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If All the Sky were Parchment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Irving Linn*
Affiliation:
College of the City of New York

Extract

The present paper, though it has a bearing upon the problems of comparative literature, does not deal directly with literary works themselves, but is confined to the study of a single rhetorical figure which made its appearance more than two thousand years ago and still lingers in folk rimes of the present day. This rhetorical figure, which is striking enough to be easily identifiable, can be traced all the way from the Orient to Western Europe and thus serves as a floating straw to mark the currents and eddies in the stream of literary tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 1938 , pp. 951 - 970
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1938

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References

Note 1 in page 951 Printed from BM Addit. MS. 27336 by Professor Carleton Brown in his paper, “Chaucer's ‘Wreched Engendring’,” PMLA, l (1935), 999.

Note 2 in page 951 Sir William A. Craigie in a private communication (January 5, 1936) to Professor Brown suggested that gamenum was simply a scribal error for ***p gamenum, parchment. “The scribe,” he wrote, “may have omitted to carry over the ***p from the end of one line to the beginning of the next.” In addition to transmitting to me this suggestion by Sir William, Professor Brown has given valuable criticism relating to the presentation of my evidence, which I here gratefully acknowledge.

Note 3 in page 951 I.e., encaustum, ink. Baxter and Johnson, Medieval Word List (Oxford, 1934), list the following variant spellings of this word: “incaustum 12c., ante 1408, incastum 1456, incaustra c 1220.”

Note 4 in page 951 Evidently Gamaliel I, who flourished during the first half of the first century, teacher of St. Paul and pleader for clemency in behalf of the early Christian missionaries. According to tradition, he was not only the president of the Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, but was also noted for his sayings. These, however, have not come down to us. Because he is the only contemporary Jewish sage to be mentioned in the New Testament, the early Christian writers ascribed to him nearly all of the Jewish materials known to them, including the Talmud, which a German monk of the twelfth century referred to as A Commentary of Gamaliel's on the Old Testament. (Jewish Encyc. v, 559.)

Note 5 in page 951 Act v, sc. ii, ed. C. F. Tucker Brooke, The Works of Christopher Marlowe (Oxford, 1929), p. 60.

Note 6 in page 952 The Book of Knowledge, The Children's Encyclopedia, Holland Thompson and Arthur Mee eds. (New York, n.d.), xviii, 6800; Gammer Gurton's Garland, usually ascribed to Joseph Ritson (London, 1810), p. 34. For this last reference I am indebted to Dr. Henry Bergen of London, England.

Note 7 in page 952 Harry L. D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum, iii, 647.

Note 8 in page 952 Brown, op. cit., p. 1000.

Note 9 in page 952 It is to be regretted that there is in English no uniformity in spelling the name of this Hindu divinity. In addition to the spelling Kisna, Krishna's name appears also as Creeshna, Crishna, Krichna, K***rsna and Srikrishna.

Note 10 in page 952 Philip Baldaeus, The Idolatry of the East-India Pagans in A. and J. Churchill, A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1745), iii, 781. The original Netherlandish text has been edited by Albert Johannes de Jong, Afgoderye Der Oost-Indische Heydenen door Philippus Baldaeus (The Hague, 1917). In it our figure appears on p. 171.

Note 11 in page 952 For a number of illustrations see Maurice Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature (Calcutta, 1933), ii, 339.

Note 12 in page 953 E. B. Cowell, ed., The Jataka, or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births, six vols. (Cambridge, 1897).

Note 13 in page 953 Ibid., iii, 284; Cf. No. 402, The Early English Carols, ed. Richard L. Greene (Oxford, 1935), p. 269.

Note 14 in page 953 A. Berriedale Keith, A History of Sanskrit Literature (Oxford, 1928), p. 312.

Note 15 in page 953 Ed. Louis H. Gray (New York, 1913).

Note 16 in page 953 Ibid., p. 115.

Note 17 in page 953 Eugen Prym and Albert Socin, Kurdische Sammlungen (St. Petersburg, 1890).

Note 18 in page 953 Ibid., ii, 202.

Note 19 in page 954 The late Professor Maurice Bloomfield, for example, in tracing the story of “Joseph and Potiphar in Hindu Fiction,” Trans. and Proc. Amer. Philol. Assoc, liv (1923), 141 ff., although finding its occurrence in a number of early texts, reached no conclusion as to an original date or provenience.

Note 20 in page 954 Solomon Sadowsky, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai (Rochester, 1932), p. 71.

Note 21 in page 954 Tractate Sabbath, fol. 11a.

Note 22 in page 955

Note 23 in page 955 Yalkut Shim'oni, Genesis ii, 20; cf. Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, fol. 68a.

Note 24 in page 955 Essad Bey, Mohammed, Helmut L. Ripperger translator (New York, 1936).

Note 25 in page 955 Ibid., p. 237.

Note 26 in page 955 Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (London, 1930), p. 305. Surah xviii (The Cave), verse 110.

Note 27 in page 956 Pickthall, p. 294. Surah xxxi (Luqman), verse 27.

