"Cursed Hebenon" (Or "Hebona")Author(s): Marshall MontgomerySource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Jul., 1920), pp. 304-306Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3714814 .

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HENRY BROOKE'S 'GUSTAVUS VASA': A CORRECTION.

Through the kindness of Mr W. J. Lawrence my attention has been drawn to an error in my article on Henry Brooke's Gustavus Vasa

(Mod. Lang. Rev., vol. xiv, pp. 173-182). Certain misstatements are made on p. 177 regarding the performance of the play in Dublin.

1. 'Permission was given for a performance in Dublin.' No such

permission was necessary, because the censorship which banned the play in England, did not exist in Ireland.

2. 'This actually took place in 1742.' The original authority for this seems to be Hitchcock's Historical View of the Irish Stage, according to which Gustavus Vasa was acted at Dublin in February, 1741 (whether new or old style is meant is uncertain) for several nights with great success. Hitchcock's mistake probably arose from the fact that on Feb. 8, 1741-2, Brooke produced a new tragedy, The Betrayer of his

Country. This has nothing to do with Gustavus Vasa and when after- wards published was called The Earl of Westmoreland. The earliest verifiable date for the production of Gustavus Vasa in Dublin is Dec. 3, 1744, when it appeared in a slightly modified form under the title of The Patriot. It was given five times during the season but caused no sensation.

H. G. WRIGHT. BANGOR.

'CURSED HEBENON' (OR 'HEBONA').

Following the line suggested by Dr Bradley (M.L.R. vol. xv, pp. 85 et seq.) I would put forward what I believe is the true solution of the

passage in Hamlet I, v, 62. This solution dispenses completely with the

extremely awkward assumption that Shakespeare was content to confuse hebona (or hebenon) with henbane. It involves only the assumptions that these are both forms of the word ebony (a point practically proved by Dr Bradley) and that Shakespeare, in accordance with tradition, con- sidered lignum vitae (or lignum sanctum), from which is obtained the

drug guaiac, to be a species of ebony. Guaiac, though normally curative, was thought, in certain cases, to act as a poison and produce a kind of

leprosy. Ebony (hebenus or ebenus) in Italian is ebano, and possibly, though

this is not material, Shakespeare's hebona should be hebano. With hebenon we may compare the neuter Latin form (h)ebenum: Grimm's D.W.B. gives 'Ebenbaum, m. ebenus' and 'Ebenholz, n. ebenum, von schwarzer Farbe. Goethe 40, 172.' (It might also be a corruption of the

HENRY BROOKE'S 'GUSTAVUS VASA': A CORRECTION.

Through the kindness of Mr W. J. Lawrence my attention has been drawn to an error in my article on Henry Brooke's Gustavus Vasa

(Mod. Lang. Rev., vol. xiv, pp. 173-182). Certain misstatements are made on p. 177 regarding the performance of the play in Dublin.

1. 'Permission was given for a performance in Dublin.' No such

permission was necessary, because the censorship which banned the play in England, did not exist in Ireland.

2. 'This actually took place in 1742.' The original authority for this seems to be Hitchcock's Historical View of the Irish Stage, according to which Gustavus Vasa was acted at Dublin in February, 1741 (whether new or old style is meant is uncertain) for several nights with great success. Hitchcock's mistake probably arose from the fact that on Feb. 8, 1741-2, Brooke produced a new tragedy, The Betrayer of his

Country. This has nothing to do with Gustavus Vasa and when after- wards published was called The Earl of Westmoreland. The earliest verifiable date for the production of Gustavus Vasa in Dublin is Dec. 3, 1744, when it appeared in a slightly modified form under the title of The Patriot. It was given five times during the season but caused no sensation.

H. G. WRIGHT. BANGOR.

'CURSED HEBENON' (OR 'HEBONA').

Following the line suggested by Dr Bradley (M.L.R. vol. xv, pp. 85 et seq.) I would put forward what I believe is the true solution of the

passage in Hamlet I, v, 62. This solution dispenses completely with the

extremely awkward assumption that Shakespeare was content to confuse hebona (or hebenon) with henbane. It involves only the assumptions that these are both forms of the word ebony (a point practically proved by Dr Bradley) and that Shakespeare, in accordance with tradition, con- sidered lignum vitae (or lignum sanctum), from which is obtained the

drug guaiac, to be a species of ebony. Guaiac, though normally curative, was thought, in certain cases, to act as a poison and produce a kind of

leprosy. Ebony (hebenus or ebenus) in Italian is ebano, and possibly, though

this is not material, Shakespeare's hebona should be hebano. With hebenon we may compare the neuter Latin form (h)ebenum: Grimm's D.W.B. gives 'Ebenbaum, m. ebenus' and 'Ebenholz, n. ebenum, von schwarzer Farbe. Goethe 40, 172.' (It might also be a corruption of the

304 304

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Miscellaneous Notes

adjectival neuter ebeninum, or a printer's combination of heben corrected in MS. to hebon.) Minsheu's Guide (1617) gives It. ebeno.

