Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/340

336 FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES. what great obscurity there is in the primitive origin of words. And besides, there is nothing contradictory in the matter, if you look narrowly into it. The talus is voluble, but it is voluble after such a manner that it renders that part to which it is inserted the more firm for standing, and then it joins one bone to another. Qu. I find you can play the part of a sophist when you have a mind to it. Ch. But there is nothing in the word talus that the etymology of it should perplex us, for that which the modern Greeks call aorpayaXoc, the ancients, of which Oallimachus was one, called aorptov, to whom this hemistich is ascribed, At tea 8' aorpta avvro vrpov ', whence, as the Greeks used the word aarpayaXi^iv, so they also used the word aarptZeiv, to play at cockal.

Qu. What then is that which is properly the talus ? Ch. It is that which now-a-days the girls play with; it was formerly a boy's play, as cob-nuts was ; concerning which there is this Greek sentence, 'Aju^' cicTTpayaAoiai ow9tl^ when they would intimate that persons were angry for a trifle. Again, Horace in his Odes has Nee regna vim sortiere tails. And also in his Sermones, Te talos Aule nucesque, &c. And lastly, that saying of the Lacedemonian, if I am not mistaken, Pueros esse fallendos talis, viros jurejurando. They deny that the talus is found in any animal that is ILLOVVOV } that is, that has a solid hoof, except the Indian ass, that has but one horn ; or that is TroAu^tSfe, that has its foot divided into many toes or claws; of which sort are the lion, the panther, the dog, the ape, a man, a bird, and a great many others. But those animals that are S/^rjAa, that have a hoof divided into two, many of them have the talus, and that, as you said very rightly, in their hinder legs. Man only has not the talus, for two reasons: first, because he is two-footed; and secondly, because his foot is divided into five toes.

Qu. That I have heard often ; but I should be glad to hear where the talus was situated, and what form it has described ; for that sort of play is quite out of doors with boys now-a-days, and they rather affect dice, cards, and other masculine plays. Ch. That is not to be wondered at, when they affect divinity itself. But if I were a mathematician, or a painter, or a founder, I could not represent it more clearly to you than by shewing you the talus itself, unless you would have me describe it algebraically, as they do. Qu. Have you got ever a talus 1 Ch. Here is one out of the right leg of a sheep ; you see it has but four sides, when a cube and a dice has six, four on the sides, one at the top, and one at the bottom. Qu. It is so. Ch. And forasmuch as the upper and lower part of the talus is crooked, it has but four sides, one of which, you see, rises like a ridge. Qu. I see it. Ch. On the opposite side there is a hollow; this Aristotle calls trpovlg, that is, prone ; and this VTTTIOV, that is, supine : as when in the act of copulation, for the sake of procreation, the woman is supine and the man is prone. And the hand, if the palm of it be held towards the ground, is prone, if you turn it up it is supine ; though orators and poets do sometimes confound the use of these words, but that is nothing to the matter in hand,

Qu. You have demonstrated this very plainly to my sight ; but what is the difference between, the two other sides ? Ch, One of them