Præcepta de Medicina

The Romans believed that the magical power of prayers was enhanced if they were uttered with a loud voice.

Hence a saying attributed to Seneca:

"So speak to God as though all men heard your prayers."

Of great repute among the healing-spells of antiquity was the cabalistic word „Abracadabra“, which occurs first in a medical treatise entitled "Præcepta de Medicina," by the Roman writer Quintus Serenus Samonicus, who flourished in the second century.

An inverted triangular figure, formed by writing this word in the manner hereinafter described, was much valued as an antidote against fevers; cloth or parchment being the material originally used for the inscription.

Thou shalt on paper write the spell divine,
„Abracadabra“ called, on many a line,
Each under each in even order place,
But the last letter in each line efface;
As by degrees the elements grow few,
Still take away, but fix the residue,
Till at the last one letter stands alone,
And the whole dwindles to a tapering cone.
Tie this about the neck with flaxen string,
Mighty the good 't will to the patient bring.
Its wondrous potency shall guard his bed,
And drive disease and death far from his head.[127:1]

Robert Means Lawrence, PrimitivePsycho-Therapy and Quackery, The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1910.

Photo: pngwing

Palindromes:  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Read More »

A mysterious word

Abracadabra, a mysterious word, to which the superstitious in former times attributed a magical power to expel diseases, especially the tertian-ague, worn about their neck in this manner.

Some think, that Basilides, the inventor, intends the name of GOD by it. 

The method of the cure was prescribed in these verses.

"Inscribes Chartae quod dicitur Abracadabra
Saepius, & subter repetes, sed detrahe summam
Et magis atque magis desint elementa figuris
Singula quae semper capies & caetera figes,
Donec in angustum redigatur Litera Conum,
His lina nexis collo redimire memento.
Talia languentis conducent Vincula collo,
Lethalesque abigent (miranda potentia) morbos".

Abracadabra, strange mysterious word,
In order writ, can wond'rous cures afford.
This be the rule:-a strip of parchment take,
Cut like a pyramid revers'd in make.
Abracadabra, first at length you name,
Line under line, repeating still the same:
Cut at its end, each line, one letter less,
Must then its predecessor line express;
'Till less'ning by degrees the charm descends
With conic form, and in a letter ends.
Round the sick neck the finish'd wonder tie,
And pale disease must from the patient fly.

Mr. Schoot, a German, hath an excellent book of magick: it is prohibited in that country. I have here set down three spells, which are much approved.

**To cure an Ague.

Write this following spell in parchment, and wear it about your neck.

It must be writ triangularly.

A B R A C A D A B R A

A B R A C A D A B R

A B R A C A D A B

A B R A C A D A

A B R A C A D

A B R A C A

A B R A C

A B R A

A B R

A B

A

With this spell, one of Wells, hath cured above a hundred of the ague.

Moreri's Great Historical, Geographical, and Poetical Dictionary.

John Aubrey, Miscellaniesupon Various Subjects, Eston Pierse, April 28, 1670.

Palindromes:  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Read More »

The Slavery of Free Verse

The truth most needed to-day is that the end is never the right end.

The beginning is the right end at which to begin. The modern man has to read everything backwards; as when he reads journalism first and history afterwards--if at all.

He is like a blind man exploring an elephant, and condemned to begin at the very tip of its tail.

But he is still more unlucky; for when he has a first principle, it is generally the very last principle that he ought to have.

He starts, as it were, with one infallible dogma about the elephant; that its tail is its trunk.

He works the wrong way round on principle; and tries to fit all the practical facts to his principle.

Because the elephant has no eyes in its tail-end, he calls it a blind elephant; and expatiates on its ignorance, superstition, and need of compulsory education.

Because it has no tusks at its tail-end, he says that tusks are a fantastic flourish attributed to a fabulous creature, an ivory chimera that must have come through the ivory gate.

Because it does not as a rule pick up things with its tail, he dismisses the magical story that it can pick up things with its trunk.

He probably says it is plainly a piece of anthropomorphism to suppose that an elephant can pack its trunk.

The result is that he becomes as pallid and worried as a pessimist; the world to him is not only an elephant, but a white elephant.

He does not know what to do with it, and cannot be persuaded of the perfectly simple explanation; which is that he has not made the smallest real attempt to make head or tail of the animal.

He will not begin at the right end; because he happens to have come first on the wrong end.

