Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/24

18 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. vi. JULY 7,1900. ing separate headings to matter cognate with information volunteered under totally dif- ferent titles ; though I have always felt that the difficulty could be minimized by some such process as that indicated above. It is, how- ever, with the subject-matter of the note that I am solely concerned here. MR. MARCHANT (1) states : " This demon [Pluto] is not Dite." Quite so; but it is astonishing what con- fusion is afloat on this point, from which even Venturi is not free, in so far as (accord- ing to Lombard!) he accuses Dante of con- founding Plutus with Pluto. The former (son of lasion and Ceres) was the " Signore delle Ilichezze," and custodian of the Fourth Circle ; the latter (son of Saturn and Api and brother-in-law to Plutus) was Hovriav, Lucifer, whom the poet calls Dite, the " imperador del doloroso regno." Pluto, therefore, and Dite are one and the same not so Plutus and Dite. By "Pluto" Dante means Plutus, the formerbeing the Italianized form of the latter. Had he used the Latin form "il Venturi ed altri spositori" would have had no cause to gird at him ; albeit he would have thereby marred the vernacular Dante knew his ' vEneid' too well to con found the two names. And, as Scartazzin pertinently observes:— " Lo Dite e laggiu confitto nella ghiaccia etern (' Inf.,' xxxiv. 20), ncm potevano trovarlo qul al ingresso del quarto cerchio." Very properly, however, to obviate mis- understandings, Plumptre, Tomlinson, Cary, and Ford give " Plutus " in their renderings. With Shakespeare it is otherwise. An editor's business there is to modernize, not to translate, still less to tamper. Nevertheless, Shake- speare would have been more correct had he written " Plutus," though his not having done so neither proves his ignorance of mythology nor his possession of "little Latin" — any more than in Dante's case. I marvel at MR. PERCY SIMPSON'S re-echo (at first reference) of Jonson's pedantic sneer, seeing that the weight of evidence is much the other way. (2) MR. MARCHANT asks "why the fiery ' citta dolente' is the city of Dis, who does not dwell there." The question is a fair one, which I think is fairly answered by the " basso inferno " in which Dis lay. Scartaz- zini's note on the expression explains my meaning:— " Basso : in cui si puniscono i peccati di malizia • di bestiality, mentre nell' alto inferno fuori di Dite soil" puniti i peccati d' incontinezza." Dite roamed, as he held sway over, the whole territory of the " doloroso regno," but his capital was Dis, the symbol of and locus penitential of his own besetting sin of malice, though his ordinary habitat was, according to Dante, in the "ghiaccia eterna" of the Ninth Circle amongst traitors. But Lucifer was not the only non-resident monarch. J. B. McQovERN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester. I note a further corroboration of this Shakespearian usage in ' Grim the Collier of >oyden ; or, the Devil and his Dame : with The Devil and Saint Dunston,' published in Gratia) Theatrales,' 1662, as the work of I. T., but identified by Mr. Fleay with Haughton's The Devil and his Dame,' acted in 1600. In Act I. i. Malbecco's ghost is tried by Pluto, Vlinos, vEacus. and Rhadamantus, and ad- dresses Pluto thus:— I was (with thanks to your great bounty) bred A wealthy Lord, whilst that I Hv'd on Earth. PERCY SIMPSON. " PROOSHAN BLUE " IN ' PICKWICK ' (9th S. v. 452).—I have often heard mention of the "blue-bag" (but never of the "blue-rag"X being the small piece of flannel, forming a sort of bag, in which is necessarily tied up the small cake of " blue " purchased from the oilman for use by the " washer-woman " (not " wash-woman ") in bluing the water for the final rinsing of the clothes or household linen, <fec., just before hanging the same out to dry. The one " blue " used for the purpose in my younger years was generally known as "thumb" or "fig" blue (from its shape resembling a green fig, or rather that of a kidney, with a thumb indentation in the outer centre). It was sometimes called "stone" blue, but never to my knowledge "Prussian" —being, indeed, an indigo—blue. That kind has, however, since the discovery of making cheaply a fictitious ultramarine, given place> in a great measure to the last-named " blue," made into small square blocks or round balls, and known by the addition of the respective makers' names, but used in like manner to the older sort, which many laundresses still rightly prefer, as mixing more thoroughly with the water. These "blues " are used for the purpose of overcoming the yellowish cast which the soda employed in washing imparts to the linen, and of giving thereto and causing it to retain a pearly whiteness, or "good colour," as the women call it. For precisely the same reason the house decorator uses powdered ultramarine or " blue-black " in the whitewash for ceilings. The "blue-bag" in its wet state has also been applied to allay the irritation caused by the sting of a wasp. I can testify to the fact—although it is not to the point—that "Prussian" was and is still pronounced by the vulgar, and by some