Note 28 in page 956

The Akdamut, it may be mentioned in passing, is an alphabetical poem, each second line beginning with the next letter of the alphabet. Following the completion of the series of letters, the poet, using the same device, identifies himself by name, and delivers a short message to his readers. This was apparently a very conventional type among the medieval Hebrew poets.

Note 29 in page 956 Max Grünbaum, Jüdischdeutsche Chrestomathie (Leipzig, 1882), p. 245.

Note 30 in page 956 The King of Kings.

Note 31 in page 956 Ed. Hans Lichtenstein, Hebrew Union College Annual, viii-ix (1931–32), 318 ff. Our figure occurs on page 351. The Megilat Taanit, itself of great antiquity, is cited in the Mishna with the word “written.” The Scolion is a commentary upon it composed during the Middle Ages. Our figure here leans heavily upon the Talmud, Tractate Sabbath, fol. 11a.

Note 32 in page 956 = koolmoosim=calami.

Note 33 in page 956 = libelreim=libellarii.

Note 34 in page 957 Orient und Occident, ii (1863), 546 ff.

Note 35 in page 957 I (1889), 312 ff. Both articles are reprinted in his Kleinere Schriften (Berlin, 1900), iii, 293 ff.

Note 36 in page 957 Dr. Hermann, then editor of Ethnologische Mitteilungen aus Ungarn, printed Köhler's notes in i, 441 ff. Dr. Bolte edited the Kleinere Schriften.

Note 37 in page 957 Ward, ii, 679.

Note 38 in page 957 Johannes Herolt, Sermones Discipuli de Tempore et de Sanctis cum Prompluarium Exemplorum (Spirae, 1483), Exemplum v, “Gaudium Virginum in Celo.”

Note 39 in page 958 Ibid., Exemplum iv, “Gaudia Celi.”

Note 40 in page 958 Hungarian, German, and Slavonic. According to Ward, op. cit., ii, 680-681, analogues are also known in English, but these apparently have never been printed.

Note 41 in page 958 Lajos Katona, Ethnographia, ix (1898), 402.

Note 42 in page 958 Ethnologische Mitteilungen, i, 430.

Note 43 in page 958 Köhler, Kleinere Schriften, iii, 312.

Note 44 in page 958 Da su sva nebesa od hartije a sve more da je mastilo a sva slama i patrlje perje čiem bi se pisalo iì sve zviezde nebeske da su pisaoci i naučtelji kako su nau čitelji od Parža. Archiv für slavische Philologie, ii (1877), 402.

Note 45 in page 959 Carlyle's “German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (London, 1888), ii, 287.

Note 46 in page 959 Kenneth R. H. MacKenzie, ed., Master Tyll Owlglass (Boston, 1860), p. 39. The translator is following the Low German original of 1519 (p. xxi), not available to me.

Note 47 in page 959 Thomas Wright, The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century (London, 1872), ii, 157.

Note 48 in page 959 It is clear, therefore, that the poet is not using the Akdamut as his model. Speculation as to how the figure reached England suggests a route through Ireland, which was then in contact with the East. See Carleton Brown, “Irish-Latin Influence in Cynewulfian Texts,” Eng. Stud., xl (1908), 1 ff.; and G. L. Hamilton, “The Sources of the Fates of the Apostles and Andreas,” MLN, xxxv (1920), 385 ff.—That the figure took a great many forms in the East cf. the following Arabic proverb: “The reed-pen is a tree whose fruit is the ideas, and thought is a sea, whose pearls are wisdom.” A. Socin, Arabic Grammar (Berlin, 1927), p. 67.

Note 49 in page 959 Notes and Queries, ix (first series, 1853), 180. Shakespeare's parody of the figure in the mouth of Dromio of Ephesus seems wholly without influence:

If the [i.e., my] skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,
Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
Comedy of Errors, iii.i. 13–14.

Note 50 in page 960 Ibid., viii (first series, 1853), 180.

Note 51 in page 960 Reprinted in Archiv, xliii (1868), 244.

Note 52 in page 961 Köhler, iii, 300.

Note 53 in page 961 Psalmebog, til Kirke- og Huusandagt (Kjobenhavn, 1857), p. 83.

Note 54 in page 961 Translated from the original Latin by Joseph Berington, The Literary History of the Middle Ages (London, 1846), p. 275.

Note 55 in page 961 vi, 625–627, as translated by Dryden, ed. Walter Scott (London, 1808), xiv, 412.

Note 56 in page 962 Polycarp Leyser, Historia Poetarvm et Poematvm Medii Aevi (Frankfurt, 1721), p. 464.

Note 57 in page 962 Johann G. T. Grässe, Lehrbuch einer allgemeinen Literärgeschichte (1843), ii, part iii, second half, p. 825.

Note 58 in page 962 Lionardo Vigo, Opere (Catania, 1870), ii, 576.

Note 59 in page 962 This conclusion is based on an examination of the fifteen examples of the use of the figure known to me in Spanish literature.

Note 60 in page 962 Ed. Domenico Comparetti, Researches Respecting the Book of Sindibad (London, 1882).

