[1] There are, however, distinct anticipations of the theory in Plato
(_Phaedo_), as part of the doctrine of [Greek: anamnaesis]; thus we
find the idea of Simmias recalled by the picture of Simmias
(similarity), and that of a friend by the sight of the lyre on which
he played (contiguity).
ASSONANCE (from Lat. _adsonare_ or _assonare_, to sound to or answer
to), a term defined, in its prosodical sense, as "the corresponding or
riming of one word with another in the accented vowel and those which
follow it, but not in the consonants" (_New English Dictionary_,
Oxford). In other words, assonance is an improper or imperfect form of
rhyme, in which the ear is satisfied with the incomplete identity of
sound which the vowel gives without the aid of consonants. Much rustic
or popular verse in England is satisfied with assonance, as in such
cases as
"And pray who gave thee that jolly red _nose_?
Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg and _Cloves_,"
where the agreement between the two _o's_ permits the ear to neglect the
discord between _s_ and _v_. But in English these instances are the
result of carelessness or blunted ear. It is not so in several
literatures, such as in Spanish, where assonance is systematically
cultivated as a literary ornament. It is an error to confound
alliteration,--which results from the close juxtaposition of words
beginning with the same sound or letter,--and assonance, which is the
repetition of the same vowel-sound in a syllable at points where the ear
expects a rhyme. The latter is a more complicated and less primitive
employment of artifice than the former, although they have often been
used to intensify the effect of each other in a single couplet.
Assonance appears, nevertheless, to have preceded rhyme in several of
the European languages, and to have led the way towards it. It is
particularly observable in the French poetry which was composed before
the 12th century, and it reached its highest point in the "Chanson de
Roland," where the sections are distinguished by the fact that all the
lines in a _laisse_ or stanza close with the same vowel-sound. When the
ear of the French became more delicate, and pure rhyme was introduced,
about the year 1120, assonance almost immediately retired before it and
was employed no more, until recent years, when several French poets have
re-introduced assonance in order to widen the scope of their effects of
sound. It held its place longer in Provencal and some other Romance
literatures, while in Spanish it has retained its absolute authority
over rhyme to the present day. It has been observed that in the Romance
languages the ear prefers the correspondence of vowels, while in the
Teutonic languages the preference is given to consonants. This
distinction is felt most strongly in Spanish, where the satisfaction in
_rimas asonantes_ is expressed no less in the most elaborate works of
the poets and dramatists than in the rough ballads of the people. The
nature of the language here permits the full value of the corresponding
vowel-sounds to be appreciated, whereas in English--and even in German,
where, however, a great deal of assonant poetry exists--the divergence
of the consonants easily veils or blunts the similarity of sound.
Various German poets of high merit, and in particular Tieck and Heine,
have endeavoured to obviate this difficulty, but without complete
success. Occasionally they endeavour, as English rhymers have done, to
mix pure rhyme with assonance, but the result of this in almost all
cases is that the assonances, &c., which make a less strenuous appeal to
the ear, are drowned and lost in the stress of the pure rhymes. Like
alliteration, assonance is a very frequent and very effective ornament
of prose style, but such correspondence in vowel-sound is usually
accidental and involuntary, an instinctive employment of the skill of
the writer. To introduce it with a purpose, as of course must be done in
poetry, has always been held to be a most dangerous practice in prose.
Assonance as a conscious art, in fact, is scarcely recognized as
legitimate in English literature. (E. G.)
ASSUAN, or ASWAN, a town of Upper Egypt on the east bank of the Nile,
facing Elephantine Island below the First Cataract, and 590 m. S. of
Cairo by rail. It is the capital of a province of the same name--the
southernmost province of Egypt. Population (1907) 16,128. The principal
buildings are along the river front, where a broad embankment has been
built. Popular among Europeans as a winter health resort and tourist
centre, Assuan is provided with large modern hotels (one situated on
Elephantine Island), and there is an English church. South-east of the
railway station are the ruins of a temple built by Ptolemy Euergetes,
and still farther south are the famous granite quarries of Syene. On
Elephantine Island are an ancient nilometer and other remains, including
a granite gateway built under Alexander the Great at the temple of the
local ram-headed god Chnubis or Chnumis (Eg. Khnum), perhaps on account
of his connexion with Ammon (q.v.); two small but very beautiful temples
of the XVIIIth Dynasty were destroyed there about 1820. In the hill on
the opposite side of the river are tombs of the VIth to XIIth dynasties,
opened by Lord Grenfell in 1885-1886. The inscriptions show that they
belonged to frontier-prefects whose expeditions into Nubia, &c., are
recorded in them. Three and a half miles above the town, at the
beginning of the Cataract, the Assuan Dam stretches across the Nile.
