The present text is an exact reproduction of the original,
page by page, line by line. Exact except in the following
features :
1. The original is throughout in italics.
2. The word et is in the original a ligature.
3. Occasionally I have not been certain of the accent-sign
(') in the original. This is due to the circumstance that,
though the original types were sharp enough, the paper was in
places speckled slightly. Hence one cannot always be certain
whether a given stroke is really a (') or only a flaw in
the paper.
4. The long italic sibilant letter of the original is here given
throughout with the modern Roman " s."
The punctuation of the original is in the main consistent,
according to the system of those days. There is, however,
great inconsistency in the use of the hyphen for words broken
at line ends. For these and other blemishes the original
must answer. Thus Martonensi (for Mertonensi), at the end
of the JEpistola f is in the original.
The continuous pagination in square brackets at the top
of the page has been supplied by me. The original has only
the J.2, &c., at the bottom. The second page [2] is blank.
J. M. HART.
CHRISTVS
EEDIVI
VVS, COMOEDIA
Tragica, sacra et noua.
Authors Nicolao Orimoaldo.
DISCITE IVSTICIAM MONITI
Colonies loan. Gymnicus excudebat,
Anno M. D. XLIIL
[2]
[3]
OPTIMO ET HONO-
ratissimo uiro Gilberto Smitho, Ar-
chidiacono Petroburgensi, Nicolaus
G-rimoaldus a Christo domino
S. D.
VTrtim audacius, aut durius esset
committere, ut opus recens confe
ctu, per quorurauis manus et ora,
ueluti securum uagaretur, an tuis
ut creberrimis postulationibus ob
sisterem, saepe*, doctissime uir, ac
multiim et a repraehensione mihi
cauens, et morem tibi gestum cupiens, apud me cogita-
ri. Nonnihil equidem uerebar, ne forsan haac subita
iuuenilis inuenti peruulgatio, penitus immatura, et an
te diem properata, doctis ac prudentibus uiris existi-
mari posset. Namq; si uel inter clarissimos $riptores
memorantur, qui suas commentationes per multos an-
nos sibi diligenter euoluendas, et frequenti studio reco
lendas putauerunt, donee quod desideraretur, supple-
rent, quod abundaret ac efflueret, quasi luxuriantem
segetem paulatim depascerent: quam confidentiam ego
prodidisse uideri potero, qui cum eosde sequi fortasse,
nunquam adsequi, et de illis iudicium facere, nuquam
efl&cere similia queo: tame quod propter inclementiam
brumalis frigoris baud sine difficultate, proq; ratione
temporis magna cum festinatione parturieba, tarn ci
A2 t6
373
374 J. M. HART.
W
EPISTOLA
t6, tamq; nullo ad retractandq sumpto spacio, pdrere
no dubitauerim ? Ac sand, si repetenti mi hi, measq; aut
fabulosas, aut fictitias, aut ueras exercitationes, quas
non ita pridem chartis mandabam, recognoscenti, uete
res usq; ade6 labores displicent, ut in illis ipsis uix me-
met agnoscam, et quodarnmodd poeuiteat operse collo-
catae : quid scis, num nam idem posthac etiam usu mihi
ueniat, uti meipsum ultrd castigas, istis, quee nunc prse
cipito uerius qu&m scribo, magis elaborata et perpo-
lita uellem sufficere? Metuebam prseterea, ne forte*
quis me parum nauiter humeros explorasse, ac meam
facultatem consuluisse censeat : quandoquidem ineptum
uiribus meis onus, atq; argumentum grauius et maius
uidear suscipere, quam quod ab homine adolescentulo
tractari uel possit, uel debeat. Etenim cum multa3 res
in sacra Philosophia, nequaquam facilfc cognoscutur,
nisi quis Grsecam simul et Hebrsaam linguam tenue
rit, nisi quis in ea perdiu nersatus fuerit, et singula
inter se loca studiose contulerit : turn de Christi a mor
tuis exurrectione, quam sic ante constituere, quasi si
res iam ageretur, contendo, baud paucis difficultati-
bus, inuoluta historia est. Neq; uer6 desunt, qui imber
bem adhuc et crescentem cum consilio aetatem, aut a sa
crarum lectione literarum omnino arceri uolunt, aut
si admittunt aliquando, ut auscultricem quidem accede
re patiuntur, ut interpretem autem nullo modo. Turn
demum, baud mediocriter illud pertimescebam, futu-
ros, qui nimium iust& conquerantur : ne rem gestam ri
te digerere, ac talem tantamq; materiam digna orati-
one
375
ra
NVNCVPATOKIA.
one uestire non posse. Nimirum, tanquam in coramuni
hominum uita et moribus, arduum in primis habetur,
in unaquaq; re decoru perspicere et obseruare, de quo
sapienter a Philosophis in Ethica disciplina preeci-
pitur : sic in poematis, consentaneam rebus et personis
orationem adfingere, hominem peracuto ingenio, lima
to iudicio, singulari diligentia, summed^; ocio abundan-
tem requirit. Certum est enim, nee locupletem et te-
nuem fortunam, nee simplicem narrationem et iacta-
tionem Thrasonicam, nee blandam consolationem et
querimoniam, nee coelestem uocern et tartareos clamo
res, unum atq; idem postulare dictionis genus. Proin-
de, perfici oportere, ut pro rerum natura, uarietate
et modo, nunc Oratoriorum luminum et conformati-
onum ueluti parcus, humili passu repat uersus, inter-
dum uerd, uolubilius ac profluentius excursitet, ssep^
autem numero uerborum agmen instar hybernarum
niuium ingruat, et plenis habenis prorumpens oratio,
campum, in quo exultare possit, obtineat. Adhaec, dum
I6gi carmiuis inseruitur, operosam quandam rem, ac
prope desperatam esse, ita postrema uerba cum inse-
quentibus primis copulare, ut neq; iunctura uocalium
hiulcas, neq; consonantium concursus uoces efficiat
asperas : itaq; compraBhensionis cuiusq; ambiturn exple
re, ut aureis teretes et religiosse, neq; mutila et quasi
decurtata sentiant, neq; superuacanea et redundantia.
In primis igitur, quod ad huiusce libri Mitionem atti-
net, uideor mihi uidere quosdam, me ut nimis ac nimis
temerariurti arguenteis : qui cum tutius in umbratili
A3 Philoso-
376 J. M. HART.
EPISTOLA
Philosophorum schola, no secus ac in aliquo nido pos
sem delitescere : tamen multo meo cum periculo implu-
mis euolare gestiam. Qui si nullum aliud a me respon-
sum auferrent, nisi quod roganti Gilberto Smitho mo
rigerari uolui, esset fortassis honesta ratio : cum prse-
sertim et de me quam optime promerito, et bonarum
literarum amantissimo uiro, et recta, et suo quodam
iure poscenti, deesse nolui. Sed enim ut paulo altius hu
iusce facti consilium repetam, cum e Cantabrigiensi
Academia decedens, uehementer hortante te et pecu
nias ultrd suppeditante, uenissem ad alterum Anglise
lumen Oxoniam, nee e6 libri mei per hebdomadas ali-
quot essent adlati : hanc sum ingressus prouinciam, et
quia intermissum legendi cursum, fructuoso aliquo com
mentandi genere pensare concupiui, et quia res ipsse
sic inhserebat animo meo, ut ex memorise thesauro tan
quam de scripto promere liceret singula. Postea uerd
quam uersatus in Collegio doctorum, quod ab Aeneo
naso nomen inuenit, per mensem unum et item alterum
istam pro mea uirili Spartam ornauera, ac forte for
tuna ita, ut fiebat, arderet pubes domestica theatrum
consceudere, qu6 et suos excitarent animos, et ciuibus
imaginem quandam uitaa spectandam exhiberent : con-
tinuo ex paucis, qui meum cubiculum frequentabant,
ccepit multis innotescere, quid molirer, quidq; in mani-
btis haberem. Egit itaq; mecum Matthaeus Smith us
Collegij prseses et consanguineus tuus, homo mirifi-
ca modestia, liberalitate et sanctimonia praaditus : egit
Robertas Cauduuellus, uir perhonestus, et insigni-
ter
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 377
NVNCVPATORIA.
ter doctus : egerunt lectissimi atq; optimse spei adole-
scenteis, ut meani sibi fbetura, in Scenam producendam
concrederem, in eaq; re, meam illis operam dicarem ac
deuouerem. Quoniam autem negare eis turn praeclara
petentibus, turn indole sua digna cupientibus, difficile
mihi uisum fuit : permisi sane, ut eorum auspicijs, hsec
ista Comoedia etiam in eruditissimorum uirorum coro
na publicitus ageretur. Quod siruul ut faraa uoce lo-
quaci perstrepens, in aureis tuas effuderat : me non so-
lum per diligentissimum institutorem meum lohannem
Aerium admonere, sed et ipse tu iterum atq; iterum
huius poematis ditionem rogare comiter sustinuisti.
Atque adeo, quoties egomet admiratione et pudore
prop& confusus, ad caussas ingeniosus extiti : dicebamq;
non posse non in adolescente uiginti plus minus annos
nato, undiq; apparere inscientiso uestigia, habebamq; in
obiectis omnia, quse sunt a me superius adducta : toties
prseceptor ille meus (qua3 sua fuit et tibi obsequendi,
et prouocandi mei sedulitas) instabat, et exemplis cum
recentiorum, turn etiam ueterum utebatur, quorum ex-
tarent monumenta, id setatis, baud sine sum ma laude
conscripta. Neq; mihi magnopere sequendam esse aie-
bat uocem ilia Horatianam, qua3 noniim in annum pre-
mi iubet opusculum : quin potius, qu6 tibi extrema iam
setate confecto (dum licet) gratum facerem, festinadum,
agendum ' que in tantis meis occupationibus domesticis
cum uiro aliquo exquisite docto, ut et legere librum
et inter legendum uultus inimicos induere uelit. JNeq;
si grauioribns deinceps annis, grauius industriaB speci
A4 men
378 J. M. HART.
[8]
EPISTOLA
men etlere me posse confidam : continud, ab hoc proposi
to desistendum. Vt enim (exempli gratia) M. Tullij
, Khetoricis ad Quintum fratrem aduentante senectu-
te coscriptis, omnem admirationem tribui uidemus : ita
d libris de E-hetorica inuentione, quos adolescens
composuit, suam esse laudem et commendationem. Non
P. Vergilium detinuisse a scribendo Culicem aut Ae-
clogas, rei rusticse describendae speratam gloriam : non
earn cum Hesiodo contentionem, magni Homeri semu
lationem restinxisse. Itemq; non Maronianum Aene-
am, primis tantum in cursu, uerum et secundis, et etia
infra seciidos quibusdam, certa elargitum esse prsemia.
lam uer6, illud peropportune cecidisse confirmabat,
quod in argumentum adsumerem non leuiuscula Epi-
gram mata, non amatorios iocos, non morias, non mi-
mos, non postremoruru hominum colloquia, non Atel
lanam Comosdiam, no Tabernariam, aut si qua sunt
Ethnicarum fabularum portenta, quae nihil ad mo-
ruin conformationem, nihil ad solidam eruditionem, ni
hil ad diuinae laudis amplificationem adferunt emolu-
menti : sed qu6d pro creaturis, creatorem, pro perditis
et execrandis redemptorem et conseruatorem, pro hu
mana ostentatione, coelestis glorias propagation em,
denique ipsum autorem carminis lesum Christum, in
materiam carminis accepissem. Omninoq; rem dignio-
re aut magis diuinam, ex omnibus omnium scriptis, de
ligi nunquam potuisse. Quippe quse totius nostrse salu-
tis quasi tabula sit, et uiuida reprasentatio. Nam qui
reducem & morte Christum, ac pro suo scelere satis
ab eo
GKIMALD'S CHEISTUS REDIVIVUS. 379
NVNCVPATORIA.
ab eo factum plane sentit, eiusdemq; spiritu sanctiorem
ad uitam renouatur : eum inconcussa et efficaci fiducise
uicturum, nihil sibi uel a prauarum adfectionum pulsi-
onibus, uel & mortis periculo timentem, quin uiciorura
colluuiem strenue fortiterq; pugnando dies in singulos
repressurum, ut et ipse cum Christo suo mortuus pec-
catis, uiuat uni Deo. Vnde pronunciare Petrum, bo-
nse conscientse fcedus erga Deum constare, per exur
rectione lesu Christi a mortuis, qui patris ad dexte-
ram considet. Cum etenim diuinaB gratis non nisi per
fidem in Christum participes fieri possumus : nuquam
e6 niti ualere persuasionem nostram, si non mortem il-
lo uindice uictam iacere, si non ilium genitori crelesti
adsidentem regnare, si deniq; no omnibus antepositum
et praBlatum cert6 crediderimus. Si quidem, ut subeun
dum ipsi letum fuisse, qu6 indignationem Dei, quam so
lus Adamus contraxerat, solus Messias tolleret,
inq; nobismetipsis peccata perimeret: sic uita3 restitui
oportuisse, ut ad eius ipsius imaginem et formam suo
spiritu perpetud refingeremur, utq; suo munere iusti
redderemur. Idcircd, ualde probandam operam meam
in hoc negocio constantissime adseuerauit, quoniam, cu
ius fidem ipse Christus tarn diligenter astruebat, et
qua una in re spes atq; opes humanae omneis collocari
debent, perfeci, non solum ut auditione accipi, sed etiam
coram oculis proponi et statui queat. Semper inculca
ri, semper mente et cogitatione reponi, semper fidelissi-
ma persuasione retineri, triumphum hunc Seruatoris
nostri de peccato et morte, summe necessarium fore :
As turn
380 J. M. HAET.
[10]
EPISTOLA
turn qu6d humana ratio et intelligent^ uix ualet eum
comprsehendere : turn qu6d improba suasio maligni da3
monis in hoc nos maxime remorari solet, in quo nouit
salutem nostram totam esse positam. Itaq; non modo flo
res ex oratione lectorem deceFpturum : uerumetiam ex
ipsa re fructus percepturum uberrimos. Quod autem
ad uireis meas, et aBtatis rationem attineret, nihil uide
re se dictitabat, uel impudens, uel indecorum. Priruum
enim non id me suscipere atq; profiteri, ut reuelem ab-
dita mysteria : sed ut nudam ac ueram historiam enar-
rem, et modo quodam Poetico, hoc est, claro et illu-
stri spectaculo patefaciam. Nee sibi dubium esse, quin
earn ad rem prseter linguarum atq; librorum admini-
cula, et diligentem meditationem, et assiduarn precati
onem adhibuerim. Hac scilicet ratione et uia infanteis,
paruulos ac pusillos regni Dei, citius ad germanam
ac diuini eloquij scientiam atq; intellectum peruenire :
qu&m Cicerones, Aristoteles, Galenos, aut quoscun
que etiam alios, qui suo ipsorum acumine, proprio inge
nio, et humana sapientia nitutur. Deinde, illtid maxi
me decere et couenire, ut in Christiana Ecclesia mem
brum nullum ocio desidiaq; torpescat : sed, qua potest
parte, uniuerso corpori famuletur et inseruiat. Atq;
ijs, qui tatarum rerum explicationem committi nolunt
adolescentibus, cogitandum esse, quid' nam de Timo-
thei iuuentute senserit Paulus Apostolus : istis uerd,
qui ne legedi quidem uerbum illud salutiferum, Deiq;
placita potestatem faciunt, D. Erasmi paraclesin pro-
ponendam esse, et quid Christiana? professionis inter-
sit
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS EEDIVIVUS. 381
[11]
NVNCVPATORIA.
sit, etiam atq; etiam considerandum. Postrem6, quod
spectat ad huius Tragicse Comcedise tractationem,
suo quseq; loco rite disponi, decorum custodiri, e rerum
copia nasci uerborum eopiam, numeros Comicos et fe
re Terentianos obseruari iudicabat. Belle uidelicet,
me temporum ordine ad finem decurrisse : et magnse
paruis, laeta tristibus, obscura dilucidis, incredibilise
probabilibus intexuisse. Quemadmodum enim qu6 res
ipsa nomen tueatur suum, primum Actum Tragico
mcerori cedere, quintum uero et ultimum iucunditati-
bus adcommodari et gaudijs : ita qu6 uarietas satie-
tati occurrat, caeteris omnibus intermedijs, nunc lugu
bria, nunc festiua interseri. Etiam nihil ineptum, nihil
indecorum, nihil quod aut personse, aut rei, aut tempo
ri, aut loco minus quadret, inueniri posse arbitraba-
tur. Nam quis, inquit, Oratorio facultatis expertus,
non rem gestam indicatibus et subitd colloquentibus,
tenuem, pressum, et familiarem sermonem : non consola-
toribus, Iseticise niicijs, atq; plaudetibus, tractam, sua-
uem et uenustam dictionem : non gloriosis, exultabun-
dis, et indignantibus, acrem, ardentem, et grandilo-
quam oratione attribuerit? Loca item, baud usque eo
discriminari censebat : quin unum in proscenium, facile
et citra negocium conduci queant. Ac si quis mire-
tur, uel qu6d plurium dierum historian! atque diuersa
tempora, in unam et eandem actionem coegerim, uel
quod funestum et perluctuosum principium, tarn plau-
sibilem sortiatur exitum : eum intelligere debere, me
autorem sequi M. Actium Plautum, cuius praeter
alias
382 J. M. HAET.
[12]
EPISTOLA
alias Capteiuei et compluribus interiectis diebus agi
fingutur, et ex initio moesto in laetum etia finem trans
eunt. Deniq; certa spacia, numerates pedes, atque cir-
cumscriptos ueluti cancellos in uersibus scrupulose sa
tis retinuisse me adserebat : etiamsi non Christiana li-
bertatis hominibus, sed ijs, qui se superstitiosis et an-
xijs profanorum authorum legibus illigaret, scripsis
sem. Et tamen, metri seruitutem, nunquam uim uerbis
auferre, aut quasi natiuam lucem et gratiam eripere
sentiebat. Ego uero, haec omnia, et alia permulta in
eandem sentetiam ab eodem instructore meo perorata :
partim eius erga me beneuolentiae, partirn animi tui
explendi desiderio tribuenda existimabam. Sed enim,
quomodocunq; se res habet, testificor me tuis manda-
tis impulsum, et pen& inuitum hanc uel Comoediam,
uel Tragcediam, uel etiam utramq; publicare esse au-
sum. Malo etenim dum uoluntati tuse sim obsecutus,
desiderari a te prudentiam meam, quam si non sim obse-
cutus, animi propensionem atq; parendi studium. Nam
quse tandem esset inhumanitas, illi, cui uictu, cui libros,
cui demum omnia prsesidia studiorum. meoru debeam,
qualemcunq; saltern tarn collati beneficij sui, quam re-
lati officij mei fructum flagitanti abnuere? Nunc er-
g6, quemadmodum antiquitatis obseruatione a priscis
usque seculis ac hominum setatibus ducta, et diuturni
tate temporis confirmata, receptum est : hasce primi-
tias ingenioli mei secundum gratise modum acceptum a
Domino, tibi, perillustris Archidiacone, nuncupo,
consecro, et uelut in clientelam trado, ut patrocinio tuo
defensse
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 383
[13]
NVNCVPATORIA.
defensae, turn in Dei Opt. Max. gloriam et honorem,
turn in Christianas iuuentutis usum et emolumentum
exire possint. Bene ualeas, et gratia Domini nostri
lesu Christi te regat, foueat, conseruet.
Oxonise. e Collegio Martonensi. Anno M.
D. XLIII.
PERSONAE
Magdalene. Manes piorum.
Cleophis. Christus.
Chorus Galileidum. Petrus.
losephus Arimathiensis. Johannes.
Nicodemus. Angel us primus,
Cai'aphas. Angel us secundus.
Annas. Chorus discipulorum.
Dromo. Alecto.
Dorus, Cleophas.
Sangax. Amaon.
Brumax. Thomas Didymus.
Cacodsemon.
384 J. M. HART.
[14]
PROLOGVS.
lambici Trimetri uel senarij.
GRatia uobis et pax adsit, uiri opti-
mia
Sum mo Deo : factoq; iam silentio, hue
Aureis, oculos, mentemq; uestram in-
tendite :
Vti, qua uenistis caussa, expeditius
Intelligatis, hoc quid sit spectaculi.
Christum rediuiuum, comoediam sacram,
Diui quam suppetunt Euangeliographi,
Vobis pra3bemus intuendam singulis.
Et id quidem non externis tantummodo
Luminibus, intimo sed et haustu pectoris.
Est absq; ulla dubitatione, eiusmodi
Res, quae ob oculos frequens uersari debeat.
MoDstratur enim, sub aspectumq; ponitur,
Summum Dei Opt. Max. et amplissimum
Beneficium. Quia in Christo, supertim pater
Penitus expressit, quo scilicet modo
Erga genus humanum animatus extitit.
Is enim (quse sua fuit Patrisq; charitas)
Pro scelere nostro fecit abunde satis :
Intimum amorem suo testatus sanguine.
Ac ne quis precium non solutum adhuc putet,
Noluit mortis detineri carcere :
Quin
GKIMALD'S CHEISTUS REDIVIVUS. 385
[15]
PKOLOGVS.
Quin hac, et peccato uictis atq; obrutis
Erupit, et sanctorum regna repetijt.
Hinc spiritus locuples in orbem effunditur,
Dominantis iam Christi donum optatissimum :
Nos qui suos uera sic instruit fide,
Vt et Dei factam per Christum gratiam
Nobis persuadeat, et efficaciter
Sese ipsa per amorem uehementem exprimat.
Iam Christus noster est, et nos Christi sumus,
Ac ipse Christus corporis est nostri caput, et
Se nobis reddidit undequaq; similem.
Vtq; ille recepta mole reuixit carnea :
Sic et nos (eius qui quasi membra existimus)
In rediuiuo mortalitatis unicam
Spem Christo figere, par est et consonum.
Nunc autem, ea in re, qua fit illustrissimum
Salutis eeternaB sum mam consistere :
Quam mirifice domini gratuita bonitas
Cum incredulitate suorum certauerit,
In hac tota historia licebit cernere ?
Quum ne Angelis quidem eius alumni crederem,
Eum pdst organa resumpsisse corporis,
Quam uis ludaica sibi uitam exhauserat :
Semet uiuum coram exhibuit, et saBpius
Manifestis declarauit testimonijs.
Nam praeter mutua hinc iude habita colloquia,
Panem
386 J. M. HART.
[16]
PROLOGVS.
Panem suo quodam more in parteis tribuit,
Oppessulatis foribus introijt domum,
Comedit un&, tangendum se prsebuit,
Omisit nihil, hsec uitae recuperatio
Nobis, ut omnibus esset persuasissima.
Si erg6 hie Dei tanta elucet benignitas,
Quantam non cuncta opera ostentant caetera
Certe nullum spectrum uberiore gaudio
Christiadum poterit pertentare pectora.
ARGVMENTVM ACTVS I.
NVnc uestra ne fallatur expectatio,
Sic accipitote, quod primum in scenam uenit.
Christus in eo iacet sepulchro conditus :
Quern Magdalis cum cseteris mulieribus,
Quse a Galilsea lesum sequutse uenerant,
Flet ^, ludseis interemptum atrociter.
Ast et Nicodemus, et losephus illico hac
Viam carpent. qui cum spe animos erigent,
Turn uer6 etiam secum illas deducent domum. et
Actum istum, nox interuentu claudet suo.
Ego uobiscum una spectator ero fabulaB.
ACTVS I. SCENA I.
Magdalene. Cleophis. Chorus Galilei'dum.
Octonarij.
O uos
GKIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 387
[17]
EEDIVIVYS.
OVos iniqui ludsei, 6 scelere inflamati acerrimo,
O uos feri, 6 uiolenti, 6 et multo crudelissimi :
Dicite, qua tande cote hanc insigne uestra inuidientiam
Plus plusq; sic exacuitis? Dicite, qua nam e fornace tot
Spirant irarum sestus uobis, ac tanta ruunt incendia ?
Credo equide, uos omneis immanitate q teterrimos,
Rabiem satiauisse uestram, in hoc neci iam dedito.
Scelerosa Solyma, scelerosa ludaea propagatio
Ac soboles, integris bonis et sanctis plerisq; omnibus,
Heu nimium pertinaciter infensa et inimica uatibus,
Quid est quod tantopere bilem concitauerat tuam?
In hunc spectatum hominem, quid? horainem dico? im6
sane quidem
Diuinum et coelestem prophetam appellaretn ueracius.
Vt qui stupenda potentia miserrimis mortalibus
Opem et auxilium ferens : hsec (etsi uald ingrata
immania
Ac turbida) lustrare loca minime recusauerit.
Hie pro sua mera bonitate, alijs posthabitis gentibus,
Tete sibimet unam prseter caeteras delegerat :
Qua signis, qua meritis, qua admiradis reru miraculis
Ad ipsum crelum usq; efferret et eueheret, quani
demum suis
Beneficijs et rebus gestis, sequalem olympo redderet.
Erg6, hunc tam prseclare et magnifice de te promeri-
uirum, (turn
B His
388 J. M. HART.
[18]
CHRISTVS
His cumulas egregijs donis? ergo isti, quern prsestabilis
Honestas exculpauerat, hsec (tanqua pra3mia uidelicet)
Animum induxti, hospitia digna referre et rependere?
Hsec ' cine tecta ? hasce sedes ? hosce constituisti toros ?
Hunc ' cine honore addidisti ? 6 horredu atq; nefariti see
O facinus nulla cuiusqua lingua oino excusabile. (lus.
Non tot uatum uoces, no tarn clarissirna Iamb.
Stupendaq; prodigia, non te deniq; Trimet.
Tarn prsesens numen potuit unquam inflectere?
Tu istam sciens uolensq; peregisti necem.
Tu uulnificis, heu, sertis inflictura caput,
Tu pal mas traiectas acuta cuspide,
Tu clauis confossos pedes,
Alta in pinu ac tristi pendenteis machina :
Tu, tu, dico, exultans respexti hostiliter.
Scribe hunc tibi de Christo triumphum, si uoles :
Habe hanc laudem, ut de csede bonorum gaudeas.
Erit, erit dies, qua te mirum in modum
Poeniteat perpetrasse tarn indignum nefas.
Verum ista dolorem auget commernoratio.
Attamen ego meis una cum sororibus
Lachrymas gemitusq; fundens et suspiria,
Si non (mi Christe) illud corpusculum tuum, at
Saxum, quo tegeris, tamen amplexa suauiter,
Lubens officium tibi nunc persoluam ultimum.
Valeto dulce decus meum, decus meum
Valeto
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS EEDIVIVUS. 389
[19]
EEDIYIVVS.
Yaleto ad tempus, ast' non aeternum quidem.
Neq; enim tu iam plane atq; omnino extingueris :
Sed astra leuem partem, terrestrem humus tenet,
Sese tandem aliquando uisuram denud.
Viuent, uiuent, quse fingimus ossa mortua.
Interea, hlc molliter quiescas, Christe mi :
Interea mi Christe, quiescas hie molliter.
ACTVS i. SCENA u.
losephus Arimathseus. Nicodemus. Magdalis.
Sal6me. Cleoph. lohann.
AMabd te, mi Nicodeme, animum attendito, ut
Fcemineo plangore hortus totus personat?
Sedet Magdalis in medio posita marmore
Capillis dilaceratis, ore pallido.
Nee iam uocem ullam ualet amplius emittere.
Sed magnis exanimata cruciatibus,
Lapidi adhasret, non secus ac esset mortua.
Alia3, non modd non hanc a mcestitia uocant :
Verum etiam profusis indulgent fletibus,
Pugnisq; frequentibus concutiunt pectora.
Breuiter, omnes omnia replent luctti loca.
Nic. losephe, mihi mediusfidius morsu quasi
Quodam, sensum plane peracerbum inferunt.
Atq; adeo incredibili iam ipse dolori meo
Vel moerori potius, quern e tarn diro exitu
B 2 Optimi
390 J. M. HART.
[20]
CHRISTVS
Optimi hominis accepi, uix queo resistere :
Sed imperabo tamen meis adfectibus,
Quin adgredimur propius ut flenteis foeminas
(Quoad a nobis fieri et preestari potest)
Leuemus, atq; spem illis prsebeamus aliquam.
Quomfj; umbra terra} iam solis opacat iubar,
Ne forte meticulosis incommodet,
Atq; noceat nocturna concursatio :
Exanguem in tecta reportemus Magdalim,
Easq; singulas abducamus domum.
los. Satis admodum tu commode mones. nam id et
Ratio temporis, et rerum postulat status.
Age festinanter, compellemus alacriter.
Nic. Quousq; tandem Galila3a3 lachrymabitis ?
Aut quam diu ad hanc petram querula} manebitis ?
Quern ad finem in squalore iacebitis et sordibus ?
los. Hoc non fit sane sine diuino numine :
Vos parcitote lachrymosis questibus.
Et iam nox ruit, ac somnum hortantur sydera.
Vos ploratu finem atq; modum imponite :
Octona. Sedate oportet tolerari, quod ferre necessitas iubet.
Vos eiulatum erg6 deponite, et iam conticescite.
Mag. Heu me quid obsecro misera, misera,
Quid agam tandem aliud misera, misera,
Quam quod furtim erepta sibi querens pignora,
Philomela et noctu factitat et interdiu ?
Turpe
[21]
KEDIYIVVS.
Turpe profectd mihi duco, post hunc mori
Non posse me, uel sola moeroris face.
Nic. Maria, caue Maria, ne insanis clamoribus
Coalestis patris iras aduersum te incites.
Mag. Eheu, mihi cur, cur non licuerit mihi,
Christum extinctum saltern lamentari meum?
Nic. Non est, mihi crede, non est extinctus tuus
Christus : sed potius exemptus iam uinculis
Corporeis, sethereo fruiscitur polo.
Non est amissus, sed prsemissus ad Deum.
Nee sibi finem uitse, sed initium quidem
Aeternitatis morte consequutus est.
Nee perijt, sed a nobis discedens et migrans,
Ad societatem abijt superum immortalium.
Vbi pro seruitute uitam liberam,
Pro umbris lucem, pro rerum incertitudine
Securitatem, pro labore prsemium est
Adeptus, nullo inter moriturum seculo.
Mag. In hoc equidem tibi facile adsentior,
Qu6d quemadmodum eius ossa sepulchro dormiant :
Ita mens cum Deo et reliquis uiuat pijs.
Sed ut suam sortem non omnino fleam :
Propria damna tamen, atq; incommoda publica,
Diuinum hominem deplorare ereptum iubent.
Nam qui mihi meisq; semper extitit
Prsesens perfugium, portus, et opitulatio,
B 3 Qui
392 J. M. HART.
[22]
CHRISTVS
Qui me torquenteis effugabat dsemonas.
Qui Lazarum ad uitae reuocabat munera.
Quo prsesente mea plaudebat Bethania :
Eheu, mihi cur, cur non licuerit mihi,
Eundem ademptum saltern lamentarier ?
Nic. Quibus te simul et nos exornauit bonis,
Horum fructus nobiscum perpetud manent.
Qu&m sit iniquum autem optare, bane uitam ut
uiueret,
Potius quam ubi nunc est, ipsa per te cogites.
Tellure indignus, coelo collocatus est.
Mundus eum respuit, exceperunt caelites.
Quapropter neq; te destitutam dixeris :
Et eius condition! gratulabere.
Mag. O Nicodeme, lubens agnosco illnd equidem,
Me sic ipsius cumulatam esse munere,
Vt omnem in uitam sim futura melior.
Verum, quoties tenax repetit memoria,
Punctum corolla spinifera sinciput
Manus adfixas, ferr6 contrusos pedes,
Turpatos crineis, barbara cretam sanguine,
Illusum, pulsatum, ignominiose pendulum,
Vna cum pessimse notse latronibus,
Deiectos oculos, ora morientia,
Et etiam hastam cruore intepuisse lateris :
Toties, eheu, cur non licitum erit mihi,
Sic
393
[23]
EEDIYIVVS.
Sic caesum insontem, saltern lamentarier ?
Nic. Sane multas perdis lachrymas, 6 Magdalis,
Ad rem amissam recuperandam faciunt nihil.
Im6 magls nostrum dolorem exasperant,
Quam tibi quid consolationis adferunt.
Sed qui ex usu rei totius publicse
Tot supra hominem res arduas olim 6didit :
Is (ne dubites) baud absq; nostris omnium
Vtilitatibus, uolens efflauit spiritum.
Ac sane nescio quid istiusmodi
Futurum, mibi prsesignificabat : etenim
Quoni multa nocte, a ludseis metuens mibi,
Eum consulerem, memini dicere solitum,
Qu6d ut in agris atq; desertis locis,
Mose serpens erectus quondam fuit :
Ita oporteret seseipsum exaltarier.
Quanquam quid sibi uoluit, non plane intelligo.
Potuisset letum subterfugere, sat scio,
Mod6 uoluisset : at sponte ipse sese dedit
Violentis inimicorum armis obuium.
Quid qudd summus parens iussis baud mollibus
Vrgebat : cuius cum reliquis in omnibus,
Turn uer6 istac in re standum est arbitrio.
Si erg6 rectum iudicium, si modestiam
Retinere dignam forti fcemina uoles.
Si eius uoluntati conspirabit tua,
B 4 Si
394 J. M. HART.
[24]
CHRISTVS
Si parebis Dei ipsius prudentise :
Non erit ullo pacto, non tibi licitum erit,
Christum occisum tarn acerbe laraentarier.
los. Surgas nunc Magdalis, Maria consurgito :
Abunde* suus a te tumulo datus est honos.
Mag. Adsurgam ego ? me nullus ab hoc marmoreo
Antro diuellet, anima dum exuperabo mea.
Salo. Im6 surge, d senis dicto sis audiens
O Maria, nam, quod ipsa tu nosti prob$,
Cras festa pro recepta consuetudine
Nobis quidem celebranda sunt solennia.
Post reuenienteis, mod6 sic stat sententia,
Huic aromata precioso corpori,
Bene olentia et amoena comparabimus.
Age"dum, Arimathsee, istanc ab humo subleua.
Mag. Ah, quamuis a3gre mihi discedendum siet,
Tamen amicis adquiescam hortatibus.
Facite igitur matronae religiosissimae, ut
SabbaticaB requietis transacto curriculo,
Hue simul ut ortus uicerit noctem dies,
Myrrham, costum, spicaBq; Cilissse acerrimaa,
Et summa3 suauitatis unguenta, ueluti
Suprema sacro sepulchro addentes munera,
Celerem quam primum referamus pariter pedem.
Sal. O fiat per Deum immortalem, quod petis.
Nil etenim nos (ut pro istis quoq; respondeam) in
Votis
GRIMALD'S CHJRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 395
[25]
KEDIVIVVS.
Votis habemus, aut in optatis prius.
Nunc neq; lux prona celebrare inferias sinit,
Et hoc ipsum prohibet crastina uacatio.
Quare, mora nulla, prirno quoq; tempore
Perendina9 lucis ad hortum hunc properabitur,
Vt monuisti. Locum rite notauimus.
los. Bene habet. restat, uos ut duos, inanibus
Remotis cruciamentis, consequamini.
Sal. Nobis perplacet. Mag. Ac mihi certe no displicet.
ARGVMENTVM ACTVS II.
CAi'aphas de Christi obitu quodammodd
Triumphat. Eidem obiecta recenset crimina.
Expectat socius, Pilatum qui adi^re, uti
Sepulchrum huius multo seruetur milite.
Custodes adducens, responsa prsesidis
Refert Annas. Valiant locum armata manu.
Abeunt. Speluncse autem tutores illic6
Sese quam ipsum Herculem plus posse iactitant.
Turn spiritus defuncti ad manes deuolat,
Quse animse piorum Ia3ti' accipiunt plausibus.
Ille, illas promissum ad polum uictor uehit.
ACTUS II. SCENA I.
Cai'aphas.
SEcunda quidem sors est, et ad nostram fluens Trimet.
Voluntatem, qua hunc authorem discordise,
B 5 Antequam
396 J. M. HART.
[26]
CHRISTVS
Antequam adesset dies ista celeberrima,
Se ualde digna occisione occidimus.
Qui se passim omnium regem esse gentium, ac
Prolem lehoua, garrire nunquam destitit.
Qui summi rectoris dominiq; numina
Sibi adsumens, errata confitentibns
Impunitatem est solitus et ueniam dare.
Qui ubi mortale corpus elanguesceret,
Volaretq; & membrorum mens compagibus,
Ademit penitus omnem pcenarum metum,
Infernaq; tormenta suos ridere docuit.
Qui uetera retractans iura (si dijs placet)
Nouas quasdam I6ges, nouas ceremonias,
Decreta noua, ritus nouos, sacra noua,
Noua et inuisa et inaudita plurima,
Per uniuersam constituit E/empublicam.
Eisq; dolis ludseam sic plebeculam,
Et imperitam undiq; sic multitudinem
Deceperat, fefellerat, induxerat,
Huius et unius obseruarent uestigia, et
Tanquam cselesti missum ab arce colerent.
At enimuerd scelus ille suum pectore
Fallaci dissimulare nequibat diu,
Quin familias frequentaret saepe impias,
Ac se prohibitis consotiationibus
Etiam admonitus neutiquam subduceret.
Turn
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 397
[27]
KEDIVIVVS.
Turn festis quoq; diebus, qneis fas est nihil
Exercere, ipse, ut erat rebel li ? et pertinax,
Quoscunq; morbos profligauit sedul6.
Quid referam, ut illius consorteis publice*
Illicitis uescebantur impune cibis ?
Atq; ut prseter morem illotis manibus etiam, et
Contactu spurco foedarent obsonia.
Quasi uer6 Pater omnipotens, nunc denique
Tot ssecula placitas reuocet ceremonias,
Ac mentem nutans peruertat sententia.
Quin etiam (quis probus inultum hoc relinqueret ?)
Minitabatur se aras destructurum sacras.
Quod omen in ipsum iustus contorsit Deus.
Sed et in templa erecta a nostris maioribus,
Magnificis ac pene infinitis sumptibus,
Voluerat nefarias faces intendere. Ac
Dudum molitus est tenebras offundere
Phoebo, reliquorum moderatori luminum.
Tarn adhaec ridicul^ stulta erat fiducia, ut
Socijs moerentibus, ad lumina uitalia
Kediturum sese coram promitteret.
Sed nimirum, opportune nos huic malo
Remedium adhibuimus quam prsesentissimum.
Confluxdre ad Pilatum templi prsesides,
My star um coetus, turba sanctorum senum,
Pharisaei, luris prudentes, qui & satrapa, ad
Vnum
398 J. M. HART.
[28]
CHEISTVS
Vnum omneis contend unt, ut armatos uiros
Det, bustum defensuros noctes ac dies.
Atqui, dum redeant, sedes hsec esto mea.
ACTVS II. SCENA II.
Annas. Cai'aphas. Dromo. Dorus. Sangax.
Brumax.
HOc in loco iamdudum nos Cai'aphas
Amicus noster, un expectat cum suis :
Dummodo statutum ei pactum non excidit.
Ellum sedentem solum. Cai'. Ecce autem quern uolo,
Stipatus aduentat militibus quatuor.
Ann. Miror qu6d nullus ei adiungitur comes.
Cai. Cur unus adest, satis exputare non queo.
Adsurgam equidem. An. Adibo iamiam, et colloquar.
Cai'. Nunc addiscam, acta quse sunt in prsetorio.
An. Hem noster : Deus hunc tibi solem det prosperum,
Cai. Et
Tu etiam atq; etiam aueto prsesul dignissime. At
Vbinam sunt reliqui? An. confecto negocio,
Penates rursus quisq; petebat suos.
Cai. Belle factum illud est. pulchre* se res habet.
Sed dicito, quod Romanus responsum dedit ?
An. Ilium, simul ac ad eius uentum est atria,
Conuenimus, et apud eum ista perorauimus.
Aduerti Ponti, imisq; repone sensibus,
(Nee enim est leuicula res aut parui ponderis)
Quid
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 399
[29]
REDIVIVVS.
Quid ^eudoprophetes uiuus adhuc uulgauerit.
Ego (inquit) post triduum e mortis faucibus
Euadam : et ab Oreo uicto me reducem dabo, ac
Rediuiuus emergam. Ide6 Romulidum optime,
Forteis et fidos ne molestum sit tibi
Tradere, qui sarcophagi tueantur ostia,
Vsque dum tantillum temporis effluxerit.
Nam eius forsan comites cadauer clepere, et
Noctu sepultum auferre furto cogitant,
Ac postea totam urbem falsis rumor ibus
Implere : qui nusquam est, usuram luminis
Huius recepisse, et communem spiritum.
Vt igitur ignis tenuis tenui de fomite
Primum exilit, mox auctus per totam domum
Furit, et flamma lambit extructas trabes,
Ruinamq; patitur a3des diram et flebilem :
Ita primo rumore, qui percrebuit
De illius ostentis ac de uirtutibus,
Opinionem istam sequens insania
Multo maiore periculo grassabitur.
Plebes leuis est, et inconstaus et mobilis,
Plebs aucupatur stultorum rumusculos :
Apud plebem ualebunt plus deterrima
Qua3uis, quam si uel optima inculcabimus.
Erg6, donee licet, principij' occurrito, et
Insidias pelle prseses prudentissime.
Nobisq;
400 J. M. HAKT.
[30]
CHRISTVS
Nobisq; potestatem facias, ut undiq;
Spelsea circum hastatos sistamus uiros.
Siquidem nauiter et cautfe prospici
A nobis debet, ut uafri hominis asseclas,
JSTostro consilio, spe sua frustrarier,
Plane apparere possit. Atq; hsec hactenus..
Turn Pilatus : Quod uoltis Hebrsei, annuo.
Ammo uobis uigilias et custodias,
Annuo sepulchri tutores, qui ad crastinum
Vsque diem perpetuas excubias agant.
Sub hsec sigillum, quo hunc locum obsignem dedit,
Cum hisce una spectatis bellatoribus.
Deinde uiri Solymi, quisq; ad suos lares
Abeunt simul, ouanteis et uoti compotes.
Ego, quoniam hue me uenturum ad te receperam,
Memet sponte obtuli, solus qui hos dirigerem.
Idcirco uirilem operam nauate fortiter.
Tu Dromo, latus dextrum occupato. tu Dore
Qu6 te proripis ? Ad cornu fac sinistrum eas.
Illic Sangax, istic Brumax consistito.
Si quis furtum facturus hue accesserit,
Vos post suum Christum hunc ad manes mittite.
^Nam prseter umbram quod timeatis, est nihil.
Quid multa ? magnanimis dictum satis puto.
Drom. hac
Quisquis uenerit, experietur mehercul^,
Quam
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 401
[31]
REDIVIVVS.
Qu&m aptas Dromo uireis ad uindictam gerat.
Dor. Et in me reperiet cor dignum milite.
Sang. Quicunq; Sangacem uel procul adspexerit,
Eum sola poterit fuga tutum reddere.
An. Quid tu uer6 Brumax ? Bru. Quid ? per caput hoc,
lurare ausim, qu6d si quis forte obuenerit, (tibi
Aut ego eum occidero, aut is me fugauerit.
An. Quod posterius dixti, credo futurum prius.
Bru. Im& cognoscito clarissime uir, tarn et cordatos
Et etia oculatos, ut nee ire gygas nee muscula (esse nos
Praeteruolare per nos impune queat.
Cai*. Quando igitur unusquisq; suum tenet ordinem,
Nos Ia3tum hunc atq; hilarem traducenteis diem,
Expectemu 7 huius fabulae catastrophen.
H
ACTVS II. SCENA III.
Dromo. Dorus. Sangax. Brumax.
Aud frustra, mento bene barbato setas mea Trimet.
.Voltum ornauit, prsesertim cum mihi mascula
Corda nequaquam desint. Quid est quod ego tremam?
Ecquis tarn a uero exorbitabit, ut putet >: <l :
Muliebrem auimum habitare in isto corpore?
O quot ego labores exantlaui bellicos ?
Non me durissima fregerunt praBlia.
Neque belligerandi disciplina me latet.
Nee & pueris mod6, sed ab ipsis cunabulis
Sum armatus feliciter ; ac Mauorti meum
Ingenium
402 J. M. HART.
[32]
CHEISTVS
Ingeuinm finxit naturae benignitas,
Meamq; genesin Mars influxit ferox.
In me cum lacte materno iuraueris
Esse imbibitam bellatricem iracundiain.
Et hunc formidarem proiectum uermibus?
Quern uicimus, quern uictum ex orbe fugauimus.
Dor. Mihi uer6 quanquam in coelum non prominet
Bicorpor atq; gygantea granditas :
Tamen animum altum, excelsum, generosum, nobilem,
Non uastam, et prodigiosam corpulentiam
Justus rerum ^estimator in quoquam exigit.
Nam mutis pecudibus adsimilantur corpora :
Animis sequamur superis immortalibus.
Animisq; sumus apti sydera transcendere.
Quanta est uis animo, tanti corpus sestimo.
Neq; enim ego magnitudine et ueluti gradibus,
Sed potitis conditione metior uirum.
Virtutem non prsestat figura uel statua :
Sed omnis in corde residet uirilitas.
Omninoq; uirum fortis animus efficit.
Neq; uerd sumus nos ipsi corpora.
Neq; etiam ego hsec apud uos uerba faciens,
Corporibus iam uestris loquor, sed animis.
Est uerum, quod circunfertur prouerbio,
Non mercabor hominem in ulna atq; in pollice,
Ast in precio solus habetur animi uigor.
Quid
403
[33]
KEDIVIVVS.
Quid qu6d maiora patent uulneribus corpora ?
Quid qudd moles ingens agilitatem impedit ?
Quid qu6d crassa caro animi uim sepelit et obruit ?
Exigua3 corporaturse, nunc si placet,
Vnum ante oculos uestros exeraplum ponite.
Minutu' accipiter uos magna docere poterit.
Superant profectd fidem, quse audet auis tantula.
Obsecro, qu&m longum collum, quam largos pedes,
Quam acutum rostrum, quam amplas alas ardea
Possidet ? Attamen a dominis cum dimittitur,
Sinistra hie ales et in sublime uolitat : earn
Adoritur atque insequitur strenuissime.
Ac motis pendenteis tibijs campanula
Tuba3 sonitum supplent, crescat ut audacitas.
Iam4; pugnae huius finem attendite. Vincit minor
Maiorem auis, atq; rapinam apprensam unguibus
Curuis, crebro rotundat orbe uolubilem. at
Quid aureis hisce uestras exemplis moror?
Ne dubitetis, quin modicus ego maxima
Subdere ualeam, si res et caussa postulat.
Sum equidem nunc iam seu uiuere praBsto seu mori.
Sang. Si quis nimium nimiumq; temerarius
Iter hac nobis fucum factum susceperit :
Se cognoscat sum mo esse periculo proximum.
