Slughorn

The slughorn (or slug-horn ; pronunciation: [ slʌɡhɔːn ]) is a fictional wind instrument that is featured in several illustrious works of English literature . It is encountered for the first time in 1710 in a - factually incorrect - etymological gloss on Gavin Douglas ' Eneados , a work in Central Scottish in which slughorne does not designate a horn , but represents an ancient reading of the slogan , “ war cry, battle cry”. The spread of this fiction was promoted above all by the allegedly medieval Rowley poems of the young forger Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770).

In the work of Thomas Chattertons

The slughorn became known as a striking detail of the Rowley Poems , one of the most famous forgeries in literary history. This is a series of poems in Middle English or rather Middle English-looking language, which the young poet Thomas Chatterton wrote around 1768–1769 with the help of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and some dictionaries and issued them as the works of a late medieval monk named Thomas Rowley. A slughorn is used in several of these poems , “a musical instrument similar to the oboe ”, as Chatterton explains in a handwritten editor's note ( “a musical instrument not unlike a hautboy” ). Contrary to this representation, the context in which the word appears suggests that the slughorn may be a kind of battle horn or bugle: In the tragedy Ælla, A Tragycal Enterlude , that of a battle fought between Danes and the 10th century Saxony reports that it can be heard from a long way off ( "Botte know the dynne of slughornes from afarre" ) and sounds both as a call to arms ( "Nowe to the warre lette all the slughornes sounde" ) and to retreat ( " Sounde the loude slughorne for a quicke forloyne " ). In a martial function it also appears in the second of the two poems entitled Battle of Hastings about the Battle of Hastings 1066 ( “So did the men of war at once advaunce […] Ne neede of slughornes to enrowse theyr minde” ), and in The Tournament the Herald sounds the slughorn to open a court battle ( "A Leegefull Challenge, Knyghtes and Champyons dygne / A leegefull Challenge, lette the Slughorne sounde" ).

Before Chatterton

The Death of Chatterton
painting by Henry Wallis , 1856 ( Tate Britain , London).

Chatterton died in 1770 at the age of only seventeen from an accidentally but perhaps suicidal overdose of arsenic (which he took to treat syphilis ) and laudanum . In the following years the poems in his extensive literary estate were considered to be authentic medieval works, at least by some scholars. In 1777, under the editorship of the Chaucer specialist Thomas Tyrwhitt, a complete edition of the poems with text-critical apparatus and commentary as well as a testimonial by Jeremiah Milles was published , and in 1781 the scholar Jacob Bryant tried to prove their authenticity in a philological study. One fruit of these misguided efforts is the realization that the slughorn is by no means a pure invention of Chatterton, as skeptics claimed, because Tyrwhitt succeeded in locating an at least approximately medieval reference for this suspicious curiosity, which especially Bryant as conclusive evidence for the Cited authenticity of the poems, but ultimately only suggests that this source may also have been known to Chatterton.

This is the Eneados , a translation of the Aeneid into Central Scottish, which was completed by Gavin Douglas , Bishop of Dunkeld, at the latest in 1513 , first appeared in print in 1555 and provided a detailed glossary in a new edition from 1710 by the Latinist Thomas Ruddiman has been. As Hapax legomenon , slughorne can be found here in the seventh book in a paraphrase of Virgil's verse "classica iamque sonant, it bello tessera signum" (7,637), which Douglas long-winded as "The drumpet blawis the brag of were / The slughorne, ensenȝe, or the wache cry / Went for the batall all suld be reddy ” . Slughorne , which translates the Latin tessera , "parole, slogan" in this passage , is an ancient or idiosyncratic reading of the same word that has also found its way into English and German as " slogan " and with the meaning "motto, advertising slogan", but actually referred to the battle cry of the Scottish warrior associations, which differed from clan to clan . Ruddiman correctly reproduces this original meaning in his glossary, but his derivation of the word (which was later also followed by Tyrwhitt and Bryant) is incorrect: The word goes back to an unconfirmed Old English cognate of the German "battle horn ", which is also a cornu bellicum . Today, however, it is certain that slogan by no means belongs to the phrase around Old English slægan and slēan (“to beat” or “to kill,” cf. New English slug , slog , slag , sledge , slay etc.), but rather is of Celtic origin (borrowed from Gaelic sluagh-ghairm , compound of sluagh , "Heer, Trupp" and ghairm , "Ruf, Schrei") - this wrong etymology or corruption of slogan is probably the origin of the slughorn , unknown to the instrumentalists , which Chatterton brought to English literature.

After Chatterton

English poets of later generations often glorified Chatterton as the poète maudit par excellence, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge , John Keats and later Oscar Wilde standing out with particular fervor . Robert Browning honored Chatterton not only with an important essay ( Essay on Chatterton , 1842), but also with a prominently placed allusion in what is now his most famous poem, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came (1855), which depicts the appalling horrors, fears and Describes doubts that the Junker Roland has to endure on his lonely way to the "Finstren Tower". The slughorn has a similarly weighty meaning as the “ Olifant ” in the old French Roland song : At the end of his hero's journey - perhaps also his life, in any case of the poem - Roland looks back at all the companions and competitors who failed on the way to the tower or have died or are still struggling to climb, and "fearlessly" puts his Slughorn to his lips to announce: "Mr. Roland came to the Dark Tower:"

“There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

For one more picture! in a sheet of flame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,

And blew "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came". "

Since 1912, the word has also been listed in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (here explained as trumpet , ie “trumpet”) and is therefore an official part of the English vocabulary. In recent English literature, the slughorn is mainly found in fantasy literature, for example in Terry Pratchett's “Discworld” novel Guards! Guards! (1989, Eng. "Wachen! Wachen!"), Where it is blown to lure a dragon out of its cave. Its sound is described here as not dissimilar to that of a storm bell , but deeper, and a viewer squeals in an untranslatable play on words: "It must have been a bloody big slug" ("must have been a damn big slug "; English slug means under other nudibranch ). In Joanne K. Rowling's novels about the sorcerer's apprentice Harry Potter (7 volumes, 1997-2007) one of the Hogwarts professors of Potions is named Horace Slughorn .

