QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. THE LEGEND OF EUCLID. Where can be found what is known as "The Legend of Euclid"? I find him referred to in the legend as "Worthy Clarke Evvclyde." HIERONYMOUS. Nearly all the old manuscript constitutions in the Masonic archives contain what is know as the Legend of Euclid, whose name is presented as the Worthy Clerk. It has come down to us in several forms, no doubt corruptions of some early traditions. The so-called Dowland manuscript has the form as here given. It has the appearance of having been written in the 17th century, but it is believed to be only a copy, clothed in more intelligible language, of an early manuscript of the year 1530. It is as follows: 66 Moreover, when Abraham and Sara his wife went into Egipt, there he taught the Seaven Sciences to the Egiptians; and he had a worthy Scoller that height Evvclyde, and he learned right well, and was a master of all the vij Sciences liberall. And in his dayes it befell that the lord and the estates of the realme had soe many sonnes that they had gotten some by their wifes and some by other ladyes of the realme; for that land is a hott lande and plentious of generacion. And they had not competent livehode to find with their children; where they made much care. And then the King of the land made a great counsell and a parliament, to witt: how to find their children honestly as gentlemen. And they could find no manner of good way. And then they did crye through all the realme, if there were any men that could enforme them, that he should come to them, and he should be soe rewarded for his travail, that he should hold him pleased. After that this cry was made, then came this worthy clarke Ewclyde, and said to the King and to all his great lords: 'If yee will take me your children to governe, and to teach them one of the Seaven Sciences, wherewith they may live honestly as gentlemen should, under a condition that ye will grant me and them a commission that I may have power to rule them after the manner that the sciences ought to be ruled.' And that the King and all his counsell granted to him anone, and sealed their commission. And then this worthy clarke tooke to him these lords's sonnes, and taught them the science of Geometrie in practice, for to work in stones all manner of worthy worke that belongeth to buildinge towers, temples, castells, and houses, and all manner of buildings; and he gave them a charge on this manner." Thus endeth the legend. If considered historically it is absurd; the anachronism which makes Euclid contemporary with Abraham also makes it more absurd. But if interpreted as all Masonic legends should be interpreted, to show Masonic truths in symbolic language, it loses its absurdity, and becomes invested with an interest to the craft at large. LEGEND OF THE ASS'S BROKEN LEG. (Vol. V, p. 72.) Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," Vol. I, p. 23, gives the Christian form of the legend as follows: NORWEGIAN VERSE. "Jesus reed sig til Heede, Der reed han syndt sit Folebeen. Ben i ben, Kjöd i Kjöd ; Jesus lagde derpaa et Blad, ENGLISH VERSE. "Jesus rode to the heath, There he rode the leg of his colt in two; Jesus dismounted and healed it; Jesus laid marrow to marrow, Bone to bone, flesh to flesh; Jesus laid thereon a leaf At det skulde blive i samme stad." That if might remain in the same place." This version corresponds exactly with the giant Skinner, when Thor traveled to Utgord, as related in the Edda. It has been adapted, by almost every nation, to some local tradition, and hence we see it ex ampled in the nursery tale of Jack and the covered and published a version which is here, with its translation : Bean Stalk. Grimm disnew to us, and we give it ENGLISH VERSE. "Phol and Wodan, Then charmed it Sinthgunt, And Sunna her sister; As well the bone-wrench, Blood to blood, Joint to joint, As if glued together." This version preserves current tradition in Norway how Wodan and Balder went out to hunt, and Balder's horse dislocated its foot, and how that he used charmed words, and set it and healed it. A modern version of the tradition, current in Norway, makes the accident happen to the horse of Jesus, and Jesus dismounting performed the cure, and the verse is used as a formula for the healing of a person's limbs, as well as those of horses. The operation is described in Chambers's "Popular Rhymes of Scotland." "When a person has received a sprain, it is customary to apply to an individual practiced in casting the 'wresting-thread.'" This is a thread spun from black wool, on which are cast nine knots, and tied around a sprained leg or arm. During the operator is putting the thread around the affected limb, he says, but in such a tone of voice as not to be heard by the lookers-on, and not even by the person being operated upon, the following verse : "Our Lord rade, His foal's foot slade; Down he lighted, His toal's foot righted. Bone to bone,, Sinew to sinew, Blood to blood, Flesh to flesh." "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." There are many other versions, all based on the same legend that the colt's leg was broken by accident when Jesus rode into Jerusalem (Matthew XXI, 7-8). From the same event the name Palm Sunday is perpetrated from strewing palm branches along the way as he passed. "SUBLIME" APPLIED TO MASTER'S DEGREE." (Vol. V, p. 56.) The word "sublime," says R. Kenneth MacKenzie, is usually applied to the Third Degree, but