Part Fourth

Footnotes

^[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.

^[1226] “Fas” =ὅσιον, morally right; distinct from “jus” or “licitum.”

^[1227] i.e., Lot’s race or family, which had come from “Ur of the Chaldees.” See Gen. xi. 26, 27, 28.

^[1228] I use “preventing” in its now unusual sense of “anticipating the arrival of.”

^[1229] Σηγώρ in the LXX., “Zoar” in Eng. ver.

^[1230] “Simul exoritur sol.” But both the LXX. and the Eng. ver. say the sun was risen when Lot entered the city.

^[1231] So Oehler and Migne. But perhaps we may alter the pointing slightly, and read:—

“Down pours a novel shower, sulphur mixt

With blazing flames: the ether seethes: the air

Crackles with liquid exust.”

^[1232] The story of Phaëthon and his fate is told in Ov., Met., ii. 1–399, which may be compared with the present piece. His two sisters were transformed into white poplars, according to some; alders, according to others. See Virg., Æn., x. 190 sqq., Ec., vi. 62 sqq. His half-brother (Cycnus or Cygnus) was turned into a swan: and the scene of these transformations is laid by Ovid on the banks of the Eridanus (the Po). But the fable is variously told; and it has been suggested that the groundwork of it is to be found rather in the still-standing of the sun recorded in Joshua.

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