Part Fourth

Footnotes

^[1205] i.e., the cloud.

^[1206] Genitus (Oehler); geminus (Migne) ="twin clamour,” which is not inapt.

^[1207] Mandare (Oehler). If this be the true reading, the rendering in the text seems to represent the meaning; for “mandare” with an accusative, in the sense of “to bid the tardy coils tighten the girth’s noose,” seems almost too gross a solecism for even so lax a Latinist as our present writer. Migne, however, reads mundare—to “clear” the tardy coils, i.e., probably from the wash and weed with which the gale was cloying them.

^[1208] Tunc Domini vates ingesta Spiritus infit. Of course it is a gross offence against quantity to make a genitive in “us” short, as the rendering in the text does. But a writer who makes the first syllable in “clamor” and the last syllable of gerunds in do short, would scarcely be likely to hesitate about taking similar liberties with a genitive of the so-called fourth declension. It is possible, it is true, to take “vates” and “Spiritus” as in apposition, and render, “Then the seer-Spirit of the Lord begins to utter words inspired,” or “Then the seer-Spirit begins to utter the promptings of the Lord.” But these renderings seem to accord less well with the ensuing words.

^[1209] Mundi.

^[1210] i.e., apparently with shells which had gathered about him as he lay in the deep.

^[1211] This seems to be the sense of Oehler’s “Nauta at tum Domino leti venerando timorem Sacrificat grates”—“grates” being in apposition with “timorem.” But Migne reads: “Nautæ tum Domino læti venerando timorem Sacrificant grates:”—

“The sailors then do to the reverend Lord

Gladly make grateful sacrifice of fear:” and I do not see that Oehler’s reading is much better.

^[1212] Comp. Matt. xii. 38-41; Luke xi. 29-30.

^[1213] These words are not in the original, but are inserted (I confess) to fill up the line, and avoid ending with an incomplete verse. If, however, any one is curious enough to compare the translation, with all its defects, with the Latin, he may be somewhat surprised to find how very little alteration or adaptation is necessary in turning verse into verse.

2. A Strain of Sodom. (Author Uncertain.)

^[1214] Maris æquor.

^[1215] See Gen. ix. 21-22; x. 8-17.

^[1216] Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 5-14.

^[1217] The expression, “sinners against their own souls,” in Num. xvi. 38:38—where, however, the LXX. have a very different version—may be compared with this; as likewise Prov. viii. 36.

^[1218] Whether the above be the sense of this most obscure triplet I will not presume to determine. It is at least (I hope) intelligible sense. But that the reader may judge for himself whether he can offer any better, I subjoin the lines, which form a sentence alone, and therefore can be judged of without their context:—

“Tempore sed certo Deus omnia prospectulatus,

Judicat injustos, patiens ubi criminis ætas

Cessandi spatium vis nulla coëgerit iræ.”

^[1219] Comp. Heb. i. 14. It may be as well here to inform the reader once for all that prosody as well as syntax is repeatedly set at defiance in these metrical fragments; and hence, of course, arise some of the chief difficulties in dealing with them.

^[1220] “Divinos;” i.e., apparently “superhuman,” as everything heavenly is.

^[1221] Of hospitality—bread and salt, etc.

^[1222] “Mensa;” but perhaps “mensæ” may be suggested—“the sacred pledges of the board.”

^[1223] “Dispungit,” which is the only verb in the sentence, and refers both to pia pignora and to amicos. I use “quit” in the sense in which we speak of “quitting a debtor,” i.e., giving him his full due; but the two lines are very hard, and present (as in the case of those before quoted) a jumble of words without grammar; “pia pignora mensa Officiisque probis studio dispungit amicos;” which may be somewhat more literally rendered than in our text, thus: “he zealously discharges” (i.e., fulfils) “his sacred pledges” (i.e., the promised hospitality which he had offered them) “with (a generous) board, and discharges” (i.e., fulfils his obligations to) “his friends with honourable courtesies.”

^[1224] Altera =alterna. But the statement differs from Gen. xix. 4.

^[1225] “Istam juventam,” i.e., the two “juvenes” (Gen. 19.31) within.

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