But in nothing do I feel this modern trick, of trusting to a fag-end rather than a first principle, more than in the modern treatment of poetry.

With this or that particular metrical form, or unmetrical form, or unmetrical formlessness, I might be content or not, as it achieved some particular effect or not.

But the whole general tendency, regarded as an emancipation, seems to me more or less of an enslavement.

It seems founded on one subconscious idea; that talk is freer than verse; and that verse, therefore, should claim the freedom of talk.

But talk, especially in our time, is not free at all. It is tripped up by trivialities, tamed by conventions, loaded with dead words, thwarted by a thousand meaningless things.

It does not liberate the soul so much, when a man can say, “You always look so nice,” as when he can say, “But your eternal summer shall not fade.”

The first is an awkward and constrained sentence ending with the weakest word ever used, or rather misused, by man.

The second is like the gesture of a giant or the sweeping flight of an archangel; it has the very rush of liberty.

I do not despise the man who says the first, because he „means“ the second; and what he means is more important than what he says.

I have always done my best to emphasize the inner dignity of these daily things, in spite of their dull externals; but I do not think it an improvement that the inner spirit itself should grow more external and more dull.

It is thought right to discourage numbers of prosaic people trying to be poetical; but I think it much more of a bore to watch numbers of poetical people trying to be prosaic.

In short, it is another case of tail-foremost philosophy; instead of watering the laurel hedge of the

cockney villa, we bribe the cockney to brick in the plant of Apollo.

G. K. Chesterton, Fanciesversus Fads, London, 1923.

Photo: Pixabay/GDJ 

Palindromes:  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Read More »

The Romance of Rhyme

The romance of rhyme does not consist merely in the pleasure of a jingle, though this is a pleasure of which no man should be ashamed.

Certainly most men take pleasure in it, whether or not they are ashamed of it.

We see it in the older fashion of prolonging the chorus of a song with syllables like “rumty tumty” or “tooral looral.”

We see it in the similar but later fashion of discussing whether a truth is objective or subjective, or whether a reform is constructive or destructive, or whether an argument is deductive or inductive: all bearing witness to a very natural love for those nursery rhyme recurrences which make a sort

of song without words, or at least without any kind of intellectual significance.

But something much deeper is involved in the love of rhyme as distinct from other poetic forms, something which is perhaps too deep and subtle to be described.

The nearest approximation to the truth I can think of is something like this: that while all forms of genuine verse recur, there is in rhyme a sense of return to exactly the same place.

All modes of song go forward and backward like the tides of the sea; but in the great sea of Homeric or Virgilian hexameters, the sea that carried the labouring ships of Ulysses and Æneas, the thunder of the breakers is rhythmic, but the margin of the foam is necessarily irregular and vague.

In rhyme there is rather a sense of water poured safely into one familiar well, or (to use a nobler metaphor) of ale poured safely into one familiar flagon.

The armies of Homer and Virgil advance and retreat over a vast country, and suggest vast and very

profound sentiments about it, about whether it is their own country or only a strange country.

But when the old nameless ballad boldly rhymes “the bonny ivy tree” to “my ain countree” the vision at once dwindles and sharpens to a very vivid image of a single soldier passing under the

ivy that darkens his own door.

Rhythm deals with similarity, but rhyme with identity.

Now in the one word identity are involved perhaps the deepest and certainly the dearest human things.

He who is home-sick does not desire houses or even homes.

He who is love-sick does not want to see all the women with whom he might have fallen in love.

Only he who is sea-sick, perhaps, may be said to have a cosmopolitan craving for all lands or any kind of land.

And this is probably why sea-sickness, like cosmopolitanism, has never yet been a high inspiration to song.

G. K. Chesterton, Fanciesversus Fads, London, 1923.

Photo: Pixabay/newaztime 

Palindromes:  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Read More »

Recurrent, reciprocal, or reversible words and verses.

Reading in every Style—What is a Palindrome?—What St. Martin said to the Devil—The Lawyer’s Motto—What Adam said to Eve—The Poor Young Man in Love—What Dean Swift wrote to Dr. Sheridan—“The Witch’s Prayer”—The Device of a Lady—Huguenot and Romanist; Double Dealing.      

The only fair specimen we can find of reciprocal words, or those which, read backwards or forwards, are the same, is the following couplet, which, according to an old book, cost the author a world of foolish labor:

Odo tenet mulum, madidam mulum tenet Odo.
Anna tenet mappam, madidam mappam tenet Anna.

