The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3

Nor are we singly deceived in the nominal translation of this Bird: in many other Animals we commit the like mistake. So Gracculus is rendred a Jay, which Bird notwithstanding must be of a dark colour according to that of Martial,

Sed quandam volo nocte nigrioremFormica, pice, Gracculo, cicada.

Halcyon 259 is rendred a King-fisher, a Bird commonly known among us, and by Zoographers and Naturals the same is named Ispida, a well coloured Bird frequenting Streams and Rivers, building in holes of Pits, like some Martins, about the end of the Spring; in whose Nests we have found little else than innumerable small Fish Bones, and white round Eggs of a smooth and polished surface, whereas the true Alcyon is a Sea Bird, makes an handsome Nest floating upon the Water, and breedeth in the Winter.

That Nysus should be rendred either an Hobby or a Sparrow Hawk, in the Fable of Nysus and Scylla in Ovid, because we are much to seek in the distinction of Hawks according to their old denominations, we shall not much contend, and may allow a favourable latitude therein: but that the Ciris or Bird into which Scylla was turned should be translated a Lark, it can hardly be made out agreeable unto the description of Virgil in his Poem of that name,

Inde alias volucres mimóque infecta rubentiCrura—

But seems more agreeable unto some kind of Hæmantopus or Redshank; and so the Nysus to have been some kind of Hawk, which delighteth about the Sea and Marishes, where such prey most aboundeth, which sort of Hawk while Scaliger determineth to be a Merlin, the French Translatour warily expoundeth it to be some kind of Hawk.

Nycticorax we may leave unto the common and verbal translation of a Night Raven, but we know no proper kind of Raven unto which to confine the same, and therefore some take the liberty to ascribe it unto some sort of Owls, and others unto the Bittern; which Bird in its common Note, which he useth out of the time of coupling and upon the Wing, so well resembleth the croaking of a Raven that I have been deceived by it.

Answer to Query 3.

While Cicada is rendred a Grashopper, we commonly think that which is so called among us to be the true Cicada; wherein, as we have elsewhere declared,260 there is a great mistake: for we have not the Cicada in England, and indeed no proper word for that Animal, which the French nameth Cigale. That which we commonly call a Grashopper, and the French Saulterelle being one kind of Locust, so rendred in the Plague of Ægypt, and, in old Saxon named Gersthop.

I have been the less accurate in these Answers, because the Queries are not of difficult Resolution, or of great moment: however, I would not wholly neglect them or your satisfaction, as being, Sir,

Yours, etc.

OF HAWKS AND FALCONRY

Ancient and ModernTRACT V

Sir,

In vain you expect much information, de Re Accipitraria, of Falconry, Hawks or Hawking, from very ancient Greek or Latin Authours; that Art being either unknown or so little advanced among them, that it seems to have proceeded no higher than the daring of Birds: which makes so little thereof to be found in Aristotle, who onely mentions some rude practice thereof in Thracia; as also in Ælian, who speaks something of Hawks and Crows among the Indians; little or nothing of true Falconry being mention’d before Julius Firmicus, in the days of Constantius, Son to Constantine the Great.

Yet if you consult the accounts of later Antiquity left by Demetrius the Greek, by Symmachus and Theodosius, and by Albertus Magnus, about five hundred years ago, you, who have been so long acquainted with this noble Recreation, may better compare the ancient and modern practice, and rightly observe how many things in that Art are added, varied, disused or retained in the practice of these days.

In the Diet of Hawks, they allowed of divers Meats which we should hardly commend. For beside the Flesh of Beef, they admitted of Goat, Hog, Deer, Whelp and Bear. And how you will approve the quantity and measure thereof, I make some doubt; while by weight they allowed half a pound of Beef, seven ounces of Swines Flesh, five of Hare, eight ounces of Whelp, as much of Deer, and ten ounces of He-Goats Flesh.

In the time of Demetrius they were not without the practice of Phlebotomy or Bleeding, which they used in the Thigh and Pounces; they plucked away the Feathers on the Thigh, and rubbed the part, but if the Vein appeared not in that part, they opened the Vein of the fore Talon.

