"I cannot but digresse to admonition of abuse which this learned
allusion, in his _Troilus_, by ignorance hath indured.
"'I am till God mee better mind send,
At _Dulcarnon_, right at my wit's end.'
It's not _Neckam_, or any else, that can make mee entertaine the
least thought of the signification of _Dulcarnon_ to be
_Pythagorus_ his sacrifice after his geometricall theorem in
finding the square of an orthogonall triangle's sides, or that
it is a word of _Latine_ deduction: but, indeed, by easier
pronunciation it was made of D'hulkarnyan[5], i.e. _two-horned_
which the _Mahometan Arabians_ {109} vie for a root in
calculation, meaning _Alexander_, as that great dictator of
knowledge, _Joseph Scaliger_ (with some ancients) wills, but, by
warranted opinion of my learned friend Mr. _Lydyat_, in his
_Emendatio Temporum_, it began in _Seleucus Nicanor_, XII yeares
after _Alexander's_ death. The name was applyed, either because
after time that _Alexander_ had persuaded himself to be _Jupiter
Hammon's_ sonne, whose statue was with _Ram's_ hornes, both his
owne and his successors' coins were stampt with horned images:
or else in respect of his II pillars erected in the East as a
_Nihil ultra_[6] of his conquest, and some say because hee had
in power the Easterne and Westerne World, signified in the two
hornes. But howsoever, it well fits the passage, either, as if
hee had personated _Creseide_ at the entrance of two wayes, not
knowing which to take; in like sense as that of _Prodicus_ his
_Hercules_, _Pythagoras_ his _Y._, or the Logicians _Dilemma_
expresse; or else, which is the truth of his conceit, that hee
was at a _nonplus_, as the interpretation in his next staffe
makes plaine. How many of noble _Chaucer's_ readers never so
much as suspect this his short essay of knowledge, transcending
the common Rode? And by his treatise of the _Astrolabe_ (which,
I dare sweare, was chiefly learned out of _Messahalah_) it is
plaine hee was much acquainted with the mathematiques, and
amongst their authors had it."
_D'Herbelot_ says:
"_Dhoul_ (or _Dhu_) _carnun_, _with the two horns_, is the
surname of _Alexander_, that is, of an ancient and fabulous
Alexander of the first dynasty of the Persians. 795. Article
Sedd, Tagioug and Magioug. 993. Article Khedher. 395. b. 335. b.
Fael.
"But 317. Escander, he says, Alexander the Great has the same
title secondarily. The truth probably is the reverse, that the
fabulous personage was taken from the real conqueror.
"_Hofmann_, in Seleucus, says that the area of Seleucus is
called Terik Dhylkarnain, i.e. Epocha Alexandri Cornigen. Tarik
means probably the date of an event."
There can be no doubt that the word in Chaucer is this Arabic word; nor,
I think, that Speght's story is really taught by the Arabs, our teachers
in mathematics. Whether the application is from Alexander, (they would
know nothing of his date with regard to Pythagoras), or merely from
two-horned, is doubtful. The latter might possibly mean the ox.
Mr. Halliwell gives a quotation from Stanyhurst, in which it means "dull
persons"--an obvious misuse of it for Englishmen, and which Skene
fortifies by an A.-S. derivation, but which is clearly not Cressida's
meaning, or she would have said, "I _am_ Dulcarnon," not "I _am at_
Dulcarnon;" and so Mrs. Roper.
It may seem difficult what Pandarus can mean:
"Dulcarnon clepid is fleming of wretches,
It semith hard, for wretchis wol nought lere
For very slouthe, or othir wilfull tetches,
This said is by them that ben't worth two fetches,
But ye ben wise."
Whether he means that wretches call it _fleming_ or not, his argument
is, "You are not a wretch." Speght's derivation seems to mean, "Quod
stultos vertit." _Fleamas_, A.-S. (Lye), is _fuga_, _fugacio_, from
_flean_, to flee. Pandarus, I think, does not mean to give the
derivation of the word, but its application of fools, a stumbling-block,
or puzzle.