A large class of names of joy belonging to the later growth of the Latin
tongue may be thrown together; and first those connected with the word
_jocus_, which seems to have arisen from the inarticulate shout of
ecstasy that all know, but none can spell, ἰουας (in Greek), and with us
joy, the French _joie_, and Italian _gioia_.
The original cry is preserved in the Swiss _jodel_, or shout of the
mountaineers, and this indeed seems to be the sound naturally rising
from the cries that peal from one hill to another, for here the Eastern
meets the Western tongue. The sound at which the walls of Jericho fell,
was called the Yobêl; and the fifty years' festival of release,
inaugurated with trumpet sounds, was the Yobêl (the jubilee). _Jubilo_
(to call aloud), already a Latin word, also from the sound of the shout
and exultation, had been connected with it even before the _annum
jubileum_ had come in from the Hebrews.
_Giubilare_ and _Giubileo_ made themselves at home in Italian, while
German, either from the Latin or its own resources, took its own word
_jubel_. Giubileo was probably born in the year of a jubilee.
From _jocus_ came Jodocus, an Armorican prince, belonging to a family
which migrated from Wales. He refused the sovereignty of Brittany, to
live as a hermit in Ponthieu, where he is still remembered as St. Josse,
and named at least three villages, perhaps also forming Josselin; but in
his native Brittany, Judicael, an old princely name, seems to have been
the form of his commemoration. In _Domesday Book_ we find Judicael
_Venator_ already a settler in England before the conquest, probably
brought by the Confessor. Germany accepted this as a common peasant
name, as Jost, or Jobs; Bavaria, as Jobst, or Jodel; Italy, as Giodoco;
and the feminine, Jodoca, is not yet extinct in Wales.
Neither is the very similar Jocosa, once not uncommon among English
ladies, by whom it was called Joyce. The contractions of this name are,
however, almost inextricably confused with those of Justus. Joy stands
alone as one of our abstract virtue names.
Another word very nearly related to our own glad, is _gaudium_ (joy),
still preserved in the adjective gaudy, and in gaudy (the festival day)
of a college. It named St. Gaudentius, whence the Italian Gaudenzio, and
the old German name of Geila.
_Hilaris_ (cheerful) formed Hilarius, whence was called the great doctor
of the Gallican Church, known to us as St. Hilary, of Poitiers; and to
France, as St. Hilaire. A namesake was the Neustrian hermit who made
Jersey his abode, and thus named St. Helier; and moreover the Welsh
called those who traditionally had been named Hilarius, first Ilar, then
Elian; and then thought they had found their patron in the Greek
Ælianus.
┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Russian. │ Frisian. │
│Hilary │Hilaire │Ilario │Gilarij │Laris │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
Portugal likewise has Hilariāo, and Russia Hilarion; and the feminine,
Hilaria, was once used in England, and is still the Russian Ilaria, and
Slovak Milari.
_Lætus_ (glad) formed the substantive _lætitia_, which was turned into a
name by the Italians as Letizia, probably during the thirst for novelty
that prevailed in the Cinque-cento; and then, likewise, Lettice seems to
have arisen in England, and must have become known in Ireland when
Lettice Knollys was the wife of the Earl of Essex. Thence Letitia, or
Letty, have been common among Irishwomen.
Prosperus, from the Latin _prosper_, formed of _pro_ and _spero_, so as
to mean favourable hope, formed the mediæval Roman Prospero, of which
Shakespeare must have heard through the famous condottiere, Prospero
Colonna, when he bestowed it upon his wondrous magician Duke of
Milan.[80]
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Footnote 80:
Kitto, _Bible Cyclopædia_; Butler; Pott; Michaelis; Dugdale; Petre
Chevalier.