8. HIPPOCRATES: FOOTNOTES
1 lynage, lineage.
5 alweis, always.
6 myddes, middle.
7 yles, islands.
8 tother, other.
9 fysyk, physic (medicine).
11 fesisian, physician.
14 dispreised, denounced; To, Too.
15 feete, feat.
17 toon, one.
23 brente, burned.
29 leete, let; seere, cauterize.
30 yghen, eyes.
31 boonys, bones.
36 parfite, perfect.
40 chase, chose; connynge, learning.
43 dampned, denounced.
44 soonys, sons.
45 maistres, masters; teche, teach.
46 covenable, appropriate.
48 dured, endured.
50 Perce, Persia.
52 besauntes, bezants.
54 trewage, tribute.
65 crokebacked, hunchbacked; passinge pensyf, very pensive.
67 fleeme, surgical lancet; holsome, wholesome.
73 wole, will.
74 meetis, meats.
75 noyeth, annoys; encres, increase.
79 covetyses, coveted things.
80 slee, slay.
82 folye, folly.
83 goth, goes; seurté, surety.
87 nerre, nearer.
92 feste, feast.
97 peas, peace.
101-02 speryte, spirit.
102 cunnynge, wisdom.
8. HIPPOCRATES: EXPLANATORY NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS: B = Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers, ed. Bühler (1941); CA = Gower's Confessio Amantis; CT = Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; G = Pierpont Morgan Library MS G.66; MED = Middle English Dictionary; OED = Oxford English Dictionary; S = Scrope, Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers, ed. Schofield (1936).
These explanatory notes cannot hope to provide a complete accounting for the source of every proverbial statement in Dicts and Sayings. That task would be a separate book in its own right. Instead, I have attempted to contextualize this rather heterogeneous body of lore by identifying the people and places named in the text, as well as noting points that may be of interest to students and general readers. Those interested in tracing the source of particular quotations should begin by consulting Whiting's Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases From English Writings Mainly Before 1500. Readers are also invited to consult the thorough notes to Knust's Bocados de Oro, the Spanish translation of the original Arabic ancestor of Dicts and Sayings.
1 Ipocras. The Greek physician Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 BC), whoever this shadowy, quasi-historical figure may have been, is regarded as the father of medicine. His work (and that of his disciples, much of which was attributed to him) remained popular throughout the Middle Ages.
Esculapius the secunde. Although the chronology would be off considerably, I would tentatively identify this character with Asclepiades of Bithynia; see the explanatory note for Galen, line 4.
Esculapius the firste. The family of Hippocrates claimed descent from the mythological Aesculapius. See the explanatory note for Zalquaquine, line 1.
7 the ile of Chau. Cos, the island on which Hippocrates was born.
11 Ancyas. Possibly Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c. 475-525 AD), the Roman politician and Neoplatonic philosopher who wrote his great treatise The Consolation of Philosophy while awaiting execution for charges of treason against the city's Germanic overlord, Theodoric. Boethius remained a towering intellectual figure throughout the Middle Ages, and his work is arguably the major philosophical influence upon the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer.
14 Bramaydes. I have been unable to ascertain his identity.
20 Platon. See the explanatory note for Plato, line 1.
50 Dasser. This is most likely Darius II (d. 404 BC), who reigned during Hippocrates' life and increased Persia's influence in Greece during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.
51 Pillate. Here the king of the island of Cos, but otherwise unknown to me. The name and the narrative context (a ruler being asked to give up a man in his custody) suggest the author is invoking the biblical Pontius Pilate in this tale.
62 Nabugodonosor. Nebuchadnezzar (d. 562 BC), king of Babylonia, known as much for his warlike ways as for his construction of the famed Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The medieval traditions of Nebuchadnezzar, derived from the Book of Daniel, cast this ruler as an arrogant tyrant.
64 Galyen. See the explanatory note for Galen, line 1.
71 the lyffe is shorte and the peyne is longe. See Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, line 1: "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." This maxim is, in fact, attributed to Hippocrates, and is often quoted in Latin: ars longa, vita brevis.
8. HIPPOCRATES: TEXTUAL NOTES
25 he. I follow B in adding.