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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1363  Tuesday 3 August 1999.

From:           Frank Whigham <ffw@uts.cc.utexas.edu>
Date:           Monday, 02 Aug 1999 09:41:19 -0500
Subject: 10.1356 Re: "Perusine"
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.1356 Re: "Perusine"

Many, many thanks to those colleagues who have responded to my query.

May I ask a follow-up question of those who have cited the use of
"Perusine" as referring to Perugia (as distinguished from Peru)? The
Puttenham text specifically locates the term in series with "American"
and "Cannibal":

This is proved by certificate of merchants & travelers, who by late
navigations have surveyed the whole world, and discovered large
countries and strange peoples wild and savage, affirming that the
American, the Perusine & the very Cannibal, do sing and also say, their
highest and holiest matters in certain rhyming versicles and not in
prose, which proves also that our manner of vulgar Poesy is more ancient
than the artificial of the Greeks and Latins, ours coming by instinct of
nature, which was before Art or observation, and used with the savage
and uncivil, who were before all science or civility, even as the naked
by priority of time is before the clothed, and the ignorant before the
learned.

Does anyone know any reason to think that the inhabitants of Perugia
would/could have been thought to be notably "wild and savage" ca. 1589?
(The view is, says P, demonstrated by "late [i.e., recent] navigations."

Thanks again.

Frank Whigham

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