Read The Major Works (English Library) Online
Authors: Sir Thomas Browne
The Major Works (English Library) (81 page)
12
. Offering two courses.
13
. Luminously.
14
. ‘A straight line is the shortest [i.e. most direct distance between two points]’ (Browne marg., quoting the Latin of the proverbial utterance derived from Euclid).
15
. As above,
p. 74, note 69
.
16
. ‘bonye, or of a bone’ (Elyot).
17
. The Seven Deadly Sins, here associated with the passage across the Styx (as above,
p. 301, note 23
), in turn related to the Nile with the obvious implications of God’s judgements against the Egyptians.
18
. As above,
p. 125, note 324
.
19
. ‘
Arbor Goa
or
ficus Indica
, whose branches send down shoots which root in the ground, from whence there successively rise others, till one Tree becomes a wood’ (Browne marg.). Milton’s similar reference to the Indian fig-tree (
Paradise Lost
, IX, 1101–12) was doubtless adapted from its celebrated description by Ralegh (
pp. 137–8
).
20
. Displeasures with (as above,
p. 411, note 104
).
21
. ’
Eπιχαιρɛκακíα
(Browne marg.). The vice is malignant delight at another’s misfortune (Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics
, II, vi, 18, and vii 15).
23
. ‘deaf’ (Blount).
24
. Sirius – ‘the swart Star’ of Milton’s
Lycidas
(l. 138: cf.
above, note 22
) – under whose malign influence vegetation was said to wither.
25
. ‘
Sapiens dominabitur Astris
’ (Browne marg.): a proverb, translated in the text.
26
. ‘
Adam
thought to be created in the State of Man, about thirty years Old’ (Browne marg.). Cf.
above, p. 109
: ‘Some Divines count
Adam
30 yeares old at his creation’.
27
. ‘Of one time and age’ (Cockeram).
28
. Company.
29
. ‘
Attalus
made a Garden which contained only venemous Plants’ (Browne marg.). Cf.
above, p. 328
.
30
. Like Theseus, who on returning home forgot to change his black sails to white, and so caused the suicide of his father Aegeus.
31
. i.e. medieval scholastic theologians (cf. above,
p. 69, note 39
).
32
. Daniel 4.32.
33
. i.e. with the ever-present God.
34
. As above,
p. 263, note 2
.
35
. ‘
Don Sebastian de Covarrubias
writ 3 Centuries [i.e. three hundred] of moral Emblems in
Spanish
. In the 88
th
of the second Century he sets down two Faces averse, and conjoined
Janus
-like, the one a Gallant Beautiful Face, the other a Death’s Head Face, with this Motto out of Ovid’s
Metamorphosis
[II, 551],
Quid fuerim quid simque vide
’ – i.e. ‘See what I used to be and what I am now’ (Browne marg.).
36
. ‘attaining’ (Blount).
37
. Diminishes.
38
. i.e. inadvertence: inattention.
39
. Cf. above,
p. 425, note 32
.
40
. Impediments.
41
. i.e. in rings.
42
. i.e. the Black Sea.
43
. i.e. ‘with shadows all round us. The Periscii are those, who, living within the polar circle, see the sun move round them, and consequently project their shadows in all directions’ (
SJ
).
44
. i.e. coarse. The wondrous Colossus of Rhodes is described by Pliny, XXXIV, 18.
45
. CF. Matthew 13.45: ‘the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant-man seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it’.
46
. ‘A Book so entituled wherein are sundry horrid accounts’ (Browne marg.). It was published in 1597.
47
. Like the tyrants in the stories related by Seneca (
On Anger
, III, 40) and Diogenes Laertius (
Lives
, IX, 10), respectively.
48
. i.e. iniquitous in commutative fashion. The phrase is opposed to ‘commutative justice’ (see above,
p. 157, note 117
).
49
. 1 Samuel 20.20.
50
. As above,
p. 293, note 70
.
51
. ‘You may shout so as to outdo Stentor, or at least as loudly as Homer’s Mars’ (Browne marg., quoting the Latin of Juvenal,
Satires
, XIII, 112–13). Cf.
Iliad
, V, 785 and 858.
52
. ‘A soft Tongue breaketh the bones’ (Browne marg.): Proverbs 25.15.
53
. Pertaining to Caesar. Cf. above,
p. 402, note 64
.
54
. ‘vengeance’ (Elyot).
55
. i.e. in the sense that history’s 6,000 years are about to expire (see above,
p. 439, note 31
).
56
. 2 Samuel 10.4.
57
. See above,
p. 313, note 44
.
58
. Such as Circe’s reduction of Odysseus’s companions to swine (
Odyssey
, X, 237 ff.)
60
. Dancing area.
61
. i.e. telescopes, here used metaphorically.
62
. i.e. organs of vision.
63
. As above,
p. 351, note 51
.
64
. ‘To the utmost point of distance from earth and earthly things’ (
SJ
).
65
. ‘border’ (Elyot).
66
. i.e. the crystalline lens.
67
. Referring to the Areopagus near the Acropolis at Athens, established as a judicial tribunal in the seventh to sixth centuries
B
.