Nam qui sentit Sangacis quid possint manus,
Nisi me com munis philautia decepit,
C Se rur
404 J. M. HART.
[34]
CHRISTVS
Se rursuru infantem cupiet maximopere
Inter genetricis adhuc latentem uiscera.
Equidem baud uerear cum Sampsone congredi.
Quid in hoc corpore desideretur ? siue quis
Proceritatem siue magnitudinern,
Siue optime compacta membra expenderit.
Arma illoriim, quos exteri celebres habent,
Puto Cycl6pum esse fabricata mauibus.
Ita non ad infligendos sunt tantummod6,
Sed ad declinandos ictus habilia.
Num uoltus, in quo cuiusque uelut indoles
Relucet ac uoluntas, me planissume
Inuictum bello, et armis terribilem indicat?
Ac de hisce externis fari plura supersedeo.
Hlc, hlc uiget uis qusedam innata et insita,
Qua3 nil non audet, quod ferro est penetrabile.
Quomq; ars, quod inchoat natura, perficit :
Quid in re militari est, quod scientiam
Fugit meam ? Quis me uno bellicosior ?
En uobis quse ' nam a pra3lij ? et conflictibus
Animos^ pugnans, uolnera reportauerim.
Non f ne in bellando mira mihi felicitas
Data est ? quando uirus toties euaserim ?
Quamobrem, si molientem imposturas mod6
Quenquam deprendero, in quern peccarit, sciat.
Bru. Qui me irritans, potis est dextram hanc enadere,
Hie
405
[35]
KEDIVIVVS.
Hie deinceps lucro, quos aget, annos deputet.
Adesdum, qui uitae capiens tsedium, ad
Horae fatalis punctum cursitare uis.
Ac stabimus hlc socij, hlc una pugnabimus.
Si quando fuerit opus, si iste caput exeret
Prsestigiator, reuicturum quern somniant
Quidam, disseminante' ineptas fabulas,
Perinde quasi posset nel magus Aegyptius
Tarn magna operari post mortem miracula. Hoc
Pol mihi nemo persuadebit mortalium.
Nee aureis adhibebo magistris mendacibus.
Ecquando & corporeis functionibus
Qui deficiuntur semel, ab irremeabili, et
Clauso barathro suum reducent halitum ?
Quid ? nurn uitam retinere facilius fuit,
Qu&m nunc restituere amissam atq; perditam ?
Verum illud cum nequijt, neq; hoc faciet quidem.
Sed quid speremus facturum hunc ueneficum,
Quod nee fuit, nee extat, nee fieri potest ?
Ideo^;, sodales, si comitum manipulus
Hunc suffurari clanculum conabitur :
Armati nudos, strenui infirmo' ac debiles,
Incautos, ita parati persequamur, ut
Nullam esse testentur pedibus podagram suis.
Nemo igitur definitum egrediatur locum.
Det alteri quisque animos, terrorem hostibus
C 2 Horrificum
406 J. M. HART.
[36]
CHRISTYS
Horrificum incutiamus, et etiam exitiabilem.
ACTYS II. SCENA IIII.
Cacodsemon.
06 cselum, 6 tellus, prata 6 Neptunia,
Vos Plutonem recipite, quern tartarus euomit.
Date locum, in queni me liceat abstrudere :
Donee lux tanta, meis resedit sedibus.
Manes. Quam tu expectatus aduenis clarissime
Olympi honos? Nos quam replesti gaudio?
Venisti uanq;, uenisti, humanum ut genus
A reguis umbrosis et sole carentibus,
Educens, stellanti cselo sic inferas.
Cacod. Oh, iam splendet nouis aer fulgoribus.
Ob, uolitant agminatim ad caelum caelites.
Nunc uisam apud nos commotas tragoedias.
ARGYMENTYM ACTYS III.
AYdistis binorum gesta dierum omnia :
Sequitur lux tertia. Terras fit agitatio.
Metu fracti tumuli statores concidunt.
lesus Christus consurgit rursum 6 funere.
Marise uerd cum emptis noctu odoribus,
Yalde mS,ne cauernam adeunt Galilei'des,
Perungant ut corpus telluri creditum.
De Christo multa suo per agros uerba faciunt.
Cum ad bustum acceditur, et de saxo quseritur
Seponendo, insperatis atque subitis
Ab
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 407
[37]
KEDIVIVVS.
Ab angelis monumentum recluditur.
Haec lohanni renunciantur et Petro.
Citi adcurrunt, uera experiuntur. Petrus
Animum hue illuc alternans regreditur :
lohanne' herum resurrexisse indicat.
P6st Magdalene sola e6 reuertitur.
Compellat nuncios, astat forma Deus
Agricolse, illiq; se prodit uoce solita.
Ad eumq; modum fit et reliquis mulierculis.
Illse discipulis, hsec narrant incredulis.
ACTVS III. SCENA I.
Dromo. Dorus. Sangax. Brumax.
DEum iminortalem, ubinam gentium sumus? Triraet.
Commilitones, quid ' nam hoc esse creditis ?
"Vt omnia confusa ac turbata cernimus?
Vt aurse ruptse colluctantur in auribus ?
Fragore ut ingenti conuulsa uox sonat ?
Qui terrarum motus ueniunt in praelia? Vt
Tell us mugit, mouetur, concutitur, fremit ?
Credo ego non illam uno duntaxat in loco,
Sed omnibus horrendum tremiscere partibus. Q ,
Dor. Bone Deus, e cauea quanta ' Dam exit fulgu- y , .
ratio?
Non armis, consodaleis, hie est utendum, sed cruribus.
En ipsemet in fuga sum. Sang. Et me fugse dabo.
Bru. Me item in fuga confero. Dro. Postremus no ero.
C 3 Quis
9
408 J. M. HART.
[38]
CHRISTVS
Quis post terga sequatur, non curabo quidera,
f Si mihi semel dabitur cunctos prsecedere.
Sed 6 Deus bone, tuam fidem obsecro.
Quid hoc? Hel nullus sum. Do. Perij. Sang. Interij
Brumax. Occidi.
ACTVS III. SCENA II.
Christus.
Trimet. ~TTlRg6, sunt rata de me uatum prsesagia,
jQjFinemq; suum prope adepta sunt ac terminum.
Erg6, quod dissolubile mod6 corpu' extitit,
Quod conditionera habuit, ut posset mori,
Aeternitate iam imbuturn, renascitur.
Et omni CUQI iaimortalitate sequabitur.
Tuq; ade6 Mors, quse cseteris hominibus
Nunquam non impendes, ut quod certissimum.
Abiecta protinus hasta, uictorem agnoscito.
In me posthac tantum tibi posse negabitur.
Atque ecce tibi felix et faustum nuncium,
Quisquis es 6 homo. Nam ut omittam tyrannidem
c * " Peccati, mortis et inferni, a queis liber iam
factus es,
Ego dura3 l^gis austeritati pro te feci satis.
Si qua igitur tanti tangit amoris gratia :
Confide, tuam caussam sanguis aget meus.
ACTVS III. SCENA III.
Magdalene. Cleophis. Chorus Galilei'dum.
Bono
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 409
'' [39]
KEDIVIVVS.
BOno animo este sorores, magnam partem uiae Trirnet.
Superauimus, et multum sequoris confecimus.
Ast, quomodo nunc tecum Cleophis agitur ?
Equidem te non tarn fessam esse de uia,
Qum sollicitudine fatigatam arbitror.
Cleop. Vix credas quoties inter eundum mihi
Veniebant in mentem huius ardua facinora.
Etenim memoria repetebam ultima
Tempus, quo Chanan urbera unit cum parentibus,
A ueteri quodam amico accitis, uenerat.
Qui adolescent! cupido, in matrimonium
Locabat filiolam castam et nubilem.
Et quum iam epulis optimis pulsa fuit fames,
Atque coronari uina potissimum oportuit,
Ministrorum murmur csepit consurgere,
Vacuis cadis Lysei nihil esse reliquum.
Turn difficultateis miserata domesticas
Pia parens, et secum uoluens incommoda :
Nato confestim significabat suo,
Omnem domum absumpto Baccho tristarier.
Simul et famulos perbenigna monuit,
Vt quod mandaret eis, obirent seduld.
Is etsi comraotus, primum caussatus est
Non aduenisse, quae expectaret tempora :
Tandem tamen sex impleri a famulis iubet
Fontanis et puris undis carchesia.
C 4 Quse
410 J. M. HART.
[40]
CHEISTVS
Quae simul ut heros aspexerat : ecce omnibus
Humor cernebatur subitd rubescere.
Sentit aqua uireis insuetas, et induit
Nouum quendam saporem alieno ex munere.
Hoc nesciens quidam e numero primarius,
Sponsum appellans, me magna (ait) admiratio
Tenet, quid sit, qu6d prater morem [tam diu
Liquorem ambrosise similem conseruaueris.
Itaq; stupefacti omnes, prius incognita
Vehementer admirantur Christi numina.
Suamq; in eum comites conijciunt fidem.
Fama quoq; fuit, ilium super alta maria
Et illsesum ambulasse, et summo in gurgite baud
Pedeis tinxisse. audieram et eius ipsius
Dicto, compesci agitationes fluctuum :
Et quamlibet proteruos austrL spiritus,
Ac uenti flamina uim suam deponere.
Sunt plurima, quse ssepe losephus mihi
Et ludas, et Simon, et lacobus, mea
Dulcissima narrare solebant pignora.
Mag. Im6 si animo tuo iam comprsehenderes,
Mihi, quse nota stint, magts obstupesceres.
Nee ad stuporem modo res miras e'didit :
(Quod aliqui aliquando forte prsestiterint magi)
Verum ad salutem operabatur uir inclytus.
Nam si uellem enumerare, baud uerbis consequi
Quot
GKIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 411
[41]
KEDIVIVVS.
Quot segris, adflictis, atq; laborantibus,
Quot hominum damDis ac incommoditatibus
Curationem atq; medicamentum attulit :
Non promptiorem haberet finem oratio,
Quam si cuperera hac dictione persequi
In Lybico quanta iaceat arena littore : aut
Quot orbem stelligerum distinguant sydera.
Nam quos male Erynnis uexabat pessuma,
Quos sestus ac febris iactabat ignea,
Quos profusis tumens hydrops humoribus
Aut quicunq; etiam alius torquebat dolor,
Ad sanitatem restituebat pristinam.
Quid memorem ? numerosam turbam concurrere,
Tarn a disiunctissimis quibusq; partibus,
Vidisses quam a patrise propinquis finibus.
Caecosq; turn et claudos, mutosq; cerneres,
Lucem oculis debitam, pedibusq; uim suam,
Et eloquendi facultatem recipere.
At illud est in primis commemorabile,
Quod erga foeminam miserandam prsestitit.
Ea cum laxis uenis annos duodecim
Flumen fuisset passa impuri sanguinis,
Etsi iam adficeretur morbi doloribus,
Et succo membris exhaustis pallesceret :
Tamen exanguis tantam concepit spem suse
Salutis apud Christum obtinendse, ut protinus
C 5 Vel
412 J. M. HART.
[42]
CHRISTVS
Vel multitudine compressa sequentium,
Ad eum ipsum pleno cursu contenderet,
Quo saltern posset amictum coutingere.
Yt erg6 ilium iuxta defessa steterat, et
Manum exporgens uestem extremam apprehederat :
Vim quandam toti subit6 infusam corpori
Persentiscit, uenasq; patenteis claudier.
Mulier lesum latuisse facinus hoc putans,
Se cogitabat clanculum subducere.
Verum fugientem scius ille reuocat,
Cor&m in medio ut factum fateretur lubens.
Eamq; subtrepidam ac timidiusculam,
Sui colloquij suauitate recreat.
Quid, qu6d et ab inferis quosdam excitauerit
Morte oppressa ? Cum enim ab ora Sydonia
Veniens, Nay mam adijt suis comitantibus :
Ecce, puelli egregij corpus miserabile
Feretro impositum, et uita defunctum conspicit.
Genetrix moesto complens ululatu uiam,
Filiolum immaturo flet raptum funere.
Hanc lesus noster ut uidit, mox parcere
Querelis iubet : et imperat corpusculo, ac
Denud gelidis membris insinuatur anima.
Ipse uelut expleto somno, surgens puer :
Aperto se capulo (cunctis mirabile)
Viuum extollit, et exiliens matrem amplectitur.
Nee
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 413
[43]
REDIVIVVS.
Nee ita mult6 p6st, idem ille uirginem,
Quse nature uitam reddiderat, cui calor
E pectore, et omnis dilapsus erat spiritus :
Amisso iterum isthoc donauit lumine.
Sed enim nunc tandem ad tumulatum uenimus.
Hlc si uidetur, ponamus uestigia.
Vos facitote, e gremijs ne quid odorum excidat.
At, quis'nam ha3C a clause sepulchre grandia
Saxa euoluet, sepulchralia nos debita ut
Possimus hie persoluere ? Dimet.
Circunspicite, si prope quisquam auxiliariu' est.
Hui, quid hoc est? Atat, os monumenti patet.
Intremus. hem, perij : nihil hie relinquitur.
Quam uereor, ne quis etiam in extinctum saeuiat.
Qn6 properem ? ubi quseram ? quos uestigem ? nescio.
Est animus tamen adire cum primis Petrum,
Eumq; hac de re certiorern reddere.
Cleo. Quseso matres, ut ab hoc loco terroribus
Pleno, uelitis mecum una secedere.
Vix mente consto, et cor extra se ponitur.
Nuper latratu reboabat tellus, ita ut
Nubes refracto respond eret aere.
Nunc quid sibi tumulus inanis uelit, et pate =
Factum claustrum coniectura non adsequor.
ACTVS III. SCEJSTA IIII.
Johannes. Petrus.
Videlicet
414
J. M. HART.
Trimet.
Octona.
Octona.
[44]
CHKISTVS
~T"7"Idelicet, cert6 sciebam iam antea
V Me facil^ posse Petrum cursu prseuertere, ac
Priusquam ille hue tardo gressu perrexerit,
Mihi licitum erit audita inuisere.
Pape, quid ego uideo ? nil, nisi linteamina.
Sed iam accurrit senior, et crebro spirituum
"Vireis uento restaurat. Petr. Quid, quid obsecro
Fit Johannes? Vera'ne mulier omnia
Rettulerat ? loh. omnia Simon uerissima.
Pet. Ingressus es? lohan. Nequaqua, at conspexi tamen
Humi positum et iacentem pannum linteum.
Omnino, sese nusquam humatus obtulit.
Pet. Introeamus, et exploretur meliuscule
Cauerna. bone Deus : ecce uestem linteam,
En qua caput inuoluebatur, calanticam.
Nihil est preterea, ne trahamus hlc moram.
Hui profectd res mihi magna uidetur ac
mirabilis.
Equidem hercle operam dabo, ut unde et quorsum
hsec fiant, intelligam.
Abeamus. loan. Sine dubio meliora dabit Deus.
Quid ni reuixisse putem ? Etenim eum si quis hinc
Furatus esset, non quseq; locasset ordine :
Sed uestes arripuisset cum corpore.
ACTYS III. SCENA V.
Magdalene. Angelus I. Ang. II. Christus.
Reuiso
GKIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 415
[45]
REDIVIVVS.
EEuiso mess portum atq; auram anxietudini.
Nam iterum atq; item uel introspicere tumulu,
In quo membra Galilsei sunt recondita,
Meum dolorem non mediocriter leuat.
O utinam, utinam, hunc rursum erectum cernerern,
Vt pridem germanum intuebar, qui incubans
Telluris gremio, iacuerat quatridimm.
Hei mi hi, qu6d precio, qudd precibus, qu6d lachrymis
Obruta duro fato uita redimi nequit.
Ang. I. Qua tu 6 foemina uoce et querelis indicas
Tristiciam? Ang. II. Expedias matrona integerrima
Quid sit qu6d Mere ploratum non desinis.
Mag. Eximij, pulchri et formosi adolescentuli, ex
Hoc monumento nescio quis herum abstulit rneum.
Sed nee misera quonam deportatu' est, scio.
Vse mihi. Quid subit6 obstupuistis perterriti ?
Chr. Mea mulier, hoc unum mihi uelim edisseras
(Mod6 fides dignitasq; patietur tua)
Qua3 tantaB caussa? est lamentationis, aut
Quern uix orbe fugatis umbris iam quaBritas?
Mag. Dabis hoc bone agricola uel facilitati tua3,
Vel desiderio meo, ut si dum hortulo
Prospicis, ac metuis Iuda3os ? eum alio
Detuleris mihi significes, ubinam nunc siet.
Tut6 et honorifice ilium terraB mandauero.
Quin certum est, quare stupefiebant iuuenes,
Ab
416
J. M. HART.
Dimet.
[46]
CHBISTVS
Ab his cognoscere.
Chr. Maria. Magda. hem, mi magister ? Chr.
opiuma Magdalis
Noli ade6 elata laetitijs incedere, et exultare
de carnis prsesentia, lit
Nihil intere& de me sublime cogites.
Caue putes, te intueri morti obnoxium
Hominem, ut prius, aut ea necessitudine
Vobis coniunctum : sed supremo cum patre
Ipso in cselo regnaturum perenniter.
Animum erigito, mente alta et insuperabili
Feraris ad cselestia.
Quin uade, rei tantse ut fias prsenuncia,
Eis<k, quos fraterno amore prosequor,
Quorumq; naturam induere mihi placuit,
Die me dein cselestem occupaturum thronum,
Cum nostro una parente indulgentissimo.
Trimet.
ACTUS III. SCENA VI.
Cleophis. Chorus Galilei'dum. Angel. I. Ang. II.
Christus.
HVc hue nosmet referamus, et experiamur an
Reuersio spem deturbatam reintegret.
Sed nunc memini, ut non solum animo commota eram
Dudum, sed et corpore toto perhorrui.
Ang. I. Quid uos horretis 6 matres ? omittite
Metum et formidinem, nam isti iure optimo, ex=
Animantur
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 417
[47]
REDIVIVVS.
Animantur consideratissimi homines.
Vestram nihilominus moesticiam dehinc noua, ei
Aeternum perfruenda uincant gaudia.
Quandoquidem quern uos hinc ademptum plangitis,
Debellato Erebi r6ge, imis ex manibus,
Rursum has in lucis oras uictor prodijt.
Non est qudd eum existimetis mortuum.
Aethereis iam uescentem auris, ei integrum.
Im6 uobi' in mentem uenire debuit,
Quod adhuc in Galilsea uersatus dixerat,
Oportere satum uirgine incidere in manus
Sceleratorum hominurn, et figi funestaB trabi,
Qu6 cunctorum suapte sponte crimina
Deleret, et cum sole rediret tertio.
Ang. II. Nazarenum uos uelle non sum nescius,
Qui superiore die animam efflarit cruce.
A iure mortis exemit se, et uinculis
Expedijt, hinc uicturus BBUO perpete.
Quod cum terna luce renasci promiserat,
Reuera et facto nunc fidelis praestitit.
Accedite, adsistite, oculis omnem locum
Perl ustra tote, qui uacuus cadauere,
Signum etiamdum effigiemq; sepulti corporis
Retinet. Et exuuias, quibus implicatus est.
Si non facile adduci potestis, ut mihi
Credatis, nee persuadeat oratio mea,
Vobis
418 -J. M. HART.
[48]
CHRISTVS
Vobis prsesentia prsesentem haec facient fidem.
Quare hisce uestris officijs opus baud erit,
Quin hinc potius uos nulla interposita mora
Recipite et istam rem inox reliquis ostendite.
Sui ducis et capitis qui deplorant necem :
Sed senior! Petro in prirnis, cui scilicet
Ter abnegatus herus gemitum conduplicat.
Cuius conspectum si cupiscunt, conferant
Iter ad Galilseam, ubi eundem uiuum uiderint,
Per hsec quern collugent tempora demortuum.
Dixi. Cleo. Videam. Ecastor, ita sese res habet.
Eamus, nunciemus discipuli' omnia.
Cbr. Saluere uos iubeo Marise Galilei'des.
Abijcite pauores ex ammo, qui expectorant
Intelligentiam, et intrepide me attendite,
Ne non sanum sit attonitis in sensibus
ludicium, surgite, et his osculationibus
Finem facite, et hinc celeriter nunc uadite,
Meisq; uisa monstratote fratribus,
Vt in Galilseam post me proficisci queant.
AEGVMENTVM ACTYS IIII.
EGressis foeminis, ad sese milites
Redeunt, et uisa sacerdotibus indicant.
Interea, quee iussit Christus Galilei'des,
Discipuli 7 exponunt. Sed pharisseorum quidem
Posteaquam
419
[49]
REDIVIVVS.
Posteaquam in parteis distractum contraria', et
Nil certo statuens concilium dimittitur :
Delegatur Alecto statim & cacodsemone,
Qua? aurum singulis prseberi militibus monet,
Orationem ut commutent, et falsa pro
Veris fidenter in apertum proferant.
Hij, sicut erant edocti, faciunt sedul6 :
Ac inficias eunt Christum esse superstitem.
Itaq; et custodes, acceptis pecunijs
Lsetantur, et recedens quoq; Cai'aphas
Elatus insolenti exultat gaudio,
Quia res processum habet ex sua sententia.
ACTVS IIII. SCENA I.
Brumax. Sangax. Dorus. Dromo
EQuidem animi pendeo hoc quid sit negocij, Trimet
Quorsum hie stupor alienatioq; sensuum.
Ego sic timeo ut rerum nullam quodammodd
Perceptionem habeam, socij uero mei
Timore stupidi obmutuerunt, strenuus mod6
Ipse mihi uidebar, sed qu6 confidentia
Qu6 nunc animi uis, qu6 pristina geuerositas
Recessit? hei iacet sepultum in pectore
Omne meum robur, et omnis abest audacia.
Tentabo tamen si qua spes adfulgeat
In socijs. Tu Sangax, tu, inquam, Sangax age,
D Surgito
420 J. M. HART.
[50]
CHRISTVS
Surgito, ne paueas, in tuto sunt omnia.
Sang. Abierunt'ne igitur, abierunt foeminse, aut
Furiae potius et flammis corusci dsemones ?
Bru. Abi6re mihi crede. Excitemus nunc Dorum.
Heus heus Dore : Ocyus 6 Dore expergiscere.
Expergiscere Dore. lam nihil est periculi.
Dor. Exurgo, mod6 non sit quidquam discriminis.
Ah, uix apud me sum, tremor ita me occupat.
Bru. Quam tandem hanc esse metamor<a>sin autumas?
Tana ' ne cit6 accipitris dedidicisti audaciam ?
Sed, ut uidetur, Dromo nee haurit anhelitum,
Nee spiritum ullum dit. Dromo. Dromo. Dromo.
Quid, humi prostratus, longus ut es, Dromo iaces ?
Atat, auras incassum stultus diuerbero,
Surdisq; auriculis me prseconem prsebeo.
Obsecro uos, uos aureis implete flatibus.
Sang. Dromo. Do. Dromo. Sang. Dromo. Do. Dromo
San. Dromo. Do. Dromo.
Bru. Hem salua res est, nobis Deus hodie fauet.
Anhelat nunc breui subinde spiritu.
Quid agitur Dromo? Agedum temet iam collige.
Reuocato animum. Trepidandi causa euanuit.
Dro. Quis Dromone appellat ? Bru. fortunse particeps
Tuae Brumax. Age surge, ego te fulciam.
Tenebo labentem, et corruere non sinam.
Dro. Heu uireis deficiunt. Bru. brachia exporgito.
Dro.
GRIMALD'S CHBISTUS REDIVIVUS. 421
[51]
REDIVIVVS.
Dro. Quis me, quis appraehendit ? Brumax. Brumax
dico tuus
Consocius. Surge, surge. Dro. ammo male est meo.
Cor contrahitur, debilitatur, tremit.
Mir& uexatur caput, et sensuum organa
Vix functiones prsestant etiamdum suas.
Incredibiliter mihi metus ossa concutit.
Horrorq; occupat extremas parteis corporis.
Verum sinite me respirare paululum.
Bru. Tandem, 6, tandem nobiscum abige formidinem.
Tenuit et hie nos pallor crepitusq; dentium,
Euasit homo cum suis fallacijs,
Ac prsestigijs, neq; nos terrebit amplius.
Atqui quod facto confestim nunc est opus,
Faciam, hsec ut cognoscant sacerdotum duces.
Addito te Sangax adsectatorem mihi,
Tu uer6 te Dore Dromoni adiungito.
Dor. Vos non ita longo interuallo comitabimur.
Quid nunc mi homo, reuixisti'ne bone Dromo?
Quomodo uiget robur uetus in corpore ?
Dro. Bene iam, sed longe melius opinor foret
Mecum, si quam primum locum hunc relinquerem.
Dor. Fiat, sequamur prseeuntes boni^ auibus.
ACTVS IIII. SCENA II.
Petrus. Magdalene. Chorus discipulorum.
Cleophis. Chorus Galilei'dum.
D 2 Quid
422 J. M. HART.
[52]
CHEISTVS
Tnmet. /^~\ Vid narras Magdalene? certa'ne prsedicas?
Mag. Certissima. Pet. Sic scilicet ut dicam tibi.
Equidem tuos pauitanti' oculos existimo,
Vana quadam ac falsa lusos imagine.
Nam ueluti per quietem sepenumer6
Facit in se reflexa cogitatio,
Eorum uultus et simulachra cernere,
Quos maxim desideramu 7 interdiu,
Sic uel metum, uel amorem uel utrunq; te
Aut rapuisse, aut coniecisse reor in extasin,
Ita ut non secus ac meutiens quidam sopor
Sensus inanis prsestringens fefellerit.
Cho. disc. Quid'na hoc tande est? Ain tu quseso? denu6
Nostrum uiuere dominum ? Die,
age, die bona
Nee aliena fide, ut sese tibi obtulit ?
Longam (sis) narrandi continuatio seriem.
Et & capite ad calcem, iuxta prouerbium,
Singula diducito. De illo audire quidem iuuat :
Ytut, quod prefers, parum, sit probabile.
Mag. Quum de uacuo busto, tibi dixeram Petre :
Me recipiebam protinus eodem loci.
Cumq; ill6 adueneram : ecce repent^ mini
Et nictu oculi, splendenteis albis uestibus
Apparent iuuenes. In uultu plurimus honos,
Et coeleste decus toto effulsit corpore.
Haud
423
[53]
REDIVIVVS.
Haud nostra stirpe, exortos esse dixeris :
Sed administros superum speciosissimos.
Hij uer6 & me caussas exquirunt questuum.
Sublati heri desiderio me confici
Respondeo. Quibus dictis a tergo stetit.
Tamen ilium nesciebam : ut qui mihi se obuium
Dedit ignoti sub hortulani schemate.
Credo, ne si glorificam sumpsisset faciem :
Exanimasset me miseram prse formidine.
Cho. disc. Qui scis igitur, Christu esse, que cospexeras ?
Mag. Agnoui ex noce. Nam cum ab eo digressa sum :
Statim reuocata notum accipiebam sonum.
Quinetiam Marise me appellabat nomine.
Tune 6 tune menti quse infundebat gaudia ?
Quse tune toto expellebat corde tristia ?
Sic nube sub nigra quum deprensa est dies,
Quum coelum squalet ac sol umbris conditur :
Aura exurgens sub Oceano, aut e montibus
Tenebras depellit, nubilaq; dissipat,
La3tamq; nitido faciem restiuit polo :
Omnino taleis sentiebam in pectore
Motus, taleis triumphos, tamq; seri6
Turn gestiebajn, ut iam nihil mirum mihi
Videatur, quod uix poteram olim credere,
Expirasse aliquos hilaritate nimia.
Et ille gaudium bene temperat meum,
D 3 lubetq;
10
424 J. M. HART.
[54]
CHKISTVS
lubetq; non tarn corpus intuerier,
Quarn oculis animi diuinum honorem, et ipsius
Membra deinceps pland facta immortalia.
Demum superiora poli palatia, ad
Patrem se nostrum dixit uelle ascendere.
Ego uer6 exprimere Ia3ticiam cogitans,
Ter sum conata loqui, ter eum affarier
Incipiebam, solitasq; uoces promere :
Sed mihi ter hsesit lingua prorsus mutilis,
Ter in summis labris mihi destitit sonus.
Dumq; ha3reo, quse prima sumam exordia,
Nimis auidos reliquerat sensus meos.
Hsec summa est, haec ut folia SibyllaB credite.
Hsec uoluit, ego uobis ut prima panderem.
Cho. disc. Nimia mira, 6 socij commemorat Magdalis.
Pet. Sunt incredibilia profect6, atq; ante hunc diem
Inaudita. At, quid hoc, quod tarn uelociter
Cleophis cum Galilseis hue aduolat ?
Metuo ne quid eis obtigerit incommodi. At
Tendamus. Ad nos recta pergunt. Cleo. uidimus
Eia, eia uidimus (6 uiri) ilium uidimus.
Pet. Quern' nam ilium? Die age. Gleo. Vidimus, inquam,
Ilium ipsum Christum, que putatis mortuum. (uidimus
Pet. Supreme lehoua. Captum ha3c superant meum.
Scio, esse uos nee mendaceis, nee perfidas :
Ipsa rei magnitude tamen fidem negat.
Amabd
GKIMALD'S CHRISTUS EEDIVIVUS. 425
[55]
KEDIVIVVS.
Amab6, narra, quse uidistis omnia.
Nam ad audiendum animos iamdudum ereximus.
Cleo. Primum omnium, ut ill6 accessimus, at in limine
Sepulchri stetimus, ecce tibi, duo iuuenum
Pulcherrimorum corpora.
Quid quaeris ? omnia ex parte fure splendidi.
Solantur. Quidq; in Galila3a pollicitus est
Longe anteJi Christus, reuocant in memoriam.
Nudum locum ostendunt, in eoq; residuas
Exuuias. At<j; nominatim te Petre
Volu6re Euangelio hoc per nos recrearier.
Hsec dixerant. Metum autem nostrum gaudia
Nunc uincunt, nunc eo mutud uincuntur, et
Sese uicissim retrudunt pugnantia,
Atq; uiceis alternant spes et timor, usque dum
Nos ipse alacriter salutauerat herus,
Et aspectu ac sermone suo refecerat.
Qui se confirmabat, in ora Galilei'de
A uobis omnibus uelle dein conspici.
Turn ab amplexu sistimus. Habetis ad omnia.
Pet. Multa audiui, multa inspexi, multa didici,
Multa memini : nihil post hominum memoriam
Tale accepi : nihil omui aBtate huiusmodi
Cognoui : unde induci non queo, ut adsentiar.
Quoquomodo sit, nos nota adeamus loca.
Cho. disc. Earn us, et eas ueridicas faxit Deus.
D 4 ACTVS
426 J. M. HAET.
[56]
CHRISTVS
ACTVS IIII. SCENA III.
Cai'aphas.
,_ . I AEum immortalem, quae, quantaq; miracula
J_>/Mod6 mihi memorauit Brumax? quemadmodu
Imposita sigillisq; obsignata adhuc petra :
Tamen erexit se tumulatus. Ac duo
Lapidem dicto citius am6runt angeli.
Vt antra sonabant occultis mugitibus,
Ventisq; furebat solum pugnantibus.
Et eorum, quasi si occubuissent, iacentium :
Vt artus, intercepta anima, tenuit tremor.
Vt auram neq; dedit neq; suscepit Drorno : ut
Vt sine colore, sine uoce, sine mente iacuit.
Quomodoq; audierint alloquenteis fceminas,
Ministros angelicos, de coeli gente. Ita ut
Dubium non sit, uiuere Christum xylonicum.
Quid igitur ? Quid mine faciundum nobis erit ?
Per urbeis ne hie rumor Palsestinas eat ?
Nisi matur&'uolgi sermoni occurrimus,
Ni astu famamjpremimus atq; extinguimus :
Actum de nobis est, sine controuersia.
Vse nostro turn ordini, use nostris mercibus.
Ibo, et cogamjconsilium in unum pectora, et
Legum, et religionis ritus callentia.
ACTVS IIII. SCENA IIII.
Cacodsemon. Alecto.
Orcicolse
GRIMALD'S CHBISTUS KEDIVIVUS. 427
[57]
KEDIVIVVS.
ORcicolae 6 proceres, tartarei 6 principes,
O Acherontsei magnates itinerum,
Voluntatum, sententiarum, faciuorum,
Laborum, rerum deniq; nostrarum omDium
Socij perpetui, nullisq; fatigabileis
Periculis, mementote, ut nos perpeti baud
Potuistis infandam conditionem, poll
Quando regnator nobis anteponeret
Hominum genus, ac nos deturbatos sethere,
Formidanda ui fulminis detruderet
In hsec loca tetra, horrenda, subterranea,
Terribilia, foeda, senta situ et squallida.
Prob^ bane ulti estis luculentam iniuriam.
Nam horto Paradisiaco expulsum patrem,
Suamq; sobolem eius contactam crimine,
Nobiscum ad sedes deuexistis infera', ac
Immani ditastis preeda stygios lacus.
At enimuerd, humana sub nube et imagine
Deus occultatus, nuper hominum gratia, in
Terras descendit : illiusq; spiritus
Apud nos hlc iamdudum, ut nostis, adfuit.
Quo praesente expauimus. Infernas hie domos
Reclusit. secum ingentem abduxit copiam.
Fuit, fuit tempestas, qua nostro iugo
Vel integrum terrarum orbem subiecimus.
Ast quae nunc tanta nos tenet socordia ?
D 5 Vbi
428 J. M. HART.
[58]
CHRISTVS
Vbi nunc antiques uireis, arteis, machinse,
Doli ? Vbi nunc prisca imperij nostri gloria ?
Sic' cine multis nobis regia spoliabitur ?
Sic' cine rem prolabi patiemur desides ?
Audite potius quse mea sit sententia. j
Christum interimebant ludsei, hie se reddidit
VitaB. Res iam multis Hierosolymarijs
Manifestior est, quam ut dubitari queat.
Trepidant sacerdotes, semper amici fidissimi
Qui nobis extite~re : atq; hoc ne in publicum
Emanet, ponere student retinacula.
Id ad amplificandum nostrum regnum tarn ualet
Quam quod uel plurimum. Hlc opibus uestris opus.
Viru ? inspirate furtim animis mortalium, ut
Hsec tarn mirabilia negent increduli.
Atqui (quod caput est) prodi, prodi mens mea,
Alecto prodi, cincta colubri et anguibus.
Tibi mille nocendi arteis fbecundo in pectore.
Tuum hoc erit munus, tuarum partium, ut
Mystas ancipites consilio iuues tuo.
Fac nummis obturetur os militibus, ut
Quidquid uiderunt, se uidisse pernegent.
Yadito, manibus pedibusq; obnix rem agito : nunc
Tentamentis peropus est, ac fallacijs.
Properato, horam utilem utiliter transmittito.
Alect. Cito imperata peragam adamussim tua.
ACTVS.
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS KEDIVIVUS. 429
[59]
REDIVIVVS.
o
ACTVS IIII. SCENA V.
Alecto. Cai'aphas.
IMea quantum Adonij,
Pen apud omneis
Numina possunt?
Namq; ego semper
Ocyor euris,
Cursito nunc hue,
Nunc feror illuc.
Ac ea spargo
Dira uenena,
Quae mi hi cornu
Diuite, sseuus
Sufficit orcus.
Num tibi restim
Ipsa ferebam
Perdite luda ?
Et tibi nummum
Plena crumena
Est data, quorum
Sacra fames co-
Egit herum te
Prodere iustum ?
Sic similem rem,
Nirnc faciam, qu6
Qui modo uiuit,
Vsque
430 J. M. HART.
[60]
CHRISTVS
Vsque putetur
Mortuus esse.
Trimet. Euge, euge, eccum ilium ipsum, que uolo. Deus bone : ut
Ingreditur dubitabundus, et animum scindit in
Varias parteis ? At paulisper ego tacita
Hlc auscultans, caute obseruabo, quid nam agat.
P6st, hominem adoriar, sicubi tempus monet.
Cai'a. Non hoc mehercules mihi conuenticulum
Esse uidetur, hominum deliberantium :
Sed toto (ut aiunt) coelo discrepantium,
Ant, quod ego uer affirmem, delirantium.
Vnum aut altrum Annas sublimi & solio rogat,
Sententiam hac de re, ut pronunciet suam. Hie,
Queecunq; uos, ait, iniungitis, ea perplacent.
Ille, in ponderosa, et seria et graui,
Certum spacium deliberandi postulat.
Alius, posse negat rem tantam occultarier.
Alius, ipsum Christum, iterato occtdi uelit.
Reliqui nihil habuerunt, quod dicerent.
Sum itaq; multd incertior, ac dudum abiueram.
Alect. Hue ego tibi, si uis, bone uir scrupulu adima : et
Faucis expediam, quid fieri oporteat.
Cai'a. Quin immortali me tibi deuincies
Beneficio mortalem, si hoc effeceris,
Charissima domina. Alect. Pone metum, effectum dabo.
Inprimis, tumuli custodes argenteis
Fac
431
[61]
REDIVIVVS.
Fac superes muneribus, tit quae uera sunt,
Nee proferant, nee diuulgent quouis modo.
Nummus rex, rex nurnmus, quid non facere potest,
In omnibus negocijs? Dimet.
Dicam, quod sentio, omnipotens pecunia,
Dat sola robur, uimq; sola sufficit.
Quamobrem agitodum, et isthsec praedieta perfice,
Tibi quae monstraui Furiarum ter maxima. Hie
Scopus, hie meorum uerborum meta est breuis.
Cai'a. Quam maximas habeo tibi diua gratias.
Nemo homo potuit melius consilium dare.
Geretur hercle mos tuis hortatibus.
Alect. Hei, nunc ergo mine feci precium operse, et
Nostro pergratum, perq; iucundum gregi.
Multas regione' opplebit haac opinio,
Qu6d Christu' e mortuis non exurrexit.
Im6 perficiam, ut apud mundi huius filios
Pium esse uideatur, eos occidere,
Quicunq; syncerfc ipsius a morte reditum,
Et inde partam gratiam deprsedicent.
Sed me, sat scio, Tartareus expectat chorus,
Re bene gesta, hinc memet recipio domum.
ACTVS IIII. SCENA VI.
Cai'aphas. Dromo. Dorus. Sangax.
Brumax.
In
432 J. M. HART.
[62]
CHRISTVS
IN hisce manibus est loculus pecunijs
Distentus et non pauco argento turgidus.
Intus latet, quod operator miracula.
Intus latet, quod nil non cogit pectora.
Est intus, quod diuinam uirtutem exeret
Cit6, atq; me magno exonerabit metu.
Nee dubito, quin hoc erit Annse gratissimum.
Atq; etiam reliquis nostri ordinis hominibus.
Satius est unius obscurari gloriam,
Qu&m tot nostrum egregios honores eripi.
Ecce autem, cominodum aduentare uideo
Dromonem et Sangacem, Brumacemq; et Dorum,
Qui me leuabunt huius onere marsupij.
Dro. Salue pie prsesul. Do. Salue antistes optime.
Sang. Sis saluos uir clarissime. Bru. Aue ipsa sanctitas.
Dro. Parmenoni seruo dedimu' obuiam tuo,
Qui te significauit, nos uelle colloqui.
Cai'a. Volo certfc quidem : quare animum aduortite.
Tu Dromo Christum esse rediuiuum non ambigis ?
Dro. Equidem huius tibi rei argumenta protuli,
Neq; pauca, neq; parua. Nimis apertum illud est.
Cai'a. Quid dicis Dore, sic' cine se res habet ?
Dor. Ita factum prorsus est, ut te docuit Dromo.
Cai'a. Adfirmas ne tu Sangax hsec eade ? San. qdni ego
Adfirmem, qui una cftm his in re prsesenti fui ?
Cai'a. Quid tu aut Brumax ? Bru. Id quod socij dictitatc
Cai'a.
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 433
[63]
REDIVIVVS.
Cai'a. Tacete, et mentem ad ea, quae loquor, intendite.
Debetis nostra in uota condescendere,
Nisi exciderunt permulta in nos promerita.
Dro. Quid est ? quod pro te aut uestrae classis quopiain
Recusemus? Dor. Nil medius fidius, id nisi
Summo fiat nostro darnno atque incommode.
San. Die egregie sacerdos, prsestabimus,
Ne dubita. Bru. Si uereis requiras corporis,
Faciemus, quod cordatos milites decet.
Dummodd non uersutis opponamuur magis.
Sin animi uirtutem, constantiam, fidem,
Quis non sentierit quoduis cum tali duce ?
Cai'a. Statuunt primates uim certam pecuniae
Vobis donare, ueruntamen hoc nomine,
Vt singulis quibusque interrogantibus,
Statim et semper respondeatis in hunc modum :
Qu6d nocte intempesta, ut latrones perditi,
Corpus clam fallaceis tulSre comites,
Ac furati sunt uobis dormientibus.
Qu6d si commentum hoc ad uestri aureis prsesidis
Delatum erit, nos illi persuadebimus,
Et nos tutos in portu collocabimus.
Dro. Lubenter adsentimur. Do. Conditio placet.
San. Cur non authoritatem tantam imitabimur?
Bru. Sequimur decretum long^ consultissimum.
Cai'a. Accipite, unusquisq; thesauro ditabitur.
Agitote
434 J. M. HART.
[64]
CHRISTVS
Agitote dum, eloquimini. quid dicitis?
Dromo, erexit/ ne se Christu' ille a tumulo?
Dro. Non. Cai'a. Quid' nam erg6? sepulchrum uacuum
fuit?
Dro. Nox erat, exanimum clepserunt corpus alumni.
Nostra quidem turn membra sorpor Lethseus habebat.
Cai'a. Dore, die mihi bona et ludaica fide,
lesus in busto cur non repertus est ?
Dor. Abstulit hue furtiuu agmen dominatibus umbris,
Cum nostros oculos premeret mera mortis imago.
Cai'a. Num' nam et tu Sangax cantionem istam canis ?
Die quid habeas animi super hac re. dicito.
Sang. Funus iners noctu comites rapu&re dolosi,
Quando quies nostros nectebat languida sensus.
Cai'a. Brumax tua superest unius adsentio.
Quomodo per omnia res acta est? edissere.
Bru. Surripitur gelidum media iam nocte cadauer,
Cum nos fessa graui dederamus corpora somno.
Cai'a. Laudo uos, quod in ea diutius hseresi
Non perseuerabitis. istue sapere quidem est.
Dro. Nemo tarn nulla niente, uel tarn nullius
Est consilij, qui respuat pecunias.
Dor. Conspiranteis animos, tarn concinnat cito
Nihil, quam hsec regina sacro sancta pecunia.
Sang. Quis est mortalium omnium, cui inest mica
Sani cerebri, qui hanc non ueneretur et colat ?
Bru.
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 435
[65]
REDIVIVVS.
Bru. O uos terq; quaterq; beatos, queis contigit
Tanta laborum merces, quantam uix tempore
Longo, aut talus nobis, aut alea dederit.
Dro. Valeto fortunarum nostrarurn omnium
Auctor locupletissime. Dimeter.
Do. Deus te seruet nostri (ut res ipsa loquitur)
Thesauri supremum caput. Dimeter.
Sang. Tibi noster patronc beneficentissime
Dies agantur candidi. Dimeter.
Bru. Pro hisce opibus here lehora sura mis tibi
Opera sempiternam ferat. Dimeter.
Cai'a. Valete simul uiri fortissimi et optimi.
O faustam, 6 niueam, 6 peramoenam hanc istam diem.
Meos' ne labores operas atq; uigilias,
An prolixam diua3 bonitatem, an tempora
Vehementius extollam, plane" nescio.
Quemadmodum eteuim cum sub nebuloso ae're
Et opaco coelo sensus quodammodd
Hebescunt, et cuiq; suum corpus oneri est,
Turn si radios forte* Titan splendidos
Fundens, fugam atris nubibus indixerit,
Mundoq; arridens ore laeto affulserit,
Quam mox erectam a corporeo pondere,
Animalem illara hominis partem spe ditissima
Pascit, quasio^; consopitos spiritus
Permulcet, incitat, fouet, exuscitat :
E Ita
436 J. M. HART.
[66]
CHEISTVS
Ita mediusfidius, furise prseclarissirase
Beneficio, sum usq; e6 exhileratus denu6, ut
Qui dudum adueniens, cogitabundum hunc animum
Omnei' in parteis dubitatione ueluti
Suspensus distribueram, nunc deniq;
Recedam, noua et insolita prorsus Iseticia,
Et alacritate perfusus mirabili.
ARGVMENTVM ACTYS V.
QVoniam cum Thomas Didymus aberat,
Intrans heros fenestris atq; foribus
Clausis, se discipulis ostentarat suis.
Illi reuerso uiuere conclamant herum.
Qui ut finem narrandi faciunt, ecce Cleopas
Alio loco, inquit, se conuenisse dominum,
Ad Emauntem dum iter castellum suscipit.
Qtise ciim cimctis uiderentur certissima,
Vnus Thomas se posse credere Degat,
Tantisper dum improuisus adest iterum Deus,
Eiusq; dubitatis confirmat fidem.
Post illos et dictis et factis instruit,
Quibus per populos dispergant noua gaudia.
Ad extremum autem undeni proceres admodum
De Christo rediuiuo plaudunt ad inuicem,
Salutem gratulanteis ac uitam sibi,
Deo reddenteis gloriam.
ACTVS
437
[67]
KEDIVIWS.
ACTVS Y. SCENA I.
Thomas. Petrus. Cleopas. Amaon.
Chorus discipulorura.
OSocij, neq; enim sumus ant& maloruru inscij, Trimet.
Vnde hie stupor, unde hoc rairum silentium?
Credo equidem ardentem et igne coruscum spiritum
E nube ruisse, et penetrasse hanc domum :
Ita statis trepidi, ita uos horror quatit.
Pet. Nullo pauore perculsi obstupescimus
Thoma frater : uerum rei miraculo
Et nouitate attoniti ualde* reddimur.
Quam si plen& pernosceres, te, sat scio,
Velle lachrymas effundere prs6 gaudio.
Tho. Ne uiuam, si non quid sit acciperem lubens.
Pet. Lubentior ego rem omnem enarrauero.
Praesentem uidimus, loquentem audiuimus,
Ipsum Christum rediuiuum, quern nos mod6
Multatum morte, et ademptum suspirauimus.
Tho. Quid praedicas ? quse uox aureis intrat meas ?
Is per Deum, iam respirat r ne denu6 ?
An potius elusit simulachrum umbratile,
Et effigies quaedam nobis apparuit ?
Pet. Thoma, Thoma, illu ipsum, haud incerta praedico,
Ilia ipsa retinentem etiamdum uulnera
Aspeximus : ac membra palmis pertrectauimus.
Tho. Ita' ne uero ? quaeso expone seriem
E 2 Rei
438 J. M. HART.
[68]
CHRISTVS
Rei totius gestse, atq; id bona fide.
