2"* s. VII. May 14. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



399 



As the Shepherd's Kalendar is a book not 

 ready at hand to many readers of " N. & Q.," I 

 thought the above extracts would not be either 

 useless nor unwelcome; and as I read the amus- 

 ing scene to which Mr. Bruce calls attention, 

 there is naore salt in its wit than is tasted by many 

 at the present day. D. Eock. 



Brook Green, Hammersmith. 



Leaving to the ancient and honourable Com- 

 pany of Stationers to reply to the query put to 

 them especially by Mr. Bruce, I will cite, from 

 a copy of their Almanack for 1668, what they 

 have (or had) to say with regard to the influences 

 of Taurus and other signs. The Almanack for 

 the highly orthodox period just named has the 

 following characteristic and suggestive title-page : 



" The Protestant Almanack for the Year from the In- 

 carnation of Jesus Christ 1668, and from our Deliverance 

 from Popery by Queen Elizabeth 109. Being the Bis- 

 sextile or Leap-5'ear. Wherein the bloody Aspects, per- 

 nicious Conjunctions, and fatal Oppositions of the Papacj' 

 against the Lord Christ and the Lord's Anointed are de- 

 scribed. Calculated according to Art, for the Meridian 

 of Babj-lon, whereby the Pope is elevated ninety degrees 

 above all Reason, Right, and Religion, above Kings, 

 Canons, and Councils: And above everything that is 

 called God: And may without sensible Errour indif- 

 ferently serve the whole Papacy. By Philoprotest : a 

 Well-wilier to the Mathematicks. — London : Printed 

 for the Company of Stationers, and are to be sold at the 

 Peacocks in Chancery Lane, near Fleet Street. 1668." 



The authority for printing this book runs thus : 



" Imprimatur Job. Hall D, Episc, Lond. £isac. Domest. 

 Nov. 28, 1667." 



In this Almanack the zodiacal signs are set 

 down as governing the various parts of the body, 

 exactly as they are described in the paper quoted 

 by Mr. Bruce ; but as every page is full of the 

 most blindly ferocious attacks against popes and 

 popory, there is given an " Anatomy of the papal 

 body politick, as the parts thereof are governed 

 by the twelve Diabolical, Terrestrial, and Car- 

 dinal Signs." The most of the illustrations of 

 tlsese zodiacal influences over the Popes are so 

 horribly filthy, or so comically indecent, that to 

 reprint them would be an outrage. Of the few 

 that may be quoted, I may cite this very Taurus, 

 under whose influence are said to be the " neck 

 and throat" of such persons as are born under 

 that sign. The illustration then says, by way of 

 proof: " Innocent the Third was the Town-bull 

 of Rome, who had 16 bastards; 8 males, 8 fe- 

 males." One other illustration may suffice : — 



" Pisces, heels and feet. Under this sign was 

 born Caelestine the Third, who in a Popish bra- 

 vado crowned Henry the Emperour with his 

 feet." 



Allow me to add here a note on a somewhat 

 cognate subject, — the gender of the sun and moon. 

 These differ in gender in various countries. In 



France, the sun is masculine ; the moon, feminine. 

 In Germany, the sun is feminine, and the moon 

 masculine. May not this confusion be traced to 

 a similar confusion in the old Eastern mythology ? 

 On Olympus, Artemis, the goddess killer of the 

 stag, was the sister of Helios, the Sun ; and by 

 right of that affinity became Selene, or the Moon. 

 In India, Soma (the Moon) [was an hermaphro- 

 dite deity, and he is to be traced to Egypt, where 

 this godship was hailed and sacrificed to by the 

 men as a masculine, and by the women as a fe- 

 male deity. Our " man in the moon " was, in 

 India, the " dusky dur on the disk of the moon," 

 wherein we recognise a sign of Diana. The double 

 gender of the Egyptian god may perhaps be traced 

 to the fact that a fusion of two or more deities 

 occasionally took place, for political purposes; 

 while, on the other hand, a conqueror sometimes 

 split a god into two or more parts. Amosis, for 

 example, thus split asunder the first Amun. Of 

 the left half he made a female figure, called the 

 mother. He called himself the son of the two 

 halves, and clothing himself in the vesture of 

 Phtha, the god of Memphis (a process which de- 

 graded this last deity to an inferior rank), he 

 added the figure of the moon as a symbol, and, 

 the moon being fickle and evanescent, gave to it 

 the title of " effeminate " or " weak ; " in the 

 Greek name, Xwro-t? (Chonsis). To this confusion 

 worse confounded may, perhaps, be traced the 

 diversity of gender to which I have alluded. 



The heroes and heroines of legends have under- 

 gone changes somewhat similar. As an example, 

 I will refer to the charming story of Hero and 

 Leander, and the New Zealand legend of Hine- 

 Moa and Tutanekai. According to the European 

 tradition it was the boy-lover who — 



"... from before him put 

 The parting waves," 

 while, 



" . • . by a window the sweet maiden sat. 

 Glad with grave thoughts." 



But in the Polynesian Mythology (see Governor 

 Grey's book with that title) it is the loving girl 

 Hine-Moa who dashes into the waves and crosses 

 the boisterous strait, as soon as her ear is struck 

 by the soft measures from the horn of Tutanekai, 

 which calls across the waters the maiden " as 

 beautiful as the wild white hawk ... as graceful 

 as the sky white crane." 



My memory suggests to me, at the end of this 

 gossiping Note, an instance where a tradition is 

 momentarily annihilated through the forgetful- 

 ness of a translator. Thus, in two passages in the 

 9th book of the Odyssey, does Pope destroy the 

 characteristic feature of the Cyclops Polyphemus, 

 whose peculiarity consisted in the one circular eye 

 set in the centre of his forehead : — 



" Fools that ye are (the savage thus replies, 

 His inward fury blazing in his eyes)" 



