1 These two lines, if this be their true sense, seem to refer to Lot's wife. But the grammar and meaning of this introduction are alike obscure.
2 "Metus;" used, as in other places, of godly fear.
3 Lit. "from," i.e., which, urged by a heart which is that of a saint, even though on this occasion it failed, the prophet dared.
4 Libratur.
5 "Tarshish," Eng. ver.; perhaps Tartessus in Spain. For this question, and the "trustiness" of Joppa (now Jaffa) as a port, see Pusey on Jonah i. 3.
6 Ejusdem per signa Dei.
7 i.e., the cloud.
8 Genitus (Oehler); geminus (Migne) = "twin clamour," which is not inapt.
9 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.
10 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.
11 Mundi.
12 i.e., apparently with shells which had gathered about him as he lay in the deep.
13 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: "Nautaelig; tum Domino laeti 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.
14 Comp. Matt. xii. 38-41; Luke xi. 29,30.
15 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.)
Already had Almighty God wiped off
By vengeful flood (with waters all conjoined
Which heaven discharged on earth and the sea's plainhyperlink
Outspued) the times of the primeval age:
5 Had pledged Himself, while nether air should bring
210 That ware put to, tilting their smooth skin. down
With balance of their sides, to teach the film,
Once o'er the gunnel, to float in: for, lo!
Raising itself spontaneous, it will swim
Up to the edge of the unmoving craft;
215 And will, when pressed,hyperlink for guerdon large, ensure
Immunity from the defiling touch
Of weft which female monthly efflux clothes.
Behold another portent notable,
Fruit of that sea's disaster: all things cast
220 Therein do swim: gone is its native power
For sinking bodies: if, in fine, you launch
A torch's lightsomehyperlink hull (where spirit serves
For fire) therein, the apex of the flame
Will act as sail; put out the flame, and 'neath
225 The waters will the light's wrecks ruin go!
Such Sodom's and Gomorrah's penalties,
For ages sealed as signs before the eyes
Of unjust nations, whose obdurate hearts
God's fear have quite forsaken,hyperlink will them teach
230 To reverence heaven-sanctioned rights,hyperlink and lift
Their gaze unto one only Lord of all.
Footnotes
1 Maris aequor.
2 See Gen. ix. 21, 22, x. 8-17.
3 Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 5-14.
4 The expression, "sinners against their own souls," in Num. xvi. 38 - where, however, the LXX. have a very different version - may be compared with this; as likewise Prov. viii. 36.
5 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 sugjoin 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 aetasCessandi spatium vis nulla coëgerit irae."
6 Comp. Heb. i. 14. It may be as well here to inform the reader once for 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.
7 "Divinos;" i.e., apparently "superhuman," as everything heavenly is.
8 Of hospitality - bread and salt, etc.
9 "Mensa;" but perhaps "mensae" may be suggested - "the sacred pledges of the board."
10 "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."
11 Altera = alterna. But the statement differs from Gen. xix. 4.
12 "Istam juventam," i.e., the two "juvenes" (ver. 31) within.
13 "Fas" = osion, morally right; distinct from "jus" or "licitum."
14 i.e., Lot's race or family, which had come from "Ur of the Chaldees." See Gen. xi. 26, 27, 28.
15 I use "preventing" in its now unusual sense of "anticipating the arrival of."
16 Shgwr in the LXX., "Zoar" in Eng. ver.
17 "Simul exoritur sol." But both the LXX. and the Eng. ver. say the sun was risen when Lot entered the city.
18 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."
19 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., Aen., x. 190 sqq., Ec., vi. 62 sqq. His hal-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.
20 i.e., as she had been before in the case of Eve. See Gen. iii. 1 sqq.
21 I have hazarded the bold conjecture - which I see others (Pamelius at all events) had hazarded before me - that "feritas" is used by our author as - "fertilitas." The word, of course, is very incorrectly formed etymologically; but etymology is not our author's forte apparently. It will also be seen that there is seemingly a gap at this point, or else some enormous mistake, in the mss. An attempt has been made (see Migne) to correct it, but not a very satisfactory one. For the common reading, which gives two lines,
"Occidit illa prior feritas, quam prospiciens Loth
Nullus arat frustra piceas fuligine glebas,"which are evidently entirely unconnected with one another, it is proposed to read,
"Occidit illa prior feritas, quam prospiciens Loth,
Deseruisse pii fertur commercia fratris.
Nullas arat," etc.This use of "fratris" in a wide sense may be justified from Gen. xiii. 8 (to which passage, with its immediate context, there seems to be a reference, whether we adopt the proposed correction or no), and similar passages in Holy Writ. But the transition is still abrupt to the "nullus arat," etc.; and I prefer to leave the passage as it is, without attempting to supply the hiatus.
