Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/290

282 prevent the jarring of three consonants together: and these two Engllsh words express the most unseemly excrements that belong to man.

But although I could produce many other exampies, equally convincing, that the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans, originally spoke the same language which we do at present; yet I have chosen to confine myself chiefly to the proper names of persons, because I conceive they will be of greater weight to confirm what I advance; the ground and reason of those names being certainly owing to the nature, or some distinguishing action or quality in those persons, and consequently expressed in the true ancient language of the several people.

I will begin with the Grecians, among whom the most ancient are the great leaders on both sides in the siege of Troy; for it is plain, from Homer, that the Trojans spoke Greek as well as the Grecians. Of these latter, Achilles was the most valiant. This hero was of a restless unquiet nature, never giving himself any repose either in peace or war; and therefore, as Guy of Warwick was called a kill-cow, and another terrible man a kill-devil, so this general was called A-kill-ease, or destroyer of ease; and at length, by corruption, Achilles.

Hector, on the other side, was the bravest among the Trojans. He had destroyed so many of the Greeks, by hacking and tearing them, that his soldiers, when they saw him fighting, would cry out, "Now the enemy will be hack't, now he will be tore. At last, by putting both words together, this appellation was given to their leader, under the name of Hacktore; and, for the more commodious sounding, Hector. Diomede,