Dove also was a name which abounded with mystical significations, and
which derived peculiar significance from its mysterious conjunction
with Daniel. Had it not been said “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless
as Doves?” To him the text was personally applicable in both parts.
Dove he was by birth. Daniel by baptism or the second birth, and
Daniel was Dan, and Dan shall be a serpent by the way.
But who can express his delight when in perusing Jacob Bryant's
Analysis of ancient Mythology, he found that so many of the most
illustrious personages of antiquity proved to be Doves, when their
names were truly interpreted or properly understood! That erudite
interpreter of hidden things taught him that the name of the Dove was
Iön and Iönah, whence in immediate descent the Oän and Oannes of
Berosus and Abydenus, and in longer but lineal deduction Æneas,
Hannes, Hanno, Ionah, _Ιοάννης_, Johannes, Janus, Eanus among the
elder Romans, Giovanni among the later Italians, Juan, Joam, Jean,
John, Jan, Iwain, Ivan, Ewan, Owen, Evan, Hans, Ann, Hannah, Nannette,
Jane, Jeannette, Jeanne, Joanna and Joan; all who had ever borne these
names, or any name derived from the same radical, as doubtless many
there were in those languages of which he had no knowledge, nor any
means of acquiring it, being virtually Doves. Did not Bryant expressly
say that the prophet Jonah was probably so named as a messenger of the
Deity, the mystic Dove having been from the days of Jonah regarded as
a sacred symbol among all nations where any remembrance of the
destruction and renovation of mankind was preserved! It followed
therefore that the prophet Jonah, Hannibal, St. John, Owen Glendower,
Joan of Arc, Queen Anne, Miss Hannah More, and Sir Watkin Williams
Wynn, were all of them his namesakes, to pretermit or pass over Pope
Joan, Little John, and Jack the Giantkiller. And this followed, not
like the derivation of King Pepin from _Ὅσπερ_, by a jump in the
process, such as that from _διάπερ_ to napkin; nor like the equally
well known identification of a Pigeon with an Eel Pye, in the logic of
which the Doctor would have detected a fallacy, but in lawful
etymology, and according to the strict interpretation of words. If he
looked for the names through the thinner disguise of language there
was Semiramis who having been fed by Doves, was named after them. What
was Zurita the greatest historian of Arragon, but a young stock Dove?
What were the three Palominos so properly enumerated in the
Bibliotheca of Nicolas Antonio. Pedro the Benedictine in whose sermons
a more than ordinary breathing of the spirit might not unreasonably be
expected from his name; Francisco who translated into Castillian the
Psychomachia of the Christian poet Aurelius Prudentius, and Diego the
Prior of Xodar, whose _Liber de mutatione aeris, in quo assidua, et
mirabilis mutationis temporum historia, cum suis causis, enarratur_,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account