424
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. 11. NOV. 20, iw*.
Jane Arnold (afterwards Mrs. W. E. Forster),
Lady Byron, and Miss Harriet Martineau
sent contributions to this volume.
Emerson's verses are in the 'Liberty Bell' for 1851. There are four translations from Hafiz. In the first, entitled ' The Phoenix,' that fabulous bird is taken as the symbol of the soul. The next is on 'Faith.' Then follows one on * The Poet ' :
Hoard knowledge in thy coffers, The lightest load to bear ; Ingots of gold, and diamonds, Let others drag with care. The devil's snares are strong, Yet have I God in need ; And if I had not God to friend, What can the devil speed ?
Courage ! Hafiz, though not thine
Gold wedge and silver ore,
More worth to thee the gift of song,
And the clear insight more.
I truly have no treasure,
Yet have I rich content :
The first from Allah to the Shah,
The last to Hafiz went.
The serene and proud contentment of the last verse finds further expression in the quatrain addressed * To Himself ' :
Hafiz, speak not of thy need,
Are not these verses thine ? Then, all the poets are agreed,
Thou canst at nought repine.
Later in the volume occurs 'Word and Deed,' a translation from Nizaini :
Whilst roses bloomed along the plain,
The Nightingale to the Falcon said,
" Why of all birds must thou be dumb?
With closed mouth thou utterest,
Though dying, no last word to man :
Yet sit'st thou on the hand of caliphs,
And feedest on the grouse's breast ;
Whilst I, who hundred thousand jewels
Squander in a single tone,
Lo ! I feed myself with worms,
And my dwelling is a thorn."
The Falcon answered, " Be all ear :
Thou seest I 'm dumb ; be thou, too, dumb.
I experienced in affairs,
See fifty things, say never one.
But thee the people prizes not,
Who, doing nothing, say a hundred ;
To me, appointed to the chase,
The king's hand gives the grouse's breast,
Whilst a chatterer like thee
Must gnaw worms in the thorns. Farewell ! "
This is certainly a fine poetical illustration of the importance of the point of view.
WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Manchester.
" ASTRONOMER." Froissart informs us that in the year 1339 (the year preceding that of the battle of Sluys) the French and English
I armies were facing each other, but though
King Philippe's was considerably larger than
that of Edward, the former refused battle,
because King Robert of Sicily, who was a
great astronomer, had warned him that if he
then engaged the King of England, he would
be defeated. It may be as well to point out
that the Sicily over which this great student
of the heavens reigned was not the island,
but the mainland portion of what had been
the two Sicilies, subsequently called the
kingdom of Naples. This Robert was of the
house of Anjou ; the insular Sicily was then
ruled by Peter of the house of Aragon.
Astronomical or astrological predictions, however, are of little interest in these days. My principal concern now is with the development of the word astronomer. In Froissart the word here used is astro- nomien, and this (sometimes in the form astronomyen, occasionally shortened into astromyen) preceded in English, Dr. Murray tells us, the modern astronomer, as it did in French the word astronome. Thus Gower, in 1393, writes, " Which was an astronomien, and eke a great magicien." But there seems to have been another transition form. In the translation of Froissart by John Bour- chier, Lord Berners (which appeared in 1523), we find in the above passage astronomyer, a form also used by Maundeville (or Mande- ville) in 1366, and Caxton in 1480. The former has "In that Contree ben the gode Astronomyeres." But Dr. Murray gives no later specimen of its use ; and so early as 1530 John Palsgrave, in his ' Lesclarcisse- ment de la Langue Francoyse' (a sort of dictionary to teach French to the English), uses the modern form astronomer.
Perhaps, whilst on this subject, I may just allude to an abortive attempt to coin a feminine form of the word, which Dr. Murray either overlooked or did not think it worth while to mention. Sir John Herschel ('Out- lines,' 597, at p. 405 of the tenth edition), alluding to the discovery of the sixth comet of 1847 by Miss Mitchell and Madame Riimker, speaks of the priority having been with "the American astronomess." This word is certainly an ugly one, and did not take. No substitute was proposed, nor was one thought necessary. The word authoress is almost obsolete, and though governess remains, it has, I believe, never been used except in the technical sense of a female teacher. A peculiar feminine form of a word is songstress, which was first used by Thomson in the * Seasons ' (' Summer,' 746) as applied to the nightingale, in which the needless ess is added to the old form songster,
