Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/470

 386

NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. v. MAY is, 1912.

SNAKE POISONED BY A MAN'S BLOOD. Miss Gertrude Lowthian Bell, in her book of Oriental travel entitled ' Amurath to Amurath,' relates that she came to Kaisar- iyeh, a city of the ancient province of Cappa- docia (which under the name Mazaca had been the capital city of the former kings of Cappadocia, and had received the name Caesarea in the time of Tiberius or Claudius). She says:

" The physical and moral qualities of the inhabitants of Caesarea came under our considera- tion as we rode : ' If a serpent bites a man of Kaisarlyeh/ observed FattM, ' the serpent dies.' " I was at once reminded of a Latin epigram, learnt long ago in the Latin Delectus, I believe :

Vipera Cappadocem nocitura momordit : at ilia Gustato periit sanguine Cappadocis,

and I set myself to discover the authorship and date of it. After a long search I learnt that it is a translation, by an unknown hand, of a Greek epigram made by Demo- docus, an epigrammatist whom Aristotle has mentioned in the ' Ethics ' belonging, there- fore, at latest to the fourth century B.C. This I procured from an ' Anthologia Graeca ': KaTTTraSo/CTp TTOT' e'^tSya KCXKJ) Sa/cev aAAa KO.L avrr)

Ka.rOo.vf. ytwa/Aev/7 cu/m-ros io/36\oi>. This may be rendered :

"A deadly echidna once bit a Cappadocian ; but she herself died, having tasted the poison-flinging blood."

We may suppose it to be the contemptuous taunt of a cultivated inhabitant of Ionian Asia Minor flung at the " barbarians " of the North.

Can it now be nothing more than a co- incidence that the courier Fattufe, a tra- velled man of Aleppo, has heard and repeats the sneer ? Unless that be so, this. rude gibe may boast a vitality of much over 2,000 years. C. B. MOTJNT.

LURED FROM PARADISE. The following story is given in The Periodical of March ,1912 (p. 2), as a sample of the ' Hundred Merry Tales' (1528) :

" I find written among old gestes, how God made S* Peter porter of heauen, and that God of his goodness, soon after his passion, suffered many men to come to the kingdom of heauen with small deseruing ; at which time there was in Heauen a great company of Welshmen, which with their cracking and babbling troubled all the other. Wherefore God said to S fc Peter, that he was weary of them, and that he would fain haue them out of Heauen. To whom S' Peter said : Good Lord, I warrant you, that shal be done. Wherefore S e Peter went out of heauen gates

and cried with a loud voice Cause bobe, that is as much to say as roasted cheese, which thing the Welshmen hearing ran out of heauen a great pace. And when S* Peter saw them all out he suddenly wente into Heauen, and locked the door, and so sparred all those Welshmen out."

An analogous tradition is known in Provence. It was versified a year or so ago in an English magazine I think, The Cornhill and is told by Mistral under the title of ' Jar j aye au Paradis ' in ' Memoires et Recits,' pp. 238-44. The cry of " Les bceufs, les bceufs ! Oh tiens ! oh tiens ! la pique ! " caused the fortunate Tarasconais to forget his undeserved blessedness. He rushed out of the door, which St. Peter as quickly shut :

" Eh ! bien, Jarjaye, lui dit-il goguenard, comment te trouves-tu a cette heure ?

" Oh ! n'importe, riposte Jarjaye. Si cavait e'te' les boeufs, je ne regretterais pas ma part de paradis.

" Cela disant, il plonge, la tete la premiere, dans rablme."

ST. SwiTHIN.

NELSON'S COFFIN. The Swiftsure, com- manded by Capt. Hallowell, had been left behind at Aboukir after the victory of the Nile, and the captain succeeded in obtaining possession of a portion of the mainmast of L' Orient, with other pieces of the wreck. He caused a coffin to be made on board the Swiftsure, every part of which was com- posed of the remains of the French Admiral's ill-fated ship.

On joining the Vanguard Capt. Hallo - well sent the coffin on board to Lord Nelson, with the following note, dated 23 May, 1799 :

MY LORD, Herewith I send you a coffin, made of a part of L' Orient's mainmast, that, when you are tired of this life, you may be buried in one of your own trophies : but that that period may be far distant is the sincere wish of your obedient and much obliged servant,

BKN. HALLOWELL.

An almost unique gift from one friend to another, probably. Nelson received the present graciously, and, instead of ordering it to be deposited in some storeroom, had it placed upright, with the lid on, close to the after bulkhead of his cabin, and immediately behind the seat usually occupied by himself when at dinner.

A deep gloom overspread his mind at this time, as his letters show. Writing to Mr. Davison, he says : "I am ready to quit this world of trouble, and envy none, but the estate six feet by two." Removed to the Foudroyant when Nelson changed his flag- ship, the coffin for some days remained upon the gratings of the quarter-deck, and