'Oh, how that name befits my composition, Old _Gaunt_ indeed, and _gaunt_ in being old-- _Gaunt_ am I for the grave, _gaunt_ as the grave--' [Footnote: Ajax, or [Greek: Aias], in the play of Sophocles, which bears his name, does the same with the [Greek: aiai] which lies in that name (422, 423); just as in the _Bacchae_ of Euripides, not Pentheus himself, but others for him, indicate the prophecy of a mighty [Greek: penthos] or grief, which is shut up in his name (367). A tragic writer, less known than Euripides, does the same: [Greek: Pentheus, esomenes sumphoras eponymos]. Eteocles in the _Phoenissae_ of Euripides makes a play of the same kind on the name of Polynices.] with much more in the same fashion; while it is into the mouth of the slight and frivolous king that Shakespeare puts the exclamation of wonder,
'Can sick men play so nicely with their names?' [Footnote: 'Hus' is Bohemian for 'goose' [the two words being in fact cognate forms]; and here we have the explanation of the prophetic utterance of Hus, namely, that in place of one goose, tame and weak of wing, God would send falcons and eagles before long.]
Mark too how, if one is engaged in a controversy or quarrel, and his name imports something good, his adversary will lay hold of the name, will seek to bring out a real contradiction between the name and the bearer of the name, so that he shall appear as one presenting himself under false colours, affecting a merit which he does not really possess. Examples of this abound. There was one Vigilantius in the early Church;--his name might be interpreted 'The Watchful.' He was at issue with St. Jerome about certain vigils; these he thought perilous to Christian morality, while Jerome was a very eager promoter of them; who instantly gave a turn to his name, and proclaimed that he, the enemy of these watches, the partisan of slumber and sloth, should have been not Vigilantius or The Watcher, but 'Dormitantius' or The Sleeper rather. Felix, Bishop of Urgel, a chief champion in the eighth century of the Adoptianist heresy, is constantly 'Infelix' in the writings of his adversary Alcuin. The Spanish peasantry during the Peninsular War would not hear of Bonaparte, but changed the name to 'Malaparte,' as designating far better the perfidious kidnapper of their king and enemy of their independence. It will be seen then that Aeschylus is most true to nature, when in his _Prometheus Bound_ he makes Strength tauntingly to remind Prometheus, or The Prudent, how ill his name and the lot which he has made for himself agreed, bound as he is with adamantine chains to his rock, and bound, as it might seem, for ever. When Napoleon said of Count Lobau, whose proper name was Mouton, 'Mon mouton c'est un lion,' it was the same instinct at work, though working from an opposite point. It made itself felt no less in the bitter irony which gave to the second of the Ptolemies, the brother-murdering king, the title of Philadelphus.