Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/20

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. JULY 4, 1903.

esteem that allows oppression of the innocent would be encouraged by the Jew's daily prayer, in which he thanks God that he was not made a Gentile, or a slave, or a woman. (These benedictions are quoted in notes on 'Pirqe Aboth,' i. 5, in Taylor's 'Sayings of the Jewish Fathers.')

The abominations of idolatry might be referred to as justifying many of the rabbinic restrictions with regard to association with idolaters, use of their belongings, and pur- chase of their commodities ; but something more of the nature of prejudice and animosity, than care not to contract ceremonial defile- ment, seems to be required for explanation of the language of Juvenal (Sat. xiv. 103) and Tacitus (' Hist.,' v. 5).

Questions as to the fate of the heathen after death would naturally be debated by the rabbis ; and when we' find it to have been determined that the generation of the Deluge, that the Sodomites, that the children of Esau and the children of Ishmael, that even the generation of Hebrews who journeyed through the Wilderness and the Jews of the Dispersion, are to have no portion in the world to come, we are prepared to learn that pagans are excluded from Paradise. What the effects of this exclusion were conceived to be is indicated when it is said that those Israelites and Gentiles who have transgressed with their bodies shall be punished in Gehenna for twelve months, after which " their bodies will be destroyed and their souls consumed, and a wind shall scatter their ashes under the soles of the feet of the righteous." But there are some condemned to Gehenna who are there to be " judged for generations upon generations," and who, when Gehenna itself shall be consumed, " shall not be burned up in the destruction " (* Rosh Hashanah,' quoted by Hershon).

It is not intended to suggest that Jews of the present day allow such teachings as have been referred to to affect their integrity in transactions they may have with Gentiles, nor has this particular illustration of the subject of inquiry been undertaken because of sympathy with such feeling as is repre- sented by the twelfth-century Hep. Searchers in the pages of ' N. & Q.' should find direc- tion to sources of information, and I have attempted but a humble contribution to that end - F. JARRATT.

QUOTATION FROM BYRON (9 th S. xi. 490). This line forms part of the sixteenth stanza of the first canto of ' II Morgante Maggiore,' which Byron translated from the Italian of Pulci. The translation was made at Ravenna

in 1820, for in a letter to Mr. Murray, dated from that place on 21 February, 1820, the translator says :

of ' The Morgante Maggiore ' of Pulci, which I will transcribe and send. It is the parent, not only of Whistlecraft, but of all jocose Italian poetry. You must print it side by side with the original Italian, because I wish the reader to judge of the fidelity : it is stanza for stanza, and often line for line, if not word for word."
 * ' I have finished my translation of the first canto

Mr. Murray seems to have suggested some alterations, as Byron, writing again on 23 April, says :

"About the ' Morgante Maggiore,' I won't have a line emitted. It may circulate, or it may not ; but all the criticism on earth sha'n't touch a line, unless it be because it is badly translated. Now you say, and I say, and others say, that the translation is a good one ; and so it shall go to press as it is. Pulci must answer for his own irreligion : I answer for the translation only."

Byron was so satisfied with his translation that on 28 September, 1820, he wrote to Mr. Murray :

" The Pulci I am proud of : it is superb ; you have no such translation. It is the best thing I ever did in my life."

Murray, however, did not see his way to pub- lish the poem, and it at last appeared in the pages of a journal called the Liberal. The complete stanza reads as follows : And with the sword he would have murder'd Gan

But Oliver thrust in between the pair, And from his hand extracted Durlindan,

And thus at length they separated were. Orlando, angry too with Carloman,

Wanted but little to have slain him there ; Then forth alone from Paris went the chief, And burst and madden'd with disdain and grief.

S. J. ALDRICH. New Southgate.

1 PASSING BY' (9 th S. xi. 489). This fine flower of Elizabethan or rather Jacobean song occurs in Thomas Ford's * Music of Sundry Kinds,' 1607. The stanza quoted by MR. JOSEPH JONES should run :

There is a lady sweet and kind.

Was never face so pleased my mind ;

I did but see her passing by,

And yet I love her till I die.

The song is anonymous. There are seven stanzas, but Mr. Quiller - Couch (in his Arber (in his 'Shakspeare Anthology ') only five. L. H.
 * Golden Pomp ') gives only four, and Prof.

MR. JONES will find the poem on p. 31 of A. H. Bullen's * Lyrics from Elizabethan Song- Books,' 1889 edition, where it is described as being "from Thomas Ford's * Music of Sundry Kinds,' 1607," and a note says : "Printed in ' The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,'