Pet. Vespertinum tempus erat, occlusse fores,
Occlusa fenestrarum etiam foramina.
Nos tenuibus escis et potionibus
Corpora refecimus et uireis reuocauimus,
Et ad imam cuncti mensam consedimus,
Quandd ille repentin6 coram in media domo
Diuino lumine circumseptus constitit.
Nos credenteis inanem adesse spiritum :
Primo aspectu tremebundi exhorrescere
Coepimus, ac prse metu mensas relinquere.
Turn Christus, degenerem formidinem arguens,
Quid, inquit, perturbato uersatis animo ?
Cernite manus, latus, pedesq; cernite,
Ego ipse sum : pacem una coniunctissimi
Seruate, atq; trepidationem ponite.
Mox omnibus trectate dicit corpora.
Hie hlc uera ossa, et ueram carnem inueneritis,
Quorum nouistis exortem esse spiritum.
At nos cum adhuc mirabunda perpendimus,
Nee herum nostrum esse ilium nobis persuasimus :
Turn de assato pisce, et fauo apiario
Nobiscum edere non recusans, reppetit
Eum sermonem, in quo ante mortem plurimus
Fuit, quern si tenuissemus, mehercule
Ipsius abitum forti tulissemus animo.
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 439
.' [69]
REDIVIVVS.
Hsec ubi facta : is eadem uirtute subito a
Nobis euanuit, qua intrarat lumina.
Tho. O Petre, Petre quid uerba frustra funditas?
Quid surdo fabellam canis? Tarn' ne stupidum
Tarn absq; ullo iudicio et sensu me uiuere
Putas, ut hisce fidem habeam ineptijs ?
Nam hoc ex eo genere est, quod fieri non potest,
Vt sese a mortuis quisquam resuscitet.
EC' quern e prophetis, ec' quern e sanctis patribus
Commemorabis, qui tale quidquam fecerit ?
Cho. disc. Sic et nos uix nobismetipsis credere
Primum poteramus, nee satis, habuimus
Loquentem audire semel, quin pacem saapius
Nouirf commendaus, multa de fati sui
Necessitate, multa de nostri' omnium
Dicebat comrnodis. Sic et Galileides,
Quse primse ilium ipsum fceminse conspexerant,
Tarn nos tardos inuenre ad habendam illis fidem,
Quam tu iamdudum te prsebes incredulum.
Quinimd Cleopee non credidimus, et suo
Consocio, quibus ab urbe paulum euntibus,
Antea quam a nobis uisus est, apparuit.
Tho. De re tarn inaudita, consensum tot hominum
Nusquam est reperire. Sed narra Cleopa omnia,
Nam te quoq; non minus ac alios audiuero.
Cleop. Christum' met ipsum absq; ulla contronersia,
E 3 Thoma
11
440 J. M. HART.
[70]
CHRISTVS
Thoma, et ego et Amaon pariter aspeximus,
Et cum illo ultrd citr6q; uerba fecimus.
Quandd etenim dirigeremus ad arcem Emaun-
tem iter :
Tanquam peregrinus et hospes quidam barbarus
Et obscurus, nobiscum ingressus est uiam.
Quanquam nescio quid nostros prsestrinxit oculos,
Quod eum inter eundum minimi cognouimus.
At ille, qua de re, inquit, uos inter agitur ?
Cur ' nam uestros adfectus continere uix
Valetis, qu6 minus erumpant in lachrymas ?
Ego contra : quid ais ? num' nam tu solus es
Peregrinus hisce diebus in urbe Solyma, et
Nescis, quae dudum perpetrata fuerint?
Roganti quae ilia' nam essent, responsum hoc dedi^:
De lesu Nazareno, qui uates fuit,
Qui rebus gestis atq; uerbis prsepotens,
Tarn apud ipsum Deum quam apud homines fuit.
Et eum sacerdotum quo pacto principes,
Ac primates nostri cruci suffixerint.
Atq; ut nos omneis spes magna tenuit, eum
Redempturum Israel, ac meliorem exitum
Illi futurum, ut qui meliora meruerat.
Et quo modo post triduum Galilei'des,
Quse uacuum se tumulum uidisse, et Angelos
Aiebant, qui affirmarent ilium uiuere, ad
Stuporem
441
[71]
REDIVIVVS.
Stuporem usque adrairari nos coegerant,
Et quemadmodum quidam e nostro consortio,
Statim ad monumentum ipsum festinauerint,
Sintq; expert! ueras fuisse foeminas,
Ipsum uero Christum nusquam repererint.
Turn ille : Ea ' ne uestros tandem animos incredulitas
Excsecauit? Num uaticinationibus,
Num literis ac monumentis stint tradita
Posteritati ducis uestri discrimina?
Num ' nam ille sic uos instruxit ? Num deniq;
Istsec de se futura suis praadixerat ?
Sic fatus, & Mose capiens exordium,
Obscura et inuoluta uatum oracula
Yeterumq; scripta Patrum de misericordia,
Et de sapientia Dei, et de criminum
Etiam expiatione nobi' euoluere hand
Cessabat, ut omnia sibi crucem portenderent.
Qu6 uindicaret a tenebris hominum genus,
Qu6 peccatum, qu6 mortem, qu6 orcum uinceret.
Turn uero, nos intra motus quosdam nouos
Vterq; sentiebamus. Ita is animos
Dictis regebat, et mulcebat pectora.
Namq; memorabat, uti manuum laboribus,
Et seruitutis amaro depresses iugo,
Pharijs ab oris, ad proprios iterum Lareis,
Legumlator ciueis eduxerit suos.
E 4 Hinc
442
J. M. HART.
Monom.
Dimet.
[72]
CHRISTVS
Hinc Abrahamum iussis actum coelestibus
Charissimum filiolum ense petentem Isacon,
Demissumq; refert angelum ipso ab sethere :
Qui aliter suadet, ac pueri insontis loco
Litari arietem iuxt pascentem itibet.
Hijs adiungit losephum, fratres inuidi
Quo funere, quibus' ue discerptum feris,
Patri falsd dixdre, cum uenundarant
Ilium exteris, propter descripta somnia.
Quid loquor, aut suspensum a duce colubrum seneum,
Quo, serpentum afflatu prostrata corpora
Per campum surgebant sanata et Integra :
Aut, ut natasse quosdam homines narrauerit,
Inclusos machina, quum iam tellu'
Et mare
Nullo discrimine
Agerentur, et reliquos mortalei' unda raperet.
Omnia qua} quondam meditanda suis posteris
Prophetse cecinerunt inflati numine,
Ille meminit, donee processit Hesperus
Olympo inuito, ut arbitror.
Et peruentum nobis est ab eundem locum,
Quern supra dixi. Sed quando ulterius iter
Habere se simularet, impetrauimus,
Vt idem nobiscum faceret hospitium.
Quod ipsum syderis alis superuolans,
Nox
443
[73]
REDIVIVVS.
Nox tacita suadebat. Mox diuersorium
Subit. Ad mensam nobiscum adcumbit pauperem.
Qu&m primum autem manu uidimus apprendere
Cererem, atq; modo peculiar! frangere :
E uestigio mens nobis est reddita.
Agnoscimus et colimus aperta numina.
At ille in puncfco ipso et memento temporis,
Abijt, et fc conspectu se nostro abstulit.
Tho. Dixti pulchr. Sed tarn impossibile facinus,
Nemo homo quamuis uehemens, facundus, et
eloquens,
Quamuis limatule et polite pinxerit
Orationem, mihi persuadere poterit,
Eum ipsum his oculis nisi praBsentem uidero,
Hijs^; auribus nisi prsesentis uocem hausero, et
Nisi hisce manibus uolnera prsesentia
Keuera et indubitanter contrectauero.
Verum, quid hie moramur? Repetamus domum,
Ne quis iudeat ex ludseis primoribus.
Bene est, omneis iam nunc tuti consedimus.
ACTVS V. SCENA II.
Christus. Thomas. Chorus disc.
Sit pax uobis, fratres longe charissimi.
Tu uer6 age Didyme, hue hue manum admoueas,
Admoueas in latus meum, ne dubita, ego sum.
E 5 Tho.
444 J. M. HAET.
[74]
CHKISTVS
Tho. Mi domine, mi Deus, mea spes, uita mea,
Noli quseso hanc rebellionem, et pessimam
Incredulitatem posthac imputare mihi.
Nse inconsultus ego, atque excoacatus impia
Philautia fueram, qui proprio ingenio
Tan turn attribuebam, ut rediuiuum credere
Te factum esse nequirem ? quum et aderam
et memini
Quandd alios quarta iam luce solo conditos,
Ad huius uitse munia reuocaueris.
Nunc demum didici, quid sit a te deseri.
Nunc demum didici, ad presidium unius tuum
Confugere, abiectis rebus illis omnibus,
Meo quse animo uidentur plausibilia. Nunc
Demum, fiducise remoti' obstaculis,
Victorise mortis et inferni gustum habeo.
Mortem 6 faustam, mortem quse nostram interficit.
Modis 6 omnibus utilissimam necem,
Quae nos dehinc in uitam sempiternam asserit.
Quas tibi grateis agam pater opt. max.
Qui nou uel unigeno parcebas filio in
Nostrum miserorum alioqui hominum gratiam ?
Ad quantas, quam certasq; spes, nos antefi
Desperabundos erexisti ? Ad quam gloriam
Ac dignitatem accersisti per filium ?
Quum nos peccatorum grauitate et pondere,
Legisq;
GRIMALD'S CHRISTUS REDIVIVUS. 445
[75]
REDIVIVVS.
Legisq; iudicio damnaremur miseri :
Tu clementissime et benignissime pater,
Quod nostra non potuit imbecillitas,
Effecisti, ut natus etiam tuus unice
Tibi dilectus, pro nobis exolueret.
Quis autem, 6 Christe, hominum uoluptas
et quies,
Tarn erit ingratus, ferreus, adamantinus,
Qui ad gratuitam tuam beneficentiam,
Non totus desiderio tui flagret ?
Non totus amore tui inflammetur et ardeat ?
Et, ut ad solem cera, liquescat medullitus?
Sed ego nescio qua corruptus dementia,
Vt limus ad Phoebi radios durescere
Ni tua succurrisset prsesentia, coeperam.
Quare obsecro, facilis meam fidem adaugeas :
Vt mini displiceam totus, uni tibi haBream, et
Vt, qui tua solius ope sic euaserim,
Per omnia semper te gratus depraBdicem.
Christ. Post uisum ipsum corpus, et ipsissima uulnera
Tandem credis Thoma : sed felicissimos
Illos pronuncio, qui hoc persuadeant,
Etiamsi nunquam cernant. Verum tu tamen
Recte et facis, et loqueris. Morti caput obtuli
Pro multi' unus, meaq; sponte, qu6 omnia
Quse per Adamum a suo dilapsa erant statu,
Restituerem
446 J. M. HART.
[76]
CHRISTVS
Restituerem egomet maiori glorise.
Nunc igitur, quando me summus olympus manet,
Memori uos animo mea dicta recondite.
In omneis mundi regiones penetrabitis,
Et ubiq; gentium eritis rerum coelestium
Nuncij : ut (si fieri possit) unusquilibet
Me mortuum sibi, me rediuiuum sibi putet.
Nihil opus erit, uetustas ceremonias,
Aut uictimas retinere, aut sacrificia.
Qui uiuida nixus fide, persuaserit
Sibi, qudd gratis una et sola morte mea,
Delicta et scelera remittuntur omnia,
Doniq; signum huius aqua tinctus habuerit,
Et amori meo mutua respondent
Voluntate : is, quicunq; est, nil quidquam heesitans,
Ccelum ut patriam nostro ex promisso uendicet.
Qui uerd isti non crediderit Euangelio,
Sed aud contemnit, aut uertit prseposter& :
Nil hunc iuuabit lgis obseruatio,
Nil philosophia, nil quaeuis professio,
Qu6 minus seternis destinetur ignibus.
Vos, cum res ipsa poscet, nostro nomine
Serpenteis profligabitis, ac dsemonia
Exterminabitis, et linguis etiam nouis,
Quasi si eas dedicissetis, loquimini.
Nee hausta nocebunt ueneni pocula.
Erga
447
[77]
REDIVIVVS.
Erga aegrotos DOS ut medicos praebebitis.
Et (quod maius quidem est) animi fbedissimos
Morbo', arrogantiam, acediam, lubidinem,
Ambitionem, odium, auaritiam, iram, abdomini
Deuotam gulam, et id genus innumeros propemodum
Diuina ui radicitus extirpabitis.
Nam paruo post tempore, uos sethereus pater
Coelesti afflabit et inspirabit numine.
Quo profectd, pro me quid non audebitis ?
Hoc duce, rges et rerum dominos purpura
Et sceptro insignitos, nihil dubitabitis
Adire, et ueritatem condocefacere : baud
Longe petita erit uobis oratio,
Neq; loquendi tempus, neq; forma et modus :
Hlc spiritus praasens uestra ora diriget, ac
Dabit cuiq; uim uerborum et copiam.
Hunc, hunc animi' uestri' arrabonem accipite, qu6
Vitse illius uobis fiat certissima
Spes, cuius insestimabilia gaudia
Sub cogitationem humanam non cadunt.
Cho. disc. Vieit io, uicit leo de ludse sanguine.
Vicit 16, uicit almum lessasi genus.
Quis non tarn felici applaudat uictorise ?
Hunc unum authorem et conseruatorem unicum
Agnoscat quilibet suum.
Qui nos fuso cruore, exemit crimine
Ab
448 J. M. HART.
[78]
CHRISTYS
Ab omni, et mortem morte deleuit sua
Nostram, ac uitam nobis rediuiuus attulit.
Aded, quse annorum tot clausa est recursibus,
Nunc sublimis olympi ianua recluditur.
Dies nunc est uatum promissa uocibus,
Vt monteis et colleis resultent Iseticia.
Nos autem, tantis iam cumulati gaudijs,
Solymae simus, Deo canenteis gloriam.
Cordnis.
Habetis rem totam, auditores optimi.
Quse si uobis uisa est iucunda et araabilis,
Vt estis Christiani, uos de gloria
Christi rediuiui, deq; uestris commodis
Iam serio triumphanteis, plausam date.
Omnis uni Deo gratia
et gloria.
Columna 13. litera A. in ordine personarum, pro
Cleophas, lege Cleopas.
PUBLICATIONS
OP THE
MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA,
1899.
VOL. XIV, 4. NEW SERIES, VOL. VII, 4.
XIII. PEPPER, PICKLE, AND KIPPER.
When we find an English word beginning with p, we
quite properly suspect it of being an adopted word if not
evidently imitative or of nursery origin. For early English
words beginning with p there are two chief sources : Latin
(including indirectly Greek) and Celtic. If the word appears
only in England, it may a priore have come from either of
these languages. If it is found both in England and on the
continent, it is almost sure to have come from the Latin.
Pickle appears both in England and in North Germany,
Holland, etc., and we are therefore justified in suspecting a
Latin origin for it. It also belongs to the category of words
that we know to have been largely drawn from Italy. In
the earliest days the Italian traders introduced piper ' pepper/
vinum 'wine/ acetum 'essig/ etc. Later the Germanic peoples
owed much of the development of the culinary art among them
to the Christian priests and monks from Italy. They were
fond of good living, of spices and of sauces. They brought
with them from the South seeds and plants, and they raised
vegetables and herbs for the table and for the cure of the
sick. It is, therefore, but natural that we should suppose
that so artificial a product as pickles should have had a
449
450 GEOEGE HEMPL.
similar source. These considerations and a knowledge of the
South-German use of pfeffer in senses similar to those of
pickle led me to associate pickte with pepper. One kind
of pickling suggested that kipper was only another form of
the same word.
The following are the important forms :
OHG. pfeffar.
MHG. pfefer.
NHG. pfeffer, pfefferfisch, pfeffergurke, etc., and, from Low
German, pokel, pokelfleisch, pickelhering.
MLG. peper, pekel, pickel.
MnLG. peper , pekel, pickel, pekelhering, etc.
MDu. peper, pekel.
MnDu. peper, pekel, pekelharing, etc.
OFrz. piper.
MnFrz. peper, paper, pekel, pdkel, pekelherink, etc.
OE. pipor, piper.
ME. piper, peper, pikil.
MnE. pepper, pickle, pickleherring, etc., kepper, kipper,
kippel.
Icelandic piparr, pcekill, saltpcekill ' saltpetre/
Sw. peppar.
Dan. peber.
The Latin word offered a temptation to dissimilate. We
find that this happened in the two chief ways that would be
most natural: (1) pip- > pik- ; (2) pip- > kip-. Cf. Skt.
piplld- > Pali kipilla-, Lat. papilio > Du. pepel and kapel
(in capellenvogel). Lat. papyrwn ]> OE. tapor, Eng. taper,
OF. poupe ' nipple/ ' breast ' > pouque ' bag/ Ger. pumpe >
Rhinefrankish kumpe (gumbe), Lat. plebdnus > Lith. klebonas,
etc. Lat. hippopotamus became ypotamus in Middle English,
with loss of whole syllable (Brugmann 2 , 1, 988) ; and children
now usually call it hitapotamus. Eng. hickock became hicket
and the proper names Babcock and Bartlett are often called,
even by the members of the families, Babcot and Barldett.
Cf. also Brugmann 2 , I, p. 853. The dissimilated forms of the
PEPPER, PICKLE, AND KIPPER. 451
word we have under consideration appear only in the North
in Low German, Dutch, Frizian, English, and Scandinavian.
In the Germanic forms the Latin suffix -er is sometimes
exchanged with -el. Compare the same phenomenon in
OHG. amar > MHG. amer and amel, OHG. hadara >
MHG. hader and hadel, OHG. zinseri > MHG. zinsel, OHG.
panthera > MHG. panter and pantel, and see Wilmanus 2 , I,
114. The i also interchanges with e, for which see Wil-
manns 2 , 1, 181, middle p. 235, and Morsbach's Mittelenglische
Grammatik, 113-115. For the o of German pokel, see
Wilmanns 2 , I, 230. 1
The chief meanings of the words are as follows : 2
I. pepper, pfeffer, etc.
(1) (a) The fruit of the pepper plant, whether powdered or
in the berry.
(6) The latter is also called pepper-corn, which word then
assumes the general meaning of anything small or of small
value, also the technical meaning ' a rent or other considera-
tion that is only nominal. 7 The verb 'to pepper' also has
acquired a general meaning : ' to pelt with kernels of any
grain or with other small bodies/ (English and German.)
(2) (a) A spiced sauce containing vinegar, stewed elder-
berries, etc. (Tyrol). A similar pearsauce, plumsauce, etc.
(Nassau).
(b) A sauce or gravy of which the brine forms a small or
a large part and to which vinegar is usually added. This is
1 It is strange that Wilmanns attributes the change of e to o to a neighbor-
ing I or sch, and admits the influence of a neighboring labial only in the
dialects. There are but four words in his list that do not contain a labial,
and more than that number that contain a labial but do not contain an / or
sch. The truth appears to be that labials and sch and / tend to labialize an
e, and that they are particularly successful if a labial and an / or sch occur
near the same e, just as English u is generally retained only between a labial
and an I or sh (/it//, pull, bull, wolf, etc. ; push, bush, etc.), while it sinks and
becomes unrounded elsewhere (but, cup, us, etc.; rush, gush, etc.).
*The meanings of the three words are classified and arranged alike, so
that the corresponding uses may easily be found.
452 GEORGE HEMPL.
poured over the pickled meat (cf. 3 below) after it has been
boiled (in the brine, in Bavaria) or roasted (in Hesse,
etc.), and is about to be served. Also distinguished as ' ein
schwarzer pfeffer ' or ' ein gelber pfeffer/ also ( pfefferbriihe '
or ' pfeffersauce.' Cf. English ' peppersauce.'
(3) A brine containing spices for pickling fish, game, and
very fat meat, especially hare, mutton, goose, and pork ; for
example, ' einen hasen in pfeffer einmachen. 7 The period of
pickling varies : in Silesia over night, in Hesse one or two
days, in Bavaria four to eight days. (Silesia, Austria, Bavaria,
Wurtemberg, Switzerland, Hesse.)
(4) The process : to pepper, pfeffern, einpfeffern.
(a) To strew or season with pepper.
(6) To strew or rub with pepper, etc., as a means of pre-
serving : gepfefferte wurste, gepfefferte hdringe, eingepfefferte
melonen.
(5) (a) The thing pickled according to 4 : hasenpfeffer,
gdnsepfejfer ; pfeffergurke, etc. Also the thing otherwise made
with pepper = pfefferwurst etc.
(6) .
(6) Figuratively:
(a) = ' pungent ' in pepperroot etc., cf. kippernut.
(b) = uncomfortable situation : in den pfeffer geraten; er
liegt (or sitzt) im pfeffer; aus dem pfeffer laufen; einen aus
dem pfeffer helfen.
All these meanings the word pepper, pfeffer, still has in
High-German territory. In the North and in England
the byforms pekel, pokel, pickle and kepper, kipper, kippel have
relieved it of some of its burden. It was natural that the
original thing, the pepper itself, should retain the more
original form of the word. The dealers were familiar with
it in bills and orders and they and, in many cases, their
customers could see the word daily in distinct letters on the
front of the pepper drawer or can. The corrupted forms,
therefore, attached themselves to the home preparations and
453
thus the differentiated forms accommodated themselves to the
differentiated meanings.
II. The form pekel, pokel, pickle has the following mean-
ings using the same numbers as above.
(1) (a) .
(b) 'A kernel of any kind of grain ; ' then, more generally,
'anything of small size or value/ so ( a small amount' or
'a small number' of anything, 'a few/ (Scotland.) Where
mickle becomes muckle; for example, in Aberdeenshire, pickle
becomes puckle.
(2) (a) A spiced liquid containing a large amount of vine-
gar and used for preserving cucumbers, peaches, pears,
blackberries, etc. (England, Scotland, and America.) Before
being pickled in this way, the cucumbers are immersed in a
brine for about a day.
(6) .
(c) A liquid consisting of brine and vinegar for pickling
tongue, etc. (England, Scotland, and America.)
(3) A brine (sometimes spiced) for pickling fish and meat,
especially herring, pork, and beef. (North Germany, Holland,
Frisia, England, etc.)
(4) The process : to pickle, pokeln, einpokeln, to put up
meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit in vinegar or brine (or both),
to which various spices and leaves have been added.
(5) (a) The thing pickled, especially pickled vegetables.
Thus pickled cucumbers are called cucumber pickles, cf. also
tomato pickles, mixed pickles, and pickles in general. Fish
and meats are usually distinguished as pickled herrings, pickled
pork, etc.
(6) The thing that is most commonly pickled is often
spoken of as a pickle even before the process. Thus we speak
of ' putting up pickles' and of ' buying pickles (= cucumbers)
to put up.' Last fall a farmer came to the door and, when
my wife asked him whether he had any cucumbers, he
answered : " Not this morning, but I have some very nice
cucumber pickles," meaning cucumbers too small to slice up
454 GEORGE HEMPL.
but just right for pickling. Children and, in some parts,
even grown people call cucumbers on the vine ' pickles.'
Hence, too, picJcleworm ' a worm that infests cucumber vines.'
(6) Figuratively:
(6) = uncomfortable situation : He left us in a pretty pickle
(England, etc.), in de pekel zitten (Holland), er liegt im pokel
(North Germany).
III. The form kepper, kipper, kippel is, so far as I know,
restricted to English, kipper is now the usual form.
(i)
(2)
(3) .
(4) The process : to kipper,
(a) .
(6) 'To prepare or cure, as salmon, herring, etc., by clean-
ing them well, giving them several dry rubbings of pepper
and salt, and then drying them, either in the open air or
artificially by means of smoke or peat or juniper berries.'
Century Dictionary.
(5) (a) The salmon, herring, or trout kippered according
to 4.
(6) The salmon, herring, or trout not. yet kippered, espe-
cially one in the stage when they are (or formerly were) most
commonly kippered, rather than eaten fresh, that is, in the
spawning season, and particularly the spent male salmon.
" He [Scott], and Skene of Rubislaw, and I were out one
night about midnight, leistering [spearing] kippels in Tweed,"
Hogg, quoted in the Century Dictionary. " That no person
take and kyl any Salmons or Trowtes, not beyng in season,
being kepper Salmons, or kepper Trowtes, shedder Salmons,
or shedder Trowtes," Acts Hen. VII., c. 21 . RastelFs Statutes,
Fol. 182, a, quoted by Jamiesou. Hence the spawning season
is called kipper-time : " That no salmon be taken between
Gravesend and Henly upon Thames in kipper-time, viz.,
between the Invention of the Cross (3 May) and the
PEPPER, PICKLE, AND KIPPEK. 455
Epiphany." Rot. Parl. 50, Edw. III., Cowel, Quoted by
Jamieson.
(6) Figuratively :
(a) = ' pungent ' in kippernut, cf. pepperroot, etc.
(6)
The development and the branching of the meaning of
pepper, etc., are very natural. From the fruit of the plant
itself it spread to various preparations containing pepper and
other spices; cf. the use of honig in honigkuchen and of ginger
in gingerbread, gingerpears, etc. That in the form pickle it
was in time applied to processes in which little or no pepper
was used is not at all strange. We find the same where the
form pepper itself is used, namely, in pfefterkuchen, which is
usually made without any pepper at all. But, of course, this
extension was more likely to take place in pickle than in
pepper, because the latter word constantly reminds one of its
original meaning, while pickle does not. The development
of the word was not the same in all parts. A chief point of
difference is whether vinegar or brine is used. In most
of North Germany brine alone is understood by pokel, while,
on the contrary, in many parts of England the word pickle
necessarily implies the use of vinegar. In those parts of
England and America, in which this is the case, we hear
of salt herring, salt pork, and corned beef, of salting down
and of the brine not the pickle. So in parts of Germany,
especially Middle Germany, where neither pokel nor pfeffer is
employed, we hear of salzfleisch, salzgurke or sauere gurke (dill
pickle), of einsalzen or in salz legen, and of salzlake or salz-
bruhe. In some parts pokeln is restricted to pork ; herrings,
for example, being called salzheringe or gesalzene heringe.
In some cases, for example, in pickling ordinary cucumbers
(pfejfergurken or essiggurken), the things to be pickled are
first placed in a brine and afterwards in vinegar ; in others,
for example, in pickling tongue, the pickle consists of both
brine and vinegar. Hence the confusion of the two processes
of preserving was almost inevitable.
456 GEORGE HEMPL.
It will be well to consider briefly the etymologies hereto-
fore given for pickle and kipper.
No one has ever offered a satisfactory explanation of the
word pickle pokel. The German books repeat, with more or
less disapproval, an old story according to which the word is
due to the name of a man who first invented the process,
Wilhelm Bockel or Bokel. But it has long ago been shown
that this is impossible. The change of b to p is irregular,
and such a German form could never explain the English
form ; moreover the English word and the process long ante-
date Wilhelm Bockel. Koolmann, in his Worterbuch der
Ostfriesischen Sprache, derives the word from Du. beek, Eng.
beck, Ger. bach, assuming ' fluid ' as the original meaning ;
but the p of pick/e, etc., makes this too impossible. The
original character of the p is thoroughly established and in
no way invalidated by the rare spelling bokel (for pokel),
which is probably due to hocking and bockling ' smoked her-
ring/ or to the erroneous association of the word with the
name Bockel, just as Mahn contrariwise changes the name
Bockel to Pokel to agree with pokeln. Others suggest that
the word may be derived from Eng. pick thus Wedgwood
calls attention to the meaning ' cleanse ' that pick is said to
have locally, and Kluge, refers to the meaning ' prick ' that
pick sometimes shows, evidently having in mind the sharp,
pungent taste of pickles. But the authors of these suggestions
make them in a half-hearted way, evidently because at a loss
for something better.
Two plausible but erroneous etymologies of kipper have
been brought forward. The first derives it from kip ' point/
with reference to the ( beak ' that the male salmon is said to
have when lie has spent milt. A similar idea appears to have
been in Walton's, mind when he wrote: "Those [i. e., salmon]
.... left behind by degrees grow sick and lean, and unseason-
able, and kipper that is to say, have bony gristles grow out
of their lower chaps," Complete Angler, p. 122, quoted in
Century Dictionary. The idea, at first sight, seems a natural
PEPPER, PICKLE, AND KIPPER. 457
one; it is, however, a case of popular etymology. If the fish
were named for the sort of hook that it appears to have when
spent, we should expect it to be called at best a 'kipped
salmon,' or perhaps a ' kip ' or ' kippie.' To call it a kipper
would be like calling a beaked bird a ' beaker,' the horned
owl a f homer,' the tufted titmouse a ' tufter,' the spotted bass
a 'spotter,' or the speckled trout a 'specker' or ' speckler.'
Nouns in -er are, for the most part, derived from verbs and
denote an agent or actor (fighter, giver, speaker, etc.). When
derived from other nouns, they denote a functionary (jailor,
bencher, executioner, larderer), or one following a line of
business (fruiter, palmer, lawyer) they never, to my knowl-
edge, denote the possessor of a peculiarity, except in the
comparatively recent slang of English universities. Further-
more, the beaklike lower jaw of the spent salmon bends
down [ a the male salmon, often especially during the spawn-
ing season, having his nose beaked down like a bird's bill,"
cf. Jamieson under kipper nose], but a kip is an upturned
point, a peak (especially of a mountain), and ' to kip ' is to
turn up or to be turned up, as the horns of cattle, etc. So
'kip-nosed' means 'having the nose turned up at the point'
our ' pug-nosed.' A ' kipper nose,' on the contrary, is a long
beaked nose : " This scene went on the friar standing before
the flame, and Turn and Giffie, with their long kipper noses,
peeping over his shoulder," Perils of Man, II, 50, quoted by
Jamieson. The usual etymology of the word traces it to Du.
kippen ' to hatch/ from which the step to ' to spawn ' is easy,
and thus Skeat says a kipper is a ' spawner. 7 If this were
true, we should expect the word to be applied particularly to
the female fish ; but, when any distinction of sex is made, the
term is applied specifically to the male, the female being called
a ( shedder ' or ' roan ' (cf. Jamieson). The derivation of the
word from the Dutch would be natural if this process of
preserving fish and, with the process, the name for it had
come from Holland. We know, however, that the Dutch
have no word corresponding to kipper, and, so far as I can
458 GEORGE HEMPL.
learn, even kippen is not used of fish in Holland. In Dutch
and Low German the word means primarily to 'peck' or
' pick/ then specifically of a young bird or chick in the egg,
that picks the shell open ; also of the old bird or hen that
aids it with her bill. It might be urged that kipper was not
derived directly from the continental kippen but from a cog-
nate English verb that is lost, but whose meaning may have
been extended from birds to fish, from hatching chicks to
spawning. Now, it happens that there not only was such an
English verb but that it still exists ; its meaning is, however,
as restricted as that of the continental kippen, and its form, as
was to be expected, is chip not kip. As kipper is not restricted
to those parts of England that retain original k before i, we
should expect the word, if derived from original k, to have
in most of England the form chipper, which to ray knowledge
it never has.
Both of these attempts to explain the word have made it
necessary to ignore the natural and usual meaning of kipper
and to seek its explanation in one of its rarer meanings. Cf.
Skeat: "Kipper, to cure or preserve salmon. (Du ). This
meaning is quite an accidental one, arising from a practice
of curing kipper-salmon, i. e., salmon during the spawning
season." The association of kipper with pepper shows that
the most usual meaning of the word (namely, the fish pre-
served by being subjected to "dry rubbings of pepper and
salt," not the living fish) is the more original, as we observe
also in the case of pickle as applied to the preserved cucumber
and to the green cucumber.
This etymology clearly illustrates the fact, so often for-
gotten, that the solution of a problem in English word-lore
frequently lies in one of the other Germanic languages.
Without an acquaintance with the South-German usage as to
the word pfeffer no one would have thought of associating
English pepper, pickle, and kipper.
GEORGE HEMPL.
XIV. A HITHERTO UNNOTICED MIDDLE
ENGLISH MANUSCRIPT OF THE
SEVEN SAGES.
In the very exhaustive and thorough account of the Middle
English versions of the Seven Sages by Dr. Killis Campbell,
which appeared in these Publications, xiv, pp. 37 f., I see
that the Bodleian MS. has escaped notice. As I believe that
no one has hitherto called attention to this version, it may be
worth while to give a brief account of it here. I came Across
it some years ago whilst working through a number of the
Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library. The MS. in question
bears the press mark MS. Rawl. Poet. 175 (New Catalogue
14667) and is a parchment MS. of the middle of the 14th
century, The Seven Sages occupying fol. 109-131 b . This
Rawlinson version is in the Northern dialect and agrees very
closely indeed with MS. C (Cotton Galba E. ix) ; in fact in
the portions which I have examined, these two MSS. agree
almost word for word, as the following specimen and colla-
tions show. To give some idea of the MS. I here append (1)
11. 1-128 1 in full, (2) the readings from the Rawlinson MS.
which differ from MS. C in the Avis story, 2 and (3) the read-
ings from the Rawl. MS. which differ from MS. C in the last
portion of the whole (11. 3913-4002). 3 Contractions are
denoted by italics.
1 The C version of these lines is printed in Weber, Metrical Bomances,
m, 3-8.
2 The C version of this story will be found printed in full by Petras,
Ueber die mittelenglischen Fassungen der Sage von dew sieben weisen Meistern,
Breslau, 1885, p. 56. In printing the variants I disregard mere differences
of spelling.
3 The Aversion of this last portion is in Weber, in, p. 149.
459
460 ARTHUR 8. NAPIER.
I.
HERE BEGYNS J?E PROCESS OF J?E fol. 109.
SEUEN SAGES.
Lordynges J?at here lykes to dwell,
Leues yhour spech and heres J>is spell.
I sail yhow tell, if I haue tome,
Of J?e seuen sages of Rome.
Whilom lyfecl a noble mane,
His name was Diocliciane ;
Of Rome and of all J?e honoure
Was he lord and emperoure.
Ane Emperise he had to wyfe,
pe fairest lady ]>ai bare lyfe ;
Of all gud maners full auenant,
And hir name was dame Milisant.
A child f>ai had bitwix )>am two,
pe fairest ]?at on fote myght go,
A knaue child J?at was J?am dere ;
Of him sone sail yhe selconthes here.
Sone afterward bifell f>is case,
pe lady dyed and grauen wase,
And went whare god hir dyght to dwell ;
parfor of hir no more I tell,
Whether scho past to pyne or play,
Bot of J>e son I sail yhow say.
When he was seuen wynter aid,
Of spech and bourdyng was he bald ;
Florentyne his name cald was.
Herkens now a ferly case.
His fader was Emperour of Rome,
A noble man and wise of dome,
And florentyne ]>at was so fayre,
Was his son and als his ay re.
It was no thing ]>at he lufed mare,
A MIDDLE ENGLISH MS. OF THE SEVEN SAGES. 461
parfor he wold him sett to lare ;
And sone he gert bifor him come
Seuen maisters pat war in Rome,
pe tale vs telles who to it tentes
pat pai couth all pe seuen scientes.
And sone, when pai war efter sent,
Hastily to pe court pai went,
pai come bifor pe Emperoure,
And hailsed him with gret honoure
He said, 'lordynges, takes en tent,
And sese whi I efter yhow sent,
For yhe er wysest men of lare,
pat in pis world yhit euer ware.
My son I will yhe haue forpi,
To mak him conand in clergy ;
And I will ]>at yhe teche him euen
pe sotelte of science seuen ;
And all yhour wisdom and yhow wytt,
Mi will es pat yhe teche him itt.
Whilk of yhow now will him haue,
And fullfyll pis pat I craue?'
Maister Bancillas spak pan,
For of pam was he oldest man ;
Lene he was and allso lang,
And mast gentyll man pam omangj
Full perfytely he couth his partes,
And sadly of all pe seuen artes.
' Sir/ he sayd, ( tak me ]?i son,
Full mykell thank I will j>e kon,
And trewly I sail teche him ]?an
Of clergy more J>an any man.
pat dar I vndertak )>e here
Wtt/iin pe space of seuen yhere.'
When )>is was sayd, he held his pese ;
And pan said maister Anxilles,
(He was a man metelyest,
462 ARTHUR S. NAPIER.
And of eld als him semed best,
Of sexty wynter and no mare,
And als he was full wise of lare) :
' Sir, tak me pi son/ he said,
1 And pou sail hald pe full wele payd ;
I sail him lere full ryght and rathe,
pat I kan and my felows bathe.
I vndertak he sail it lere
Within pe space of sex yhere.'
pe thred maister was lytell man,
Faire of chere and whyte als swan ;
His hare was white and nothing broune,
And he hight maister Lentiliouue.
He spak vnto pe Emperoure,
( Tak me pi son, sir, paramoure,
And I sail teche him full trewly
All maner of clergy
pat any man leres in pis lyue,
Within ]>e terme of yheres fyue. 7
(fol. I09 b ) [pe] 1 ferth maister a red man was,
And his name was Malquidras ;
Of fyfty wynter was he aid,
Quaynt of hand and of spech bald.
Him thoght skorn and gret hething,
pat f>ai made swa gret rosyng.
' Sir/ he said, < I sail tell ]?e,
Mi felows witt falles noght to me ;
Ne of J?air wisdome, on none wyse,
Will I mak no marchandyse.
Bot, sir, Y\ son vnto me take,
And I sail teche him for pi sake,
pe science of Astronomy,
pat falles to pe sternes of pe sky,
And other sex science allswa,
1 )>e is no longer there.
A MIDDLE ENGLISH MS. OF THE SEVEN SAGES. 463
In foure yhere witAouten rna. J
pe fyft maister was wise of dome,
And he was cald Caton of rome ;
He made pe buke of Caton clere,
pat es bigynyng of Gramere.
He carped loud vnto pe kyng,
' Sir, tak pi son to my techy ng,
I wald noght he desayued ware,
Bot I ne knaw noght my felows lare.
Bot for to lere him I warand,
Als mykell als he may vnderstand,
And als his wyttes wele may here 1
Forthermare dar I noght say,
So pat in tyme of seuen yhere
He sail be wise wit/iouten were. 7
pe sext maister rayse vp onane,
pe fairest man of pam ilkane
lesse was his name, godote,
Wit/ioiiten faut fro heued to fote,
His hare was blayk and nothing broune ;
With eghen faire als a fawkoune.
' Sir/ he said, ' if pi will were,
Tak pi son to me at lere.
I sail him teche with hert fre,
So pat within yheres thre,
Sail he be so wise of lare,
pat yhe sail thank me euermare.'
II. 2
VARIANT READINGS OF THE Avis STORY.
MS. Rawlinson fol. 122. b
2420 s It hanged] And it hynged
2455 And thar] pare
1 So the MS. . * Cp. Petras, p. 56.
3 The numbering of the lines is that of Petras.
464 ARTHUR S. NAPIER,
2462 leuyng] leuenyng
2465 cache] kage .(,
2474 ester] efter
2477 and night] J;e nyght
2478 shoke] hir schoke
2479-80 fat scho had neuer so euell rest
Sen scho come out of hir nest.
2492 leuenings] leuenyng
2513 was] war
2515 to knaw] we knaw
2516 of hy] o sky
2520 lok] toke
2525 the ledder] )>at ledder
2626 He had] And had
2533 was gude] well gud
2534 his wife] ]?e wife
2638 his soth] hir soth
2547 moght] mot.
III. 1
3915 Wit A reuerence and with gret honoure.
3927 bren] brent
3933 he sayd] he had sayd
3935 efter] men efter
3939 soth] als soth
3957 gandes] gaudes 2
3963 al the gilt] ]>e gylt
3973 Sir] sirs.
1 Cp. Weber, in, p. 149.
These variants from the printed texts exceed in number the real
variants from the MSS. According to Dr. Killis Campbell's copies and
collations of the MSS. the variants noticed by Professor Napier in 2420,
2455, 2462, 2474, 2478, 2479-80, 2492, 2515, 2516, 2520, 2525, 2534, and
2538 are to be attributed to the faults of Petras's text of the Avi*;
and Weber's text is to be held accountable for the variants 3927, 3939, and
3957. This note is added with the kind permission of Professor Napier.
J. W. B.
ARTHUR S. NAPIER.
XV. ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE
ITALIAN: THE TITLES OF SUCH WORKS
NOW FIRST COLLECTED AND
ARRANGED, WITH
ANNOTATIONS.
IV. MISCELLANEA.
INTRODUCTION.
In 1894, while preparing my doctor's thesis at Yale Uni-
versity, on the subject, " The Elizabethan Drama, especially in
its Relations to the Italians of the Renaissance" I began to
study the Italian sources of the English dramatic poetry of
the age of Elizabeth. Many of the plays are dramatized
versions of novelle^ which, in translation, were so popular at
that time. But I soon found that romantic fiction by no
means exhausted the treasure-trove of Renaissance, literature
upon which the great dramatists drew so largely, both for
their matter and their inspiration. Italian discovery, history,
science, manners, music, all that Italy had so abundantly
contributed to the general stock of intellectual wealth, was
becoming more and more familiar to the eager, open, im-
pressionable minds of Elizabethan Englishmen, and almost
everything of importance that appeared in France and Spain
was sooner or later pressed into the service of English genius.
So I purposely set aside the main subject of my inquiry, the
Italian sources of Elizabethan plays, until I had made a
collection, as complete as possible, of all the translations from
the Italian during the Elizabethan period, understanding by
that, the entire cycle of the great drama, approximately from
the accession of Edward VI. to the Restoration, from 1549
to 1660. With this paper, Part IV, I now complete the
bibliography. Part I, comprising 70 numbers, on " Romances
in Prose," will be found in the Publications of the Modern
2 465
466 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Language Association, Vol. x, No. 2, June, 1895; Part II,
82 numbers on " Poetry, Plays, and Metrical Romances,"
Ibid., Vol. xi, No. 4, December, 1896; and Part III, 111
titles on ' Miscellaneous Translations/ 'Ibid., Vol. xm, No. 1,
January, 1898. The present paper, an account of 139 trans-
lations, is the second half of Part III, and as that dealt with
religion and theology, science and the arts, grammars and
dictionaries, and proverbs, so this instalment of Miscellanea
treats of voyages and discovery, history and politics, manners
and morals, and Italian and Latin publications in England.
The whole bibliography, corrected to date, consists of 411
translations, representing a total of 219 English translators,
and 223 Italian authors.
The two hundred and nineteen Englishmen include, directly
or indirectly, every considerable writer of the period. Bacon
is not here, but his friend, Sir Toby Matthew, the most
' Italianated ' Englishman of his time, translates the Moral
Essays into Italian, and dedicates them to Cosmo, Grand
Duke of Tuscany, eulogizing his lifelong friend for " having
all the thoughts of that large heart of his set upon adorning
the age in which he lives, and benefitting. as far as possible
the whole human race." Shakspere is not here, but Shak-
spere is the soul of the romantic drama, and the English
romantic drama not only went to Italian literature for its
subjects, but it borrowed from the Italian drama much of
its machinery, the chorus, the echo, the play within the play,
the dumb show, the ghosts of great men as Prologue, appa-
ratus in general, and physical horrors ad terrorem. The
stories of fourteen Shaksperean dramas are found in Italian
fiction, and several other plays contain suggestions from it.
The list of Italian authors includes practically every notable
Italian writer of the Renaissance, on all sorts of subjects.
Of the foreign influences that shaped Elizabethan literature,
unquestionably the Italian was the greatest. In discovery and
commerce, Columbus was merely the last of a long line of
Italian navigators, who, in the service of the western nations,
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 467
sailed into distant and unknown seas. In history, transla-
tions of the great vernacular Italian historians, Machiavelli,
Guicciardini, and Cardinal Bentivoglio, prepared the way for
our English Hall, Grafton, Stow, and Holinshed. In poli-
tics. Sir Thomas Smith, the Earl of Mon mouth, and James
Howell, follow in the footsteps of Malvezzi, Father Paul,
Botero, and Paruta. Philosophy, through the intrepid spirit
of Bruno, cast off forever the shackles of scholasticism to
enter upon its inheritance from antiquity, and it was the
England of Elizabeth that permitted Bruno to speak. The
Italian astronomers reveal the secrets of the skies, and Milton,
travelling in Italy, seeks out and visits, at Arcetri, the
greatest of them, " the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner
to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than
the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." Teofilo
Folengo, Trajano Boccalini, Paolo Giovio, and Poggio-Brac-
ciolini, helped at least to make known to the more sombre
English the sunny smile of humor and the rapier thrust of
wit. In manners, the Italians of the 16th century had all
Europe for their pupils. Delia Casa's Galateo is a graceful
and intelligent guide to good manners to this day, and II
Cortigiano is a classic, the best book on manners that has
ever been written. It was the fashion for young Englishmen
of family to finish their education by the tour to Italy, and
many of the translators are these ' Italianated ' travellers,
Crashaw, Daniel, Greene, Drummond, Gascoigne, Howell,
and Milton.
In the Courtyer, a knowledge of music is said to be neces-
sary for the well-bred gentleman, and Venice, which was
the Paris of that time, was the most musical city in Italy.
So we find the Elizabethan lutanists and madrigalists both
travellers and imitators of Italian musicians. John Dowland,
in the Epistle prefixed to his First Boole of Songs or Airs,
refers with pride to the encouragement he had received from
Luca Marenzio and Giovanni Croce. Thomas Oliphant, in
La Musa Madrigalesca, accuses Thomas Morley of barefaced
468 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
plagiarisms from the madrigali of Felice Anerio and the
ballate of Gastoldi. In the preface to Part II. I suggested
that a study of the relation between the Elizabethan lutanists
and Italian madrigal writers might throw considerable light
on the lyrical quality of Elizabethan dramatic poetry. For
some one who knows both historical music and the Italian
poetry of the Renaissance, I feel sure that there is something
of value to be learned from John Dowland, John Wilbye,
best of English madrigalists, John Ward, John Hilton,
Thomas Weelkes, organist successively of Winchester College
and of Chichester Cathedral, and from other Elizabethan
composers.
Nor was all the travel in one direction. Bruno, Vanini,
Yermigli, Ochino, and Michelangelo Florio found refuge in
Protestant England. Other Italians came over as teachers
of various arts. Vincentio Saviolo taught fencing and
suggested the immortal Touchstone. Charles I. employed
Orazio de 7 Gentileschi (Orazio Lomi) and his daughter,
Artemisia, both painters, to decorate his palace at Greenwich.
Girolamo Cardano visited Edward VI. in a medical capacity,
and left an account of his impressions of the young king
which is extremely favorable, and all the more valuable
because it comes from a competent and disinterested observer.