The following admired reciprocal lines, addressed to St. Martin by Satan, according to the legend, the reader will find on perusal, either backwards or forwards, precisely the same:

Signa te signa; temere me tangis et angis;
Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.

[St. Martin having given up the profession of a soldier, and having been made Bishop of Tours, when prelates neither kept carriages nor servants, had occasion to go to Rome, in order to consult the Pope upon ecclesiastical matters. As he was walking along the road he met the devil, who politely accosted him, and ventured to observe how fatiguing and indecorous it was for him to perform so long a journey on foot, like the commonest pilgrim. The Saint understood the drift of Old Nick’s address, and commanded him immediately to become a beast of burden, or jumentum; which the devil did in a twinkling by assuming the shape of a mule. The Saint jumped upon the fiend’s back, who at first trotted cheerfully along, but soon slackened his pace. The bishop of course had neither whip nor spurs, but was possessed of a much more powerful stimulus, for, says the legend, he made the sign of the cross, and the smarting devil instantly galloped away. Soon however, and naturally enough, the father of sin returned to sloth and obstinacy, and Martin hurried him again with repeated signs of the cross, till, twitched and stung to the quick by those crossings so hateful to him, the vexed and tired reprobate uttered the foregoing distich in a rage, meaning, Cross, cross yourself; you annoy and vex me without necessity; for owing to my exertions, Rome, the object of your wishes, will soon be near.]

The Palindrome changes the sense in the backward reading; the Versus Cancrinus retains the sense in both instances unchanged, as in this instance:

Bei Leid lieh stets Heil die Lieb.

(In trouble comfort is lent by love.)

Similarly recurrent is the lawyer’s motto,

Si nummi immunis,

translated by Camden, “Give me my fee, I warrant you free.”

The Greek inscription on the mosque of St. Sophia, in Constantinople,

Νίφον ἀνομήματα μὴ μόναν ὄφιν,

presents the same words, whether read from left to right, or from right to left. So also the expressions in English,

Madam, I’m Adam. (Adam to Eve.)
Name no one man.
Able was I ere I saw Elba. (Napoleon loq.)
Snug & raw was I ere I saw war & guns.
Red rum did emit revel ere Lever time did murder.
Red root put up to order.
Trash? even interpret Nineveh’s art.
Lewd did I live, evil I did dwel.
Draw pupil’s lip upward.

This enigmatical line surrounds a figure of the sun in the mosaic pavement of Sa. Maria del Fiori, at Florence:

En giro torte sol ciclos et rotor igne.

These lines are supposed to be addressed to a young man detained at Rome by a love affair:

Roma ibi tibi sedes—ibi tibi Amor;
Roma etsi te terret et iste Amor,
Ibi etsi vis te non esse—sed es ibi,
Roma te tenet et Amor.

At Rome you live—at Rome you love;

From Rome that love may you affright,

Although you’d leave, you never move,

For love and Rome both bar your flight.

Dean Swift wrote a letter to Dr. Sheridan, composed of Latin words strung together as mere gibberish but each word, when 61read backwards, makes passable English. 

Take for example the following short sentences:

Mi Sana. Odioso ni mus rem. Moto ima os illud dama nam? 

(I’m an ass. O so I do in summer. O Tom, am I so dull, I a mad man?)

Inscription for a hospital, paraphrased from the Psalms:

Acide me malo, sed non desola me, medica.

The ingenious Latin verses subjoined are reversible verbally only, not literally, and will be found to embody opposite meanings by commencing with the last word and reading backwards:

Prospicimus modo, quod durabunt tempore longo,
Fœdera, nec patriæ pax cito diffugiet.
Diffugiet cito pax patriæ, nec fœdera longo,
Tempore durabunt, quod modo prospicimus.

The following hexameter from Santa Marca Novella, Florence, refers to the sacrifice of Abel (Gen. iv. 4). Reversed, it is a pentameter, and refers to the sacrifice of Cain (iv. 3).

Sacrum pingue dabo non macram sacrificabo,
Sacrificabo macram non dabo pingue sacrum.

The subjoined distich arose from the following circumstance. 

A tutor, after having explained to his class one of the odes of Horace, undertook to dictate the same in hexameter verses, as an exercise (as he said). 

It cost him considerable trouble: he hesitated several times, and occasionally substituted other words, but finally succeeded. 

