Hudibras Samuel Butler (free novels to read TXT) 📖

to cause insanity when taken. Mantua

A kind of woman’s loose gown.

Martlet

A swallow or martin.

Mazzard

The head.

Measle

A spot or pustule.

Mira de lente

Wonderfully slow.

Mordicus

With the teeth.

Morpion

A crab-louse.

Mundungus

Bad tobacco.

Nare olfact

Nostril.

Neat (noun)

A calf or cow.

Negatur

It is denied.

Nimmer

A petty thief.

Omnibus nervis

With every sinew.

Oppugn

Attack or fight against.

Orcades

The Orkneys.

pacquet-male

Large wallet.

Padder

A thief.

Pari Libra

Equally.

Pathic

Passively homosexual.

Pernicion

Total ruin.

Petronel

A short carbine or large pistol.

Picqueer

Skirmish or quarrel.

Pigsney

A term of endearment for a woman, “darling.”

Plus satis

More than enough.

Poesie

Poetry.

Pullen

Poultry.

Punese

A bedbug.

Pursy

Rich.

Quarteridge

A tax or payment due quarterly.

Quatenus

So far as (it is)

Quillets

Verbal points or quibbles.

Rampiers

Ramparts.

Rationalia

Thinking creatures.

Rochet

A bishop’s white gown or surplice.

Satis

Enough.

Sault

Jump.

Scire facias

To know the appearance of.

Sedes Stercoraria

Filthier seat.

Seisin

A token of ownership, formally handed over when property is sold.

Shanker

A venereal sore, chancre.

Slubberdegullion

A dirty, slovenly person.

Soland geese

Barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis)

Staffier

A footman.

Stentrophonic

Loud, as from a megaphone.

Stum

A mixture of wine and grape juice.

Suggill’d

Beaten severely.

Sui juris

Independently.

Swound

A swoon.

Synodical

Arising from or of the nature of a synod⁠—a meeting of bishops etc. of the Anglican Church.

Tantundem dat tantidem

So much of that gives so much of this = they are exactly the same.

Tarsel

A male falcon.

Theorbo

A kind of lute with two necks.

Totidem verbis

In just as many words.

Trapes

Tripes.

Trepan

To trap.

Trigon

A set of 3 signs of the Zodiac at 120-degree angles to each other.

Tussis pro crepitu

A cough for a fart.

Velis & remis

By sail and oar.

Veni, Vidi, Vici

I came, I saw, I conquered.

Versal

Universal.

Videlicet

That is, viz.

Vitilitigation

Argument, quarrelling.

Vizard

A mask or disguise.

Welkin

The sky.

Whiffler

A ceremonial guard who cleared the way for a mayor or other official.

Whinyard

A short sword.

Ycleped

Named.

Yerst

Erst, formerly.

Endnotes

Poets are born, not made. ↩

I have raised a memorial more lasting than bronze. ↩

For I have raised a work which neither the rage of Jupiter,
Nor fire, nor iron, nor consuming age can destroy.

↩

They do not easily rise whose virtues are held back by the
straitened circumstances of their home

↩

Dudgeon. Who made the alterations in the last Edition of this poem I know not, but they are certainly sometimes for the worse; and I cannot believe the Author would have changed a word so proper in that place as dudgeon for that of fury, as it is in the last Edition. To take in dudgeon, is inwardly to resent some injury or affront; a sort of grumbling in the gizzard, and what is previous to actual fury. ↩

Bind over to the Sessions as being a Justice of the Peace in his County, as well as Colonel of a Regiment of Foot in the Parliament’s army, and a committeeman. ↩

Montaigne, in his Essays, supposes his cat thought him a fool, for losing his time in playing with her. ↩

Here again is an alteration without any amendment; for the following lines,

And truly, so he was, perhaps,
Not as a proselyte, but for claps,

Are thus changed:

And truly so, perhaps, he was;
’Tis many a pious Christian’s case.

The Heathens had an odd opinion, and have a strange reason why Moses imposed the law of circumcision on the Jews, which, how untrue soever, I will give the learned reader an account of without translation, as I find it in the annotations upon Horace, wrote by my worthy and learned friend Mr. William Baxter, the great restorer of the ancient and promoter of modern learning.

Curtis; quia pellicula imminuti sunt; quia Moses Rex Judæorum, cujus Legibus reguntur, negligentia ⸻ medicinaliter exsectus est, et ne soles esset notabi omnes circumcidi voluit. Vet. Schol. Vocem ⸻ qua inscitia Librarii exciderat reposuimus ex conjectura, uti et medicinaliter exsectus pro medicinalis effectus quæ nihil erant. Quis miretur ejusmodi convicia homini Epicureo atque Pagano excidisse? Jure igitur Henrico Glareano Diaboli Organum videtur. Etiam Satyra Quinta hæc habet: Constat omnia miracula certa ratione fieri, de quibus Epicurei prudentissime disputant.

Hor. Sat. 9. Sermon. Lib. i

↩

Analytic is a part of logic, that teaches to decline and construe reason, as grammar does words. ↩

A confusion of languages, such as some of our modern virtuosi used to express themselves in. ↩

Cerberus; a name which poets give a dog with three heads, which they feigned doorkeeper of hell, that caressed the unfortunate souls sent thither, and devoured them that would get out again; yet Hercules tied him up, and made him follow. This dog with three heads denotes the past, the present, and the time to come; which receive, and, as it were, devour all things. Hercules got the better of him, which shows that heroic actions are always victorious over time, because they are present in the memory of posterity. ↩

Demosthenes, who is said to have had a defect in his pronunciation, which he cured by using to speak with little stones in his mouth.