C
.
68
. Revelation 21.23.
69
. Our ultimate vision of God.
70
. 1 Kings 18.44.
71
. John 21.18–19.
72
. i.e. in that he had prophesied its fall (Jeremiah 21.7).
73
. Binding oaths ‘by the Styx’, as in
Iliad
, XV, 38 (
M
).
74
. Few.
75
. ‘Which after many hundred years was found burning under ground, and went out as soon as the air came to it’ (Browne marg.). The improbable lamp was unearthed
c
. 1500.
76
. ‘
Jovem Lapidem jurare
’ (Browne marg.): ‘the person making the oath would throw the stone away, wishing he too might be cast out if the oath was not kept’ (
M
).
77
. ‘The vessel, into which the ticket of condemnation or acquittal was cast’ (
SJ
).
78
. The hyperbolic oath is related by Knolles (Browne marg.).
79
. So Quintus Curtius, VII, 8 (Browne marg.).
80
. Tormenting.
81
. ‘dissimulation’ (Elyot).
82
. Driving force (
M
).
83
. i.e. not the Roman code (see above,
p. 269, note 17
) but the two tables of stone on which the Decalogue was engraven (Deuteronomy 34.1).
84
. i.e. the followers of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, respectively.
85
. ‘That is, according to the rules laid down in our
SAVIOUR
’
S
sermon on the mount’ (
SJ
).
86
. i.e. lived until his 100th year – ‘the sixtieth part’ of history’s duration (as above,
p. 439, note 31
).
87
. ‘want or privation’ (Blount).
88
. e.g. ‘all is vanity’ (Ecclesiastes 1.2).
89
. Demetrius, who made silver shrines for Diana at Ephesus, told his fellow craftsmen: ‘by this craft we have our wealth’ (Acts 19.24–5).
90
. Conflicts.
91
. Non-repeatable.
92
. Short course (in racing).
93
. i.e. impersonations (referring to play-acting: see next note).
95
. Seneca,
On Consolation to Marcia
, XXII, 3 (Browne marg., quoting the Latin).
96
.
On Old Age
, XXIII.
97
. On the commonplace notion that man was created to repair the ‘detriment’ of the expelled angels, see
Paradise Lost
, VII, 154–61. Cf.
§95
.
98
. Job 38.4 and 7 (Browne marg.): the question God puts to Job.
99
. Emergences – i.e. from non-being into being. ‘Ideal’ alludes as always to the Ideas in God’s mind (above,
p. 31
).
101
. Isaiah 51.6.
102
. As above,
p. 119, note 290
.
103
. Suetonius,
Nero
, XXXVIII.
104
. As above,
p. 131, note 348
.
105
. Or indeed Milton: ‘a third part of the gods’ is said to have fallen (
Paradise Lost
, VI, 156), on the basis of the claim (in Revelation 12.4) that the dragon ‘drew the third part of the stars’.
106
. See above,
p. 439, note 31
.
107
. The bracketed sentences are also in the concluding paragraph of
A Letter to a Friend
, above, pp. 413–14.
108
. In the penultimate paragraph of
Hydriotaphia
, above, p. 314.
1
. i.e. sleep. See
above, p. 311, note 35
.
2
. ‘
somnia Liparitana
, turbulent dreams as men have observed to have in the Isle of Lipara, abounding in sulphurous & minerall exhalations, sounds, smoakes & fires’ (Browne marg.). Cf. above,
p. 427, note 46
.
3
. On Solomon’s sleep, see Proverbs 3.24; on Jacob’s dream of the ladder to heaven: Genesis 28.11 ff.; and on Adam’s sleep which resulted in Eve’s creation: Genesis 2.21.
4
. In his short treatise
Of Prophecy in Sleep
.
5
. On these authorities on oneirocriticism – the art of interpreting dreams – see the dictionary of names, below, pp. 513 ff.
6
. Genesis 41.8. Browne’s expectations of the Egyptians centres on his approbation of Hermes Trismegistus (above, p. 30).
7
. Daniel 2.5.
8
. A marginal note, in providing the Greek word
σ
υρος
(
satyros
), suggests the intended pun (
sa-tyros
, literally ‘Tyre will be thine’).
9
. ‘Dactylos’ (Browne marg.) means – as the text makes clear – both finger and the fruit of the date-palm.
10
. Plutarch,
Cicero
, XLIV.
11
. ‘The reputation of Crassus for wealth and avariciousness was matched by that of Antony for liberality’ (
E
).
12
. Daniel 1.12–16.
13
. Plutarch,
Dion
, IX.
14
. ‘Plutarch’ (Browne marg.) in
Demetrius
, XXVII.
15
. i.e. arrears, payments due.
16
. i.e. swooned, fainted.
17
. e.g. Tertullian (Browne marg.).
18
. ‘
Sunt geminæ somni portæ
. The Ivory & the horny gate; false dreames out of the ivory gate, true out of the horny’ (Browne marg.). The statement appeals to the remarks on true and false dreams in the
Odyssey
, XIX, 560–65.
1
. Browne’s
Christian Morals
(see headnote, above).