Some of his scholars thought he would not accomplish his task; others maintained that, having begun, it was a point of honor to complete it.

Retro mente labo, non metro continuabo;
Continuabo metro; non labo mente retro.

Addison mentions an epigram called the Witches’ Prayer, that “fell into verse when it was read either backward or forward, excepting only that it cursed one way, and blessed the other.”

One of the most remarkable palindromes on record is the following. Its distinguishing peculiarity is that the first letter of each successive word unites to spell the first word; the second letter of each, the second word; and so on throughout; and the same will be found precisely true on reversal.

SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS.

But the neatest and prettiest specimen that has yet appeared comes from a highly cultivated lady who was attached to the court of Queen Elizabeth. 

Having been banished from the court on suspicion of too great familiarity with a nobleman then high in favor, the lady adopted this device,—the moon covered by a cloud,—and the following palindrome for a motto:—

ABLATA AT ALBA.

(Banished, but blameless.)

The merit of this kind of composition was never in any example so heightened by appropriateness and delicacy of sentiment.

Paschasius composed the recurrent epitaph on Henry IV.:

Arca serenum me gere regem, munere sacra,
Solem, arcas, animos, omina sacra, melos.

A very curious continuous series of palindromes was printed in Vienna in 1802. It was written in ancient Greek by a modern Greek named Ambrosius, who called it Πόιημα καρκινικὸν. 

It contains 455 lines, every one of which is a literal palindrome. A few are selected at random, as examples:—

Ἰσα πασι Ση τε υη, Συ ὁ Μουσηγετης ις απασι.
Νεαν ασω μελιφωνον, ὦ φιλε, Μωσαν αεν.
Ὠ λακωνικε, σε μονω τω Νομε, σε κινω καλω.
Ἀρετα πηγασε σε σα γη πατερα.
Σωτηρ συ εσο, ὦ ελεε θεε λεω ος ευς ρητως.

The following line is expressive of the sentiments of a Roman Catholic; read backwards, of those of a Huguenot:

Patrum dicta probo, nec sacris belligerabo.
Belligerabo sacris, nec probo dicta patrum.

These lines, written to please a group of youthful folk, serve to show that our English tongue is as capable of being twisted into uncouth shapes as is the Latin, if any one will take the trouble:

One winter’s eve, around the fire, a cozy group we sat,

Engaged, as was our custom old, in after-dinner chat;

Small-talk it was, no doubt, because the smaller folk were there,

And they, the young monopolists! absorbed the lion’s share.

Conundrums, riddles, rebuses, cross-questions, puns atrocious,

Taxed all their ingenuity, till Peter the precocious—

Old head on shoulders juvenile—cried, “Now for a new task:

Let’s try our hand at Palindromes!” “Agreed! But first,” we ask,

“Pray, Peter, what are Palindromes?” The forward imp replied,

“A Palindrome’s a string of words of sense or meaning void,

Which reads both ways the same: and here, with your permission,

I’ll cite some half a score of samples, lacking all precision

(But held together by loose rhymes, to test my definition):—

“A milksop, jilted by his lass, or wandering in his wits,

Might murmur, ‘Stiff, O dairy-man, in a myriad of fits!’

“A limner by photography dead-beat in competition,

Thus grumbled, ‘No, it is opposed; art sees trade’s opposition!’

“A nonsense-loving nephew might his soldier-uncle dun

With ‘Now stop, major-general, are negro jam-pots won?’

“A supercilious grocer, if inclined that way, might snub

A child with ‘But regusa store, babe, rots a sugar-tub.’

“Thy spectre, Alexander, is a fortress, cried Hephaestion.

Great A. said, ‘No, it’s a bar of gold, a bad log for a bastion!’

“A timid creature, fearing rodents—mice and such small fry—

‘Stop, Syrian, I start at rats in airy spots,’ might cry.

“A simple soul, whose wants are few, might say, with hearty zest,

‘Desserts I desire not, so long no lost one rise distressed.’

“A stern Canadian parent might in earnest, not in fun,

Exclaim, ‘No sot nor Ottawa law at Toronto, son!’

“A crazy dentist might declare, as something strange or new,

That ‘Paget saw an Irish tooth, sir, in a waste gap!’ True!

“A surly student, hating sweets, might answer with elan,

‘Name tarts? no, medieval slave, I demonstrate man!’

“He who in Nature’s bitters findeth sweet food every day,

‘Eureka! till I pull up ill I take rue,’ well might say.”