It is really wonderful how familiarly Italian and things
Italian were known in England in Elizabeth's time. I
question whether any foreign vogue, before or since, ever
took such hold upon English society. Pietro Bizarri, the
historian, said of Queen Elizabeth, "she is a perfect mistress
of our Italian tongue," and we read how in her last illness
the great Queen turned wearily away from matters of state
to listen with charm to the Hundred Merry Tales. The
Portuguese ambassador habitually corresponded with Sir
Francis Walsingham in Italian, and among the State Papers
of the period Italian letters are not at all uncommon. We
see here Cecil issuing political papers in Italian, as well as
in English and Latin.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 469
My next paper will essay to bring together the Elizabethan
dramas that are Italian in source, or scene, or direct sugges-
tion. The whole cycle of the drama, within the limits of
this bibliography, consists, roughly speaking, and including
all sorts of representations, of upwards of 1 500 plays, masques,
pageants, and shows. Of these about one-half have survived.
My studies of these surviving 700 or so plays show nearly
300 that hark back to Italy. If imitative plays, or plays of
remote suggestion be included, the number of ' Italianated '
dramas would be still greater. For example, Mr. Courthope,
in his History of English Poetry, argues ably, and, to my
mind, conclusively, that Marlowe produced his great plays
under the spell of Machiavelli. Peele also wrote under
the Italian spell. Perhaps some one some day may find the
names of Marlowe and Peele among the English students
of the University of Padua. Elze says that students repre-
senting twenty-three different nations thronged to Padua
towards the close of the 16th century, and that not a few
Englishmen were among them.
I have many friends to thank for encouragement and
suggestions during the progress of this work. They will
appreciate with me a thought from that most charming of
books, Anatole France's Le Orime de Sylvestre Bonnard,
" I opened a book which I began to read with interest, for
it was a catalogue of manuscripts. I do not know any read-
ing more easy, more fascinating, more delightful, than that
of a catalogue."
a. VOYAGES AND DISCOVERY.
1555. The [three] Decades of the newe worlde or west India,
conteynyng the navigations o.nd conquestes of the Spanyardes,
with the particular description of the moste riche and large
landes and Ilandes lately founde in the west Ocean perteynyng
to the inheritaunce of the Kinges of Spayne. . . . Written in
the Latine lounge by Peter Martyr of Angleria, and translated
470 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
into Englysshe by E. [ichard] Eden. (The hystorie of the
Weste Indies, wrytten by Gonzalus Ferdinandus. A discourse
of the marvelous vyage made by the Spanyardes rounde aboute
the worldej gathered owt of a large booke wrytten hereof by
master A. \ntonio~] Pygafetta. The debate and stryfe betwene
the Spanyardes and Portug ales, for the division of the Indies
and the trade of Spices and also for the Hands of Molucca ....
by J. Lopez de Gomara. [Francisco L6pez de G6mara~\. Of
Moscovie and Cathay. The historie written in the latin toonge
by P. Jovius . ... of the legation or ambassade of greate Basilius
Prince of Moscovia to pope Clement the vij. Other notable
thynges as touchynge the Indies. Of the generation of metalles
and their mynes with the maner of fyndinge the same: written
in the Italian tounge by Vannuccius Biringuczius [ Vannucdo
Biringuccio~\. Description of two viages made owt of England
into Guinea .... m .... M.D.L.III.).
R. Jug. In aedibus Guilhelmi Powell, London, 1555. 4to.
Black letter. British Museum, (3 copies).
Francisco L6pez de G6mara, 1519-1560, was chaplain to
Herndn Cortes, El Conquistador. He wrote Conquista de
Mejico.
Gonzalez Fernandez de Oviedo y Valde"s, 1478-1557, was
once secretary to the Great Captain. His Historia general y
natural de Indias was published at Salamanca in 1535, folio.
Peter Martyr, Pietro Martire, of Anghiera, by Lago
Maggiore, was a member of the Council of the Indies, and
secretary to Ferdinand and Isabella, and to the Emperor
Charles V., and also the friend and correspondent of Colum-
bus. It is said that Pope Leo X. sat up all night to read the
Decades, so keen was the curiosity and the sense of wonder
roused by the tales of the returning voyagers from the new
world.
See The History of Trauayle in the West and East Indies,
1577, and Of F. Magalianes .... The Occasion of his Voyage,
in Purchas his Pilgrimes. 1625.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 471
1577. Of the viages of 8. [ebastian] C. [abot]. See
Anglerius, P. M.
The History of Travayle in the West and East Indies, etc.
1577. 4to. British Museum.
1577. The History of Trauayle in the West and East Indies,
and other countreys lying eyther way, towardes the fruitfull
and ryche Molluccaes. As Moscouia, Persia, Arabia, Syria,
Aegypte, Ethiopia, Guinea, China in Cathayo, and Giapan:
With a discourse of the Northwest passage. . . . Gathered in
parte, and done into Englyshe by Richarde Eden. Newly set
in order, augmented, and finished by Richarde Willes.
Imprinted at London by Richarde Jugge. 1577. Cum
Priuilegio. 4to. Black letter. Huth. British Museum, (4
copies).
Dedicated, by Richarde Willes, to "The Lady Brigit,
Countesse of Bedforde, my singuler good Lady and Mys-
tresse."
This is a new edition of Richard Eden's translation of
Peter Martyr's, "The Decades of the newe worlde or west
India." 1555. 4to. Two additions to the work are, "The
Voyages of the Spanyards round about the worlde," translated
from the relations of Maximilianus Transylvanus and Ant.
Pigafetta, 77 viaggio fatti dagli Spagnivoli atorno a'l Hondo,
and An Abridgement of P. Martyr his 5. 6. 7. and 8. Decades.
The Chevalier Francisco Antonio Pigafetta, of Vicenza,
"for to seethe marvels of the ocean/' accompanied Ferdinand
Magellan [Fernao de Magalhaes] in his circumnavigation of
the globe, from September, 1519 to September, 1522. He
was one of the eighteen survivors (out of some 280 men) of
that splendid feat of navigation, and a journal kept by him
during the three years
Of moving accidents by flood and field
is\)ur chief source of information as to the first voyage around
the earth.
472 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
It is more than likely that Shakspere had read Pigafetta's
journal in Eden's History of Trauayle, for he takes from it
the name of Caliban's god, Setebos [Tempest, i. 2. and v. 1],
While the ships were wintering at Port St. Julian, Patagonia,
1520, Magellan captured two of the Patagonians "by deceyte
by loading them with presents and then causing shackels of
iren to be put on theyr legges, makynge signes that he wold
also giue them those chaynes ; but they begunne to doubte,
and when at last they sawe how they were deceaued they
rored lyke bulles and cryed uppon theyr greate deuyll Setebos
to helpe them."
1577. A brief e description of Moscovia, after the later
writers, as 8. Munster [Sebastian Muenster], and J. Gastaldus
\_Jacopo Gastaldi~\.
See Anglerius, P. M., The History of Travayle in the West
and East Indies, etc. 1577. 4to.
1577. Certaine reportes of the province of China, learned
.... chiefly by the relation of G. P. \_Galeotto Perera~\. . . .
Done out of Italian into Engylyshe by R. W. [ittes],
See Eden, R., "The History of Travayle in the West and
East Indies," etc. 1577. 4to.
1580. A Shorte and brief e narration of the Two Nauiga-
tions and Discoueries to the North-weast partes called Newe
Fraunce : First translated out of French into Italian by that
famous learned man Gio: Bapt: Ramutius, and now turned
into English by John Florio, etc.
H. Bynneman. London. 1580. 4to. Pp. 80. Black
letter. British Museum. Huth.
Dedicated to " Edmund Bray, Esq., High Sheriff of Oxford-
shire," and "To all Gentlemen Merchants and Pilots." At
the end occurs, " Here endeth the second Relation of James
Carthiers [Jacques Carder] discouerie & navigation to the
newe founde Lande, by him named ' New Fraunce, 7 trans-
lated out of Italian into Englishe by I. F."
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 473
The original French work based on Carrier's notes is,
Brief Recit de la navigation faite es isles de Canada, Hoche-
lage, Saguenay et autres.
Paris. 1545, et Rouen. 1598. 8vo. 1863. 8vo. British
Museum.
The Italian translation from the French used by Florio is
in the third volume of the third edition of Ramusio's Navi-
gationi et Viaggi, Venice. 1565.
Primo volume, & terza editione delle Navigationi et viaggi
raccolto gia da M. G. B. Ramusio & con .... discorsi, da
lui .... dichiarato & illustrato. Nel quale si contengono la
desorittione deW Africa & del paese del Prete Janui, con varij
viaggi, etc. (Secondo volume . ... in questa nuova editione
accresciuto, etc. Terzo volume, etc.) 3 vol.
Venetia, nella stamperia de Giunti, 15637465. Folio.
British Museum.
Jacques Cartier was sent out to Canada by King Francis
I., and made his first voyage during the summer of 1534.
The second voyage was made in 1535-6 when the navigator
wintered in New France. Hochelaga was the name of an
Iroquois village which he found on the site of Montreal.
Ramusio's third volume contains a two-page pictorial plan
of the town of Hochelaga, and a general map of the New
World in a hemisphere.
1582. Divers voyages touching the discoverie of America,
and the Hands adjacent unto the same, made first of all by our
Englishmen, and afterwards by the Frenchmen and Britons:
with two mappes annexed heereunto. \_By R. H., i. e. Richard
Hakluyt.]
(T. Dawson,) for T. Woodcocke : London. 1582. 4to.
2 pts. Black letter. British Museum.
Between the title and sig. A there are five leaves contain-
ing " The names of certaine late travaylers," etc. ; "A very
late and great probabilitie of a passage by the Northwest
part of America," and the " Epistle dedicatorie " to " Master
474 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Phillip Sydney, Esquire." One of the maps is also dedicated
to Sir Philip Sidney by Michael Lok.
1582. Discoverie of the isles of Frisland &c. by N. Z.
\_Nicolb Zeno~\ and Antonio his brother.
See, Richard Hakluyt, Divers voyages, etc. 1582. 4to.
British Museum.
The discouerie of the Isles of Frisland, Iseland, Engroner-
land, Estotiland, Drogeo and Icaria: made by two brethren,
namely M. Nicholas Zeno, and M. Antonio his brother:
Gathered out of their letters by M. Francisco Marcolino.
The Voyages of The English Nation to America, before the
year 1600, from Haklyyt's Collection of Voyages (1698-1600).
Edited by Edmund Goldsmid. Edinburgh. 1889. Vol. I.
P. 274.
The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolb and Antonio
Zeno, to the Northern Seas in the XTVth Century. [Trans-
lated, for the Hakluyt Society, by Richard Henry Major].
London. 1873.
The Annals of the Voyages of the Brothers Nicolb and
Antonio Zeno in the North Atlantic About the end of Fourteenth
Century, and the Claim founded thereon to a Venetian Discovery
of America. A Criticism and an Indictment. By Fred. W.
Lucas. 50 copies. Edition de luxe. London, Henry Stevens,
Son & Stiles. 1898. 4to. Pp. 233 and 18 facsimile maps.
The Zeno family was one of the most distinguished in
Venice, furnishing during the 13th and 14th centuries a
doge, several senators and members of the Council of Ten,
and military commanders of ability and renown.
The adventures of the two Zeni in the North Atlantic are
related in six letters, two from Nicold Zeno, known as "the
Chevalier," to his brother, Antonio, a third, presumably
addressed to some other member of the family, and three
letters written by Antonio, after he had joined Nicol6, to a
third brother, Carlo, Called, for his success in the war against
Genoa, "the Lion of St. Mark." The voyages were made
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 475
about 1390-1405, and the narrative was first published in
1558, by Nicole Zeno, the younger, a member of the Council
of Ten, and great-great-great-grandson of Antonio.
In brief, the letters relate how Nicol6, the Chevalier, sail-
ing from Venice around to the North of Europe, was caught
in a storm and wrecked on one of the Faeroe islands. About
to be murdered by the natives, he was rescued by a great
chieftain, who, recognizing the rank and nautical skill of the
stranger, gave him a post of authority in the national fleet.
This chieftain has been identified as Henry Sinclair, Earl
of the Orkneys and Caithness. Nicolo persuaded Antonio to
join him, and together they undertook various expeditions,
one of which carried them a long distance to an island in the
western ocean. The name of this island suggests Greenland,
but the description fits Iceland. Nicol6's health was broken
by the cold of the western island, and he died soon after his
return to the Faeroes, probably in 1395.
Antonio Zeno and Earl Sinclair made another voyage
westward, somewhere about 1400, "but, the wind changing
to the southwest, the sea therefore becoming rough, the fleet
ran before the wind for four days, and at last land was dis-
covered." In returning to the Faeroes from this country,
Zeno sailed steadily eastward for 20 days, and then for
five days towards the southeast, seeing no land for the whole
five and twenty days. The basis of the Venetian discovery
of America rests upon the assumption that this land, upon
which Antonio Zeno left Earl Sinclair to found a city, was
Greenland. This is the conclusion of Richard Henry Major,
who translated the Zeno narrative for the Hakluyt Society,
and it is accepted by John Fiske in his Discovery of America.
1582. Relation of J. Verrazano of the land discovered by him.
See K. H. (Richard Hakluyt), Divers voyages, etc. 1582.
4to. British Museum.
The relation of John de Verrazano a Florentine, of the land
by him discovered in the name of his Maiestie [King Francis /.].
Written at Diepe the eight of July, 1524-
476 MAKY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
See The Voyages of The English Nation to America. Col-
lected by Richard HaUuyt, Preacher, and Edited by Edmund
Goldsmid. Edinburgh, 1889, Vol. II, 389.
Verrazano sailed from Madeira, January 17, 1524, and
having struck the east coast of America, sailed along it from
about the 34th to the 54th parallel of latitude. At latitude
" 41 deg. and 2 tierces " he notes a haven which " lieth open
to the South halfe a league broad, and being entred within it
betweene the East and the North, it stretcheth twelve leagues :
where it waxeth broader and broader, and rnaketh a gulfe
about 20. leagues in compasse, wherein are five small Islands
very fruitful and pleasant, full of hie and broade trees, among
the which Islandes any great Nauie may ride safe without
any feare of tempest or other danger. Afterwards turning
towardes the South in the entring into the Hauen on both sides
there are most pleasant hils, with many riuers of most cleare
water falling into the Sea." This describes New York harbor
and the Hudson river, eighty-three years before Henry Hudson
made his voyage up the North River in the Half-Moon.
1588. The Voyage and Travaile: of M. C. Frederick,
\_Cesare Federici], merchant of Venice, into the East India,
the Indies, and beyond the Indies. Wherein are contained very
pleasant and rare matters, with the customes and rites of those
Countries. Also, Jieerein are discovered the Merchandises and
commodities of those Countreyes, aswell the aboundaunce of
Goulde and Silver, as Spices, Drugges, Pearles and other
Jewflles. Written at sea in the Hercules of London. . . . Out
of Italian by T. \homas~] H. \iclcock~\.
R. Jones and E. White, London, 1588. 4to. British
Museum (2 copies).
See R. Hakluyt. The principal navigations, etc. Vol. 2.
Pt. 1, 1598, etc. Folio.
1589. The principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries
of the English nation, made by Sea or over Land .... within
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 477
the compasse of these 1500. yeeres: Devided into three ....
parts, according to the positions of the Regions wherunto they
were directed. . . . Whereunto is added the last most renowned
English Navigation [viz. Sir Francis Drake's] round the . . . .
Earth. [Nov. 15, 1577-Nov. 3, 1580.]
G. Bishop and R. Newberie, Deputies to C. Barker, London,
1589. Folio. British Museum (2 copies). Also, London, 1598-
1600. Folio. B. L. British Museum (5 copies).
This book, in one volume, small folio, is the germ of the
later edition of Hakluyt, 1598-1600, with a title almost
identical, but enlarged to three volumes. Hakluyt's Voyages
has been called the "great Elizabethan bible of adventure."
Besides furnishing English versions of Italian and Spanish
discoveries, it recounted for Englishmen the undying story
of their own great navigators; of Sir Hugh Willoughby,
found frozen in his cabin, his hand resting on his journal
over this entry as to the fate of his crew: "In this haven
they died ;" of Sir Humphry Gilbert vanishing with his little
bark into the darkness and the unknown with the words on
his lips, " We are as near to heaven by sea as by land ; "
of Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Richard Grenville, and Sir
John Hawkins, and Sir Francis Drake.
1597. A Reporte of the King dome of Congo, a Region of
Africa. And of the Countries that border rounde about the
same. 1. Wherein is also shewed that the two Zones, Torrida
& Frigida, are not onely habitable, but inhabited, and very
temperate, contrary to the opinion of the olde Philosophers. 2.
That the blacke colour which is in the skinnes of the Ethiopians
& Negroes &c. proceedeth not from the Sunne. 3. And that
the Riuer Nilus spring eth not out of the mountains of the Moone,
as hath beene heretofore beleeued: Together with the true cause
of the rysing and increase thereof. 4- -Besides the description of
diuers plantes, Fishes and Eeastes, that are founde in those
Countries. Drawen out of the writinges and discourses of
Odoardo Lopes [Duarte Lopes] a Portingall, by Philippo
Pigafetta. Translated out of Italian by Abraham Hartwell.
478 MAKY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
London. Printed by John Wolfe. 1597. 4to. Huth.
British Museum, (4 copies).
Reprinted in Purchas his Pilgrimes, The Second Part.
1625. Bk. vn, Ch. mi, p. 986. British Museum. Peabody.
Also, in ^4. Collection of Voyages and Travels. 1745. Vol. II.
This work is a translation of Filippo Pigafetta's Relatione
del Reame di Congo et delle circonvicine contrade tratta dalli
scritti & rogionamenti di Odoardo Lopez Portoghese. Con
dissegni varie di Geografia, di piante, d'habiti, d'animali &
altro. In Roma Appresso Bartolomeo Grassi. [1591.] 4to.
In a prefatory address to the reader, Hart well states that
he was urged to make the translation by Richard Hakluyt,
who, he says, gave him a copy of Pigafetta, " intreating me
very earnestly, that I would take him with me, and make
him English : for he could report many pleasant matters that
he sawe in his pilgrimage, which are indeed uncouth and
almost incredible to this part of Europe." So, he goes on,
"I brought him away with mee. But within two houres
conference I found him nibling at two most honourable
Gentlemen of England, [Drake and Cavendish] whome in
plaine tearmes he called Pirates : so that I had much adoo
to hold my hands from renting of him into many mo peeces,
than his Cosen Lopez the Doctor was quartered."
1600. A Geographical Historic of Africa, Written in
Arabicke and Italian by John Leo a More [by Hasan Ibn.
Muhammad Al-Wazzan Al Fasi, afterwards Giovanni Leone
Africano]. . . . Before which . ... is prefixed a generall
description of Africa, and .... a particular treatise of all
the . . . . lands .... undescribed by J. Leo. And after the
same is annexed a relation of the great Princes, and the mani-
fold religions in that part of the world. Translated and
collected by J. [o/w] Pory.
Impensis G. Bishop, Londini, 1600. Folio. British
Museum, (Grenville Library).
Reprinted by Purchas, Observations of Africa taken out
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 479
of John Leo his nine Bookes, translated by Master Pory.
Purchas his Pilgrimes. Pt. 2. 1625. Lib. vi, Ch. i, i-
ix, pp. 749-851. Folio. British Museum.
Giovanni Leone's work was first written in Arabic, and
then translated into Italian, Latin, French, English, Dutch,
and German. The Italian title reads, Descrittione dell Africa
& delle cose notabili che ivi sono. It was published by
Ramusio, in his
Primo Volume delle Navigationi et Viaggi net qual si con-
tiene la descrittione deW Africa, e del Paese del Prete lanui,
con varii viaggi, dal Mar Rosso a Calicut, et infin aW Isole
Molucche . . . . et la Navigatione attorno il Hondo. \_Edited
by G. B. Ramusio. ~\
Gli Heredi di Lucantonio Giunta. Venetia. 1550. Folio.
British Museum.
1601. The Travellers Breviat, or an historical description
of the most famous Kingdomes in the World. Translated into
English [by R. J. i. e. Robert Johnson].
E. Bollifant for J. Jaggard. London. 1601. 4to. British
Museum.
This is a translation of a part of Giovanni Botero's Le
Relationi Universali. Rome. 1591. 4to.
The Relationi Universali was a very popular book, fre-
quently reprinted. It treats of the situation and resources
of each state of Europe, and of the causes of its greatness
and power. The author, Giovanni Botero Benese, abbate di
S. Michele della Chiusa, was secretary to S. Charles Borromeo,
Cardinal Archbishop of Milan.
See Relations of the most famous Kingdoms and Common-
weales thorough the world. 1608.
1603. The Ottoman of Lazaro Soranzo. Wherein is de
livered as well a full and perfect Report of the might and
power of Mahomet the third, Great Emperour of the Turkes
now raigning . ... as also a true description of divers Peoples,
480 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Countries, Citties, and Voyages, which are most necessarie to
bee knowen, especially at this time of the present Warre in
Hungarie. Translated out of Italian into English by A.
Hartwell.
J. Windet. London. 1603. 4to. Bodleian. British
Museum.
Translated from the Italian by Abraham Hartwell the
younger, and dedicated by him to Archbishop Whitgift. A
chance question of the Archbishop's about Turkish " Bassaes
and Yisiers " led to the translation.
1608. Relations of the most famous Kingdoms and Common-
weales thorough the world. Discoursing of their Scituations,
Manners, Customes, Strengthes and Pollicies. Translated into
English and enlarged with an addition of the estates of Saxony,
Geneva, Hungary, and the East Indies, etc.
London. 1608. 4to. British Museum.
Relations of the most famous Kingdomes and Common-
wealths thorowout the World. . . . Translated out of the ....
Italian of Boterus . . . . by R. [obert\ J. [o/mson]. Now ....
inlarged according to moderne observations ; With Addition of
new Estates and Countries .... unto which a Mappe of the
.... World, with a Table of the Countries, are now newly added.
John Haviland. London. 1630. 4to. British Museum.
A translation of Giovanni Botero's popular geographical
work, Le Relationi Universali. Rome. 1591. 4to.
See The Travellers Breviat. 1601.
1612. De Nouo Orbe, or The Historic of the west Indies ,
Contayning the actes and aduentures of the Spanyardes, which
haue conquered and peopled those Countries, inriched with
varietie of pleasant relation of the Manners, Ceremonies, Lawes,
Gouernments, and Warres of the Indians. Comprised in eight
Decades. Written by Peter Martyr Millanoise of Angleria,
Cheife Secretary to the Emperour Charles the fift, one of his
Priuie Councell. Whereof three, haue beene formerly translated
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 481
into English, by R. Eden, whereunto the other fiue, are newly
added by the Industrie, and painefull Trauaile of M. Lok Gent.
In the handes of the Lord are all the corners of the earth.
Psal. 95.
London. Printed for Thomas Adams. 1612. 4to. Huth.
A later edition, without date, London, [1620?] 4to. British
Museum.
Dedicated to Sir Julius Caesar, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
This is the first complete edition of the eight decades in
English.
1625. Purchas his Pilgrimes. In fine bookes. The Jirst,
contayning the voyages .... made by ancient Kings, .... and
others, to and thorow the remoter parts of the Jcnowne world,
etc. 4 pts.
W. Stansby for H. Fetherstone, London, 1625. Folio.
British Museum, (4 copies).
The Dictionary of National Biography gives this title,
Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes, containing
a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Land-Trauells by
Englishmen and others.
Purchas modelled his book on Hakluyt and repeats some
of his material, but the likeness between a good book and a
poor one ends at this point.
1625. Extracts of C. F. [ Cesar e Federici] his eighteene yeeres
Indian Observations.
See Purchas his Pilgrimes, etc. Pt. 2. 1625. Folio. British
Museum. Peabody.
The Voyage and Travaile of M. C. Frederick was rendered
into English, in 1588, by Thomas Hickock, who describes
his work on the title-page as " Written at sea in the Hercules
of London."
1625. Of F. Magalianes \_Fernao da Magalhaes~]: The
Occasion of his Voyage. . . . Gathered out of A. Pigafetta, etc.
3
482 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
See Purchas his Pilgrimes, etc. 1625. Folio. Part 1.
See, also, The History of Trauayle in the West and East
Indies, 1577.
1625. The Relation of G. P. \_Galeotto Pererd] that
lay prisoner in China.
See Purchas his Pilgrimes, etc. Pt. 3. 1625. Folio. See,
also, The History of Trauayle in the West and East Indies.
1577.
1625. Indian Observations gathered out of the Letters of N.
P. [Nicolb Pimenta'].
See Purchas his Pilgrimes, etc. Pt. 2. 1625. Folio.
1625. The first Booke of M . P. [Marco Polo~]
his Voyages.
See Purchas his Pilgrimes, etc. Pt. 3. 1625. Folio.
Marco Polo, 1254(?)-1324, was of an aristocratic Venetian
family which had a commercial house in Constantinople. In
1271, then a lad of seventeen, he accompanied his uncles,
Nicold and Maffeo, on their second trading journey to Cathay,
at that time under the rule of the great Kublai Khan, grand-
son of the all-conquering Jenghis. Young Marco became
proficient in speaking and writing Asiatic languages, and the
Chinese annals of the year 1277 mention him as a com-
missioner of the privy council. He remained in Kublai's
service until 1292, when, in company with his uncles, he set
out to return, arriving in Venice in 1295. Two years later,
during a war between Venice and Genoa, he was taken
prisoner, and held in durance for about a year. One of his
companions in captivity was a certain Rusticiano, of Pisa, a
compiler of French romances. Rusticiano was so charmed
with Marco's tales of his adventures in Asia, that he wrote
them down, not in Italian, but in French. The Italian
version was prepared by G. B. Ramusio, and published in the
second volume of his Navigationi e Viaggi. Some 80 MSS.
of Marco Polo are known.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 483
The Book of Ser Marco Polo concerning the Kingdoms and
Marvels of the East is one of the most famous books of the
Middle Ages. Although some of the l marvels ' were stories
of the fabulous kingdom of Prester John, and of the " one-
eyed Ariruaspians," still during his four and twenty years of
travel Marco had learned more about the geography of the
earth than any other traveller before his time. He was
the first to describe the great empire of China, and he knew,
or knew of, Thibet, Burmah, Siam, Cochin China, the Indian
Archipelago, Java, Sumatra, Andaman, Hindustan, Japan,
Siberia, Zanzibar, and Madagascar. Up to the close of the
13th century, the known geography of the world comprised
Europe, with a fringe of Asia and Africa. It is no wonder
that to Marco's contemporaries his sober statements of fact
read like a fairy tale, or a romance of chivalry.
1625. A Discourse of the Kingdome of China, taken out of
Ricius \_Matteo Ricci] and Trigautius.
See Purchas his Piigrimes, etc. Pt. 3. 1625. Folio.
Matteo Ricci, 1552-1610, was an Italian Jesuit, who
founded Christian missions in China. He adopted the
Chinese dress, and taught Christianity in conformity with
the general principles of morals he found prevalent among
the Chinese. He wrote numerous works, in Chinese, on
moral subjects, and on geography, geometry, and arithmetic.
In the Chinese annals he is called Li-ma-teu. Bicci's pleasant
way of living on friendly terms with mandarins, and learned
men, and his liberality of m nd in accepting the moral truths
of Buddhism, were displeasing to the Dominicans. They
accused him of heresy, and eventually the Jesuits were expelled
from China. Browning alludes to the quarrel between the
two orders in the Ring and the Book, x, The Pope, 11. 1589-
1603:
Five years since, in the Province of To-kien,
Which is in China, as some people know,
Maigrot, my Vicar Apostolic there,
Having a great qualm, issues a decree.
Alack, the converts use as God's name, not
484 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Tien-chu but plain Tien, or else mere Shang-ti,
As Jesuits please to fancy politic,
While, say Dominicans, it calls down fire,
For Tien means heaven, and Shang-ti, supreme prince,
While Tien-chu means the lord of heaven : all cry,
" There is no business urgent for dispatch
As that thou send a legate, specially
Cardinal Tournon, straight to Pekin, there
To settle and compose the difference ! "
1633. Cochinchina. Containing many admirable Rarities
and Singularities of that Countrey. Extracted out of an Italian
Relation . . . . by C. \ristoforo~\ B. [arri] .... and published
by R. Robert] Ashley.
London. E. Raworth for R. Clutterbuck. 1633. 4to.
British Museum, (3 copies.)
1873. Travels to Tana and Persia, by Josafa Barbaro and
Ambrogio Contarini. Translated from the Italian by William
Thomas, Clerk of the Council to Edward VI, and by 8. A. Roy,
Esq. And Edited, with an Introduction, by Lord Stanley of
Alderley.
London : Printed for the Hakluy t Society. M . DCCC . LXXIII.
8vo. Peabody.
Dedicated to King Edward VI., by William Thomas,
. ..." I have thought good to translate out of the Italian
tonge this litell booke, written by a Venetian of good fame
and memorie, who hath travailed many yeres in Tartarie and
Persia, and hath had greate experience of those p'tes, as he
doth sufficiently declare, which I determined to dedicate unto
yo r Ma tie as unto him that I knowe is most desirouse of all
vertuouse knowledge. Trusting to God yo* shall longe lyve
and reigne a most happie king over a blessed countrey, most
humbly beseeching yo r highnes to accept this poore newe
yeres gift, being the worke of myne owne hande, as a token
of the faithfull love that I am bounde to beare unto yo u as
well naturally as through the speciall goodnesse that I have
founde in yo u>
Yo r Ma ts most bounden Servant,
Willm. Thomas.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 485
The work is translated from Giosafat Barbarous, Viaggi
[two] fatti da Vinetia, alia Tana, in Persia, in India, et in
Costantinopoli : con la descrittione particolare di cittd, luoghi,
siti, costumi, et della Porta del gran Turco: et di tutte le
intrate, spese, et modo di gouerno suo, et della ultima impresa
contra Portoghesi. \_Edited by A. [ntonio~\ M. \_anuzio~].
Nelle case de Figliuoli di Aldo : Vinegia. 1543. 8vo. Pp.
180. British Museum, (2 copies).
Barbaro states that he set out, in the year 1436, for Tana,
" wheare for the most parte I contynewed the space of xvi
yeres, and haue compassed all those cuntreys as well by sea
as by lande not only w th diligence, but in maner curiousely."
Of the second voyage, he gives this account, "During
the warres between our most excellent Signoria and Ottomano,
the year 1471, 1, being a man, used to travaile, and of experi-
ence amongst barbarouse people, and willing also to serue o r
foresaid most excellent Signoria, was sent awaie w th tham-
bassado r of Assambei, King of Persia : who was come to
Venice to compfort the Signoria to folowe the warres against
the said Ottornanuo."
Ramusio interpolates a note in Barbara's last paragraph
which fixes the final date, " I finished the writing on the
21st December, 1487."
The translation of Ambrogio Contarini is a contemporary
one, made by Mr. Roy of the British Museum.
For an account of William Thomas, see his III. Miscel-
laneous Translations. The Principal Rules of the Italian
Grammar. 1550.
b. HISTORY AND POLITICS.
[1550?] The History of Herodian .... treating of the
Romayne Emperors after Marcus, translated oute of Greeke
into Latin by Angelus Politianus, and out of Latin into
Hhiglysche by N. [icholas~] Smyth. Whereunto are annexed, the
Argumentes of euery Booke, .... with Annotations, etc.
W. Coplande. London. [1550?]. 4to. British Museum.
486 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
The Greek text of Herodian, with Politian's Latin transla-
tion, appeared at Basle, in 1535.
The British Museum contains a copy of the original, dated
1568,
Herodiani historiae de imperio post Mareum, vel de suis
temporibus e Graeco translatae A. \ngelo~] Politiano interprete.
It is in Volume n of Varii Historiae Romanae scriptores,
partim Graeci partim Latini, in unum velut corpus redacti.
De rebus gestis ab urbe condita, usque ad Imperil Constanto-
nopolin translati tempora [ By H. Stephanus f] 4 vo ^
H. Stephanus. [Geneva?]. 1568. 8vo.
The history of Herodian extends from the death of Marcus
Aurelius, March 17, 180, to 233, A. D., and includes the
reigns of the Emperors Commodus, Pertinax, Didius Julianus,
Septimus Severus, Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus, Alexander
Severus, Maximin, the two Gordians, and Maximus and
Balbinus.
1562. Two very notable Commentaries, the one of the origi-
nall of the TurcJcs and Empire of the house of Ottommanno,
written by A. Cambine, and thother of the warres of the Turcke
against George Scanderbeg, .... and of the great victories
obteyned by the said George Translated oute of Italian
into Englishe by I. Shute.
Dedicated to the ' high Admirall/ Sir Edward Fynes. There
is a long preface by the translator on discipline and soldiery.
B. Hall, for H. Toye, London, 1562. 4to. Black letter.
British Museum, (2 copies).
The first of these commentaries is a translation of Andrea
Cambini's,
Libro d'A. (7. ... delta origine de Turchi et imperio delli
Ottomanni. [ With a Prefatory Epistle by D. di Giunta.~\
Firenze. 1529. 12 mo. British Museum.
The second commentary I have not met with. Shute says
he does not know its author.
George Castriota, called Scanderbeg or Skanderbeg, from
the Turkish Iskander Beg (Alexander Bey), was an Albanian
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 487
chieftain who lived from 1403 to 1468. In his youth, his
father, Ivan (John) Castriota, lord of Croya, a hereditary
principality in Albania, between the mountains and the
Adriatic Sea, sent him and his three brothers as hostages
to the Ottoman Court. When John Castriota died, in 1443,
the Sultan, Amurath II., decided to annex the principality
to Turkey. But George Castriota returned to Albania, in
1444, proclaimed his independence, and resisted successfully
for twenty-three years, both Amurath II. and his son
Mohammed II., called the Conqueror.
Scanderbeg finally died a fugitive, at Lissus in the Vene-
tian territory, and Albania (Epirus) was added to the Turkish
empire.
Gibbon. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. VI,
pp. 360-4. *
1563. The Historie of Leonard Aretine, concerning the
Warres betwene the Imperialls and the Gothesfor the possession
of Italy. Translated out of Latin . . . .by A. [rthur] Goldyng.
London. Printed by Kouland Hall for G. Bucke, 1563.
8vo. Black letter. 180 leaves, besides an epistle and a
preface. British Museum.
Dedicated to Sir William Cecil, in whose family Golding
was living.
A translation of Leonardi Aretini de hello Italico adversus
Gotthos.
Nicolaus Jenson. [Venice]. 1471. 4to. British Museum.
[1570.] A very brief e and profitable Treatise declaring howe
many counsells, and what maner of Counselers a Prince that
will governe well aught to haue. [Translated by Thomas
Blundeville, from the Italian version of Alfonso d' Ulloa.]
W. Seres. London. [1570]. 8vo. British Museum.
There is a dedication, dated from Newton Flotman, 1
April, 1570, to the Earl of Leicester.
The original of this is a Spanish work by Federigo Furio
Ceriol,
488 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
El Concejo i Consejeros del Principe .... que es el libro
primero del quinto tratado de la institution del Principe.
Anvers. 1559. 8vo. British Museum.
I do not find an Italian version by Alfonso de Ulloa, but
there is one by his friend and correspondent, the voluminous
Lodovico Dolce,
II concilia, overo Conciglio et i Consiglieri del Prencipe.
Opera di F. C. . . . tradotta di Lingua Spagnuola nella
volgare Italiana per L. Dolce.
Vinegia. 1560. 8vo. British Museum.
Alfonso de Ulloa was a Spaniard who knew Italian so
well that he rendered Spanish and Portuguese works into
that language. His most famous translation is the Vita deW
Ammiraglio, 1571, Ferdinand Columbus's life of his father,
a book now of priceless value, because the original does
not survive. Washington Irving described the Vita as "an
invaluable document, entitled to great faith, and is the
corner-stone of the history of the American continent. "
1572. The true Report of all the successe of Famagosta, of
the antique writers called Tamassus, a Citie in Cyprus. In the
which the whole order of all the skirmishes, batteries, mines and
assaultes geven to the sayd Fortresse, may plainly appeare. . . .
Englished out of Italian [of Count Nestore Martinengo~] by
W. [illiam] Malin [or Malim~\. With certaine notes of his and
expositions of all the Turkishe wordes herein necessary to be
knowen, etc.
J. Dave: London. 1572. 4to. Black letter. British
Museum. 1599. Folio. British Museum. 1810. Folio.
British Museum.
A translation of the Count Nestore Martinengo's Relatione
di tutto il successo di Famagosta : dove s'intende .... tutte le
scaramuccie, batterie, mine & assalti dati ad essa fortezza. Et
ancora i nomi de i Capitani, & numero delle Genti morte, ....
et medesimamente di quelli, che sono restati prigioni.
G. Angehiri. Venetia. 1572. 4to. British Museum.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 489
*f .
Malim, who was headmaster successively of Eton and of
St. Paul's School, dedicates his work to the Earl of Leicester,
"from Lambheth, the 23rd of March, An. 1572." The dedi-
cation occupies seven pages out of a total of forty-eight for
the whole pamphlet.
1 574. The true order and Methode of wryting and reading
Hystories according to the Precepts of Francisco Patricia and
Accontio Tridentino, no less plainely than briefly set forth in
our vulgar speach, to the greate profite and commoditye of all
those that delight in Hystories.
W. Seres. London. 1574. 8vo. British Museum.
Dedicated to the Earl of Leicester.
This is a translation of Francesco Patrizi's Delia Historia
diece dialoghi . . . . ne' quali si ragiona di tutte le cose apparte-
nenti aW historia, et allo scriverla, et aW osservarla.
A. Arrivabene. Venetia. 1560. 4to. Pp. 63. British
Museum, (2 copies).
See also,
J. A. [Jacobus Acontius\ Tridentini de Methodo, etc., in
G. J. Vossii \_Gerardus Vossius, Canon of Canterbury] et
aliorum de studiorum ratione opuscula.
Ultrajecti. 1651. 12mo. British Museum.
1575. A notable Historye of the Saracens, briefly and
faithfully descrybing the originall beginning, continuaunce and
successe aswell of the Saracens, as also of Turkes, Souldans,
Mamalukes, Assassines, Tartarians and Sophians, with a dis-
course of their affaires and Actes from the byrthe of Mahomet
their first peeuish prophet and founder for 700 yeeres space ;
whereunto is annexed a compendious chronycle of all their
yeerely exploytes from the sayde Mahomet's time tyll this present
yeere of grace 1575. Drawen out of Augustine Curie, and
sundry other good Authours by Thomas Newton.
Imprinted at London by William How, for Abraham
Veale, 1575. [Colophon.] Imprinted at London by William
490 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
How for Abraham Veale dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at
the signe of the Lambe. 1575. 4to. Black letter. 144
leaves. Huth. British Museum.
Dedicated, " to the Ryghte Honorable the Lorde 'Charles
Howarde, Baron of Effyngharn."
A translation of O. [aelius~\ A. [ugustinus] Curionis Sarra-
eenicae Historiae libr: III. . . . His accessit V. Drechsleri
rerum Sarracenicarum Turcicarumque chronicon, auctum et ad
annum MD.LXVII usque perductum.
Basiliae. 1567. Folio. Francofurti. 1596. Folio. British
Museum.
The second book contains an interesting account of the
battle of Roncesvalles, in 778, and the death of Roland, one
of the most popular themes of mediaeval romance.
The translator is Thomas Newton, of Cheshire, who edited
Seneca his tenne Tragedies, in 1581, translating the Thebais
himself. Newton wrote the most elegant Latin elegiacs of
the time, and often prefixed recommendatory verses, in both
Latin and English, to the publications of his friends. His
chief patron was Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.
1576. A Moral Methode of civile Policie. Contayninge a
learned and fruictful discourse of the institution, state and
government of a common Weale. Abridged oute of the Comen-
taries of .... F. [rancesco~\ Patricius \_Patrizi, Bishop of
Gaeta~\. . . . Done out of Latine into Englishe by R. [ichard]
Robinson, etc.
T. Marsh, London, 1576. 4to. Black letter. British
Museum.
A translation of Francesco PatrizPs F. Patritii Senensis de
Regno et Regis Institutione libri IX, etc. [ With a preface by
D. LambinusJ]
Apud Aegidium Gorbinum. Parisiis. 1567. 8vo. British
Museum.
1579. The Historic of Guicciardin; containing the Warres
of Italie and other paries, continued for manie yeares under
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 491
sundrie Kings and Princes, together with the variations and
accidents of the same: And also the Arguments, with a Table
at large, expressing the principall matters through the whole
historic. Reduced into English by Geffray Fenton. Mon heur
viendra.
Imprinted at London by Thomas Vantroullier, dwelling
in the Black Friers by Ludgate. 1579. Fol. Pp. 1184.
British Museum. London. 1599. Fol. Brit. Mus. (2 copies).
London. 1618. Folio. Brit. Mus.
Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.
A translation of
L'historia d' Italia di F. G. [Edited by A. Guicciardini.~\
L. Torret[ino] : Firenze. 1561. 8vo. British Museum.
Also, 1561. Folio. Fiorenza: 1563. 8vo. Venetia: 1567.
4to. Vinegia.
This translation of Guicciardini was the greatest literary
undertaking of Sir Geoffrey Fenton. It was extremely
popular, and seems to have recommended the author to the
Queen's favor permanently. Soon after its publication, he
went to Ireland, under the patronage of Arthur, Lord Grey
de Wilton, where he was sworn into the Privy Council, in
1580. He was knighted in 1589, and remained in Ireland
as principal secretary of state through a succession of lord
deputies.
Fenton says in his Dedication to Queen Elizabeth, "I
am bold, under fear and timidity, to prostrate these my last
pains afore that divine moderation of mind which always
hath holden for acceptable all things respecting learning or
virtuous labors." He concludes, " The Lord bless your
Majesty with a long and peaceable life, and confirm in you,
to the comfort of your people, that course of well-tempered
government by the benefit whereof they have so long lived
under the felicity of your name."
Guicciardini's Storia d' Italia extends over forty years,
from 1494 to 1534. During the latter half of this period
Guicciardini was in the papal service as governor succes-
492 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
sively of Modena, Reggio, Parma, the Romagna, and Bologna.
The fact that he was himself a conspicuous actor in the scene
enabled him to write with a peculiarly intimate knowledge
of the events and the personages of contemporary politics.
Keenly observant, he was in the habit of recording his
impressions of men and things, and it was his mental turn
to record them in the form of aphorisms. His history is,
therefore, rather the maxims and memoranda of a statesman,
scientifically arranged, than a philosophical view of human
affairs.
Montaigue observes acutely of Guicciardini's moral insen-
sibility, his cold, passionless manner of depicting a great
national tragedy, the decline and fall of his own country after
the French invasion of 1494, ' among the many motives and
counsels on which he adjudicates, he never attributes any one
of them to virtue, religion, or conscience, as if all these were
quite extinct in the world/ "Fay aussi remarque cecy, que
de tant d'ames et d j effects qu'il iuge, de tant de mouvements et
conseils, il n'en rapporte iamais un seul a la vertu, religion
et conscience, comme si ces parties Id estoient du tout esteinctes
au monde."
JEssais de Montaigue. LivrelL ChapitreX,p.7. Paris.
1876.
See Two Discourses of Master Frances Guicciardinj 1595.
1579. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes,
compared together by that graue learned Philosopher and
Historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: Translated out of
Greeke into French by James Amyot, Abbot of Bellozane,
Bishop of Auxerre, one of the King's Priuy Counsel, and
Great Amner of Fraunce; and out of French into Englishe by
Thomas North.
Imprinted at London by Thomas Vantrouiller and John
Wight, 1579. Folio. British Museum.
A new title-page introduces "the Lives of Hannibal and
Scipio Africanus, translated out of Latin into French by
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 493
Charles de L'Ecluse, and out of French into English
by Thomas North."
Other editions were, 1595. Folio. 1603. Fo"lio. 1610-12.
Folio. 1631. Folio. 1657. Folio, all in the British Museum.
Also, Cambridge, 1576. Folio. British Museum.
Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, and one of the most popular
books of her day.
The Lives of Hannibal and Scipio Africanus were written
by the humanist, Donato Acciajuoli. North found them in
Les vies de Hannibal et Scipion VAfricain, traduittes par C.
de VEscluse [from the Latin of Donato Acciajuoli].
Paris. 1567. 8vo. British Museum, in the third edition of,
Les Vies des Hommes illustres Grecs et Romains, comparees
Vune avec Vautre .... translatees de Grec en Frangois \by J.
Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre~\.
Michel deVascosan. Paris. 1559. Folio. British Museum.
The earliest edition of Acciajuoli's lives I find is,
Plutarch's Parallel Lives, translated into Latin, by various
persons, including Donato Acciajuoli' 's lives of Hannibal, Scipio
Africanus, and Charlemagne.
[Rome. 1470?] Folio. British Museum.
Among the manuscripts left by Henry Parker, Lord
Morley, are translations of the lives of Hannibal and Scipio
Africanus by Acciajuoli. (See II. Poetry, Plays, and Metrical
Romances. The tryumphes of Fraunces Petrarcke. [1565?]
North's book, as is well known, was Shakspere's store-
house of classical learning.
1582. The Revelation of S. John reueled as a paraphrase.
. . . Written in Latine. . . . Englished by J. [awes] Sandford.
London, by Thomas Marshe, 1582. 4to. British Museum.
Dedicated to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
This is a translation of Giacopo Brocardo's Interpretatio et
paraphrasis in Apocalypsin.
Leyden. 1580, 1610. 8vo.
Giacopo Brocardo was a Venetian, who, in 1565, pretended
494 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
to have had a vision in which was revealed to him the appli-
cation of certain passages of Scripture to particular political
events of the time. His revelations concerned Queen Eliza-
beth, Philip II., the Prince of Orange, and other personages.
1583. De Republica Anglorum. The Maner of Govern-
ment or Policie of the Realme of England, etc.
London, by Henrie Middleton, 1583. 4to. 1584. 4to.
British Museum. 1589. 4to. Brit. Mus. 1594. 4to. Brit.
Mus. 1601. 4to. Brit. Mus. 1609. 4to. Brit. Mus. 1612.
4to. 1621. 4to. Brit. Mus. 1628. 4to. 1633. 12mo.
Brit. Mus. (2 copies). 1635. 8vo. Brit. Mus. 1640. 12mo.
Brit. Mus. 1681. 4to.
Sir Thomas Smith embodied in this work a translation
from Giovanni Botero's Le Relationi Universali, Part II. ;
the extract is entitled, Relatio J. Botero de regno Angliae.
John Budden, 1566-1620, made a Latin translation of Sir
Thomas Smith's book,
De Republica et Administratio Anglorum libri tres interprete
..../. Buddeni . . . .fide . . . . in Latinum conversi. London.
[1610?] 8vo. British Museum. 1625. 16mo. Brit. Mus.
1630. 16mo. Brit. Mus. 1641. 16mo. Brit. Mus.