Comparable words

Warison , which is also recorded in the OED, has developed a comparable life of its own , with which Walter Scott had attacked in The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805): "Or straight they sound their warrison / And storm and spoil thy garrison" (4th song , Verse XXIV). This supposedly medieval horn signal, which is completely unknown to military history , can also be traced back to a misunderstanding. Scott probably borrowed the word from the Scottish folk ballad The Battle of Otterbourne , which can be found in Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) and which deals with the Battle of Otterburn in 1388 . Here it comes across in the line of verse “Mynstrells, playe up for your waryson” , but in no way denotes a command signal or horn, as Scott wrongly assumed; rather, it is an obsolete etymological duplicate of the word garrison (" garrison ") and means something like "possessions, treasure, reward" in Middle and Early New English, but also "security, protection, defense".

literature

Article SLUG-HORN in: Walter W. Skeat : Supplement to the First Edition of an Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1910, p. 828.

Individual evidence

^ The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 2, p. 1219

^ The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 189; German "But hear how the Slughorn sounds from afar"

^ The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 205; German: "Let all the Slughorns sound for battle."

^ The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 206; German: "Blow the Slughorne for a quick retreat."

^ The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 74; German: "So the warriors pushed forward [...] without needing a Slughorn to get their spirits going."

^ The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 286; German: “A court battle, my dear knights and Kempen ! Let the Slughorn sound for the court battle! "

↑ Poems, supposed to have been written at Bristol, in the fifteenth century, by Thomas Rowley, priest, & c., With a commentary, in which the antiquity of them is considered, and defended by Jeremiah Milles DD Dean of Exeter. Extended new edition of the first edition from 1777. T. Payne and Son, London 1782, footnote to v. 90 on pp. 312–313.

^ Jacob Bryant: Observations upon the poems of Thomas Rowley: in which the authenticity of those poems is ascertained. T. Payne and Son and T. Cadell and P. Elmsly, London 1781, pp. 33-35.

↑ Product SLUG HORN in: Walter W. Skeat : Supplement to the First Edition of an Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1910, p. 828.

↑ Virgil's Æneis: Translated into Scottish Verse by the Famous Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. Andrew Symson and Robert Freebairn, Edinburgh 1710, p. 230, verse 235-237, German: "The train trombone blows the war slogan / the motto, the slogan and the watch's call / to be ready to open the slaughter."

^ Slughorne entry in Thomas Ruddimans ' unpaginated glossary on Virgil's Æneis: Translated into Scottish verse by the Famous Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. Andrew Symson and Robert Freebairn, Edinburgh 1710.

↑ See the entry Slug-Horn in: Percy A. Scholes: The Oxford Companion to Music. 9th edition, Oxford University Press, London 1955, p. 963: "No musical instrument of this name exists".

↑ Footnote 203 on Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came in: The Poetical Works of Robert Browning. Volume 5: Men and Women. Edited by Ian Jack and Robert Inglesfield. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1995, p. 150.

↑ Harold Bloom , among others, comments on this allusion in: How to Read a Poem: Browning's “Childe Roland” , in The Georgia Review 28: 3, 1974, pp. 404-418 (here p. 412), and in Poetics of Influence , HR Schwab, New Haven 1988 (here p. 185).

^ Robert Browning: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came (E-Text on Wikisource ).

↑ slug-horn, n. ¹ , in: Oxford English Dictionary Online , http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/182251 seen on July 13, 2015.

↑ Terry Pratchett: Guards! Guards! Harper, New York 2013, p. 191.

^ Walter Scott: The Lay of the Last Minstrel (E-Text on Wikisource ).

↑ † warison, n. In: Oxford English Dictionary Online , http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/225745 , viewed July 13, 2015.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on April 11, 2016 .

[1] The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 2, p. 1219

[2] The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 189; German "But hear how the Slughorn sounds from afar"

[3] The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 205; German: "Let all the Slughorns sound for battle."

[4] The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 206; German: "Blow the Slughorne for a quick retreat."

[5] The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 74; German: "So the warriors pushed forward [...] without needing a Slughorn to get their spirits going."

[6] The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: A Bicentenary Edition. Edited by Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover. Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, Volume 1, p. 286; German: “A court battle, my dear knights and Kempen ! Let the Slughorn sound for the court battle! "

[7] Poems, supposed to have been written at Bristol, in the fifteenth century, by Thomas Rowley, priest, & c., With a commentary, in which the antiquity of them is considered, and defended by Jeremiah Milles DD Dean of Exeter. Extended new edition of the first edition from 1777. T. Payne and Son, London 1782, footnote to v. 90 on pp. 312–313.

[8] Jacob Bryant: Observations upon the poems of Thomas Rowley: in which the authenticity of those poems is ascertained. T. Payne and Son and T. Cadell and P. Elmsly, London 1781, pp. 33-35.

[9] Product SLUG HORN in: Walter W. Skeat : Supplement to the First Edition of an Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1910, p. 828.

[10] Virgil's Æneis: Translated into Scottish Verse by the Famous Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. Andrew Symson and Robert Freebairn, Edinburgh 1710, p. 230, verse 235-237, German: "The train trombone blows the war slogan / the motto, the slogan and the watch's call / to be ready to open the slaughter."