Sotădes, an athlete

A Greek poet of Thrace. He wrote verses against Philadelphus Ptolemy, for which he was thrown into the sea in a cage of lead. He was called Cinædus, not only because he was addicted to the abominable crime which the surname indicates, but because he wrote a poem in commendation of it. Some suppose, that instead of the word Socraticos in the 2nd satire, verse the 10th, of Juvenal, the word Sotadicos...

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Palindromical Lines

Palindromical Lines (Vol. vii., pp. 178. 366.). Besides the habitats already given for the Greek inscription on a font, I have notes of the like at Melton Mowbray; St. Mary's, Nottingham; in the private chapel at Longley Castle; and at Hadleigh. At this last place, it is noted in a church book to be taken out of Gregory Nazienzen (but I never could find it), and a reference is made to Jeremy Taylor's Great...

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Paradoxes and curiosities

The pseudomathThe pseudomath is a person who handles mathematics as a monkey handles the razor. The creature tried to shave himself as he had seen his master do; but, not having any notion of the angle at which the razor was to be held, he cut his own throat.He never tried it a second time, poor animal! but the pseudomath keeps on in his work, proclaims himself clean shaved, and all the rest of the world hairy. The...

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Facts and fancies

PalindromesA palindrome is a word, sentence, or verse that reads the same, forward and backward, from left to right, or from right to left.The Latin language abounds with palindromes, but there are few good ones in English. The following will serve as specimens. Madam, I’m Adam. (Adam to Eve.) Able was I ere I saw Elba. (Napoleon loq.) Name no one man. Red root put up to order. Draw pupil’s lip upward. No,...

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Twentieth Century Standard Puzzle Book

 NAPOLEON’S PALINDROME Able was I ere I saw Elba. ADAM AND EVE’S PALINDROME Madam, I’m Adam! When Charles Grant, Colonial Secretary, was made Lord Glenelg, in 1835, he was called Mr Facing-both-ways, because his title Glenelg was a perfect palindrome, that could be read with the same result from either end. It was a member of the same family who sought to prove the antiquity of his race by altering...

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On palindromes

On palindromes.(Vol vii., p. 178. &c.)Several of your correspondents have offered Notes upon these singular compositions, and Agricola de Monte adduces "ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ, ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ" as an example. As neither he nor Mr. Ellacombe give it as found out of this country, allow me to say that it was to be seen on a benitier in the church of Notre Dame at Paris. If it were not for the substitution of the...

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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...

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Palindrome Verses

 Bœoticus inquires (Vol. vi., p 209.) whence comes the line "Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor." In p. 352. of the same volume W. W. T. (quoting from D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature a passage which supplies the hexameter completing the distich, and attributes the verses to Sidonius Apollinaris) asks where may be found a legend which represents the two lines to have formed part of a dialogue between...

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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...

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