This great engineering work was finished in December 1902 (see
IRRIGATION: _Egypt_; and NILE). Above the dam the Nile presents the
appearance of a vast lake. Consequent on the rise of the water-level
several islands have been wholly and others partly submerged, among the
latter Philae (q.v.). On the east bank opposite Philae is the village of
Shellal, southern terminus of the Egyptian railway system and the
starting point of steamers for the Sudan.
In ancient times the chief city, called Yeb, capital of the frontier
nome, the first of the Upper Country, was on the island of Elephantine,
guarding the entrance to Egypt. But, owing to the cataract, the main
route for traffic with the south was by land along the eastern shore.
Here, near the granite quarries--whence was obtained the material for
many magnificent monuments--there grew up another city, at first
dependent on and afterwards successor to the island town. This city was
called _Swan_, the Mart, whence came the Greek _Syene_ and Arabic
_Aswan_. Syene is twice mentioned (as Seveneh) in the prophecies of
Ezekiel, and papyri, discovered on the island, and dated in the reigns
of Artaxerxes and Darius II, (464-404 B.C.), reveal the existence of a
colony of Jews, with a temple to Yahu (Yahweh, Jehovah), which had been
founded at some time before the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses in 523
B.C. They also mention the great frontier garrison against the
Ethiopians, referred to by Herodotus. Syene was one of the bases used by
Eratosthenes in his calculations for the measurement of the earth. In
Roman times Syene was strongly garrisoned to resist the attacks of the
desert tribes. Thither, in virtual banishment, Juvenal was sent as
prefect by Domitian. In the early days of Christianity the town became
the seat of a bishopric, and numerous ruins of Coptic convents are in
the neighbourhood. Syene appears also to have flourished under its first
Arab rulers, but in the 12th century was raided and ruined by Bedouin
and Nubian tribes. On the conquest of Egypt by the Turks in the 16th
century, Selim I. placed a garrison here, from whom, in part, the
present townsmen descend. As the southern frontier town of Egypt proper,
Assuan in times of peace was the entrepot of a considerable trade with
the Sudan and Abyssinia, and in 1880 its trade was valued at L2,000,000
annually. During the Mahdia (1884-1898) Assuan was strongly garrisoned
by Egyptian and British troops. Since the defeat of the khalifa at
Omdurman and the fixing (1899) of the Egyptian frontier farther south,
the military value of Assuan has declined.
For the Jewish colony see A.H. Sayce and A.E. Cowley, _Aramaic Papyri
discovered at Assuan_ (Oxford, 1906); E. Sachau, _Drei Aramaische
papyrus-Urkunden aus Elephantine_ (Berlin, 1907). For the dam see W.
Willcocks, _The Nile Reservoir Dam at Assuan_ (London, 1901).
(F. Ll. G.)
ASSUMPSIT ("he has undertaken," from Lat. _assumere_), a word applied to
an action for the recovery of damages by reason of the breach or
non-performance of a simple contract, either express or implied, and
whether made orally or in writing. _Assumpsit_ was the word always used
in pleadings by the plaintiff to set forth the defendant's undertaking
or promise, hence the name of the action. Claims in actions of
_assumpsit_ were ordinarily divided into (a) common or _indebitatus
assumpsit_, brought usually on an implied promise, and (b) special
_assumpsit_, founded on an express promise. _Assumpsit_ as a form of
action became obsolete after the passing of the Judicature Acts 1873 and
1875. (See further CONTRACT; PLEADING and TORT.)
ASSUMPTION, FEAST OF. The feast of the "Assumption of the blessed Virgin
Mary" (Lat. _festum assumptionis, dormitionis, depositionis, pausationis
B. V. M._; Gr. [Greek: koimaesis] or [Greek: analaephis taes theotokou])
is a festival of the Christian Church celebrated on the 15th of August,
in commemoration of the miraculous ascent into heaven of the mother of
Christ. The belief on which this festival rests has its origin in
apocryphal sources, such as the [Greek: eis taen koimaesin taes
uperagias despoinaes] ascribed to the Apostle John, and the _de transitu
Mariae_, assigned to Melito, bishop of Sardis, but actually written
about A.D. 400. Pope Gelasius I. (492-496) included them in the list of
apocryphal books condemned by the _Decretum de libris recipiendis et non
recipiendis_; but they were accepted as authentic by the
pseudo-Dionysius (_de nominbus divinis c. 3_), whose writings date
probably from the 5th century, and by Gregory of Tours (d. 593 or 594).
The latter in his _De gloria martyrum_ (i. 4) gives the following
account of the miracle: As all the Apostles were watching round the
dying Mary, Jesus appeared with His angels and committed the soul of His
Mother to the Archangel Michael. Next day, as they were carrying the
body to the grave, Christ again appeared and carried it with Him in a
cloud to heaven, where it was reunited with the soul. This story is much
amplified in the account given by St John of Damascus in the homilies
_In dormitionem Mariae_, which are still read in the Roman Church as the
lesson during the octave of the feast. According to this the patriarchs
and Adam and Eve also appear at the death-bed, to praise their daughter,
through whom they had been rescued from the curse of God; a Jew who
touches the body loses both his hands, which are restored to him by the
Apostles; and the body lies three days in the grave without corruption
before it is taken up into heaven.
