S40 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Na 256. 



DANTE TACITUS. 



* Noi eravam partiti gia da ello, 



Ch' io vidi due ghiacciati in una buca 

 Si che I'un capo aU'altro era cappello, 



E come '1 pan per fame si manduca, 

 Cosi '1 sovran li denti all'altro pose 

 La 've '1 cervel s'aggiunge con la mica 



Non altrimenti Tideo si rose 



Le tempie a Menalippo, per disdegno, 

 Che quei faceva '1 teschio, e I'altre cose. 



tu, che mostri per si bestial segno, 

 Odio sovra colui, che tu ti mangi, 

 Dimmi '1 percbfe, diss' io 



La bocca soUevo dal fiero pasto 

 Quel peccator, forbendola a' capelli 

 Del capo ch'egli avea diretro guasto 



Poi comincio 



Quand'ebbe dette ci6, con gli occhi torti 

 Riprese '1 teschio misero co'denti, 

 Che furo all' osso, come d' un can forti." 

 " Count Ugolino's repast on the head of the 

 Archbishop of Pisa," Inferno, canto xxxii. 

 1. 124—135. ; xxxiii. 1. 1—4. and 76—78. 



" We now had left him, passing on our way. 

 When I beheld two spirits by the ice 

 Pent in one hollow, that the head of one 

 Was cowl unto the other ; and as bread 

 Is raven'd up through hunger, the uppermost 

 Did so apply his fangs to the other's brain 

 Where the spine joins it. Not more furiously 

 On Menalippus' temples Tydeus gnaw'd 

 Than on that skull and on its garbage he. 

 'O thou! who show'st so beastly sign of hate 

 'Gainst him thou prey'st on, let me hear,' said I, 

 ' The cause.' ..... 

 His jaws uplifting from their fell repast, 

 That sinner wip'd them on the hairs o' the head, 

 Which he behind had mangled, then began. 



Thus having spoke, 

 Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth 

 He fasten'd like a mastiff's 'gainst the bone 

 Firm and unjdelding." — Carj''s Translation. 



The episode of Count Ugolino in tlie union of 

 tlie horrible and pathetic, is one of those passages 

 which have raised Dante to an equality with the 

 first poets of ancient or modern times, for to this 

 lofty eminence his countrymen have elevated him ; 

 and I suspect our own poet Milton, in his Hebraic 

 sublimity, is the only modern poet who can be 

 classed with him. The terrible repast I thought 

 could only exist in the imagination of a poet ; but 

 I noticed lately in the History of Tacitus, bookiv. 

 chap. 42., that the imaginary did not go beyond 

 the real. At a meeting of the Roman Senate im- 

 mediately after the death of Vitellius, a senator 

 called Aquilius Regains, charged with being an 

 informer in the bad times of Nero, was directly 

 accused, that as soon as Galba was slain, he gave 

 a sum of money to the murderer of Piso, named 

 by Galba his associate and successor of the go- 

 vernment of the empire, and that throwing him- 

 self on the body he gnawed Piso's head with his 

 teeth. The original at some farther length is 

 l^is: 



" Oceurrit truci oratione Curtius Montanus, eo usque 

 progwssus, ut, post csedem Galbae, datam interfectori Piso- 



nis pecuniam a Regulo appetitumquc morsu Pisonis caput, 

 objectaret. Hoc certe, inquit, Nero non coegit, ncc dig- 

 nitatem, aut salutem, ilia sasvitia redemisti." 



Dante's text mentions a similar atrocity of the 

 Greek Tydeus on the skull of Menalippus, in the 

 early poetic war of the Chiefs of Thebes ,• and 

 commentators refer for this to Statins, book viii. 

 ad finem. Still the coincidence appears to me 

 sufficiently striking to merit notice, the rather 

 from the high rank of the writer of the Divine 

 Comedy and the annalist of Tiberius and Nero. 

 I do not know if the History of Tacitus was dis- 

 covered when Dante lived. The first five books 

 of his Annals were found in Germany, during the 

 pontificate of Leo X., and printed by his directions 

 in a complete edition of Tacitus' works in 1515. 

 The last six books of the Annals, and first five 

 books of his History (the fourth book containing 

 the passage quoted), were discovered before and 

 printed at Venice about 1468. (Roscoe's Leo X~, 

 vol. ii. p. 276. ed. 4to.) Were the passage in 

 Tacitus known to Dante, the poet has made such 

 ennobling use of it as to make the historian his 

 debtor. Tasso's noble and thoughtful lines on 

 Carthage have not the less merit that critics have 

 traced in them the famous letter written by Servius 

 Sulpicius to Cicero in his exile, and more imme- 

 diately a passage of Sannazarius. W. H. F. 

 Kirkwall. 



COULCKltllAL CHLANGES OF WORDS. 



In a communication made to "N.& Q." (Vol.ix., 

 page 113.), it was observed that many colloquial 

 mistakes may be accounted for on this principle: 

 a word is purposely exchanged for another of 

 similar sound, because this change is thought by 

 the speaker to correct an error, and recover a lost 

 meaning. Sometimes the two words are alike, 

 more or less, in their derivation ; sometimes they 

 are entirely unlike ; e. g. Collection is like Colla- 

 tion : on the other hand, there is a certain artichoke 

 which resembles the Passion-flower ; the latter is 

 called by the Italians Gira al Sole, and from this 

 phrase, which expresses a peculiarity of one plant, 

 real or fanciful, the Jerusalem artichoke takes its 

 name. 



The following dialogue is drawn up as a more 

 lively illustration, than a mere list could be, of 

 several of these colloquial mistakes : — 



A. Now you are come home, let us hear where 

 you have been, ami what you have done. 



B. Well, we set off in a gig from the Swan with 

 two Necks (=nicks, i. e. miirks), just pulled up for 

 half an hour at the Bag o' Nails (=Bacchanals), 

 took a cold collection (= collation) at the Heart 

 and Compass (=Hart encompassed), and staid 

 there all the next day. 



A. Did they feed you well there ? 



