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CHAPTER XXVI
OF THUMBS
TACITUS reporteth that amongst certaine barbarous
kings, for the confirmation of an inviolable bonde or
covenant, their manner was to joyne their right hands
close and hard together with enterlacing their thumbs:
and when by hard wringing them the blood appeared
at their ends, they pricked them with some sharp
point, and then mutually entersuckt each one the
others. Phisicians say thumbes are the master fingers
of the hand, and that their Latine etymologie is derived
of Pollere. The Grecians call it hvrixAp, as a man
would say, another hand. And it seemeth the Latines
likewise take them sometimes in this sense, id est, for
the whole hand:
Sed nec vocibus excitata blandis,
Molli pollice nec rogata surgit. 1
It wil not rise, though with sweet words excited,
Nor with the touch of softest thumb invited.
In Rome it was heretofore a signe of favour to wring
and kisse the thumbs :
Fautor vtroque tuum laudabit pollice ludum:*
He that anplaudes will praise,
With both his thumbs, thy plaies:
and of disfavor or disgrace to lift them up and turne
them outward.
converso pollice vulgi
Quemlibet occidunt populanter?
When people turne their thumbs away,
They popularly any slay.
¹ MART. 1. xii. Epig. xcix. 8. ² HOR. 1. i. Epiit, xviii. 66.
² Juv. Sat. iii. 36,
478