In the days of Albertus, they made use of Cauteries in divers places: to advantage their sight they seared them under the inward angle of the eye; above the eye in distillations and diseases of the Head; in upward pains they seared above the Joint of the Wing, and at the bottom of the Foot, against the Gout; and the chief time for these cauteries they made to be the month of March.

In great coldness of Hawks they made use of Fomentations, some of the steam or vapour of artificial and natural Baths, some wrapt them up in hot Blankets, giving them Nettle Seeds and Butter.

No Clysters are mention’d, nor can they be so profitably used; but they made use of many purging Medicines. They purged with Aloe, which, unto larger Hawks, they gave in the bigness of a Great Bean; unto less, in the quantity of a Cicer, which notwithstanding I should rather give washed, and with a few drops of Oil of Almonds: for the Guts of flying Fowls are tender and easily scratched by it; and upon the use of Aloe both in Hawks and Cormorants I have sometimes observed bloody excretions.

In phlegmatick causes they seldom omitted Stave-saker, but they purged sometimes with a Mouse, and the Food of boiled Chickens, sometimes with good Oil and Honey.

They used also the Ink of Cuttle Fishes, with Smallage, Betony, Wine and Honey. They made use of stronger Medicines than present practice doth allow. For they were not afraid to give Coccus Baphicus; beating up eleven of its Grains unto a Lentor, which they made up into five Pills wrapt up with Honey and Pepper: and, in some of their old Medicines, we meet with Scammony and Euphorbium. Whether, in the tender Bowels of Birds, infusions of Rhubarb, Agaric and Mechoachan be not of safer use, as to take of Agary two Drachms, of Cinnamon half a Drachm, of Liquorish a Scruple, and, infusing them in Wine, to express a part into the mouth of the Hawk, may be considered by present practice.

Few Mineral Medicines were of inward use among them: yet sometimes we observe they gave filings of Iron in the straitness of the Chest, as also Lime in some of their pectoral Medicines.

But they commended Unguents of Quick-silver against the Scab: and I have safely given six or eight Grains of Mercurius Dulcis unto Kestrils and Owls, as also crude and current Quick-silver, giving the next day small Pellets of Silver or Lead till they came away uncoloured: and this, if any, may probably destroy that obstinate Disease of the Filander or Back-worm.

A peculiar remedy they had against the Consumption of Hawks. For, filling a Chicken with Vinegar, they closed up the Bill, and hanging it up untill the Flesh grew tender, they fed the Hawk therewith: and to restore and well Flesh them, they commonly gave them Hogs Flesh, with Oil, Butter and Honey; and a decoction of Cumfory to bouze.

They disallowed of salt Meats and Fat; but highly esteemed of Mice in most indispositions; and in the falling Sickness had great esteem of boiled Batts: and in many Diseases, of the Flesh of Owls which feed upon those Animals. In Epilepsies they also gave the Brain of a Kid drawn thorough a gold Ring; and, in Convulsions, made use of a mixture of Musk and Stercus humanum aridum.

For the better preservation of their Health they strowed Mint and Sage about them; and for the speedier mewing of their Feathers, they gave them the Slough of a Snake, or a Tortoise out of the Shell, or a green Lizard cut in pieces.

If a Hawk were unquiet, they hooded him, and placed him in a Smith’s Shop for some time, where, accustomed to the continual noise of hammering, he became more gentle and tractable.

They used few terms of Art, plainly and intelligibly expressing the parts affected, their Diseases and Remedies. This heap of artificial terms first entring with the French Artists: who seem to have been the first and noblest Falconers in the Western part of Europe; although, in their Language, they have no word which in general expresseth an Hawk.

They carried their Hawks in the left hand, and let them flie from the right. They used a Bell, and took great care that their Jesses should not be red, lest Eagles should flie at them. Though they used Hoods, we have no clear description of them, and little account of their Lures.

The ancient Writers left no account of the swiftness of Hawks or measure of their flight: but Heresbachius261 delivers that William Duke of Cleve had an Hawk which, in one day, made a flight out of Westphalia into Prussia. And, upon good account, an Hawk in this Country of Norfolk, made a flight at a Woodcock near thirty miles in one hour. How far the Hawks, Merlins and wild Fowl which come unto us with a North-west wind in the Autumn, flie in a day, there is no clear account; but coming over Sea their flight hath been long, or very speedy. For I have known them to light so weary on the coast, that many have been taken with Dogs, and some knock’d down with Staves and Stones.

