Atkinson — On a South-Coptic Text of M. Bouriant. 259 



hijon, "that we may fling them from us", his rendering is 

 utterly unsatisfactory. 



89. And in continuation, car le Dieu du del montrera d tons leur 

 petitesse et leur erreur ; why does he so paraphrase the plain peu- 

 thebbio , ' their humiliation'? And why does he continue : Et Von 

 s'est ri d''eux \_corrected into et Von se rira~\ et le Seigneur les a detruits, 

 when the Coptic has [186,12] nsesobe nsow auo nte pjoeis 

 kamsw nftakow ; ignoring utterly the connexion with the previous 

 verse, and completely dropping out of account the word kamsw 

 [Job xxii. 19]? 



90. And how does he justify to himself his next lines, comme le 

 montre Vinstruetion qiCil a donnee a David, when the Coptic just says, 

 "according to the way that he reiterated the statement immediately 

 after"? He reads ntafweh mpsaje , "he hath given instruction", 

 as if such a construction were possible, weh with a following 

 connexivel But it should be ntafwehm psaje, ^' he hath, repeated 

 the word". And what has he done with nsa tootf , an adverb 

 meaning "immediately after " ? He has rendered it as a veeb, qu'il 

 a donnee [! ] 



91. "Why render ntai-ei eporj, je viendrai separer [187, 14]? 

 It is the perfect tense. 



Is it an intelligible phrase to say " (God will punish thee) car tu 

 n^as produit aucun fruit qiiimerite leregreV ? The words are [188, 9], 

 'any fruit loortlnj of repentance^ which at least have the merit of 

 being a Biblical reminiscence. 



When the governor came to the capital, says Victor, pour y chercher 

 mon pere et tu lui as parte ainsi : ' prie le roi en ma faveur &c., what 

 was the result? mon pere refusa tout net de parler pour toi, says 

 M. Bouriant ; but Yictor says much more drastically, "my father did 

 not deem thee worthy even to talk with thee^\ mpe paeiot kataxiw 

 mmok holes [= oXws] esaje nmmak, [190, .4]. 



92. Then the governor in despair appealed to Victor himself 

 to intervene with his father on his behalf, saying : fai dejd pris la 

 peine de le supplier^ mais il ne m^a pas du tout ecoute. Here again the 

 version fails to represent the original, mpef sp hrai ehwn holos 

 [190, 8]. Of course, the sense could not be misrepresented, because the 

 governor's failure to persuade the father was the very point dwelt on, 

 but that M. Bouriant had not any notion of the construction is evident 

 from the form of his version, il ne ni'a pas du tout ecoute. Here he 

 took hrai to mean ' my voice', but it was a totally different word, 

 viz. hra, 'face', for this phrase also is Biblical, cf. Gen. xxxii. 20,. 



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