Charles Carroll Bombaugh, Gleaningsfrom the Harvest-Fields of Literature (A Melange of Excerpta), J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1890.

Photo: Pixabay/GDJ 

Palindromes:  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Read More »

James Appleton Morgan - Macaronic poetry

Another ingenious verse is the Palindrome, from πάλιν and δρóμος, to flow or run back; sometimes called Sotadic verse, from Sotades, their inventor, though a higher (or a lower) authority is sometimes given; the first palindrome having been, according to one account, the impromptu of an unfortunate demon, while carrying most unwillingly a portly canon of Combremer from Bayeux to Rome; it reads the same either backwards or forwards, which is the essential of a palindrome:

Signa te, signa, temere me tangis et angis,
Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.

Another legend refers this palindrome to Satan himself, while carrying St. Martin on his shoulders.

Its tranflation is, „Cross yourself, cross yourself; you annoy and threaten me unnecessarily“ for, owing to my exertions, you will soon reach Rome, your object."

Other examples are:

Si bene te tua Iaus taxat, sua laute tenebis,
Sole medere pede, ede, perede melos.

Again:

Et necat eger amor non Roma rege tacente,
Roma reges una non anus eger amor.

In which the word serves as a pivot.

Each word in the line:

Odo tenet mulum, mappam madidam tenet Anna,

is a perfect palindrome.

The line

Sator arepo tenet opera rotas,  

besides being a palindrome, can be arranged in a square, when it will be perceived that the firft letters of each of its words spell its firft word Sator; the second, from the second of each, its second word Arepo, and so on; 

thus:

S A T O R

A R E P O

T E N E T

O P E R A

R O T A S

The same properties exist in the Latin words Time, Item, Meti, and Emit; 

thus:

T I M E

I T E M

M E T I

E M I T

The following epitaph at the entrance of the Church of San Salvador, in the city Oviedo, in Spain, erected by Prince Silo, may be read two hundred and seventy different ways, by beginning with the S in the centre

Silo Princeps Fecit

T I C E F S P E C N C E P S F E C I T

I C E F S P E C N I N C E P S F E C I

C E F S P E C N I R I N C E P S F E C

E F S P E C N I R P R I N C E P S F E

F S P E C N I R P O P R I N C E P S F

S P E C N I R P O L O P R I N C E P S

P E C N I R P O L I L O P R I N C E P

E C N I R P O L I S I L O P R I N C E

P E C N I R P O L I L O P R I N C E P

S P E C N I R P O L O P R I N C E P S

F S P E C N I R P O P R I N C E P S F

E F S P E C N I R P R I N C E P S F E

C E F S P E C N I R I N C E P S F E C

I C E F S P E C N I N C E P S F E C I

T I C E F S P E C N C E P S F E C I T

On the tomb are inscribed these letters:

H. S. E. S. S. T. T. L.

The letters employed in this square being the initials of the words,

Hic situs est Silo, sit tibi terra levis.

Here lies Silo, may the earth lie light on him.

The lawyer's motto,

Si nummis immunis

Give me my fee, and I warrant you free,

Is a palindrome.

In the time of Queen Elizabeth, a noble lady, who had been forbidden to appear at court in consequence of some suspicions against her, took for the device on her feal, the moon partly obscured by a cloud, with the palindromic motto:

Ablata at alba,

Secluded, but pure.

Taylor, the water poet, writes:

Lews did I live, and evil did I dwel.

Another English palindrome is:

Snug & raw was I, ere I saw war & guns.

And one is put into the mouth of Napoleon the Great:

Able was I ere I saw Elba.

There is an enigma, in which the initials of five palindromic words are to be fought, to form the required answer; e. g.:

First find out a word that doth silence proclaim,
And that backwards and forwards is always the same ;
Then next you must find out a feminine name,
That backwards and forwards is always the same ;
An act, or a writing on parchment, whose name,
Both backwards and forwards is always the same ;
A fruit that is rare, whose botanical name,
Read backwards and forwards is always the same ;
A note used in music which time doth proclaim,
And backwards and forwards is always the same ;
Their initials connected, a title will frame
(That is justly the due of the fair married dame,)
Which backwards and forwards is always the same.

There is a well-known Greek inscription on the font at Sandbock, in Cheshire, England, as well as in the Church of St Sophia, at Constantinople:

Νίψον ανομήματα, μη μόναν όψιν.

