Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/108

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL JAX. so, im

form I give below. If " pseudonym " means a false name, "anonym" means, in strict analogy, no name at all, and in this sense of the word there cannot be a ' Dictionary of Anonyms.' Nameless things are rare, but I have read in Allen Raine's novel ' Torn Sails ' that the violet has no name in Welsh : and if this is the case, it could not, as an anonym, find a place in a Welsh dictionary. If, how- ever, anonyms are held to be the same things as anonymous works, they could of course be catalogued. In French pseudo- nyme means (1) a pseudonym or fictitious name and (2) a pseudonymous work, while anonyme has the two significations given by MB. THOMAS. " Anonyma" is certainly not the plural of " anonymous," and probably no one ever thought it was. It is, however, the plural of " anonymon," a nameless thing ; and as brevity is desirable in technical nomenclature, I venture to think that the words " anonymon " and " pseudonymon " might be usefully employed in the place of the lengthier " anonymous " and " pseu- donymous work." " Anonyma " and "pseudonyma" would be the regular plurals -of these words. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

SHAKESPEARE IN FRENCH.

I SEND some notes on mistakes in the " (Euvres completes de Shakespeare, tra- duites par Emile de Montegut," which is ^.n " ouvrage couronne par FAcademie Franqaise."

' Le Roi Richard II.,' Acte V. scene vi. : " Notre Ville de Chichester dans le Glouces- tershire." The Folio has " our towne of Ciceter in Gloucestershire." The translator mistakes Chichester in Sussex for Ciren- cester in Gloucestershire, called by the inhabitants Cissiter.

' Cymbeline,' Acte III. scene" iv. : " Un nid de cygne dans une immense etang : il y a des vivants ailleurs qu'en Bretagne." The Folio : " In a great poole, a Swannes- nest : prythee, thinke, there 's liuers out of Britaine." The translator probably was not aware that the city of Liverpool shows on its arms four livers (pronounced " lyvers" ) or wild swans, to record the swannery which originally existed in the marshy pool at the mouth of the Mersey.

' Othello,' Acte V. scene ii. : " Je le f rappais ainsi. (II se poignarde. ) O denou- inent sanglant." The Folio : " And smote him thus. Oh ! bloody period." The translator has missed the point," period being the academic word for full stop. Othello's life is punctuated. See also

' Timon,' Act I. sc. i. : " which, failing him, periods his comfort."

' Beaucoup de Bruit,' Acte II. scene i. : " Le plus extreme pouce de terre de 1'Asie." The Folio : " The furthest Inch of Asia." The translator has not noticed the meaning of the word " Inch " as a cape or promon- tory : " Inch-cape, Inch-keith, Inch-isle."

' Hamlet,' Acte I. scene iv. : " II m'appa- rais sous une forme si interessante." The Folio : "in such a questionable form." The ancient opinion that all spiritual visitors, ministers of grace and angels, must be ap- proached and interrogated or questioned, in order to obtain the intelligence they offer is here referred to.

T. B. WlLMSHURST. Tunbridge Wells.

SHAKESPEARIAN A. 'As You LIKE IT,' II. vii. 147-8:

And then the Lover Sighing like Furnace.

See 'Cymbeline,' I. vi. 66. Compare also Constable's ' Diana,' Fifth Decade, Sonnet I. : Love a continual furnace doth maintain. A furnace ! Well, this a furnace may be called ; For it burns inward, yields a smothering flame, Sighs which, like boiled lead's smoking vapour, scald.

CHAS. A. HERPICH.

I was never so berim'd since Pythagora's time that I was an Irish Rat, which I can hardly remember.

IV. i. 105:

And the foolish Chroniclers of that age found it was Hero of Cestos.

Grey's suggestion that the dramatist was, in the first citation, alluding to the Pytha- gorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls seems sound. But Sir Walter Raleigh ( 'Hist, of the World, Part I., Book I. chap. v. section vi. ) helps to rather a better under- standing of the passage than has heretofore been offered :

" And this custome was also held by the Druids and Bards of our antient Brittaine, and of latter times by the Irish Chroniclers called Rimers."

Neither the ' N.E.D.' nor the ' Century ' offers so specific a definition of rimer. In- ferentially, the story of the Irish rat is to be found in rime in the old Irish chronicles. This would also dispose of the suggested " coroner " for " Chroniclers" in the second citation, for Shakespeare is speaking of Troilus and Hero and Leander, and seems to have in mind poets of former times.

New York.
 * _CHAS. A. HERPICH.