June 24, 1850.
* * * * *
TO GIVE A MAN HORNS.
(Vol. i. p. 383.)
Your correspondent L.C. has started a most interesting inquiry, and your
readers must, I am sure, join with me in regretting that he should have
been so laconic in the third division of his Query; and have failed to
refer to, even if he did not quote, the passages from "late Greek," in
which "horns" are mentioned as a symbol of a husband's dishonor. The
earliest notice of this symbolical use of horns is, I believe, to be
found in the _Oneirocritica_ of Artemidorus, who lived during the reign
of Hadrian, A.D. 117-138:
[Greek: "Pepi de ippon en to peri agonon logo proeiraeiai. Elege de tis
theasameno tini epi kriou kathaemenpo, kai pesonti ex autou ek ton
euprosthen, mnaesteuomeno de kai mellonti en autais tais haemerais tous
gamous epetelein, proeipein auto hoti hae gunae sou porneusei, kai kata
to legomenon, kerata soi poiaesei kai outos apethae, k.t.l."--Artem.
_Oneirocritica_, lib. ii, cap. 12.]
See Menage, _Origines de la Langue Françoise_, Paris, 1650, in verb.
"Cornard." I have only seen Reiff's edition of Artemidorus, 8vo. Lipsiæ,
1805. His illustrations of the passage (far too numerous to be quoted)
seem to be curious, and likely to repay the reader for the trouble of
examination. His note commences with a reference to Olaus Borrichius,
_Antiqua Urb. Rom. facies_:--
"Alexander Magnus ....successores ejus..... in nummis omnes
cornuti quasi Jovii, honore utique manifesto, donee cornuum
decus in ludibria uxoriorum vertit somnorum interpres
Artimidorus."