The Persian Magi: priests and philosophers, diviners and astrologers. The Parsees of India are descendants of the Persians who in the seventh and eight centuries of our era fled to escape Mohammedan intolerance. "Their dead are not buried, but exposed on an iron grating in the Dakhma, or Tower of Silence, to the fowls of the air, to the dew, and to the sun, until the flesh has disappeared, and the bleaching bones fall through into a pit beneath, from which they are afterwards removed to a subterranean cavern."

feretra: plural of Latin feretrum, a bier, a litter.

nicities: scruples. This spelling occurs from sixteenth century to eighteenth.

Herthus: one form of the name of a goddess worshipped by a group of German tribes and identified by Tacitus (Germania, XL.) with mother-earth. Ritter changed the reading and insisted that it was the goddess Ertha, her name being the old Teutonic form of the word for " earth." Modern authorities adopt another reading and explain the deity as Nerthus, associated by some with the Scandinavian sea-god Niörðr, by others regarded as a goddess of reviving nature. See Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, s.vv.

Authentick: authoritative. See p. 14. Or does it here mean trustworthy?

conjecture: reason for conclusion not reaching demonstration-obsolete usage.

a devouring Element: consuming, destroying. So Isaiah xxix. 6: "...the flame of devouring fire." The phrase devouring Element is now hackneyed. For this statement about the Egyptians, see quotation from Herodotus in note to "Cambyses," p. 49.

depositure: depositing. So on p. 6. Depositure is a rare

word.

handsome: fitting, seemly.

inclosure: a variant spelling of enclosure. This use of the word in the sense of the act of enclosing is rare. See Herodotus, III. 24.

Pythagoras: the Greek philosopher (of the sixth century B.C.), founder of the Pythagorean brotherhood.

Numa. See p. 3.

waved: waived, in the obsolete sense of abandon, forsake. Waive is now the regular spelling, but wave was a common variant. It is the form in Johnson's Dictionary, and Burke has it in A Letter to a Noble Lord.

fiery solution: dissolution by fire. See p. 4.

winde: i.e. the breath of life.

grave in the ayr. Certain of the Scythians, and also the Colchians did this, says Kirchmann, De Funeribus Romanorum, Appendix.

Ichthyophagi. Various tribes of fish-eaters are mentioned by Herodotus, Strabo, and Pausanias. Those referred to by Browne inhabited the African shore of the Red Sea, to the south of Egypt.

PAGE 6.

Heroes in Homer. Browne, just below, instances the death of Ajax son of Oïleus, who was drowned on the way back from Troy; and refers to Odyssey, IV. 511:

ὡς ὁ μὲν ἔνθ ̓ ἀπόλωλεν ἐπεὶ πίεν ἁλμυρὸν ὕδωρ.

"So there he perished when he had drunk the salt sea water.” To prove that “the Poet emphatically implieth the total destruction," Browne quotes in a note the reading éέaróλwdev -he perished utterly. Compare Christian Morals, II. 13:“Ovid, the old Heroes, and the Stoicks, who were so afraid of drowning (as dreading thereby the extinction of their Soul, which they conceived to be a fire), stood probably in fear of an easier way of Death."

that Element: water.

Balearians: dwellers in the Balearic Islands.

Chinois: Chinese. Chinois, from French, is now obsolete. The only examples in O.E.D. belong to the seventeenth century. Browne's authority for this Chinese custom is probably Marco Polo, who says the people of Kin-sai throw into funeral fires pieces of paper with paintings of servants, horses, furniture, in the belief that the dead will enjoy, in the other world, the real things represented by the pictures.

draughts: drawings, pictures—obsolete usage. Of course, draught (usually draft) = rough copy is still found.

civilly: in civilised fashion-obsolete usage.

in effigie: This is more likely to be Latin than English. In seventeenth-century poetry effigie is a word of four syllables. Like statua (see p. 20), the word was not yet naturalised. Compare effigies = likeness in Shakespeare, As You Like It, II. vii. 193. In effigie was used of punishing the semblance of a criminal who had escaped from justice.

they stickt not: they did not hesitate or scruple, were not reluctant. This usage is only with negative, and is now rare. The form stickt is common in the sixteenth century and the

seventeenth. Stick was originally of the weak conjugation, but in the standard language is now of the strong. See note to "digged," p. 9.

depositure. See p. 5.

absumption: wasting away, gradual destruction. The word absumption is now obsolete. O.E.D. records only two examples, both of the seventeenth century. This is a third.

the sentence of God: uttered to Adam after the eating of the forbidden fruit. See Genesis iii. 19:

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Patriarches. See p. 2.

some have suffered. Browne cites the case of Bishop Martialis.

fiery resolution: dissolution by fire. See p. 4.

a present trial: instant, immediate-obsolete usage. "The dead are received in their graves by an angel announcing the coming of the two examiners, Munkir and Nakîr, who put questions to the corpse respecting his belief in God and Mohammed, and who, in accordance with the answers, either torture or comfort him."

entertained. See p. 4.

