64 The Rev. J. Hamilton on the Punic Passage in Plautus, Sfc. 



Respecting the parenthetic part of the Libyan Invocation, purporting to 

 include the bereft stranger travelling on his way, as under the protection of the 

 local tutelary deities, it may be observed, that it is not only in accordance with 

 the known Heathen usages of tutelary religion, but with that divine provision in 

 the dedication of the temple by Solomon : " Concerning tlie stranger that cometh 

 from a far country, when he shall pray toward this house ; hear thou in heaven, 

 and do according as the stranger shall call upon thee." — 1 Kings, viii. 42., &c. 



support. In the tenth line, again, the Punic moncot, by first assuming the borrowed feather, and then 

 dropping one of its own characters, first becomes moncor, and is then further transformed to moccor. 

 Gesenius' words are, " moncot pro moncor, potest enim moncor esse part. Hoph. non contractum 

 (moccor), 1313." Of the fourth line, the interpretation, "Virtute magna quae diis est et imperio 

 eorum" depends upon the mis-reading, hiru aroh, contrary to all authorities, for the authorized 

 him arob : the alleged authority for this reading being the simple ipse dixit, " Perbene ita jam 

 Bochartus." The ninth line is very literally translated in the Plautine Latin so far as it goes, and 

 Gesenius and Bochart in this instance, if they have not reached the mark, have not diverged more 

 widely from it by emendation. 



The interpretations which we owe to Gesenius, as originally and properly his own, remain to be 

 acknowledged. That of the second line is as follows : l/t uhi ahstulerunt salutcm meam, impleatur 

 jussu eorum desideritim meum. This interpretation is founded upon a conjectural emendation con- 

 trary to manuscript authority, substituting an r\S, incolumitas, for yth-mu ; an emendation and 

 interpretation which are discredited by the author's own misgivings, thus candidly expressed, " Hoc 

 loco nee superiores interpretes mihi satisfecerunt, neque ipse mihi satisfacio." The sixth line Gese- 

 nius renders, Vir contemnens loquentesjatua, strenuus rohore, integer in agendo, which ho contrasts, 

 rather complacently, with Bochart's still more extravagant interpretation, Vir mihi familiaris sed 

 is eorum ca:tihus junctus est quorum habitatio est in caligine. Seventh verse, Filium est Jama esse hie 

 cognatum nostrum Agorastoclem ; which Gesenius, in his notes, elucidates thus : Cognatum, " ut 

 Angli, a relation pf mine." A rather bold Prolepsis, to say the least. For surely the next scene shows, 

 that at the period of the monologue no surmise of such relationship had suggested itself to Hanno, but 

 that, on the contrary, the denouement to that effect comes on him by surprise. Eighth lino, Eth eme- 

 neth, nearly coincides with the reading I have adopted ; and I so far feel gratified, by having, for once, 

 Gesenius on my side. But the ellipsis he has recourse to, to justify the interpretation, token, would 

 not have appeared to him necessary, if he had recollected the reference above given, to the passage 

 in Joshua, in which eth emeneth, or oth emeneth, appears to bean old Canaanitish phrase, of the 

 same import as that used by Hanno, and used in the same sense by a person of the same stock 

 and of the same religion. 



