-mastix

{{Short description|English language suffix}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} '''-mastix''' is a suffix derived from Ancient Greek, and used quite frequently in English literature of the 17th century, to denote a strong opponent or hater of whatever the suffix was attached to. It became common after Thomas Dekker's play ''Satiromastix'' of 1602.<ref>{{cite book|author=Robin Robbins|title=The Complete Poems of John Donne|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E_nJAwAAQBAJ&pg=RA3-PA45|date=6 June 2014|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-86203-1|page=3 note 14}}</ref> The word {{lang|grc|{{linktext|μάστιξ}}}} ({{transliteration|grc|mastix}}) translates as whip or scourge.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=ma%2Fstic&la=greek&can=ma%2Fstic0|title=Greek Word Study Tool: μάστιξ|access-date=13 June 2016}}</ref>

A well-known example is the 1632 book ''Histriomastix'' by William Prynne, against theatre, which caused legal proceedings against him because of perceived allusion to Queen Henrietta Maria. The title itself was not novel, and occurred in a late Elizabethan play ''Histrio-Mastix'', subtitle ''The Player Whipped'', by John Marston. Scholars have noted that the ''-mastix'' suffix is associated with Marston.<ref>{{cite book|author=Charles Cathcart|title=Marston, Rivalry, Rapprochement, and Jonson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-SsfDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA9|date=6 May 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-10018-8|page=9}}</ref>

In a paper war of 1604–7 between Andrew Willet and Richard Parkes, part of the Descensus controversy, the formation of terms with -mastix as suffix was discussed, Willet having initially addressed Parkes in a pamphlet ''Limbo-mastix''. Parkes affected to be unimpressed with the play on limbo, and Willet coined ''Loidoromastix'' for him, a "scourge for a railer". By 1623 and the Latin play ''Fucus Histriomastix'' the formation of hybrid words, Dog Latin and literary nonsense with the suffix seems to have been established.<ref>{{cite book|author=Roslyn Lander Knutson|title=Playing Companies and Commerce in Shakespeare's Time|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Mqurh3QxoYC&pg=PA99|date=26 July 2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-42837-8|page=99}}</ref> The term had apparently become generic for satire by the 1660s, when schoolboys wrote "a mastix" against the schoolmaster Thomas Grantham.<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Grantham, Thomas (d.1664)|volume=22}}</ref>

==Other forms== The Greek genitive form ''mastigos'' gives rise to a botanical prefix ''mastigo-'';<ref>{{cite book|author=Umberto Quattrocchi|title=CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names: Common Names, Scientific Names, Eponyms, Synonyms, and Etymology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kaN-hLL-3qEC&pg=PA1628|date=17 November 1999|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-0-8493-2677-6|page=1628}}</ref> the suffix ''-mastix'' or ''-mastyx'' also occurs in botanical use for the whip form, for example in ''Uromastix''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/220570|title=Oxford English Dictionary, ''uroˈmastix'', n.|work=Oxford English Dictionary|access-date=16 June 2016}}</ref> The plural form of the suffix is -mastiges, for example "Francomastiges" from "Francomastix", a term used by Guillaume Budé.<ref>{{cite book|language=fr|author1=Claude Gauvard|author2=Jean-Louis Robert|title=Être parisien: actes du colloque organisé par l'Ecole doctorale d'histoire de l'Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne et la Fédération des Sociétés historiques et archéologiques de Paris-Île-de-France, 26-28 septembre 2002|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eIT_eMpTQmYC&pg=PA307|year=2005|publisher=Publications de la Sorbonne|isbn=978-2-85944-514-0|page=307 note 1}}</ref>

==Classical Latin and Greek== To form the title ''Histrio-mastix'', Marston innovated by drawing on the nickname ''Homeromastix'' (Scourge of Homer) given to the Greek critic of Homer, Zoilus of Amphipolis. Bednarz notes that the reputation of Zoilus was as a hyper-critical commentator, and that Marston appears to have accepted the note of excess in his self-identification as Theriomastix.<ref>James P. Bednarz, ''Writing and Revenge: John Marston's "Histriomastix"'', Comparative Drama Vol. 36, No. 1/2 (Spring/Summer 2002), pp. 21–51, at p. 36. Published by: Comparative Drama. {{JSTOR|41154108}}</ref> The story of Zoilus is referenced by Ovid in his ''Remedium Amoris''.<ref name="FordMcCafferty2005">{{cite book|author1=Alan Ford|author2=John McCafferty|title=The Origins of Sectarianism in Early Modern Ireland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r-l-shEDzG4C&pg=PA222|date=8 December 2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-83755-2|page=222}}</ref>

