as _Albero del_ SOLE. To
make this easier of acceptation I must premise two remarks: first, that
_Sol_ is "the Sun" in both Venetian and Provencal; and, secondly, that in
the French of that age the prepositional sign is not _necessary_ to the
genitive. Thus, in Pauthier's own text we find in one of the passages
quoted above, "_Le Livre Alexandre_, i.e. Liber Alexandri;" elsewhere,
"_Cazan le fils Argon_," "_a la mere sa femme_," "_Le corps Monseigneur
Saint Thomas si est en ceste Province_;" in Joinville, "_le commandemant
Mahommet_" "_ceux de la_ Haulequa _estoient logiez entour les heberges le
soudanc, et establiz pour le cors le soudanc garder_;" in Baudouin de
Sebourc, "_De l'amour Bauduin esprise et enflambee_."

Moreover it is the TREE OF THE SUN that is prominent in the legendary
History of Alexander, a fact sufficient in itself to rule the reading. A
character in an old English play says:--

"_Peregrine_. Drake was a didapper to Mandevill:
Candish and Hawkins, Frobisher, all our Voyagers
Went short of Mandevil. But had he reached
To this place--here--yes, here--this wilderness,
And seen the _Trees of the Sun and Moon_, that speak
And told King Alexander of his death;
He then
Had left a passage ope to Travellers
That now is kept and guarded by Wild Beasts."
(_Broome's Antipodes_, in _Lamb's Specimens_.)

The same trees are alluded to in an ancient Low German poem in honour of
St. Anno of Cologne. Speaking of the Four Beasts of Daniel's Vision:--

"The third beast was a Libbard;
Four Eagle's Wings he had;
This signified the Grecian Alexander,
Who with four Hosts went forth to conquer lands
Even to the World's End,
Known by its Golden Pillars.
In India he the Wilderness broke through
_With Trees twain he there did speak_," etc.
(In _Schilteri Thesaurus Antiq. Teuton._ tom. i.[1])

These oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon, somewhere on the confines of
India, appear in all the fabulous histories of Alexander, from the
Pseudo-Callisthenes downwards. Thus Alexander is made to tell the story in
a letter to Aristotle: "Then came some of the towns-people and said, 'We
have to show thee something passing strange, O King, and worth thy
visiting; for we can show thee trees that talk with human speech.' So they
led me to a certain park, in the midst of which were the Sun and Moon, and
round about them a guard of priests of the Sun and Moon. And there stood
the two tr