Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/126

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. FEB. 5, '98.

may be of the most regular, tidy, and orderly habits and yet be a "besom. It is not a question of habit any more than of character. It is a question of temper, largely a question of tongue. A " scold " is pretty near it, but really nothing better describes the Scotch meaning of the word than " Aggerawayter." J. B. FLEMING.

A besom is also, of course, a birch-broom. When I was a Yorkshire apprentice, I have swept my master's shop out with a besom thousands of times. "Dirt goes before the besom," is a very old North-Country saying, meaning exactly the reverse of " Dogs follow their master." There is another Yorkshire (Sheffield) saying, "Where there's muck, there 's money," implying that in some of the dirtiest factories in that blackest of all Eng- lish cities the most lucrative businesses are followed. It is worthy of remark that Mr. Carew Hazlitt, in his 'English Proverbs' (second edition, 1882), has overlooked all three of these proverbial phrases.

HARRY HEMS.

In 'Old Mortality,' chap. viii. ad fin., Mrs. Alison Wilson says, speaking of old Mause, "To set up to be sae muckle better than ither folk, the auld besom, and to bring sae muckle distress on a douce quiet family !"

In ' Kedgauntlet,' chap, xx., Peter Peebles says, speaking of poor Mrs. Cantrips, "I have gude cause to remember her, for she turned a dyvour [bankrupt] on my hands, the auld besom!" JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

A besom is a broom made of twigs or brush- wood, from which use of it the latter name is of course, derived. As associated with un pleasant matters, the reproachful use of the word is not hard to make out, whether to an animal or, in a low and coarse way, to a human person. C. F. S. WARREN, M.A.

In addition to the use of besom in the sens given at the reference, " besom-head " is usec in Lincolnshire for blockhead. "Thou gre 4 " besom-head " = " You great stupid fellow."

C. C. B.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Pecorone of Ser Giovanni. Translated int English by W. G. Waters. Illustrated by E. B Hughes, R.W.S. (Lawrence & Bullen.) FOR the first time the ' Pecorone ' of Ser Giovam has been rendered accessible to English readers It reaches them, moreover, in an almost ideal shape with every conceivable luxury of type and paper in a thoroughly scholarly and elegant translatioi with just the right amount of prolegomena an notes, and with some exquisite illustrations b

r. Hughes. Both translator and artist are the ime to whom is owing the edition of the ' Novel- no ' of Masuccio, concerning which see 8 th S. ix. 8, and both have exercised their functions with qua! zeal and no less creditable result. In dis- ussing the work of Masuccio we said that the riter was scarcely known. In the case of Ser iovanni we may go a step further, and say that he not known at all. The hypothesis that most mimends itself to us is that suggested in the notes, lat he was the hero of the very simple framework urther. The record of his life is blank. Like [asuccio, he lashes the monks as what non- cclesiastical writer of that day did not ? Unlike im, he extends his arraignment to bishops, car- inals, and ecclesiastics generally. Like Masuccio, gain, he tells love stories so naively physical that entiment, apart from gratification, appears to be nknown. Unlike him, again, he wearies in so oing, and bidding purposely an adieu to love, he ecomes historical and almost edifying. It is a act that one of the best commentators upon his arrations is Dante. Turning, however, again to is personality, we know not even to what date o assign him. In a preliminary sonnet we are old that the book was begun in 1378, and that its uthor had written other books. But the sonnet, ome authorities think, is a century later than the ales, and its buffo character contrasts strikingly ipt only with the poems in the text, but with the lighly sentimentalized character of the relations >etween the storytellers, who in this case are but wo. The very title is baffling. Baretti gives ' Pecorone, a dunce, a blockhead." It is really a >ig sheep. Our nearest equivalent might perhaps >e a great calf. The introduction and framework are perhaps the simplest ever used in literature. The narrator is staying, very " down on his luck," at Dovadola, a village near Forli, in the year 1378. So, in his proem, he tells us. In a certain monastery .n Forli is Sister Saturnina, who is in the flower of aer youth and is all that is most exemplary in Beauty, courtesy, and virtue. She is seen by a youth called Auretto, in whom we elect to find Ser Giovanni, who for her sake becomes a friar, goes to Forli, offers himself as chaplain to the prioress, is Fortunate enough to be accepted, and soon succeeds in kindling in the heart of Saturnina a lambent flame kindred with his own. After taking one another by the hand, gazing in each other's eyes, and writing each other numerous letters, they plan to meet daily at a given hour in the convent par- lour. Here, without a single interruption, they forgather. Each tells daily a story, one of them on alternate days sings a canzonet, and then, clasp- ing each other by the hand after a while they get to the bestowal of a chaste kiss they thank one another for their courtesy, and part to meet again. Be the stories long or short, no more than two can be permitted, and in this fashion the ' Pecorone ' is made up. Prof. De Gubernatis, we learn from Mr. Waters s introduction, holds that the personality of Ser Giovanni is purely mythical, and that the place of the ' Pecorone ' is with other recognized forgeries of literature. Be this as it may, it supplies a large number of stories of great interest, some of them in unfamiliar forms, and the greater number extracted from the ' Storie ' (Fiorentine) of Villani. One is driven reluctantly to the conclusion that the earlier and less edifying stories are the more enter- taining. Most of these are familiar in imitations or
 * his own stories. That, however, carries us no