I wonder if all the kids who read this in 1658 ran home and begged their parents for a pet cercopithēcus …
Four-footed beasts
and first those about the house │ Quadrupeda: & prīmum Domestica.
The Dog,
1. with the Whelp, 2. is keeper of the House. │ Canis, 1.
cum Catellō, 2. est cūstōs Domūs.
The Cat,
3. riddeth the House of Mice, 4. which also a Mouse-trap,
5. doth. │ Fēlis* (Catus) 3. pūrgat domum ā Mūribus, 4. quod
etiam Mūscipula, 5. facit.
A Squirrel,
6. The Ape, 7. and the Monkey, 8. are kept at home for
delight. │ Sciūrus, 6. Sīmia, 7. & Cercopithēcus, 8.
habentur domī dēlectāmentō.
The Dormouse,
9. And other greater Mice, 10. as, the Weesel, the Marten,
and the Ferret, trouble the House,
│ Glīs, 9. & cæterī Mūrēs majōrēs, 10. ut, Mustēla, Mārtēs,
Viverra, īnfestant domum.
*usually: fēlēs,
but fēlis does exist
cūstōs, cūstōdis
[3/m]: guard; keeper; watchman
pūrgō, -āre [1]:
clean; purge
cæterī = cēterī; cēterus,
-a, -um: the remaining / other(s) / rest
Notes:
[i] passive
sciūrus, sīmia, et
cercopithēcus habentur domī │ a squirrel, the ape and the monkey are
kept at home
[ii] glīs, glīris [3/m]: dormouse
The Romans were
fond of the dormouse – as a snack:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/latinforstarters/posts/614138271197445/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/latinforstarters/posts/408755725069035
https://www.facebook.com/groups/latinforstarters/posts/408938048384136/
Some of the images show Roman depictions of these animals (not the mousetrap one!) … and the saddest image of all: the dog that never made it out of Pompeii because it was chained.
Comenius wrote this work in 1658 and gives vocabulary for the ape (sīmia) and the long-tailed monkey (cercopithēcus); 4 years later, Gustave Schott wrote twelve books entitled Physica Curiosa the first six focussing on “all natural and supernatural monstrosities known at that time, including bizarre animals and physical abnormalities and abstract ideas of the mind” (Wikipedia) In this work Schott writes about the …
homō sylvestris │
a forest man
Moreover, he
includes a picture [reproduced below] with a note to the right referring,
correctly, to the location of this tall ‘man’ – standing upright and covered
entirely in hair – as Java. I can only assume that Schott had
never seen one, and was relying on travellers’ tales who may have been
listening to local descriptions. Unlike the rough, but pretty close depictions
of the ape and the monkey in the Comenius work, Schott is actually talking
about the orang utan from Malay orang (man) and hutan
(forest), the Malay term itself not attested until 1840 and reflecting the
description of the animal by the English.
