33. prop. 47.), which was found out by Pythagoras after a whole
years' study, and much beating of his brain; in thankfulness whereof he
sacrificed an ox to the gods, which sacrifice he called Dulcarnon."

_Neckam_ derived it from _Dulia quasi sacrificium_ and _carnis_.

_Skene_ justly observes that the triumph itself cannot be the point; but
the word might get associated with the problem, either considered before
its solution, puzzling to _Pythagoras_, or the demonstration, still
difficult to us,--a Pons Asinorum, like the 5th proposition.

Mr. _Selden_, in his preface to _Drayton's Polyolbion_, says,--

"I cannot but digresse to admonition of abuse which this learned
allusion, in his _Troilus_, by ignorance hath indured.

"'I am till God mee better mind send,
At _Dulcarnon_, right at my wit's end.'

It's not _Neckam_, or any else, that can make mee entertaine the
least thought of the signification of _Dulcarnon_ to be
_Pythagorus_ his sacrifice after his geometricall theorem in
finding the square of an orthogonall triangle's sides, or that
it is a word of _Latine_ deduction: but, indeed, by easier
pronunciation it was made of D'hulkarnyan[5], i.e. _two-horned_
which the _Mahometan Arabians_ {109} vie for a root in
calculation, meaning _Alexander_, as that great dictator of
knowledge, _Joseph Scaliger_ (with some ancients) wills, but, by
warranted opinion of my learned friend Mr. _Lydyat_, in his
_Emendatio Temporum_, it began in _Seleucus Nicanor_, XII yeares
after _Alexander's_ death. The name was applyed, either because
after time that _Alexander_ had persuaded himself to be _Jupiter
Hammon's_ sonne, whose statue was with _Ram's_ hornes, both his
owne and his successors' coins were stampt with horned images:
or else in respect of his II pillars erected in the East as a
_Nihil ultra_[6] of his conquest, and some say because hee had
in power the Easterne and Westerne World, signified in the two
hornes. But howsoever, it well fits the passage, either, as if
hee had personated _Creseide_ at the entrance of two wayes, not
knowing which to take; in like sense as that of _Prodicus_ his
_Hercules_, _Pythagoras_ his _Y._, or the Logicians _Dilemma_
expresse; or else, which is the truth of his conceit, that hee
was at a _nonplus_, as the interpretation in his next staffe
makes plaine. How many of noble