Their Perches seem not so large as ours; for they made them of such a bigness that their Talons might almost meet: and they chose to make them of Sallow, Poplar or Lime Tree.

They used great clamours and hollowing in their flight, which they made by these words, ou loi, la, la, la; and to raise the Fowls, made use of the sound of a Cymbal.

Their recreation seemed more sober and solemn than ours at present, so improperly attended with Oaths and Imprecations. For they called on God at their setting out, according to the account of Demetrius, τὸν Θεὸν ἐπικαλέσαντες, in the first place calling upon God.

The learned Rigaltius thinketh, that if the Romans had well known this airy Chase, they would have left or less regarded their Circensial Recreations. The Greeks understood Hunting early, but little or nothing of our Falconry. If Alexander had known it, we might have found something of it and more of Hawks in Aristotle; who was so unacquainted with that way, that he thought that Hawks would not feed upon the Heart of Birds. Though he hath mention’d divers Hawks, yet Julius Scaliger, an expert Falconer, despaired to reconcile them unto ours. And ’tis well if, among them, you can clearly make out a Lanner, a Sparrow Hawk and a Kestril, but must not hope to find your Gier Falcon there, which is the noble Hawk; and I wish you one no worse than that of Henry King of Navarre; which, Scaliger saith, he saw strike down a Buzzard, two wild Geese, divers Kites, a Crane and a Swan.

Nor must you expect from high Antiquity the distinctions of Eyess and Ramage Hawks, of Sores and Entermewers, of Hawks of the Lure and the Fist; nor that material distinction into short and long winged Hawks; from whence arise such differences in their taking down of Stones; in their flight, their striking down or seizing of their Prey, in the strength of their Talons, either in the Heel and fore-Talon, or the middle and the Heel: nor yet what Eggs produce the different Hawks, or when they lay three Eggs, that the first produceth a Female and large Hawk, the second of a midler sort, and the third a smaller Bird Tercellene or Tassel of the Masle Sex; which Hawks being onely observed abroad by the Ancients, were looked upon as Hawks of different kinds and not of the same Eyrie or Nest. As for what Aristotle affirmeth that Hawks and Birds of prey drink not; although you know that it will not strictly hold, yet I kept an Eagle two years, which fed upon Kats, Kittlings, Whelps and Ratts, without one drop of Water.

If any thing may add unto your knowledge in this noble Art, you must pick it out of later Writers than those you enquire of. You may peruse the two Books of Falconry writ by that renowned Emperour Frederick the Second; as also the Works of the noble Duke Belisarius, of Tardiffe, Francherius, of Francisco Sforzino of Vicensa; and may not a little inform or recreate your self with that elegant Poem of Thuanus.262 I leave you to divert your self by the perusal of it, having, at present, no more to say but that I am, etc.

OF CYMBALS, Etc

TRACT VI

Sir,

With what difficulty, if possibility, you may expect satisfaction concerning the Musick, or Musical Instruments of the Hebrews, you will easily discover if you consult the attempts of learned men upon that Subject: but for Cymbals, of whose Figure you enquire, you may find some described in Bayfius, in the Comment of Rhodius upon Scribonius Largus, and others.

As for Κύμβαλον ἀλαλάζον mentioned by S. Paul,263 and rendred a Tinckling Cymbal, whether the translation be not too soft and diminutive some question may be made: for the word ἀλαλάζον implieth no small sound, but a strained and lofty vociferation, or some kind of hollowing sound, according to the Exposition of Hesychius, Ἀλαλάξατε ἐνυψώσατε τὴν φωνήν. A word drawn from the lusty shout of Souldiers, crying Ἀλαλὰ at the first charge upon their Enemies, according to the custom of Eastern Nations, and used by Trojans in Homer; and is also the Note of the Chorus in Aristophanes Ἀλαλαἰ ὶὴ παιών. In other parts of Scripture we reade of loud and high sounding Cymbals; and in Clemens Alexandrinus that the Arabians made use of Cymbals in their Wars instead of other military Musick; and Polyænus in his Stratagemes affirmeth that Bacchus gave the signal of Battel unto his numerous Army not with Trumpets but with Tympans and Cymbals.

