Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/331

 8*8. XL APRIL 25, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

323

his treatment of the text of Burton. The following are some further errors contained in the same editor's notes.

Vol. i. (A. R. S.), p. 93, 1. 3 (' Democritus to the Reader'), "Experto crede (saith Saris- buriensis) in manus eorum millies incidi, & Charon immitis, qui nulli pepercit unquam, his longe clementior est." To Sarisburiensis the auchor has the marginal note "Polycrat. lib.," to which Shilleto adds ''I. Prologue." The two words experto crede are to be found, it is true, in the prologue to the ' Poly- craticus,' but the passage which Burton quotes here is taken, with slight verbal alter- ations, from book v. chap, x., "Experto crede, in manus eorum millies incidi, <fe ut aliquid de fabulis mutuemur, portitorimmitis Charon, qui nemini pepercit unquam, istis longe clementior est." The words nisi eum prce- mulseris, which Burton quotes a couple of lines earlier, and to which Shilleto appends no reference, are taken from the same chapter of the 'Polycraticus.'

Vol. i. p. 156, n. 4 ('Democritus to the Reader'), Shilleto gives the source of quos Jupiter perdit, dementat, as " a Fragment in Euripides." This requires correction. The author of the two Greek verses concisely rendered by " Quern Juppiter vult perdere dementat prius" is unknown. See Georg Buchmann, ' Gefliigelte Worte' (twentieth edition), pp. 366, 367, and the note and appendix to 1. 622 of Sophocles's ' Antigone ' in Prof. Jebb's edition. Dr. Jebb, it may be noticed, gives Duport's 'Gnomologia Homerica ; (1660) as the earliest book known to him that contains this Latin line. Did not Burton see or hear it several years earlier?

Vol. i. p. 326, n. 6 (Part. i. sect. ii. mem. iii. subs, xi.), "or come down with Sejanus ad Gemonias Scalas " (of. vol. iii. p. 32, 11. 18, 19 ; Part. III. sect. i. mem. ii., " as so many Sejani, they will come down to the Gemonian scales "). Shilleto is wrong in stating that the Scalce Gemonice " were steps at Rome on the Aven- tine Hill leading to the Tiber." They were at the foot of the Capitol leading from the Career to the Forum Romanum. See Mid- dleton, 'Remains of Ancient Rome,' vol. i. p. 154; OttoRichter, 'Topographie der Stadt Rorn ? (Miinchen, 1901), pp. 81 and 119, &c.

Vol. i. p. 365, n. 8 (Part. I. sect. ii. mem. iii. subs, xv.), Shilleto says that " De male quse- sitis vix gaudet tertius hseres " is quoted by Rabelais, 'Pantagruel,' book iii. ch. ii. Rabe- lais does not quote the Latin ; what he says in the first chapter of book iii. of ' Panta- gruel ' is " Car vous dictez en proverbe com- mun : des choses mal acquises tiers hoir ne jouira." Mr. W. F. Smith in his note on this

passage in Rabelais cites the Latin line and refers to Burton, but neither he nor Shilleto mentions its occurrence in Walsingham (see ' N. & Q.,' 9 th S. vii. 74, 75).

Vol. ii. p. 135, 11. 17, 18 (Part. II. sect. ii. mem. vi. subs, iii.), "Homer brings in Phemius playing, and the Muses singing, at the Ban- quet of the Gods." Burton s marginal note to Homer is ' Iliad,' I. Shilleto remarks that Burton is wrong, and substitutes ' Odyssey ' for * Iliad,' adding the number of the line, 154, in which Phemius is said to have sung among the suitors. But it is in the first ' Iliad ' (1. 604J that the muses sing at the banquet of the gods.

Vol. ii. p. 136, 1. 2 from bottom (Part. II. sect. ii. mem. vi. subs, iv.), ''Mercury's golden wand in Homer, that made some wake, others sleep." Shilleto's note to this is " See Homeric Hymns, Mercurio Hymnus." Hermes' golden wand is mentioned in this hymn (11. 529-30), but not so its power of making some wake and others sleep. The passage to which a reference should be given is 'Odyssey,' xxiv. 11. 2-4 (cf. 'Od.,' v. 47-8,and 'Iliad,' xxiv. 343-4, although in these two places the wand is not described as golden). EDWAKD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, S. Australia. (To be continued.)

SHAKESPEARIANA. ' KING LEAR,' II. iv. 56 (9 th S. xi. 162).

0, how this mother swells up toward my heart !

Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,

Thy element 's below.

MR. WILMSHURST'S suggested reading of "smother" for "mother" is not needed, and does not better the text. " Mother " formerly meant the womb, as its Teutonic cognates still do, and also an affection which, from its supposed connexion with that organ (vo-re/Da), was called hysterica passio, a prominent symp- tom thereof being a sensation as of choking or of a ball rising in the throat (globus kyste- ricus). The womb was imagined to ascend, like the lungs in another ailment vulgarly termed the "rising of the lights,"* as is evidenced by the Dutch designation of the malady, "opstijging der moeder," literally uprising or ascent of the mother, i.e., of the womb (see ' Kilianus Auctus,' 1642, and Hex- ham, 1658; compare, too, Sewel, 1708). Hence Lear's apostrophe :

Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow, wherein the identity of "hysterica passio" with "mother" in the preceding line is as obvious as it is in this scrap from Coles's


 * And the heart ; see 1. 122 in same scene.