Opera attributa. Liber In Genesin

APPENDIX. WORKS ATTRIBUTED TO JUVENCUS.

CHAPTER I. In the beginning the Lord placed heaven and earth:

For it was formless, and the earth lay hidden beneath the flood, and measureless God moved over the vast waters; while chaos and black darkness obscured all things, as He separates these from the starry axis, He speaks: Let there be light, and all things shone in a joyful world. And when God had completed the works of the first day, He established the axis whitening with newborn clouds. The measureless Sea receives the wandering shores, sweeping along the manifold rivers with mighty courses. The third light revealed the face of the lands, golden-hued. Soon the dry land is told of, its name having been set down.

On this poem I have spoken in the Prolegomena, at the following number. Andreas Rivinus published the first four chapters from old editions under this title: Genesis of Caecilius Cyprianus, or rather of Q. Septimius Florens Tertullianus. I append Martenius's notes, to which I add or insert a few of my own.

Verse 1. The printed editions read "he created," a word which the Vulgate version employs, but which is unknown to Juvencus. Martene. - The Itala version has "he made."

In the Vulgate edition we read, "But the earth was empty and void." Yet the old Italic version, which Augustine cites, has: "But the earth was invisible and unformed." Mart. - Rivinus, by conjecture, reads "And now" instead of "For now." Others read with Augustine in Sabatier.

Pamelius reads this verse somewhat differently, namely in this way: "While he bade these things be separated from the hinge, he speaks." Mart. Before Pamelius, Morelius and Fabricius had read it thus.

The flowering shoots rise up in the windy fields, and the fruit-bearing branches together bend forward their arms. On the fourth day he brings forth the moon together with the lamp of the sun, and paints the stars shining with trembling light. These elements he gave as the distinguished marks of the world subjected to them, times which might teach that they must be changed through the various risings. On the fifth day the flowing rivers receive fishes, and birds suspend their bodies on varied wing. On the sixth the father makes the cold snakes glide into coils, and pours out whole herds of four-footed beasts into the fields, and commanded all things to grow everywhere with manifold offspring, and to wander and feed over the vast lands.

The editions have "claro," and in its place Morelius reads "clare." Mart.[1] Fabricius reads "Lux fiat, et claro." Junius, in Rivinus, reads "Lux fiat. claro nituerunt."

Fabr.: "Cum Dominus primi." Morelius also has this.

The edition has "verentia." Mart. Read "verrentia." For thus Fabricius has it, "verrentia littora" after Morelius.

Rivinus, by his own conjecture, restores "gramina" in place of "germina."

Martene notes nothing; but Fabricius has "Quarta dies," which fits the meter.

The edition has "fingit." Mart. "pingit" is far better.

The edition has "At quinta," with "die" omitted, not so well. Mart. The old editors, to suit the meter, rewrote it. "At quinta accipiunt."

Pamelius reads this verse thus: "Et volucres varias suspendunt aere pennas." Mart. Fabricius agrees with Pamelius, but with "corpore" in place of "aere."

The edition has "Sexta praegelidos," Mart.

Fabr., "Quadrupedumque."

These things the divine power established, looking to it that the world's affairs should not lack a ruler. These things he records: "Let us make man in our image, like to our faces, who shall reign over the whole world. And though he could have formed him by a single word, yet he himself, deigning to lead him with his holy hand, breathes into the brute a breast from his divine heart." CHAPTER II. When he saw him formed in his own likeness, as it were, he measures the ground, to roll away gnawing cares. Straightway he pours sleep upon his eyes with refreshing dew, so that a woman might be formed more softly from the plucked rib, and the mingled substance might strengthen the twin limbs, and a name is given him, which is called Eve [Era], of life.

Therefore offspring leave their parents according to custom, and having set aside their homes they cling to their spouses. On the seventh light God rested from the completion of his works, establishing it as sacred for the joys of the age to come. Then, when the crowds of living creatures had been brought forth in order, Adam, skilled with the wisdom given to him, gives to each one individually a name that endures. Him God deigns to address, and Eve joined to him: "Increase through manifold offspring into the times to come, so that the sky and the full lands may be your heirs by your seed; pluck the various fruits which the groves and the fields yield from their rich soil." When he had set these matters forth, the paradise is furnished in a joyful hall, and it beholds the first light of the sun. Among the fruits is born the lethal tree, producing a joined flavor of life and death. In the midst of the dwelling a river flows in a pure stream, by which it waters the renowned springs with its clear waters, and from its welling source it divides into four channels. The Fison, rich in gold-bearing waves, swells, and wears away conspicuous gems from its hoarse whirlpool; to this one the name emerald, to that the burning carbuncle, and with its clear shallows it laps the land of Evilla.

Fabricius: He records this: "Let us make man for us to the nail." Morelius thus, but "to the nail."

Edition: "this one with one." Mart.

Edition: "in the breast," far better our manuscript "from the breast." Mart. Fabricius had already published "from the breast."

Rivinus, following Barthius's conjecture, reads "formed effigies to which he saw his own."

Edition: "with a twofold mixture." Mart.

Fabricius: "virae" for "vitae."

Edition: "Seventh, when God." Mart.

Edition: they read this verse thus: "Consecrating, establishing the joys of the age to come." Mart. — Fabricius punctuates "Consecrating, establishing."

Rivinus conjectures: "He gives a name to all, Virtue, which remains."

Edition: somewhat otherwise, "the clever prudence of Adam given by the Lord." Mart. But Fabricius, careful of meter, restored: "the clever prudence which was given by the Lord to Adam."

Barthius suspects "ornos" instead of "ortus"; Rivinus would prefer "hortos."

Fabricius: "undante."

Fabricius: "Phison."

Edition: "Evilat." Mart.

Rivinus wants "Adam" instead of "Adamus.

After this the Gehon glides past the Ethiopians and enriches them. The third is the Tigris, joined to the pleasant Euphrates, furrowing Assyria with its swift stream in separate course. Here Adam was placed as guardian with his faithful wife; and the Creator is formed by such a voice of the Thunderer: "Do not tremble and be anxious to pluck the permitted fruits beforehand, which the unshorn grove brought forth with leafy branch—anxious lest perchance the harmful evil be gathered, which flourishes with twofold juice for distinct purposes." Nor less in the meantime did another night hold them in blindness, and clothing did not yet cover their newly formed limbs. CHAPTER III. Amid these regions and gardens with gentle berries, the foaming serpent, surpassing the animals in cunning sense, crept silently with chilling coils; rolling dark lies with biting sense, he tries the soft hearts beneath a woman's breast: "Tell me, why should you fear the happy shoots of evil? Has God not consecrated all the fruits that have been born? And yet if you strive to pluck the honey-sweet foods, the golden world will return from the star-bearing hinge." She refuses, and fears to touch the forbidden branches; but nevertheless her heart is conquered by weak sense. Straightway, when she had bitten the ripe fruit with snowy tooth, no serene sky shone upon her, stained by any cloud. Then that flavor, placing allurements in her honey-sweet throat, drove her to bring the gift to her husband, unused to it. As soon as he took it, with night wiped away, their shining eyes gleamed clear, the world growing bright. Therefore when each saw the other's naked body, what they see as shameful they shade with fig leaves. By chance beneath the setting light of the Lord's sun they recognize the sound, and trembling they make for the pathless places.

Then the Lord of heaven addresses sorrowful Adam: Tell me, where do you now dwell? He answered thus as a suppliant: O Lord, I tremble in my fearful heart at your address. Great one, naked and with stiffening fear I am struck dumb. Then the Lord: Who gave you the harmful fruits? The woman handed these over, while she says, her eyes forthwith

Then, when the day had poured its radiance over her and the clear serenity of the sky had shone upon her, along with the sun and the stars of heaven, straightway the wrath of God terrifies the shaken Eve, while the Greatest One seeks out the author of the forbidden deed. She then hangs upon these words: I received the persuasion of the serpent's words, by his deceiving guile and smooth entreaty. For weaving his own words with viper's venom, he told me these things sweeter than all apples. Immediately the Almighty condemns the deeds of the dragon, commanding that the monster live hated by all, soon to creep forth with breast poured out, then to bite with its mouth only: in a war destined to last for all time, among human senses, and that it should glide down from its head, so that with its head cast down it might crawl prone behind the legs of men, and, as it glides, press close upon their heels.