And now I take the opportunity to thank you for the new Book sent me containing the Anthems sung in our Cathedral and Collegiate Churches: ’tis probable there will be additions, the Masters of Musick being now active in that affair. Beside my naked thanks I have yet nothing to return you but this enclosed, which may be somewhat rare unto you, and that is a Turkish Hymn translated into French out of the Turkish Metre, which I thus render unto you.

O what praise doth he deserve, and how great is that Lord, all whose Slaves are as so many Kings!

Whosoever shall rub his Eyes with the dust of his Feet, shall behold such admirable things that he shall fall into an ecstasie.

He that shall drink one drop of his Beverage, shall have his Bosome like the Ocean filled with Gems and pretious Liquours.

Let not loose the Reins unto thy Passions in this world: he that represseth them shall become a true Solomon in the Faith.

Amuse not thy self to adore Riches, nor to build great Houses and Palaces.

The end of what thou shall build is but ruine.

Pamper not thy Body with delicacies and dainties; it may come to pass one day that this Body may be in Hell.

Imagine not that he who findeth Riches findeth Happiness; he that findeth Happiness is he that findeth God.

All who prostrating themselves in humility shall this day believe in Velè,264 if they were Poor shall be Rich, and if Rich shall become Kings.

After the Sermon ended which was made upon a Verse in the Alcoran containing much Morality, the Deruices in a Gallery apart sung this Hymn, accompanied with Instrumental Musick, which so affected the Ears of Monsieur du Loyr, that he would not omit to set it down, together with the Musical Notes, to be found in his first Letter unto Monsieur Bouliau, Prior of Magny.

Excuse my brevity: I can say but little where I understand but little.

I am, etc.

OF ROPALIC OR GRADUAL VERSES, ETC

Mens mea sublimes rationes præmeditaturTRACT VII

Sir,

Though I may justly allow a good intention in this Poem presented unto you, yet I must needs confess, I have no affection for it; as being utterly averse from all affectation in Poetry, which either restrains the phancy, or fetters the invention to any strict disposure of words. A poem of this nature is to be found in Ausonius beginning thus,

Spes Deus æternæ stationis conciliator.

These are Verses Ropalici or Clavales, arising gradually like the Knots in a Ῥοπάλη or Clubb; named also Fistulares by Priscianus, as Elias Vinetus265 hath noted. They consist properly of five words, each thereof encreasing by one syllable. They admit not of a Spondee in the fifth place, nor can a Golden or Silver Verse be made this way. They run smoothly both in Latin and Greek, and some are scatteringly to be found in Homer; as,

Ὦ μάκαρ Ἀτρείδη μοιρηγενὲς ὀλβιοδαίμον,

Liberè dicam sed in aurem, ego versibus hujusmodi Ropalicis, longo syrmate protractis, Ceraunium affigo.

He that affecteth such restrained Poetry, may peruse the Long Poem of Hugbaldus the Monk, wherein every word beginneth with a C penned in the praise of Calvities or Baldness, to the honour of Carolus Calvus King of France,

Carmina clarisonæ calvis cantate Camænæ.

The rest may be seen at large in the adversaria of Barthius: or if he delighteth in odd contrived phancies may he please himself with Antistrophes, Counterpetories, Retrogrades, Rebusses, Leonine Verses, etc. to be found in Sieur des Accords. But these and the like are to be look’d upon, not pursued, odd works might be made by such ways; and for your recreation I propose these few lines unto you,

Arcu paratur quod arcui sufficit.Misellorum clamoribus accurrere non tam humanum quam sulphureum est.Asino teratur quæ Asino teritur.Ne Asphodelos comedas, phœnices manduca.Cœlum aliquid potest, sed quæ mira præstat Papilio est.

Not to put you unto endless amusement, the Key hereof is the homonomy of the Greek made use of in the Latin words, which rendreth all plain. More ænigmatical and dark expressions might be made if any one would speak or compose them out of the numerical Characters or characteristical Numbers set down by Robertus de Fluctibus.266

As for your question concerning the contrary expressions of the Italian and Spaniards in their common affirmative answers, the Spaniard answering cy Sennor, the Italian Signior cy, you must be content with this Distich,

Why saith the Italian Signior cy, the Spaniard cy Sennor?Because the one puts that behind, the other puts before.

