Pythagoras concerning wilde-fowle

DICKINS, BRUCE, Pythagoras concerning Wilde-fowle , Modern Language Review, 20 (1925) AR Dick NS B. 186 Miscellaneous Notes fined to fools’ hoods, as may be seen from another of Fairholt’s illustrations (p. 121); but he does not seem to have supported the assertion by any evidence, unless one is so to interpret a rather obscure remark in his ‘prefatory note’. This runs: ‘The fool, however, wears a hood; and as regards the jagging round his neck, it is noteworthy that under “liripipe” in WV. #.D. the following quotation is given from Eulogium Hist. 1350-70, “Habent etiam...liripipia usque talum longa modo fatuorum dilacerata”.’ I cannot see the relevance of this unless it is suggested that a liripipe can be a jagged collar. But there seems no doubt that the liripipe was the long tail that hung down from the back of the hood: this could, if long enough, be wound round the neck like a scarf, but was certainly not a collar. Moreover, ‘modo fatuorum’ refers, I should imagine, to jesters, not ‘village idiots’, so that the ‘liripipia dilacerata’ may have been of the nature of a coekscomb, LoNDoN. W. W. GREG. ‘PYTHAGORAS CONCERNING WILDE-FOWLE.’ (Twelfth Night, ıv, ii, 52-8.) Clo, What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning Wilde-fowle? Mal. That the soule of our grandam, might happily inhabite a bird. Clo. What thinkst thou of his opinion? Mal. I thinke nobly of the soule, and no way aproue his opinion. Mr Morton Luce suggests in his Arden edition of the play that Shakespeare may have derived his allusion to the doctrines of Pythagoras from Ovid’s Metamorphoses ; e.g. xv, 457-8: Verum etiam volucres animae sumus, inque ferinas Possumus ire domos, pecudumque in pectora condi. Moreover Shakespeare's debt to The X V Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, entytuled Metamorphosis, translated...by Arthur Golding... (London, 1567) has often been discussed. I do not think it has been noted however that the immediate source of the passage from Twelfth Night is to be found in The Epistle of dedication to Robert, Earl of Leicester, prefixed to Golding’s translation, v. 26 ff.: But as for that opinion which Pythagoras there brin, Of soules remouing out of beasts too men, and out of men Too birdes and beasts both wyld and tame, both too and fro agen: It is not too be understand...... and v. 48 ff: But for too deeme or say Our noble soule (which is diuine and permanent for ay) Is common too vs with the beasts, I think it nothing lesse Than for too bee a poynt of him that wisdome dooth professe. EDINBURGH. Bruce Dickins.