Woman, wretchedly deceived by the deceitful persuasions, is commanded to bring forth her offspring in hard peril, and to endure servitude by the zeal of her own husband. But you, to whom the judgment of your spouse seemed true, who, conquered, yielded to the cruel dragon: you shall bewail miserable toil through long ages. For in place of the wheat's sprout, there shall rise for you the thistle, and the paliurus with many sharp thorns. So that, with weary entrails and a mournful breast, your conquered sustenance may draw forth many anxious sighs, until in the westering time of coming death. Whence you bear a body to be given back to the earth as it lies. These things done, the Lord gives weariness of life to the trembling, and removes the cast-down far from the sacred gardens.

The editor reads "labantem." Martenius conjectures that it is the serpent himself, but thinks the passage corrupt. A little later "lubens" occurs, first produced. This is censured as "lota" if "labentem" is read.

The editor reads "ut calces." Martenius conjectures that it should be emended: "Let it creep, but this one... while fighting he presses close at hand."

Fabricius reads "deceived by speeches." For thus the meter is provided for.

Rivinus punctuates: "And bring the servitude of your husband by your own zeal." For she does not endure the servitude of her husband, but rather his dominion, which makes her to be a servant, and to bear this injury by the zeal of her husband.

Proba also borrowed this verse in her cento from Virgil, Eclogue 5, the verse: "The thistle, and the paliurus rises with sharp spines." The author of this poem sometimes brings forth half-lines from Virgil and others for his own purpose.

Rivinus emended: "let the anxious one furnish sighs of sustenance," or with Fabricius, "let the anxious things furnish sighs of sustenance." Thus Martenius edited it, but he did not observe that other editions read "let the anxious one furnish sighs of sustenance.

He places it opposite and banishes it into the midst of the fire, and there the Cherub is rolled about in a very swift blast, while the hot tip boils away and rolls the flames around. So that his limbs might not grow stiff with sluggish cold, the Lord sews together skins torn from the flesh of beasts, covering the naked limbs with warm garments.

CHAPTER IV. Therefore when faithful Adam now felt himself to be a man in marriage, he gives to his beloved wife the name of mother, and she bears two offspring from her seed. At once the father names them with different beginnings: this one has the name Cain, and to him Abel was joined, who with great care kept the innocent sheep. But the other was turning the earth with the curved plow. When these were bringing their gifts to the Thunderer continually, they gave dissimilar fruits, as their mind persuaded them. For the former offered the things that had been brought forth from the rich soil; but the other devoted himself to a gentle lamb, carrying the pure entrails in his hand, and the snowy fat, and immediately the pious offering pleases the Lord as he looks upon it. Because of this Cain grew hot with cold anger, and God, having deigned to address him, began with such words: Tell me, if you live rightly and perceive what is harmful, can you not dwell pure, having put away sin? Cease to destroy your brother with mortal intent, who will offer his neck to you as to his master. Yet not broken by these words, he leads his brother out to the fields, and when he saw him caught in the grass of the deserted place, gnashing his teeth he crushed his pious throat with both palms. The Lord, having observed this deed from high heaven,

The ancients, as Marius Victorinus notes, used to employ quis for queis and quibus, and so this author does more than once. Mart.

Fabr. and others write Opperiens, so that the first letter is lengthened.

Edit., bino qui gemine (read germine) factus. Mart. art.

Edit., Atque Cain hic nomen habet. Mart. — Perhaps Cainus hic nomen habet.

Edit., videntes. But the ancients very often used the letter v in place of it. Mart. — In some editions it is erroneously videntes, but in Fabricius and others it is clearly videntes, with this distinction however not noticed by Martenius: to whom Abel is joined: Innocuus hujus servabat cura bidentes, which was done so that, with cura in the nominative, the verse might stand.

Fabr.: Exta manu sincera gerens, adipemque nivalem. This discrepancy in reading escaped Martenius, and pertains to the greater elegance of the verse.

Junius preferred rapida or gravida in place of gelida.

The Vulgate: Nonne si bene egeris, recipies: sin autem male, statim in foribus peccatum aderit? The author of the poem, from the Itala version: recte offeras, recte autem non dividas, peccasti. See Sabatier.

Fabricius, not for "num."

Fabricius, "daturus" for "praebebit," which the meter rejects.

Fabricius, "He leads his brother to the fields."

Editor, "deserto." Mart.

Editor, "franges," and that by conjecture. For the manuscript codex read "fraudans": our codex has "frendens," which is better. Mart. — Fabricius edited "fraudans," which Rivinus approves, from "fraus," loss. Pamelius had corrected it to "frangens."

Fabricius, "celso." Morelius, more correctly, "coelo."

He asks where on earth Abel might be. He denies it, [saying] that he had been appointed a keeper of his brother. To whom God says: Does not the voice of his blood, sent to me, sound, and ascend to the high axis? Know therefore what shall remain to you for so great a crime; for presently the earth, which has been wet with a brother's blood, accursed toward you, shall refuse the seeds committed to it, and, with the grasses consumed, shall bring forth no fruit. Sluggish, as if dashing your limbs with much trembling, as though joined to a funeral, may you ever draw sighs. Terrified, he groans, and demands death from the deity: which nevertheless was not granted by the hostile Thunderer; for, made known by an evil mark, he is marked with a brand, so that it may not be permitted to anyone to lay low the guilty man with steel, lest a sevenfold funeral make distinctions greater. Straightway he goes out from the face of the Lord, as one lost. With his house turned away, on the turf of the land of Naid, and no less from the sons whom a faithful mother bore, he founded a lofty city with the names of the firstborn. Enoch begets Naid, and then Malech, by whom Matusalamus gradually, under his father, came forth into the breezes, and prolonged the span of a long life.

But Amalech, who strikes down dread Cain with the sword, suffers far graver things when the guilty man is slain. For his crimes, ten times sevenfold, restrain the deserving. This man, groaning over deeds done to his wives, reproaches himself of his own accord—the first of whom was Ada, and the second Sella. But the first bears Aelus, who as a shepherd in the grassy fields used to pasture his flocks in the glad grass. Jobalus succeeds him next, who discovered the musical plectrum and the strings concordant in varied murmur. Soon Sella bears Tobellus, whose custom it was to pour forth streams of bronze and to shape iron subdued on the anvil in diverse ways, with the furnace hissing: him Noema follows, created from one parent. Among these, Adam, not languid in vigorous years, begets Seth after the death of gentle Abel; he then begets Enoch, to whom a pure heart

Fabr., "having taken up," for "having consumed."

Junius, "so that he might conclude the song." "Sluggish, and you will strike your limbs with much trembling." Others read "striking much," and they have also noted that the end is missing. The rest is brought forward from the codex of Martenius alone.

These things are far from the Vulgate version, where Cain is represented not as having sought death, but as having feared it: "Everyone, therefore," he says, "who finds me will kill me." Mart.

According to the Vulgate, Cain the fugitive dwelt in the land to the eastern region of Eden. But according to Jerome, in the book of Hebrew Questions, he dwelt in the land of Naid. And so also the Seventy interpreters. Mart. — Eucherius of Lyon agrees with Jerome in [his work] On Genesis.

St. Augustine asks, in the book of Questions on Genesis, how Cain could have founded a city, since a city is established for some multitude of men, and Scripture mentions only two parents and their two sons; and he answers that those two sons also begot many others, and that their sons also begot sons and daughters, whose names Scripture does not declare. Mart.

