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† dulˈcarnon Obs.
[a. med.L. dulcarnon, corrupted from Arabic ðū'lqarnayn two-horned, bicornis, cornutus; lit. ‘lord or possessor of the two horns’.]
1. A dilemma (= med.L. cornutus, cornute n. 5); a non-plus; at dulcarnon, at one's wit's end.
According to Neckham (De Nat. Rerum, Rolls, 295) and others, Dulcarnon was also a mediæval appellation of the Pythagorean theorem, Euclid i. 47 (it is supposed, from its somewhat two-horned figure). In Pandarus's reply to Cressida (quot. 1374), Dulcarnon appears to be confounded with Elefuga or Eleofuga, an appellation of the pons asinorum, Euclid i. 5, mediævally explained as fuga miserorum, ‘flemyng of wrechis’. See N. & Q. (1887) 7th s. IV. 130, and references there given.
c1374Chaucer Troylus iii. 882 (931), I [Crisseide] am til god me betire mynde sende, At [v.r. A] dulcarnoun ryȝt at myn wittis ende. Quod Pandarus, ȝa nece, wele ȝe here: Dulcarnoun clepid is flemyng of wrechis. It semyþ hard for wrechis nil it lere. 1534Mrs. M. Roper in More's Wks. 1441/2 In good fayth father qd. I, I can no ferther goe, but am, (as I trowe Cresede saith in Chaucer) comen to Dulcarnon euen at my wittes ende.
2. A person in a dilemma; one ‘halting between two opinions’.
1577Stanyhurst Descr. Irel. in Holinshed (1587) II. 28/1 S. Patrike considering, that these sealie soules were (as all dulcarnanes for the more part are) more to be terrified from infidelitie through the paines of hell, than allured to christianitie by the ioies of heauen. |