Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/149

 9* s. v. FEB. 24, HMO.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

141

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY Sit, 1900.

CONTENTS. -No. 113.

NOTES : Danteiana, 141 ' D.N.B.' Corrections, 143 Flying Cups, 145 "To lie in one's throat" Mounted Infantry in Early Times " Slim "Thomas Chaucer, 146.

QUERIES : Helen Faucit's Miniature " Ignagning " - " 111 -muggent" White Cattle " Pease ": "Pea" American Worthies Pope's "Love-letters " " Moral pockethandkerchiefs," 147 Horse Equipment Cat's- Meat Square" Widow's man " Astrolabe Clock Gothic "Spaiirds "St. Jerome Elizabethan Terms "One and all" Picture by Cruikshank, 148 Vice-Chancellor, co. Pal. Lancaster Vice- Admiral Dry den's Oaks in Scott- Richardson Family Author Wanted, 149.

REPLIES : Origin of English Coinage, 149 'Dr. Syntax,' 151 The Knights of Bristol Surname Jekyll "The green-eyed monster," 152 First Halfpenny Newspaper, 153 Churches in Unhewn Stone 'The Squire's Pew ' Ancient Cookery Term Rogers's 'Ginevra'" Hopping the wag "Suffolk Name for Ladybird E. Carey, M.P. for Westminster " Hippin"" Hail, Queen of Heaven "- Wooden Pitchers, 154 Green Fairies : Woolpit Green Children St. Eanswyth Poe's 'Hop-Frog.' 155 Jarn- dyce v. Jarndyce Thomas a Kempis "The grave of great reputations "Anglo-Saxon Speech, 156 Number of Baronets in each Reign Campbell and Keats Lady Shoemakers Lowestoft China, 157 Governor -General of Madras" Frail," 158.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Bain's 'A Digit of the Moon' Morgan's 'Antiquarian Survey of East Gower ' Dasent's 'Acts of the Privy Council of England' 'The Antonine Wall Report ' Knowles's 'Kipling Primer '" Chiswick Shakespeare "' Willing's Press Guide' 'Argus Guide to Municipal London ' Gomme's ' Index of Archaeological Papers.'

Notices to Correspondents.

DANTEIANA.

1. 'INFERNO,' xi. 36: "TOLLETTE DANNOSE." The diversity of English renderings of this expression is both amusing and instructive. Our translators seem to revel in the liberty wherewith ^Esculapius has made his fol- lowers free. And their versions are more paraphrastic than literal. Here are a few samples culled at haphazard : Tomlinson, "cruel raids"; Ford, "extortion"; Gary, "pillage"; Plumptre, "foul extortion"; Long- fellow, "injurious levies." The diversity of these versifiers is assuredly charming, and must satisfy the most exacting. Two alone Ford and Plumptre come strictly under the definition of Scartazzini :

" Toilette : usure. k Tolletta e lo stesso che tolta, verbale di tdrre, per tdrre ad usura.' Fanf. Al. Collette; cfr. Mazzoni-Toselli, 'Voci e passi di D.,' Bol., 1871, p. 34."

Plumptre defends his rendering in a note thus :

" The Italian for ' extortion,' toilette (tribute, tax), deserves a passing note as connected probably with the German Zoll, and finding its way into Italian from the oppressive rule of the German Emperors. Tolte has, however, been suggested as a possible derivation. A v.l. gives collette, a word with the same meaning, but of Latin derivation."

Lombardi follows the Nidobeatine text (which has collette dannose), despite his admission " in vece di toilette dannose che leggono tutte 1' altre edizioni il Cod. Vat. e P Angel, e il Biagioli " ; and adds that the Delia Crusca adduce no other example of the word from Dante, "che perci6 pu6 giustamente ri- pu tarsi errore di scrittura." He further explains that colletta signifies aggravio, imposizione, rappresaglia ; while the Nuovo Editore adds :

" Avvertasi pero che toilette viene da tolte adoperato a modo di sustantivo. Dicesi in Toscana : ella e stata per me una buona tolta, quando uno ha comprato alcuna cosa, e n'ha avuto buon mercato."

Bianchi's text gives collette, which he prefers for the following reason :

" Collette dannose ; forti taglie imposte da principi o da masnadieri. Tacito nella Gerrnania dice dei Batavi, ch' eran tenuti dai Romani exempti oneribus et collalionibus. Ho preferito pertanto questa lez. all' altra di toilette, che e idea piu bassa e di minore importanza."

But neither the Delia Crusca nor Lombardi nor Bianchi can outweigh the authority of " tutte 1' altre edizioni." Scartazzini shows a more critical discrimination in adhering to the older form of the disputed word ; while as to its etymology, not one of the above- cited English translators renders it literally. According to Baretti's derivation (" Tolletta, obsolete term meaning theft, robbery"), ruinous theft would more accurately mirror the poet's thought. 2. Ibid., xi. 79-83 :

Non ti rimembra di quelle parole Con le quai la tua Etica pertratta Le tre disposizion che il ciel non vuole, Incontinenza, malizia e la matta Bestialitade ?

The last three words are a clear quotation from the 'Ethics' of the great Stagirite (lib. vii. cap. i., ' Nicomach.'), the first and second being inverted for metrical purposes :

Mera Se ravra Ae/creov aAA^v Troi^cra/zei'ovs OTL TOJV Trept rot r}0r) (>VKTWI/ rpia eariv a/cpacria ^pior^s.

Plumptre, it seems to me, confuses the issues somewhat when he says :

" The poet states for others, and in order that he may solve it, a problem which had weighed on his own mind. Why were the sins of lust, the sins of Tristan and Francesca, and those of avarice and prodigality, in the higher circles, and not in those on which he was about to enter ? He has found the solution in the law of habits set forth by Aristotle, which classifies characters according to the degree of the hold the evil has on them : (1) Kaxia, incon- tinence, i.e., the want of self-control; (2) Oqptorris, the state in which there is no longer any inner power to restrain or punish passion ; (3) dicpaoia,