Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/376

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [^ s. in. MAY 13, m

only the general idea of Boccaccio's 'De Casibus Illustrium Virorum.'

'The Franklin's Tale' is the fifth novel of the tenth day, and is introduced also by Boccaccio in the fifth book of his ' Filocopo.'

' The Clerk's Tale ' is derived from the last novel of the * Decameron' through the medium of Petrarch's Latin translation (1373). The same story was dramatized in 1597 as ' Patient Grissel ' by Dekker, Haughton, and Chettle. Shakespeare.

'All's Well that Ends Well,' derived from the ninth novel of the third day, probably through the translation in Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure ' (1566-7). Shakespeare takes from Boccaccio the outline of the plot ; metamor- phoses Giletta of Narbonne into Helena ; anglicizes Beltramo into Bertram ; but, with the exception of Gerard de Narbonne, is him- self responsible for the rest of the persons of the drama.

' Troilus and Cressida,' partly derived from ' II Filostrato ' through Chaucer's ' Troilus and Criseyde,' together with Caxton's 'Destruction of Troy,' Lydgate's ' Troy-Booke,' and Chap- man's translation of the ' Iliad.'

'Cymbeline': lachimo's narrative of the wager, extracted from the ninth novel of the second day, is fitted into an historical frame- work derived from Holinshed. The fearful punishment inflicted upon Ambrogiuolo, the villain in this novel, furnished Autolycus with the mock sentence which he passes on the young clown in ' Winter's Tale,' IV. iv. 812. Edward Lewicke.

In 1562 Lewicke did into English verse the story of the friendship of Titus and Gesippus. Dryden.

It is not suspected, says Warton somewhere, that those affecting stories the 'Cymon and Iphigenia ' and the ' Theodore and Honoria ' of our novelist, so beautifully paraphrased by Dryden, appeared in English verse early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

These, with ' Sigismonda and Guiscardo,' appeared in the folio volume commonly called 4 The Fables,' published a few months before Dryden's death.

Tennyson.

The ninth novel of the fifth day, besides being utilized by Longfellow, furnished the plot of Tennyson's play ' The Falcon.'

A. R. BAYLEY.

[Replies to the same effect are acknowledged.]

HERALDIC (9 th S. ii. 490). Without the crescents this would be identical with the armorial bearings of Snode ; and I am in- clined to account for their presence on the

shield by supposing that the artist found a mark of cadency, and treated it more with an eye to the symmetry of his design than to heraldic accuracy. This freedom of tre? ment undoubtedly occurs sometimes in t case of old armorial china. As I happen mysi to possess a fine plate ornamented with t shield which LONSDALE describes, I should glad if ' N. & Q.' could kindly give me sor information of a family named Snode the importance of which at the date (about 1780) of the plate's manufacture is shown both by the fine quality of the china and by the delicate execution of what is, I believe, the Snode coat of arms. ORIEL.

" GEESE" (9 th S. iii. 307). The earliest men- tion of giss that I know of is in a provincial glossary published in 1804, in vol. vi. of Polwhele's ' History of Cornwall.' In West Cornwall the word is always giss. In East Cornwall it is geese ; and in places outside Cornwall it is guss, and is so printed in Jen- nings's 'Glossary of Somerset Dialect,' 1825; in a ' Glossary of Herefordshire Words,' 1839; in Akerman's ' Glossary of Wiltshire Dialect,' 1842 ; in Barnes's ' Dorsetshire Dialect,' 1863, and no doubt in others.

It may not be out of place to say that the word for girdle in old Cornish of about 1700 is guris (see Pryce's ' Cornish Grammar '), which is a later form of grugis, given in the ancient Cornish vocabulary date not later than the thirteenth century edited by .Mr. Norris. W.' N.

LEAVES MARKED BY VAPOURS OF TARTARUS | (9 th S. iii. 229). The waters of the Styx, which \ was supposed to lead to Tartarus, and which is described by some poets as forming a part of Tartarus, had some remarkable qualities which seem to have excited the imagination of the ancients. Men and animals, for instance, j died soon after drinking of them. According i to Plato these waters were of a bluish hue, and the fish as well as the reptiles that fre- quented the bank of the river were black, owing, no doubt, to the influence of the water on them. Probably the vapours had a like effect. T. P. ARMSTRONG.

Putney.

The "leaves marked by the vapours of Tartarus " are those of the poplar, Populw alba of Horace. Virgil applies the adjective bicolor to this leaf, which is white on the under surface and deep green on the upper. The well-known myth is (in brief) this. When Herakles descended into hell he wore a poplar wreath. The perspiration of the hero turned the under parts of the leaves white, and the