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of Mentel's Bible, which was printed at Strassburg about the year 1466. Errors of Mentel, such as edeum for e denn, Gen. 11, 4; und for uncz, II Esdr. 4, 21; doch for dich, II Ezra 6, 10, are all shared by Cgm. 204-5. But such agreements do not prove absolutely that this MS is a copy of the printed Bible, as long as the original from which the latter copied is unknown. This MS might have contained the errors in question, transmitting them to Mentel's Bible and to Cgm. 204-5 independently. But the following circumstance proves indisputably that Cgm. 204–5 is a direct copy of Mentel's Bible.

On f. 362v. of Cgm. 204, about four inches from the bottom of the second column, are the words wirt guot den die got rechte. The remainder of the column contains only the words gaissen und dem hindenkalb der hirschen auff den bergen arometen (end of page). The next page, f. 363r., contains an illustration, and the text begins: Incipit prologus in libro sapientiae.

The first of the above quotations is from Ecclesiastes 8, 12 (bonum timentibus Deum), while the words after the break, which do not fit in at all, are from Cantic. 8, 14, the last verse of that book (capreae hinnuloque cervorum super montes aromatum). Consequently, the latter part of the Book of Ecclesiastes (from 8, 12 to the end) and all of Solomon's Song except a part of the last verse, are omitted in Cgm. 204. This gap can not be due to the loss of a number of leaves in Cgm. 204, as the MS shows no defect and the gap does not occur at the end of a leaf. A comparison with the Mentel Bible, however, fully explains the omission.

Here f. 204v. ends wirt gut den die got, and f. 205r. correctly continues furchtě: die do furchtent sein antlutz. Folio 207г. begins rech gaissen und dem hindenkalb der hirschen auf den bergen aromathen (end of Solomon's Song). It is evident that the portion of the text omitted in Cgm. 204 corresponds exactly to the contents of ff. 205, 206 of Mentel, and this coincidence shows conclusively that the MS is a direct copy from Mentel.

Several other features of the MS deserve mention. First of all the scribes. The first one generally copied the text of Mentel without change, except in the case of the words aus, auf, which he changed uniformly to us, uff. In a few cases an old i replaced the new diphthong ei of Mentel, and the word haus was generally changed to hus. In all other cases the new diphthongs of Mentel were reproduced. In a number of instances this scribe even changed an old ei of Mentel to ai; for example, ainen, Gen. 1, 26;

ainen, allain, Gen. 2, 18; ainer, stain, laimig, Gen. 11, 3; getailt, Gen. 11, 4. It may even be said that this change is regular with this scribe. The form geen, 1st p. pl. pres. ind. and imperative, was also frequently supplanted by gangen, as in Exod. 5, 8, 17; Deut. 13, 6, 13; I Reg. 11, 4. The scribe therefore was most probably a Suabian living near the Bavarian border. He continued to IV Reg. 23, 8, ending with the word fursten. With the following words, der stat, another scribe began. This is on f. 183v., col. 1, l. 25 of Cgm. 204. Immediately before the change we find numerous instances of uff, uf, uswurffen, hus, while in the portion written by the second scribe we find only auff, aus, the forms which occur in Mentel; instances may be found as early as 1. 28, col. I, f. 183v. The second scribe continued to substitute ai for ei, but he did not introduce the form gangen. He was, however, also a Suabian, for there are numerous instances of forms such as aubent, schlauf, schläf, gethăn, răt, wären, jăr, ăss, schăffen, nămen, wäffen, wăppen, lägen, where Middle High German & has been changed to au. This is one of the chief characteristics of the Suabian dialect in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. That the sign ǎ is equivalent to au is proved by parallel forms such as schlauff, schlaf. The old diphthong ou is also represented by this sign, as in weyrachs, Luc. 1, 11; also the new diphthong au in tăben, Jer. 46, 16.

A further indication of the dialect of the scribe is found in I Cor. 10, 9, where the number XXIII. M of Mentel is written out: drew und czwaintzig tusent. This is half Bavarian and half Suabian, drew being decidedly Bavarian, while tusent is the undiphthongized Suabian form. This scribe wrote the rest of the

work.

At the end of the first volume, Cgm. 204, there is the inscription: 1473 ward daz | buoch gantz aussgemacht nach den obresten (= Epiphany). The second volume, Cgm. 205, has at the end this inscription: Finis huius libri | 1472/3 mittichen vor wihnachten alz auss gemacht Ihs marya. Walther, col. 134, reads this as follows: 1472 | 3 wuchè vă wichnchte alz auss | gemacht Jh's murger [?]. He advisedly adds a question-mark, for the last two words are beyond doubt Jesus Maria, and not the name of the scribe, as conjectured by Walther. The word mittichen, which is a variant form of Mittwoch, is not as distinct as the rest, but Dr. Riezler, Librarian at Munich, confirms my interpretation.

With regard to Walther's 3 wuchen, it may be noted that it is entirely foreign to mediaeval usage to write dates in this fashion,

three weeks, or even one week, before a given festival or saint's day. The invariable usage is to write the saint's day on which an event occurred, or else name the day of the week before or after the nearest festival or prominent saint's day.

We have therefore the strange phenomenon that the first volume bears a later date than the second. This is due to the fact that the last two leaves of the first volume were inserted subsequent to the writing of the second volume. These two leaves contain the latter part of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, from chap. 50, 8 to the end, beginning with the words schmeckent in den tagen des sumers... The ink is much darker than that of the preceding pages, and the watermark of the paper is an eightpointed star in a circle, while all the other leaves of this volume have a crown and a triangle joined by a bar.

