No More Learning

Plague-prodigy,
Proves a plague-prodigy to God and man.
BROWNING, Ring and Book, v. 664.
XVII. 26.
*
Rondel.
The round plate of iron which, according to Rich, Com-
panion to the Latin Dictionary, p. 609, formed the lower part
of the sock worn by horses, mules, &c. , when on a journey,
and, unlike our horse-shoes, was removable at the end of it.
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? io8 NOTES.
XXII. ii.
Looby
a clown.
Let me now the vices trace,
From his father's scoundrel race.
What could give the looby such airs ?
Were they masons ? were they butchers ?
TlCKELL, Theristes or the Lordling, 23-26.
XXIII.
For a spirited, though coarse, version of this poem, see Cot-
ton's Poems, p. 608, ed. 1689.
6 Lathy.
On a lathy horse, all legs and length.
BROWNING, Flight of the Duchess, v. 21.
XXIX. 8.
The connexion between Adonis and the dove is specially re-
ferred to by Diogenianus (Praef. p. 1 80 in Leutsch and Schnei-
dewin's Paroemiographi Graed). It formed part of the legends
of Cyprus, and was alluded to by the lyric poet Timocreon
(Bergk. Poetae Lyrici Graeci, p. 1203). Compare Browning :
Pompilia was no pigeon, Venus' Pet.
Ring and Book, v. 701.
XXXV. 7.
So h&ll quickly devour the may,
move quickly over the road. So Shakespeare :
Starting so
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
2nd Part of Henry IV. , Act i. sc. I.
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? NOTES. 109
*
XXXVII. 10.
With scorpion I, tuith emblem all your haunt will scrawl.
A member of the Saraceni family at Vicenza, finding that a
beautiful widow did not favour him, scribbled filthy pictures over
the door. The affair was brought before the Council of Ten at
Venice.
TROLLOPE'S Paul the Pope, p. 158.
XLIII. 3.
Mouth scarce tenible,
easily running over.
XLV. 7.
A sulky lion.
Properly "green-eyed. " The epithet would seem to be not
merely picturesque ; the glaring of the eyes would be more
marked in proportion as the beast was in a fiercer and more
excitable state.
LI. 512.
I watch thy grace ; and in its place
My heart a charmed slumber keeps,
While I muse upon thy face ;
And a languid fire creeps
Thro' my veins to all my frame,
Dissolvingly and slowly : soon
From thy rose-red lips my name
Floweth ; and then, as in a swoon,
With dinning sound my ears are rife,
My tremulous tongue faltereth,
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? no NOTES.
I lose my colour, I lose my breath,
I drink the cup of a costly death,
Brimmed with delicious draughts of warmest life.
TENNYSON, Ekiinore.
LIV. 6.
Yet thou flee'st not above my keen iambics.
This line is quoted as Catullus's by Porphyrion on Hor. c. I. 1 6,
24. His words, Catullus cum maledicta minaretur, compared
with the last lines of this poem, Irascere iterum meis iambis
Inmerentibus, unice imperator, seem to justify my view that they
belong here. See my large edition, p. 217, fragm. I. The fol-
lowing line, So may destiny, &>c. , is a supplement of my own :
it forms a natural introduction to the Si non udlem of v. 10.
LV.
This is the only instance where Catullus has introduced a
spondee into the second foot of the phalaecian, which then be-
comes decasyllabic. The alternation of this decasyllabic rhythm
with the ordinary hendecasyllable is studiously artistic ; I have
retained it throughout. In the series of dactylic lines 17 22,
Catullus no doubt intended to convey the idea of rapidity, as, in
the spondaic line immediately following, of labour.
4 You on Circus, in all the bills but you, Sir.
There seems to be no authority for the meaning ordinarily
assigned to libellis, "book-shops. " I prefer to explain the
word placards, either announcing the sale of Camerius's effects,
which would imply that he was in debt, or describing him as a
lost article.
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? NOTES. in
LXL
In the rhythm of this poem, I have been obliged to deviate in
two points from Catullus, (i) In him the first foot of each line
is nearly always a trochee, only rarely a spondee : the monoto-
nous effect of a positional trochee in English, to say nothing of
the difficulty, induced me to substitute a spondee more frequently.
(2) I have been rather less scrupulous in allowing the last foot
of the glyconic lines to be a dactyl (---), in place of the more
correct cretic (--).
108. The words in italics are a supplement of my own.
LXII. 3961.
Look in a garden croft, when a flower privily growing, (s'c.
Opinion. Look how a flower that close in closes grows,
Hid from rude cattle, bruised with no ploughs,
Which th' air doth stroke, sun strengthen, showers shoot higher,
It many youths and many maids desire ;
The same, when cropt by cruel hand 'tis wither'd,
No youths at all, no maidens have desired ;
So a virgin while untouch'd she doth remain
Is dear to hers ; but when with body's stain
Her chaster flower is lost, she leaves to appear
Or sweet to young men or to maidens dear.
