Mr. Inglis's note to his translation of Richard de Bury's Philobiblion, which is taken from Billingsley, points out the connexion between the words Ellefuga and Dulcarnon, which, as he says, "have been a pons asinorum to some good Grecians." The reason will appear to have been that the words were derived from the Arabic, and not from the Greek, according to Dr. Adam Littleton:
"Dulcarnon, i.e. bicorne, cornutum, à figura sic dicta. A hard proposition in Euclid, l. 1. prop. 47. So called in Arabic, and used by old English writers for any hard question or point. DILEMMA, PROBLEMA."
So that to be at Dulcarnon may be said to be on the horns of a dilemma.
S. W. SINGER.
I cannot see the great difficulty which Mr. Halliwell and your correspondents perceive in the use of this word. Of course they are aware, that Iscander Dulcarnein (Alexander Bicornis) is Alexander the Great, the same name being also fabulously ascribed to a far more ancient and imaginary king; and that the æra of Dulcarnein (or Macedonian æra) is well known in Eastern chronology. There is therefore no doubt about the word, only about its application. Why did the name of this king stand for our Coventry or Jericho, a place to which the people are flemed or banished?
Because Dulcarnein built the famous iron walls of Jajuge and Majuge, within which Gog and Magog are confined until the latter days of the world; when God shall reduce the wall to dust, and set free the captive nations (Koran, cap. xviii.). Sending to Dulcarnein is merely an ellipsis of the person for his place, i.e. for the rampart of Dulcarnein. Certainly no men can be more effectually flemed than Gog and Magog were.
But as to the point of being "at one's wits end," no one can be so little conversant with human affairs as the inmates of the iron wall. Knowledge depends much on place. So sailors say, "he has been before."
I have only an uncommented text of Chaucer. But I cannot understand his editors allowing this word to "set them at defiance."
A. N.