The festival is first mentioned by St Andrew of Crete (c. 650), and,
according to the Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus (_Hist.
Eccles._ xvii. 28), was first instituted by the Emperor Maurice in A.D.
582. From the East it was borrowed by Rome, where there is evidence of
its existence so early as the 7th century. In the Gallican Church it was
only adopted at the same time as the Roman liturgy. But though the
festival thus became incorporated in the regular usage of the Western
Church, the belief in the resurrection and bodily assumption of the
Virgin has never been defined as a dogma and remains a "pious opinion,"
which the faithful may reject without imperilling their immortal souls,
though not apparently--to quote Melchior Cano (_De Locis Theolog._ xii.
10)--without "insolent temerity," since such rejection would be contrary
to the common agreement of the Church. By the reformed Churches,
including the Church of England, the festival is not observed, having
been rejected at the Reformation as being neither primitive nor founded
upon any "certain warrant of Holy Scripture."
See Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_ (ed. 3), s. "Maria"; Mgr. L.
Duchesne, _Christian Worship_ (Eng. trans., London, 1904); Wetzer and
Welte, _Kirchenlexikon_, s. "Marienfeste"; The _Catholic
Encyclopaedia_ (London and New York, 1907, &c.), s. "Apocrypha,"
"Assumption."
ASSUR (Auth. Vers. _Asshur_), a Hebrew name, occurring in many passages
of the Old Testament, for the land and dominion of Assyria.[1] The
_country_ of Assyria, which in the Assyro-Babylonian literature is known
as _mat Assur_ (_ki_), "land of Assur," took its name from the ancient
city of _Assur_, situated at the southern extremity of Assyria proper,
whose territory, soon after the first Assyrian settlement, was bounded
on the N. by the Zagros mountain range in what is now Kurdistan and on
the S. by the lower Zab river. The kingdom of Assyria, which was the
outgrowth of the primitive settlement on the site of the city of Assur,
was developed by a probably gradual process of colonization in the rich
vales of the middle Tigris region, a district watered by the Tigris
itself and also by several tributary streams, the chief of which was the
lower Zab.[2]
It seems quite evident that the _city_ of Assur was originally founded
by Semites from Babylonia at quite an early, but as yet undetermined
date. In the prologue to the law-code of the great Babylonian monarch
Khammurabi (c. 2250 B.C.), the cities of Nineveh and Assur are both
mentioned as coming under that king's beneficent influence. Assur is
there called _A-usar_ (_ki_),[3] in which combination the ending _-ki_
("land territory") proves that even at that early period there was a
province of Assur more extensive than the city proper. It is probable
that this non-Semitic form _A-usar_ means "well watered region,"[4] a
most appropriate designation for the river settlements of Assyria. The
problem as to the meaning of the name Assur is rendered all the more
confusing by the fact that the city and land are also called _Assur_ (as
well as _A-usar_), both by the Khammurabi records[5] and generally in
the later Assyrian literature. Furthermore, the god- and country-name
_Assur_ also occurs at a late date in Assyrian literature in the forms
_An-sar, An-sar_ (_ki_), which form[6] was presumably read _Assur_. In
the Creation tablet, the heavens personified collectively were indicated
by this term _An-sar_, "host of heaven," in contradistinction to the
earth = _Ki-sar_, "host of earth." In view of this fact, it seems highly
probable that the late writing _An-sar_ for _Assur_ was a more or less
conscious attempt on the part of the Assyrian scribes to identify the
peculiarly Assyrian deity _Asur_ (see ASSUR, the god, below) with the
Creation deity An-sar. On the other hand, there is an epithet _Asir_ or
Ashir ("overseer") applied to several gods and particularly to the deity
_Asur_, a fact which introduced a third element of confusion into the
discussion of the name _Assur_. It is probable then that there is a
triple popular etymology in the various forms of writing the name
_Assur_; viz. _A-usar_,[7] _An-sar_ and the stem _asaru_, all of which
is quite in harmony with the methods followed by the ancient
Assyro-Babylonian philologists.[8]
See also A.H. Layard, _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and
Babylon_ (1853); G. Smith, _Assyrian Discoveries_ (1875); R.W. Rogers,
_History of Babylonia and Assyria_, i. 297; ii. 13; ii. 30, 76, 102;
J.F. M'Curdy, _History, Prophecy and the Monuments_, SS 74, 171 f.,
247, 258, 283; 57, 59 f. (on the god). (J. D. Pr.)