PAGE 7.

this practice: viz. cremation.

the men of Jabesh: 1 Samuel xxxi. 12.

pollution: ceremonial defilement.

burnt the bodies: Amos vi. 9 sq.:

"And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

And a man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house....

Jehoram: 2 Chronicles xxi. 19.

Sedechias: the Septuagint form of Zedekiah. See Jeremiah xxxiv. 4 sq.:

"Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah; Thus saith the Lord of thee, Thou shalt not die by the sword: But thou shalt die in peace: and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee; and they will lament thee, saying, Ah lord! for I have pronounced the word, saith the Lord.”

Asa: 2 Chronicles xvi. 14:

"And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very great burning for him."

the Jews lamenting. Browne refers to Suetonius' Life of Julius Cæsar, where this is mentioned in chapter 84.

for their own Nation. Browne's note is: "As that magnificent sepulchral monument erected by Simon, 1 Macc. xiii." There, verses 27 sqq., we read:

"Simon also built a monument upon the sepulchre of his father and his brethren, and raised it aloft to the sight, with hewn stone behind and before.

Moreover he set up seven pyramids, one against another, for his father, and his mother, and his four brethren.

And in these he made cunning devices, about the which he set great pillars, and upon the pillars he made all their armour for a perpetual memory, and by the armour ships carved, that they might be seen of all that sail on the sea.'

were not scrupulous: had no scruple, had no objection. Daniel...Persian Kings. Browne adds the note: Κατασκεύασμα θαυμασίως πεποιημένον, whereof a Jewish Priest had alwayes the custody till Josephus his dayes"; and refers to Book x of the Antiquities.

hottest use: cruelest treatment, i.e. when persecution raged fiercest.

should not see corruption: Acts ii. 27; xiii. 35-37.

a bone should not be broken: John xix. 31-37. providentially: by the ordination of divine providence. Nor of ordinary contrivance: Neither was it of ordinary contrivance, i.e. it happened providentially.

PAGE 8.

co-habitation: living together in one land—archaic sense. The hyphen usefully distinguishes this sense from cohabitation living as husband and wife.

crept. Supply "the Jews" as subject. Crept into means came by imperceptible degrees to be the custom.

answered: corresponded to. Compare p. 35.

tipes: a variant spelling of types, found in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries.

51.

Enoch: Genesis v. 24; Hebrews xi. 5. Compare also pp. 25,

Eliah: Elijah. See 2 Kings ii. 11. Compare also p. 51.

Jonah: Jonah i. 17; Matthew xii. 40. Compare also p. 25. which yet to prevent or restore: to preserve it from becoming imperfect or restore it to perfection.

that rising power: that power to rise, that power of resurrection.

able: i.e. in the case of Christ.

fasciations: bandages-obsolete usage. So also The Garden of Cyrus, II.: "And even diadems themselves were but fasciations, and handsome ligatures, about the heads of princes." For this sense, Browne is the only authority in O.E.D. For the allusions in this sentence, see John xix. 39 sq.; xx. I sqq. Compare Matthew xxvii. 59 sq.; xxviii. 2 sqq.; Mark xv. 46; xvi. 3 sqq.; Luke xxiii. 53; xxiv. 2 sqq.

Cere-cloth: a waxed sheet for wrapping the dead in. entertained. See p. 4.

not meer Pagan Civilities: not simply ceremonies borrowed from the Pagan, but genuinely Jewish tokens of respect. Civilities acts of politeness, marks of respect.

=

burthen: word or phrase repeated, refrain. For the confusion of burthen, load, and bourdon, a low undersong, see O.E.D.

after Absalom. The Quarto edition of 1658 gives among addenda, "O Absolom, Absolom, Absolom,' ," and refers to 2 Samuel xviii., where in verse 33 we read: '...and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"

conclamation: loud general shout, especially, as here, of lamentation for the dead.

triple valediction. See p. 35.

Civilians: writers on Civil Law.

thick skinned: obtuse, dull of understanding, dense.

the story of the Phoenix: discussed by Browne, Pseud. Epidem. III. 12.

Elephants. See Kirchmann, De Funeribus Romanorum, Appendix, for statements about elephants, cranes, ants and bees.

PAGE 9.

Pismires: ants-obsolete except in dialects. See p. 25. which civil society: i.e. the bees. See Religio Medici, 1. § 15.