Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 | Page 5

namesake.
H. G. T.
"Nettle in, Dock out."--Sometime since, turning over the leaves of Clarke's Chaucer, I stumbled on the following passage in "Troilus and Cressida," vol. ii. p. 104.:--
"Thou biddest me that I should love another All freshly newe, and let Creseid�� go, It li'th not in my power lev�� brother, And though I might, yet would I not do so: But can'st thou playen racket to and fro, Nettle' in Dock out, now this now that, Pandare? Now foul�� fall her for thy woe that care."
I was delighted to find the charm for a nettle sting, so familiar to my childish ear, was as old as Chaucer's time, and exceedingly surprised to stumble on the following note:--
"This appears to be a proverbial expression implying inconstancy; but the origin of the phrase is unknown to all the commentators on our poet."
If this be the case, Chaucer's commentators may as well be told that children in Northumberland use friction by a dock-leaf as the approved remedy for the sting of a nettle, or rather the approved charm; for the patient, while rubbing in the dock-juice, should keep repeating,--
"Nettle in, dock out, Dock in, nettle out, Nettle in, dock out, Dock rub nettle out."
The meaning is therefore obvious. Troilus is indignant at being recommended to forget this Cressida for a new love, just as a child cures a nettle-sting by a dock-leaf. I know not whether you will deem this trifle worth a corner in your valuable and amusing "NOTES."
* * * * *
THE SCALIGERS.
"Lo primo tuo rifugio e 'l primo ostello Sar�� la cortesia del gran Lombardo, Che 'n su la Scala porta il santo uccello." Dante, Paradiso, xvii. 70.
The Scaligers are well known, not only as having held the lordship of Verona for some generations, but also as having been among the friends of Dante in his exile, no mean reputation in itself; and, at a later period, as taking very high rank among the first scholars of their day. To which of them the passage above properly belongs--whether to Can Grande, or his brother Bartolommeo, or even his father Alberto, commentators are by no means agreed. The question is argued more largely than conclusively, both in the notes to Lombardi's edition, and also in Ugo Foscolo's Discorso nel testo di Dante.
Perhaps the following may be a contribution to the evidence in favour of Can Grande. After {134} saying, in a letter, in which he professes to give the history and origin of his family,--
"Prisca omnium familiarum Scaliger? stirpis insignia sunt, aut Scala singularis, aut Canes utrinque scal? innitentes."
Joseph Scaliger adds--
"Denique principium Veronensium progenitores eadem habuerunt insignia: donec in eam familiam Alboinus et Canis Magnus Aquilam imperii cum Scala primum ab Henrico VII^o, deinde �� Ludovico Bavaro acceptam nobis reliquerunt."
Alboinus, however, who received this grant upon being made a Lieutenant of the Empire, and having the Signory of Verona made hereditary in his family, only bore the eagle "in quadrante scuti."
"Sed Canis Magnus, cum eidem �� C?sare Ludovico Bavaro idem privilegium confirmatum esset, totum scutum Aquila occupavit, subjecta Alitis pedibus Scala."
Can Grande, then, was surely the first who carried the "santo uccello" in su la Scala; and his epithet of Grande would also agree best with Dante's words, as neither his father nor brothers seem to have had the same claim to it.
I would offer a farther remark about this same title or epithet Can Grande, and the origin of the scala or ladder as a charge upon the shield or coat of this family. Cane would at first sight appear to be a designation borrowed from the animal of that name. There would be parallels enough in Italy and elsewhere, as the Ursini, Lewis the Lion (VIII. of France), our own Coeur de Lion, and Harold Harefoot. Dante, too, refers to him under the name "Il Veltro," Inferno, canto 1. l. 101. But Joseph Scaliger, in the letter to which I referred before, gives the following account of it:--
"Nomen illi fuerat Franscisco, �� sacro lavacro, Cani �� gentilitate, Magno �� merito rerum gestarum. Neque enim Canis ab illo latranti animali dictus est, ut recte monet Jovius, sed quod lingua Windorum, unde principes Veronenses oriundos vult, Cahan idem est, quod lingua Serviana Kral, id est Rex, aut Princeps. Nam in gente nostra multi fuerunt Canes, Mastini, Visulphi Guelphi."--P. 17.
This letter consists of about 58 pages, and stands first in the edition of 1627. It is addressed "ad Janum Dousam," and was written to vindicate his family from certain indignities which he conceived had been put upon it. Sansovino and Villani, it appears, had referred its origin to Mastin II., "qui," to use Scaliger's version of the matter,--
"Qui primus dictator populi Veronensis perpetuus creatus est, quem et auctorem nobilitatis Scaliger? et Scalarum antea fabrum impudentissime nugantur hostes virtutis majorum nostrorum."
It was bad