166
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. in. MAKCH 3, 1917.
to go to the symbol " Fate " on p. 36 and
turn up two cards. Let us suppose we have
turned up two kings. In that- case we are
directed to p. 8, to the via croce (cross-roads),
and have to turn up a third card. If this
happens to be a knave we are sent to p. 34,
to the philosopher Thales, and directed to
pick out a king and to turn up a fourth card.
The last pair of cards will then indicate the
- plaee where the reply can be found. It will
thus be seen that Marcolini's style is totally
"different from Fanti's.
The most ancient ' Book of Fortune ' 'known is a French book, bearing the title
- Le plaisant Jeu du Dodechedron de For-
tune,' written and invented by " feu maistre Jean de Meun [or Meung], excellent poete francois du temps du Roy Charles le Quint " of France, as described on the title-page of the revised and rearranged edition published
- at Lyon in 1581. Although his book was
mot printed till 1556, it was composed by the poet about two centuries before that date -for Charles V., King of France, surnamed " the Wise." The dodechedron was a special die, and had twelve pentagonal faces. Ac- cording to the result of the throw of the dodechedron the inquirer was referred to one of twelve " houses." The book reached several editions in French, and was translated into English under the title of ' The Dodeche- dron of Fortune,' by Sir W. B., Knight, and printed in London by John Pindley in 1613. It will be sufficient to describe the English version to show the working of the oracle in this case. There is in the book a diagram of a chequer board, consisting of 12 times 12 fields, which are numbered consecutively from 1 to 144, starting from the field in the left-hand corner on the top and proceeding -downwards till 12, then back to the top of the second vertical column (field 13), and -thence again downwards to the bottom of -the column till 24, and so on from left to right. The 12 diagonal fields, corresponding fin position to that of the bar sinister in heraldry, are marked, besides their own special Arabic numerals, with the Roman 'numerals I. (at the top) consecutively to XII. >(in the bottom corner), and represent the "12 houses celestiall." Besides these squares in the diagram a whole page of questions ^(12 questions on each page) is devoted to each house, the questions being numbered from 1 to 12 consecutively. These 12 pages are followed by 144 pages of replies, 12 replies on -each page. " Strange words " figure on the top of each page, but the worthy knight who translated the book into English does not iknow their meaning or what language they
are in ; he reproduces them as he found them
" in the first original of the author."* He
" esteems " they are " invented words." To
explain the working of the oracle on an
example, the translator has chosen the
seventh house (Hadigat), which we find
marked vii. 79 in the diagram. The fifth
question on the corresponding page is :
" Whether there will be cause of jealousy
or no? " To find the reply we have to start
from field 79, counting this as field 1, and
proceed along the horizontal row to the
fifth field, which bears the number 127.
Now upon this field " put your finger and
throw the ' dodechedron,' " which " chaun-
ceth " to fall with, say, the number 8 on
the top. We are then directed to proceed
down the vertical column and count 8
squares ; but as there are only 6 squares when
the bottom is reached, we are told to go to the
top of the same vertical column and move
down two more squares, which leads us to
the square marked 122. Next go to p. 122,
verse 8, and the answer found there will
be:
Be not jealous nor misdoubt not thy wife For shee shall be true all daies of her life.
On referring to a later revised edition of the French original, say the one published at Lyons in 1581, we find that nearly all the " strange words " or names on the tops of the pages have disappeared. The 12 maisons are named after 12 tarok cards, and the 144 fenestres in the diagram are marked with one letter (a to m) on the top row, and with two letters Iba to mm) in the other squares. The 144 dozen replies are to be found under the names of angles, meteoric phenomena, and celestial bodies, the names of a dozen worthies (Galenus, Josephus, Calchas, &c.), of the 10 Sibyls besides Cassandra and Hildegardis, of mammals, birds, fishes, trees, flowers, gems and other minerals. Only 13 to 24 bear strange names, like Aldeboran, &c. To simplify matters, the editor suggests the use of two dice instead of the dodechedron, but this would exclude all replies dependent upon the casting of 1 with the dodechedron. Working out the same example as in the English edition, we are sent to gl in the dia- gram, and indue course find under " CXXII. Le Saphire," as before, the answer VIII. :
N'aye aucun doute de ta femme.
L. L. K.
(To be concluded.}
- He means the Paris edition of 1556, "nouvelle-
ment mis en lumiere'par F. G. L." In the later editions the " strange words " have disappeared.