[1584.] Ihe Praeface of J. Brocard upon the Revelation.
[Translated from the Latin, of Giacopo Brocardo, by James
Sandford ?]
[London? 1584.] 4to. Black letter. British Museum.
1590. A Discourse concerninge the Spanishe fleete invad-
inge Englande in the yeare 1588, and overthrowne by her
Ma tie * Navie under the conduction of the Right-honorable the
Lorde Charles Howarde Highe Admirall of Englande : written
in Italian by P. Ubaldino .... and translated \by Robert
Adams]. . . . Unto the w ch discourse are annexed certaine
tables expressinge the severall exploites and conflictes had with
the said fleete. MS. Notes.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 495
A. Hatfield, London, 1590. 4to. Black letter. British
Museum.
The plates referred to were made by Robert Adams, and
were published separately under the title,
Expeditionis Hispanorum in Angliam vera descriptio anno
do. MD.LXXXVIII.
1593. The Description of the Low countreys, and of the
Provinces thereof, gathered into an Epitome out of the Historic
of L. Guicchardini. [By Thomas Danett.~\
Imprinted at London by Peter Short for Thomas Chard.
1593. 8vo. British Museum. (1591. 16mo. Lowndes.)
Dedicated, "To the Eight Honorable my especiall Lord
Burghley, High Treasorer of England, Knight of the most
noble Order of the Garter, and Maister of hir Majesties Court
of Wards and Liveries."
A translation of Lodovico Guicciardini's Descrittione ....
di tutti i Paesi Bassi, altrimente detti Germania inferiore, etc.
Anversa. 1567. Folio. British Museum. enfrangaisbyFr.
de Belleforest. Anvers. 1568. Folio. Brit. Mus.
Thomas Danett's masterpiece in translation is, The Historic
of Philip de Commines, Knight, Lord of Armenian, 1596 ; this
work has been edited, in two volumes, with an Introduction,
by Charles Whibley. Tudor Translation Series. (David
Nutt.) See The Academy, July 17, 1897, pp. 44-45. Noth-
ing is known of this excellent and vigorous translator, except
that, besides these two translations, he put forth, in 1600, a
Continuation of the Historic of France from the death of Charles
the Eighth, when Gomines endeth, till the death of Harry the
Second (1559).
Danett's style is admirable, easily ranking him the compeer
of Sir Thomas North.
1595. The Florentine Historic written in the Italian tongue
by Niccolo Macchiavelli, citizen and secretarie of Florence, and
translated into English by T. \homas\ B. [edingfield] Esq.
496 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
T. [homas] C. [reede] for W. [illiam] P. [onsonby],
London. 1595. Folio. Pp.222. British Museum, (2 copies).
A translation of Machiavelli's
Istorie Florentine.
Firenze : Benedetto di Giunta. 1537. 4to. British Museum.
Also, nuovamente .... ristampate. In casa de y Figliuoli di
Aldo. Venegia. 1540. 8vo. British Museum.
Machiavelli's Istorie Florentine was begun after 1520, at
the instance of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici; it was com-
pleted in 1527, and dedicated to Cardinal Giulio, then Pope
Clement VII. It recounts, in eight books, the whole story
of Florence from the earliest times down to the death of
Lorenzo de' Medici, in 1492. It is not, however, a chronicle
of events, but rather a national biography, written from
Machiavelli's political point of view. Having formulated a
theory of the state in the Principe and the Discorsi, he applies
these abstract principles to the example furnished by the
Florentine republic. In literary form Machiavelli modelled
his history upon Livy, a peculiarly happy choice for a his-
torian in whom the personal equation and the sense of literary
perspective are the strongest qualities. Following the classi-
cal manner, he inserts here and there speeches, which partly
embody his own comments on situations of importance, and
partly express what he thought dramatically appropriate to
particular personages.
The story of Rosamund's revenge upon Alboin, found in
the Istorie Fiorentine, libro i, is the subject of two Elizabethan
dramas.
1. The Tragedy of Albovine, King of the Lombards. Sir
William D'Avenant. Printed, 1629.
Plot also found in Bandello, iii. 18; Belleforest, Histoires
TragiqueSj iv. 19; Queen Margaret's Heptameron, Nov. 32.
2. The Witch. Thomas Middleton. Printed, 1770.
The most important intrigue of the tangled plot of The
Witch is again the tragedy of Rosamund and Alboin. Ward
(History of English Dramatic Literature, ii. 509, and iii. 169,
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 497
1899) thinks that both Middleton and D'Avenant found the
tale in Belleforest.
1595. Two Discourses of Master Frances Guicciardin,
which are wanting in the thirde and fourth Bookes of his
Historic, in all the Italian, Latin, and French Coppies hereto-
fore imprinted ; which for the worthinesse of the matter they
containe, were published in those three Languages at Basile
1561, and are now doone into English \by W. /.]. It. Lat.
FT. and Eng.
Printed for W. Ponsonbie, London, 1595. 4to. British
Museum.
See Fenton's, The Historic of Guicciardin, 1579.
1595. The History of the Warres betweene the Turks and
the Persians, written in Italian by John Thomas Minadoi,
and translated by Abr. Hartwell, containing the Description
of all such Matters as pertaine to the Religion, to the Forces, to
the Government, and to the Countries of the Kingdome of the
Persians; together with a new Geographicall Mappe of all
these Territories, and last of all is discoursed what Cittie it was
in the old Time which is now called Tauris, (Sec.
London, J. Wolfe, 1595. 4to. Pp. 500. British Museum,
(2 copies).
Dedicated to John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, to
whom Abraham Hartwell was secretary.
This work is a translation of
Historia della Guerra fra Turchi, et Persiani di Giovanni
Tommaso Minadoi .... dalV istesso riformata, and [siof]
aggiuntivi i successi dell' anno 1586. Con una descrittione di
tutte le cose pertinente alia religione, alia forze, al governo, & al
paese del Regno de Persiani, et una Lettera alV III M. Corrado,
nella quale si dimostra qual cittd fosse anticamente quella, c'hora
si chiama Tauris, etc.
Venetia. 1588. 4to. Pp.383. British Museum. 1594.
4to. British Museum, (2 copies).
4
498 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Abraham Hartwell, the younger, flourished 1 595-1 603.
He was probably the Abraham Hartwell, of Trinity College,
Cambridge, who took his B. A. degree in 1571, M. A., in
1575, and was made an M. A. of Oxford in 1588. About
1 584, he became secretary to Archbishop Whitgift, to whom
his three translations from the Italian are dedicated. He
was an antiquarian of some note, and died rector of Tod-
dington, Bedfordshire, where he founded a library. The
date of his death is unknown.
Although he was a translator of geographical writings, he
was not himself a traveller, as has been asserted.
Giovanni Tommaso Minadoi, 1540-1615, was a physician.
After being graduated from the University of Padua, he
became physician to the Venetian consulates in Constanti-
nople and in Syria, where he collected the materials for his
history of the wars between the Turks and Persians, 1576-
1588. On his return from the East, he was made physician
to William of Gonzaga, duke of Mantua. In 1596, he was
preferred to the professorship of medicine in the University
of Padua. He died in 1615, in Florence, where he had been
summoned by Cosimo II., Grand Duke of Tuscany.
1599. The Commonwealth and Gouernment of Venice.
Written by the Cardinall Gasper Contareno, and translated out
of Italian into English by [Sir] Lewis Lewkenor, Esquire. With
sundry other Collections, annexed by the Translator. . . . With a
short Chronicle of the Hues and raignes of the Venetian Dukes.
London : Imprinted by John Windet for Edmund Mattes,
etc. 1599. 4to. 115 leaves. British Museum.
Dedicated to the Countess of Warwick, and with com-
mendatory verses by Edmund Spenser, Sir John Harington,
Maurice Kyffin, etc.
A translation of a work by Cardinal Gasparo Contarini,
Bishop of Belluno, entitled,
La Republica e i Magistrati di Vinegia [translated by E.
Anditimi]. Vinegia. 1544. 8vo. British Museum.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 499
The original was written in Latin,
De Magistratibus et Republica Venetorum libri V. Paris.
1543. 4to. The British Museum's copy is an Aldine edition
of this,
De Magistratibus, et Republica Venetorum.
Venetiis ap. Aldum. 1589. 4to.
The book was also translated into French, and was often
reprinted.
Epigram 26. Book III.
In commendation of Master Lewknor's Sixth Description of
Venice. Dedicated to Lady Warwick, 1595.
Lo, here's describ'd, though but in little room,
Fair Venice, like a spouse in Neptune's arms;
For freedom, emulous to ancient Rome,
Famous for counsel much, and much for arms :
Whose story, erst written with Tuscan quill,
Lay to our English wits as half conceal'd,
Till Lewknor's learned travel and his skill
In well grac'd stile and phrase hath it reveal'd.
Venice, be proud, that thus augments thy fame ;
England, be kind, enrich'd with such a book ;
Both give due honour to that noble dame,
For whom this task the writer undertook.
Sir John Harington.
The antique Babel, Empresse of the East,
Upreard her buildinges to the threatned skie :
And Second Babell, tyrant of the West,
Her ayry Towers upraised much more high.
But, with the weight of their own surquedry,
They both are fallen, that all the earth did feare,
And buried now in their own ashes ly ;
Yet shewing by their heapes, how great they were.
But in their place doth now a third appeare,
Fayre Venice, flower of the last worlds delight;
And next to them in beauty draweth neare,
But farre exceedes in policie of right.
Yet not so fayre her buildinges to behold
As Lewkenors stile that hath her beautie told.
Edm. Spencer.
500 MAEY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1600. The Historic of the uniting of the Kingdom of Portu-
gall to ihe Orowne of Castil/, containing the last warres of the
Portugalls against the Moores of Africke, the end of the house
of Portugall and change of that government. The descrip-
tion of Portugall, their principal Townes, castles, places, rivers,
bridges, passages, forces, weakenessfs, revenues and expences ;
of the East Indies, the Isles of Ter ceres, and other dependences,
with many battailes by sea and lande, skirmishes, encounters,
sieges, orations, and stratagemes of warre.
Imprinted at London by Am. Hatfield for Edward Blount.
1600. Folio. Pp.324. British Museum.
The dedication to " Henry Earle of Southampton is
signed, Edw. Blount," but the Dictionary of National Biog-
raphy says Blount styled it " a translation ' by a respected
friend/ "
The original is Girolamo Oonestaggio's,
DdC Unione del Regno di Portogallo alia corona di Castiglia,
istoria del Sig. Jeronimo de Franchi Conestaggio [or of J. de
Silva, Count Portalegre f~\ Genova. 1585. 4to. British
Museum.
1600. The Mahumetane or Turkish Hystorye, containing
three Bookes. . . . Heereunto have I annexed a brief e discourse
of the warres of Cypres .... and .... a discourse contesting
the causes of the greatnesse of the Turkish Empire. Translated
from the French and Italian tongues by R. Carr, of the Middle
Temple, in London, Gentleman.
London : Printed by Thomas Este dwelling in Aldersgate
street. 1600. 4to. 122 leaves. British Museum.
Each book is dedicated to one of the three brothers, Rob. r
Will., and Edw. Carr separately ; and The Narration of the
Warres of Cyprus to them all jointly. The translator was
Ralph Carr.
See Censura Literaria, Vol. vui, p. 149, and Herbert,
Typographical Antiquities, Vol. u, p. 1021.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 501
1601. Civitt Considerations upon many and sundrie his-
tories, as well ancient as moderne, and principallie upon those
of Guicciardin. . . . Handled after the manner of a discourse,
by the Lord Remy of Florence \_Remigio Nannini, Fiorentino\,
and done into French by G. Chappuys .... and out of French
into English, by W. T.
Imprinted by F. K. for M. Lownes. London, 1601.
Folio. British Museum.
The Italian original of this work is,
Considerationi Civili, sopra V Historic di F. Guicciardini, e
d y altri historici, tratlate per modo di discorso da M. Remigio
Fiorentino, .... con alcune letter e familiari delV istesso sopra
varie materie scritte d diversi Gentil'huomini, e CXL V. adverti-
menti di F. Guicciardini nuovamente posti in luce. \_Edited by
Sisto da Venetia.']
Venetia. 1582. 4to. British Museum.
W. T. translated from Chappuys' French version, Considfra-
tions civiles, sur plusieurs et diverses histoires tant anciennes que
modernes, et principallement sur celles de Guicciardin. Conte-
nans plusieurs preceptes et reigles, pour Princes, Republiques,
Capitaines . . . . et autres Agents .... des Princes: aveo
plusieurs advis touchant la vie civile .... traitees par mani&re
de discours par Remy Florentin, et mises en Francois par G.
Chappuys, etc.
Paris. 1585. 8vo. British Museum.
1606. A Treatise concerning the causes of the Magnificencie
and Greatnes of Cities. Devided into three bookes by Sig.
Giovanni Botero, in the Italian Tongue, now done into English,
[by Robert Peterson.~\
At London, Printed by T. P. for Richard Ockould and
Henry Tomes. 1606. 4to. British Museum.
Dedicated, to ' my verie good Lord, Sir Thomas Egerton,
Knight.'
A translation of Giovanni Botero's,
502 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Delia cause delta grandezza delle citta, libri ire. [Edited by
S. Barberino.] Milano. 1 596. 8vo. British Museum.
This work came to many editions, and was translated into
Latin, French, Spanish, and German.
1623. The Popes Letter (80 April, 1623) to the Prince
[Charles'] in Latine, Spanish, and English. . . . A Jesuites
Oration to the Prince in Latin and English.
Printed for N. Butter, London, 1623. 4to. British Museum.
A letter from Alessandro Ludovisio, Pope Gregory XV. to
Charles I. when Prince of Wales ; a later reprint, with the
answer, explains the general subject of the correspondence,
The King of Scotland's Negotiations at Rome [in 1650'] for
assistance against the Common-Wealth of England in certain
propositions there made, for, and on his behalf; in which propo-
sitions his affection . ... to poperie is asserted, etc. ItaL, Lat.,
Eng., and Fr. (The Pope's letter [of 20 Apr. 1623] to the
King [Charles I~\ when Prince of Wales. [ With the answer.])
William Dugard. London. 1650. 4to. British Museum,
(2 copies).
1626. The New-Found Politick, disclosing the Intrigues of
State .... now translated into English. [Part 3, by Sir
William VaughanJ]
London. 1626. 4to. British Museum.
A translation of Trajano Boccalini's,
Pietra del Paragone Politico tratta dal Monte Parnaso, dove
si toccano i governi delle maggiori monarchic deW universo.
(Nuova aggiunta alia Pietra del Paragone.)
Cosmopoli [Amsterdam ?] 1615. 4to. British Museum.
The head title reads, De i Ragguagli di Parnaso parte terza
di Troiano [sic] Boccalini Romano.
Sir William Vaughan, born 1577, was younger brother to
the first Earl of Carbery. He "became chief undertaker
for the plantation in Cambriol, the southermost part in New-
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FKOM THE ITALIAN. 503
foundland, now called by some Britanniola, where with pen,
purse, and person [he] did prove the worthinesse of that
enterprise." Anthony & Wood alludes here to the publication
of The Golden Fleece, in 1626, a book written by Vaughan
for the purpose of attracting emigrants to his settlement. Sir
William Vaughan was living at Cambriol in 1628, but the
colony does not seem to have proved successful, for in 1630
he published The Newlander's Oure, giving, in an introductory
letter, some account of his experiences in the New World.
The undertaking is mentioned in Purchas, " The Worshipfull
William Vaughan of Terraced, in the Countie of Carmarthen,
Doctor of Ciuill Law, hath also undertaken to plant a Circuit
in the New-found land, and hath in two seuerall yeeres sent
thither diuers men and women, and hee is willing to entertaine
such as will be Adventurers with him upon fit conditions."
Purchas his Pilgrimes. Lib. x. Chap. 9. Vol. iv. P.
1888. 1625. Folio.
1636. MachiaveVs Discourses upon the first decade of T.
Livius, [Books l-3~\, translated out of the Italian; with some
marginall animadversions noting and taxing his errours. By
E. [dward\ D. [acres'].
T. Paine for W. Hills and D. Pakeman. London. 1636.
12mo. Pp. 646. British Museum, (2 copies).
MachiaveVs Discourses upon the First Decade of T. Livius,
translated out of Italian. To which is added his Prince. [ The
Life of Castruccio Castracani, etcJ\ With some marginal anim-
adversions. . . . By E. D. 2 pts.
T. N. for D. Pakeman. London. 1663. 12mo. British
Museum. Second edition, much corrected, etc. For C.
Harper. London. 1674. 8vo. Pp. 686. British Museum.
A translation of Nicolo Machiavelli's Discorsi .... sopra
la prima deca di Tito Livio. L. P. Per A. Blado de Asola
[Rome.] 1531. 8vo. British Museum. [Including Dacres's
translation of II Principe in the last two editions.]
504 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1637. Romulus and Tarquin. First Written in Italian
.... and now taught English by \i. e. Henry Carey, Earon
Carey of Leppington, afterwards earl of Monmouth.~\
Printed by I. H. for J. Benson. London. 1637. 12mo.
British Museum. Also, 1638. 12mo. British Museum. With
commendatory verses prefixed by Thomas Carew, Sir John
Suckling, Sir William Davenant, Sir Robert Stapylton, and
others.
Romulus and Tarquin. Written in Italian by the Marques
Virgilio Malvezzi. And now taught English by Henry Earle
of Monmouth. The Third Edition.
London, printed for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be
sold at his shop at the Prince's Armes in St. PauPs Church-
yard. 1648. 12mo. British Museum.
" Dedicated, " to the most sacred Majesty of Charles the
First, Monarch of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland," etc.
This work is a translation of two of the political publi-
cations of the Marquese Virgilio Malvezzi, // Romulo.
Bologna. 1629. 4to. British Museum, and II Tarquinio
Superbo. Yenetia. 1633. 12mo. British Museum.
II Romulo is a biography with political and moral reflec-
tions ; it was a very successful book, reprinted several times
in Italy and translated into French and Spanish.
To my much honoured friend, Henry Lord Cary of Lepington,
upon his translation of Malvezzi.
In every triviall worke 'tis knowne
Translators must be masters of their owne
And of their Author's language; but your taske
A greater latitude of skill did aske ;
For your Malvezzi first requir'd a man
To teach him speak vulgar Italian.
His matter's so sublime, so now his phrase
So farre above the stile of Bemboe's dayes,
Old Varchie's rules, or what the Crusca yet
For currant Tuscan mintage will admit,
As I beleeve your Marquesse, by a good
Part of his natives, hardly understood.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 505
You must expect no happier fate ; 'tis true
He is of noble birth ; of nobler you :
So nor your thoughts nor words fit common eares ;
He writes, and you translate, both to your peeres.
Thomas Carew.
To his much honoured the Lord Lepington, upon his translation
of Malvezzi, his Romulus and Tarquin.
It is so rare and new a thing to see
Ought that belongs to young nobility
In print, but their own clothes, that we must praise
You as we would do those first show the ways
To arts or to new worlds. You have begun ;
Taught travelled youth what 't is it should have done
For 't has indeed too strong a custom been
To carry out more wit than we bring in.
You have done otherwise : brought home, my lord,
The choicest things famed countries do afford :
Malvezzi by your means is English grown,
And speaks our tongue as well now as his own.
Malvezzi, he whom 't is as hard to praise
To merit, as to imitate his ways.
He does not show us Rome great suddenly,
As if the empire were a tympany,
But gives it natural growth, tells how and why
The little body grew so large and high.
Describes each thing so lively, that we are
Concerned ourselves before we are aware :
And at the wars they and their neighbours waged,
Each man is present still, and still engaged.
Like a good prospective he strangely brings
Things distant to us ; and in these two kings
We see what made greatness. And what 't has been
Made that greatness contemptible again.
And all this not tediously derived,
But like to worlds in little maps contrived.
'T is he that doth the Roman dame restore,
Makes Lucrece chaster for her being whore ;
Gives her a kind revenge for Tarquin's sin ;
For ravish'd first, she ravisheth again.
She says such fine things after 't, that we must
In spite of virtue thank foul rape and lust,
Since 't was the cause no woman could have had,
Though she's of Lucrece side, Tarquin less bad.
But stay ; like one that thinks to bring his friend
506 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
A mile or two, and sees the journey's end,
I straggle on. too far ; long graces do
But keep good stomachs off, that would fall to.
The Poems, Plays and Other Remains of Sir John Suckling.
Ed. W. C. Hazlitt. 1874. Vol. i. P. 20.
1639. The History of the Inquisition, Composed by the Rev.
Father Paul Servita. Translated out of the Italian by R. [oberf]
Gentilis.
J. Okes, for H. Mosley, London, 1639. 4to. British
Museum, (3 copies). 1655. 8vo. Brit. Mus. 1676. Folio.
Brit. Mus.
A translation of Fra Paolo's,
Historia delta Sacra Inquisitione composta .... dal R. P.
Paolo Servita ed hora la prima volta posta in luce, etc.
Serravalle. 1638. 4to.
1640. Nicholas Machiavel's Prince. Also, the Life of Cos-
truccio Castracani \_degli Antelminelli, duke~\ of Lucca. And
the meanes Duke Valentine us'd to put to death Vitellozzo Vitelli,
Oliver otto of Fermo, Paul, and the Duke of Gravina. Trans-
lated out of Italian into English. By E. \_dward] D. [acres'].
R. Bishop for Wil : Hils and are to be sold by D. Pake-
man. London. 1640. 12mo. Pp.305. British Museum.
A translation of Machiavelli's,
II Principe. . . . La Vita di Castruccio Castracani da
Luca. . . . II Modo che tenne il Duca Valentino, per amma-
zare Vitelozzo, Oliverotto da Fermo. ... / ritratti delle cose
della Francia, et delta Alamagna .... nuovamente aggiunti.
Bernardo di Giunta. Firenze. 1532. 4to. British Museum.
Machiavelli's Prince is an elaboration of one line of thought
of the Discourses, upon which he was engaged when he took
it in hand. Although cast in the form of comments on Livy,
the Discorsi, in toto, is really an' inquiry into the genesis and
maintenance of the state. It is // Principe on a larger scale,
copiously illustrated by historical examples, and enriched by
the fruits of Machiavelli's own experience and observation.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 507
John Morley characterizes the two books clearly, "in the
Prince he lays down the conditions on which an absolute
ruler, rising to power by force of genius backed by circum-
stances, may maintain that power, with safety to himself and
most advantage to his subjects; while in the Discourses he
examines the rules that enable a self-governing state to retain
its freedom. The cardinal precepts are the same. In either
case, the saving principal is one : self-sufficiency, military
strength, force, flexibility, address, above all, no half-
measures. In either case, the preservation of the state is
equally the one end, reason of state equally the one ade-
quate and sufficient test and justification of the means. The
Prince deals with one problem, the Discourses with the
other."
As to the minor works translated by Dacres, Machiavelli's
Life of Castruccio Costracani is more romance than history.
Machiavelli describes Castruccio as a foundling, and depicts
him when lord of Lucca as the ideal soldier and statesman.
In fact, Castruccio was of the noble family of the Antel-
minelli. He succeeded Uguccione della Faggiuola, lord of
Pisa, at Lucca, in 1315, and was supported by the Emperor
Louis of Bavaria, who created him duke of Lucca. Castruccio
dominated all Tuscany, until his death, in 1328, enabled the
Guelfs to breathe freely again.
The story of Oliverotto da Fermo is told in the 8th chapter
of the Prince. He was one of the captains of Cesare Borgia
who revolted, and entered into a conspiracy against him.
With many arts, Cesare got four of the conspirators to visit
him at Sinigaglia, where two of them, Oliverotto and Vitel-
lozzo, were seized and forthwith strangled. It was only a
year after Oliverotto had become tyrant of Fermo by murder-
ing his uncle, Giovanni Fogliani, whom he had invited to a
banquet for the express purpose of making way with him.
The character of Machiavelli seems to have made a pro-
found impression on the Elizabethan dramatists. Three plays
are named after him.
508 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1. Machiavel. An anonymous play, acted at the Rose theatre,
and recorded in Henslow's Diary, under the date, March
2, 1592.
2. Machiavel and the Devil, a tragedy, by Robert Daborne.
Daborne was in treaty with Henslow for this play between
April 17, and June 25, 1613. It may have been the
older play worked over.
3. Machiavellus. By D. Wiburne.
A Latin play acted at Cambridge University, 1597.
MS., of date 1600, Douce, 234, Bodleian.
Shakspere alludes to Machiavelli three times,
" Alenpon, that notorious Machiavel." /. Hen. VI. v. 4.
" I can add colors to the chameleon, i li
Change shapes with Proteus, for advantage,
And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school."
III. Hen. VI. Hi. 2.
" Peace, I say ! hear mine host of the Garter.
Am I politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel ?"
Merry Wives, in. 1.
Marlowe brings Machiavelli on the stage in person as the
Prologue to the Jew of Malta, expressing his admiration for
him in the lines,
" I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance."
Mr. Courthope, in his History of English Poetry, maintains
that all of Marlowe's plays are but different conceptions of
Machiavelli's principle of virtu. In this view Tamburlaine
is the apotheosis of power as ambition ; Barabbas, of power
as revenge; Faustus, of overweening intellectual power.
Whether Machiavelli did indeed revolutionize the English
drama, as Mr. Courthope's interesting contention holds,
certain it is that he was a familiar and popular figure on
the stage. Making mere casual notes on the subject, I find
sixteen dramatists, in twenty -six plays, all alluding to Mac-
hiavelli in the same way, crediting him with the craft, malice,
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 509
and hypocrisy of the devil. Mr. Edward Meyer, in his
dissertation, Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama (Weimar,
1897), has collected 395 instances of Machiavelli's name, or
supposed maxims, occurring in Elizabethan literature. As
the Prince was not translated until 1640, Mr. Meyer
argues that the source of Elizabethan Machiavellianism
was Simon Patrick's translation of Innocent Gentillet's,
Discours d'Estat sur les moyens de bien gouverner et mainte-
nir en bonne paix un royaume et une prinvipaute, contre NicoL
Machiavel. (1576.) The difficulty of this argument is, that,
although the dedication of Patrick's translation is dated
1577, the book was not entered on the Stationers' Register ,
nor printed, until 1602. Many of the allusions belong to
the sixteenth century. It is possible that Patrick's transla-
tion may have been known in manuscript ; it is also possible
that many persons may have read Gentillet, either in the
original Latin, or in French. From the vogue of Italian
at the time, and from the constant travelling to and fro
between England and Italy, I myself see no difficulty in
supposing what must have been the fact, that educated
Englishmen at least read Machiavelli in his own simple,
unaffected, vivid Italian. Machiavelli is a writer who will
never be read, except by the few, but his positive spirit, his
practical method, is precisely of the sort that must have
appealed most strongly to the Elizabethans. " We are much
beholden," said Bacon, " to Machiavel and others that wrote
what men do, and not what they ought to do."
The Elizabethans were deeply interested in government, as
the English have always been, and they had many perplex-
ing problems, both in State and Church, to deal with.
From abstract principles in the sphere of government,
Machiavelli appealed to experience, for authority as the test
of truth, he substituted scientific facts. All this seemed well
enough to a people in the first blush of civil and religious
freedom, but it was confusing, it was especially confusing
when concretely applied to new and urgent moral questions,
510 MAKY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
such as early Protestant England had to settle. The popular
misconception of Machiavelli might easily have arisen in
ignorance, it was certainly in the air, as Gentillet's book
shows; it must have been added to by the Italian travellers 7
reporting half truths ; Marlowe's extravagant admiration
undoubtedly overleaped the mark ; and lastly, there is the
vitium gentis, the natural antipathy of race and morale, to
intensify the current opinion.
Lord Burghley and Elizabeth probably rated Machiavelli
nearest his proper worth, and it is well known that both these
great personages walked in devious paths. " Party Govern-
ment is not the Reign of the Saints," wittily says John
Morley, in his brilliant Romanes lecture on Machiavelli, and
goes on to show that among the canonized saints of the
Roman Church, there have been but a dozen kings in eight
centuries, and no more than four popes. "So hard has it
been," he adds, quoting Cosmo de ? Medici, "to govern the
world by paternosters."
1641. An History of the Oiuill Warres of England betweene
the two howses of Lancaster and Yorke. The originall where
of is set downe in the life of Richard ye second; their e proceed-
ings in ye lives of Henry ye 4 th Henry ye 5 th and 6 th Edward
ye 4- th an d 5 th Richard ye 3 d and Henry ye 7 th in whose dayes
they had a happy period. Englished by ye Right Hon lle Henry
Earle of Monmouth in two Volumes.
Imprinted at London for John Benson & and are to be
sould at his shop in S* Dustans churchyard. 1641.
The Second Part of the History of the Civill Warres of
England Between the two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke.
Wherein is contained The Prosecution thereof, in the lives of
Edward the fourth Edward the fifth Richard the third, and
Henry the seventh. Written originally in Italian By Sir
Francis Biondi Knight, late Gentleman of the Privy- Chamber
to His Majesty of Great Brittaine. Englished by the Right
Honourable, Henry Earle of Monmouth : The second Volume.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 511
London, Printed by E. G. for Richard Whitaker, and are
to be sold at his shop in the Kings Armes in Pauls Church-
yard. 1646. 2 volumes in 1. Sm. folio. Peabody, in beauti-
ful binding, full fawn calf, extra, gilt edges. Pp. 177 + 236.
British Museum.
The engraved title-page contains portraits (half length) of
Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria, and of Richard II.
and Henry VII., at full length.
The work is a translation of Giovanni Francesco (Sir John
Francis) Biondi's,
Uhistoria delle guerre civili d' Inghilterra tra le due Cose
di Lancastro e di lore, sotto Ricardo II, Arrigo IV, V, VI,
Odoardo IV, etc.
Venezia. 1637-44. 4to. 3 vols. British Museum.
Dedicated, by the author, Giovanni Francesco Biondi, " To
the High and mighty Monarch, Charles, King of great
Britaine, France and Ireland."
The Earl of Monmouth says in his epistle " To the Readers
his beloved countrey-rnen," prefixed to the Second Part,
"The reasons then that drew me to this (otherwise Un-
necessary) Epistle, are ; First, to let my Readers know, lest I
may seem to derogate from my Authour, by tacitely arrogat-
ing to My Selfe, that the three Last lives [those of Edward
the fifth, Richard the third, and Henry the seventh] of this
Volume are not yet (as I can heare of) printed in Italian,
and the Authour being dead, out of whose Papers, whilst he
was here in England, I translated them ; I know not whether
they may ever undergoe the Presse in the Language wherein
they were by him penned or no. My next inducing reason
is; That the subject of both parts of this Treatise being
Civili Warres, and this Second comming forth in a Time
of Civili Warres in the Same Countrey, I hope I may be
excused for doing what in me lies to perswade to a Happy
Peace : whereunto I know no more powerfull Argument,
then by shewing the Miseries of Warre, which is a Tragedie
that alwaies destroyes the Stage whereon it is acted ; and
512 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
which when it once seizeth upon a Land rich in the plenty
of a Long Peace, and full with the Surfeit of Continued Ease,
seldome leaves Purging those Superfluities, till All (not only
Superfluous but meere Necessaries) be wasted and consumed,
as is sufficiently made to appeare throughout this whole
History."
1642. Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus. Translated into
English by Sir R. [ichard] B. [aker\.
London. 1642. Folio. British Museum.
A translation of the Marquese Malvezzi's,
Discorsi sopra il libra primo degli Annali di Cornelio Tacito.
Venetia. 1622. 4to. Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito. Venetia.
1635. 4to. British Museum, (2 copies).
Sir Richard Baker, 1568-1645, made this translation of
Malvezzi's Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito for a bookseller
named "Whittaker. It was one of the literary works with
which he occupied himself in the Fleet prison, where he lived
from about 1635 until his death.
It is impossible to mention Sir Richard Baker without
referring to his famous book, the Chronicle of the Kings of
England from the time of the Romans' Government unto the
Death of King James, which appeared in 1643. Baker's
Chronicle was reprinted ten times up to 1733, was continued
to the year 1658 by Edward Phillips, Milton's nephew
(1660), was abridged (1684), and was translated into Dutch
(1649). It is written in a pleasant, readable style, and was
long popular with- country gentlemen. Addison represents
Sir Roger de Coverley as well posted in his Chronicle, which
he always kept lying in his hall window. One of the most
humorsome papers of the Spectator is that (No. 329, March
18, 1712) describing Sir Roger's going through Westminster
Abbey with Baker's Chronicle on the tip of his tongue.
Before the figure of Queen Elizabeth's maid of honor who
died from the prick of her needle, he wonders why Sir
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 513
Richard Baker has said nothing about her; he informs the
Spectator that Edward the Confessor was the first who
touched for the evil ; Henry IV. reminds him that t( there
was fine reading in the casualties of that reign ; " upon the
whole, he observes with some surprise, that Sir Richard
Baker " had a great many kings in him whose monuments
he had not seen in the Abbey."
So, Fielding, in Joseph Andrews, refers to Baker's Chronicle
as part of the furniture of Sir Thomas Booby's house.
There is one notable accuracy in Baker's Chronicle; it
gives for the first time the correct date of the poet Gower's
death.
1647. The Pourtract of the Politicke Christian-Favourite.
Originally drawn from some of the actions of the Lord Duke
of St. Lucar. . . . To this translation is annexed the chief e
State Maxims .... and .... observations .... upon the same
story of Count Olivares, Duke of St. Lucar.
London. 1647. 8vo. British Museum.
A translation of Malvezzi's,
II Ritratto del Privato Politico Christiano estratto doll 9
originale d'alcune attione del Conte Duca di S. Lucar [i. e. G.
de Guzman] dal Marchese V. Malvezzi.
Bologna. 1635. 4to. British Museum.
1647. // Davide Perseguitato : David Persecuted: . . . .
Done into English by E. [obert] Ashley.
London. 1647. 12mo. British Museum. Also, 1650.
12mo. ("with a picture of King Ch. I. playing on a harp,
resembling K. David, purposely to make all the impression
sell off, such are the usual shifts which booksellers use."
Anthony a Wood). British Museum.
A translation of the Marquese Virgilio Malvezzi's Davide
Perseguitato.
Venetia. 1634. 12mo. British Museum.
5
514 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1647. The Chief e Events of the Monarchic of Spaine, in
the yeare 1639. . . . Translated out of th j Italian copy by R.
Gentilis.
London. 1647. 12mo. British Museum.
A translation of the Marquese Virgilio MalvezzPs,
I successi principals delta Monarchia di Spagna neW anno
1639. Anvers. 1641. 16mo.
A Spanish translation is dated a year earlier,
Successos principa/es de la Monarquia d'Espana en el afro
de mil i seis cientos i treinta i nueve, etc.
Madrid. 1640. 4to. British Museum.
1648. A Venice Looking- Glass ; or, a Letter written very
lately from Lond. to Card. Barbarini at Rome by a Venetian
Clarissimo touching the present Distempers in England.
Translated from the Italian by James HowcllJ\
1648. 4to. Pp. 24.
To the Lady E., Countess Dowager of Sunderland.
Madam,
I am bold to send your La. to the Country a new Venice
Looking-glass, wherein you may behold that admir'd Maiden-
City in her true complexion, together with her Government
and Policy, for she is famous all the world over. Therefore,
if at your hours of leisure you please to cast your eyes upon
this Glass, I doubt not but it will afford you Home objects
of entertainment.
Moreover, your Ladyship may discern thro' this Glass the
motions, and the very heart of the Author, how he con-
tiuueth still, and resolves so to do, in what condition soever
he be, Madam
Your most constant and dutiful Servant,
J. H.
1650. Considerations upon the lives of Alcibiades and
Corialanus [sic]. . . . Englished by R. Gentilis;
London. 1650. 12mo. British Museum.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 515
Dedicated to the daughter of Thomas, Earl of Strafford,
" as a small token of the manifold obligements whereto I am
everlastingly tied to you."
Translated from the Marquese MalvezzPs,
Consider ationi, con occasione d'alcuni luoghi, della vite
d'Alcibiade e di Coriolano. 2 pis.
Bologna. 1648. 4to. British Museum, (2 copies.)
" Like Shakspere's of respect is Robert Gentilis's respect-
ful, 'Alcibiades .... strives to become great, and make
himself respectful!,, by contending with great ones."
Considerations, etc., p. 64.
F. H. in The Nation. July 4, 1895.
165052. An exact Historie of the late Revolutions in
Naples; And of their Monstrous Successes, not to be parallel' d
by any Antient or Modern History. Published by the Lord
Alexander Giraffi in Italian; And (for the rarenesse of the
subject) Rendred to English, by J. H. Esq r .
London, Printed for R. Lowndes. 1650.
The Second Part of Mossaniello, His Body taken out of the
Town-Ditch, and solemnly Buried, With Epitaphs upon him.
A Continuation of the Tumult; The D. of Guise made General-
issimo; Taken Prisoner by young Don John of Austria. The
End of the Commotions. By J. H. Esquire.
Truth never look'd so like a Lie
As in this modern Historie.
London, Printed by A. M. for Abel Roper at the sign of
the Sun, and T. Dring at the George near S t- Dunstans
Church in Fleetstreet, MDCLII. The two Parts together,
24mo, pp. 345. With a colored frontispiece subscribed Effigie
& nero Ritratto di Masianello, comandante, in Napoli. Pea-
body. British Museum (2 copies). 1664-3. 8vo. British
Museum.
Dedicated by the translator, James Howell, " To the right
Worshipfull, the Governour, the Deputy, and the rest of the
worthy Company, trading into the Levant."
516 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
The work is a translation of Alessandro Giraffi's Le rivolu-
tioni di Napoli .... con pienissimo ragguaglio d'ogni successo,
e trattati secreti, e paiesi. (Primo libro Manifesto del ....
Popolo di Napoli.) Venetia. 1647. 8vo. British Museum.
(Eight editions between 1647 and 1844 in the British
Museum.)
Masaniello (Tommaso Aniello) was a young fisherman of
Amalfi who led a popular uprising in Naples during the
summer of 1647. The cause of the civil revolution was
the heavy taxation of the Spanish Government then in
possession of Naples, and particularly the duty on fruits,
both green and dry. The first riot, incited by Masaniello,
broke out on Sunday, July 7, 1647, and lasted ten days;
on the third day Masaniello was made Captain-General, or
Absolute Patron, of the city, and as Howell translates, "from
an humble, judicious, and zelous spirit which raign'd in
him ; he became proud, a Fool and a Tyrant." After a rule
of but eight days and eight hours, he was assassinated, July
16, 1647.
The Second Part of MassanieUo describes the continuation
of the civil war, the intervention of the French commanded
by the Duke of Guise, and the subjugation of the city by
Spain, in 1648, under the leadership of Don John of Austria.
1650. The History of the rites, customes and manner of life
of the present Jews throughout the world. Written in Italian
by Leo Modena. . . . Translated into English by E. \_dmund~\
C'hilmead. Pp. 249.
J. L. for J. Martin and J. Ridley. London. 1650. 8vo.
British Museum, (2 copies).
Translated from Leo Modena's
Historia degli Riti Hebraici, Dove si ha breve e total rela-
tione di tutta la vita, costumi, riti et osservanze, degV Hebrei di
questi tempi. [Edited by the French mystic, Jacques Gaffarel.]
Parigi. 1637. 12mo. British Museum.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 517
1650. De Bello Belgico. The History of the Low-Countrey
Warres. Written in Latin by F. S. [Famiano Strada] ; in
English by Sir R. Stapylton, Kt. Illustrated with divers figures.
\_A translation of Decade I. only.~\
London. 1650. Folio. 1667. Folio. British Museum.
A translation of
F. S. . . . de Bello Belgico decasprima (secunda), [1555-90].
2 pts. Romae. 1632-47. Folio. British Museum.
1651. Stoa Triumphans: or, two sober paradoxes, viz. 1.
The Praise of Banishment. 2. The Dispraise of Honors.
Argued in two letters by .... V. M. Now translated out of
Italian, with some annotations annexed.
London. 1651. 12mo. British Museum.
V. M. is the Marquese Yirgilio Malvezzi. The transla-
tor's dedication is signed " T. P."
1652. Historicall Relations of the United Provinces and of
Flanders, written originally in Italian by Cardinall Bentivoglio,
and now rendered into English by Henry [Carey] Earle of
Monmouth.
London. 1652. Folio. British Museum. Prefixed is a
portrait, by Faithorne, of the Earl of Monmouth. Also,
1654. Folio. Brit. Mus. 1678. Folio. Brit. Mus.
The work is a translation of Bentivoglio's,
Relatione fatte daW IIP' 10 - Cardinal Bentivoglio in tempo delle
sue nuntiature di Fiandra e di Francia. Date in luce da
E. \ricio'\ Puteano. 2 vols.
N. Pantino. Colonia. 1629. Folio. British Museum.
Guido Bentivoglio was sent as papal nuncio to Flanders by
Pope Paul V., in 1607; he remained there nine years, until
the beginning of 1617, when he was transferred to France.
He was so acceptable to France that when he was made a
cardinal, January 11, 1621, Louis XIII. chose him to pro-
tect French interests in Rome. He died in conclave, in
1644, just as he was about to be elected Pope, done to death,
518 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
J. V. Rossi (Nicius Erythraeus) asserts, by the snoring of
the cardinal in the next cell, which kept him awake for
eleven successive nights.
To the Earle of Monmouih. Upon his translation
of Bentivoglio.
Those who could rule the Ancient World with ease,
Could strictly governe all, yet none displease,
Were such as cherisht Learning ; not because
It wrapt in rev'renc'd Mistery the Lawes,
Nor that it did the Nobles civillize,
But rather that it made the People wise ;
Who found by reading Story (where we see
What the most knowing were, or we should be)
That Peace breeds happiness, and only they
Breed Peace, who wisely any Pow'r obey.
Books much contribute to the Publick good,
When by the People eas'ly understood ;
But those who dress them in a Forraigne Tongue
Bring Meate in cover'd Plate to make men long.
Whilst those who Foraigne Learning well translate
Serve plaine Meate up, and in uncover'd Plate.
This you have done my Lord ! which only showes
How free your Mind in publick Channels flowes,
But if that good to which some men are borne
Doe less then good acquir'd our Names adorne
The ceaseless nature of your kindness then,
(Still ready to informe unlanguag'd Men)
Deserves less praise, if rightly understood,
Then does your judgment how to do Men good :
Which none can value at too high a rate,
Judging the choice of*Authors you translate.
The Works of S r William Davenant K*. London. 1673. Folio. P. 316.
1653. The Scarlet Gown, Or the History of all the present
Cardinals of Rome. Wherein is set forth the Life, Birth,
Interest, Possibility, rich offices, Dignities, and charges of every
Cardinal now living. . . . Written originally in Italian [by
N. N.~\ and translated into English by H. [enry] C. [ogan]
Gent.
London, Printed for Humphrey Moseley, etc. 1653. 8vo.
Huih. British Museum, (3 copies). Also, 1654 : 1660. 8vo.
British Museum.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 519
Dedicated to John, Earl of Rutland.
I find in the British Museum Catalogue,
The Court of Rome. . . . Translated out of Italian into
English by H. [enry] C. [pgan\. 1654. 8vo. British Museum.
Possibly this is a variant title for the 1654 edition of The
Scarlet Gown.
1654. The Compleat History of the Warrs of Flanders,
written in Italian. . . . Englished by . . . . Henry \Carey\
Earl of Monmouth. Illustrated with figures of the chief per-
sonages mentioned in this history, with a map of the 17 provinces
and above 80 figures.
London. 1654. Folio. With a portrait of the Earl of
Monmouth. British Museum. Also, 1078. Folio. British
Museum.
A translation of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio's,
Delia Guerra di Fiandra, descritta dal Cardinal Bentivoglio
parte prima (terza).
Colonia. 1632-39. 4to. 3 pts. British Museum.
1654. A discourse touching the Spanish Monarchy; wherein
we have a political glasse, representing each particular country
.... and empire of the world, with wayes of government. . . .
Newly translated into English \by Edmund Chilmead] accord-
ing to the third edition .... in Latin. Pp. viii -j- 232.
E. Alsop. London. 1654. 4to. British Museum.
[1660?] Thomas Campanella, an Italian friar and second
Machiavel, his advice to the King of Spain for attaining the
universal Monarchy of the World: particularly concerning
England^ Scotland and Ireland, how to raise division between
King and parliament, to alter the government from a king-
dome to a commonwealth. . . . Translated into English by Ed.
Chilmead . ... with an admonitorie Preface by William Prynne.
Pp. xiv -f 232.
P.Stephens. London, [1660?]. 4to. British Museum.
520 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
A translation of Tommaso Campanella's,
Th. C. de Monarchia Hispanica discursus.
L. Elzevir. Amstelodami. 1640. 12mo. British Museum.
The work was also translated into Italian and German.
In his De Monarchia Universali, Campanella, a Dominican
monk, revives Dante's political dream of a universal Church
and a universal Empire, substituting Spain for Germany.
1654. Parthenopoeia or the history of the Most Noble and
Renowned Kingdom of Naples With the Dominions therunto
annexed and the Lives of all their Kings. The First Part by
that Famous Antiquary Scipio Mazzella made English by Mr.
Samson Lennard Herald ofArmes. The Second Part Compil'd
by James Howell Esq.; who broches some supplements to the
First party drawn on the Thread of the Story to these present
Times. 1654.
London, Printed for Humphrey Moseley .... 1650. Sm.
folio. Pp. xviii + 191 + 62 + ii. British Museum.
A translation of Scipione Mazzella's
Descrittione del regno di Napoli. . . . Con la nota de'fuochi,
delle impositione . . . . e dell' entrate, che n'ha il Re. E vi si fa
mentione de i Re, che Vhan dominate, . . . . de' Pontifici e de'
Cardinale, che si nacquero, e . . . . delle famiglie nobili, che vi
sono, etc.
G. B. Capelli. Napoli. [1586]. 4to. Pp. 710. British
Museum.
1654. The Court of Rome. . . . Translated out of Italian
into English by H. C. [Henry Cogan].
1654. 8vo. British Museum.
1656. I Ragguagli di Parnaso: or Advertisements from
Parnassus, in two centuries, with the politick Touchstone ....
put into English, by Henry \_Carey] Earl of Monmouth.
London. 1656. Folio. With portrait of the Earl of
Monmouth, by Faithorne. British Museum. Also, 1669 and
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 521
1674, folio, British Museum, and 1706, folio. "Revis'd
and Corrected by Mr. Hughes" (John Hughes, the poet).
Pp. xvi -f- 454. British Museum.
This is a translation of Trajano Boccalini's De y Ragguagli
di Parnasso centuria prima. Venice. 1612. 4to. \_Milano.
1613. 8vo. British Museum^] Centuria seconda. Venice.
1613. 4to. [Venetia. 1616. 8vo. British Museum.']