The Lord, having bestowed, nodded assent to him asking this, and received the gifts of a peaceful mind. CHAPTER V. Therefore, after Adam had lamented nine hundred and thirty years, he rested, lulled by death. And thereafter Enoch lived nine hundred and five years, whom Cainanus, matching him, was only five years longer, stretched out. Younger than this one again, he lay down after thirty years. The old man Mahalalel lived thirty years, then Jared, and three years more, constrained by a long age. Enoch, whose care it was to serve the Mighty One and to join his mind to God, younger than these by three hundred years, if you care to add five, and six times ten, covered by sudden darkness, is hidden away, and removed with the Lord greatly pitying him, he lives a blessed life with peaceful time. But Methuselah stretches out nine hundred orbits, and seven times ten, which one may join as one. Lamech, begotten by this father, when Noah was created, spoke such things, while in the manner of prophets he foresees things to come, and sends his senses into the age to come: This one will give us secure commerce of life, and will remove the hard burden, and will bring back peace, which has been driven out by evil deeds, and by our guilt, and by sad and right hands, whose earth, furrowed by labor, denies fruit, with the Lord speaking curses. This one lived seven times one hundred, and through seven years, with seventy added on top, as the sum demands. By this one begetting, noble Noah is brought forth by upright deeds, to give seeds to an innocent age.

And he begets three sons: Seth, Ham, and Japheth, accustomed to beat countless iron, and to forge forth sparkling masses. CHAPTER VI. This prophet had now lived six times a hundred years, when the Lord, wearied by the crimes of a dreadful world and the manifold sins of men under long light, granted to Enoch his only son, namely Irad, to Irad Maviael, to Maviael Mathusael. Mart. — The author of the poem perhaps wrote: Enoch begets Irad, Irad Maviael or Maviel. Amalech is here placed for Lamech. Mart. For Aelus the Vulgate has Jobel; and thus Augustine also reads, in book xv of the City of God, chapter 1. Mart. Thobellus is also read by St. Augustine, in the cited place: for which the Vulgate reads Tubalcain. Mart. Perhaps younger than these. Mart. Scripture assigns to Methuselah only nine hundred and sixty-nine years: Juvencus adds twice two. Mart. Perhaps one must read that it is right to subtract one.

What is here narrated concerning the sons of Noah does not exist in the Vulgate. Mart. — For "innumerum," I would read "in numerum."

In pity he restrained them from the crimes of their long life, and set a limit through twice sixty years, which no one under any law could surpass. Amid these holy ones, earthly pleasure nurses them and holds them captive as they pass from the heavenly citadel: while they behold women's faces smiling with beautiful bodies, and cling to embraces too much desired, they begot for themselves giants with savage bulk. By whose crimes the Lord's patience is at last compelled to be offended, while he conceives long anger, and grieves that man was created by his forming right hand in the stars; stirred in his holy heart, he speaks: It is right for me to destroy the sins of the guilty world, and to cover the whole earth with the waves of the sea, and to plunge the human race into the vast floods, and together all kinds of cattle, which crop the glad grasses through the fields while they wander on the high hills. Let one death press upon serpents, birds, and beasts, so that my anger may be softened when their deceits are destroyed. Noah therefore receives the mighty commands of God, ordered to build the ark with double chambers, which may hold nests for the birds until the seeds that are to remain. And lest the timbers split apart with cracking fissures, he smeared the ark with the very rich fat of bitumen. It was three hundred cubits long in full, and fifty cubits broad across its wide belly.

But where the lofty heights rise with towering roof, a structure raised thirty cubits into the sky, its course marked out by squared beams, with no leaky joint, bearing doorposts at the middle with an easy hinge. CHAPTER VII. After God looked down from on high upon these finished works, he addressed the prophet who was to be sent into the waters in such words: Climb swiftly, you and your sons and your daughters, into the floating ark amid the swelling waves, because I have seen your heart to be righteous, and your will, long known to me, has deserved greater things than the present; and shut in together the gentle flocks gathered from every kind, seven by seven in equal pairs, and you shall allow two from the unclean herd to be with you, and bring in food for all of them, and what is customary for you too, so that when the cultivation of the earth ceases throughout the vast floods, you may not likewise suffer distress, since food not previously provided must be carried through the grey salt waters against hunger; for when the bright lights of the sun have come forth seven times in the sky, to pour out all the clouds

Here Juvencus has regard to those words of the Italian version: But the angels of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were good and beautiful, took them as wives. But here St. Augustine asks how the angels could have lain with the daughters of men; and he answers that some Latin and Greek codices read not "angels" but "sons of God," and that in Scripture both angels and sons of God are called righteous, and it is credible that righteous men, fallen into concupiscence, sinned with women. Thus in the book of Questions on Genesis, q. 3, Mart. — St. Augustine, in The City of God, book xv, ch. 23, reads "because they are good, they took," etc.

He sets forth the good, that is, the beautiful.

By chance, about to yield to no waters.

The diphthong ae is so frequently shortened in this poem that it must be attributed not to the copyist but to the author. In the work of Juvencus, however, one cannot find anything of the sort.

I think it should be corrected to "from every clean living creature," from Genesis 7: "From all clean animals take seven and seven," etc.

From the heavenly hinge; and I prepare to roll out all the springs with a greater flow, so that the Ocean may seethe with larger waves, receiving all more abundantly with foaming billows, and smearing all things with its outpoured course. For joining fourteen days with night, I will fill the dripping clouds with continual hail, so that whatever lives may be submerged in the swelling waves. When these things were said, the Lord's commands are fulfilled, with him willing, and the old man, noble with long age, driving on six hundred years, hastened and entrusted himself to the waves, and received his sons and daughters joined together, though he was hidden, fixed within a slender cave. Meanwhile the clouds released all their rains, and the abyss sent forth its watering springs into the seas. And now all things are flooded for fourteen days; the birds do not suspend their bodies on light wings, nor does the beast avoid the marble sea on the high-yoked hill; all things are buried in the deep, there is one death for all. Nor less meanwhile, floating over the swelling sea, the Ark, suspended, protected its enclosed prophet, and, parent to future ages, kept the seeds for the ages to come. CHAPTER VIII. Secure from its own shipwreck. Soon the rarer air began to compress the rains in pitch-black clouds.

And now the sea, ebbing back, decreases upon the plain, and after the skiff had floated on a moderate breeze, the elder sends out a raven blackening in its breast, which, while it is borne on light wings by the swift breeze, did not return, suspending the prayers of the just prophet. After this he sends a whitening dove through the pools, which, wearied in flight over the watery plain and having found no ground anywhere, returned to the kindly prophet. And when the seventh light of the returning sun had shone, he sends forth the bird with clapping wing, which, a grove being found, brought its mouth filled with branches of the rich olive, when already evening was rising through the stars and was outrunning the night with trembling fire. Then again, when seven days had duly passed, a bird is sent into the sea, which, gliding in a very swift course, never returned to its companion hall. The prophet had therefore by then passed six hundred and one circuits, with the first month now following, and on the first day of the month, when the free earth seemed to open mountains far off and roll out smoke, over which the sea had rippled three times five cubits: the month now having run its course, then when by cutting three

By chance, he brings in. By chance, the foaming ones. And born, namely, the wives of the sons. Here Augustine asks why the raven did not return, but the dove did return—or whether the raven had died. And he answers that many conjecture that the raven was able to settle upon a carcass, which the dove naturally shuns. Mart. Virgil, Aeneid III: "The mountains were seen to open afar, and to roll smoke." But here the author speaks of some smoke after the flood, unless perhaps it means exhaling vapors. The lights remained, when the earth was already free for you, O ark, and gladly showed its own greenness to the man. Therefore, when the ark settled upon the wave-washed mountains, which in ancient speech have the name Ararat, the old man loosens the bars, and the new seeds of the earth, and rejoicing that the holy God rises up against him. CHAPTER X. Of the Heraeans—that death would be for those whose lofty neck, and immense head, he will raise into the lofty breezes. Here he places Babylon, and Orech, and Archat [Aeolia, and Sinnacherus among the glades, then Assur he founds, and with buildings he established excellent Nineveh. And Roboth, and Calcha, and then Dasemata, [whose glades he divides, and rises in the middle of the border.

