Atkinson — On Prof. Eossi's South-Coptic Texts. 81 



144. At [47a 7] we have another perversion in the translation: 

 "for drunkards speak of a multitude of things", saying, "what and 

 what thing shall we do ? But when thei/ abandon themselves to intoxi- 

 cation, they do not remember the oaths" &c. The text says: "but 

 when they recover from their drunkenness"! 



eusanlo de hin ptihe 



145. He seems to have no idea of the source whence the writer 

 has derived his denunciation of the harlot city [49 a 13], which is 

 Ezekiel's parable, xxlv. 4 seqq. And he renders the words [a 22], 

 " I will descend upon it" : 



tinatalos ehrai io scendero su di lei. 



But how could talo mean "descend", and how it could have a pro- 

 nominal suffix fern., it is impossible even to conjecture. In reality, 

 the words mean "I will offer it [the city] up (as a sacrifice)"; cf. 

 Gen. viii. 20, aftalow ehrai nholokautoma, dv/yvcy/fci/ cts oXoKapirwo-Lv. 



146. In fact, nearly every page of this Fasciculus contains some 

 astonishing mistake ; so that I do not see how the translation could 

 be made tolerable without reprinting it. It is the grammatical 

 foundation that is wanting ; the editor is moving in the unsteady 

 grooves of hieratic guess-work ; the tenses, the moods, the prepo- 

 sitions, the regents, the verbal forms, oust each other in sportive 

 wantonness, till the translation sometimes presents the appearance 

 of a game of blindman's buff. 



At [50 y 19] is an instance : 



sare tepsylilie Vanima e 



taeio* Ste psoma hoof Ponore del corpo stesso 



swsw m 



Now, here we see that the aorist regent sare has no verb, for he has 

 rendered taeio as a noun; he has made nte the sign of possession, 

 whereas it is the regent of the subjunctive ; and he has omitted 

 swsw m . . . altogether. 



Translate : ' ' the soul is wont to be honoured, so that the body also 

 hoasts^^ (swsw mmof, as Prov. xx. 9). 



147. At [51/3 20], he again mis-translates the regent of the 

 subj. nte, in his translation, sulValtare del sacerdote, and thus 

 leaves the verb testo-n ebol without any regent at all, and even 

 80, makes it plural, ci gettino (!) The words are, and plainly : 



iite pweeb teston ebol^ ^^ so that the priest reject us". 



E.I.A. PKOC, SEE, III., VOL. III. G 



