Note 254 — FUIMUS TROES: THE TRUE TROJANS

"Impyn," says Mr Steevens (note to the "Second Part of Henry IV.," act v. sc. 5), is a Welsh word, and primitively signifies a sprout, a sucker; and by the writers of this period is almost perpetually used for progeny. So in Chaloner's translation of Erasmus's "Praise of Folie," 1549, sig. D 3: "Yet truly more pernicious was he to the common-weale, in leavying so ungracious an ympe as Commodus was," &c.