And while they eagerly strive and give names to the walls, they come into a plain called by the name of Shinar, and having set about raising hollow towers to the stars, they do not make lime, by which the inserted stones are bound, but bricks of clay are baked in a heated furnace, so that the walls might shine with vast roofs before the migration should make new and separate peoples. Bitumen served in place of lime, which is drawn with soft fleece and binds the stones together with its sluggish body. For among all of them a tongue in agreement spoke harmonious speech and uttered civic words. Then the Lord descended and saw the walls, commanding various voices to burst forth swiftly, and diverse sounds, which each people speaks. Straightway the world is filled with inhabitants by their settling, and the divided place is soon called Confusion. After these follows Abram, who greatly believed in the Lord, whom one called Thara of ancient name begot. Loth also, a brother joined by close blood, is joined to him. When these were already strong in their ripening years, they joined in marriage: Loth rejoices in the bond of Melcha, and Abram grows to know his wife Sarra.

Where were they when stripped bare?

Ararat is a mountain of Asia in Armenia, and it is part of the Caspian mountain near Media, and between Artaxata and the Arsissa marsh. Mart.

This verse is missing one foot, and the sense is not complete.

Here, through the scribe's carelessness, the entire ninth chapter of Genesis has been omitted. For what follows does not pertain to Noah, but to Nimrod, who founded Babylon, and Orech, and Arcad, and Chalanne in the land of Shinar. Mart.

In the Vulgate it is not called Acalla, but Chalanne. Mart. It would be correct: Here he places Babylon, and Oricham. Dominicus Schram, in his analysis of the works of the Fathers, read it thus: Here Nimrod places Babylon, then Assur. But this author can be of no use to us: for he changes words at will, omits verses, inserts certain things, and does not always attend to the meter.

The Seventy Interpreters read this passage of Genesis thus: And Roboth the city, and Chalach, and Date, which is Nineveh, and Chalacch. But the Aquila version: And Robooth the city, and Chalach, and Dasim between Nineveh and Chalach. Mart. — Sabatier reads it thus: And Robooth the city, and Chalach, and Dasem between Nineveh and Chalach, from St. Augustine.

Yet she led her life to old age without offspring. These Thara sent out with anxious care from the Chaldean flock, since the fields of Canaan pleased him with their leafy hills. CHAPTER XII. But God, who knew the mind of his chosen Abraham, commands him to take up a dwelling in another region: Come now, make haste, remove yourself from your ancestral lands, and leave your kindred's homes and the thresholds you are accustomed to. For I will now make you the immense father of a nation. Moreover I will add this, that whoever wounds you with malicious words shall, cursed by the Lord's mouth, bear every sorrow; but he who with kindly speech recounts your benefits shall ask for joyful things and greater things by his cunning. They change their dwelling, and the camp is pitched at Shechem, which the Lord promised to the prophet for a long age. There, hastening, he raises up sacred altars; and climbing the mountain which scorns the broken waves and, swelling, looks out upon the ruddy lights of the sun; here too an altar is founded with stones laid in place, and God is prayed to, when thereafter the prophet moves through the lonely fields, where the land lies separated from its settlers; while it burns with ever-thirsting veins, he, fasting, struck hunger upon it, to which his care clings. Moved by this fear, the fertile fields of the Nile are sought. And because Sarra shone with a conspicuous body, it is commanded that she call herself married to no bond, but that she be his sister, lest perhaps the zeal of an unbridled crowd, with monstrous daring, bring harmful harm to her husband, and he have a rival in a sad jealous one. The crowd of Canopus, indeed, marveling at him as he came, Sarra surveys him in every way with eager light.

And when she had been praised by the nobles and handed over to the king, the prophet is received with sweet looks and words. Yet the king of the heavens did not wish her to be imposed upon him. For, driven by many and great terrors at once, he disturbs the king, who was guilty of a harmful daring; he rebukes the nobleman, asking why he said that his sister was rather his wife, and mocked him with deceitful cunning. Then he orders him to lead away with him the wife now joyful, the herds, and whatever he had brought from his native lands.

I shall read the new [reading].

Who for whom, or for which, as we observed above. Mart.

Here Juvencus seems to have made a slip of memory, in that he assigns as wife to Lot Melcha, or Melcia, who had married Nachor. For thus the ancient Italic version, which he used, has it: And Abram and Nachor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram's wife was Sara, the name of Nachor's wife was Melcha, the daughter of Aram. Mart.

Odescit is a new word, or, as I rather think, a corrupt one. I was considering also "he grows rich in Abram through his wife Sara," or "Abram grows rich.

Perhaps he sent (them) from the flock.

Perhaps leave behind the accustomed things.

This verse is obscure, and one foot too long.

The verse would stand thus: "And ascending the mountain": for Bethel he seems to put "broken waves," and so it will be necessary to emend "broken" to "who looks upon the waves."

Perhaps "aret" stands for "ardet."

In the Vulgate it is suggested that the Egyptians gave Abram sheep and oxen. For thus it has: "They dealt well with Abram for her (Sarah's) sake, and he had sheep and oxen, and asses, and servants, and handmaids, and she-asses, and camels." But here those things seem to have been left to him alone which he had brought from his homeland. Mart.

For God had consecrated to his servant, ever speaking in concord, immense riches and all the greatest things. CHAPTER XIII. And Lot also receives whatever he had brought there, and at last they are set down at their native shores. And there, while they wander with their flocks running about among one another, the shepherds of the herds strike at each other in strife, because the small pastures of the two were confining the pregnant flocks. But the father, desiring to settle the ungovernable quarrels, offered, as a brother, that the other should take whatever lands he wished. He willingly obeys, seeking the banks of the Jordan, which river, formerly in place of the Nile, while it swells with waves, lays waste the rich fields with its overflowing stream. The old man receives the Canaanite acres by lot for the one coming, and sets his herds throughout the green fields. But it was not permitted to establish lasting dwellings.

For the father, commanded to survey the land by gazing on it, which the flaming sun, as it hastens back and forth, looks upon from on high, or which the twin Bears behold from afar, promised to so great a race by so great a father to be created, whose number whoever, having spoken, eagerly desires to comprehend, would sooner count the throngs of the stars, or tell of the sands that the sea sometimes lays bare on the doubtful shore. He stretches also to the oak known by its ancient name Mamre, and dedicates a cut altar to the everlasting God. CH. XIV. Nor is there delay: after concord had made the divided brothers settle their desired kingdoms throughout the fields, kings rise up from a numerous people, threefold, and, warlike, they lay waste Sodom with a great host; and three battle lines, supported by twice two princes, hurl the iron through the clouds down to the Valley of Salt. Five tyrants take flight, abandoning the war, and in headlong flight hide themselves in the leafy mountains, as much as could be saved from death; who by their true names are called Arias, Hadachar, Godullagomurus. And even Amarfalus, rejoicing in these fair arms. Amid these things, which many are done by the hazard of war, Lot also is captured with his whole stock and household. When a messenger reported this with mournful mouth, the prophet rises, adding to the many from the flock of his servants three hundred retainers, increased nine times twice over. As leader he himself summons them to war, and they draw back the iron.

In the middle of the night he presses upon those who now fear nothing, puts the victors to flight, and slays many enemies. Nay, he even receives his brother, rescued from so great a peril, and drags the spoil along with him in a broad column. He is welcomed with the joyful praise of the Sodomites' princes,

By chance, by fate.

Terniqua, that is, doubtless of a threefold people—Sennaar, Pontus, and of the Elamites, as we conjecture, according to Mart. — But there were four kings, and it would be better to say fourfold, or four: for terniqua does not observe the law of meter.

Here the sense demands "and fourfold ranks"; the meter is against it.

In the Vulgate the names of these four kings are pronounced thus: Amraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer, and Tidal, according to Mart.

In these it is superfluous both for the meter and for the sense.

