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The author,
a contemporary of Monsignor Perrelli, a hater of Nepenthe, a cleric of
lascivious and lecherous temperament, has in this parchment preserved
what he calls a "popular joke"--a saying which he declares to have been
"common property of the whole country" on the subject of Nepenthe and
its evil-smelling waters. It was one of those scholarly, ponderous and
yet helplessly straightforward jokes of the late Renaissance; a joke to
which Monsignor Perrelli does not allude, both for reasons of local
patriotism and of general decorum; some vulgar dictum, in short,
connected with the name of the patron saint of Nepenthe who, he urged,
was simply a local nature-god, christianized.
When the bibliographer's eagle eye first fell upon this passage he was
staggered. Then, on reflection, he found himself in an awkward
predicament--his natural modesty as a man contending with a no less
natural and legitimate pride and desire as historian that the fruits of
his labours should not be lost.
"These," he said, "are the dilemmas which confront the conscientious
annotator.


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