Truth, Virgins, O Virgins, to sweet Hymen yield,
For as a lone vine in a naked field
Never extols her branches, never bears
Ripe grapes, but with a headlong heaviness wears
Her tender body, and her highest sprout
Is quickly levell'd with her fading root ;
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? NOTES.
By whom no husbandmen, no youths will dwell ;
But if by fortune she be married well,
To the elm her husband, many husbandmen
And many youths inhabit by her then ;
So whilst a virgin doth untouch'd abide,
All unmanur'd she grows old with her pride ;
But when to equal wedlock, in fit time,
Her fortune and endeavour lets her climb,
Dear to her love and parents she is held.
Virgins, O Virgins, to sweet Hymen yield.
BEN JONSON, The Barriers,
LXIII.
In the metre of this poem Catullus observes the following
general type
Uu- uJU ~- (so Heyse. )
Except in 1 8, Hilarate acre citatis erroribus animum, 53, Et
earum omnia adirem furibunda latibula, where 'the Ionic a
minore, which seems to have been the original basis of the
rhythm, is preserved intact in the former half of the line. I
have followed Catullus generally with exactness, but with an
occasional resolution of one long into two short syllables, where
it has not been introduced by the poet, e. g. in 31, 34, 49, 64,
65, 68, 79. In v. 10 I have ventured on a license which
Catullus does not admit, but which is, I think, justified by
other and earlier specimens of the metre, an anaclasis of the
original Ionic a minore at the end of the line. In reading this
poem it should never be forgotten that there is a pause in the
middle of each line, which practically divides it into two halves.
Tennyson, in his Boadicea, written on the model of the Attis,
divides each verse similarly in the middle ; but in the first half
he has changed the rhythm of Catullus to a trochaic rhythm, in
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? NOTES. 113
the second, while producing much of the effect of the Atlis by
the accumulation of short syllables at the end of the line, he
has not bound himself to the same strictly denned feet as Catul-
lus, and generally has preferred to take from the somewhat
emasculate character of the verse by adding an unaccented syl-
lable at the close.
LXIII.
Taborine
Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow.
Troilus and Cressida, Act iv. sc. 5.
16 Aby
abide ; as, I think, in Spenser's Faerie Queeite, vi. 2, 19.
But he was fierce and whot,
Ne time would give, nor any termes aby.
Below, Ixiv. 297, I have used it in its more common meaning of
atoning for, Faerie Queene, iv. I, 53.
Yet thou, false Squire, his fault shalt deare aby,
And with thy punishment his penance shalt supply.
Midsummer Nighfs Dream, iii. 2.
Lest to thy peril thou aby it dear.
24 Ululation.
There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
Resounded through the air without a star.
LONGFELLOW'S Dante Inf. iii. 22.
i
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? ii4 NOTES.
41 When he smote tlie shadowy twilight with his healthy team sublime.
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes,
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
TENNYSON, Tithonus.
83 On a nervy neck.
Four maned lions hale
The sluggish wheels ; solemn their toothed maws,
Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws
Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails
Covering their tawny brushes.
KEATS, Endymion, II. ad fin.
LXIV. 1 60.
Yet to your Iiousehold thou, your kindred palaces olden.
1 have combined thou with your purposely, to suggest the idea
conveyed in uestras as opposed to potuisti, the family abode as
opposed to the individual Theseus.
183 Flexibly fleeting
bent as they move rapidly through the water.
1 86 No glimmer of hope
from Ileyse,
KeinerleiFlucht, kein Schimmer der Hoffnung, stumni liegt Alles.
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? NOTES. ii
258 Gordian,
She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue.
KEATS, Lamia, Part I.
308 IVreaths sat on each hoarcrtrwn, tukosf snovos fiusK d rosy beneath them.
I have attempted here to give what I conceive Catullus may
have meant to convey by the remarkable collocation At roseo
nitteae residebant ttertice uittae. Properly, the wreaths are rosy,
the locks snow-white ; but the colour of the wreaths is so blent
with the colour of the locks that each is lost in the other, and an
inversion of epithets becomes possible.
S, in fury of heart, shall deaths stern reaper, Achilles.
A verse seems to have been lost here, which I have thus
supplied.
LXVIII. 149.
So, it is all I can, take, Allius, ans^ver, a little
Verse, to requite thy much friendship, a contrary boon.
These little rites, a stone, a verse, receive,
'Tis all a father, all a friend can give.
POPE, Epitaph on the children of Lord Digby.
LXIX. 4.
Clarity
clearness, transparency.
Here clarity of candour, history's soul,
The critical mind in short.
BROWNING, A'i/ig and Book, i. 925.
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? Ii6 NOTES.
LXX.
Sir Philip Sidney thus translates this poem :
Unto no body my woman saith shee had rather a wife be,
Then . to myself, not though Jove grew a suter of hers.
These be her words, but a woman's words to a love that is
eager,
Midde [windes ? ] or waters stream do require to be writ.
XCIX. 10.
Fricatrice.
To a lewd harlot, a base fricatrice.
BEN JONSON, The Fox, iv. 2.
THE END.
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO. , PRINTERS, WHITEFRI ARS.
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