And Melchizedek, priest of God, who was noble in holy deed, [they present] bread and wine. He asks that the victor deign to restore the captives, about to bear the rest according to the law of war in return for his merits. But the valor, content with its own restraint, victorious, receives the brother it desired as the whole reward for its service. Soon God, illuminating the heart of the prophet now at rest, commands him to free his breast from all fear, since he is safe under the protection of the invincible right hand. CHAPTER XV. He, eager, speaks of the permission granted to him: What do your gifts avail me in return for such great speech? For long-lived old age, joined to me, shakes my weary frame, and it is not granted me to leave an heir earned after death. And because there are no offspring for me from noble marriage chambers, a degenerate heir will be the one whom a slave woman has created for me.

The Lord confirms the prophet while he speaks such things: "Fear not; trusting, a servant shall not be your heir. For if anyone can know the stars that lack number, or traverse the washed sands of the sea, he alone will be able to count by reckoning the offspring that is to be granted to you, throughout the whole world which is stretched out, and from your seed shall be born a son who shall behold your own, and who shall even be born of the eternal King. For I am the Lord, the founder of the heavens, and I have brought you back safe by my help from the Chaldean people." The old man believed these things, and he measures nothing as lacking from the words of the Lord with the sincere sharpness of his heart, and bowing down he asks, while he supplicates with gentle words, for signs of God which he may bear in mind and follow in heart, in return for so great a gift, that he may beget a son in a feeble body, his limbs now having run down through the chill of time. Warned, he prepares a heifer now of three years, joining with it a lively bullock with a stern brow, a ram, and then a goat, and a shaggy she-goat, doves of like kind, joined with a turtle dove in like manner. Soon he splits the bodies of the cattle into two divisions, sending the birds away unharmed with their flesh whole. He arranges everything and makes them ready for the sacred altars. And he places himself beside them, shrewd in mind, and with his ear. But behold, in the first hours of the dark night, the pure hearts of the sanctified prophet are terrified, and the blackening shadows rush in with confused light. Over these things, astonished, he receives the consolations of the Lord, while he foreknows the new seeds of the people to come, destined to be placed through various misfortunes under a harsh king of Egypt, whose name was the bitter Pharaoh.

For I have safely laid up for four hundred years, subject to the Lord, all things in their entirety.

This author also takes such license for himself that he shortens the letter a in the ablative case of auferendi, which was never pleasing to Juvencus or to good poets. I pass over countless other errors of meter.

Let me read: Degenerate heir.

The Vulgate version represents Abraham here, offering in sacrifice as a sign of the promised land a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove too, and a pigeon. To these Juvencus adds a young bull. Mart. — Ambrose, book on Abraham, chapter 8, reads a three-year-old calf instead of a three-year-old cow.

He shall serve, [the land] to be recalled again to fertile lands. And with their lot exchanged, she who once trembled as a slave shall wield the scepter, restraining the nations with mighty virtue. But you, when the boundary of your life has been measured out, having fulfilled your course, shall be consigned to the tomb in your ancestral seats. For the people, torn from the seat hostile to you, shall come here, to be endowed with the dwellings of their ancient forefathers. For where the inhabitant now rejoices in the lands of the Nile, and swift Euphrates flows before the Syrian regions, the Genaean peoples and the Genezeans shall hold them, the Chalmoneans and the Chetites together with the kindred of the Pherezites, and the Raffanites, whose hand is joined to the Jebusite, and the Canaanites shall be driven from the seat dear to them. Indeed even the Amorite, thrust out by his friendly Gergesite, shall give the half-dead fields he possessed to those who come. When God had promised these holy words to the prophet, at the setting of the sun he gave a clear sign with lightning. For as if a flame were seething in a billowing furnace, it was seen to lick the flesh of the sacrificial animals. CHAPTER.

XVI. Meanwhile Sarra, having long been barren and worn out through the years, had by now even lost the hope of a parent's [joy], and because she was not laying down offspring in her frozen womb, she began to flatter her husband toward second joys, and she compelled him, though reluctant, to know the partnership of a slave, so that at least he might be a father by a cheap pledge. Straightway Agar the Egyptian is led into the marriage chamber, and, fertile from her womb, she bears Ishmael as a bastard. When she, with servile cunning, began to despise her mistress, afflicted with harsh blows and wounded she fled. And while she was hiding herself in a remote place by a nearby spring, a messenger descended from the ethereal height of heaven, and having first consulted, he sends her to the houses of her masters; indeed he even gifts her, rejoicing, with a great gift, and because she had seen the holy one shining with a conspicuous light, she named the spring from a similar name.

CAP. XVII. And now Abram the prophet had completed ninety-nine years, when he recognizes himself as already, even now, the father of a son by the great gift of giving, to whom are the covenants of the most high God in concord, destined to be the father and leader of countless nations, receiving peaceful dwellings through great ages. Indeed he comes forth greater from a solid name, when the added letter brings honor to the vowel,

And Sara, who had been [called] Sarai, is ordered to be called Sarra. Nay, even Ishmael, rich in offspring in answer to prayer, as prince generates and rules twice six peoples. After these deeds, when the eighth sun was at hand, the old man...

The Vulgate version calls them Hethaeans; the Italian [version], along with Juvencus, Chetaeans or Chetos. Mart.

Perhaps he promised, or he had brought forth.

I shall read it as a sign.

Fort. She is led as an Egyptian woman.

In the Vulgate edition we read, "You shall not call your wife Sarai, but Sara"; but in the Italian version we nowhere find Sarai. Nor indeed in Augustine and the Fathers older than he, but Sarra; thereafter, however, not Sara, but with a double rr, Sarra. Mart.

Having brought out the males, he takes away their foreskins with the knife, joining likewise all who were of the people apart. Then too the time of the promised gift presses on. He dissolves into trembling guffaws with a wrinkled face, while silently he turns over mighty promises within himself, believing that God can create whatever has never existed, and generate strength through broken limbs. CHAPTER XVIII. Now the sun, more blazing, was climbing the middle of the sky, and the magnificent old man was catching the cool in the shade, when suddenly he sees that three young men are present together. Eager toward them all, he courts and entreats one more than the rest, that he not leave the boy behind while he passes by in swift action, and that the peaceable one deign to [accept] the covering of his oak, and that he wash his two feet with cooling water, and deign to [accept] loaves set before a friendly table. It is granted, and quickly he performs the venerable commands. He himself also, hastening, gives himself to be seen by Sarra.

And weighing out the measures, he brings forth three from the fine flour, which he had given to be parched with the scorching heat of the ashes. Then a calf is chosen, bowing its horns upon its swelling brow, darkened by no blemish on its hide, and dishes of curdled milk are set out. And while he feeds God, who is present under the threefold image, he tastes sweet joys with his sanctifying words. What does Sarra now do? For she was then hidden within the house, and the true light repeats the words it had begun. Well done, mindful of the prophet: not in a full year of old age will the mother be, when the joyful woman laughed at such words from afar, and in her aged body despaired of offspring. She is asked what cause of laughter was present; she denies, shaken within herself, that laughter came easily to her, while she fears, and rolls her guilt beneath her silent breast. The young men rise, comely with equal splendor, and with all their light visit Sodom, subject to them. Then the Lord, permitting nothing to be hidden from the prophet, speaks, asking what cause draws him to the grave cities: "Stirred by the immoderate outcry of Sodom and of joined Gomorrha I have come, and I take care to look into the truth, that what the harmful crowd, what the dreadful voice labors at, the twin towns may burn together with heavenly lightning." Here the trembling prophet asks in servile speech, what number of the innocent may keep the walls from harm? Taking five times from tens the beginnings of the sum, from these five men he learns that with strong protection

The boy, that is, the servant. For so Abraham calls himself the servant of the Lord.

Correction: Itself also.

Perhaps, he would be easily shaken by laughter.

In Scripture, and in Augustine and other holy Fathers, God promises pardon to a whole city if ten righteous people were found in it; but here Juvencus says that the people, oppressed by vices, could have avoided ruin from only five men. Or did he read it so in some manuscripts of Scripture? Certainly not even five righteous men of Sodom (perhaps of Sodoma) escaped the fire: but only four, Lot, his wife, and two daughters. Martial. I think rather that the author of the poem wrote "from twice five men."