The Politick Touchstone is a translation of Boccalini's Pietra
del Paragone Politico, which had already been translated by
Sir William Vaughan, under the title, The New-Found Poli-
tick. 1626.
The title of a later, and different, translation of the Rag-
guagli reads,
Advertisements from Parnassus .... newly done into English,
and adapted to the present times. Together with the author's
Politick Touchstone ; his Secretaria di Apollo ; and an account
of his life. By N. N. 3 vols.
London. 1704. 8vo. British Museum.
The Ragguagli di Parnasso represents Apollo, seated upon
Parnassus, hearing the complaints of all who come before
him, and distributing justice according to absolute desert.
Boccalini was a keen and daring wit, and his book, which is
a sort of Dunciad, is full of lively satire on the lives and
writings of famous Italians. His touch is light, with a
fantastic turn, and some of his hits are extremely happy.
Apropos of Guicciardini's longwindedness, he relates this
pleasantry,
A citizen of Lacedaemon having said in three words what
could be said in two (a capital crime in Sparta), was con-
demned to read Guicciardini's history of the Pisan war.
He read the first pages in a mortal sweat; then utterly
unable to go on with it, he ran and threw himself at the feet
of his judges, beseeching them to imprison him for life, to
send him to the galleys, to burn him alive, anything rather
than prolong his intolerable weariness in reading Guicciardini.
Dr. Richard Garnett thinks that the Advertisements from
522
MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Parnassus probably exerted considerable influence upon
Quevedo, Swift, and Addison.
1656. -The Siege of Antwerp written in Latin. . . . Eng-
lished [from the 6th and part of the 7th book of Famiano
Strada j s De Bello Belgico decas primo (secundd)] by Thomas
Lancaster. Gent.
London, [May 29, 1656] 8vo. British Museum.
1657. Political Discourses; written in Italian, and trans-
lated into English by Henry \_Carey~] Earl of Monmouth.
London. 1657. Folio.
A translation of Paolo Paruta's,
D iscorsi politid ne i quali si considerano diversifatti illustri,
e memoraboli di Principi, e di Republiche antiche e moderne,
[divisi in due libri:~\ Aggiuntovi nelfine un suo soliloquio, nel
quale Vautorefd, un breve essame di tutto il corso della sua vita.
Venetia. 1599. 4to. 2 pts. British Museum, (2 copies).
The Discorsi is a series of twenty-five essays on Athens,
Kome, Venice, and contemporary politics, written with a
broad and just spirit, and in an admirable style.
1658. The History of Venice .... written originally in
Italian .... likewise the wars of Cyprus .... wherein the
famous sieges of Nicossia and Famagosta, and battel of Le-
panto are contained. Made English by Henry Carey, Earl of
Monmouth.
London. 1658. Folio. 2 pts. British Museum.
A translation of Paolo Paruta's Historia Vinetiana. [Edited
by G, Paruta and " fratelli."
Venice. 1605. 4to. 2 pts. British Museum, (2 copies).
Paruta's Storia Veneziana was begun in Latin with the
design of following Cardinal Bernbo's history of Venice ; in
three books, it covers the period from 1513 to 1552, relating
the war with Cyprus. The style is simple, clear, and elegant.
Paruta was not only an historian, but also an able statesman
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 523
and diplomatist. He became Procurator of the Venetian
Republic, and was only prevented by his death from becom-
ing Doge.
1663. History of the Wars of Italy, from the year 1613
to 1644, eighteen books. Rendred into English by Henry
[ Carey\ Earl of Monmouih.
London. 1663. Folio. With Faithorne's portrait of the
Earl of Mon mouth. British Museum.
A translation of Pietro Giovanni Capriata's,
I due primi libri delV Istoria di P. G. C. . . . sopra i movi-
menti d'arme successi in Italia dalV anno .... MDCxmfino al
MDCXVIII. Aggiuntivi i Sommarij de gli altri quattro libri che
maneano al compimento dell' opera.
Genova. 1 625. 4to. British Museum.
DelV historia di P. G. C. libri dodici, etc. (Parte seconda
.... 1634 fino al 1640. Parte terza [edited by G. B.
Capriata] .... 1641 fino al 1650). 3 pt. Genova. 1638-
63. 4to. British Museum, (2 copies).
1664. A new Relation of Rome, as to the government of
the city, the noble Families thereof, etc. Englished by G. T.
\_Giovanni Torriano].
London. 1664. 8vo. (Lowndes.)
1664. Rome exactly described as to its present state under
Pope Alexander VII. , out of Italian by G. T. \_Giovanni
Torriano~\.
London. 1664. 8vo. (Lowndes. Allibone.)
1676. The History of France, written in Italian. . . . The
translation whereof being begun by Henry \_Carey\, late Earl of
Monmouih, was finished by William Brent, Esq.
London. 1676. Folio. British Museum.
A translation from the Italian historian, Galeazzo Gualdo-
Priorato, Count of Comazzo,
524 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Historia della Rivoluzioni di Franda sotto il regno di Luigi
XIV, daW anno 1648 sin aW anno 1654, con la continuazione
della guerra tra le due corone.
Venice. 1655. Paris. 1656. Folio.
Aggiunta d'allri accidenti occorsi in Europa sino alia pace
de' Pirenei.
Cologne. 1670. 4to. 2 vols.
The Earl of Monmouth was engaged upon the translation
of this work at the time of his death, in 1661.
c. MANNERS AND MORALS.
1561. The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castillo diuided
into foure bookes. Very necessary and profitable for yonge
Gentilmen and Gentilwomen abiding in Court, Palaice or
Place, done into Englyshe by Thomas Hoby.
Imprinted at London, by wyllyam Seres at the signe of
the Hedghogge. 1561. Woodcut title. [Colophon.] Im-
printed at London, by Wyllyam Seres, Dwelling at the west
end of Paules, at the Signe of the hedghog. 4to. Black
letter. Huth. British Museum, (2 copies) : 1577. 4to. Black
letter. Brit. Mus., (2 copies): 1588. 8vo. Pp.616. Printed
by John Wolfe, in three columns, Italian, in Italics, French,
in Roman, and English, in Black letter. Brit. Mus.: 1603.
4to. Brit. Mus. (With a spurious autograph of Shakspere,
forged by S. W. H. Ireland) : London. 1727. 4to. With
a life of Count Baldessare Castiglione, by A. P. Castiglione :
2nd edition. London. 1742. 4to. Peabody: Another edition,
by R. Sambre, London, 1729. 8vo.
1571. Balthasaris Castilionis comitis de Curiale sive Aulico
libri quatuor, ex Italico sermone in Latinum conversi. B.
Clerke .... interprete. Non aute aediti. Apud J. Dayum.
Londini. 1571. 8vo. Brit. Mus. : 1577. 8vo. : Londini.
1585. 8vo. Brit. Mus. : Londini. 1603. 8vo. Brit. Mus.:
Londini. 1612. 8vo. Brit. Mus. : Argentorati (Strassburg).
1619. 8vo. Brit. Mus.: Cantabrigiae. 1713. 8vo. Brit. Mus.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 525
The Courtyer is a translation of
II libro del Cortigiano del Conte B. C. Nelle case d'Aldo
Romano & d j Andrea d'Asola.
Venetia. 1528. Folio. British Museum.
Rigutini, in his edition of II Cortigiano (Barbara, 1889),
accounts for 45 Italian editions of the book before his own ;
he also enumerates three Latin translations of it, two Spanish,
two French, and one English. In this bibliography, not
intended to be complete, I have mentioned 66 editions or
reprints of II Cortigiano, in five languages. The Italians call
it the "Golden Book."
The first English edition contains "A Letter of syr I.
Cheekes. To his loving frind Mayster Thomas Hoby," in
which Sir John Cheeke says of the English language,
" I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written
cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing
of other tunges."
To the first Latin edition, by Bartholomew Clerke, is pre-
fixed a Latin Epistle by Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst,
and Earl of Dorset, author of Gorboduc, the earliest English
tragedy. Clerke's Latin translation is highly commended by
Sir John Harrington, in the preface to his translation of
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. 1591.
The Huth Library copy of the Courtyer belonged to the
poet Southey, and contains his autograph and bookplate.
II Cortigiano is dedicated by the author, Count Baldessare
Castiglione, to Don Michele de Silva, Bishop of Viseo; by the
English translator, Sir Thomas Hoby, "To Right Honour-
able the Lord Henry Hastiuges, sonne and heire apparent to
the noble Earle of Huntington."
"To join learning with cumlie exercises, Conte Baldesar
Castiglione in his booke, Cortigiano, doth trimlie teache,
which booke, advisedlie read, and diligentlie folowed, but
one year at home in England, would do a yong jentleman
more good, I wisse, than three yeares travell abrode spent in
Italie. And I mervell this booke is no more read in the
526 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Court, than it is, seying it is so well translated into English
by a worthie Jentleman Syr Th. Hobbie, was many wayes
furnished with learnyng, and very expert in knowledge of
divers tonges."
Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster, Bk. 1, p. 61.
" The best book that ever was written upon good breeding,
II CortigianOj by Castiglione, grew up at the little court of
Urbino, and you should read it."
BosweWs Johnson. Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. 2nd.
Oct. 1773. G. Birkbeck Hill, v, p. 276.
Count Baldessare Castiglione, 1478-1529, was a Mantuan
who spent his life in the service first of the Duke of Milan
and afterwards of Giudubaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of
Urbino. One of his diplomatic journeys took him to Eng-
land, whence, in 1507, he carried home, from Henry VII.,
the Order of the Garter, for his master, the Duke of Urbino.
// Cortigiano, the result of its author's travels and observa-
tions and social experiences, represents the highest conception
of manners of the Renaissance. It is a mixed type of manners,
in that the education of letters of the Renaissance is engrafted
upon the martial discipline of feudal times. In form, II
Cortigiano is modelled on the Decameron, of Boccaccio, and
the De Oratore, of Cicero. It is a dialogue supposed to be
carried on by a distinguished company of ladies and gentle-
men who are assembled at the Court of Urbino. Among
these personages the chief are Giuliano de' Medici, called
II Magnifico, afterwards Pope Clement VII. ; Ottaviano
Fregoso, afterwards Doge of Genoa ; Cardinal Bernardo
Bibbiena, author of Calandra; Cardinal Bembo, author of
GliAsolani; I/Unico Aretino; Elizabetta Gonzaga, Duchess
of Urbino; and Emilia Pia, Countess of Montefeltro.
The subject of discussion agreed upon is that proposed by
Messer Federigo Fregoso, " the perfect courtier, what are all
the conditions and particular qualifications required of the
man who shall deserve that name."
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 527
The discussion is continued through four evenings, taking
up the subject under four heads: (I) Of the form and manner
of a court life ; (2) Of the qualifications of a courtier ; (3) Of
the court lady; (4) Of the duty of a prince. The debate
on the first evening, on the form and manner of a court life,
is conducted by Count Lodovico da Canossa. Following the
chivalric ideal, it is laid down that the perfect courtier should
be a man of birth, a good horseman, and able to swim, leap,
cast the stone, and play tennis. In the education of letters,
he should be able to speak and write well, imitating the
diction of the best writers, of whom, in the vulgar tongue,
Boccaccio and Petrarch are praised as models. Further, the
perfect courtier ought to be more than moderately instructed
in polite letters, he should understand Greek and Latin
literature also, ' on account of the variety of things that are
written in those languages with great accuracy and beauty/
So in the other arts of expression, he should know something
of music, and be able to play upon the lute ; some skill also
in painting increases the knowledge of the beautiful and
cultivates the taste.
On the second evening, the debate is led by the proposer,
Messer Federigo Fregoso, who develops a lively and enter-
taining discussion of wit and humor. Among many sprightly
bon mots, here is one or two,
The Bishop of Cervia said to the Pope, "Holy Father, the
whole court and city will have it that you have pitched upon
me for governor."
"Let the fools talk," replied the Pope, "you may assure
yourself there is not a word of truth in it."
Marc' Antonio, being one day exasperated by some words
of Botton da Cesena, cried, " O Botton, Botton, the time will
surely come when thoti shalt be the button and a halter the
button-hole."
Julian de Medici leads the conversation of the third even-
ing, on the court lady. The conception of woman brought
out is made up partly of the formal and sentimental ideas of
528 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
the old Cours d j Amour, and partly of the colorless feminine
light o' love introduced into Italian literature, to its immense
damage, by Boccaccio, together with a smack of Platonism.
The sentimental, Platonic lady is ably defended by the Mag-
nifico, while the disparager of women is Signor Gasparo
Pallavicino.
Signor Ottaviauo Fregoso conducts the final debate, on the
duty of a prince. It is held that a monarchy, under a good
prince, is the best constituted government, although Bembo
prefers a republic ' because liberty is one of the excellent gifts
of God.' In this book Castiglione quotes himself on the
Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry VIII. He says that ' in
this prince nature seemed to try to outdo herself by uniting
in him alone enough excellencies for an infinity of men/
George Wyndham (Introduction to The Poems of Shake-
speare) thinks that Shakspere derived the Platonic philosophy
of his Sonnets from the Courtyer. As the Courtyer was far
and away the most popular Elizabethan translation from the
Italian, it is more than likely than Shakspere was familiar
with it. Among other suggestions which might be made to
strengthen this supposition, it may be pointed out that the
Countess Emilia Pia is the type of witty, sprightly lady that
Boccaccio first made known in Pampinea, and who is, in
English, our fascinating Beatrice.
I note two allusions to The Courtyer in the Elizabethan
drama; in Westward Hoe, i. 1, by Webstor and Dekker, and
in Marston's The Malcontent, i. 1, where Male vole says to
Bilioso,
"Adieu, my treu court-friend : farewell, my dear Castilio."
[1565.] The boke of Wisdome otherwise called the Flower
of Vertue, folowing the Auctorities of auncient Doctours and
Philosophers, deuiding and speaking of Vices and Vertues,
wyth many goodly examples wherby a man may be praysed
or dyspraysed, wyth the maner to speake well and wyselie to al
folkes, of what estate so euer they bee. Translated fyrst out
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 529
of Italian into French, and out of French into English by John
Larke. [1565.] Lerne my godly chyldren to eschew vyce
[Woodcut of a philosopher pointing to the stars] and loke
you to lerne wisdo"e of your fore fathers.
[Colophon.] Imprinted at London in Fletestreate, beneathe
the Conduyte, at the sygne of S. John Euangeliste by Thomas
Col well. 8vo. 107 leaves. Black letter. British Museum,
(2 copies).
The Bolce of Wisdome is a translation of,
Comencia una opera chiamata Fiore de uirtute che tratta de
tutti i uitti humani x iyle defugire ihomini ch desidera uiuere
secddo dio, etc. [By Tomaso Leoui? Venice. 1470?] 4to.
46 leaves. British Museum. There are sixteen Italian edi-
tions catalogued in the British Museum, eleven between
[1470?] and 1538.
In enumerating "the auctoures of thys booke," John Larke
cites sixty-two persons, of whom the first is Jesus and the
last " Galyen." The work consists of fifty-seven chapters,
generally in pairs, each virtue being accompanied by its
corresponding vice. The titles of some of the chapters are
as follows,
" How Prudence is cheefe buckler, and defence of all
Vertues. And of the great goodnes, that may come of the
same to all persons, after the auncyente Phylosophers."
"How temperaunce is one of the flowers of Prudence.
And how he that hath it in hym maye resiste and withstande
many evils after the saienges of the wise men, in ye chapter
going before."
" How a man oughte to take gladnesse and Joye ; and of
what thynge, and what gladnesse or Joye is."
" Howe Heuynesse is contrarye to gladnesse ; and howe
the wyse man oughte neuer to put any in his hearte, wherof
heuynes and mellancolly may be engendred."
" Howe the uertue of peace ought to be mayntayned and
kepte; and of the greate goodnesse that comraeth of the same,
and what peace is."
6
630 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
"Howe Justyce ought to be done and howe it is that
thynge that dothe measure all thynges upon earthe."
"Howe Injustyce or wrong is contrary to Justyce, and
howe manye maners there be of Iniustyce, and how Iniustyce
demafldeth vengeaunce afore God."
Example of Justyce.
Apologue of the Angel and the Hermit.
" Of Justice it is red in the life of holye fathers, that there
was an hermyte whyche long time had serued God and had
done greate penaunce for hys synnes, to whom God sent
afterwarde great sicknesse; and bycause that he could not
recouer hys healthe agayn he began to complaine of God and
to murmure in hymselfe. So it chaunced on a day that the
aungell of God appered unto hym, in lykenesse of a yonge
man, and sayd unto hym, come wyth me, for God will that
I doe showe thee of hys secret Justyce ; and dyd leade him
into the towne, to a marchauntes house, whyche had in a
coffre a great number of florences. And the aungell, in the
syghte of the hermyte, did take the same florence, and did
beare them into the house of another man, whych they founde
in sleepe, and the aungell dyd leue the sayde florence at hys
chambre dore, to the intente that when he should open the
dore, that he should fynde them ; and thys doone, he ledde
hym to the house of another marchaunte that had a chylde,
the whyche chylde the aungell dyd kyll, in the presence
of the sayde heremite, and the heremite seinge all these
thynges, thoughte that the aungell had ben a deuyll, and
wolde fayne haue departed from hym. The aungell, seinge
that he woulde depart from hym, sayde unto hym, tarye yet
a litle, for I wyll showe thee the reason, wherfore I haue
doone these thinges in thy presence; knowe first wherfore
that I haue taken the florence from the burges ; it is because
that he had solde his herytage for the sayde florences, and
was purposed to gyue them to certaine murtherers, whyche
had promysed hym to kyll a man for hys sake, the whyche had
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 531
dyspleased hym aforetymes; and the man which he wolde
haue caused to be kylled, is a man of noble byrth, wherof
shuld haue come greate inconuenyence, and therfore to resyst
the euyl that might haue come therof, and also to let hym
of hys euyll, and myscheuous wyll and purpose, I haue
taken the sayde florence from hym ; and when he shal see
hym selfe pore and to haue loste hys herytage and goodes,
he wyll gyue hymselfe to the seruice of God, and where he
shulde haue ben dampned nowe he shalbe saued. The reason
wherfore I haue born the florence to the chambre doore of
the other man, is because that he was a ryche marchaunte
whyche came from beyonde the sea, and had bestowed in
marchaundyce all the goodes that he had, and putte it in a
shyppe, the whych shyppe did peryshe upon the sea, then
he did remembre one daye howe that he had loste all hys
gooddes, and had nothynge to lyue uppon, began to fall in
dyspayre, and was purposed to hang hym selfe, and therfore
to the intente that he shoulde not destroye bothe the bodye
and the soule, I dyd beare hym the foresaid florences. The
reason whereof I haue kylled the chylde, is because that
afore that the father had him he was a very good man, and
gaue much almons, and did many good dedes for the loue
of God ; and sence that he had the chylde, he cared for none
other thynge, but onelye to get rychesse, were it by ryghte
or wronge, and therefore I haue kylled the chylde, to the
intente that the father maye retourne to hys purpose; doe
not meruayle nor grudge therfore, for the syckenesse that
thou haste, for if it hadde not bene, thou shoulde ofte tymes
haue thy mynde and courage in vanytyes wherby thou
shoulde greatlye haue dyspleased God ; and be thou sure,
that God doth nothyng, but by reason, but the persones
haue not knowledge therof, for God hathe not promysed it
them, but of two euylles he dothe allwayes take the lesse.
And, this said, the aungell dyd departe from the heremyte.
"And from thenceforthe, the sayde heremyte dyd neuer
murmure againste God, for anye maner syckenesse or aduer-
532 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
syty that he did send him, but rather dyd thanke God, and
alwaies dyd reioyce hymselfe in his sicknes and aduersyties,
consyderynge alwayes that it was of the goodnesse of God."
Censura Literaria,Vo\. vn, p. 225 (Ed. 1808).
The apologue of the Angel and Hermit is one of the stories
of the Gesta Romanorum, MSS. Harl. 2270, ch. LXXXX., and
its first appearance in English must have been in Wynkyn de
Worde's translation of the Gesta, without date.
A second translation of the Gesta Romanorum, made by
Richard Robinson, went through six impressions between
1577 and 1601.
Besides the versions of the Boke of Wisdome and of these
two translations of the Gesta Romanorum, there are four later
ones in English. The first occurs in, Certaine Conceptions or
Considerations of Sir Percy Herbert, upon the strange Change
of Peoples Dispositions and Actions in these latter Times.
Directed to his Sonne. London. 1652. 4to. Pp. 220 to
230. British Museum. It is entitled,
A most full, though figurative Story, to shew that God
Almighties Wayes and inscrutable Decrees are not to be com-
prehended by Humane Fancies.
James Howell, in one of his Letters, To my Lord Marquis
of Hartford, without date, gives a variant of the tale, citing
Sir Percy Herbert's Conceptions as his source. Vol. iv.
Letter 4, of HowelPs Letters, published between 1647 and
1650, and p. 7 of the edition of 1655.
The story is also found in the Divine Dialogues (Pt. L,
p. 321. Dialogue II. Edit. London. 1668. 12mo.), of
Dr. Henry More, the Platonist, where it is enriched with
interesting moral reflections. And Thomas Parnell closely
follows More in The Hermit, his most popular poem. W. C.
T. Dobson, royal academician, contributed " The Hermit," with
a quotation from Parnell, to the Academy Exhibition of 1842.
ParnelPs version is said to be the tenth the story, like
many another one, having originated in Arabic, and come
into English by a natural process of descent.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 533
The story is inserted in the twentieth chapter of Voltaire's
Zadig, De VHermite qu' un Ange conduisit dans le siecle. The
germ of the tale occurs in the Koran, Ch. xx, where it is
entitled the Cave.
With More di virtu, No. 22 [Zambrini's Libro di Novelle
Antiche, Bologna, 1868], compare the Decameron, Introduc-
tion to Day 4, the story of the hermit's son who had never
seen a woman.
[1570?] The Fables of Esope in Englishe with all his life
and Fortune .... whereunto is added the Fables of Avyan,
And also the Fables of Alfonce, with the Fables of Poge the
Florentyne, etc.
H. Wykes, for J. Waley. London. [1570?]. 8vo. Black
letter. Also, 1634. 8vo. Black letter, both editions in the
British Museum, 2 copies of the last.
This is a reprint of Caxton's translation of the fables of
Aesop, Avicenna, Petrus Alphonsus, and Poggio-Bracciolini,
1484, folio, Caxton's own imprint "at Westmynstre in
thabbey;" and [London, 1500?], Pynson.
The Dictionary of National Biography records, " The Fables
of Aesop translated by Caxton from the French, folio, West-
minster, 26th March, 1484. With woodcuts. [Unique perfect
copy at Windsor, imperfect copies in the British Museum,
and at Oxford.]"
I find an early French Aesop, but of a little later date,
Les subtilles fables de Esope, etc. [1499?] 4to. British
Museum.
The British Museum also gives,
The Fables of Alfonce [Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus
Alphonsus, formerly Rabbi Moses Sephardi] translated out of
Frensshe by W. Caxton. 1484.
Whether Caxton translated Avicenna [the celebrated Arabic
physician, Husain Ibn 'Abd Allah (Abu 'All) called Ibn Siua,
980-1037 A. D.], and Poggio-Bracciolini from the French, I
do not know.
534 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1570. The Morall Philosophic of Doni: drawne out of the
auncient writers. A worke first compiled in the Indian tongue
[by Sendabar or rather Bidpai] and afterwards reduced into
diners other languages : and now lastly englished out of Italian
by Thomas North. Brother to the right Honorable Sir Roger
North Knight, Lord North of Kyrtheling.
Here follows an engraving, a bad copy of the original,
with the motto ' The wisdome of this worlde is folly before
God/
Imprinted at London by Henry Denham. 1570. Sm. 4to.
4 parts. 116 leaves. Woodcuts. Bodleian. [Colophon.] Here
endeth the Treatise of the Morall Philosophic of Sendebar :
In which is layd open many infinite examples for the health
& life of reasonable men, shadowed under tales and simili-
tudes of brute beaste without reason. Imprinted at London
by Henrie Denham, dwelling in Paternoster Howe, at the
signe of the Starre. Also, London, 1601. 4to. British
Museum.
The Earliest English Version of the Fables of Bidpai,
< The Morall Philosophic of Doni/ by Sir T. North. Edited
by Joseph Jacobs. London. 1888. 8vo.
Dedicated to Robert, Earl of Leicester, and with com-
mendatory verses in English and Italian.
This is a translation from Antonio Francesco,
Doni, La Moral Filosophia del Doni, Tratta da gli antichi
scrittori; Allo Illustriss. S. Don Ferrante Caracciolo dedicata.
[Engraving, with the motto HPAP3OHATOU KOSMOU
TOUTOU MQPIA TTAPA TO 0Eft E3TI] Con privilegio.
In Uinegia per Francesco Marcolini. MDLII. [4to.] Six
later editions.
The Moral Filosophia is an Italian version of the old
Indian collection of Tales, called Kalilah wa Dimnah, or
'The book of Kalilah and Dimnah.' It corresponds to chapters
five and six of Silvestre de Sacy's (( Calila et Dimna ou Fables
de Bidpai en Arabe." (Paris. 1816. 4to.)
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 535
5. The lion and the ox ; or two friends between whom a
crafty interloper sows dissension.
6. Investigation of Dimnah's conduct, and his defence of
himself.
In the Indian fable Kalilah and Dimnah are two jackals,
who are courtiers at the gate of the King, Pingalaka, the
lion ; but Kalilah in Doni appears as I'asino and Dimnah as
il mulo.
Sir Thomas North translated the first part only of Doni's
work, which goes on, in the same volume, freshly and con-
tinuously paged, with six treatises, entitled, "Trattati diversi
di Sendebar Indiana filosopho morale. Allo illustriss, et excel-
lentiss. S. Cosimo de Medici dedicati." [Engraving bearing
the motto ' Fiorenza/]
In Uinegia neW Academia Peregrina. MDLII; and at the
end (p. 103) stands ( In Uinegia per Francesco Marcolini.
MDLII.'
The book of Kalilah and Dimnah is a collection of tales
supposed to be related to a King of India by his philosopher,
in order to enforce some particular moral or rule of conduct.
In many of the stories the characters are animals thinking
and acting just like men and women. Originally Sanskrit,
the book passed from Buddhist literature into Persian, and
thence into nearly every known Oriental and modern lan-
guage. Doni's "Moral Filosophia" for example, is based on
the Latin of John of Capua, "Directoriwn humanae vitae, vel
ParaboleAntiquorum Sapientum (1263-1278, printed, 1480(?))
and this, in its turn, upon a Hebrew translation from the
Arabic.
In its migrations, from the Sanskrit original of the Pant-
chatantra, though Persian and Arabic, the names of both king
and philosopher vary. Bidpai, or Pilpai, the philosopher of
the Persian version known as the "Lights of Canopus" or, in
English, the Fables of Pilpay, is a wise Brahmin who lives
in a cave of the holy mountain of Ceylon. DonPs. Sendebar
is from Sandabar, the name of the philosopher in the Hebrew
536 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
version from which John of Capua translated. Possibly this
form is a reminiscence of Shanzabeh, the Sanskrit name of
the ox in the well-known story of the Lion and the Ox which
is the opening tale of the original Indian book.
In the Trattati diversi the king is Fr. Strrza, Duke of
Milan, the philosopher is maestro Dino filosofo Fiorentino, and
the scenes and personages are all Italian. Dino may be an
anagram of Doni.
1573. Cardanus Comforte translated into English [by
Thomas Bedingfield~\. And published by commaundement of
the Right Hon. the Earl of Oxenford.
T. Marshe, London, 1573. 4to. Black letter. British
Museum.
Newly .... corrected and augmented.
T. Marsh, London, 1576. 8vo. Black letter. British
Museum.
There is a dedication to the Earl of Oxford dated " 1 Jan.
15712," which is followed by a letter to the translator, and
some verses to the reader, both written by the Earl of Oxford.
The work is translated from Girolamo Cardano's,
H. C. . . . . De Consolatione libri tres.
Venetiis. 1542. 8vo. British Museum.
A different English translation of this book came out one
hundred years later,
Cardan, his three bookes of Consolation Englished. London?
1683. 16 mo. British Museum.
1575. Golden epistles. Contayning varietie of discourse,
both Morally Philosophically and Divine : gathered, as well out
of the remaynder of Gueuaraes woorkes, as other Authours,
Latine, Frenche, and Italian. By G. [eoffrey~\ Fenton.
London : A. Middleton for R. Newbery. 1575. 8vo.
Black letter. British Museum. Also, London, 1577. 4to.
Black letter. British Museum, and London, 1 582. 4to. Pp.
347. Black letter. British Museum, (2 copies).
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 537
Dedicated to " Ladie Anne Countesse of Oxenford."
This work of Fenton's is a kind of supplement to Edward
Hel lowes's, The Familiar Epistles of Sir Anthony of Guevara.
, . . Translated out of the Spanish Toung, by E. Hellowes. . . .
Now corrected and enlarged, etc. London. [1574.] 4to.
Black letter. 1577. 4to. 1584. 4to. All in the British
Museum.
The Dictionary of National Biography says that Fenton
translated the Golden Epistles from the French. I find a
French translation, entitled,
Epistres Dorees moralles & familieres [torn l8~\, traduites
d'Espagnol .... par le Seigneur de Guterry, etc. (Le troisi&me
livre des epistres illustres. . . . La Revolte que les Espaignoh
firent contre leur jeune Prince, Van 1580, & Vyssue d'icelle;
avec un traitte des travaux & privileges de Galeres, . . . traduit
. ... en Frangois [by Antoine Dupinet, Sieur de Noroy.~\ 8
torn. Lyon. 1556-60. 4to.
1576. Galateo of Maister John Delia Casa, Archbishop of
Beneventa, or rather, a treatise of the maners and behaviours
it behoveth a man to uze and eschewe, in his familiar conversa-
tion. A worlce very necessary and profitable for all gentlemen
or other. First written in the Italian tongue, and now done
into English by Robert Paterson of Lincolnes Inne Gentlemen.
Satis si sapienter.
Imprinted at London for Raufe Newbery, dwelling in
Fleete streate, a little above the Conduit. An. Do. 1576.
4to. 68 leaves. Black letter. 1703. 12mo. British Museum.
1774. 16mo. Brit. Mus. 1892. 4to. Privately printed, with
an introduction by H. J. Reid. An epitome of Galateo was
published in the miscellany, The Rich Cabinet. 1616.
Dedicated, "to the right honourable my singular good
lord, the Lord Robert Dudley, Earle of Leycester, Baron
of Denbigh, Knight of the Honourable order of the Garter,
Maister of the Queenes Maiesties Horses, and of her Highnesse
priuie counsell, Robert Peterson wisheth perfect felicitie."
538 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
With commendatory verses in Italian, by Francesco Pucci
and Alessandro Citolini ; in Latin, by Edouardus Cradoc-
cus, S. Theologiae Doctor and Professor; and in English,
by Thomas Drant, Archdeacon, J. Stoughton, Student, and
Thomas Browne of L. I. Gent.
The Refin'd Courtier; or, a correction of several indecencies
crept into civil conversation, [/n part translated and abridged
from G. delta Casa's Galateus, by N. W.~]
London. 1663. 12mo. British Museum.
The Refined Courtier. . . . Written . ... in Italian by J.
<?., from thence into Latin by N. [athan] Chytraeus, and from
both .... made English, by N. W.
London. 1686. 12mo. British Museum. Second edition.
Also, 1804. 16mo. Brit. Mus. There have been altogether
seven editions and one epitome of Galateo in English between
1576 and 1892.
Galatee .... mis en Francois, Latin, & Espagnol par divers
auteurs, etc. [into Latin by Nathan Chytraeus']. 1598. 16mo.
British Museum.
Galateo is a translation of Giovanni della Casa's, Trattato
.... nel.quale . ... si ragiona de y modi, che si debbono b tenere
o schifare nella comune conversatione, cognominato Galatheo.
Milano. 1559. 8vo. British Museum.
Giovanni della Casa, 1500-1556, Archbishop of Beue-
vento, Petrarchist, and author of Galateo, has been called
the Italian Chesterfield. Galateo is an admirable treatise on
good manners. Differing from Castiglione's II Cortigiano,
which prescribes the training and discipline of the man of
birth and position, Galateo aims to be a guide to the average
gentleman in his intercourse with his equals. Like the
Courtier, it has enjoyed enduring fame, because its precepts
of conduct are based on those general principles of mutual
respect and tolerance which hold good for all peoples and at
all times. Both books perhaps have been saved from the
perverse fate of manuals of etiquette in general by the fact
that in a simple, dignified way, and with singular distinction
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 539
of style, they recognize the final sanction of tact as the mark
of education and culture, and inculcate the importance of it
as a universal social duty.
The title of Galateo passed into a proverb. ' To teach
the Galateo ' is synonymous, in Italian, with ' to teach good
manners.' Galateo is said to have been in real life a certain
Galeazzo Florimonte of Sessa.
Galateo discusses social conduct with much particularity,
instructing the young man on such points as the proper use
of the drinking-glass at table, the employment of the napkin,
how to dress the hair, etc. I quote a page or two from one
of the old editions :
" The treatise of Master Jhon Delia Casa, wherin under
the person of an old unlearned man, instructing a youthe of
his, he hath talke of the maners," etc.
" To rise up where other men doe sit and talke, and to
walke up and downe the chamber, it is no poynt of good
manner. Also there be some that so buskell them selues,
reache, streatch, and yawn, writhing now one syde, and then
another, that a man would weene, they had some feuer uppon
them. A manifest signe, that the companye they keepe, doth
weary them. Likewise doe they very yll, yt now and then
pull out a letter out of theyr pocket, to reade it; as if they
had greate matters of charge, and affaires of the common
weale committed unto them. But they are much more to be
blamed, that pull out theyr kny ves or their scisers, and doe
nothing els but pare their nayles, as if they made no account
at all of the company, and would seeke some other solace to
passe the time awaye. Theis fashions to, must be left, that
some men use, to sing betwene the teeth, or play the dromme
with their fingers, or shoofle their feete; for these demeanours
shewe that a body is carelesse of any man ells."
"A man must beware that he say, not those things, which
unsaid in silence would make the tale plesaunt inoughe, and,
peraduenture, geue it a better grace to leaue them out. As to
say thus, ( such a one that was the sonne of such a one, that
540 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
dwelt in Cocomer street; do you not knowe him? he married
the daughter of Gianfigliazzi, the leane scragg that went so
much to St. Laraunce. No, you do not know him? why,
do you not remember the goodly strayght old man that ware
long haire downe to his shoulders ? ' For if it were nothing
materiall to the tale, whether this chaunce befell him, or him,
all thys long babble, and fond and folishe questions, were but
a tale of a Tubbe ; to no purpose, more then to weary mens
eares that harken to it, and long to understand the end."
" To weare a toothpicke, about your neck, of all fashions
that is the worst, for, besides that it is a baued Jewell for a
gentleman to pull forth of his bosome, and putteth men in
mind of those tooth drawers that sit on their benche in the
stretes ; it makes men also to thinke that the man loues his
belly full well, and is prouided for it, and I see no reason,
why they should not as well carry a spoone, about their
neckes, as a toothe picke."
" Some men there be, that have a pride or a use to drawe
their mouthes a little awry, or twinckle up their eye, and to
blow up their cheekes and to puffe, and to make with their
countenance sundrie such like foolishe and ilfauoured faces
and gestures, I councell men to leaue them cleane, for Pallas
herselfe, the goddesse, (as I haue hearde some wise men say)
tooke once a great pleasure to sound the flute and the cornet ;
and therin she was verie cunning. It chaunst her one day,
sounding her cornet for her plesure ouer a fountain, she spide
herselfe in the water, and when she beheld those strange
gestures she must nedes make with her mouth as she plaid ;
she was so much ashamed of it that she brake the cornet in
pieces and cast it away."
Censura Literaria, vol. 7, pp. 215-217.
1577. The Court of Oivill Courtesie.
Chatsworth Library,
The Court of ciuill Courtesie. Fitlie furnished with a
pleasant part of stately phrases and pithy precepts ; assembled
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 541
in the behalfe of all young Gentlemen, and others, that are
desirous to frame their behauiour according to their estates,
at all times and in all companies. Therby to purchase worthy
praise of their inferiours: and estimation and credite among
their betters. Out of the Italian, by 8. R. Gent.
Imprinted at London by Richard Jhones, 1591. 4to. Black
letter. Huth.
The author of this book was ostensibly "Bengalasso del
Monte, Prisacchi Retto," who is described by Richard Jones,
the printer, as " a Noble and graue personage of Italy." It was
written for the benefit or " behauiour" of his nephew, "Seig
Princisco Ganzar Moretto," in the following circumstances:
"At my last being at Prisacchi, understanding by your
father's talke, that hee minded to haue you a while in the
Court, where he hath spent the better part of his life ; and
because it is frequented with all sortes of companies, as any
place in Italy is, I haue directed this little booke, which if
you read and marke diligently, shal be as it were a Guide, to
lead you from a number of snares which you may be trapt
withal, & also for your behauior in al companies : with
many other things fit to be knowen of yong Gentlemen, and
especiallie for such as haue not bene convuersant in all
companies."
The Athenaeum, No. 3666, Jan. 29, 1898, and No. 3667,
Feb. 5, 1898.
1579. Physicke against Fortune, as well prosperous, as
adverse, conteyned in two Bookes. . . . Written in Latine, by
Frauncis Petrarch, a most famous poet and oratour, and now
first Englished by T[homas] Twyne.
London. R[ichard] Watkyns. 1579. 4to. Black letter.
British Museum.
This is a translation of Petrarch's set of Latin dialogues,
De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae, (1366). The earliest Italian
edition of the original that I find in the British Museum
Catalogue is,
542 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Frandsci Petrarcae poetae oratorisque clarissimi de Remediis
utriusque fortunae. . . . Cremonae. 1492. Folio.
Petrarch's first book treats of the snares of prosperity, the
second of the uses of adversity.
The translation is alluded to by Marston in The Malcon-
tent, \\\. 1 :
Bilioso. " My lord, I have some books which have been
dedicated to my honour, and I never read them, and yet they
had very fine names: Physick for fortune ; Lozenges of sancti-
fied sincerity. Very pretty works of curates, scriveners,
and schoolmasters. Marry, I remember one Seneca, Lucius
Anneus Seneca."
1585. The Worthy Tract of Paulus lovius, contayning a
Discourse of rare Inuentions, both militarie and amorous,
called Impresse. Whereunto is added a Preface, contayning
the Arte of composing them, with many other notable Denises.
By Samuel Daniell, late Student in Oxenforde.
London, Printed by Simon Waterson. 1585. 8vo. British
Museum.
Dedicated to the " Right Worshipful Sir Edward Dimmock,
Champion to hir Majestic."
A translation of Paolo Giovio's essay on mottoes and
badges, entitled,
Ragionamento di Paolo Giouio sopra i Motti, e Disegni
d'Arme e d'Amore communemente chiamano Imprese. Con un
Discorso di G. RvAcelli, intorno allo stesso soggetto. Venetia.
1556. 8vo. British Museum. (Second edition of Dialogo
deW Imprese Militari et A morose. Roma. 1555. 8vo. British
Museum.)
The Worthy Tract is interesting as being Daniel's first
publication.
1586. The ciuile Conversation of M. Stephen Guazzo, written
first in Italian, diuided into foure bookes, the first three trans-
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 543
lated out of French by G. pettie. In the first is contained in
general!, the fruits that may be reaped by Conuersation. . . .
In the second, the manner of Conuersation, meetefor all persons.
... In the third is perticularlie set forth the orders to be
obserued in Conuersation within doores. ... In the fourth is
set downe the forme of Ciuile Conuersation, by an example of
a Banquet, made in Cassale, betweene sixe Lords and foure
Ladies. And now translated out of Italian into English by
Barth. Young, of the middle Temple, Gent.
Imprinted at London by Thomas East. 1586. 4to. British
Museum. Huth.
The Civil Conversation is in prose with a few verses inter-
spersed. It is translated from,
La civil conversatione del Signor 8. G. \_Stefano Guazzo']
.... divisa in quattro libri. Venegia. 1575. 8vo. British
Museum.
Books L, II. and III. were printed separately in 1581,
4to., and were dedicated to Lady Norris by George Pettie.
Lady Norris was Marjorie, wife of Sir Henry Norris, Baron
Norris of Rycote. Sir Henry arid Lady Norris were personal
friends of Queen Elizabeth, who playfully nicknamed Lady
Marjorie her ' black crow/ in allusion to the lady's dark
complexion. A striking monument in St. Andrew's Chapel,
Westminster Abbey, commemorates this worthy couple and
their six sons. Life-size figures of Lord and Lady Norris
lie beneath an elaborate canopy supported by marble pillars,
while around them kneel effigies of their children.
An English translation of La civil conversatione, of 1738,
is entitled The Art of Conversation. I have found no trace
of Pettie's French original.
The banquet at Casale is intended as an exemplification of
the rules of polite society laid down in the book, and for this
purpose the company is described in the minutest detail
what the six lords and four ladies talked about, what games
they played, how they supped, and all their doings up to
their dispersal.
544 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1595. Nennio, Or A Treatise of Nobility : Wherein is dis-
coursed what true Nobilitie is, with such qualities as are required
in a perfect Gentleman. Done into English by W. [illiam]
Jones, Gent.
Printed by P. S. for P. Linley and J. Flasket, [London.]
1595. 4to. British Museum.
Duplicate, with new title-page, and without dedications,
1600. A discourse whether a nobleman by birth, or a Gentle-
man by desert is greater in Nobilitie. [Translated from the
Italian, by W. [illiam] Jones.]
Peter Short. London. 1600. 4to. British Museum.
The work is translated from Giovanni Battista Nenna's,
II Nennio. Nel quale si ragiona di nobiltd.
Vinegia. 1542. 8vo. British Museum.
The edition of 1595 contains commendatory sonnets by
Edmund Spenser, George Chapman, Samuel Daniel, and
Angel Day.
Sonnets. [Quoted in original order.]
From " Nennio, Or a Treatise of Nobility, etc. Written
in Italian by that famous Doctor and worthy Knight, Sir
John Baptista Nenna of Barri. Done into English by
William Jones, Gent. 1595."
Who so wil seeke by right deserts t'attaine,
Unto the type of true Nobility,
And not by painted shewes & titles vaine,
Deriued farre from famous Ancestrie :
Behold them both in their right visnomy
Here truly pourtrayt, as they ought to be,
And striuing both for termes of dignitie,
To be aduanced highest in degree.
And when thou doost with equall insight see
the ods twixt both, of both the deem aright,
And chuse the better of them both to thee :
But thanks to him that it deserues, behight ;
To Nenna first, that first this work created,
And next to Jones, that truely it translated.
Ed. Spenser.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 545
Of William Jones, his "Nennio, 1595."
Here dost thou bring (my friend) a stranger borne
To be endenized with us, and made our owne,
Nobilitie ; whose name indeed is worne
By manie that are great, or mightie growne :
But yet to him most natural, best knowne,
To whom thou doost thy labours sacrifize,
And in whom al those virtues best are showne
Which here this little volume doth comprize.
Whereon when he shall cast his worthie eies,
He here shal glasse himselfe, himselfe shal reed :
The modell of his owne perfections lies
Here plaine describ'd, which he presents indeed :
So that if men can not true worth discerne
By this discourse, look they on him and learne.
Sa. Danyel.
The personage Daniel alludes to in this sonnet is " Robert
Devreux [sic], Earle of Essex and Ewe,Vicount of Hereford,
Lord Ferrer of Chartley," etc., to whom William Jones dedi-
cated Nennio.
To the author of Nennio.
Accept, thrice noble Nennio, at his hand
That cannot bid himself welcome at home,
A thrice due welcome to our native strand,
Italian, French, and English now become.
Thrice noble, not in that used epethite,
But noble first, to know whence noblesse sprung,
Then in thy labour bringing it to light,
Thirdly, in being adorned with our tongue.
And since so like itself thy land affords
The right of noblesse to all noble parts,
I wish our friend, giving thee English words,
With much desert of love in English hearts,
As he hath made one strange an Englishman,
May make our minds in this, Italian.
Ex tenebris. [George Chapman.]
1598. Hecatonphila. The Arte of Loue. Or, Loue dis-
couered in a hundred seuerall kindes.
7
546 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Printed at London by P. S. for William Leake, and
are to be sold at his shop in Paules Churchyard, at the
signe of the Greyhound. 1598. 12mo. 48 leaves. British
Museum.
Dedicated " To the Right Worshipfull Ma : Henry Prannell
Esquire, the true Friend and Fauourer of all laudable Pro-
fessions." Prefixed is "In Artem Araandi Decastichon,"
signed Franciscus Meres.
This is a translation of Alberti's prose poem, entitled,
Hecatomphila, ne la quale se insegna l j ingeniosa arte d'amore.
Venetia. 1545. 8vo. It is a lecture addressed to women by
a professed mistress of the art of love. She tells them how
to choose a lover, neither too young nor too old, not too rich
nor yet too handsome, how to keep him and in what way to
make the most of him. Alberti is a misogynist, and his title
is a sarcastic one meaning ' the lady of a hundred loves.'
1 600. The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles : erected in English
as neer the first Italian modell and platforme as the unskilfull
hand of an ignorant Architect could deuise. I pazzi, e li pru-
denti, fanno giustissima bilancia.
Printed by Edm. Bollifant for Ed ward Blount. 1600. 4to.
British Museum. Huth.
Dedicated " To the Good Old Gentlewoman, and her Special
Benefactresse, Madam Fortune, Dame Folly (Matron of the
Hospitall) makes curtesie, and speakes as followeth."
From the Italian of Tommaso Garzoni, L'hospidale de'
Pazzi incurabili .... nuovamente formato e posto in luce ....
con ire Capitoli in fine sopra la Pazzia. Ferrara. 1586. 8vo.
British Museum.
The Huth Catalogue says that the original was printed at
Venice in 1586. A French translation appeared at Paris in
1620, and a German version at Strassbourg two years earlier,
in 1618.
Edward Blount, or Blunt, is himself supposed to be the
translator.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 547
1603. A Dialogue full of pithe and pleasure: between three
Philosophers : Antonio, Meandro, and Dinarco : Upon the
Dignitie, or Indignitie of Man. Partly translated out of
Italian, and partly set downe by way of obseruation. By
Nicholas Breton, Gentleman.
Dignus honore plus,
Gloria sola Deus.
London, Printed by T. C. for John Browne, and are to be
solde at his Shop in Saint Dunstons Churchyard in Fleet-
streete. 1603. 4to. Black letter. Huth. British Museum.
Also, 1876. Sm. 4to. The Complete Works in Prose and
Verse of Nicholas Breton. Part XXII. The Chertsey Worthies
Library. A. B. Grosart. Peabody.