The Dictionarium Latinogermanicum of Joannes Frisius, second edition, Zurich, 1556, provides the important clue. The compiler gives both ebenus and hebenus, but prefers the form with h, referring us to it for the meaning. Under hebenus we read'Hebenus, f. g. & hoc hebenum, pen. corr. Virg. [no edition is cited]. Ein Indianischer baum / welchesse holtz so hert wirt als ein stein. Etliche meynend das blaaterholtz seye ein gattung von disem geschlacht.' (Some regard blaaterholtz as a

species of this genus.) The confusion of blaaterholz (i.e. Blatterholz, guajacum sanctum)

here mentioned explains everything. In Hamlet (loc. cit.) the 'juice of cursed hebona' is a 'leperous distilment,' which produced 'a most instant tetter...most lazar-like.' But this also may be, according to tradition, the effect of Blatterholz. Zedler's Universal-Lexicon tells us that this is only one of the names for guaiac, which is more usually known as 'Frantzosen-Holz (weil es die Frantzosen heilet'); other names are 'Pocken-Holz, Heilig-Holz, Indianisch-Holz, Lateinisch

Guajacum,...Frantzosisch Gayac oder Bois saint, Italienisch II Legno sancto...' (op. cit. Bd. Ix. (1735) F., cols. 1753 et seq.). In the middle of a long account of this wood and of the curative effect of the decoction made from it occurs (at col. 1757) the significant passage: 'Von all zu vielem Gebrauch dieses Decocti soll die Lunge vertrocknen...Man hat auch ofters wahrgenoinmen, dass Melancholici, die sonderlich Hitze in der Leber gehabt, durch allzuvielen Gebrauch eben dieses Decocti in ein

Elephantiasin und Gelbsucht verfallen.' Various authors are cited as

describing the possible ill effects of this decoction, and some of their accounts may have been seen by Shakespeare; the point calls for further research, but the main fact seems clear. Shakespeare has drawn, directly or indirectly, on the medical writers.

Elephantiasis, as is well known, was long used as practically equivalent to the term leprosy, with which jaundice (gelbsucht) was also confused.

Compare Wackernagel's essay in his edition of Hartmann von Aue's Armer Heinrich (ed. Toischer, Basel, 1885, pp. 164 et seq.) and B. Hede- rich's Graecum Lexicon (ed. Morell and Taylor, 1803): 'elephantiasis, morbus leprae similis.' Wackernagel refers particularly to the disease common in Norway under the name of Radesyge (lepra borealis), some account of which may have been known to Shakespeare. But there are

grounds for thinking an Italian source more probable, and I hope by further search to reveal the extent of the poet's indebtedness. The

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Miscellaneous Notes Miscellaneous Notes

most interesting point is the suddenness of the effect he attributes to the poison.

My conclusions then are that (a) the theory of a confusion with henbane may be dropped; (b) hebenon or hebona has its proper sense of

ebony; but (c) Shakespeare, sharing a common view, regarded lignum vitae as a species of ebony and used the general term for the particular. (d) Following a well-known tradition he then attributed to the 'juice of hebona' (i.e. guaiac) the power of producing, in certain cases, a loath- some and leprous-like disease.

The use of the adjective 'cursed' may be a daring reversal of the

ordinary 'blessed'; its evil effect, in this case, turns lignum sanctuim into lignumn sacrum (i.e. execrabile).

MARSHALL MONTGOMERY. OXFORD.

THE SLOANE MANUSCRIPT 2936 (BRITISH MUSEUM).