It seems it should be read as "unleavened bread."

The people oppressed by vices to avoid ruin. CHAPTER XIX. Accordingly two come to Sodom, [the Born one, and the Other, to be subjected to the Evening Star when the fire was already bursting forth. There Lot was sitting before the doors, as was his custom. And when he had looked upon the men shining with like body, bowing down he worshipped them and led them to the accustomed threshold, though they wished rather to stay in the middle of the square, whom he feeds with white unleavened bread from fine flour; and then, having been laid to rest, they compose their limbs on the couch. Behold, the frenzied crowd of all Gomorrah rushes forth, surrounding the halls of Lot with fierce sedition, and demanding the men, it quarrels with swelling mouth. He, mindful of peace, tries to soften the raging ones, and even eagerly offers his daughters to the demented, so that perverse pleasure may burn rather with permitted luxury, separating shameful things from like sex.

But these words move them not; the thresholds are broken with iron, and while they crowd together, while they strive against the strong bars, the dwellings, shut in by pitchy darkness, groan. When this was done, he was ordered to take far away his own pledges; he invites the sons-in-law, who deny with dulled understanding. Yet what a gentle mind was able to ask with persistent pleading, he brought out his daughters, following their dear mother. And while he goes forward, while he climbs the heights of the opposing hill, and thinks with himself what will follow next, the woman, while she looks back at the citadels set behind her, grew stiff, and took on the appearance of salt in place of her body. He goes up, untroubled, into the house of lofty Segor. Soon a crash from the dread-sounding star, hurling thunderbolts, and sulphurous flames rush down with a foul whirlwind, which will lick up alike the walls and the lofty roofs, when all things have been torn away into ash with swift ruin. Abram was beholding the flames from afar as the red summit rose, pondering in his mindful heart that never would he join himself to a lie in the words of the Lord. Nor any less did Lot, settled in the safe hall, furnish comfort to his daughters with tender love, who without husbands could not bring forth offspring. When they perceived that the use of offspring was taken away, and the mother's beauty, with only their father left, they prepare feasts and bring out wine for their parent, so that, unknowing, he might know the forbidden use of his daughters. Without delay, the burden grows in their womanly wombs, and the vital parts of both swell with like seed.

Horace says, in the verse of the poet Ari.: "He wrangles with swollen mouth."

Perhaps the author wrote lusu, not luxu. See verse 773.

The Vulgate does not say that the doors were broken, but that it was near, that they would break in (read effringerent) the doors. Mart.

The first creates a son in his father's language, Moabus; the other names Amman with differing utterances. This one is the father of the Ammonites, that one the progenitor of the Moabites. CHAPTER XX. Meanwhile Abram departs from his settled dwelling, and passes to the lands of Gerar with his wife as companion. Here Abimelech, desiring the company of Sarra, by the judgment of the prince—for the eminent prophet had said that she would be his sister—lest her beauty prepare a deception. While he guards against the rival angers of his innocent wife, he was nevertheless unable, driven by mighty terrors, which afflict the mind whenever perverse lust is present: for God, sending a lictor, tormented the tyrant, and he, trembling, follows the prophet with scarcely recovered mind. Why Sarra was called sister, as though no bonds bound the wife to her husband, when she was joined to the prophet. He teaches the causes, and clears himself of the crime, having lied in nothing, for Sarra was created from the seed of his brother, a line drawn apart dividing the blood. When these things had been established, the ruler gives a thousand talents, and joins servants, soft flocks, and herds. Nay, even acres spread through the broad fields, provided the gifts might soften the admitted guilt. For the house of the king, weighing the expiations once committed, who had broken the dreams with a terrifying vision, while a host of diseases raged equally through all, had long since struck down the offspring from the wombs of women.

But when the peaceable prophet, having fallen prostrate before God, asked on the king's behalf, he straightway yielded himself joyfully to abundant fertility through all things, and filled the rich hives. Chapter 21. He himself also, by vows unheard-of for the last times, becomes a father, and pondering the consolations of joyful laughter, he names him Isaac, and fulfills the commands of the high divinity, taking the garment from the male member on the eighth light, and seeing that his steps now bring forth steady gait. Joined with kinsmen from his own stock, he feasts, and the father rejoices at the rich tables. For grace becomes greater for vows that were despaired of. And now the boy, joined with the boy his nursling while he plays, compelled his mother to swell with fiery gall. And yet the elder, while unwillingly he observes the greatest commands of the Lord, thrust them both out alike. But the woman, after she was removed from the seat of her lord, wanders through the pathless secret places with her steps turned aside.

The sense requires those rising for the one rising, or for the one rising.

I conjecture that she fears the angers of a rival, though her husband is innocent.

By chance, and yet he did not prevail.

Namely, "sanguen" of the neuter gender, and in the ancient manner.

By chance, he weighed.

From our Juvencus, who more elegantly in book 1, verse: That it might be a gift more welcome to those now despairing.

And now he had consumed all the loaves, breathing out his soul with weary breast over his lifeless son, he came to the well, to which at that time Astonishment had given a name, which she had poured out over the mournful byways with sad complaint: when God, moved by the tears of the afflicted woman across the heavens, strengthens the trembling one, and tells her that great kingdoms are prepared for her son, at whose ruin she then would groan. Straightway, tasting the springs from the flowing stream, he rises up, and rejoices together with his rejoicing son. The holy commands of God go forward; now the little boy began to bend the bow and to shoot the winged arrows. Meanwhile the prophet, lest perhaps the leader Abimelech should secretly prepare anything, joins treaties of peace. So that, because disputes had arisen concerning the wells, the restored quiet might secure a life free from care.

Oaths are sworn, and the harmony of the agreed peace remains. Then the old man, while he furrows the earth with the curved ploughshare, filled the great hall with joyful harvests, and, suppliant, having prayed to the lofty God through vows, he settled peacefully in the fields of the Philistines. Chapter 22. In which, with the beginnings of the heavenly name, it is tested that the only-begotten son may lie down at the altar by the sword.

Without delay, when he climbed the heights of the swelling hill, leading a hoofed beast with his servants and with his son as he went—and now it was the third day, when the sun, more blazing, shone from the middle of the sky, while it gathers all shadows together—the old man sends the boys away and takes his son, so that, carrying the branches, the fuel of flames, on his neck, he might likewise climb the summit of the hill opposite. And now, with the flames rising, he is stationed at the altar itself, his hands bound fast behind his back. And while the father hastens to cleave his son with the knife, from afar he diligently beholds a white lamb, which might more fittingly fulfill the sacred rites with its poured-out blood. CHAPTER XXII. Here, her body having been laid to rest, Sarah departs from the aged world. And when his kinsmen provided a place for the tomb of the Hittites, the old man disagreed, being prepared to set a price. Rich Ephron gave four hundred sesterces, while he rejoices to entrust his companion to a double tomb. The age of the ancients had named the place Mambre. CHAPTER XXIV. Straightway he orders a certain one of his servants, whom life and faith had made distinguished, to speak with conceived words and to swear, while he places his friendly right hand beneath,

In the Vulgate version, Abraham did not give wine to his handmaid Hagar when he drove her from the house, but water in a skin: "And taking bread and a skin of water, he placed it on her shoulder." And below: "And when the water in the skin was consumed, he cast away the boy." Mart. The author perhaps wrote: "He had now consumed all the loaves and every drop of water."

Better: "and he filled the desolate places with mourning."

Perhaps: "the beginnings of the divine will."

Better elsewhere Martenius writes "capessit" and "capessunt."

Not a lamb from the Vulgate version, but a ram did Abraham see caught among the briars by its horns. Mart.

In the Vulgate edition, Abraham is read to have bought the tomb for four hundred shekels of silver. Now the shekel of the Hebrews is a coin whose value is four Roman denarii. In place of these, Juvencus here puts four hundred sesterces. But the sesterce was a fourth part of a Roman denarius. In our manuscript, in the first hand, was read "Ephreno," which name comes closer to the Vulgate, which has "Ephron." Mart.

