274 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



thee". All through this passage he has ignored the function of the 

 perfect regent nipe . 



140. It is exasperating to see ho\v persistently disobedience to 

 definite grammatical rule is exhibited in this translation ! But at 

 times the feeling of wonder predominates ; what other feeling could be 

 roused by such a translation as, tandis que les pauvres re&tent en dehors 

 senillaUes a des chiens qui sont a la porte et que Von ne voit pas, when 

 the text has, [237, 13], ere neheke how mpekbol eutnton 

 eneuhoor nahrok euhirm pekro ngnanau an. 



Consider the words : — 



ng'nanau an et que Von ne voit pas. 



But where is the olject (erow) of nau in that case? For he 

 evidently read it as nau, ' to see.' The words are quite different, 

 ng-na nau an, "thou art not merciful to them''''; for nau is the 

 pronoun, and the verb is the preceding word na , 'to be merciful' ! 



But there is more to fijid fault with. For consider the previous 

 clause, "the poor rest outside like dogs that are at the door" ; here 

 the verb is ' rest', and how is that obtained ? Why, of course, he will 

 reply, is there not na-hrok? Certainly, the text has nahrok, but 

 it is merely dialectic spelling for nahrak, apud te, 'in thine eyes' ; 

 for most assuredly the laws of Coptic structure do not admit of such 

 an arrangement of words as ere neheke how mpekbol eutnton 

 eneuhoor na-hrok euhirm pro! 



It is quite impossible; the predicate was mpekbol, being fol- 

 lowed by two subordinate clauses, eu-tnton &c., and eu-hirin &c. 



This was the construction : — 



ere neheke how mpekbol, 



eutnton enenhoor nahrak^ 

 euhirm pekro 



ng^na nan an. 



Then the sentence is: "while the poor are outside of thy house, 

 being like dogs in thy sight ; though at thy door thou hast no mercy 

 on them ". 



In the continuation of the discourse much is wrong ; so wh [238, i ] 

 certainly does not mean se reunir ; and the paraphrase of [238, 3], 

 mais, me direz-vous, quefaut-il done f aire pour feter le martyr, is certainly 

 not a satisfactory rendering, for the words auo as pe pkehob ajis 

 eroi, ntai an te tcinrsa mpmartyros, mean "and what is 

 even this, tell me, [probably meaning, and even this sin of calum- 