22 This use of "easely" as a dissyllable is justifiable from Spenser.
23 This seems to be the sense, but the Latin is somewhat strange: "morsest maris illa quieti," i.e., illa (quies) maris quieti mors est. The opening lines of "Jonah" (above) should be compared with this passage and its context.
24 Inque picem dat terrae haerere marinam.
25 "Pressum" (Oehler); "pretium" (Migne): "it will yield a prize, namely, that," etc.
26 Luciferam.
27 Oehler's pointing is disregarded.
28 "De caelo jura tueri;" possibly "to look for laws from heaven."
185 With whom God deigns to talk, and thus begins:
"Tell Me, if thou live rightly, and discern
Things hurtful, couldst thou not then pass shine age
Pure from contracted guilt? Cease to essay
With gnawing sense thy brother's ruin, who,
190 Subject to thee as lord, his neck shall yield."
Not e'en thus softened, he unto the fields
Conducts his brother; whom when overta'en
In lonely mead he saw, with his twin palms
Bruising his pious throat, he crushed life out.
195 Which deed the Lord espying from high heaven,
Straitly demands "where Abel is on earth? "
He says "he will not as his brother's guard
Be set." Then God outspeaks to him again:
"Doth not the sound of his blood's voice, sent up
200 To Me, ascend unto heaven's lofty pole?
Learn, therefore, for so great a crime what doom
Shall wait thee. Earth, which with thy kinsman's blood
Hath reeked but now, shall to thy hateful hand
Refuse to render back the cursed seeds
205 Entrusted her; nor shall, if set with herbs,
Produce her fruit: that, torpid, thou shalt dash
Thy limbs against each other with much fear."....
Footnotes
1 Terram.
2 Tellus.
3 Immensus. See note on the word in the fragment "Concerning the Cursing of the Heathen's Gods."
4 Cardine.
5 Mundo.
6 "Errantia;" so called, probably, either because they appear to move as ships pass them, or because they may be said to "wander" by reason of the constant change which they undergo from the action of the sea, and because of the shifting nature of their sands.
7 Terrarum.
8 "God called the dry land Earth:" Gen. i. 10.
9 i.e., "together with;" it begets both sun and moon.
10 i.e., "the fourth day."
11 Mundo.
12 Or, "lucid" - liquentia.
13 i.e., "Power Divine."
14 So Milton and Shakespeare.
15 As (see above, l. 31) He had all other things.
16 SeeGen. iii. 20, with the LXX., and the marg. in the Eng. ver.
17 Terrae.
18 The "gladsome court" - "laeta aula" - seems to mean Eden, in which the garden is said to have been planted. See Gen. ii. 8.
19 i.e., eastward. See the last reference.
20 Aedibus in mediis.
21 Terit. So Job (xiv. 19), "The waters wear the stones."
22 "Onyx," Eng. ver. See the following piece, l. 277.
23 "Bdellium," Eng. Ver.; anqrac, LXX.
24 Comp. Ps. xxix. 3, especially in "Great Bible" (xxviii. 3 in LXX.)
25 Malum.
26 Mali.
27 "Numquid poma Deus non omnia nota sacravit?"
28 Mundus.
29 The writer, supposing it to be night (see 88, 89), seems to mean that the serpent hinted that the fruit would instantly dispel night and restore day. Compare the ensuing lines.
30 Mundo.
31 Virorum.
32 "Servitiumque sui studio perferre mariti;" or, perhaps, "and drudge in patience at her husband's beck."
33 "Sententia:" her sentence, or opinion, as to the fruit and its effects.
34 Or,
"That with heart-weariness and mournful breast
Full many sighs may furnish anxious food."
35 The writer makes "cherubim" - or "cherubin" - singular. I have therefore retained his mistake. What the "hot point" - "calidus apex" - is, is not clear. It may be an allusion the "flaming sword" (see Gen. iii. 24); or it may mean the top of the flame.
36 Or, "origins" - "orsis" - because Cain and Abel were original types, as it were, of two separate classes of men.
37 "Perpetuo;" "in process of time," Eng. ver.; meq hmeraj, LXX. in Gen. iv. 3.
38 Quae porsata fuerant. But, as Wordsworth remarks on Gen. iv., we do not read that Caïn's offerings were first-fruits even.
39 Quod propter gelida Cain incanduit ira. If this, which is Oehler's and Migne's reading, be correct, the words gelida and incanduit seem to be intentionally contrasted, unless incandescere be used here in a supposed sense of "growing white," "turning pale." Urere is used in Latin of heat and cold indifferently. Calida would, of course, be a ready emendation; but gelida has the advantage of being far more startling.