Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/213

 ii. SEPT. 10,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

205

Ro*. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty, Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock, And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.

We have here another illustration of the fact that the same customs prevailed in the Forest of Arden that obtained in Merrie Eng- land. Rosalind knew that some one had the prior right of purchase, and accordingly asked concerning him : " What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture ? " On being told, and also informed that the young swain was indifferent to his rights, she makes a pro- position to the shepherd that he purchase the cottage, pasture, and the flock with funds to be supplied him ; but the form of her sug- gestion shows that she is tender of the equities of the swain previously referred to, and rather questions whether it would be honest to take advantage of his present distraction.

' As You LIKE IT,' II. vii. 38-42.

And in his brain,

Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd With observation, the which he vents In mangled forms.

We are told that the fool's brain was as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage that is (with a play on the word "dry"), affording safe storage places to be crammed with ob- servation. The object of " vents " is this same observation, which is called forth from the strange places, odd corners, of his mind, and uttered in the irregular and disconnected form referred to by Jaques.

E. MERTON DEY.

CURIOUS MISQUOTATION. In Wright's trans- lation of Dante's ' Purgatorio ' (published in "Bonn's Illustrated Library"), canto xxiii 11. 73 and 74,

For that same will conducts us to the tree Which led Qirist joyful " Eli " to exclaim, the translator, quoting from the Gospels in his foot-notes, " Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,' has correctly borrowed a curious misquotation of Psalm xxii. 2. The original Hebrev phrasing is " Eli, Eli, lama azavtani." Nov it is extremely difficult to trace out the evo lution of this very corrupt " sabachthani, unless we assume that Jesus had in His mine another similar text, Psalm xlii. 10, which run thus, "Oumra lei solhi lama shechachtani, and that in His dire agony He accidentallj used "shechachtani"= forgotten Me, insteac of " azavtani "= abandoned Me (the ideas ar precisely identical) 1 ; and that at some subse quent stage some careless copyist substitutec a " beth " for the original " koph," and so perpetrated an error which has never been set right. It would be interesting to learn

vhether the original MSS. in Greek and confirm or destroy the humble thesis I lave advanced. In any case, truth demands hat the corruption of the text should be purged as soon as possible, inasmuch as ,extual accuracy is a matter of paramount mportance to Jew and Gentile alike.

M. L. BRESLAR. Percy House, South Hackney.

RIVERS' BANKS. There is no possibility of a misunderstanding of the direction meant when up or doion a river is mentioned, but arising in the relative terms left and right applied to the banks of a river, from their use nowadays by journalists, who possess a arge educating force. For example, in the tf ile campaign, Omdurman is stated by them M be on the left bank. Sailing with the stream (one must be on the river to obtain the necessary positions), one finds the city on the left-hand or port side of the vessel ; against it, it is on the right. Which is right (no bull is intended), to say that Omdurman is on the left bank of the Nile or on the right ? Un- questionably, the latter ; because unknown rivers were invariably discovered from the sea, and the banks obtained their names (like most places) on discovery, and in accordance with the original relative positions of the navigators and namers while proceeding up the river. For uniformity, old and known rivers followed the course (no bull again) of the new. J. S. M. T.
 * here is every probability of a confusion

VALUE OF MONEY. Richard Corbet, of Wattleborough, a feudal tenant circa 1180, being amerced in the sum of 20s., paid down 10s. in cash, on account, under promise to clear up the balance next year. A. H.

ESDRAS, BOOK II. AL. IV. (See ante, p. 54.) The remarks of MR. E. L. GARBETT as to the pre-Christian date of the passages to which he refers from the first chapter of the second, or fourth, book of Esdras can hardly pass without notice. There is a full examina- tion of the date of this book in the revision of the article upon it in Smith's 'Bible Dictionary' (1893), which has the well-known initials B. F. W. and F. It is there shown that there are interpolations, on a com- parison of the Latin (and English) text with the MS. authorities and with that of four Oriental versions, so that the conclusion is in reference to the passages mentioned in the article : "Both of these passages are evidently of Christian origin, and contain traces of the use of the Christian Scriptures." It appears from this that, without an argument and the