The scribe commenced with a stock of the crown-and-triangle paper, which lasted as far as f. 292 of the second volume. The remainder of this volume consists of the paper with the star watermark. The scribe completed the second volume, on the Wednesday before Christmas, 1472/3, which date was December 23. Subsequently the last two leaves of the first volume were replaced, and the date of this final completion was after Epiphany (Jan. 6), 1473.

The former last leaf of the first volume I discovered pasted to the front inside cover of the second volume. Only the first page had been written upon, the other side being blank with the exception of the rubric ysaias at the top, corresponding to ppheta on the first page of the second volume. This shows that originally the scribe had expected to make one volume out of his MS, as the Mentel Bible was in one volume. But later, on account of the bulk of the MS, a division was made between Ecclesiasticus and Isaiah, the regular division of the Vulgate. Then, however, the last leaf of the first volume contained the rubric ysaias, and therefore it was replaced, together with the preceding one, the volume being of folio size. The old leaf has no inscription containing the date. The text agrees with that of the new leaf, except that the latter omits the phrase zu im und du hast sie geredt. The preceding clause also ends with geredt, and the scribe jumped from one to the other. On the old leaf the word geredt stands at the beginning of a line in both instances, hence the omission was the more readily made.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

W. KURRELMeyer.

NOTES.

SOPH. AJAX 143.

In Mr. Edwin W. Fay's article on 'The Aryan God of Lightning' (A. J. P. XVII 1-29), it will be remembered, allusion is made to a possible "primitive confusion of the stems ekwe 'horse' and aqa- 'water' (perhaps *akwa) in the Aryan Period, with the added semasic interpretation of both stems by 'run,' a nomen agentis to the stem ak 'sharp, swift'" (p. 3). This was supported in a way by names of rivers cited by Sibree, such as Sk. açvăvati, Gr. Pers. Hyd-aspes, Gk. Meλavíπiov, 'Ayavíñη. Reference was further made to the acvatthá-tree, it being "characteristic of the fig genus 'to abound in milky juice.' Homer was then adduced, ▲ 500:

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ὅς οἱ ̓Αβυδόθεν ἦλθε παρ ̓ ἵππων ὠκειάων, (ἱππῶν ?)

'from beside the swift waters.'

Mr. Fay also has called attention to ikkos, and the "certainty of a stem in- in Greek as testified by ικμάς ' moisture' and ἶξαι· διηθῆσαι (Hesych.)."

If we turn to Soph. Ajax 1206 we see the picture of the encampment by night:

κεῖμαι δ ̓ ἀμέριμνος οὕτως

ἀεὶ πυκιναῖς δρόσοις τεγγόμενος κόμας

λυγρᾶς μνήματα Τροίας.

Thus the Salaminian mariner whose bones seafogs alone would not have caused to ache.

Now, Ajax' midnight adventure is described by this rheumatic squire 143:

σὲ τὸν ἱππομανῆ

λειμῶν ̓ ἐπιβάντ ̓ ὀλέσαι Δαναῶν

βοτὰ καὶ λείαν . . .

The Greek's fondness for etymologizing-fostered perhaps by the Mysteries, for may not Aischylos have been on the point of an etymological disclosure when his audience refused to allow him to proceed?-is apparent in Sophokles, although more artis

tically applied than in Euripides, who must have been spoiled by Sokrates. It would not be an injustice to the passage under consideration to convey into innoμavn a meaning in accordance with Mr. Fay's in, and suiting the ethos of the speaker and the genius of the poet. innoμavn λepova then I would translate 'the meadow with its mad rills,' or (referring to Jebb ad loc.) comparing Fr. 591 κарπоμаvýs, 'abounding in water.' λepava incidentally suggests the etymology.

Theok. Id. 2, 48 (quoted by Jebb, Soph. Aj., Appendix) has Ιππομανές φυτόν ἐστι παρ' ̓Αρκάσι, τῷ δ ̓ ἔπι πᾶσαι

καὶ πῶλοι μαίνονται ἀν ̓ ὤρεα καὶ θοαὶ ἵπποι.

For 'Innoμavés cf. Sk. açvatthá of the fig-tree as indicative of its succulence, and with Theok. cf. the derivation thereof, "ttha = stha, under which horses stand."

It is significant that in Αj. 6or ΛΕΙΜΩΝΙΑΙΠΟΙΑl has not yet been satisfactorily reconstructed.

MCGILL UNIVersity, Montreal.

HENRY N. SANDERS.

AN AESOPIC FABLE IN OLD FRENCH PROSE.

Although Aesop's Fables were great favorites in France during the Middle Ages, it is very rarely that they are met with in the manuscripts in any other than a metrical form. The following prose text is an isolated instance found in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 435, fo. 46 vo, col. 1, to fo. 46 vo, col. 2.

It is a well-known fact that fable collections in France during the earlier centuries went by the name of ysopet, a diminutive of Aesop's very name, but the present instance appears to be a more sporadic use of this term to denote the supposed author himself.

As the text here given has never before appeared in print, and as it possesses the two points of special interest noted above, its publication may perhaps not prove unwelcome as an addition to our knowledge of popular literature in Europe before the Renais

sance.

Exemple au propos de flacter.

Ysopet raconte en ses fables moralles de deux hommes dont l'un estoit veritable et l'autre flacteur. Ilz alerent vne foiz en la regnon des cinges et les trouuerent assemblez en vng lieu. Le

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