He joins the thigh, that no wife be taken from the race of Canaan for his son, since a wife must rather be led from the stock of his parents; and if perhaps she resist, one must be sent to heaven, who may easily soften his anger. He eagerly places gifts upon his swelling camels and seeks Assyria, now discerning the roofs of Nahor. And while silently revolving the Lord's commands with himself, he sees the excellent Rebecca coming from the fountain, who, not slow, offers cold waters to the man and invites him home. He asks whose daughter she is. The young man is joined in hospitality; soon he brings forth gifts. When all things are unfolded, she goes to be married to her husband. And now Isaac, having traversed the journey, looks forth near at hand; seeing whom, Rebecca turned back from the high back and covers her bowed head with a thin veil. They are joined in silence, and rejoice with the Lord as author. CHAPTER XXV. But after the elder had passed a hundred years, seven times ten, having bestowed gifts on all, he departed, granted the seat of a twin tomb. Meanwhile the son, having obtained his father's house, dwells at the well whose name was Vision, and there he had already passed four times ten years, when with his said wife he had enriched his father's hall: who, though she shone with the especial star of the apple, long knew not the joys of a mother, being unfruitful. But when she besought the Lord with holy mouth, that her husband, made pregnant, might create a just heir, she is heard; Rebecca swells pregnant with twins.

She, marveling long at the growing weight of her womb, as a suppliant consults the responses of the heavenly Thunderer, and recognizes in her own breast that two peoples rise to the lights of life with unequal merits. For he who holds the first beginnings of the light he has earned is driven to serve in subjection to the commands of the lesser. Therefore, when the offspring are now brought forth in an easy birth, the elder brings himself forth to the breezes with a ruddy body, his black bristles woven over his whole body. Him his father Esau named from a pleasing name. After him, holding his brother's heels with pressed hands, is born Jacob, richly endowed with a distinguished mind. The elder was traversing the fields empty of game, while the horn fills the rocks with its hoarse-sounding trembling. But the other, preserving the deeds of his gentle heart, rejoiced to live unharmed in his father's lands. The father kept stroking the elder with tender love.

Among the works of Jerome was published a letter which Gennadius attributes to Eutropius the priest, of whom he treats after Paulinus. In that letter, moreover, that double cave, which Abraham bought from the sons of Emor, is called a double tomb more than once, as here in Juvencus. Mart.

A blemish of Pomae, as I think. Perhaps of form.

I would believe one should read "consertus."

I suspect they live in the covered places.

But the mother cherished the other with her whole heart. And when he had by now dissolved nothing of the lentil in the water, she urged him to take the prepared foods, smiling, so that he might first bring the first honors to himself. CHAPTER XXVI. Among these things, hunger the evil counselor, and the first of evils, compelled the prophet to depart from his father's lands; he seeks the Philistine countryside, soon passes Gargara, which Abimelech was then holding under his own right. Going forth with clear light he saw the Lord, urging him in words not to approach the kingdoms of Canopus, but to cultivate the field which the Lord had provided. For although you may seem to dwell among unknown peoples, nevertheless, remaining in the vast world as a father, you will rejoice that the nations grow from manifold seed, which will receive the greatest testimonies of my word. Immediately, dwelling in Gerar with his wife as companion, he declares the deeds of his sister rather as of a father, lest the crowd of Philistines, stirred by light desire, seize the marriage with eager vows and arms. But the king, while he surveys the hidden places through the open window, sees the prophet playing with his snow-white wife, and seeing the marriage, he restrains all under the law, lest anyone attempt to snatch away the companion of the prophet. And now he who had long fled from his father's shores, while he scatters the entrusted seed in the softened earth, gathered hundredfold fruits from the soil. Meanwhile no less does he grow rich in peaceful action, manifold among the flocks and the fertile land.

At once unhappy envy torments his heart, disturbs the well-watered wells and fills them with a mound of earth, so that the owner, withdrawing far off, would leave the fields. Therefore, avoiding the dangers of a swelling quarrel, he departed and stayed a long time in the valley of Gerara, and when he had with anxious effort let a well go, he found cool waters from a rough-hewn source. And having been received by the deceit of the shepherds, he leaves their angers behind and marks the places he had not dared [to enter] with the name of Strife. From there he advances his step, and again the earth, having been dug out by speaking, brought forth cool streams into the light. And because he had been thrust out by a biting contest, he addresses the envious hearts with deserved words. And after golden peace broke the grim disputes, he took care to transfer the name of Abundance to the land. And while he changes the new pastures with a swift step, he comes to the hills which have the name Juratio; there he sees the Lord with clear light, at the time when the stars roll on their courses through the middle of the sky,

Nidentem," a barbarous word, namely one stirred by nidor.

In the Vulgate it is written Gerara, as also in this poem, v. 768.

In the Vulgate he is called Abimelech.

"Forte," perhaps he speaks by a brotherly act.

The word "jocantem," or "playing," is thus interpreted by others, so that the act of marriage is signified.

It seems "Horden" should be read, which the ancient version confirms, in which Saint Jerome read and found in that year a hundredfold of barley. Mart.

Admonished to thrust sad stirrings from his breast, with God as his invincible protector through wars, through enemies. After sleep he gathers his cold limbs, and soon, venerating the Lord, he prays at the built altar. Meanwhile the kings come, Abimelus and Ozas, with Ficolo accompanying them at the same time and bearing iron, so that he might join himself to the peaceful prophet, and with right hands clasped they weave concord's treaties. He is received with calm, and having been filled at the same table, with the dispute set aside he brings back the peace he desired. CHAPTER XXVII. Amid these things discord arises among the brothers. For the father, now for a long time greater in age, bearing in his calm mind the day lost with the sun and his buried eyes, and remembering that death is at hand, urges the elder son, whom piety alone saw, to take up his quiver and swift arrows, and to bring him meats of wild game according to custom, about to receive at once the gifts of his father's tongue. Rebecca, seeing this, makes it known to her dear Jacob, urging him to bring twin kids promptly, and to strive to slaughter them for his father in place of his wandering brother. And lest perhaps he expose his tricks with his smooth body.

He covers him with skins, which ensure that he will be hairy, and clothing him over his breast and limbs with a brotherly garment, he offered the foods obtained from the old man's hunting. Yet he did not wholly conceal the heart that gave forewarning, for while the old man's right hand passes over the whole young man, he recognizes Esau by the bristles, but Jacob by the voice. And after the hunger was checked and the table removed, he bids him stand nearer, place himself, and take his seat. When he had humbly come forward under the right hand upon his head, he received the pure words of the holy-speaking parent, while he tastes sweet kisses with pressed lips; for after the desired commerce of a long life, the elder brother is ordered to serve the youngest. Meanwhile Esau, driven by long journeys, was bringing the game he had caught to his father, now sated. And although he had greatly pleased by his service and by his deed, he could not nevertheless receive the gifts that had been intercepted. Thence anger, and tears, and a sought-out scheme of doing harm: which Rebecca, seeing it brought forth in her brother's heart, warns Jacob to go to the kindred city of Haran and to seek Laban, the brother of his own mother, until a long time should send forth the anger she had conceived. CHAPTER XXVIII. And the sentence of the prophet is joined to the mother's counsels,

Fortunate, and the unhappy ones, or the invaded ones.

Better, into the light.

Read: they roll the stars through the middle of their courses, or the stars are rolled in the middle of their course.

Read: Invincible.

Read: Roused.

Better, gently.

Better, with light body, or smooth.

By chance, he covered over.

You will escape the gap, if you read (?).

By chance, he may soften (?).