And because you are so happy in some Translations, I pray return me these two verses in English,

Occidit heu tandem multos quæ occidit amantes,Et cinis est hodie quæ fuit ignis heri.

My occasions make me to take off my Pen. I am, etc.

OF LANGUAGES AND PARTICULARLY OF THE SAXON TONGUE

TRACT VIII

Sir,

The last Discourse we had of the Saxon Tongue recalled to my mind some forgotten considerations. Though the Earth were widely peopled before the Flood, (as many learned men conceive) yet whether after a large dispersion, and the space of sixteen hundred years, men maintained so uniform a Language in all parts, as to be strictly of one Tongue, and readily to understand each other, may very well be doubted. For though the World preserved in the Family of Noah before the confusion of Tongues might be said to be of one Lip, yet even permitted to themselves their humours, inventions, necessities, and new objects, without the miracle of Confusion at first, in so long a tract of time, there had probably been a Babel. For whether America were first peopled by one or several Nations, yet cannot that number of different planting Nations, answer the multiplicity of their present different Languages, of no affinity unto each other; and even in their Northern Nations and incommunicating Angles, their Languages are widely differing. A native Interpreter brought from California proved of no use unto the Spaniards upon the neighbour Shore. From Chiapa, to Guatemala, S. Salvador, Honduras, there are at least eighteen several languages; and so numerous are they both in the Peruvian and Mexican Regions, that the great Princes are fain to have one common Language, which besides their vernaculous and Mother Tongues, may serve for commerce between them.

And since the confusion of Tongues at first fell onely upon those which were present in Sinaar at the work of Babel, whether the primitive Language from Noah were onely preserved in the Family of Heber, and not also in divers others, which might be absent at the same, whether all came away and many might not be left behind in their first Plantations about the foot of the Hills, whereabout the Ark rested and Noah became an Husbandman, is not absurdly doubted.

For so the primitive Tongue might in time branch out into several parts of Europe and Asia, and thereby the first or Hebrew Tongue which seems to be ingredient into so many Languages, might have larger originals and grounds of its communication and traduction than from the Family of Abraham, the Country of Canaan and words contained in the Bible which come short of the full of that Language. And this would become more probable from the Septuagint or Greek Chronology strenuously asserted by Vossius; for making five hundred years between the Deluge and the days of Peleg, there ariseth a large latitude of multiplication and dispersion of People into several parts, before the descent of that Body which followed Nimrod unto Sinaar from the East.

They who derive the bulk of European Tongues from the Scythian and the Greek, though they may speak probably in many points, yet must needs allow vast difference or corruptions from so few originals, which however might be tolerably made out in the old Saxon, yet hath time much confounded the clearer derivations. And as the knowledge thereof now stands in reference unto our selves, I find many words totally lost, divers of harsh sound disused or refined in the pronunciation, and many words we have also in common use not to be found in that Tongue, or venially derivable from any other from whence we have largely borrowed, and yet so much still remaineth with us that it maketh the gross of our Language.

The religious obligation unto the Hebrew Language hath so notably continued the same, that it might still be understood by Abraham, whereas by the Mazorite Points and Chaldee Character the old Letter stands so transformed, that if Moses were alive again, he must be taught to reade his own Law.

The Chinoys, who live at the bounds of the Earth, who have admitted little communication, and suffered successive incursions from one Nation, may possibly give account of a very ancient Language; but consisting of many Nations and Tongues; confusion, admixtion and corruption in length of time might probably so have crept in as without the virtue of a common Character, and lasting Letter of things, they could never probably make out those strange memorials which they pretend, while they still make use of the Works of their great Confutius many hundred years before Christ, and in a series ascend as high as Poncuus, who is conceived our Noah.

The present Welch, and remnant of the old Britanes, hold so much of that ancient Language, that they make a shift to understand the Poems of Merlin, Enerin, Telesin, a thousand years ago, whereas the Herulian Pater Noster, set down by Wolfgangus Lazius, is not without much criticism made out, and but in some words; and the present Parisians can hardly hack out those few lines of the League between Charles and Lewis, the Sons of Ludovicus Pius, yet remaining in old French.