[An account of an explosion of gunpowder which took place in Basel in
Sept. 1526. The correspondent to whom the letter is addressed was
Principal of Busleiden's Collegium trilingue at Louvain.]

1. AFRICA] An allusion to the proverb, 'Semper Africa novi aliquid apportat.' Erasmus' Africa here is the city of Basel, where religious innovations were already beginning.

21. GIGANTUM MOLES] When they tried to scale the heights of heaven by piling Mt. Pelion on Mt. Ossa.

22. Salmoneus was a presumptuous Thessalian who invented thunder and lightning of his own, and was killed by Jupiter as a punishment.

Ixion was the king of the Lapithae who was bound upon an ever-revolving wheel as punishment for having affronted Juno.

26. FLORENTIAE] When the bellicose Pope Julius II was attacking Bologna in the autumn of 1506, Erasmus took refuge at Florence.

28. TONABAT] Impersonal.

58. PULVERIS BOMBARDICI] 'gunpowder.'

62, 3. RIMAS … SPECULATORIAS] 'loopholes.'

65. ESSET ONERI FERENDO] Dative of Purpose; cf. solvendo esse, to be solvent.

80. LATERIS] sc. turris.

107. MEDIUM UNGUEM] The middle finger was regarded as 'the finger of scorn'.

111. CORYBANTES] The priests of Cybele, the mother of the gods, whose worship was conducted with a great noise of musical instruments.

114. NOSTRA TYMPANA] This playful protest indicates that there was a growing fashion of celebrating festive occasions with a din of drums and trumpets. It doubtless embodies also the dislike of the scholar for anything that disturbed his quiet.

ANAPAESTIS] The rataplan and rat-tat of the drum are compared to the metric feet, the anapaest ([Symbols: arsis, arsis, thesis] and the pyrrhic ([Symbols: arsis, arsis]).

121. CELEBRITAS] abstract for concrete.

130. TONITRUI] This form occurs in the Vulgate; but in classical Latin the singular follows the fourth declension.