Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/341

THE GAME OF COCK A L. 337 is hollowed a little, to make it answerable to the bone to which it is joined ; the other has no hollow at all to speak of, and is not so much defended with a cartilaginous coat, but is only covered with a nerve and a skin. Qu. I see it very plain. Ch. The prone side has no nerves at all; but to the concavity of the supine part a nerve adheres to the top of the right side and the bottom of the left. Qu. You make it out very plain; but how must I know the right side from the left? Ch. That is very well minded, for I had instructed you very illy, except you suppose me to mean the talus of the right leg. I will tell you, and at the same time I will shew you the situation of it which you desire to know. The talus is in that bending of the leg beneath the hip. Qu. A great many are of opinion it is near the foot. Ch. They are under a mistake. That which is properly called the talus is in the bending of the joints, which the Greeks call KQ^TTOC ; but those of the hinder legs, as I said before, between your foot and your knee, is the tibia. Qu. Why, so I think. Ch. Behind the knee, KajuTTi). Qu. I allow it. Ch. For those bendings which men have in their arms, four-footed beasts have in their hinder legs ; but I except the ape, which is but half man : and so that which is the knee in the leg is the elbow in the arm. Qu. I take it in. Ch. And so one bending answers to another. Qu. You mean of the fore-legs and the hinder legs. Ch. You have it. So that in that bending which answers to the bending which is behind the knee the talus stands, when a four-footed beast stands upright, the upper and lower part of which is a little bended, but not altogether after the same manner ; for the upper part is folded back into a sort of horns, as it were, which Aristotle calls Kfpeu'ae ; Theodorus translates the word antennas, near to which the prone side gives way; the bottom has no such thing. Qu. I perceive it very plainly. Ch. Therefore Aristotle calls that side which is towards the fore-legs supine, and that which is contrary to it prone. Again, there are two sides, one of which inwardly is towards the hinder leg, either the right or left, suppose which you will, the other looks outwards; that which looks inwards Aristotle calls KwAoi', and that which looks outwards iov.

Qu. I see it plainly with my eyes ; but still here is this to be done, to inform me what was the ancient manner of playing with these tali ; for the play, as it is used now-a-days, is quite different from what we find in ancient authors concerning this sort of play. Ch. And truly that is very likely, as we in like manner now pervert the use of cards and dice from the ancient manner of playing with them. Qu. What you say is very probable. Ch. Theodorus Gaza, or, as others rather choose to call him, of Thessalonica, in translating Aristotle's second book of his History of Animals, says, That the side of the talus that looks outwardly transverse, was called canis ; and that which looks inwardly to the other leg, venus : and then he adds to it this of his own, for Aristotle said no more, To ntv rrpavtc; tw TO oe VTTTIOV KCU TO. //tv KwXa tvroc Eorpa/^UEva Trpop afia, TU Sc ia^ta o Kai rac fctpcuac avw. But since it is certain that the throw is called venus's by other persons, as often as in four dice the uppermost sides of them all are different one from another, I wonder by what example Theodorus calls one side venus. Our Erasmus, who