Atkinson — On Prof. Rossi's South- Coptic Texts. 39 



This of course is to ignore the fact that this last sentence is the 

 promise referred to in the previous clause ; but passing that by, his 

 esce exhibits a fatal misunderstanding, which his note as usual sets 

 into high relief. His text has : 



teftapro mme tai ete mlaaii ncol ei 

 ebol nhets eneh. 



His note says: "the text has here mlaau, a form unused, or 

 perhaps wrong, for mn laau ". The text is certainly wrong, but so 

 is his note ; utterly wrong, because the verb ei, " to go", is not used 

 in the present tense at all; so that this mnlaau ei, " (non) esce^\ is 

 an ungrammatical suggestion: it should have been mpe, and not 

 mn, and then the translation would have been "his veracious mouth, 

 out of which no lie ever came" ; or the future negative nne, " will 

 never come". 



37. The following seems hardly intentional, but it is significant : 

 [75 ;8 22^ woss ebol nnetnaistheterion, which he has trans- 

 lated, " dilatate la vostra selvaggia intelligenza". Now, what does 

 he suppose is gained by putting in selvaggia, "savage", and whence 

 is it got ? The Greek word here used, aicrdrjT-qpLov, has surely no 

 great mystery about it. 



38. At [79 a 2], we have the following : 



pkab tepf tllwlai la terra tutta giubila, 



je a pesnof niiiefrro perche il sangue del suo re 



poht ehrai ejof e sparso su essa. 



* v^ 



afkatharize ansen Purified le piante 



terw te[iiti'w6] tuiie germoglianti (?), 



ebolje pjueis ase poiche il Signore e appeso 



ejm pse mpestauros al legno della croce. 



On this passage he gives a note: "here also the text is incorrect, 

 and I fear I have not thoroughly grasped the author's idea ; here, also, 

 we have a instead of e (ansen for ensen,) and the group tentiwo 

 in place of nettiwo". He most assuredly has not caught the idea, 

 and both his suggestions are wrong and impossible. The word could 

 not be ensen, with the directive e, because katharize does not 

 govern the directive, but the connexive n (cf. Levit. viii. 15 ; xii. 7 ; 

 xiii. 6, 23, &c.), and nettiwo is quite out of the question when 

 ensen is impossible. 



He has gone completely astray: the sense is "the earth shouts 

 for joy because the blood of its king has been shed on it, and has 



