Atkinson — On a South-CojJtic Text of M. Bouriant. 261 



96. And after rendering a quotation from Solomon by la louche de 

 Vinsense est une trappe (?) et ses voies sont un piege, he cori'ects the 

 former clause rightly into est xme mine pour lui, but has left the latter 

 untouched. Now the text has : ttapro impathet whenaf te auo 

 wpas te nefhiowe [189, 13], where after correcting the impossible 

 whenaf into whe naf te , one would have thought that he could not 

 have failed to see that it balanced the latter clause : whe te . . . 

 wpas te [njnefh., " (his tongue) is a ruin to him, and is a snare to 

 Ms wa%js''\ an adaptation of Prov. xviii. 7. How in the wide world 

 could the/^OT. sg. copula te appear between the Coptic words for ses 

 voies diO-d. im piege'^ 



97. Nor is it allowable to glide over the difficulties as M. Bouriant 

 has done at [192,9], ^^ malista mprro ndikaios sope eneh 

 nthe mpai. Here the writer had been speaking of David's inability 

 to secure the life of his child, and so the Editor renders, si un roi juste 

 a ete frappe ainsi^ a plus forte raison le sera ce roi impie dans lequel tu 

 places ton espoir. Evidently therefore the argument was that ' as 

 David's child died, so the pagan king's child will die also '. But the 

 Copt does not say so; the words mpfro ndikaios sope eneh do 

 not convey the meaning of si un juste roi a ete frappe ainsi, nor any 

 other meaning of ant kind ! There was sope 'to become', and there 

 was eneh, 'for ever', and there was no regent for sope, and 

 the m before pfro 'the king' had no meaning, and therefore as 

 the Editor could make nothing out of it, he paraphrased it and so 

 slid over. It should have been mpe pfro ndikaios sope eneh, 

 "most assuredly the just king did not live for ever", the Greek words 

 preceding, /cat /^aXto-ra, being a strong asseveration, " just so assuredly, 

 the unjust king &c." 



98. Sometimes even the plain Greek word is an insuperable diffi- 

 culty ; thus when the governor is said to have become angry because 

 Victor Vavait humilie in presence of his court, the translation is mere 

 guessing. The words are [193, i] 



aftiatrepei mmof. 

 Now he had had the word before at [151, 3], where he edits 



mprty atrepei mmoi 



which this time he renders ne me desoheis pas ! 



It is obvious that this procedure is constructed Kara avveaiv, but 

 certainly not ' according to knowledge ' : the word in question was 