Dedicated, " To the Eight Worshipfull the loner of all
good spirites, and nourisher of all good studies, John Line-
wray, Esquier Master Surueior Generall of all her Maiesties
Ordinance."
In the dedicatory letter, Breton describes the dialogue as
follows,
" under the Title of the Dignitie or Indignitie of Man, are
discoursed many necessary points to be considered of, as well
for the outward as the inward parts : wherein it may be
you shall finde pleasant wittes speake to some purpose, no
Machauilian pollicies, nor yet idle fables, no straunge Riddles,
nor vaine libelling ballades, but quicke spirits whetting their
braines, to she we the edge of their inuentious : and not to be
tedious in my Preface before you come to the matter, you
shall finde in surnme, that true worth, wherein lieth the
whole matter, that only maketh the worthie or unworthie
man, and the due glorie unto God, who is only worthie of all
honour, and of all men : the greatest part of this booke was
in Italian, dedicated to a man of much esteeme in the Duke-
dome of Florence, and this booke in this our Language, I
haue thought good here in England, to present to your
worth inesse, of a better worke in this her Maiesties Royall
Tower of London."
548 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1605. The Dumbe Divine Speaker; or, dumbe speaker of
Divinity. A . . . . treatise in praise of silence : shewing both
the dignitie, and defectes of the tongue .... translated byA.M.
For W. Leake, London, 1605. 4to. British Museum.
Translated from Jacopo Affinati d'Acuto,
II muto che parla, dialogo, one si tratta deW eccellenze e de
difetti della lingua humana, e si spiegano piu di 190 concetti
scritturali sopra il silentio, etc.
Venetia. 1606. 8vo. British Museum.
[1606.] Problemes of Beautie and all humane affections.
Written in Italian by T. B. . . . With a discourse of Beauty
by the Same Author. Translated into English by S. \_amson]
L. \ennard~\ Gent.
London. G. Eld, for E. Blount and W. Aspley. [1606.]
12mo. British Museum.
A translation of Tommaso Buoni's IProblemi della Bellezza
di tutti gli effetti humani: con un discorso della bellezza del
medesimo autore. Venetia. 1605. 12mo. British Museum.
Samson Lennard accompanied Sir Philip Sidney to the
Netherlands, and was with him when he received his fatal
wound at the battle of Zutphen, in 1586. He subsequently
entered the Herald's College, and died in 1633, as Blue-
mantle pursuivant.
1607. Ars Aulica or the Courtiers Arte. [Quotations and
motto , Felice chi puo.~]
London, Printed by Melch. Bradwood for Edward Blount.
1607. Sm. 8vo. (Huth.) 12mo. (British Museum.)
Dedicated to the Herbert brothers, William, Earl of Pem-
broke, and Philip, Earl of Montgomery.
Translated, by Edward Blount, from Lorenzo Ducci's,
Arte Aulica .... nella quale s'insegna il modo che deve
tenere il Cortigiano per devenir possessore della gratia del
suo Principe.
Ferrara. 1601. 8vo. British Museum.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 549
1616. The Rich Cabinet furnished with varietie of Excellent
discriptions, exquisite Charracters, witty discourses, and delight-
ful Histories. Deuine and Morrall. Together with Inuectives
against many abuses of the time digested Alphabetically into
commonplaces. Whereunto is annexed the Epitome of good
manners, extracted from Mr. John de la Casa, Arch-bishop
of Beneventa.
London, Printed by I. B. for Roger Jackson and are to be
sold at his shop neere Fleet Conduit, 1616. Sm. 8vo. Huth.
A curious miscellany of prose and verse, arranged in
alphabetical order. The Epitome of good manners at the end
is the Galateo of Giovanni della Casa, already translated in
1576, by Robert Peterson. The Invectives are a series of
theophrastic sentences upon the general text, ' player is now
a name of contempt/ The whole tract possesses a unique
interest, because, published in the year of Shakspere's death,
the character of the player presented in it, his virtues and
his defects, shows plainly the social stigma which was then
attached, both to the poet who wrote for the stage, and to
the player who interpreted his works. Shakspere's Sonnets,
110 and 111, reveal how he smarted under it. Ben Jonson,
in the Hawthornden Conversations, says with characteristic
bluntness, " Poetry had beggared him, when he might have
been a rich lawyer, physician, or merchant." Beaumont was
born a gentleman, and the fact that his name appears first on
the title-page of The Scornful Lady, published in this same
year, immediately after his death, would seem to indicate that
he did not care to be known as a playwright during his
lifetime.
1637. Cariosities: or the Cabinet of Nature: containing
Phylosophical, Naturall, and Morall questions fully answered.
. . . Translated out of Latin, French and Italian Authors,
by R. B. [asset] Gent. Never before published.
N. & I. Okes. London. 1637. 12mo. British Museum.
550 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
d. ITALIAN AND LATIN PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLAND.
[1549.] Tradatio de Sacramento Eucharistiae, habita in
celeberrima universitate Oxoniensi in Anglia, per D. petrum
martyrem vermilium Florentinum, Regiam ibidem Theologiae
professorejn, cum jam absoluisset interpretationem ii capitis
prioris epistolae D. Pauli Apostoli ad Corinthios. Ad hec Dis-
putatio de eodem Eucharistiae sacramento, in eadem Universi-
tate habita per eundem D. P. Mar. Anno Domini M. D. XLIX.
2 pts.
Londini, ad aeneum serpentem. Library of Edward VI.
Royal Library. British Museum.
At folios 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13, of the Disputatio are notes
in the handwriting of King Edward VI.
[1553?] Cathechismo, dob forma breve per amaestrare i
fanciutti: La quale di tutta la christiano disciplina cotiene la
somma. . . . Tradotta di Latino in lingua Thoscana per M.
A. [Michel Angelo~\ Florio.
[London (?) 1553(?)] 8vo. British Museum.
The Latin original of this Protestant catechism is, Cate-
chismus pro pueris et Juventute in ecclesiis et ditione. . . .
Marchionum Brandenborgensium, et inclyti senatus Norimber-
gensisj breviter conscriptus, e Germanico Latine redditus per
J. [ustus'] Jonam. Addita epistola de laude Decalogi. 1539.
8vo. British Museum.
Florio's title apparently translates Archbishop Cranmer's
English one,
Catechismus. That is to say; a shorte Instruction into
Christian Religion for the Synguler commoditie and profyte of
childre and yong people. Set forth by . . . . Thomas Arch-
by shop of Canterbury. \_Translated from a Latin work, which
was itself a translation from the German, made by Justus
Jonas.] With woodcuts from designs by Holbein.
Gualter Lynne. London. 1548. 8vo. Black Letter.
British Museum.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 551
Dedicated to King Edward VI.
Michel Angelo Florio, father of John Florio, was a Floren-
tine originally from Siena, who fled to England from the
persecution of the Waldenses in the Valteline shortly before
the accession of Edward VI. He was patronized by both
Archbishop Cranmer, and Sir William Cecil, in whose house
he lived for some time. In 1550, he was pastor of a
congregation of Italian Protestants in London. His most
interesting work is a biography of Lady Jane Grey.
See Historia de la Vita e de la Morte de I'illustrissima
Signora Giovanna Graia. 1607.
1555. De Memoria reparanda, augenda, servandaque \_ac
de reminiscentia : tutiora omnimodo remedia et praeceptiones
optimas continens.~\ Item de Praedictione morum naturarum-
que hominum facili, ex inspectione partium corporis, [turn
aliis modis. De temporum omnimoda mutatione, perpetua et
certissima signa et prognostica.~\
Apud B. Arnoletum: Lugduni. 1555. 16mo. British
Museum. (2 copies).
This is a London reprint of the Latin of Guglielmo
Grataroli, a physician of Bergamo. The first work was
translated by William Full wood, in 1562, as The Castle of
Memorie, which see, Part III.
1566. Epitaphia et Inscriptiones lugubres, a G. B. cum in
Italittj animi causa, peregrinaretur, collecta.
Londini : 1566. 4to. British Museum.
The Dictionary of National Biography gives the first edi-
tion, as London, 1554.
G. B. is William Barker, of Magdalen College, Oxford,
who translated The Fearfull Fancies of the Florentine Couper.
1568. See Part III.
1566. Espositione .... sopra un libro, intitolato Apoca-
lypsis spiritus secreti. [ With the i( Apocalypsis " prefixed.]
552 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Giovanni Kingston a instanoia di P. Angelino, Londra,
1566. 4to. British Museum.
By Giovanni Battista Agnello.
1581. La Vita di Carlo Magno Imperadore, etc. [By
Lodovico Petrucci (Petruccio Ubaldini)].
Giovanni Wolfio, Londra, 1581. 4to. British Museum, (2
copies). Also, [Oxford?] 1599. 4to. British Museum.
Didot-Hoefer's Biographic Generate says that the Oxford
edition was printed in 1589.
1581. Epistolarum P. Manutii [Paolo Manuzio~\ libri x.
Quinque nuper additis. Eiusdem quae praefationes appel-
lantur : cum noua quoque accessione.
T. Vautrolle[rius'], Londini, 1581, 16 mo, pp. 505. British
Museum. Also [libri xn], Londini, 1591. 16mo. British
Museum.
1581. Phrases Linguae Latinae ab A. \ldo~\ Manutio [Aldo
Manuzio, the Younger.] P. F. conscriptae; nuno primum in
ordinem Abecedarium adductae, & in Anglieum sermonem con-
versae, etc.
Ex officina Thomae Vautrollerii, Londini, 1581. 12 mo.
British Museum. Also, Londini, 1599. 8vo. British Museum ;
Londini, 1618. 8vo. British Museum; and Cantabrigiae,
1636. 8vo. British Museum.
1582. A Gentilis de Juris Interpretibus dialogi sex.
Apud J. Wolfium, Londini, 1582. 8vo. British Museum.
Alberico Gentili, 1550-1611 (?), came of an ancient and
noble family of the Marches of Ancona. Having become a
Protestant, Alberico went to England, and was entered at
New Inn Hall, Oxford, in 1580. He seems to have been
a man whose social qualities were as brilliant as his learning
was profound. He was the friend of Sir Francis Walsingham,
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 553
Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Thomas Bodley,
and other famous Elizabethans, and was patronized by both
the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex. In 1587, Queen
Elizabeth made him professor of Civil Law, at Oxford. His
writings, which are in Latin, constitute the earliest systematic
digest of international law that exists. Robert Gentili, his
son, was a prodigy of learning as a boy, but left only a few
translations from the Italian, of which the best known is the
History of the Inquisition, from the Italian of Father Paul
[Paolo Servita], 1639.
Scipio Gentili, brother to Alberico, a juris-consult and
professor of civil law at Altdorf, made a Latin version of
Tasso's Jerusalemme Liberata, London, 1 584, and wrote two
paraphrases, from the Psalms, in verse.
[1583?] Philothei J. Bruni. . . . Recens et completa Ars
Reminiscendi, et in phantastico campo exarandi. Ad plurimas
in triginta Sigillis inquirendi, disponendi, etque retinendi im-
plicitas novas rationes & artes introdudoria. (Philothei J.
Bruni. . . . Explicatio Triginta sigillorum, etc.} 2 pts. By
Giardano Bruno.
[London, 1583?] 8vo. British Museum.
Dedicated to Castelnuovo di Mauvissiere, French ambassa-
dor to the court of Elizabeth, in whose official family Bruno
lived during his stay in England, 1583-1585. The house of
the French ambassador was the resort of a select little band of
cultivated Englishmen, among whom were Sir Philip Sidney,
Sir Fulke Greville, Dyer, Harvey, the poet Spenser, Temple,
tHe translator of Ramus's Dialectic, and others who took an
interest in literature and philosophy.
1584. La Cena de le Ceneri, descritta in cinque dialogi, etc.
[By Giardano Bruno.]
London, 1584. 8vo. British Museum.
Dedicated to the French ambassador, Castelnuovo di Mau-
vissiere.
554 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
" Bruno tells how, on the evening of Ash Wednesday, the
13th of February, 1584, he was invited by Fulke Greville to
meet Sidney and others in order that they might hear ' the
reasons of his belief that the earth moves ; ' and this seems
to have been one of numerous gatherings a revival or a
continuation, in another form and for graver purposes, of the
Areopagus of 1579. ' We met,' Bruno says, 'in a chamber
in the house of Mr. Fulke Greville, to discuss moral, meta-
physical, mathematical, and natural speculations.' ' ;
Sir Philip Sidney. H. K. Fox-Bourne. 1891.
1584. G. \iordano~\ B. [riwo]. DeW infinite Universo e
Mondi.
Stampato in Venetia [or rather London,] 1584. 8vo. British
Museum.
Dedicated to Castelnuovo di Mauvissiere.
1584. G. Bruno Nolano. De la causa, principio, et Uno, etc.
Stampato in Venezia [or rather London], 1584. 8vo. British
Museum.
Dedicated to Castelnuovo di Mauvissiere.
In his trial before the Venetian Inquisitors, 1592, Bruno
gave reasons why this book, and the six others printed in
London between 1583 and 1583, bore Venice or Paris on
their title-pages. The London printer was Vautrollier who
had to flee to Scotland for his audacity. See The Athenaeum,
April 30, 1898, No. 3679, p. 562.
1584. Spaceio de la Bestia Trionfante. . . . Consecrato al
motto illustre. . . . Cavalliero Sig. P. Sidneo. [By Giordano
Bruno.]
Stampato in Parigi [or rather by T. Vautrollier, London,]
1584. 8vo. British Museum.
The Spacdo de la Bestia Trionfante, or Expulsion of the
Triumphant Beast, is an allegory set forth in three dialogues.
The gods are represented as resolving to banish the constella-
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FEOM THE ITALIAN. 555
tions out of heaven, because so many of them recorded their
loose lives, and to substitute the moral virtues in the firma-
ment in their stead. The first dialogue, which ostensibly
censures classical mythology, is really an attack on all forms of
anthropomorphic religion. This is the gist of the argument
of the piece, but the second dialogue is the most important
from the philosophical point of view, for here Bruno discourses
of Truth, Prudence, Wisdom, Law, Universal Judgment, and
the other moral virtues which take the places of the beasts.
His treatment of the virtues makes clear the essence of his
philosophy. Truth, he explains, is the unity and substance
which underlies all things ; Prudence, or Providence, is the
regulating power of truth, and includes at once liberty and
necessity; Wisdom is Providence itself in its supersensible
aspect, in man, it is reason which grasps the truth of things ;
Law naturally proceeds from Wisdom, for every good law
must be rational, and have for its object the welfare of all ;
by Universal judgment men are judged with absolute justice,
by their actual deeds, not by their religious beliefs, which
may or may not make for righteousness.
Many of Bruno's ideas have affinities with the philosophy
of Spinoza, but the bold, mocking spirit of the Italian gives
a character to the Spaccio that is all its own. Bruno girds
at the monks, he scoffs at the mysteries of faith, to him the
miracles are i magical tricks/ Jewish record and Greek myth
are all one. The Roman Catholic Church was correct in
recognizing underneath the allegory a vehement attack on
the established religion.
In many respects the Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante is the
most remarkable work of Bruno as it is decidedly the most
popular. One phase of its popularity is especially interesting
to English readers ; it is the source of Thomas Carew's masque,
Coelum Britannicum, acted at Whitehall by King Charles I.
and the noblemen of his Court, on Shrove Tuesday night,
Feb. 18, 1633. The masque was written in compliment to
556 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
King Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria, praising the
temperance, chastity, and justice of the royal pair.
As in the Spaccio, Heaven is divested of its gods and
goddesses, in whose stead shines first the King, " the bright
Pole-starre of this Hemispheare," by his side his " faire Con-
sort," and a " Noble traine, of either sexe ; "
So to the Brittish stars this lower Globe
Shall owe its light, and they alone dispence
To the world a pure refined influence.
The closing scene of the masque represents the moral
virtues, Religion, Truth, Wisdom, Concord, Government,
and Reputation, seated on clouds, with Eternity on a Globe
in their midst. Fifteen stars express fifteen 'stellified British
Heroes/ among them ' Prince Arthur ' and t the brave St.
George.'
1584. Hugonis Platti armig. Manuele, sententias aliquot
Divinas & Morales complectens : partim e Sacris Patribus,
partim $ Petrarcha philosopho et Poeta celeberrimo decerptas.
1584. 16mo. (Lowndes.) Also, P. Short. Londini, 1594.
16 mo. British Museum.
1584. Atto della Giustitia d'Inghilterra, esseguito, per la
conservatione della commune & Christiana pace, contra alcuni
seminatori di discordie, & seguaci de ribelli, & de nemici del
reame, & non per niuna persecutione, che fosse lor fatta, per
cagion della religione : si come e stato falsamente publicato da
defensori, & da sostentatori della costoro rebellione, & tradi-
mento. Traslato d'Inglese [of William Cecil, Lord BurgUey]
in vulgare. ... II 25 di Maggio, 1 584, etc.
Appresso G. Wolfio, Londra, 1584. 8vo. British Museum,
(2 copies).
This is a translation of the first part of Lord Burghley's
tract,
1583. The Execution of Justice in England for mainte-
nance of publique and Christian peace, against certeine stirrers
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 557
of sedition, and adherents to the traytors and enemies of the
Realme, without any persecution of them for questions of Re-
ligion, etc. [By William Cecil, Lord BurghleyJ]
London, 1583. 4to. Black letter. British Museum, (2
copies). Also, 1583, 4to, a second imprint, "with some
small alterations."
Lord Burghley's Execution of Justice, was also printed in
a Latin translation, T. Vautroullerius, Londini, 1584, 8vo r
and in Dutch, R. Schilders, Middelburgh, 1584, 4to, both in
the British Museum.
This is one of the many public documents prepared by
Lord Burghley, and its being translated into Italian, Latin,
and Dutch gives an idea of the political and social conditions
of the time. Lord Burghley wrote with ease and precision
in Latin, French, and Italian.
The Cecil Papers at Hatfield House contain 1290 docu-
ments which were prepared either by William Cecil himself
or under his immediate direction.
1585. Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo. Con Vaggiunta deW
Asino Cillenico, etc. By Giordano Bruno.
Parigi [or rather London,'] 1585. 8vo. British Museum.
This is a treatise on the different kinds of ignorance, or
asinity, whether dogmatic or pedantic or purely sceptical
and uninquiring. Its purpose is to rouse men to free and
intelligent thought, and Bruno wrote it as " The awakener
of sleeping minds" (dormitantium animorum excubitor his
style for himself in his letter to the Vice-Chancellor of
Oxford, prefixed to his Spiegazione di trenta sigilli, 1583).
The satirical conclusion of the work is, that asinity is the
highest human duty, and to it is assigned divine favor both
in this world and the next. Bruno's warfare with dogma,
superstition and ignorance, in the Spaccio de la Bestia Trion-
fante goes on in the Caballa del Cavallo Pegaseo. In this
sense the ideal and cabalistic ass is the Triumphant Beast of
Dogma in real flesh and blood. Hence, and it is explained
558 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
with many particulars as to asses in the Old and New Testa-
ments, and in the ancient writers, the spiritual and moral ass
is everywhere as much esteemed as the physical and material
ass is appreciated by particular communities. A cynical sonnet
erects asinity into a saint or goddess,
O sainted Asinity. Ignorance most holy ! etc.
1585. G. Bruno Nolano. De GVHeroici Furori. Al molto
illustre. . . . Cavalliero, Signor P. Sidneo.
Appresso Antonio Baio, Parigi, \or rather by T. Vautrollier,
London^ 1585. 8vo. British Museum.
Thinking of the similarity of Shelley to Bruno, John
Owen, in his Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance, compares
Gli eroici furori to the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, and the
Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante to Prometheus Unbound.
Cicada, one of the characters in the dialogue, Gli eroici
furori, says, "How much better is a worthy and heroic
death than a disgraceful and vile success." " On that propo-
sition," responds the poet Tansillo, " I composed this sonnet,"
whereupon Bruno borrows from Tansillo the verses which
have been generally accepted as his own prediction of his
fate. The sestet reads,
Soaring I hear my trembling heart's refrain
" Where bearest me, O rash one ? The fell steep
Too arduous is not climb'd without much pain."
" Fear not," I answer, " for the fatal leap,
Serene I cleave the clouds and death disdain,
If death so glorious heaven will that I reap."
1585. La Vita di Giulio Agricola, scritta da Cornelio Tadto
et messa in volgare da Giovanni Maria Manelli.
Londra, nella stamperia di Giovanni Wolfio. 1585. 4to.
Pp. 48. British Museum.
Dedicated to Lord Robert Sidney.
Tacitus's life of Cnaeus Julius Agricola, Julii Agricolae
Vita, done into Italian and published in London.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 559
1585. A Gentilis de Legationibus, libri ires.
T. Vautrollerius, Londini, 1585. 4to. British Museum.
1585. Dichiaratione dette caggioni che hanno mosso la
Serenissima Reina d j Inghilterra a dar' aiuto alia difesa del
popolo afflitto e oppresso negli Paesi Bassi. (1 Oct. 1585?)
Christofero Barcher, Londra, 1585. 8vo. British Museum.
This is a translation of
A declaration of the causes mooving the Queene of England
to give aide to the defence of the people afflicted and oppressed
in the lowe Countries. (An addition to the declaration touching
the slaunders published of her Maiestie. 1 Oct. 1585.)
C. Barker. London. 1585. 4to. British Museum.
Another edition in the same year, 1585, 4to. Barker also
printed the Declaration in Latin and in French, 1585, 8vo,
and the British Museum contains two copies of each.
1587. Examine di varii Giudicii de i Politici, e della
Dottrina e de i Fatti de i Protestanti veri e de i Cattolici
Romani.
Londra nella Stamperia di Gouanni Wolfio. 1587. 4to.
(Lowndes.)
1591. De furtivis liter arum notis, vulgo de Ziferis libri
IIII. [Edited by Giacopo Castelvetri, from Giovanni Battista
della Porta.]
J. Wolphium. Londini. 1591. 4to. Pp. 228. British
Museum.
This work appeared at Naples, in 1563. It gives 180
different ciphers, with methods to multiply them infinitely,
and entitles Porta to high rank among early writers on
cryptography.
1591. Le Vite delle Donne Ittustri. Del Eegno d'lnghil-
terra, & del Regno di Scotia, & di quelle, che d'altri paesi ne i
due delli Regni sono stato maritate, etc.
560 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Giovanni Volfio, Londra, 1591. 4to. British Museum, (2
copies).
By Lodovico Petrucci, (Petruccio Ubaldini).
1592. Parte prima delle .... dimostrationi, et precetti ...
ne i quali si trattano diversi Propositi morali .... che con-
vengono ancora ad ogni nobil matrona, etc. MS. Notes.
[London?] 1592. 4to. British Museum.
By Lodovico Petrucci, (Petruccio Ubaldini).
1595. Scelta di alcune attioni e di varii accidenti.
London, 1595. 4to.
By Lodovico Petrucci, (Petruccio Ubaldini).
1596. Elizabetha. Dichiaratione delle cause che hanno
indotta la. . . . Reina d'Ingilterra, di preparare & mandare
sopra il mare una Armata per la difesa de i suoi Regni, contra
le forze d'el Re di Spagna, etc.
Stampato per le Deputati di Christophero Barker, Londra*
1596. 4to. British Museum.
This is a translation of
A Declaration of the Causes moving the Queenes Majestie
. ... to prepare and send a Navy to the Seas, for the defence
of her Realmes against the King of Spaines forces, to bee pub-
lished by the generals of the saide navy, etc.
By the Deputies of C. Barker, London, 1596. 4to. Black
letter. British Museum. Also, in Dutch, "By de Gedepu-
teerde van C. Barker/' London, 1596. 4to. British Museum*
1597. Lo Stato delle tre corti.
London, 1597. 4to.
By Lodovico Petrucci, (Petruccio Ubaldini).
1597. Militia del Gran Duca di Thoscana. Capitoli r
ordini & privilegii delta militia .... con Caggiunta de
i nuovi capitoli .... concessi .... alia nuova militia de i
cavalli, etc.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 561
[Londra?] 1597. 4to. British Museum.
By Lodovico Petrucci, (Petruccio Ubaldini).
1605. A. Gentilis. . . . Regales Disputationes ires; id est,
De potestate Regis absoluta. De unione Regnorum Britanniae.
De vi dvium in Regem semper iniusta. Nunc primum in lucem
editae. [ With dedication by R. Gentilis.']
Apud T. Vautrollerium, Londini, 1605. 4to. British
Museum.
1607. Historia de la Vita e de la Morte de I'illustriss. [ima~\
Signora Giovanna Graia, gia Regina eletta e publicata d'lng-
helterra : e de le cose accadute in quel regno dopo la morte del
Re Edoardo VI. Nella quale secondo le diuine Scritture si
tratta dei principali articoli de la religione Christiana. Con
I'aggiunta d j una dottiss. pma] disputafatta in Ossonia I'anno
1554. (de la real presenzia del corpo di Christo ne I'Euvha-
ristia; fra N. Ridleo, et un gran numero di Laureati Papei
. . . . il primo de quali fu dottore Smitho. Lettere e ragiona-
menti de la Signora G. [iovanna] Graia.)
Stampato appresso Richardo Pittore nel anno M Christo.
[London? Catalogue of Early English Books to 1640.]
1607. Sm. 8vo. British Museum, (2 copies). Huth. By
Michelangelo Florio. (Supposed to be of Dutch imprint.
D.N.B.) Pp. 1-378.
Most of the letters and other works attributed to Lady
Jane Grey are found translated into Italian in the Lettere e
ragionamenli at the end of Florio's biography.
1616. M. A. de Dominis .... suae Profectionis Consilium
exponit.
Apud J. Billium, Londini } 1616. 4to. British Museum,
(2 copies).
1617. Scala Politica deW Abominatione e Tirannia Papale
di Benvenuto Italiano, a tutti gli Prencipi, Republiche, Stati, e
8
562 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Signori et ad ogn' altro nobil spirito amatore dell' ortodossa
e Christiana fede.
Roma, [London] 1617. 12mo. British Museum.
1617. Predica [on Rom. xm. l] .... fatta la prima
Domenica deW Avvento quest anno 1617 in Londra nella
Cappella delta delli Mereiari.
Giovanni Billio, Londra, 1617. 16 mo. British Museum.
By Marco Antonio de Dominis.
1617-58. De republica Ecdesiastica Libri X. (. . . . Pars
secunda .... cum appendicibus .... in quibus .... refellitur
opus .... Cardinalis Perronii, in ea Parte in qua agitur de
sanctissima Eucharistia. . . . Additur .... Responsio ad
magnam partem Defensionis Fidei P. F. Suarez. Pars Tertia
.... cum . . . . Gr. Cassandri tractatu De Officio pii viri circa
religionis Dissidia, etc.) 3 pts.
Apud J. Billium, Londini, [and Frankfort,] 1617-58.
Folio. British Museum.
Part III bears the imprint, "Francofurti."
By M. A. de Dominis.
The controversial authors of Parts II. and III. are Cardi-
nal Jacques Davy du Perron, Franciscus Suarez, and Georgius
Cassander.
1618. Saggi Morali del Signore Francesco Bacono, cava-
gliero inglese, gran cancelliero d'Inghelterra, con un' altro suo
Trattato delta Sapienza degli Antichi. Tradotti in Italiano
[by Sir Toby Matthew.']
Giovanni Billio. Londra. 1618. 8vo. 2 pts. (Pt. 2,
Delta Sapienza degli Antichi is separately paged.) British
Museum.
Saggi morali .... corretti e dati in luce dal Sig. Cavalier
Andrea Oioli . . . . et un trattato della Sapienza degli Antichi.
Fiorenza. 161 9-1 8 . 1 2mo. British Museum. Also, Venetia,
1621. 12 mo. British Museum. Bracciano. 1621. 24 mo.
Brit. Mus.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 563
The second edition, curante Andrea Oioli, contains the essay
On Seditions and Troubles, which was not printed in England
till 1625.
A dedicatory letter to Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany,
eulogizes Sir Francis Bacon, praising him not only for the
qualities of his intellect, but also for those of the heart and
will, and moral understanding ; " being a man most sweet in
his conversation and ways, grave in his judgment, invariable
in his fortunes, splendid in his expenses ; a friend unalterable
to his friends ; an enemy to no man ; a most hearty and
indefatigable servant to the king, and a most earnest lover
of the Public, having all the thoughts of that large heart of
his set upon adorning the age in which he lives, and benefit-
ing as far as possible the whole human race."
Sir Toby Matthew and Sir Francis Bacon became friends
as young men together in Parliament, and their affection
knew no break through every variation of both their fortunes.
Bacon held a high opinion of Matthews's literary judgment,
and submitted his writings to him for criticism from time to
time, among other pieces his book, De Sapientia Veterum,
with an accompanying letter dated Feb. 17, 1610. In the
last year of Bacon's life, at Sir Toby Matthews's special
request, he added his Essay on Friendship to the series, in
commemoration of their lifelong intimacy.
1619. Apologia Equitis Lodovico Petrucd contra Calum-
niatores suos: Una cum Responsione ad libellum a Jesuitis
contra . . . . L. Donatum, Ducem Venetum, Promulgatum.
Londini, 1619. 4to. British Museum.
1626. Inderdicti Veneti Historia de motu Italiae sub initio
Pontificatus Pauli V. Commentarius, Authore R. P. Paulo
SarpiOj Veneto. . . . Recens ex Italico conversus [by William
Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh"].
Apud T. Bucke, J. Bucke, et L. Greene, Cantabrigiae, 1626.
4to. Pp. 225. British Museum.
564 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Dedicated, "Serenissimo Potentissimoque Principi Carolo,
D. G. Magnae Britanniae, Franciae, et Hiberniae Regi, Fidei
Defensori."
This is a Latin version of Fra Paolo's History of the
Interdict, written in 1608, but not published until after
the author's death.
Istoria particolare delle cose passate tra'l Sommo Pontifice
Paolo V e la Serenissima Republica di Venetia gli anni M.DCV,
M.DCVI, M.DCVII. Lione [ Venice ?] 1624. 4to. British Museum.
See The History of the Quarrels of Pope Paul V. with the
State of Venice. 1626.
1631. F. Stradae [Famiano 8trada~\ Eomani .... Pro-
lusiones Academicae juxta exemplar Authoris recognitae, etc.
G. Turner, Oxoniae, 1631. 8vo. British Museum.
[Another edition.] Oxonii, 1745. 8vo. British Museum.
Compare, Part II, Crashaw. Steps to the Temple. 1646.
INDEX OF TITLES.
a. Voyage and Discovery.
1555. The [three] Decades of the newe worlde or west India.
1555. Of the generation of metalles and their mynes.
1577. History of Trauayle in the West and East Indies.
1577. Of the viages of .... S[ebastian] C. [abot].
1577. Certaine reportes of the province of China.
1577. A briefe description of Moscovia.
1580. A Shorte and briefe narration of the Two Navigations.
1582. Divers voyages touching the discoverie of America.
1582. Discoverie of the isles of Frisland.
1582. Relation of J. Verrazano of the land discovered by him.
1588. The Voyage and Travaile of M. C. Frederick.
1589. Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English
nation.
1597. A Reporte of the Kingdome of Congo.
1600. A Geographical Historic of Africa.
1601. The Travellers Breviat.
1 603. The Ottoman of Lazaro Soranzo.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 565
1608. Relations of the most famous Kingdoms and Commonweales.
1612. De Nouo Orbe, or The Historic of the west Indies.
1625. Purchas his Pilgrimes.
1625. Extracts of C. F. [Cesare Federici] his eighteene yeares Indian
Observations.
1625. Of F. Magalianes: The Occasion of his Voyage.
1625. The Relation of G. P. [Galeotto Perera] that lay prisoner
in China.
1625. Indian Observations gathered out of the letters of N. P. [Nicold
Pimento}.
1625. The first Booke of M. P. [Marco Polo] his Voyages.
1625. A Discourse of the Kingdome of China.
1633. Cochinchina.
1873. Travels to Tana and Persia by Josafa Barbaro and Ambrogio
Contarini.
b. History and Politics.
[1550?] History of Herodian.
1562. Two very notable Commentaries.
1563. The Historic of Leonard Aretine.
[1570.] A very briefe and profitable Treatise.
1572. True Report of all the successe of Famagosta.
1574. True order and Methode of wryting and reading Hystories.
1575. Notable Historye of the Saracens.
1576. Moral Methode of civile Policie.
1579. Historic of Guicciardin.
1579. Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.
1582. The Revelation of S. John.
1583. De Republica Anglorum.
[1584.] The Praeface of J. Brocard upon the Revelation.
1590. Discourse concerninge the Spanishe fleete invadinge Englande.
1593. Description of the Low countreys.
1595. The Florentine Historie.
1595. Two Discourses of Master Frances Guicciardin.
1595. History of the Warres betweene the Turks and the Persians.
1599. The Commonwealth and Government of Venice.
1600. Historie of the uniting of the Kingdom of Portugall to the
Crowne of Casiill.
1600. The Mahumetane or Turkish Hystorye.
1601. Civill Considerations.
1606. Treatise concerning the Magnificencie and Greatnes of Cities.
1623. The Pope's Letter (20 April, 1623) to the Prince [Charles].
1626. The New-Found Politick.
1636. Machiavel's Discourses upon the first decade of T. Livius.
566 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1637. Komulus and Tarquin.
1639. History of the Inquisition.
1640. Nicholas Machiavel's Prince.
1641. History of the Ciuill Warres of England.
1642. Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus.
1647. Pourtract of the Politicke Christian-Favourite.
1647. II Dauide Perseguitato : David Persecuted.
1647. Chiefe Events of the Monarchic of Spaine.
1648. A Venice Looking-Glass.
1650. Considerations upon the lives of Alcibiades and Corialanus [sic] .
1650-52. Exact Historic of the late Revolutions in Naples.
1650. History of the rites, customes and manner of life of the present
Jews.
1650. De Bello Belgico. The History of the Low-Countrey Warres.
1651. Stoa Triumphans.
1652. Historicall Relations of the United Provinces.
1653. The Scarlet Gown.
1654. Compleat History of the Warrs of Flanders.
1654. Discourse touching the Spanish Monarchy.
1654. Parthenopoeia or the history of the .... Kingdom of Naples.
1654. The Court of Rome.
1656. I Ragguagli di Parnaso : or Advertisements from Parnassus.
1656. The Siege of Antwerp.
1657. Political Discourses.
1658. History of Venice.
1663. History of the Wars of Italy.
1664. A new Relation of Rome.
1664. Rome exactly described.
1676. History of France, written in Italian.
c. Manners and Morals.
1561. The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio.
[1565.] The boke of Wisdome.
[1570 ?] The Fables of Esope in Englishe.
1570. The Morall Philosophic of Doni.
1573. Cardanus Comforte.
1575. Golden Epistles.
1577. The Court of Civill Courtesie.
1579. Physicke against Fortune.
1585. The Worthy Tract of Paulus lovius.
1586. The ciuile Conversation of M. Stephen Guazzo.
1595. Nennio, Or A Treatise of Nobility.
1598. Hecatonphila. The Arte of Loue.
1600. The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles.
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 567
1603. A Dialogue full of pithe and pleasure.
1605. The Dumbe Divine Speaker.
[1606.] Problemes of Beautie.
1607. Ars Aulica or the Courtiers Arte.
1616. The Eich Cabinet.
1637. Curiosities: or the Cabinet of Nature.
d. Italian and Latin Publications.
[1549.] Tractatio de Sacramento Eucharistiae.
[1553(?)] Catechismo.
1555. De Memoria reparanda.
1566. Epitaphia et Inscriptiones lugubres.
1566. Espositione .... sopra un libro, intitolato Apocalypsis spiritus
secreti.
1581. La Vita di Carlo Magno Imperadore.
1581. Epistolarum P. Manutii [Paolo Manuzio] libri x.
1581. Phrases Linguae Latinae ab A. [Ido] Manutio P. F. conscriptae.
1582. A. Gentilie de Juris Interpretibus dialogi sex.
[1583 (?)] Philothei J. Bruni Explicatio Triginta sigillorum.
1584. La Cena de la Ceneri.
1584. Dell' infinite Universe e Mondi.
1584. De la causa, principio, et uno.
1584. Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante.
1584. Hugonis Platti armig. Manuele, sententias aliquot Divinas &
Morales.
1584. Atto della Giustitia d'Inghilterra.
1585. Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo.
1585. Gli eroici furori.
1585. La Vita di Giulio Agricola.
1585. A. Gentilis de Legationibus, libri tres.
1585. Dichiaratione delle caggioni.
1587. Examine di varii Giudicii de i Politici.
1591. De furtivis literarum notis, vulgo de Ziferis libri nn.
1591. Le Vite delle Donne Illustri.
1592. Parte prima delle .... demostrationi, et precetti.
1595. Scelta di alcune attioni e di varii accidenti.
1596. Elizabetha. Dicbiaratione delle cause.
1597. Lo Stato delle tre corti.
1597. Militia del Gran Duca di Thoscana.
1605. A. Gentilis. . . . Regales Disputationes.
1607. Historia de la Vita e de la Morte de I'illustrissima Signora
Giovanna Graia.
1616. M. A. de Dominis .... suae Profectionis Consilium exponit.
1617. Scala Politica dell' Abominatione e Tirannia Papale.
568 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
1617. Predica .... fatta la prima Domenica dell' Avvento quest
anno 1617.
1617-58. De republica Ecclesiastica Libri x.
1618. Saggi Moral! del Signore Francesco Bacono.
1619. Apologia Equitis Lodovico Petrucci contra Calumniatores suos.
1626. Interdict! Veneti Historia.
1631. F. Stradae Komani. . . . Prolusiones Academicae.
INDEX OF ENGLISH TRANSLATORS.
Adams, Eobert fl. 1590.
Ashley, Kobert 1565-1641.
Baker, Sir Kichard 1568-1645.
Barker, William fl. 1554-1568.
Basset, E. Gent fl. 1637.
Bedingfield, Thomas d. 1613.
Blount, Edward fl. 1588-1632.
Blundeville, Thomas fl. 1561.
Brent, William k fl. 1676.
Breton, Nicholas 1542-3 (?)-1626 (?).
Budden, John 1566-1620.
Carey, Henry, Earl of Monmouth 1596-1661.
Carr, Ealph fl. 1600.
Cax ton, William. 1422(?)-1491.
Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, (author) 1520-1598.
Chilmead, Edmund [John Chilmead?] 1610-1654.
Clerke, Bartholomew ....1537 (?)-1590.
Cogan, Henry, Gent fl. 1653-4.
Danett, Thomas fl. 1566-1601.
Daniel, Samuel 1562-1619.
Eden, Eichard 1521 (?)-1576.
Fenton, Sir Geoffrey 1539(?)-1608.
Florio, John 1553 (?)-1625.
Full wood, William 1562-1568.
Gentilis, Eobert 1590-1654(7).
Golding, Arthur 1536(?)-1605(?).
Hakluyt, Eichard 1553 (?)-1616.
Hartwell, Abraham, the younger fl. 1595-1603.
Hickok, Thomas fl. 1588.
Hoby, Sir Thomas 1530-1566.
Howell, James 1594(?)-1666.
I. W fl. 1595.
Johnson, Eobert fl. 1601-1608.
Jones, William fl. 1595.
Lancaster, Thomas, Gent fl. 1656,
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 569
Larke, John fl- 1565.
Lennard, Samson, Gent d. 1633.
Lewkenor, Sir Lewis fl- 1599.
Lok, Michael, Gent 1532(?)-1614-15.
Malim, or Malin, William 1533-1594.
Matthew, Sir Toby 1577-1655.
Munday, Anthony 1582-1619.
N. N fl. 1704.
Newton, Thomas 1542 (?)-l 607.
North, Sir Thomas.. 1535 (?)-1601 (?).
P. T fl. 1651.
Peterson, Robert fl. 1600.
Pettie, George 1548-1589.
Pory, John 1570 (?)-1635.
Purchas, Samuel 1577-1626.
E. S. Gent fl. 1591.
Kobinson, Richard fl. 1576-1600.
Sandford, or Sanford, James fl. 1567-1582.
Shute, John fl. 1562-1573.
Smith, Sir Thomas 1514-1577.
Smyth, Nicholas fl. [1550?].
Stapleton, or Stapylton, Sir Robert d. 1669.
T. W fl. 1601.
Thomas, William Executed, May 18, 1554.
Twyne, Thomas 1564-1613.
Vaughan, Sir William b. 1577.
W. N fl. 1663.
W. W fl. [1606].
Willes, Richarde fl. 1577.
Young, Bartholomew fl. 1586-1598.
INDEX OF ITALIAN AUTHORS.
Acciajuoli, Donate 1428-1478.
Affinati d'Acuto, Jacopo fl. 1606 (?).
Agnello, Giovanni Battista (?)
Alberti, Leone Battista 1404-1472.
Ambrogini, Angelo (Poliziano) 1454-1494.
Avicenna, Husam 'Abd Allah (Abu 'All), called Ibn Sind 980-1037.
Barbaro, Josafa d. 1494.
Barri, Cristoforo (?)
Bengalasso del Monte, Prisacchi Retto (?)
Bentivoglio, Guido (Cardinal) 1577-1644.
Benvenuto, fl. 1612-1617.
Biondi, Giovanni Francesco (Sir John Francis Biondi) 1572-1644.
570 MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
Biringuccio, Vannuccio fl. 1540.
Boccalini, Trajano 1556-1613.
Botero, Giovanni, Benese 1540-1617.
Brocardo, Giacopo d. Nov. 23, 1594.
Bruni, Leonardo (Aretino) 1369-1444.
Bruno, Giordano 1548 (?)-1600.
Buoni, Tommaso fl. 1605.
Cabot, Sebastian 1474-1557.
Cambini, Andrea fl. 1529.
Cam panella, Tommaso 1568-1639.
Capriata, Pietro Giovanni d. 1660 (?).
Cardano, Girolamo 1501-1576.
Cartier, Jacques 1495-1552(7).
Casa, Giovanni della 1503-1556.
Castiglione, Baldassare, Count 1478-1529.
Chappuys, Gabriel 1546-1611.
Chytraeus, Nathan 1543-1598.
Conestaggio, Girolamo d. 1635.
Contarini, Gasparo, Cardinal, Bishop of Belluno 1483-5 (?)-! 542.
Curio, Caelius Augustinus , 1538-1567.
Dolce, Lodovico 1508-1568 or 9.
Dominis, Marco Antonio de, Bishop of Segni and Archbishop of
Spalatro 1566-1624.
Doni, Antonio Francesco 1503-1569.
Ducci, Lorenzo fl. 1601.
Dupinet, Antoine, Sieur de Noroy d. 1584 (?).
Federice, Cesare (?)
Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, Gonzalez 1478-1557.
Florio, Michelangelo fl. 1550.
Garzoni, Tommaso 1549-1589.
Gastaldi, Jacopo fl. 1548.
Gentili, Alberico 1550-1611 (?).
Giovio, Paolo, Bishop of Nocera 1483-1552.
Giraffi, Alessandro fl. 1647.
Grataroli, Guglielmo 1516-1568.
Gualdo-Priorato, Galeazzo, Count of Comazzo 1606-1678.
Guazzo, Stephano 1530-1593.
Guevara, Antonio de, Bishop of Mondonedo d. 1545.
Guicciardini, Francesco 1482-1540.
Guicciardini, Lodovico 1523-1589.
Guterry, Siegneur de (?)
UEduse, Charles de 1524 or 5-1609.
Leone, Giovanni, Africano (Hasan Ibn Muhammed Al-Wazzdn
Al Fasi) 1483-1552.
Leoni, Tommaso fl. 1470 (?).
ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN. 571
Ldpez, Duarte fl. 1578-1587.
Lopez de Gomara, Francisco 1519-1560.
Malvezzi, Virgilio, Marquis di 1599-1654.
Manelli, Giovanni Maria , fl. 1585.
Manuzio, Aldo, the younger 1547-1597.
Manuzio, Paolo 1511-1574.
Martinengo, Nestore, Count fl. 1572.
Martire, Pietro, d'Anghiera 1455-1526.
Mazzella, Scipione fl. [1586].
Minadoi, Giovanni Tommaso 1540 (?)-1615.
Modena, Leo (Judah Arieh) 1571-1648 or '54 (?).
Milnster, Sebastian fl. 1540.
N. N (?)
Nannini, Remigio, Fiorentino 1521 (?)-1581.
Nenna, Giovanni Battista fl. 1542.
Paruta, Paolo 1540-1598.
Patrizi, Francesco, Bishop of Gaeta d. 1494.
Patrizi, Francesco 1529-1597.
Perera, Galeotto (?)
Petrarca, Francesco 1304-1374.
Petrucci, Lodovico (Ubaldini, Petruccio) 1524 (?)-1600 (?).
Pelrus Alphonsus (Rabbi Moses Sephardi) 1062-1140.
Pigafetta, Filippo 1533-1603.
Pigafetta, Francesco Antonio, of Vicenza 1491 (?)-1534 (?).
Pimenta, Nicolo (?)
Poggio-Bracciolini, Giovanni Francesco 1380-1459.
Polo, Marco 1254 (?)-! 324.
Porta, Giovanni Battista della 1543(?)-1615.
Ramusio, Giovanni Battista 1485-1557.
Ricci. Matteo 1552-1610.
Sarpi, Pietro, Fra Paolo Servita 1552-1623.
Soranzo, Lazaro (?)
Strada, Famiano 1572-1649.
Torriano, Giovanni fl. 1659-1678.
Transylvanus, Maximilianus (?)
Trigaut, Nicolas 1577-1628.
Ulloa, Alfonso de d. 1580 (?).
Verrazano, Giovanni da 1480(?)-1527 (?).
Zeno, Antonio d. 1406.
Zeno, Nicold, the Chevalier 1340 (?)-1395 (?).
MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
APPENDIX I.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL
MEETING OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, HELD AT
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA,
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.,
DECEMBER 27, 28,
29, 1898.
THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION
OF AMERICA.
The sixteenth annual meeting of the MODERN LANGUAGE
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA was held at the University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., December 27, 28, 29, 1898.
The invitation to meet in Charlottesville proceeded officially
from Dr. Paul B. Barringer, Chairman of the Faculty, in
accordance with the vote of the Faculty, January 5, 1897,
upon the motion offered by Professor J. A. Harrison and
seconded by Professor C. W. Kent (cf. Proceedings for 1897,
p. XV).
The first session was held in the Public Hall ; all the
remaining sessions were held in the Y. M. C. A. Hall of
the University.
FIRST SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27.
The first session of the meeting was convened in the
Auditorium of the Public Hall, at 7.30 o'clock p. m. Dr.
Paul B. Barringer, Chairman of the Faculty of the Uni-
versity, presided, and opened the session with brief words
of welcome ; Professor George W. Miles, Headmaster of St.
