Minor Notes.
Ὑπωπιάζω.
—I "keep under my body," &c. 1 Cor. ix. 27. One can scarcely allude to this passage without remembering the sarcastic observations of Dr. South upon a too literal interpretation of it. (Sermons, vol. i. p. 12. Dublin, 1720.) And yet deeper and more spiritual writers by no means pass the literal interpretation by with indifference. Bishop Andrewes distinctly mentions ὑπωπιασμός, or suggillatio, amongst the "circumstantiæ orationis;" as also ἐκδίκησις, vindicta, or revenge, 2 Cor. vii. II. (Preces Privatæ, pag. 14. Londini, 1828.) Bishop J. Taylor is equally explicit in a well-known and remarkable passage:
"If the lust be upon us, and sharply tempting, by inflicting any smart to overthrow the strongest passion by the most violent pain, we shall find great ease for the present, and the resolution and apt sufferance against the future danger; and this was St. Paul's remedy: 'I bring my body under;' he used some rudeness towards it."—Holy Living, sect. iii. Of Chastity. Remedies against Uncleanness, 4.
The word ὑπώπια occurs only once in the LXX, but that seems in a peculiarly apposite way: "ὑπώπια καὶ συντρίμματα συναντᾷ κακοῖς, πληγαὶ δὲ εἰς ταμιεῖα κοιλίας." As our English version translates it: "The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil (or, is a purging medicine against evil, margin), so do stripes the inward parts of the belly." (Proverbs xx. 30.) If it were not absolute presumption to differ from the great Dr. Jackson, one would feel inclined to question, or at least to require further proof of some observations of his. He says, in treating of our present passage:
"The very literal importance of those three words in the original—ὑποπιάζω, κηρῦξας, and ἀδόκιμος—cannot be so well learned from any Dictionary or Lexicon, as from such as write of the Olympic Games, or of that kind of tryal of masteries, which in his time or before was in use. The word ὑποπιάζω is proper (I take it) unto wrestlers, whose practice it was to keep under other men's bodies, not their own, or to keep their antagonists from all advantage of hold, either gotten or aimed at. But our apostle did imitate their practice upon his own body, not on any others; for his own body was his chief antagonist."—Works, vol. ii. p. 644. Lond. 1673.
Suidas makes some remarks upon the word, but they are not very much to our purpose.
RT.
Warmington.
Meaning of Whitsunday.
—I long ago suggested in your pages that Whitsun Day, or, as it was anciently written, Witson Day, meant Wisdom Day, or the day of the outpouring of Divine wisdom; and I requested the attention of your learned correspondents to this subject. I cannot refrain from thanking C. H. for his fourth quotation from Richard Rolle (Vol. iv., p. 50.) in confirmation of this view.
"This day witsonday is cald,
For wisdom & wit seuene fald
Was youen to þe apostles as þis day
For wise in alle þingis wer thay,
To spek wt outen mannes lore
Al maner langage eueri whore."
H. T. G.
Anagrammatic Pun by William Oldys.
—Your correspondent's Query concerning Oldys's Account of London Libraries (Vol. iv., p. 176.), reminded me of the following punning anagram on the name of that celebrated bibliographer, which may claim a place among the first productions of its class. It was Oldys himself, and is attached to one of his own transcripts in the British Museum:
"In word and Will I am a friend to you,
And one friend Old is worth a hundred new."
BLOWEN.
Ballad of Chevy Chase: Ovid.
—Addison, in his critique on the ballad of "Chevy Chase," after quoting the stanza—
"Against Sir Hugh Montgomery,
So right his shaft he set,
The grey goose wing that was thereon
In his heart's blood was wet,"
says that "the thought" in that stanza "was never touched by any other poet, and is such a one as would have shined in Homer or Virgil." It is perhaps true that there is no passage in any other writer exactly resembling this, but it is not quite true that the thought has not been touched; for there is something approaching to it in Ovid's Metamorphoses, where the slaughter of Niobe's children by the arrows of Apollo is described:
"Altera per jugulum pennis tenus acta sagitta est:
Expulit hanc sanguis; seque ejaculatus in altum
Emicat."—VI. 260.
The author of this ballad would appear, from the passages cited by Addison, to have been well read in the Latin poets. Had Addison recollected the above passage of Ovid, he would doubtless have adduced it.
J. S. W.
Stockwell.
Horace Walpole at Eton.
—The following anecdote of Horace Walpole while at Eton was related by the learned Jacob Bryant, one of his school-fellows, and has not, I believe, been printed; it is at all events very much at your service.
In those days the Etonians were in the habit of acting plays, and amongst others Tamerlane was selected for representation. The cast of parts has unluckily not been preserved, but it is sufficient for us to know that the lower boys were put into requisition to personate the mutes. After the performance the wine, which had been provided for the actors, had disappeared, and a strong suspicion arose that the lower boys behind the scenes had made free with it, and Horace Walpole exclaimed, "The mutes have swallowed the liquids!"
BRAYBROOKE.