Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/66

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. v. JAS. 20.

the white wings of Fame in Sir Egerton Brydges's edition of Milton (vol. v. p. 124) :

"Milton, in his poem 'In Quint. Nov.,' speaking of Fame, says,

Induit et variis exilia corpora plumis. I do not recollect any instance of Fame having two wings of different colours assigned by any of the Roman poets. Milton seems to have equipped his deity very characteristically, by borrowing one wing from Infamy, and another from Victory or Glory, as they are both described by Silius Itali'cus ; where Virtue contrasts herself with Pleasure or Dissipation, Ixv. 95 :

Atris

Circa to semper volitans Infamia pennis ;

Mecum Honor, et Laudes, et laeto Gloria vultu,

Et Decus, et niveis Victoria concolor alis. Ben Jonson in one of his Masks introduces Fama Bona attired in white, with white wings ; and she terms herself ' the white-wing'd maid.' Dunster."

ST. SWITHIN.

The passage quoted from 'Samson Agon- is tes ' has always puzzled the attentive reader of Milton. Jortin's comments on Milton are generally of a high order, and in this case especially so. He cannot tell why Milton makes Fame a god, unless deities are of both sexes. For since Hesiod deified her as a goddess all other poets have followed on. Jortin carries it further with v. 19 of 1 Lycidas ' :

So may some gentle Muse,

With lucky words favour my destined urn ;

And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. Jortin says it may be a " false print," mean- ing misprint. I think it can be read as referring to the body of Lycidas, " in sable shroud," floating by. Possibly Hesiod's fyprj might have led Milton to think of Rumour, and so treat it as masculine. The names on the wings are from Horace, Jortin thinks (' Ode/ II. ii. 7). I do not quite see that they are so. Chaucer far more naturally saw the hill of this " House of Fame" engraven " with famous folkes names," and to show the transiency of Fame he makes some of the letters scarcely legible :

They weran almost off-thawen so, That of the letters one or two Were molte away of ev'ry name.

Bacon in his 'Wisdom of the Ancients' makes Fame the sister of the giants or Titans, who made a war on Jove. When they were slain by lightning, the earth, their mother, in her wrath brought forth Fame. This he gets from *^En.,'iv. 178. He winds all up thus :

"So as rebellious actions and seditious reports differ nothing in kind and blood, but as it were in sex only, the one sort being masculine and the other feminine.

This is really cleverly dexterous, and gives a little support to my suggestion above, that Milton was thinking of Rumour. The seditious reports are rumores.

It would be a very valuable contribution to literature if some erudite person would re-edit the * Wisdom of the Ancients,' going through the whole of the mythological allu- sions, which are innumerable, and giving references to the authorities supporting them. I have on many occasions wished to trace the allusions, and frequently have been unable to find any authority for them. May it be supposed that often there is none 1

In the 'Classical Manual' Fame is said to be represented by Greeks and Romans with wings on her back, and a trumpet, or double trumpet, in her hand. This to denote that she gives forth either truth or falsehood.

Mistaque cum veris passim commenta vagantur

Millia rumorum.

Ovid, 'Met.,' xii. 54.

In Virgil's grand description of Fame referred to above she is shown as a gigantic monster of innumerable tongues, mouths, eyes, and ears. Lovely is the line of descrip- tion, a miracle of exquisite speech, that quite accounts for Dante's worship of his guide and master :

Nocte volat cceli medio, terrseque per umbram Stridens.

Her immensity is depicted by her raising herself into the air, yet still continuing to tread the earth, though her head is hidden in the clouds, like a growing volume of smoke. She enlarges at each repetition, viresque acquirit eundo. Nobody has ever gone much beyond this.

The abridged Pplymetis says she is repre- sented in the Vatican Virgil as flying with a message from Juno to Turnus, with a glory round her head, surrounded with clouds, and a veil so held in each hand as to circle over- head in emblem of her bow> and to show her to be an inhabitant of the air. Lucian seems to think the eyes and ears all over her body are rather ridiculous. Symbols represented in painting must constantly be incongruous.

C. A. WARD.

Walthamstow.

Fame should be represented by an angel with wings and blowing of trumpet, but not necessarily, one would have thought, holding a wreath. The mediseval wreath is supposed to have been adopted by the Crusaders, in the fourteenth century, from the Saracenic turban, to distinguish a knight, and consisted of the twisted garland of cloth by which the knightly crest was affixed or held to the helmet. The decorative wreath of leaves,