That is, freely, „Purify the mind as well as the body.“

The following verses are reversible in sense, as well as in words, by being read backwards:

Prospicimus modo, quod durabunt tempore longo,
Fœdera, nec patriæ pax cito dissugiet.
Dissugiet cito pax patriæ, nec fœdera longo,
Tempore durabunt quod modo prospicimus.
Patrum dicta probo, nec sacris belligerabo.*

(* Expressing the sentiments of a Romanist or a Huguenot, as it is read forwards or backwards.)

The following are promiscuous examples:

Retro mente labo, non metro continuabo.
Continuabo metro ; non labo mente retro.
Sacrum pingue dabo, non macrum sacrificabo.
Sacrificabo macrum non dabo pingue sacrum.

It is observable that the last above hexameter, from Santa Marca Novella, Florence, refers, in the first instance, to the sacrifice of Abel (Gene sis iv. 4); reversed, as in the second line, the reference is to the sacrifice of Cain (Gen. iv 3)

Arca serenum me gere regem, munere sacra,
Solem, arcas, animos, omnia sacra, melos.

Epitaph on Henry IV., by Paschasms.

And Addison tells of a palindrome, called "The Witches Prayer," which "fell into verse, when read either backwards or forwards, excepting only that it blessed one way and cursed the other."

In 1802 was printed at Vienna a small volume of palindromes, written in ancient Greek, by Ambrosius, a modern Greek.

The volume, which was called Πóιημα χαρχινιχòν, contains four hundred and fifty-six lines, every one of which is palindromic. Here follows a few of them:

Ισα πασι Ση τε γη, Συ σ Μσυσηγετης ις απασι.
Νεαν ασω μελιφωνον, ώ φιλε, Μωσαν, αεν.
Ω λακωνικε, σε μονω τω Νομε, σε κινω καλω.
Αρετα πηγασε σε σα γη πατερα.
Σωτηρ συ εσω, ώ ελεε ΰεε λεω ος ευς ρητως.

Palindromic verse, which exactly reverses its meaning upon being read backwards, is some times called Sidonian verse, such having been first constructed by Sidonius.

The example given below was written in praise of Pope Clement VI. (some say Pius II).

The poet, fearing, however, that he might not receive as great a reward as, in his own estimation, he deserved, retained the power of converting his flattery into abuse, by simply giving his friends the cue, to commence at the last word, and read backwards:

Pauperibus tua das gratis, nec munera curas
Curia Papalis, quod modo percipimus.
Laus tua, non tua fraus, virtus non copia rerum,
Scandere te faciunt, hoc decus eximium.
Conditio tua sit stabilis, nec tempore parvo
Vivere te faciat hic Deus omnipotens.

Of the same kind, are these three distiches by Du Bellay, a French poet:

AD JULIUM III. PONTIFICEM MAXIMUM.

Pontifici siia fint Divino Numine tuta
Culmina, nec montes hos petat Omnipotens.

AD CAROLUM V. CÆSAREM.

Cæsareum tibi sit felici sidere nomen,
Carole, nec fatum sit tibi Cæsareum.

AD FERDINANDUM ROMANORUM REGEM.

Romulidum bone Rex, magno sis Cæsare major,
Nomine, nec satis, aut minor imperio.

A complete specimen appears in the line applicable either to Cain or Abel, being also hexameter in the one cafe, and pentameter in the other; just given, in treating of palindromes.

The line,

Patrum dicta probo, nec facris belligerabo

is a Sidonian, as well as several others before given, among the palindromes.

Dean Swift used to write to Dr. Sheridan in words unintelligible as they stood, but capable of being turned into tolerable English by being read backwards.

Thus:

Mi sana. Odiofo ni mus rem. Moto ima os illud dama nam!

(I'm an ass. O, so I do in summer. O, Tom, I am so dull, I a mad man!) •

The Epitaph. In Cunwallow Church yard, Cornwall, England, is to be found the following, which, like the specimen on page 47, "Silo Princeps Fecit," partakes of the palindromic character, decipherable from any possible point of vision, so that "he may run that readeth it:"

Shall we all die?
We shall die all,
All die shall we —
Die all we shall.

James Appleton Morgan - Macaronic poetry (collected with an intr. by J. A. Morgan), Hurd & Houghton, New York, 1872.

Photo: Pixabay/GDJ 

Palindromes:  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Read More »