like many other terms, the words "Sublime Degree of a Master Mason" signify nothing, and are without authority. Hutchinson, Smith, and Preston do not use it. Hutchinson speaks of "the most sacred and solemn order," and of the "exalted" but not "sublime degree." Since the introduction of the Royal Arch degree, the word Sublime has been used, and the word Exalted appropriated to the Arch. In the Constitutions, Dublin, 1769, the Master's degree is called "most respectable," and the term "high and honourable" has also been employed. The word sublime first occurs in Dr. T. M. Harris's "Discourses," Boston, U. S., 1801. It was also used by Cole in 1817; and Jeremy L. Cross introduced it in his Hieroglyphic Chart. As it has been adopted in the modern English lectures, it is too firmly established to be removed. THE POET'S" ESSAY ON MAN." (Collected and arranged by James Monk.) Mrs. H. A. Deming, of San Francisco, Cal., is said to have occupied a years in searching out and fitting together thirty-eight lines from as many different English and American authors, and arranging the lines into a poem. (See N. AND Q., Vol. IV, p. 304.) The following fifty-two lines, from as many different authors, occupied five months of the leisure hours of Mr. Monk : The Mosaic Poem. 1. What starnge infatuations rule mankind! 2. What different spheres to human bliss assigned ! 3. To loftier things your find impulses burn, 4. If man would but his finer nature learn. 5. What several ways men to their calling have, 6. And grasp at life though sinking in the grave! 7. Ask, what is human life! The sage replies: 8. Wealth, pomp, and honor are but empty toys; 9. We trudge and travel, but from pain to pain, 10. Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main; 11. We only toil who are the first of things; 23. Choose out the man to virtue best inclined, 24. Throw envy, folly, prejudice behind; 25. Defer not till tomorrow to be wise; 26. Wealth heaped on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys; 27. Remembrance worketh with her busy train ; 28. Care draws on care, woe comforts woe again. 39. In this brief state of trouble and unrest, 44. Lo, while I speak, the present moment's gone. Chatterton. Charles Sprague. R. H. Dana. Ben. Johnson. Falconer. Cooper. Furguson. Quarles. Burns. Tennyson. Beattie. Dryden. Byron. Pomfret. Waller. Flood. Steele. Timothy Dwight. Herbert. Dunbar. Goff. Whitney. Drayton. Southwell. Thomson. Sheridan Knowles. W. S. Landor. Cowley. Joanna Baillie. Keats. Bernard Barton. Pope. Marsden. Elliot. Blair. Oldham. Akenside. J. G. Percival. 1 THE "MAD POET." (Vol IV, p. 650.) MacDonald Clarke, an eccentric American poet, is familiarly known by this sobriquet. He adopted it as a pseudonym. The following quotation is credited to MacDonald Clarke. What work of his is it from and where found? "Night drops her sable mantle down and pins it with a star." E. KINNEY'S STATUE OF ETHAN ALLEN. (Vol. V, p. 56.) I know little about Kinney's Statue of Ethan Allen. I have seen it stated, however, that the statue of him at Montpelier was modelled, so far as the body is concerned, from the figure of General Ethan A. Hitchcock, his worthy grandson. This would hardly be the case, except there wa a close resemblance. General Hitchcock was hardly a man to permit such a thing on any other ground. There is a picture of General Hitchcock in Frank Moore's "Diary of the Rebellion." He was a man, as I remember, about five feet ten inches high, perhaps a little less; well-formed body, and a benignant countenance. He had a strong proclivity for mystic, philosophic, and other literature closely relating to that. The little monograph on " Alchemy, or the Hermetic Philosophy," which I published in 1869, was a synopsis of his book entitled "Alchemy, and the Alchemists," and met his approval. He died in Florence, Georgia, in 1870. I do not suppose that this meets Mr. Waggoner's wishes very closely; but if it prompts any one else to speak who knows more about it, it will not have been out of place. A. WILDER. PELASGI-PELASGOS. (Vol. IV, p. 402; V, p. 36.) I desire to remark on the paragraph about Pelasgi. The statement that pelasgos means the sea, in the previous volume, cannot be proved. Pelagos is the word which means sea, and the insertion of an s in the word makes all the difference in the world. The derivation of Pelasgos is in fact wholly unknown. Again: that the " Philistines or Pelesti were probably a cognate people" with the Pelasgi is not well founded. The names do not correspond. The t and g in the two last syllables throw the two names widely apart. There is not the least historical or philological basis for the assertion that the Philistines were Pelasgi. And the remark, "there is no other conjecture more plausible," is not a wise remark. If we cannot find a good solution of a problem, shall we therefore take up with a bad one? not at all, we should wait. To adopt a bad explanation rather than to wait for a good one is exactly the process of savage minds, and is unworthy of a civilized philosopher. Lastly: The word Pelesti is not a proper representative of the Hebrew name which is translated in the authorized version "Philistines." That word, if transliterated from the Hebrew, is not Pelesti, but Pelishtim; and the word " Pelethites," if transliterated in like manner, is not Pelesti, but Pelethi. This inaccuracy, however, makes no difference with my statement about the t and g in the final syllables. PRIGGLES. |