In his library at Castel Magny, near Bayonne, Nicolas Joseph Fou- cault, a distinguished administrator and archaeologist who flourished from 1643 to 1721, possessed a fifteenth-century vellum MS. of 69 folios, quarto, entitled: Le Livre des Mortalites, the first chapter or 'rubrica'

being headed De la puissance de nature. Et comment les corps celestiaux

gouvernent naturelment ce monde. Et font auenir merueilleux effects. The author of this work has been stated to be Olivier de la Marche, a well-known chroniqueur, littErateur, etc., of the last dukes of Burgundy, who was born about 1426 and died in 15021. After having passed through several hands, the MS. found a final resting-place in the British Museum, where it now bears the number 2936 of the Sloane Collection. It consists of a table of contents beginning on fol. 2 thus: 'Cy sensuiuent les Rubriches de cest liure' (these words are deleted, but have been

copied in a later hand on fol. lb), and a poem of 3653 lines of eight syllables, divided into nine sections or chapters, each headed by a rubric, corresponding to one given on fol. 2. This occupies fols. 3-50; fols. 50b- 68b contain a kind of glossary. In the present binding fols. 67 and 68 are misplaced and ought to follow fol. 60, and the MS. is slightly deficient

1 Cf. Galland, Discours sur quelques anciens poetes et sur quelques romans gaulois peu connus (ieMmoires de Litterature tirez des Registres de l'Acadtmie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, ii, Paris, 1717), p. 743: P. Papillon, Bibliothfque des Auteurs de Bourgogne, Dijon, 1742, ii, p. 20; Catalogues of the MSS. in the British Museum. H. Stein, Etude biogra- phique, littdraire et bibliographique sur Olivier de la Marche (Memoires couronnes et Mlfmoires des Savants etrangers publies par l'Acad6mie de Belgique, xlix, Brussels, 1888), p. 103, mentions this poem as by Olivier de la Marche and as having been in the Foucault library; but adds that it has been lost sight of.

most interesting point is the suddenness of the effect he attributes to the poison.

My conclusions then are that (a) the theory of a confusion with henbane may be dropped; (b) hebenon or hebona has its proper sense of

ebony; but (c) Shakespeare, sharing a common view, regarded lignum vitae as a species of ebony and used the general term for the particular. (d) Following a well-known tradition he then attributed to the 'juice of hebona' (i.e. guaiac) the power of producing, in certain cases, a loath- some and leprous-like disease.

The use of the adjective 'cursed' may be a daring reversal of the

ordinary 'blessed'; its evil effect, in this case, turns lignum sanctuim into lignumn sacrum (i.e. execrabile).

MARSHALL MONTGOMERY. OXFORD.

THE SLOANE MANUSCRIPT 2936 (BRITISH MUSEUM).

In his library at Castel Magny, near Bayonne, Nicolas Joseph Fou- cault, a distinguished administrator and archaeologist who flourished from 1643 to 1721, possessed a fifteenth-century vellum MS. of 69 folios, quarto, entitled: Le Livre des Mortalites, the first chapter or 'rubrica'

being headed De la puissance de nature. Et comment les corps celestiaux

gouvernent naturelment ce monde. Et font auenir merueilleux effects. The author of this work has been stated to be Olivier de la Marche, a well-known chroniqueur, littErateur, etc., of the last dukes of Burgundy, who was born about 1426 and died in 15021. After having passed through several hands, the MS. found a final resting-place in the British Museum, where it now bears the number 2936 of the Sloane Collection. It consists of a table of contents beginning on fol. 2 thus: 'Cy sensuiuent les Rubriches de cest liure' (these words are deleted, but have been

copied in a later hand on fol. lb), and a poem of 3653 lines of eight syllables, divided into nine sections or chapters, each headed by a rubric, corresponding to one given on fol. 2. This occupies fols. 3-50; fols. 50b- 68b contain a kind of glossary. In the present binding fols. 67 and 68 are misplaced and ought to follow fol. 60, and the MS. is slightly deficient

1 Cf. Galland, Discours sur quelques anciens poetes et sur quelques romans gaulois peu connus (ieMmoires de Litterature tirez des Registres de l'Acadtmie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, ii, Paris, 1717), p. 743: P. Papillon, Bibliothfque des Auteurs de Bourgogne, Dijon, 1742, ii, p. 20; Catalogues of the MSS. in the British Museum. H. Stein, Etude biogra- phique, littdraire et bibliographique sur Olivier de la Marche (Memoires couronnes et Mlfmoires des Savants etrangers publies par l'Acad6mie de Belgique, xlix, Brussels, 1888), p. 103, mentions this poem as by Olivier de la Marche and as having been in the Foucault library; but adds that it has been lost sight of.

306 306

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