Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/526

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. JUNE 25, '98.

from some one or other of the Komance languages I should say either French or Spanish. Portuguese only admits of final m, never n, whereas of Spanish exactly the reverse holds good. While on the subject I may add that there are numerous other geo- graphical names in English which, having come to us through a third language, are more corrupt than they need have been had we taken them direct from their original sources. One of the most striking instances is that of the capital of Zululand, Ekowe, unique so far as its k is pronounced like the ch in church, the reason being that it was first written down by the Norwegian mission- aries ; of late there has sprung up a more rational orthography, Etsnowe, and even (less correctly) Esnowe. In another part of Africa, the Gold Coast, the Dutch have left traces of their former presence in such old spellings as Sianti for Asnantee (still recorded in all our gazetteers) and Juffer as an alterna- tive for the town we now call Tufel.

JAMES PLATT, Jun.

THE ROMAN "PoscA" (9 th S. i. 369). Although there is a little overlapping in the meanings of posca and acetum, there is no doubt that posca was a wine. The etymology of the word, poto and esca=food, shows that. There is no feeding quality about acetum, or vinegar in the ordinary sense. Pesca is another form of the word. See Cruden's 'Concordance,' s.v. ; also 'The Bible Hand- book,' by Dr. Angus, 1855, p. 244, where he says, "A common acid wine diluted in this way [with water] was the common drink of labourers and [Roman] soldiers."

ARTHUR MAYALL.

" Posca, vinegar mixed with water, was the common drink of the lower orders among the Romans, as of soldiers when on service" (Smith's 'Dictionary of Antiquities'). See authorities referred to ; also Smith's ' Latin- English Dictionary.' ROBERT WALTERS.

Ware Priory.

Rich has the following, s.v. :

" An ordinary drink amongst the lower classes of the Roman people, slaves, and soldiers on service ; consisting of water and sour wine or vinegar, with eggs beat up in it. Plaut., 'Mil.,' iii. 2, 23 : Suet., 'Vit.,' 12; Spart., 'Hadr.,' 10."

Adam says, "The ordinary drink of soldiers, as of slaves, was water mixed with vinegar, called posca" and refers to Plautus, as above but adds this note :

" ' It would appear that the name was sometimes applied to other sorts of liquor ; for we are told by Suetonius that Asiaticus, the favourite freedmah of Vitellius, after he first quitted the emperor, hac become a vender ['e] of posca at Puteoli ; and it can

lardly be supposed that the mere mixing of vinegar and water could by itself have formed a distinct >ranch of trade' (Henderson, p. 78)." 'Roman Antiquities,' p. 343.

C. C. B.

ST. KEVIN AND THE GOOSE (9 th S. i. 467). [f GLENDALOUGH will forward me his address [ shall be glad to send him the words of the song he asks for. A. R. MALDEN.

The Close, Salisbury.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (9 th S. i. 129).

Heathcote himself and such large-acred men, Lords of fat Evesham and Lincoln Fen, Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat, Buy every pullet they afford to eat, &c. Pope. ' Imitations of Horace,' Epist. ii. bk. ii.

B. M. D. (9 th S. i. 129, 198.) Better to leave undone than by pur deed, Acquire too high a fame when him we serve 's away. " Him," which appears in all the modern editions, is certainly ungrammatical, and can hardly be ex- plained by Dr. Abbott's ingenious theory of case absorption. I presume this reading comes from the folios. In Theobald's edition it is altered to " he." This is probably one of Pope's corrections. The sub- stitution of the nominative for the accusative case in " Damn'd be him that first cries Hold ! enough !" ('Macbeth,' V.) is another. Was not this altera- tion also justifiable ? In this sentence the relative is also in the nominative case, and the construction, therefore, cannot be explained by Dr. Abbott's theory. The second line, as your correspondent observes, is certainly hypermetrical as compared with the first. But why take this as the standard ? In the whole scene there is only a small minority of lines with ten feet. Are we to consider the rest hyper- or hypo-metrical? Those with twelve feet distinctly predominate. J. FOSTER PALMER.

(9 th S. i. 289, 378.)

Suspirat, gemit, incutitque dentes : Sudat frigidus intuens quod odit. In an anthology entitled 'Illustrium Poetarum Flores per Octavianum Mirandulam collect! ' (Ant- werp, 1588) these verses form part of an " invidiae descriptio " attributed to Virgil. This means that they are of unknown authorship, for it is certain that Virgil did not write the poem. Twenty-five verses are printed in the above-named ' Flores,' which I will copy in full for your correspondent if he wishes. F. ADAMS.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

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