And 'tis on his account I come,
To know from you my fatal doom.
Quoth Sidrophel, If you suppose, 575
Sir Knight, that I am one of those,
I might suspect, and take the alarm,
Your business is but to inform:[1]
But if it be, 'tis ne'er the near,
You have a wrong sow by the ear;[2] 580
For I assure you, for my part,
I only deal by rules of art;
Such as are lawful, and judge by
Conclusions of astrology;
But for the Devil, know nothing by him, 585
But only this, that I defy him.
Quoth he, Whatever others deem ye,
I understand your metonymy;[3]
Your words of second-hand intention,[4]
When things by wrongful names you mention; 590
The mystic sense of all your terms,
That are indeed but magic charms
To raise the Devil, and mean one thing,
And that is downright conjuring;
And in itself more warrantable[5] 595
Than cheat or canting to a rabble,
- ↑ That is, to lay an information against him, which would have exposed him to a prosecution, as at that time there was a severe inquisition against conjurers, witches, &c. See note on line 144, page 215.
- ↑ Handbook of Proverbs, p. 178.
- ↑ Metonymy is a figure of speech, whereby one word or thing is substituted by representation for another, the cause is put for the effect, the subject for the adjunct, or vice versâ;—as we say, a man "keeps a good table," or "we read Shakspeare," meaning his works. The term is here used in the sense of a juggle of words.
- ↑ Words not used in their primary meaning. Terms of second intention, among the Schoolmen, denote ideas which have been arbitrarily adopted for purposes of science, in opposition to those which are connected with sensible objects. Whately says, "The first intention of a term is a certain vague and general signification of it, as opposed to one more precise and limited, which it bears in some particular art, science, or system, and which is called its second intention." (Book iii. § 10.)
- ↑ The Knight has no faith in astrology; but wishes the conjurer to own plainly that he deals with the Devil, and then he will hope for some satisfac-
of Don, is from the Italian donzello, and means a young squire, page, or gallant.