Two Latin writers took -mastix names to indicate that they were harsh critics in the tradition of Zoilus, Carvilius Pictor ("Aeneidomastix", from ''The Aeneid'' of Virgil), and Largus Licinius as "Ciceromastix" from the author Cicero.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Caroline Bishop |title=Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=11nhCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA385|date=3 February 2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-968898-2|page=385 note 20}}</ref> ''Grammaticomastix'' is a Latin poem by Ausonius, a writer of the Late Antique, who adopted the style from Carvilius.<ref>{{cite book|author=Ernst Robert Curtius|title=European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V5qRZ0mUKe8C&pg=PA285|date=21 July 2013|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-4615-3|page=285}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Hans Helander|title=Neo-latin Literature in Sweden in the Period 1620-1720: Stylistics, Vocabulary & Characteristic Ideas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rQqFjgEACAAJ&pg=PA129|year=2004|publisher=Uppsala Univ. Library|isbn=978-91-554-6114-0|pages=128–9}}</ref>

==Examples from Early Modern Latin literature== *Bezamastix, from Theodore Beza<ref>{{cite book|author=René Hoven|title=Lexique de La Prose Latine de La Renaissance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Mh5zBjYywAC&pg=PA39|year=1994|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09656-1|page=39}}</ref> *Capniomastix, scourge of Capnio, i.e., Johann Reuchlin, applied to Johannes Pfefferkorn<ref name="Posset2015">{{cite book|author=Franz Posset|title=Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522): A Theological Biography|date=13 November 2015|publisher=De Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-041880-4}}</ref> *Erasmomastix, from Desiderius Erasmus<ref>{{cite book|author=René Hoven|title=Lexique de La Prose Latine de La Renaissance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Mh5zBjYywAC&pg=PA127|year=1994|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-09656-1|page=127}}</ref> *Hebraeomastix by Jerome of Santa Fe<ref>{{Cite book|last=Newman|first=Louis|title=Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements|publisher=AMS Press|year=1966|location=New York|pages=553}}</ref> *Heluetiomastix, scourge of the Swiss<ref>{{cite book|author=René Hoven|title=Lexique de La Prose Latine de La Renaissance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Mh5zBjYywAC&pg=PA159|year=1994|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-09656-1|page=159}}</ref> *Huttenomastix, scourge of Ulrich von Hutten<ref>{{cite book|author=René Hoven|title=Lexique de La Prose Latine de La Renaissance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Mh5zBjYywAC&pg=PA164|year=1994|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-09656-1|page=164}}</ref> *stauromastix, scourge of the Cross<ref>{{cite book|author=René Hoven|title=Lexique de La Prose Latine de La Renaissance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Mh5zBjYywAC&pg=PA341|year=1994|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-09656-1|page=341}}</ref>

==English satire revival of the 1590s== Three noted English poets were writing satirical verse by the later 1590s: John Donne, Joseph Hall, and John Marston. Donne used a -mastix construction, "female-mastix", to refer to Baptista Mantuanus (Mantuan), reputedly a misogynist based on his fourth eclogue, in his Elegy XIV.<ref>{{cite book|author=John Donne|title=Delphi Complete Poetical Works of John Donne (Illustrated)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LGYbAgAAQBAJ&pg=PP111|date=17 November 2013|publisher=Delphi Classics|isbn=978-1-908909-76-3|page=111}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=John Donne|author2=Albert James Smith|title=The Complete English Poems|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nHhaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA435|year=1974|publisher=Allen Lane|isbn=978-0-7139-0571-7|page=435 note to line 14}}</ref> Hall's ''Virgidemiarum Six Bookes'' of 1597–8 contains a boast that he was the first English satirist; ''virgidemia'' translates from Latin as a "harvest of rods".<ref name="Sat">{{cite book|author=Kirk Freudenburg|title=The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RISu-AsV_00C&pg=PA253|date=12 May 2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-80359-5|page=253}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=virgidemia&la=la|title=Latin Word Study Tool: virgidemia|access-date=14 June 2016}}</ref> The revival of satire lasted until the Bishops' Ban of 1599, in which the ecclesiastical authorities clamped down, with book burning applied to works of Everard Guilpin, Marston, William Rankins and others.<ref name="Sat"/> [[File:Scourge of Folly titlepage.JPG|thumb|''The Scourge of Folly'', 1610 title page of a work by John Davies of Hereford]]

