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Notes
Jean Fernel, Universa medicina (Coloniæ Allobrogum, Apud Samuelum de Tournes, 1679), p. 135; the work was first published in 1554.
Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), p. 84 (facs. repr. Amsterdam, 1971). Burton cites "Fernelius path. lib. I. cap. II" in the paragraph where the sentence occurs; the "Pathology" is included in the Universa medicina and the sentence in question is also found in 1.11.
Possibly the change argues that he was quoting from memory, but since he uses Burton at length a few chapters later, we probably should assume he had the Anatomy close by.
Tristram Shandy (1765), VIII, 111n.: 'Rodope Thracia tam inevitabili fascino instructa, tam exacte oculis intuens attraxit, ut si in illam quis incidesset, fieri non posset, quin caperetur.' Cf. Burton, 3.2.2.3., p. 565n. Sterne also changes Burton's 'Rodophe' to 'Rodope', but since it occurs again thus in the text, we can assume it was a conscious alteration.
'[5] Planetarum coitio sub Scorpio Asterismo in nonâ cœli statione . . . .' Strictly speaking, 'Asterismo' is the ablative object of the preposition 'sub', while 'Scorpii' in Bayle is a possessive form dependent upon 'Asterismo' (i.e., "in the constellation of Scorpio"). Setting aside a compositorial error there are two possible explanations for Sterne's change: he may have had the English form of the name in mind, or the other nearby forms ending in -o ('coitio' and 'Asterismo') may have facilitated a slip of the pen. In actuality, the first edition prints 'Scarpio', an obvious misprint, corrected by the concealed second edition. The accenting of 'nonâ' is Sterne's and is another small indication of his command of Latin.
Swinburne went through many editions; I quote from that of 1611, Part 4, ii (London: Company of Stationers, 1611), p. 127. In this case, the particular edition Sterne used does not seem as important as elsewhere.
The citation almost certainly refers to Sassoferrato Bartolo (1314-1357), the Italian jurist, perhaps his Universum Civile Commentaria . . . studio et opera Iacobi Concenatii, 1562.
Swinburne, Part 3, xvi, p. 113, and Part 2, xxvii, p. 69. With sufficient patience one could perhaps find in the margins of Swinburne every one of the "learned formulas" Sterne uses. The inspiration for the note itself came, almost certainly, from Rabelais' Judge Bridlegoose. Book III, Chapters xxxix-xli (trans. Urquart and Motteux [1750], III, 260-279).
Sterne used the Paris, 1722, edition of Jugemens des Savans sur les Principaux Ouvrages des Auteurs . . . Revûs, corrigés, & augmentés par M. De La Monnoye de l'Académie Françoise, s.v. Liceti and Lipse. The borrowed passages occur in IV, Chapter 10, and VI, Chapter 2. The reading of the first and second editions, Les Enfans célèbres, is almost certainly Sterne's error.
It has been argued elsewhere, however, that the accenting in the Deventer "Memoire" (Volume I) should be treated differently, since in this one case the accenting was most likely compositorial rather than Sterne's. See Melvyn New, "Tristram Shandy and Heinrich van Deventer's Observations," PBSA, 69 (1975) 84-90.
"The Curse of Ernulphus," Harvard Library Bulletin, 14 (1960), 394. Cross's assertion appears in his Life and Times of Laurence Sterne, 3rd ed. (1929), p. 27on. The error persists in Ian Watt's edition of Tristram (1965), p. 128, n. 1.
Hearne had been cited by Work (p. 170, n. 4) twenty years earlier. The curse appears on pages 55-58 of Hearne's work. Sterne makes about thirty changes in punctuation and about ten in accenting, in addition to the changes we shall discuss. He also misnumbers the document as 'Cap. XXV', where Hearne has 'Cap. 35'.
Gwin J. Kolb ("A Note on 'Tristram Shandy': Some New Sources," N&Q, 196 [1951], 227) suggests Richard Steele's Englishman, no. 53; a collation of both the Latin and English clearly illustrates that it could not have been the source of either.
Tristram Shandy, III, 40; in quoting Hearne, and Sterne's Latin, we have omitted the superscribed rubrics for altering the number of malefactors to be cursed. Neither the GM nor Sterne translates 'æternis'; the Englishman, no. 53 reads 'that he may be delivered over to be tortured by eternal Tortures' (Richard Steele, The Englishman [1714], p. 244).
All these forms in Sterne are recognized variants of the forms in Hearne, though Sterne's are somewhat less usual. In the case of 'quatuor', Sterne repeats his variant in "Slawkenbergius's Tale" (TS. IV. 16). The "Tale" illustrates well Sterne's skill with Latin; its accuracy suggests that he prepared his copy or proofread it more carefully than his borrowings, though here too the few errors are probably the result of Sterne's hand: 'titigimus' (p. 8) and 'perveneo' (p. 20), corrected in the second edition to 'tetigimus' and 'pervenio'. The "Tale" was not reset for the second edition, so that these emendations to standing type indicate the particular care taken to have an accurate text. Why 'laciniato' (p. 14) should have been changed in standing type to 'baciniato' eludes us, however; and quite probably 'respondet' (p. 16) should have been emended to 'respondit', for the sake of consistency of tense, though no change was made in the second edition.
Each of these forms calls for commentary. 'Patriarchum', 'manubus', and 'guttere' are all forms which, though not correct, might have occurred in texts available to Sterne. They represent analogical over-extensions of Latin patterns which are in fact correct for other nouns. Since 'patriarcha' is a Greek loan word, it might conceivably occur with its Greek ending; however, it usually appears in the plural with its Latin ending, i.e., 'patriarcharum', as Sterne has it at a later point (p. 44). Likewise, 'manubus' should probably be emended, since "hands" occurs twice in "Slawkenbergius's Tale" as 'manibus' (TS. IV. 10, 20), though it may have occurred by analogy with a few other nouns of its class (cf. arcus~arcubus). 'Guttere' might also conceivably represent an erroneous overextension of the declensional type (cf. vulnus~vulnere), but probably should be emended, though the word does not recur in Tristram. 'Respuerit' comes from the verb meaning "to spew out," and obviously the meaning needed in context is that of 'resipuerit', to "come to his senses," i.e., "repent." Finally, the form 'harnis' would seem to be a simple error for Hearne's 'harmis'. As with the preceding word in the catalogue of bodily parts, 'humeris' (i.e., 'umeris'), 'harmis' (i.e., 'armis') is usually translated as "shoulders," though "upper arms" is also possible. Sterne follows the GM in translating it as "wrists," a word for which there is no Latin equivalent. The original text does read 'harmis' (Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, ed. Peter Sawyer [1957], VII); so one can assume some differentiation existed in medieval Latin between it and 'humeris'.
Hearne, p. 55. Hearne calls attention also to the error 'in infemore' (p. 58), which Sterne has correctly as 'in femore' (p. 50).
Work, p. 176. GM has "in their fore teeth or grinders." The original text, as reproduced by Sawyer, reads 'in labris, sive molibus'; because the error seems typical of a medieval copyist ('labiis' appears on the line following) and is the sort of error a modern scholar would emend in a medieval text, we believe it is worth emending in Sterne; had the reading originated with Sterne, we would not alter it in any way.
'Toe-nails' seems quite legitimate for 'unguibus' here, as the curse moves down the lower extremities.
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