[322] This may be a variant of ‘Maugis’ or Merlin. In the romance of Maugis d’Aygremont we find the following passage: ‘Il n’y avoit meilleur maistre que lui … et l’appelloit-on Maistre Maugis.’ On the other hand Mengot is a genuine early Teutonic name. ‘Et hic liber finitus est per manus Mengoti Itelbrot, Anno domini mºcccºlxxxv.’ is the colophon to a manuscript of the Almagest of Ptolemy in the Vatican, Fondo Palatino, 1365, p. 206ro.
[323] ‘M’hai scottato me, ma ora scotto te.’ This play on words is the turning-point of the tale.
[324] ‘Scorticata.’ It may be that a play on words is intended here also.
[325] This is no doubt the benj or bhang of the Arabs and Indians which still furnishes them with a potent narcotic.
[326] Laurentian Library, P. lxxxix, sup. cod. 38, p. 409 (old number 256) verso.
[327] Here and elsewhere in this text are astrological signs which cannot be reproduced in print.
Transcriber’s Note: By comparison with a copy of Scot’s manuscript (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Plut. 89 sup. 038, ff. 409v-413r), the correct astrological signs have here been added.
[328] Cf. with the expression in the colophon ‘qui summus inter alios nominatur magister.’
[329] The manuscript shows a drawing of a magic circle here. It has the names of demons alternately with those of the cardinal points.
[330] These are names of philosophers probably the same as the ‘vnay et melchia’ of the Luminis Luminum, the rather that the phrase ‘non convertitur perfecte in lunam’ occurs in both passages. I do not know how to explain the fact that two paragraphs of the Liber Dedali correspond so closely with one in the Liber Luminis.