J.B.D.
* * * * *
"FEAST" AND "FAST."
I am not going to take part in the game of _hockey_, started by LORD
BRAYBROOKE, and carried on with so much spirit by several of your
correspondents in No. 28.; but I have a word to say to one of the
hockey-players, C.B., who, _per fas et nefas_, has mixed up "feast and
fast" with the game.
C.B. asks, "Is not the derivation of 'feast' and 'fast' originally the
same? that which is appointed connected with 'fas,' and that from 'fari?'"
I should say no; and let me cite the familiar lines from the beginning of
Ovid's _Fasti_:--{12}
"Ne tamen ignores variorum jura dierum
Non habet officii Lucifer omnis idem.
Ille Nefastus erit per quem tria verba silentur:
Fastus, erit per quem lege licebit agi.
Neu toto perstare die sua jura putaris;
Qui jam Fastus erit, mane Nefastus erat.
Nam simul exta Deo data sunt, licet omnia fari;
Verbaque Honoratus libera Praetor habet."
The _dies festus_ was not only not _dies fastus_, but _dies nefastus_.
Without going beyond _feast_ and _fast_, I see nothing in C.B.'s suggestion
better than the old derivations of the words _feast_ from _festus -um_, and
_fast_ from the Anglo-Saxon; nor indeed anything half so good.
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