Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/395

. iv. OCT. 21, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 825 Shall blast the plants and the young saplings ; The earth with serpents shall be pestered I think there can be little doubt that it was with these words ringing in his ears that Shakespeare composed the spiteful speech oi the Queen in the garden scene. Again, there seems in the Duchess's rebuke to John of Gaunt an echo of Bellioaperia's speech— Is this the love thou bear'st Horatio ? • >..•• Hieronimo, are these thy passions, Thy protestations and thy deep laments, That thou were wont to weary men withal ?* O unkind father! • •>•••• Thus to neglect the loss and life of him Whom both my letters and thine own belief Assures thee to be cauHelea* slaughtered ! There are many small echoes—phrases of lament or despair which recall 'Richard II.' M. S. NESBITT. 4, Sydenham Villas, Cheltenham. "TITTLE": ITS ETYMOLOGY. — This word occurs twice in the New Testament (Matt. v. 18; Luke xvi. 17) as a rendering of the Greek xtpaia., for which the Vulgate has ajpftr.^ So in Matt. v. 18 the Greek has itara tv rj /«'o xcpata, in Vulgate " iota unum aut unus apex." The word is spelt " title " in the Authorized Version, ed. 1611, and " titel " in Wyclifs version, ed. 1388. In the modern copies of Luther's Bible the word is written "Titel"; but according to Biich- mann, in 'Gefliigelte Worte' (ed. 1905), p. 58, "In der Septemberbibel schreibt Luther 'tittle' d. i. Tiittel, Piinktchen." This, of course, would be a very good rendering of the original Kcpaia, which is used in the two passages to signify one of the little strokes by which in Hebrew writing one letter differs from another. What, then, is the etymology of the "tittle" of our Bibles? In the dictionaries we find two explanations of the word. Some — as, for instance, Richardson and Webster—suggest that the titel (tittle) of our English Bibles is identical with the Tiittel of Luther; while some—as Skeat and Annandale—put forward a Latin derivation for our "tittle," proposing to identify it with a late Latin titulus. It is not very_easy to decide between these two etymologies. It is very possible that we have in the above-mentioned forms repre- sentatives of two distinct words—a Latin and a German word. The Latin word may be titulus. It is true that we do not find • It is well to bear in mind that this unhistorical interview had to be mvenled. titulus in the sense of xtpaia, either in classical Latin or in the Latin of the Vul- gate ; but titulus must have had this sense in Romanic, as is proved by the Spanish tilde. and the other forms cited by Diez (ed. 1878, p. 491). On the other hand, a German etymology is required for the tiittel (or tutel) of Luther. This word, according to Weigancl and Kluge, is a diminutive form of German tiitte, which means a teat or nipple. It is possible that the " titel" of Wyclif is Romanic and Latin, and that the " tittle" of the English Bible is due to the influence of Luther's rendering. A. L. MAYHEW. SPLITTING FIELDS OF ICE.—At the close of his discursive and engaging essay ' A Good Word for Winter,' which stands second in the miscellany entitled 'My Study Windows,' Russell Lowell quotes the following passage from Wordsworth's 'Prelude,' i. 538 :— And, interrupting oft that eager game, From under Esthwaite's splitting fields of ice The pent-up air, struggling to free itself, Gave out to meadow grounds and hills a loud Protracted yelling, like the noise of wolves Howling in troops along the Bothnia Main. The essayist considers this to refer to " the stifled shriek of the lake as the frost throttles it," and adds thatThoreau " calls it admirably well a ' whoop.'" In his deduction he over- looks the gradual effects of what has been finely called " the silent ministry of frost," which does not throttle a lake, but with quiet insinuation subdues it under its adamantine grasp. Wordsworth's description is concerned with the growl and boom that come with the gentle influence of a decided thaw. It is when the ice is splitting, not when it is being Formed, that the pent-up air roars into the sxpansiveness of freedom. Whoever has beard this phenomenal peal, as the writer ias done, on a lonely moor at midnight, has encountered one of the most dismal and shrilling cries of Nature. Russell Lowell, ilthough he misinterprets the poet, had pro- bably heard it, for he dexterously withdraws Tom the subject with the appropriate remark Demogorgon were moaning inarticulately Torn under the earth." THOMAS BAYNE. DUCKING THE MAYOR AND CONSTABLE.— The Standard of 16 September is responsible
 * hat " it is a noise like none other, as if
 * or the following, of which I can find no

account in the various volumes of ' N. & Q.': "A curious old custom was observed in Tiverton ..Devon], when the Mayor and members of the Cor- x>ration, accompanied by boys carrying whit* wands, and a party of men carrying hatchets, >erambulated the town leat to see whether there md been any encroachments. A stream of water