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De Hercle, Mehercle, Ceterisque id Genus Particulis De Hercle, Mehercle, ceterisque id genus particulis. By Dr Anders Gagnér. Greifswald, 1920.

E. A. Sonnenschein

The Classical Review / Volume 35 / Issue 5-6 / August 1921, pp 117 - 118 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00015067, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00015067

How to cite this article: E. A. Sonnenschein (1921). The Classical Review, 35, pp 117-118 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00015067

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 31 May 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 117 were covered with a curious silvery, should try to make baskets from flocculent network, which would have bramble shoots seems to me incredible, made a gift worthy of any lover. In although possibly not more incredible his note on Georg. I. 74, ' laetum siliqua than the use of Butcher's Broom (Ruscus quassante legumen,' Mr. Sargeaunt would aculeatus) for tying up vines, as Mr. appear to go out of his way to find a Sargeaunt points out in his note on that recondite meaning when he follows plant. Wild Butcher's Broom is com- Martyn in seeing a reference to thresh- mon in South Devonshire, and in my ing the crop. Surely ' siliqua quassante' undergraduate days there used to be only refers to the dry pod rustling in plenty of it in Magdalen Walks. the wind before picking. Ulva, Georg. III. 175, et al. Mr. Sar- (Eel. II. 18),'AIba ligustra cadunt.' I geaunt identifies this plant as Cladium am entirely at one with Mr. Sargeaunt mariscus—the fen sedge. His. descrip- in his detestation of privet. Its only tion of the plant certainly suits all the redeeming feature is that it is the passages which he quotes, but, on the food of the larva of one of the most other hand, both Pliny XVII. 35, and beautiful of our Lepidoptera, i.e. the Columella IV. 13, mention it as being privet hawk moth, but the Romans, as used for vine ties, and both lay stress on well as Tennyson, seem to have admired the fact that the ties made therefrom the hue of its flowers, e.g. Martial 1.115, are soft, and so do not injure the young ' puella candidior ligustro.' On pp. 87 shoots. and 89 Mr. Sargeaunt talks of ' the The description of Cladium mariscus heaviness' of the under-surface of the does not seem to fit these facts, so may leaves of both olive and oleaster. Should not ' ulva ' be used at times for different not this read 'hoariness'? He has kinds of sedge, despite Mr. Sargeaunt's made an obvious slip on p. 97, where dictum ? The notes on ' Vitis ' are most he says that the capsules of the poppy informing, and I would beg Mr. Sar- abound ' in opium or hashish.' The geaunt not only to bring out a second drug hashish is derived from Cannabis edition of his book, but also to bring indica, and has nothing to do with the out an annotated edition of Keightley. poppy. He would do it admirably, and the book Georg. I. 266: ' Nunc facilis rubea would be valuable. texatur fiscina virga.' In 1530 Sir Thomas Elyot published Mr. Sargeaunt discusses Servius's a book on educational reform, called The reading, ' Rubea,' and the reference to Boke of the Governour, wherein he Rubi. He also tells us that Pliny says, remarks,' Lorde God ! howe many gode rthe withies of the bramble with the and clene wittes of children be now a prickles removed were used to make days perrished by ignorant schole- baskets.' I have been unable to trace maisters!' So long as schoolmasters this reference, but I did find a passage exist who can write like Mr. Sargeaunt, (N.H. XVI. 69) where he says that they this sorrowful complaint will not be were used for tying up vines : recisisque heard. aculeis rubi alligant.' That anyone H. P. CHOLMELEY.

DE HERCLE, MEHERCLE, CETERISQUE ID GENUS PARTICULIS. De Hercle, Mehercle, ceterisque id genus pol, and the compounds mehercle, edepol, particulis. By Dr. ANDERS GAGNER. medius fidius, ecastor, mecastor; also edi, Greifswald, 1920. medi (Titinius ill.)- The derivation of some of these swearing formulae is THIS is a thoroughly sound and scien- notoriously difficult, in Latin as in other tific piece of work, such as we have languages (c/. p. 44, n. 9). But I have learned to expect from Sweden: the no fault to find with GagneYs deriva- writer is a Docent in the University of tions : the me he regards not as a Uppsala. He discusses the origin, vocative (for mi, Skutsch), but as the prosody, and use of the words hercle, accusative—the fay expression being, as NO. CCLXXXII. VOL. XXXV. n8 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW Festus said, ita me Hercules {Castor) special relation to a particular word in iuuet. The vocative hercle (from an the sentence (Lex. Plaut. pp. 451, 445); o-stem, 'H/>a«\o-) is explained as due p. 19 as to the quantity edepol, which to contamination with a form of invoca- rests only on two doubtful passages tion—me, Hercule (Castor), iuua or iuuato. (Cas. 326, Mil. 1255) ; p. 139 as to the The e of edepol, ecastor, edi he regards reading in Rud. 1413. We are all liable with Persson as a ' particula invocativa' to mistakes—even the youngest of us ; of pronominal origin (e or

OPERA HACTENUS INEDITA ROGERI BACONI. Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, works of Roger Bacon now being issued Fasc. V. Secretum Secretorum cum from the Press of Bacon's own Uni- Glossis et Notulis. Tractatus Brevis versity an edition of the pseudo-Aristo- et Utilis ad declarandum quedam telian Secretum Secretorum, translated obscure dicta. Nunc primum edidit from Arabic into Latin, as given in a ROBERT STEELE. Accedunt Versio Bodleian MS. of the thirteenth century, Anglicana ex Arabico edita per A. S. with Bacon's introduction and notes. FULTON, versio vetusta Anglo-Nor- He has added an introduction and notes manica nunc primum edita. One vol. of his own, a literal version by Mr. 8vo. Pp. lxiv+318. Oxonii e Typo- Ismail Ali and Mr. Fulton—very useful grapheo Clarendoniano, 1920. 28s. as a key to the Latin—and a mediaeval net. French rendering from a MS. at Paris. The Secretum Secretorum belongs to MR. STEELE has added to the quickly the apocryphal literature relating to increasing tale of hitherto unpublished Alexander and Aristotle. The earliest 1 My note on Rud. 1365 should be corrected in this sense. But Gagner is not aware that who followed my lead ! The word occurs only when I wrote it (1891) the disyllabic scansion six times in Plautus and Terence. To my held the field, as shown by Fleckeisen's reading examples add Stich. 250 Ego illo mehdrcle, etc. of Ter. Eun. 67, 411 (based on Bentley), and 2 I heartily accept hiatus at this point of the Schoell's of Most. 720. The purpose of my note verse, when there is anything like a pause to was to assert (for the first time) the trisyllabic justify it. scansion; yet Gagner stones me and Lindsay, 3 Gagner does not believe in hercP (p. 58).