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The Collation

Early modern eyebrow interpretation, or what it means to have a unibrow

While showing the Researching the Archive seminar some examples of manuscript receipt books a couple of weeks ago (randomly selected after doing a quick “form/genre” in Hamnet on the genre terms “Medical formularies” and “Cookbooks”), I was tickled to come across a section of Folger MS V.a.438 devoted to physiognomical characteristics; that is, an analysis of physical features of the face and head as they relate to a person’s character. The handwriting and orthography are pretty difficult in this ca. 1570 miscellany, so I’ve provided some transcriptions as well as modernized versions, in case you think you might need to get plucking.

Straight brows

It is generally a good thing to hang around with people with straight eyebrows.

It is generally a good thing to hang around with people with straight eyebrows. (Click this, and the other images in the post, to enlarge.)

The first entry describes someone with “strayghte browes”: “he ys good and wyse trewe in harte worde and deed kepe thow in his companye,” or with modern spelling, “he is good and wise, true in heart, word, and deed. Keep thou in his company.” 

  1. I’d appreciate further thoughts on what this passage means!

Comments

nothing to offer by way of interpretation, but a small transcription edit: the unibrow passage says “signs of the graye yes”, not “nes” — note the hook of the y cutting down into the giant reverse terminal e of “comtethe” in the line below.

and now to get cracking on my eyebrows…

Simran Thadani — March 11, 2015

Reply

I’ve just corrected it in the text! (Usual practice is to indicate changes with a strikethrough, but I didn’t want the strikethrough to appear as a word that was struck through in the manuscript, so I just silently swapped out the “nes” for “yes.”) Thanks!

Sarah Werner — March 11, 2015

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Good yes, I mean, good eyes! We’ll correct that one in the post. Bill Ingram had the same reading of that word, which appears elsewhere in the section as well.

Heather Wolfe — March 11, 2015

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How about [comtethe] in the same entry, which looks to me like “courtethe”?

William Ingram — March 11, 2015

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I had initially thought “courtethe” as well, but the other “r” forms on the page are either the bucket-like twin-stemmed “r” or the squiggly “r.” If this is an “r” then it is a real outlier. I also wondered if he might have had some minim trouble and accidently made three minims instead of four, so that it could be “countethe”?

Heather Wolfe — March 11, 2015

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No, it’s “comtethe” all right, ie. ‘counts’: cf. “accompt” for ‘account’. The OED gives the following senses of count, v.:

3. To esteem, account, reckon, consider, regard, hold (a thing) to be (so and so).

4. To reckon, estimate, esteem (at such a price or value); †to esteem, value, hold of account (obs.).

..so Mr Unibrow likes his meat and drink!

samklai — March 15, 2015

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In a footnote, you invite thoughts about what the passage in question might mean. I take “nor he will not depart yf he maye” to suggest that he doesn’t have the sense to know when to leave.

William Ingram — March 11, 2015

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