" (_Works_, ed.
Parker Society, ii. 265.)
Burton in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part iii., Sect. 2, Memb. 3,
Subs. 5, briefly narrates the story.
In the first scene of the _Distracted Emperor_, l. 17, for the reading
of the MS. "Can propp thy mynde, fortune's shame upon thee!" we should
undoubtedly substitute "Can propp thy ruynde fortunes? shame upon thee!"
Dr. Reinhold Koehler of Weimar explains once for all the enigmatical
letters at the end of the play:--"The line denotes:
Nella fidelta finiro _la vita_.
For as the letters [Greeek: ph d ph n r] must be read by their Greek
names, so must also the B--better written [Greek: B]--be read by its
Greek name [Greek: Baeta], or by Neo-Greek pronunciation _vita_. With
this meaning the line is given in the work of Etienne Tabourot 'Les
Bizarrures du Seigneur des Accords,' which is said to have appeared
first in 1572 or 1582, in Chap. ii. on 'rebus par lettres.' I only know
the passage by a quotation in an interesting work by Johannes Ochmann
'Zur Kentniss der Rebus,' Oppeln, 1861, p.
Pages:
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446