Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and DevelopmentMatthews, W. H.
History
Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and Development
Matthews, W. H.
Labyrinths; Maze gardens
The remaining four injunctions may be read by similarly utilising the
words in the bottom row with those in the second, third, fourth, and
fifth rows respectively:
LABYRINTHUS A DIVO BERNARDO
COMPOSITUS QUO BENE VIVIT HOMO
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DICERE SCIS DICIT SCIT AUDIT NON VULT
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FACERE POTES FACIT POTEST INCURRIT NON CREDIT
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CREDERE AUDIS CREDIT AUDIT CREDIT NON EST
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DARE HABES DAT HABET MISERE NON HABET
QUAERIT
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JUDICARE VIDES JUDICAT VIDET CONTEMNIT NON DEBET
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NOLI OMNIA QUIA OMNIA SAEPE QUOD
QUAE QUI QUAE
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As a sample of a verbal labyrinth this seems to be very simple and
straightforward in comparison with the average Act of Parliament.
Let us turn now, for a brief space, to a question which, although
bearing upon matters dealt with earlier in the book, has been too
little investigated to warrant more than a nodding reference in our
more serious chapters--the question of place-names.
The occurrence of a suggestive place-name is, as previously hinted,
very slender evidence by itself on which to form an opinion of the
former existence of a maze in the locality. There is always the
possibility that the name may be a corruption of some ancient word of
very different significance, perhaps the name of some person, or that
it may have been bestowed fancifully or in respect of some resemblance
to another place.
In the absence of fuller information we will limit ourselves to the
bare mention of such names as convey a suggestion of possible maze
sites, merely remarking any cases in which evidence in one direction or
the other has come to notice.
The district known as Maze Pond, familiar to Londoners in the
neighbourhood of the Borough, and to which we made reference in Chapter
XV, takes its name from the ancient manor of the Maze, which was in the
holding of Sir John Burcestre in the fifteenth century. An old token
bears the inscription, "Michael Blower, at ye Maze, Southwarke." What
kind of maze, if any, formerly existed in the locality we do not know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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