82 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



148. This is immediately followed by this statement, which Prof. 

 Eossi puts into the words of the original he has edited: "never is 

 the dew produced for us without our finding coolness". This is a 

 perversion caused by the ignorance of a Greek and of several Coptic 

 words in his text [51/3 foot] : (" let us flee from the fire, whilst it 

 is the time of dew"). 



mepote nte tidte non mai la rugiada 



■wo ntootn si produce a noi 



ntntmhe senza che noi troviamo 



ekbo refrigerio. 



Let this version be examined, and we find [x-rjiroTe translated "never"; 

 nte used for present indie. ; wo rendered "is produced"; ntootn, 

 "tons"; and ntntm, " senza che noi" ; Q.n(\. all five are impossible, 

 even according to the structure of the clause ! The words mean : 

 " lest that the diev^ fail from us so that we may not find coolness". 



He does not realize the meaning of the prepositions : they are 

 translated by him as if they were Old Egyptian clouded over by the 

 "darkness" of a Mosaic plague. And wo does not mean "to be 

 produced" — he is confounding it with ti-w6, "to blossom": wo 

 means "to cease"! To the end that he may realize this meaning, 



1 append here a few instances of its occurrence : 1 E,eg. ix. 7 ; 



2 Reg. ii. 26; vi. 18; xiii. 36; xvii. 23; Job. xv. 22; xxxviii. 1; 

 Isai. xxxii. 10 ; Tobi. xiv. 1 ; Eccl. i. 10; iv. 2; Amos. viii. 5, 



149. And not only does he give a totally wrong meaning to a 

 common Coptic word, but he will not allow a good Coptic root to 

 stand as his text has it, because he does not happen to know it ! 

 Thus he translates [52/3 10]: "he shall take q^ his garments, and 

 shall wash himself with water " ; adding as a note : " I have considered 

 the root som as a wrong form, or a variant of son, removere &c." 

 Why, this root som is just the very root which means to wash 

 clothes ! ! cf. Lev. xi. 25, 28, 40 ; xiii. 6, 34 ; xiv. 8, 9 ; xv. 27 ; 

 xvi. 26, 28 ; being in fact the word invariably used for TrXwetv in 

 Leviticus, the word rohe being found only in Exod. xix. 10. 



The next Text is a fragment of a Sermon by John, Archbishop of 

 Constantinople, on Envy. But the procedure of the editor remains 

 unaltered and unimproved. He has constructed a new Coptic word 

 nearly at the beginning, in the note, where he says : "I consider here 

 the root khte ... as the corresponding Coptic form of the Greek 

 (f>d6vo<s ". The thing is an utter impossibility : there is no such root, 

 and never was, in any Coptic dialect ! The word assuredly conveyed 