==Marston and ''Histrio-mastix''== The years following the Bishops' Ban saw the War of the Theatres, as satire took to the stage. The cluster of plays ''The Scourge of Villanie'' (John Marston, pseudonym taken "Theriomastix", i.e. scourge of the beast), ''Histrio-Mastix'', ''Satiromastix'', and ''Every Man out of His Humour'' by Ben Jonson (which references ''Histrio-Mastix''), has also been associated with the bookseller Thomas Thorpe.<ref>{{cite book|author=Roslyn Lander Knutson|title=Playing Companies and Commerce in Shakespeare's Time|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Mqurh3QxoYC&pg=PA98|date=26 July 2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-42837-8|page=98}}</ref>

The literary convention that the satirist could wield a whip against "vice" was active at the period in other titles, such as ''The Whippinge of the Satyre'' (1601) by John Weever, against the excesses of satire, an anonymous work taken to be aimed at Marston and Jonson, among others. Nicholas Breton's ''No Whippinge, nor Trippinge: but a kinde friendly Snippinge'' was a reply of the same year, from another of the presumed targets of Weever.<ref>{{cite book|author=Gary A. Schmidt|title=Renaissance Hybrids: Culture and Genre in Early Modern England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fufsCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT248|date=8 April 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-06651-4|page=248 note 11}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Arthur F. Kinney|author2=Thomas W. Copeland|others=Arthur F. Kinney, David W. Swain, Eugene D. Hill, and William A. Long|title=Tudor England: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nHasAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA624|date=17 November 2000|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-74530-0|page=624}}</ref>

==Usage== The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' notes that most cases of -mastix compounds are nonce words. Its earliest example, for English, is ''musomastix'', of the late 16th century; in Latin polemics of that period these formations were common. Besides expressing the idea of a hostile opponent, book titles were formed "in which an idea, person, or class of persons is satirized or denounced".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/114824#eid37772505|title=Oxford English Dictionary, -mastix, ''comb. form''|work=Oxford English Dictionary|access-date=14 June 2016}}</ref>

==Examples from English literature== Other uses are:

