96 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



and therefore his Tersion , "who were in the fire", besides being 

 a very weak representation of the Greek (fiXoyl KaLo/xevo^, is positively 

 incorrect: the words, if they were correct, would mean: "who 

 exist ly means o/the fire ". I do not believe the text had so op, but 

 sobh, "burnt", "dried up", 



193. Here again is an emendation with nothing to recommend it 

 [33 a 5] : 



kata [5j]e mpaophos secondo il detto del saggio. 



I am embarrassed here to see hoio he intended to construe his con- 

 jecture ! "Was it Kara followed by n ? was it nje, plural of je , 

 " a word" ? It is utterly impossible, anyhow, to Coptic structure, 

 and should have been kata [psa]je. 



194. And I am just as little able to accept his emendation on the 

 next column [33/5 3] : 



tote ausmnt allora stalilirono 



[mn] neuereu insieme 



ejok ebol di mandare ad effetto 



[tep]raxis V opera. 



The translation reads well enough, but the text will not bear it : his 

 emended text has no meaning at all ! 



For, smnt can mean nothing, by itself ; it must have an object, 

 and that object must he a pronominal suffix. The word was not 

 smnt; it should be smn [tootw mnj, i.e. "they joined hands 

 with one another", "they covenanted" ; cf. 4 Eeg. xv. 19. 



195. The same column [33 b foot] gives another example of mis- 

 conception as to the prepositions, for he has edited 



wshime esmise a woman fighting 



[n]iii nhowt fsnaa with males twain. 



Here two questions arise at once : 



[a) What on earth is nm , which he has conjectured ? Ac- 

 cording to Prof. Rossi, it is a preposition nm , " with" : in North- 

 Coptic, yes ! but this is South-Qo])iic, which knows no such word. 



ih) And what is the n before howt snau ? The sign of a 

 plural, and with snau ! 



There was no need for emendation: the text should be esmise 

 mn howt snau. 



196. It does not seem easy to see why Prof. Eossi should so often 

 go out of his way, to misrepresent the text in his translation, by 



