Note 242 — V

First so used by Theophrastus in Greek, and by Pliny in Latin.—The real identity of the two words explains Milton’s use of ‘diamond’ in Paradise Lost, b. 7; and also in that sublime passage in his Apology for Smectymnuus: “Then zeal, whose substance is ethereal, arming in complete diamond”.—Diez (Wörterbuch d. Roman. Sprachen, p. 123) supposes, not very probably, that it was under a certain influence of ‘diafano’, the translucent, that ‘adamante’ was in the Italian, whence we have derived the word, changed into ‘diamante’.