*''Papisto mastix, or, The Protestants Religion Defended'' (1606), by William Middleton<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=18685|first=Carole|last=Levin|title=Middleton, William}}</ref> *''Atheomastix; clearing foure truthes, against atheists and infidels'' (1622), by Martin Fotherby<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=9974|first=Penelope|last=Rundle|title=Fotherby, Martin}}</ref> *''Zoilomastix'', short title for ''Vindiciae Hibernicae contra Giraldum Cambrensem et alios vel Zoilomastigos'' (1622) by Philip O'Sullivan Beare.<ref name="FordMcCafferty2005"/> O'Sullivan wrote also a ''Tenebriomastix'', and an ''Archicornigeromastix'' against James Ussher.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=20913|first=Toby|last=Barnard|title= O'Sullivan Beare, Philip}}</ref> *''Profanomastix'' (1639), anti-Puritan work by John Swan<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=38039|first=Bernard|last=Capp|title=Swan, John}}</ref> *Antibrownistus Puritanomastix, pseudonym under which three royalist speeches of 1642 were published.<ref>{{cite book|author=Zachary Lesser|title=Renaissance Drama and the Politics of Publication: Readings in the English Book Trade|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wfr3vT-g-2YC&pg=PA98|date=18 November 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-84252-5|pages=98 note 56}}</ref> *''Aerio Mastix, or a Vindication of the Apostolicall and generally received Government of the Church of Christ by Bishops'', Oxford, 1643, by John Theyer<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=27178|first=Robert J.|last=Haines|title=Theyer, John}}</ref> *''Chiliasto-mastix; or, The prophecies in the Old and New Testament'' (1644), by Alexander Petrie<ref>{{cite book|author1=Alexander Petrie|author2=Robert Maton|title=Chiliasto-mastix; or, The prophecies in the Old and New Testament concerning the kingdome of ... Iesus Christ, vindicated from the misinterpretationes of the millenaries and specially of mr. Maton in ... Israels redemption|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5gIDAAAAQAAJ|year=1644}}</ref> *''Mercurio-Coelico mastix'' (1644), by Sir George Wharton, 1st Baronet<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=29165|first=Bernard|last=Capp|title=Wharton, Sir George}}</ref> *''Astrologo-Mastix'' (1646) by John Geree<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Geree, John|volume=21}}</ref> *''Hagiomastix, or, The Scourge of the Saints'' (1647), by John Goodwin<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=10994|first=Tai|last=Liu|title=Goodwin, John}}</ref> and anonymous reply ''Moro-mastix: Mr Iohn Goodwin whipt with his own rod'' (1647)<ref>{{cite book|author=John Coffey|title=John Goodwin and the Puritan Revolution: Religion and Intellectual Change in Seventeenth-century England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1iEwu2dA_5AC&pg=PA146|date=1 June 2008|publisher=Tamesis Books|isbn=978-1-84383-428-1|pages=146–}}</ref> *''Pseudo-mastix'' ({{Circa|1650}}, printed 1888) by Michael Lemprière<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Lemprière, Michael|volume=33}}</ref> *''Smectymnuo-mastix, or Short Animadversions upon Smectymnuus'' (1651), by Hamon L'Estrange<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=L'Estrange, Hamon (1605-1660)|volume=33}}</ref> *''Alazono-Mastix; Or, the Character of a Cockney in a Satyricall Poem'' (1651), by Junius Anonymus; see Alazon for the reference to an imposter. This poem on London apprentices was discussed in the ''Retrospective Review''.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Henry Southern|author2=Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas|title=Retrospective Review: And Historical and Antiquarian Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o_FgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA328|year=1823|publisher=C. and H. Baldwyn|page=328}}</ref> It is not connected with the pseudonym "Alazonomastix Philalethes" used at the same period by Henry More in controversy with Thomas Vaughan ("Eugenius Philalethes").<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=19181|first=Sarah|last=Hutton|title=More, Henry}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Daniel Clifford Fouke|title=The Enthusianstical Concerns of Dr. Henry More: Religious Meaning and the Psychology of Delusion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nJkKJuCQvzIC&pg=PA97|date=1 January 1997|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-10600-0|page=97}}</ref> *''Mercurius Mastix'' (1652), attributed to Samuel Sheppard<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=25347|first=Andrew|last=King|title=Sheppard, Samuel}}</ref> *''Histrio-mastix. A Whip for Webster'' (1654), against John Webster, and ''Chiliastomastix redivivus: ... a Confutation of the Millenarian Opinion'' (1657), against Nathaniel Holmes, by Thomas Hall<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Hall, Thomas (1610-1665)|volume=24}}</ref><ref>{{cite ODNB|id=11990|first=C. D.|last=Gilbert|title=Hall, Thomas}}</ref> *Virtuoso-mastix, applied in 1671 by Joseph Glanvill to Henry Stubbe.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/233581|title=Oxford English Dictionary, ''virtuoso-mastix'', n.|work=Oxford English Dictionary|access-date=16 June 2016}}</ref> *''Rogero Mastix, a Rod for William Rogers'' (1685), by Thomas Ellwood<ref>{{cite book|author1=Thomas Ellwood|author2=Joseph Wyeth|title=The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood: Or an Account of His Birth, Education, &c...|url=https://archive.org/details/historylifethom02wyetgoog|year=1838|publisher=Isaac T. Hopper|page=[https://archive.org/details/historylifethom02wyetgoog/page/n175 170]}}</ref><ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Ellwood, Thomas|volume=17}}</ref> *''Tolando-pseudologo-mastix, an Answer to Toland's "Hypatia"'' (anon.), 1721, by John King<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=King, John (1652-1732)|volume=31}}</ref> *''Zoilomastix, or, A Vindication of Milton from All the Invidious Charges of Mr William Lauder'' (1747) by Richard Richardson, against the forger William Lauder<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=16121|first=Paul|last=Baine|title=Lauder, William}}</ref> *''Medico-mastix'' (anon.), 1771, by Ralph Schomberg<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Schomberg, Raphael|volume=50}}</ref> *''Sæculo-Mastix, or the Lash of the Age we live In'' (1818) by Francis Hodgson, verse containing criticism of the poetry of Lord Byron, and praise for Alexander Pope<ref>{{cite book|author1=George Gordon Byron Baron Byron|author2=Leslie Alexis Marchand|title=Born for Opposition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aEwXzeWE5kkC&pg=PA112|year=1978|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-08948-8|pages=112 note 5}}</ref> *''Hiero-Mastix, a satire'' (1828), prompted by the Apocrypha controversy *"Scriblero-mastix" (1846), a coinage of Christopher North<ref>{{cite book|author=John Wilson|author-link=John Wilson (Scottish writer)|title=Specimens of the British Critics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AnxaAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA271|year=1846|publisher=Carey and Hart|page=271}}</ref>

==Notes== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{wti}}

mastix mastix