Ælia Lælia Crispis. The unknown subject of a very celebrated enigmatical inscription, preserved in Bologna, which has puzzled the heads of many learned men who have attempted to explain it. It is as follows:
| Ælia Lælia Crispis |
| Nec vir, nec mulier, nec androgyna; |
| Nec puella, nec juvenis, nec anus; |
| Nec meretrix, nec pudica; |
| Sed omnia: |
| Sublata neque fame, nec ferro, neque veneno; |
| Sed omnibus: |
| Nec cælo, nec aquis, nec terris; |
| Sed ubique jacet. |
| Lucius Agatho Priscus, |
| Nec maritus, nec amator, nec necessarius; |
| Neque moerens, neque gaudens, neque flens; |
| Sed omnia: |
| Hanc neque molem, neque pyramidem, neque sepulchrum, |
| Scit et nescit quid posuerit. |
| Hoc est, sepulchrum intus cadaver non habens; |
| Hoc est, cadaver, sepulchrum, extrà non, habens; |
| Sed cadaver idem est, et sepulchrum sibi. |
Ælia Lælia Crispis, neither man, nor woman, nor hermaphrodite; neither girl nor boy, nor old woman; neither harlot nor virgin; but all of these; destroyed neither by hunger, nor sword, nor poison; but by all of them: lies neither in heaven, nor in the water, nor in the ground, but everywhere. Lucius Agatho Priscus, neither her husband, nor her lover, nor her kinsman; neither sad, glad, nor weeping, but all at once; knows and knows not what he has built, which is neither a funeral-pile, nor a pyramid, nor a tomb; that is, a tomb without a corpse, a corpse without a tomb; for corpse and tomb are one and the same.
Various explanations of the meaning of this curious epitaph have, form time to time, been put forward; but there is much reason for doubting whether it has any. Some have thought the true interpretation to be rain-water; some, the so-called "materia prima;" some, the reasoning faculty; some, the philospher's stone; some, love; some, a dissected person; some, a shadow; some, hemp; some, an embryo. Professor Schwartz, of Coburg, explained it of the Christian Church, referring, in support of his opinion, to Galatians iii. 28.--"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Spondanus, in his "Voyage d'Italie," affirms that the inscription is only a copy, and that it is not known what has become of the original. He denies its antiquity, regarding it as the ludicrous fancy of a modern author, who, he insists, was ignorant of the principles of Latin family nomenclature. But Franckenstein says that this assertion has been confuted by Misson, in the appendix to this "Travels."
I might add what attracted considerable notice at the time,--and that is my paper in the "Gentleman's Magazine" upon the inscription Ælia Lælia, which I subscribed OEdipus.
--Sir W. Scott.
Bacon's system is, in its won terms, an idol of the theater. It would scarcely guide a man to a solution of the riddle Ælia Lælia Crispis, or to that of the charade of Sir Hilary [by Praed].
--J. W. Draper.