Note 61 in page 963 Ibid., p. 27.

Note 62 in page 963 Ibid., p. 114; Adolfo Bonilla y San Martin, Libro de los enganos *** los asayamientos de las mugeres (Barcelona, 1904), p. 65.

Note 63 in page 963 Mahabharata, Anuçasana Parva, Section xxxviii, 29, ed. Pratapa Chandra Ray (Calcutta, 1893), xiii, 234.

Note 64 in page 963 George T. Northup, An Introduction to Spanish Literature (Chicago, 1925), p. 82.

Note 65 in page 963 Its existence was unknown until José Amador de los Ríos called attention to it in his Historia critica de la literatura espagnola, iii (1863), 525.

Note 66 in page 963 Leyser, op. cit., p. 2031, vv. 575–578.

Note 67 in page 964 Köhler, op. cit., iii, 315.—For Kraut, who was Cantor of Linz, see Robert Eitner, Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen- Lexicon der Musiker (Leipzig, 1900), v, 432.

Note 68 in page 964 Ethnologische Mitteilungen, ii, 438; from A. Waldau, Böhmische Granaten (Prague, 1860), ii, 101.

Note 69 in page 964 Translation by Dr. A. Hermann, Ethnologische Mitteilungen, ii, 433, from Ferenczi Zolatan, A Bocskor daloskonyv enekei (Erdelyi Muzeum, 1898), pp. 444–445.

Note 70 in page 964 Printed by Skeat, Chaucerian and Other Pieces, Oxford Chaucer, vii, 296, who ascribes this poem to Lydgate.

Note 71 in page 964 Preserved in the Bannatyne Manuscript (1568), and printed for the Hunterian Club (1896), iv, 754-755.

Note 72 in page 965 Collected Works, ed. Brokgauz-Efron (1907), ii, 64.

Note 73 in page 965 Over the Teacups (Boston, 1892), p. 93.

Note 74 in page 966 Leipzig, 1859.

Note 75 in page 966 See Introduction to Grimm's Household Tales, ed. Margaret Hunt (London, 1884), i, xli.

Note 76 in page 966 Benfey, op. cit., i, 21-22.

Note 77 in page 966 In 1912, “Les Mongols et Leur Prétendu Rôle dans la Transmission des Contes Indiens vers l'Occident Européen,” Etudes Folkloriques (Paris, 1922); but not before he declared that he, too, had “la croyance à l'existence historique de grands courants qui, de l'Inde, ont jadis charrié des contes vers les quatre points de l'horizon.”

Note 78 in page 966 “Arabische und Europäische Poesie im Mittelalter,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, lii (1927), 77 ff.

Note 79 in page 966 Ibid.

Note 80 in page 967 Ein indisches Märchen auf seiner Wanderung durch die asiatischen und europäischen Literaturen (Berlin, 1882).

Note 81 in page 967 Seven Sages of Rome, (Boston, 1907), p. xvii.

Note 82 in page 968 A folk dance of the modern Greeks, thus translated by Byron's friend and companion, John Cam Hobhouse, who accompanied the poet in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Turkey, and recorded his impressions in A Journey Through Albania and Other Provinces (London, 1813):

If all the ocean were of ink,
And paper all the skies,
Should I attempt to write my woes,
They never would suffice. (p. 1091)

Note 83 in page 968 Submitted to Dr. Hermann by Ignaz Kunos of Constantinople, a specialist in Osmanli-Turkish folk literature, Ethnologische Mitteilungen, i, 322.

Note 84 in page 968 Submitted by Professor Oskar Mailand to Dr. Hermann, Ethnologische Mitteilungen, ii, 321. It reads in English: “If God had suffered the earth to be white paper, and the sky black ink, it would still be impossible to write the happiness of my maidenhood, my childhood life.”

Note 85 in page 968 Giuseppe Tigri, Canti Popolari Toscani (Florence, 1856), p. 76.

Note 86 in page 969 Francisco Rodríguez Marín, Cantos Populäres Espanoles (Seville, 1882), ii, 266.

Note 87 in page 969 Köhler, op. cit., iii, 296.

Note 88 in page 969 Lajos Aigner, Ungarische Volksdichtungen (Stuttgart, 1873), p. 38.

Note 89 in page 969 Translated from the Slavonic into German and submitted to Dr. Hermann, Ethnologische Mitteilungen, ii, 211, by F. S. Krauss.

Note 90 in page 969 Des Knaben Wunderhorn, iii, 107.

Note 91 in page 970 Des Knaben Wunderhorn, 1864, i, 334, reprinted from Edmund Wyss, Texte zu der Sammlung von Schweizer- Kuhreihen und Volksliedern (Bern, 1826), p. 61. This edition is not available to me; a later reprint of Dursli und Bbeli (Aarau, 1913), includes the word Jodler after each stanza, p. 11.

Note 92 in page 969 N & Q, second series, ix (1860), 78.

Note 93 in page 969 A. Ernst, “Proben venezuelanischer Volksdichtung,” Globus, xviii (1870), 10.