Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/628

 520

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL JUNE 26, woo.

Cleopatra is swept away, and their union is regarded as a j>olitical job on both sides. In The Fortnightly for this month Siffnor Ferrero resumes this " discovery " of his, but we note that he has to ignore or regard as worthless the evidence of writers who distinctly support the traditional view. Readers must form their own conclusions on the matter that is, if they are acquainted with the sources of evidence ; it is needful always to remember that the motives and compelling causes of human action are uncertain, and can only be guessed as a rule. Even if we had an auto- biography by Anthony, we could not be sure that ihe was not doing injustice to history.

When we come to ' The Republic of Augustus, as the last volume is called, we think the author is entitled to claim unusual sagacity for his compre- hension of the spirit of the efforts of the " princeps," or first man in the State. The verv last thing that Augustus desired was a dictatorship, and the way in which he tried to make the most of a decadent and increasingly useless Senate is well brought out. All the more credit is due to him, indeed, if he was as weak and feeble in health as is indicated. Under the year 3 A.D. we find a remark that he had been " apparently upon the verge of the grave for the last fifty years." This is the sort of exaggeration unwarranted by evidence which makes us distrust Signor Ferrero. His account of the young Tiberius, the failure of other proposed successors to Augustus, and the return of the future Emperor to "Rome, which he had left seven years before at the height of his power and reputation " is as vivid as anything he has done. In fact, the excellence of the reading throughout is a tribute alike to the original and the powers of the trans- lator. On the whole, we are disappointed with Signor Ferrero's judgment, which seems to us singularly biassed on many important points, but we are none the less grateful for the chance of reading his book to the end. It is the right sort of history, for it is history which has life in it. Here we have a "savant" who has nothing of the
 * ' cadavre" about his work.

'The, Judgment of Paris. By the Hon. Emmeline

M. Plunket. (John Murray.)

A CERTAIN school of mythqlogists has been tempted to read a meaning out of perhaps into the con- stellations, which no doubt is there if we only possessed the key to it. The grotesque, and of ten ^arbitrarily, assigned figures which they bear, invite an inquiring mind to investigate the primitive thought which mus_t have suggested them. Their extreme antiquity is beyond doubt. Miss Hlunket calculates that they date back to 6000 B.C. It is almost equally certain that the early Babylonians who first fixed these names on the starry^ sphere had some mythological notions which inspired these strange combinations, if we only knew what they were. Miss Pluuket thinks she has discovered some of them in the legends of the Greek heroes, and she displays a considerable amount of learning -in putting forward her views, though she is more at home (as she confesses) with astronomical science than with mythological and philological lore. We may say at once that her identifications are of a highly speculative character, and to us at least have failed to carry the smallest degree of con- viction. We still doubt if the swift-footed Achilles was ever evolved out of the star Fomal- haut, which was a quickly setting star about the

third millennium B.C. (p. 106). Achilles, it has been conjectured, was an aqueous, if not, indeed, a fishy deity ; and is not Fomalhaut, which means ' the mouth of the fish" (Arabic Ffim-aJ-haut), situated in the constellation Piscis Australis (p. 117)? Still we remain sceptical.

We are asked further to believe that the tragedy of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra has been evolved out of a total eclipse of the sun in the constellation of Aquarius in the eleventh solar month of a zodiacal year, Clytemnestra being in some way the moon and yEgisthus, Capricorn (p. 151). The Judgment of Paris," which gives its title to the book, is resolved into a calendrical myth. Paris may perhaps mean equality (par certainly does in Latin), and consequently may be the season of the vernal equinox, and in that capacity has been called to arbitrate as umpire between the goddesses Athene and Hera, who presided over the winter solstice, and Aphrodite who presided over the summer solstice (pp. 87, 88). The marriage of Zeus and Hera, of Jupiter and Juno, is only a poetical way of intimating a reformation of the Calendar (p. 76). We are " to think of Odysseus as sym- bolizing the period of time included in a lunar month, and therefore as partaking of the ap- parently wandering and inconstant nature of the moon which governs such months " (p. 131).

There is nothing here distantly approaching demonstration. What the writer says of certain ot her own theories we would extend to all: "These speculations must appear to be founded, and indeed are founded, on very uncertain data (p. 39).

EDWARD MERTON DEY. We regret to hear of the death of Mr. Edward Merton Dey, of St. Louis, Missouri, whose name has been familiar for many years to readers of 'N. & Q.' as that of one of its most regular contributors of Shakespeariana. He retained his affection for ' N. & Q.' till the end, his widow sending us, in compliance with one of his last requests, some notes on ' Antony and Cleo- patra,' w.liiQh we hope to print in due course.

to C0msp0ntonts.

We must call special attention to the following notices :

lo secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication " Duplicate."

Editorial communications should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries '"Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lishers " at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C.

J. B. McGovERN ("Merril Board"). Another name for nine men's morris. See the article on "merel" in the 'N.E.D.'

H. P. L. Forwarded.