Alban's School, followed in an elaborate and eloquent address
of welcome in behalf of the Board of Visitors of the Uni-
versity of which he is a member. To these addresses of
welcome the Secretary of the Association cordially responded.
The President of the Association, Professor Alcee Fortier,
was then introduced to deliver his following annual address.
Subject : " Historical and social forces in French literature."
iii
IV MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
The word philology, taken in its broadest sense, is now understood by all
scholars to signify the study of literature as well as of language ; it means,
in reality, the study of civilization. The history of civilization is an
account of the customs of a people, of the events which have taken place
in politics, in war, in science, and in literature. The historian of civiliza-
tion covers such an immense field of research that he must neglect facts of
minor importance and study principally the ca^es and results of great
events. He must study the souls of men, in order to see what influence
external causes have produced on the individuals composing a nation ;
and, just as causes act somewhat differently on individuals, and each man
has his own ideas, so it is with nations, which differ in civilization, although
exposed to influences nearly similar.
Western Europe, in the Middle Ages, was invaded by the barbarians,
became Christian, became feudal, undertook the crusades, explored the
New World ; there were, in fact, nearly the same institutions in all occi-
dental countries. Who will say, however, that the civilization of France,
of England, of Germany, of Italy, of Spain have been exactly similar?
All these countries have in common the general traits of European civili-
zation, which is very different from the Asiatic; but, as the historical and
social forces have necessarily not been the same in all countries of Western
Europe, the civilization of each has been somewhat different from that of
the others, and the literature which is, in great part, the product of a
peculiar civilization, has peculiar and distinct traits.
It is true that all mankind is animated by the same psychical forces
inherent in humanity, and that a great work of art, whether produced by
a Homer, a Virgil, a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Calderon, a Moliere, a
Goethe, is permeated with the same broad human feeling, but each man
is bound to reproduce in his work the effect of the civilization to which he
belongs. That civilization is largely an inheritance, which the individual
enjoys by the mere fact of being born in a certain atmosphere; but, as
civilization means development, new historical and social forces are con-
stantly being brought to bear upon the individual and are modifying his
ideas. There are, therefore, three great causes which mold the mind of
the individual: (1) the fact of being a man, which gives him ideas and
sentiments common to all men ; (2) his birthplace, which impresses upon
him the civilization of his country; (3) the social and historical forces
produced in his own lifetime.
It is often exceedingly difficult to perceive the effect upon a writer of
social and historical forces, whether contemporary or handed down from
former times. It is evident that events do not produce the same effects
upon all men, and to measure those effects we must study the life of an
author and try to lay bare his heart. Biography is essential for under-
standing thoroughly the motives by which a writer has been actuated, for,
just as the civilization of France produces its effect on all Frenchmen, so
it is with local influences. M. Gaston Paris says that "all the provinces
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. V
did not take in the Middle Ages an equal part in the literary activity."
We must, therefore, study very carefully the surroundings of an author,
le milieu, to which Sainte-Beuve attached such a great importance, but we
must also call psychology to our aid, as Bourget has done, to probe the
human soul, the human heart, to find out what causes make that heart
throb like the beating of a mighty hammer on a gigantic anvil, or what
causes render the pulsation as faint and feeble as the rustling of the leaves
agitated by a gentle breeze.
Michelet, in the second volume of his History of France, presents to us
a striking tableau of the characteristics of each of the provinces and gives
an admirable explanation of the influence of local causes, of topography
and geography, we may say, on the genius of a nation. Great social and
historical forces were at work at different epochs in the different provinces
of France, and French civilization is the result of all these forces. I do
not wish to be understood as denying the personal influence of a man of
genius upon his epoch, for it has often happened that a strong and well-
marked individuality in a writer has changed considerably the character of
an epoch, and that a great literary work has produced a lasting effect on
the literature of the time contemporary with it and on that of subse-
quent ages.
M. Brunetiere says that the principal influence in literature is that of
works upon works. That influence is certainly very important, but it is
not the principal one. So many forces have contributed to the civilization
of every country and to the development of every literature that it is
impossible to say which one of these forces has been the most active and
the most fruitful. If a great writer has produced a change in the civiliza-
tion of his time, that change is never as complete as it might appear,
inasmuch as the writer must reflect some ideas common to his race, to his
country, and to all men. Again, admitting that the personal influence of
one man had produced a change almost complete on his epoch and on the
literature of his time, that influence of an individual becomes a social
force and reacts on other individuals, who may, in their turn, impress the
stamp of their genius on civilization and on literature. Historical and
social forces are, therefore, continually brought in contact with forces
apparently entirely personal and literary, and there is a perpetual reaction
of the one class of forces on the other. It is very difficult, as 1 have said,
to trace the relative value or importance of all the forces which have
brought about a certain development of a literature, but it is interesting to
study some of them and to ascertain the result. We may not be able
to say which one of a number of rivulets, tributaries to a noble river, has
poured into it the largest stream of pure water, but we may find a great
pleasure in drifting with the placid current of the rivulets, until we reach
the mighty and impetuous river. It is my purpose to describe briefly some
of the principal historical and social forces in French literature, without
pretending to say which ones have been the most important. This is but a
9
VI MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
bird's eye view of a vast subject, which would call for the wonderful
critical acumen of a Sainte-Beuve, of a Taine, of a Brunetiere, of our own
colleague, Professor Kuno Francke, were it attempted to analyze minutely
the different phases of the subject.
M. Gaston Paris, in his Lilterature Francaise au MoyenAge, has explained
so clearly the earliest historical and social forces in French literature that,
in speaking of that epoch, we can only express briefly well known facts.
The great majority of the inhabitants of Gaul belonged to the Celtic
race, but the influence of that race was not felt in the literature of France,
for Gaul was thoroughly romanized by Caesar's conquest. Vulgar Latin
became the language of the Gallo-Romans, and classical Latin being, at
first, the language of the State and, at all times, of the Church, was taught
in the schools and was written and spoken by the clergy and by the learned
men, even after French had arisen from the vulgar Latin and had become
the speech of the people. " This," says M. Paris, " cut the nation in two,"
and it delayed the development of French literature by keeping away
from it a large number of men of culture.
The Roman conquest, however, was a great historical and social force by
substituting an old civilization for the Celtic civilization yet in its infancy,
and by bringing into Gaul new customs and new ideas, which were to be
reflected later in literature. One of the most important results of the con-
quest was the adoption of Christianity by the Gauls, much earlier than if
the Celts had remained independent, and Christianity, as a social force in
literature, was most potent in the Middle Ages. The absolute faith of the
people in the teachings of the church, their delight in everything concern-
ing sacred history gave rise to the miracles and the mysteries, whilst the
large number of priests and of monks was a fruitful source of satirical
writings. Let us call attention here to the wonderful force contributed by
the monasteries for the future development of literature in the preserva-
tion by the monks of the masterpieces of antiquity.
The conquest of the Gallo-Romans by the Germanic tribes is another
important historical and social force. The conquerors adopted the lan-
guage of the conquered and, to a great extent, their civilization, but some
Germanic traditions and ideas survived, and blending with the new
Christian civilization of the Gallo-Romans, produced, says M. Gaston Paris,
the French epic of the Middle Ages.
In the course of centuries, after the Merovingians and the Carlovingians
had reigned, and the national dynasty of the Capetians had arisen, we see
feudal society constituted, and the influence of that society is easily seen in
literature. The rude and haughty baron, the knight and the gentle lady,
are faithfully depicted in the chansons de geste and in the Arthurian
romances, and the farces and the fabliaux give us an insight into the life
of the bourgeois and of the vilains. If literature is " the expression of society "
it was never more clearly so than during the Middle Ages. The end of
that period was marked by the calamities of the Hundred Years' war and
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. vii
by the tireless efforts of Louis XI. to destroy the power of the great nobles,
but these events had little influence on social life and on literature. It
was the Italian wars of Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I., which
brought about principally the Renaissance of the 16th century.
The sense of the artistic was the chief gain of the expeditions of the
French beyond the Alps, and under the intelligent patronage of Francis I.
the taste for the beautiful spread over France, as well as a desire to
study the writers of antiquity. Marguerite de Navarre and Cle'ment Marot
were the products of the first period of the Renaissance and were inspired
by their taste for the artistic, whilst Ronsard and his school appeared in
the second period and were influenced both by Italian art and by their
enthusiasm for the masterpieces of Greece and of Rome. It was then
that Joachim Du Bellay wrote his Defense et illustration de la languefran-
$aise, that Jodelle produced Cleopdtre ; and that the members of the Pleiade
vied with one another in writing tragedies, comedies, and odes, imitated
from the ancients. The Renaissance had really taken place and it had
been brought about by historical forces which had reacted on society and
on literature.
Besides Marot and Ronsard, Rabelais and Montaigne were representa-
tives of that epoch, and both were influenced greatly by the Reformation.
The religious controversies of the time emboldened Rabelais and allowed
him to make the satire of society and its institutions, and the horrors of
the religious dissensions and wars gave rise to the scepticism of Montaigne
and induced him to study all questions affecting the mind and the soul
of men.
However, the religious controversies of the 16th century did not always
lead to scepticism or to indifference, as with Montaigne and a number of
men of that epoch, but the period of the Reformation produced works
inspired by sincere faith, those of Calvin, of Saint Franpois de Sales, the
poetic Discourses of Ronsard, the energetic verses of Du Bartas and of
d'Aubigne', the concise and strong Memoirs of Monluc.
The Italian influence, so potent for the revival of arts and letters, was
felt more directly after the death of Francis I. and Henry II., when
Catherine de Medici governed France in the name of her sons, and the
comedies of Larivey are due to that historical and social force. Spanish
influence began also to be felt in the latter part of the 16th century, when
the League almost betrayed France into the hands of Philip II., and in the
celebrated Satire Menippee the patriotic authors of that pamphlet attacked
the Spanish party with most bitter and witty irony. However, when the
Menippee appeared Henry IV. had already won his throne, and with his
reign began the period of order and stability which is the distinctive mark
of the 17th century, in spite of the disorders which took place during the
minorities of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV.
M. Gustave Lanson, in his very valuable Histoire de la Lilterature Fran-
$aise, explains admirably the transition from the period of the Renaissance
Vlll MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
to the 17th century. He states that " reason, matured in the agitations of
the age, and the study of the ancients, is permeated with a positive and
scientific rationalism. The domain of faith is excepted : beyond that,
everything is decided by reason. This leads to two consequences : litera-
ture becomes the expression of truth ; it must then be sincere and objec-
tive." "Literature," adds M. Lanson, "in which reason tends to dominate,
is directed towards the universal : it recognizes for its object what each one
finds in himself: truth and custom." In this last sentence M. Lanson
agrees with M. BrunetieTe, who states that the essential trait of French
literature is sociability. If there is a tendency towards the universal,
towards the study of the individual taken as the type of the human race,
then literature is sociable and is easily understood by all men. M.
Lanson, however, restricts his statement to the 17th century, whilst M.
Brunetiere bases his whole theory of the evolution of French literature on
the characteristic traits of the 17th century : the spirit of order, the
impersonality or objectivism of the literary works, and the social spirit.
The clearness and the conciseness of French literature comes from the
desire of the authors to be easily understood, and from that cause also,
according to M. Brunetiere, comes the lack of the lyric spirit to be noticed
generally in French writers. They have neglected the ego, the moi, in
their desire to be sociable, and have lost in lyric spirit what they have
gained in clearness, conciseness, and good sense. There is a great deal of
truth in the above theory, although a number of works do not agree with
the fundamental rule. With regard to the 17th century there is no doubt
that the great historical and social forces tended to establish in France
order and regularity, and these two qualities are preeminent in the works
of that time.
Malherbe was the embodiment of the spirit which was to animate the
17th century, and he expressed in his works the tendency of his contem-
poraries towards order and regularity. There was yet, at that time,
coarseness in customs and language, and literature reflected society but too
well. Here comes the great influence of 1'Hotel de Rambouillet in the
refinement of society and of literature, and we may pardon the affectation,
the marinisme, and gongorisme of the precieuses. The authors who fre-
quented the salon of Julie d'Angennes sought to please the society of their
time, became more polite, more universal, more clear; but both M.
Brunetiere and M. Lanson call our attention to the fact that the social
spirit which permeates French literature has prevented it from being as
deeply philosophical as the literatures of some other nations. I desire to
give here a characteristic extract from M. BrunetiSre's Evolution des Genres,
page 128: "If you wish to know for what reasons some of our greatest
writers I except always the Bossuets and the Pascals, to whom their trade
or as the second one says their sign permitted it if you wish to know why
Kacine or Moliere, for instance, have not always reached that depth of
thought which we find in a Shakespeare or in a Goethe ; or again, why
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. ix
such questions, as that of destiny, which are enveloped in a Hamlet or in
a Faust, seem to have remained foreign to them, ' cherchez la femme/ and
you will find that the fault is due to the influence of the salons and of
women. They have wished to please ; and, in order to please, they have
tried to accommodate themselves to the world. They have granted, they
have conceded something to fashion, Moliere the ceremony of the Bourgeois
Gentilhomme, Racine his Pyrrhuses, his Xiphareses and his Achilles.
Especially they have not themselves taken, or seemed to take life more
seriously than was done around them ; or, at least, when they have done
so, it was when their genius was greater in them than the desire to please."
I can hardly agree with all that M. BrunetiSre says in the above quota-
tion from his learned work. I believe in the influence on literature of
social forces, but whether French writers were less philosophical than those
of other countries, that might well be disputed ; it seems hard to lay all the
blame of that inferiority in depth of thought to the paramount influence
of women. True genius rises superior to its surroundings, and it is often
impossible to trace in a great work of art the forces that have given birth
to it. Take away from Moliere some accessories of his time, and we may
place Tartuffe, Harpagon, Alceste, and many other characters, in any
epoch, and they will always be true. Some of the wonderful poems of
Lamartine, of Hugo, of Mussel, of Vigny, seem to have been dictated to
the poets by the Creator himself, and no historical or social forces 'can
account for them. It is true that M. Brunetiere says that lyric poetry is a
deviation from the classic ideal, and that the study of the moi is outside
the essential social spirit of French literature. This theory, I repeat it, is
very interesting, and, in the main, correct, but let us not be guided entirely
by it. The danger in all theories is that we are liable to be influenced
unduly by them and to wish to judge everything according to preconceived
ideas. Let us try to discover what are the essential traits in the character
of a nation and of its literature, but let us admit that, in many cases, we
cannot find the causes of events in history and of the forces in literature.
We must be thankful, however, to men who have original ideas and who
make us think in our turn. For my part I cannot be too grateful to M.
Brunetiere and M. Lanson, although I do not share all their opinions.
The principal social force in the age of Louis XIV. was the influence of
the king himself. When he began his personal reign, after Mazarin's
death, he found royal authority supreme, and his excellent judgment and
strong will established perfect order in the kingdom. The encouragement
and help he gave to Moliere, Boileau, and Racine, are well known, and by
receiving so kindly at his court men of letters, who were often of inferior
birth, he gave them, as M. Brunetiere points out, a culture, a politeness, a
refinement which they could never have obtained otherwise, and which are
felt in their writings. Many works are a glorification of the king, and
praise which sounds excessive to us was natural and proper at the time.
We may understand and excuse the eulogy of the king in Tartvffe, when
we remember the debt of gratitude which Moliere owed Louis XIV.
X MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
The court of the Great King was, for more than half a century, the only
salon in France and was the polite society of the age and an important force
in literature. La Rochefoucauld was somewhat influenced by it, when he
produced his Maxims, and Mme de Se'vigne' wholly so when she wrote her
charming letters. I venture to add that the exquisite Princesse de Cleves of
Mme de La Fayette could not have been written at any time before the
17th century. The charm and conciseness of that work coincided with
the spirit of a refined and orderly society. Literature, in the 17th century,
was less subjective than at any other period in French history, but it is
national, inasmuch as it represents the spirit of the age which is so
essentially sociable and human.
The influence of religion was felt, not only in admirable sermons, but
also in the Provincial Letters of Pascal, written for the defense of the
Jansenists. In Bossuet's Universal History we see the profound faith
of the author in the almightiness of God and in the Creator's will to regu-
late the affairs of men.
The celebrated quarrel about the ancients and the moderns between
Boileau and Perrault was caused by the latter's belief in the excellence
of everything connected with the age of Louis XIV., and especially of the
literature which was the expression of that age. The Characters of La
Bruyere are a study of contemporary society, and Fe"nelon's Telemachus
represents the court of Louis XIV. more faithfully than it does antiquity.
Ulysses could scarcely have recognized his son in the French Te'le'maque,
but Louis XIV. did not fail to recognize his grandson, the duke of Bur-
gundy, in Fe"nelon's hero, and himself in Idome'ne'e.
The 18th century was very different from the 17th; royalty, under
Louis XV. and Louis XVI., was no longer a great social force ; the reli-
gious feeling was less profound and was replaced by philosophy and
science, and incredulity was expressed more freely. The literary salons
appeared again, when the court of Louis XIV. existed no longer, and the
influence of women was again deeply felt, as at the time of l'H6tel de
Rambouillet. The French language and French literature were all-power-
ful in Europe in the 18th century, but the influence of English literature
may be seen in a number of Voltaire's works and in Montesquieu. During
the 17th century, after 1660, the French writers had imitated no longer
Italy and Spain. Literature represented faithfully the great social changes
brought about by the Regency of Philip of Orleans and by the appearance
of the financier, after the failure of Law's system. Turcaret, Le Glorieux,
and many other comedies might be mentioned which portray the customs
of the time. Indeed, in nearly all the writers of the 18th century, we see
clearly the influence of the following historical and social forces : the
gradual downfall of the monarchy, the struggle of the new philosophical
ideas against old established beliefs and customs, and a certain maudlin
sentimentality. Rousseau's works, says M. BrunetiSre, were acts, but we
may add that they were caused by social forces which swayed the author,
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. xi
before 'he swayed, in his turn, the society of his time and shattered its
foundations. Beaumarchais' Barbier de Seville and Manage de Figaro were
also the direct product of social forces, of changes which were taking place
in society and were to end in the greatest revolution that the world has
ever seen.
What was the influence of the Kevolution on literature ? It destroyed
polite society for a number of years and almost destroyed literature, which
is, as we have seen, so often the expression of society. However, the
imitation on the political stage of Greek and Koman heroes, brought about,
strange to say, a return to classic literature, and we see the names and the
supposed ideas and customs of the ancients reproduced in many pretentious
and bombastic works. There was, we may say, no literature in France
from the day when the great poet, Andre* Che"nier, mounted the scaffold in
1794 until, as M. Faguet expresses it so well, Chateaubriand "renovated
French imagination." Let us now cast a rapid glance at the literature of
the 19th century and mention a few historical and social forces.
The wars of the Revolutionary period and of the Empire were not
favorable to literary productions, but there are in the literature of that
age, two great names that represent forces which were to be very potent in
the 19th century, Chateaubriand and Mme de Stae'l. After the excesses
of the Reign of Terror and the frivolity of the Directory there was a great
longing for things ideal and religious, and a renewal of the love of nature
inculcated by Rousseau and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Chateaubriand
was the happy interpreter of these feelings, of these forces, religion and
nature, and he exerted an immense influence on literature. . Tossed about,
like so many of his contemporaries, by the tempest of the Revolution he
had not felt the social influence of the literary salons destroyed by the
Revolution, and his genius was more personal, more subjective, and there-
fore more lyrical. Mme de Stae'l was not influenced by love of religion
and love of nature, but she was, like Chateaubriand, intensely personal and
subjective, although more generous, and was cosmopolitan in her ideas. A
great historical force acted on her, the despotism of the Emperor, which
exiled her from France and made her travel all over Europe or compelled
her to reside at Coppet, surrounded by a cosmopolitan crowd of admirers.
Like the other exiles of that time she had to study foreign languages, and
she was deeply impressed by the masterpieces of the German and Italian
literatures. It was then that she wrote De I'Allemagne, in which we see
her definition of the word romantisme, as meaning modern ideas in opposi-
tion to the spirit of antiquity of the classical school.
Chateaubriand and Mme de Stae'l interpreted admirably the historical
and social forces of their time, and their works had a powerful influence
on the development of the Romantic school, of which the principal causes
were love of nature, the Christian spirit, the study of foreign languages and
literatures, and the lyric spirit or the study of the moi.
Xll MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
The four great poets of the 19th century are Lamartine, Hugo, Vigny,
and Musset. They are all lyric, but Lamartine is the most lyric and sub-
jective of the four, and there is little change caused in his verses by the
change in his political opinions. His Histoire des Girondins, however, is
the direct result of historical forces. In Hugo we see at first the Catholic
and the royalist, then the passionate admirer of the Napoleonic epic, then
the adherent to constitutional monarchy, and later the ardent republican.
The changes in his ideas may be traced in a number of his works, until he
became, as was said: "the voice of the people," and the interpreter, as
he thought, of the feelings of his age. Alfred de Vigny and Musset
express the disappointment and sadness of the men of their generation,
who were born too late for the great deeds of the Empire. Vigny is sad
and pessimistic, but does not despair, whilst Musset often abandons himself
to his grief like a child, and gives vent to his feelings, sometimes in cyni-
cal words, and sometimes in passionate sobs.
The romantic and lyric school has been succeeded by the realistic, which
makes society and the human heart its study. The great apostles of that
school were Balzac and Flaubert, but let us mention specially the naturalist
Zola, who dissects the body, and the psychologist Bourget, who analyzes
the soul. I shall go no further in the study of contemporary French
literature and wish only to express my regret that it is too often pessi-
mistic. If French society be taken as a whole we find a happy and
prosperous people, and no cause for pessimism in literature, inasmuch as
discontent does not exist among the people. The great historical and
social force in France, for the last twenty-eight years, has been the estab-
lishment of the Republic as a permanent government. The trials incident
to the transformation from a monarchy to a parliamentary democracy may
be the cause of the present pessimism in literature. The parliamentary
system is the real cause of pessimism, says Mr. Bodley, in his recent work
on France. This assertion is interesting but very paradoxical. Let us
hope, at all events, that pessimism is about to disappear, and that M.
Rostand's grotesque but noble Cyrano has brought back absolute faith in
pure love and in the chivalric sentiments of Corneille's Rodrigue and
Hugo's Heriiani.
After this address the regular reading of papers was begun,
with President For tier in the chair.
1. "Are French poets poetical?" By Dr. P. B. Marcou,
of Harvard University. [Printed in Publications, xiv, 257 f.]
Discussion by Professor T. Atkinson Jenkins.
To really answer the question put by this paper is, as all will admit, a
task of extreme delicacy, needing first of all a clear definition of terms.
Which French poets are meant ? What is meant by " poetical ? " While
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. xiil
I can scarcely blame Dr. Marcou for not attempting to define poetry in the
abstract, it seems to me that it is quite possible to detect certain differences
between English and French ideas of what is truly poetical, and these, if
they, exist, ought to occupy a prominent place in such a discussion. Pro-
fessor Dowden quotes a popular English definition of poetry " the overflow
of individual emotion " and proceeds, by way of contrast, to describe the
greater poetry of the French classic period as being essentially oratory
"the appeal to an audience." Now this, in my opinion, has been and still
is (though in a less degree since Hugo) the prevailing French conception
of poetry ; as such, it is only one manifestation of the stronger social con-
sciousness of the French as a race. With this in mind, we understand why
Mr. Saintsbury's search for "the lyric cry," in his volume of French lyric
verse, was so nearly fruitless. It was because the national ideals differ in
essential points, and, consequently, to the question : Are French poets
poetical (that is, in the English sense) ? the reply has always been " No,"
or " Rarely ; " while the Frenchman returns a similar response to the
equally legitimate query les pobtes anglais sont-ils poetiques f It is danger-
ous to assume that, were we to strip away all those troublesome differences
due to a different language medium, a representative French poem would
be found to be after all only an English poem, more or less satisfactory to
our English standards.
There is a practical side of this subject, equally interesting, and perhaps
more profitable to discuss. I mean the causes for the present neglect of
French poetry in this country and England. Certain of th.ese causes were
explained with admirable clearness in this paper: the question of vocabu-
lary, for example. The poetic effect of malernel is inevitably pale and
ineffectual by the side of ' motherly,' because we also use ' maternal ; '
arrdier cannot seem so vivid to us as 'stop,' because the French word is
English 'arrest,' and so on. This obstacle to the enjoyment of French
verse is one not easily overcome.
As to the presence or absence of a regular rhythm in French verse (inde-
pendent of the irregular movement arising from the division of the line
into stress -groups), I must again plead for extreme caution. It is well
known that since the appearance of Stengel's Romanische Verslekre, this
whole question has assumed quite a new aspect, and, while I do not accept
fully Stengel's theory of the fixed tonics (I believe we must regard them
purely and simply as the attenuated remnant of the old pause, and not
necessarily as the French representatives of the English-German beat, or
stress), it is certainly desirable, when speaking on this point, to bear in
mind the views of the eminent Marburg professor.
Not a little of the indifference to French poetry to be noted among edu-
cated people is traceable, I believe, to that conception of it best embodied
in the too well-known treatise of Quicherat : a conception of the poetic
art so sterile and arid, that even the frothy enthusiasms of M. Viele'-Griffm
and his friends become almost preferable as a substitute. They, at least,
suggest growth, even though it be a tropical growth, soon to perish.
XIV MODEEN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
2. "A neglected field in American philology." By Pro-
fessor Thomas Fitz-Hugh, of the University of Texas. [A
brief abstract of this paper is printed in Modern Language
Notes, xiv, p. 98.]
The session was then adjourned, and the members of
the Association were received in the University Library
at 10 o'clock.
SECOND SESSION, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28.
The President called the second session to order at 9.30
o'clock on Wednesday morning.
The Secretary of the Association, James W. Bright, sub-
mitted as his report the thirteenth volume of the Publications
of the Association.
The Treasurer of the Association, Herbert E. Greene, sub-
mitted the following report :
KECEIPTS.
Balance on hand, December 24, 1897, $ 903 84
Annual Dues from Members, and receipts
from Subscribing Libraries:
For the year 1893, . . . $ 3 00
' " " 1894, ... 3 00
' " 1895, ... 9 00
' " 1896, ... 15 00
1 " 1897, . . . 78 00
' " 1898, . . . 1,267 60
1 " 1899, . . . 62 40
$1,438 00
Sale of Publications, 69 14
For partial cost of publication of articles
and for reprints of the same :
Albert S. Cook, ....
Kenneth McKenzie, .
Mary A. Scott, ....
James T. Hatfield, .
Edward Fulton, ....
Albert H.Tolman, .
J. D. Bruce, ....
$ 257 75
PKOCEEDINGS FOR 1898. XV
Advertisements, 82 50
Interest on deposits, 21 64
Total receipts for the year, $2,772 87
EXPENDITURES.
Publication of Vol. XIII, 1, and Reprints, $ 332 64
" " " " 2, " " 339 13
" " " " 3, " " 303 41
" " " " 4, " " 382 63
$1,357 81
Expenses of the Committee of Twelve, . 325 65
Supplies for the Secretary : stationery, pos-
tage, mailing Publications, etc., . . 42 36
Supplies for the Treasurer : stationery, pos-
tage, etc., 30 90
The Secretary, 200 00
Job printing 79 60
The Central Division, 27 25
Bank discount on checks, .... 65
$ 706 41
Total expenditures for the year, $2,064 22
Balance on hand, December 26, 1898, 708 65
$2,772 87
Balance on hand, December 26, 1898, . . $708 65
The President appointed the following committees :
(1) To audit the Treasurer's report : Professors W. S.
Currell and H. S. White.
(2) To nominate officers : Professors H. A. Todd, C. W.
Kent, C. H. Grandgent, A. S. Cook, K. E. Blackwell.
(3) To recommend place for the next Annual Meeting :
Professors A. Cohn, J. A. Harrison, Calvin Thomas,
M. W. Sampson, H. C. G. von Jagemann.
Professor M. D. Learned presented a circular letter propos-
ing an observance in Strassburgin 1899 of the 150th birthday
of Goethe.
The Secretary reported the receipt of a communication
from the Secretary of the American Philological Association,
XVI MODEKN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
in which it was stated that the .Executive Committee of that
Association had voted in favor of the year 1900 for a pro-
posed Philological Congress.
On motion of the Secretary it was voted that the Modern
Language Association of America concurs in the choice of
the year 1900, and also propose December of that year as the
month, for the holding of a Philological Congress. It was also
voted that the Secretary of the Association, under the direction
of the Executive Council, be authorized to represent the in-
terests of the Association in the arrangements that may be
made for such a Congress.
3. "La Vie de Sainte Catharine d' Alexandrie, as contained
in the Paris MS. La Clayette." By Professor H. A. Todd,
of Columbia University. [To be printed in Publications, xv.]
4. "Luis de Le6n, the Spanish poet, humanist, and mystic."
By Dr. J. D. M. Ford, of Harvard University. [Printed in
Publications, xiv, 267 f.]
5. "German-American ballads." By Professor M. D.
Learned, of the University of Pennsylvania. [For an ab-
stract of this paper see Modern Language Notes, xiv, p. 99.]
6. " The Latin and Anglo-Saxon Juliana" By Professor
James M. Garnett, of Baltimore. [Printed in Publications,
Xiv, 279 f.]
7. "Transverse alliteration in Teutonic poetry." By Pro-
fessor O. F. Emerson, of Western Reserve University.
In the absence of the author, this paper was presented,
with comments, by Professor A. S. Cook ; Professor J. L.
Hall discussed the subject.
8. " Modern poetry, and the revival of interest in Byron."
By Professor George L. Raymond, of Princeton University.
After referring to the new editions of Byron, to the fact that the novel
has largely taken the place in public interest formerly occupied by poetry,
to the lack of high appreciation for the poetry of Tennyson and of writers
PKOCEEDINGS FOR J898.
influenced by him on the part of many English-speaking people, and of
virtually all foreign critics of distinction, Prof. Eaymond said that the
feature that separated verse of this school from that preceding it, was
the greater attention given to the musical flow of the syllables, a feature
imparting to Modern English poetry almost as distinctive a character as
the rhythmical balance of lines imparted to the poetry of the age of Pope.
He then went on as follows :
Years ago, Lessing in his Laocoon did a permanent service for criticism,
by distinguishing the motive of poetry from that of painting. Is it im-
portant in our day that the same motive should be distinguished from that
of music ? Is there any difference between the mental effects produced by
poetry and by music, which makes either art ineffective in the degree in
which it trespasses upon the domain of the other ? Let us try to answer
this question. Both, being arts, appeal, of course, to the imagination;
that is to say, they cause images to appear in the mind. But the two differ
in the ways in which they determine what these images shall be. The
inarticulated sounds heard in music, unless accompanied by words, can
suggest to the mind no more than a general emotive tendency active or
restful, triumphant or desponding, gay or sad, as the case may be. This
tendency influences the general direction of thought ; but it leaves the
mind free to determine for itself exactly what shall be the form of the
thought, or the image. The same melody or harmony may make a fisher-
man think of a storm at sea, a rustic of a wind-swept forest, or a soldier of
a battlefield. On the contrary, the articulated words heard in poetry, all
have specific meanings. They indicate that of which the listener should
think, and they are effective in the degree in which they indicate this with
great definiteness. This definiteness, moreover, is caused by that which
distinguishes an effect produced upon imagination when, in addition to
thinking of something audible, it thinks of something visible. Words are
usually significant of objects or conditions that can be seen. When we
say horse, house, hut, hill, pastime, undermine, overlook, even sometimes go and
come, we imaginatively perceive that which is mentioned. Now it is the
peculiar function of poetry, the art in which the appeal to the imagination
is made through words, to awaken in the mind consecutive series of defi-
nite visual conceptions to lift thought into a region where it is surrounded
on every side by those images of the real which we call the ideal. This is
an effect which the novel, picturing life as it does, almost inevitably
produces. But poetry can and should produce it still more emphatically,
because, in addition to presenting a poetic subject, it can, to an extent
scarcely possible in prose, express this in poetic language, that is, in
language every separate phrase and word of which is picturesque, as in the
following from Shakespeare, " Lost in the labyrinth of thy fury," " Thou
art all ice, thy kindness freezes,'' " My soul hath elbow-room," "He hath
strangled his language with his tears;" or this from Longfellow,
XV111 MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
Our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
This last stanza is characteristic of Longfellow, a writer who, though a
contemporary, was not a follower of Tennyson. Does the visual effect of
the style give us one reason for Longfellow's wide popularity, a popularity
as great in England and Germany as in our own country ? Observe, too,
that this visual effect of which we have been speaking can be compelled in
the imagination through a representation of even objects and conditions
which are described as being in themselves extremely vague in outline, as
in Milton's description of Satan, or Tennyson's of the barge that came to
bear away King Arthur.
But now, when the musical effects of poetry are supposed to compensate
for the absence of other legitimate effects such as the visual which we are
here considering then the poet may fail to make as much of these latter
as he should. He may fail to develop a very important part of his poetic
possibilities. Often, in reading Tennyson and more often in reading Swin-
burne, the reader, while conscious of certain audible sensations of great
delicacy and sweetness, is not conscious of any definite and distinct pictures ;
and just in the degree in which this is true he fails to be lifted out of his
actual visual surroundings into that realm of the imagination no less visual
into which it is the peculiar function of poetry to transport one. Notice
these entire stanzas from Swinburne :
So much we lend indeed,
Perforce, by force of need,
So much we must ; even these things and no more
The far sea sundering and the sundered shore
A world apart from ours,
So much the imperious hours,
Exact, and spare not ; but no more than these
All earth and all her seas
From thought and faith of trust and truth can borrow,
Not memory from desire, nor hope from sorrow.
A Parting Song.
Praise him, O winds that move the molten air,
O light of days that were,
And light of days that shall be ; land and sea,
And heaven and Italy :
Praise him, O storm and summer, shore and wave,
O skies and every grave ;
O weeping hopes, O memories beyond tears,
O many and murmuring years,
O sounds far off in time and visions far,
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898.
O sorrow with thy star,
And joy with all thy beacons; ye that mourn,
And ye whose light is born ;
O fallen faces, and O souls arisen,
Praise him from tomb and prison. A Song of Italy.
Notice the following too, a remarkably successful description so far as
concerns the method of representation possible to sounds :
And gentler the wind from the dreary
Sea-banks by the waves overlapped,
Being weary, speaks peace to the weary
From slopes that the tide-stream hath sapped ;
And sweeter than all that we call so
The seal of their slumber shall be,
Till the graves that embosom them also
Be sapped of the sea. By the North Sea.
Is it hypercritical to say that poetry of this kind manifests a tendency to
emphasize the visual suggestions too slightly, to make them depend too
largely upon obscure associations ; and, therefore, that, at times, this poetry
fails to satisfy all the requirements of imagination ? Is it strange that
many, especially foreigners not acquainted with the subtler suggestions of
our English words, should experience a sense of relieved tension, when
they find outlines larger, broader, bolder, outlines that, without borrow-
ing the glasses of those accustomed to search for nice discriminations, they
can see, as it were, with naked eye; and see literally, as they can, for
instance, those that make up these passages from Byron :
'Tis midnight: on the mountains brown
The cold round moon shines deeply down ;
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly spiritually bright ;
Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turned to earth without repining ?
The Siege of Corinth.
Sweeps his long arm that sabre's whirling sway
Sheds fast atonement for its first delay.
The cloven turbans o'er the chamber spread,
And scarce an arm dare rise to guard its head :
Even Seyd, convulsed, o'erwhelmed with rage, surprise,
Retreats before him though he still defies.
No craven he, and yet he dreads the blow,
XX MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
So much confusion magnifies bis foe.
His blazing galleys still distract his sight,
He tore his beard, and foaming fled the fight.
The Corsair.
Byron's poetry with its abrupt, if not ungrammatical, transitions of tense,
its inaccuracies of diction, and its inharmonious successions of syllables,
the German critics prefer to the poetry of Tennyson. If we ourselves do
not prefer it, would it not, at least, be wi?e for us to try to perceive why
others should do so, and to ask ourselves whether this style does not meet
a legitimate imaginative demand which the poetry of our own time is
neglecting "i In this age there is no great danger that any large number
will give to the English poetry of the early part of this century, of which,
perhaps, Byron is the foremost representative, the supreme literary homage
once accorded it. But let us not go to the opposite extreme. Let us
acknowledge that the artistic possibilities of many of our younger writers
might be greatly broadened by giving to this poetry a certain amount of
very cordial literary consideration.
9. " The sources of Cynewulf 's Christ, Part I." By Pro-
fessor Albert S. Cook, of Yale University.
THIRD SESSION, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28.
The third session was convened at 2.30 o'clock p. m.
The auditing committee reported as follows :
The Committee appointed to audit the accounts of the Treasurer and of
the Committee of Twelve beg leave to report that both accounts have been
carefully examined, and that both are found to be correct.
In the account of the Committee of Twelve there is a deficit of $63.33
for necessary additional expenses. To cover this deficit the Committee
respectfully recommend a further appropriation of $63.33.
Respectfully submitted,
W. S. CUBKELIi,
H. S. WHITE.
10. " Lemercier, and the three unities." By Dr. John R.
Effinger, Jr., of the University of Michigan.
Discussion by Professor A. Cohn :
On the whole I heartily concur with the conclusion of Dr. Effinger's
very able paper. There is no doubt that the middle solution proposed by
Lemercier was preferable to the absolute subversion of the old rules which
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. xxi
was later advocated by the Komanticists. But was the adoption of such a
solution possible at that time ? Lemercier himself was no great dramatist.
There was no great French dramatist living at that time, and it may even
be said that there had been none for a whole century. Voltaire, unques-
tionably the greatest French dramatist of the xvmth century, brilliant as
he was, cannot be called a great dramatist. He possibly might have been
one if he had not spread himself over so much ground, but, as it was, he
lacked the powerful concentration which is necessary for the production of
great dramatic works. When the Romanticists came, they did what they
had to do ; they destroyed the whole state of things, and this was neces-
sary in order that a new one might be created. The faults of the dramas
of Victor Hugo cannot be overlooked, and yet their production served a
good purpose and may even be said to have been necessary. It must not
be forgotten that Hugo did not begin his career as a dramatist. He was
driven to dramatic writing by the criticisms of the adherents of the old
school. After the production of Lamartine's Meditations, these critics were
compelled to admit that something beautiful could be written by poets who
did not accept all the rules laid by Boileau in his Art Poetique. They
said to the new poets : " Oh yes, you may write elegies (this was the name
given by them to Lamartine's poems), but when it comes to the highest
form of poetry, to dramatic poetry, you are powerless." They of course
considered dramatic poetry the highest form of poetry, because it was the
form in which the poets of the classical era had achieved their greatest
successes. This was a challenge which Hugo, as the chief of the younger
poets, had to take up. He therefore determined to write for the stage,
although his genius was lyric, and not dramatic. He constructed his
dramas as melodramas, but he poured into them the burning metal of
his lyric genius ; and the success of Hernani simply demonstrated that a
dramatic work, written in defiance of the old rules, could be a work of
great poetical beauty, and win the admiration of the public. The success
of Hernani effected a revolution ; it destroyed the absolute sway of the
old rules ; it cleared the ground and made possible the creation of some-
thing new which is perhaps now springing up.
11. "Adversative-Conjunctive relations." By Dr. R. H.
Wilson, of the Johns Hopkins University.
1 2. " The sources of Opitz's Buck von der deutschen Poeterei.
By Dr. Thomas S. Baker, of the Johns Hopkins University.
This paper was discussed by Professor James W. Bright.
13. "The origin and meaning of 'Germani' (Tac. Germ.
2)." By Professor A. Gudeman, of the University of Penn-
sylvania. [Printed in Philologus, LVIII, 25 f.]
10
XX11 MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
14. "The International Correspondence." By Professor
Edward H. Magill, of Swarthmore College. [Printed in
Modern Language Notes, xiv, p. 48 f.]
This communication was discussed by Professors A. Fortier,
and T. Atkinson Jenkins.
The following committee was appointed to report on the
subject of this paper at the next Annual Meeting of the
Association :
EDWARD H. MAGILL, Chairman.
A. RAMBEAU,
THERESE F. COLIN,
CARLA WENCKEBACH.
15. " Old English musical terms." By Mr. F. M. Padel-
ford, of Yale University. [Printed as Heft IV of Bonner
Beitrage zur Anglistic, Bonn, 1899.]
This paper was discussed by Professors T. S. Baker, J. W.
Bright, and H. E. Greene.
[The American Dialect Society held its Annual Meeting
at 5 o'clock p. m.]
Dr. Paul B. Barringer, Chairman of the Faculty of the
University of Virginia, and Mrs. Barringer, received the
ladies and gentlemen of the Association at their home at
8 o'clock p. m.
FOURTH SESSION, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29.
The President called the fourth regular session of the
meeting to order Thursday morning at 9.30 o'clock.
The Committee on Place of Meeting reported in favor of
accepting an invitation extended by President Seth Low to
hold the next Annual Meeting of the Association at Columbia
University.
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. xxiii
In reply to a telegraphic message received from the Presi-
dent of the Central Division of the Association, proposing a
joint meeting of the Association at Indianapolis in 1899, the
President of the Association was empowered to say : u The
Modern Language Association of America returns kindest
greetings to the Central Division. In view of a Philological
Congress in 1 900, which will provide for a joint meeting of
the Association, an invitation to meet at Columbia University
in 1899 has been accepted."
16. "The Origin of the Runes." By Professor George
Hempl, of the University of Michigan. [Printed in The
Journal of Germanic Philology, II, 370 f.]
At the request of the author, who could not be present,
this paper was read by Professor James W. Bright.
The chief portion of the time allowed for this session had
been set apart for the final report of the Committee of Twelve,
" appointed (a) to consider the position of the Modern Lan-
guages (French and German) in Secondary Education ; (6) to
examine into and make recommendations upon methods of
instruction, the training of teachers, and such other questions
connected with the teaching of the Modern Languages in the
Secondary Schools and the Colleges as in the judgment of
the Committee may require consideration " (Proceedings for
1896, p. xxii).
Professor Calvin Thomas, Chairman of the Committee of
Twelve, now reported the completion of the work of the
Committee (cf. Proceedings for 1897, p. xv), and at the special
request of the Association read the chief portions of the
Report of the Committee.
It was decided by vote that the Report in its present form
be accepted for preliminary publication, and that the Com-
mittee be continued to await the detailed discussion of the
printed Report at the next Annual Meeting of the Association.
XXIV MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
The Chairman of the Committee was authorized to draw
upon the funds of the Association to defray the expense of
publishing the Report. [This Report is now printed as
Chap. XXVI of the Report of the Commissioner of Edu-
cation for 189798, United States Bureau of Education,
Washington, 1899; it is also incorporated in the National
Educational Association's Report of Committee on College
Entrance Requirements, July, 1899.~\
Thursday afternoon was occupied in the most delightful
relaxation. Under the direction of the Local Committee the
members of the Association were taken in carriages to visit
Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.
FIFTH SESSION, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29.
The fifth and 'closing session of the meeting was called to
order Thursday evening at 7.30 o'clock.
The following officers for the year 1899 were elected :
President : H. C. G. von Jagemann, Harvard University.
Secretary : James W. Bright, Johns Hopkins University.
Treasurer: Herbert E. Greene, Johns Hopkins University.
Executive Council.
H. S. White, Cornell University.
L. E. Menger, Bryn Mawr College.
Albert S. Cook, Yale University.
Richard Hochdorfer, Wittenberg College.
Gustaf E. Karsten, University of Indiana.
Charles M. Gayley, University of California.
James A. Harrison, University of Virginia.
W. S. Currell, Washington and Lee University.
W. D. Toy, University of North Carolina.
Phonetic Section.
President : A. Melville Bell, Washington, D. C.
Secretary : George Hempl, University of Michigan.
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. , XXV
Pedagogical Section.
President : F. N. Scott, University of Michigan.
Secretary : W. E. Mead, Wesleyan University.
Executive Committee.
James A. Harrison, First Vice-President.
Richard Hochdorfer, Second Vice-President.
H. S. White, Third Vice-President.
Editorial Committee.
C. H. Grandgent, Harvard University.
H. Schmidt- Wartenberg, University of Chicago.
17. " The influence of the return of Spring on the earliest
French lyric poetry." By Professor W. Stuart Symington,
Jr., of Amherst College.
Professor T. Atkinson Jenkins discussed some aspects of
the subject.
18. "From Franklin to Lowell, a century of New Eng-
land pronunciation." By Professor C. H. Grandgent, of
Harvard University. [Printed in Publications, xiv, 207 f.]
19. "Some tendencies in contemporary English poetry."
By Mr. Cornelius Weygandt, of the University of Pennsyl-
vania. [Abstract printed in Modern Language Notes, xiy,
p. 101 f.]
This paper was discussed by Professors H. E. Greene and
T. A. Jenkins.
20. " The development of the long u in Modern English."
By Professor Edwin W. Bowen, of Randolph-Macon College.
21. "Experiments in translating Anglo-Saxon poetry."
By Professor J. Lesslie Hall, of the College of William and
Mary.
Professor Albert S. Cook discussed this paper.
XXVI , MODEEN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.
22. " The influence of German literature in America from
1800 to 1825." By Dr. Frederick H. Wilkens, of Baltimore.
[Read by title.]
23. "Archaisms in Modern French." By Dr. T. F. Colin,
of Bryn Mawr. [Read by title.]
The writer endeavored to collect and classify, under the accepted heads
of Phonetics, Morphology, and Syntax, the current so-called exceptions
and anomalies, either of pronunciation, orthography, set phrase, or pecu-
liar construction, for which earlier usage can alone account. These survivals,
or archaisms, viewed in the light of the history of the language, stand as
landmarks of its progressive transformation.
Fully tabulated examples, drawn from old texts and chronologically
displayed, were offered in explanation of these living relics, which subsist
in specialized functions.
The following resolution was unanimously adopted by the
Association :
Resolved, That the Modern Language Association of
America, now convened for its Sixteenth Annual Meeting,
hereby conveys to the Board of Visitors and to the Chairman
of the Faculty of the University of Virginia its grateful
recognition of their cordial welcome; and to the members
of the Local Committee and to the ladies and gentlemen
who cooperated with them, its hearty appreciation of their
hospitality.
The Association adjourned at 10.30 o'clock p. m.
PROCEEDINGS FOR 1898. XXvii
OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR 1899.
President,
H. C. G. VON JAGEMANN,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Secretary, Treasurer,
JAMES W. BRIGHT, HERBERT E. GREENE,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.
H. S. WHITE, L. E. MENGER,
Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.
ALBERT S. COOK, RICHARD HOCHDORFER,
Yale University, New Haven, Conn. Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio.
GTJSTAF E. KARSTEN, CHARLES M. GAYLEY,
University of Indiana, Bloomington, Ind. University of California, Berkeley, Cat .
JAMES A. HARRISON, W. S. CURRELL,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. Washington and Lee University, L
