Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/64

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. JULY is, was.

"matnmet" (in the sense of idol), Burns's "mahound" or "mahount," and so forth. The question of whether we should write 44 Mohammed " or " Muhammad " is quite secondary. Neither the second nor the penul- timate symbol in those two transcriptions represents a letter at all in Arabic. The initial m is marked in Arabic script with a damwa = our u; while, in the same script, the m introducing the last syllable is marked with a zabar = our a, as in ** rural." He who would be classical should write " MuAammad." But even the barbarism " Mahomet," it should be remembered, has been well established in Anglo-Saxon literature by writers as dis- tinguished as Washington Irving.

The name Muhammad was known, although it was not common, among the pagan Arabs of pre-Islamite times. W. T.

Dumfries.

INQUIRER seems to think that the first of these is Turkish and the second Arabic. This is not the case. Arabic dialects vary con- siderably in their short vowels. Take two standard works, Hartraann's 'Sprachfiihrer ' (1880) and Landberg's ' Proverbes et Dictons ' (1883), and it will be found, for instance, that wherever the former has i, the latter has u. Muhammed and Mohammed may both be heard from Arabs. Mahomet or Mehemet is the specifically Turkish form, unknown to Arabic, since the change of final d to t, regular in Turkish, never takes place in the Semitic tongues. Our older authors indulged in still further corruptions, such as "Mahound " (Beaumont and Fletcher), " Macon " (Fairfax), fec. JAMES PLATT, Jun.

MILTON'S * HYMN ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY ' (9 th S. xi. 88, 193, 475). I have compared nearly a dozen different editions of this poem, and find a comma after %t him " in about half of them. It seems clear, however, that Milton did not intend this, but meant the first comma of the stanza to occur after "trim." The question remains, how did he mean the passage to be read? Here I am reluctantly compelled to differ from MR. YARDLEY. "In awe to him " is, to say the least, a very unusual construction ; and a pause after " awe " seems to me required by the grave, sonorous movement of the verse both here and throughout the poem. The meaning, surely, would not suffer I think it would rather be improved

C. C. B.'

ORANOE BLOSSOMS AS EMBLEMS OF PURITY (0 th S. xii. 5). Whether garlands of orange blossoms were torn or not by village lads as

a punishment for unchastity, it seems certain that there was a similar custom, with which that mentioned may have been confounded. In * Hamlet ' the priest, speaking of the dead Ophelia, says : " Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants." Kranz is the German for garland ; and a virgin was entitled to wear it. When she lost her virginity, the garland was torn. See Goethe's 'Faust.' In the scene at the well Margaret's companion, referring to the degradation of Barbara, who has been seduced, says: "Das Kranzel reissen die Buben ihr." E. YARDLEY.

Has not Sir Walter Scott told us something similar of the Scottish maiden's snood 1e.g., in the 'Heart of Midlothian.' W. C. B.

"VICEREINE" (9 th S. xi. 430). Although it is not an exact answer to your correspondent's query, he may be interested in the following extract from * The Jerningham Letters,' vol. ii. p. 391, diary of Lady Bedingfeld, 1833 :

"I asked if he were related to the de Ligne Princes this led to his discovering that I am acquainted and have been intimate with many Austrian grandees, from the circumstance of my father's residing three years at Brussels (when I was a girl) at the time that it belonged to Austria and had his sister the Arch D. Mary Christine for Vice-Heine."

Willesden, N.W.

LIESE M. SHEERING.

WYKES PEDIGREE IN COLBY'S * VISITATIONS ' (9 th S. xi. 465, 513). The Visitation in Raw- hnson MS. B. 287, in the Bodleian Library, appears to be that of Thomas Tonge, Claren- cjeux, in 1530-1. There is no mention in the Wykes descent of a place called Moreton Wykes, but a John Wike is described as being of Stantonwike, Somerset. There is no pedigree at all of Wykes in the Ashmole copy (MS. 763) of Benolte's Visitation, but in a collection of pedigrees taken in 1569 from Visitations of Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire, in Ashmole MS. 831 (f. 216), there is mention of a William Wykes of Morton Jeffery. W. D. MACRAY.

KLOPSTOCK'S 'STABAT MATER' (9 th S. xi. 89). 1 cannot see that Klopstock (1724-1803) wrote this poem. According to the ' Century Dictionary it was written about 1300 by Jacobus de Benedictus (Jacopone da Todi). It has also been ascribed to Pope Innocent III. See 'Cent. Diet.,' p. 5883. MR. OULD will find a version in ' The Crown of Jesus ,' a W ?. 1 " 1 kn ? wn RonQ an Catholic prayer-book edited (I think) by F. W. FaterTlSH 63).' AW' 18 i/ an inter r estin S triglot version in fraers Magazine for 1834. It is in Greek, L,atm, and English, and is signed A. This is