While he teaches peaceful things, they pray to the son in common: Do not seek marriage, young man, from the people of Canaan, but be mindful of the words of your dear father and cling to them. There is a place of the Assyrians, which is bathed by a twin river; here is the father of the mother, Batuel, our friend. And Laban, his son-in-law, who holds the glad estates over all the fields, and cherishes his daughters in their growing years. Let that woman be sought for you as a wife, I advise, from the stock which draws an excellent lineage from our blood. But the young man, rejoicing to obey his father's counsels, goes forth, leaving his homeland, and wearied by much labor, he lowers his eyes in sweet sleep. And while he spreads stones for his bed in the deep cold, he places a very hard rock under his weary head, and while his limbs are refreshed in untroubled sleep, he sees, undaunted, with the whole light of his mind, a ladder clinging to the pure heaven beyond the clouds, from whose steps a lofty throng was rushing down. But another was climbing from the earth to the high citadels above.

And while their bodies are rolled along by a headlong fall, the Almighty watched them rushing down with a forward-leaning face, adding these words besides: I am the great king of Olympus, and long since your Lord, and the Lord of your parent. Cast out fear; may the earth, to which you have given your limbs, be your sure seat, and with you as leader for all your children. Now go, mindful, and either take up the task begun or abandon it. With me as your leader, you will return again to the cities you have left. A mighty terror breaks his sleep and shakes all his bones, drenching his limbs with a moist flow. And beyond these things he recalls: This is the great house of the Thunderer, and the gate which unbarrels heaven from its twin hinge. Soon he anoints the stone that had been placed under his head, and calling it the House of the Lord, he promises by the witness of the stone that he will give a tenth of the fruits. CHAPTER XXIX. And now, hastening on the journey begun, by whatever path led him, he came to the well where the prophet, alone in the wilderness, had always gently handled his soft flock with watering streams. Here shepherds from three flocks were pouring out thin waters under the burning sun and lightening the heat; and having greeted them, he inquires one by one about the prophet, and sees all those whom he sought in his mind safe and sound. Meanwhile Rachel, advancing with snowy figure, was pressing her father's sheep toward the familiar waters. As soon as the young man saw her, from the light of brotherly love, he joins her in chaste embraces to his kindred breast. Rolling away the stone that had covered the mouth of the well, he reveals himself as a brother, joined in kindred blood. Laban, seeing him from afar with joyful heart, runs up and settles the young man in his accustomed hall.

Nor does he allow the prophet, a near kinsman, to be enslaved by favor, perchance, through the clouds from the pure sky. I would prefer the present earth. Correct: and do not abandon what has been begun. I correct: here for the flocks. Of the prophet for the prophet. Perchance, by brotherly light. Better. Rolling down, from the sacred text. And in return for the man's labor he betroths his daughter to the lover. Therefore when he had already drawn his wages through seven years, he demands that the betrothed be joined to him by the bond of marriage, and without delay Leah is given as a false gift, heavy-eyed, but she was brought forth in the first birth. But Jacob, grieving over the devised schemes of fraud, sings words to his fathers-in-law, having been cheated of the pledged maiden. Again, for the price of another wage, set apart, Jacob endures the duties of a long life, receiving the deserved Rachel once the fraud had been driven out. But God, the greatest ruler of the heavenly court, removed the losses of beauty by manifold offspring. For Leah bears Reuben, then next Simeon, the third born from the noble heart of Levi. He possesses the consecrated altars of our Lord. Now Judah follows, soon made the founder of the tribe. CH. XXX. But others born from the womb, whom Balla created, it is right to know and now to call famous sons. After these Issachar is born now in the fifth offspring. The sixth child comes next, having obtained the name Zebulun, and a maiden, Dina, suited to her brothers, is born. At last God grants late gifts to Rachel. She bears tender Joseph to the heavenly breezes.

So when both offspring had been born from each wife, he asks leave of his fathers-in-law, and for the things he had sought; and they, when they wished to pay him his wages according to his merits, at the son-in-law's request lay aside their resentment. He, desiring nothing from outside, and having testified that he grew rich only by the gifts of the Lord, departed, content with only both wives having been received. Striving that he might prepare long periods of time for himself, he decides on rods from the torn bodies of the mothers. The first was of the storax tree, then a second was taken from the almond; the third was torn from the nut tree, so that the wool, smeared with the juice of the rods, might gradually take on the separate colors. For as the bleating flock hastened to plunge into the pools, he marked it, dyed with the varied distinction of the juice, on account of the varied envy, because his father-in-law had said that the flock was his, which he had tended for many years. When he surpassed those nourished on wealth with un purchased [goods], he stirred up envy with the dark spite of the grieving. CH. XXXI. And while the harsh father-in-law shears the fleeces of the wool, freedom is granted to the man, by which he might carry off all the conveniences, and the uncooked household gods baked in the furnace, which the Syrian believed to be divinities in his ancestral Carrhae. Yet the cautious Rachel kept these hidden in coverings, lest her father punish the crimes of the offense when discovered. Having departed, he climbs the hill by the conquered river, which the natives call Galatum in their ancestral tongue. And now on the third day the departure of the son-in-law, and equally of the daughters, reached the ears of the father-in-law.

For now this can be read: but it is not badly "now."

Perhaps at another time.

Perhaps Myrtea was first. The Vulgate says: green poplar branches, and almond branches, and from plane trees.

The passage is obscure, or corrupt.

Straightway he seeks help from his brother's band, and Nangus, long sought, at the sixth light already, is forbidden to harm by the holy terror of the Lord, and he, gentle, asks of him the gods which he believes his own, and grieves that what was sought in all places is unknown. After peace, sure, returned with complaints laid aside, a high heap is built up with growing stones, so that the place might remain a witness by its raised fortification, and a boundary set might distinguish threshold from fields. CHAPTER XXXII. Behold, in the middle of the way the prophet saw lofty camps, which God the ruler guides with star-bearing governance, and he gave a name, testifying: God fulfills these things. Meanwhile he ordered chosen young men to go before, and men laden with gifts, which he commands his brother to grant him a peaceful return; and he gladly agreed to the one seeking peace; surrounded by companions and a great band, he goes out against his brother, nothing troubled, and when the crowd of men is terrified four hundred times over, their appearance does more harm than weapons to the servants' arms.

So then, when the flocks had been separated, he placed these first, which he deems worthy to receive as a gift given to him by his brother, and at the same time, with bowed neck, he besought the Lord: O God, hope of the immeasurable and substance of the kingdom, who alone art God, ever of the Father and of the Grandfather, by whose command from exile I am made to return, having bestowed great advantages upon thy enriched servant, thou hast commanded me to cross the river with a gentle rod, and straightway to cross thy Jordan with my step. And now thou seest me dwelling in divided camps, so that, fallen upon by a twofold defense, I may endure various chances. Snatch me from these evils, O invincible one, and, being appeased, shake off the darts of my brother as soon as possible with unbroken steel, lest the swift one strike my breast with a hard weapon. Therefore, when he had settled his companions and sought sleep, he labors under night to overcome the God who wrestles with him. For when the woman had been pressed, that part of the body grew numb. And when for a long time he wished to loose the bonds of his limbs, he whom he had struck with mighty struggle, the Lord, sent the prophet away dismissed after the gifts had been granted. With his name changed, he ceases to be Jacob, and, seeing the Lord, he is called by the mouth of all; he even dared to learn the name of the Lord,

In the Vulgate, Laban pursued him for seven days. Mart.

Why have you stolen my gods? says the Scripture; where Saint Augustine observes in his Questions on Genesis that from the beginning of the book of Genesis we now first find the gods of the nations. Mart.

These camps, says Saint Augustine in his Questions on Genesis, were without doubt a multitude of angels; for in the Scriptures the armies of heaven are named. Mart. By an easy change of the verse it will stand, videt for vidit.

The verse is corrupt, as many others are everywhere, which I pass over without censure. The conjecture is probable which bids use, or those whom it bids use.

There is also an error here.

Perhaps. That I may beware of various things with a twin.

My pledges would please me more.

Seeing the Lord, that is, Israel; for Israel is interpreted as seeing God, from Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom, and Augustine. Mart.

He could not, to whom alone is the right to know the Thunderer. He himself calls the place by the name of the Lord seen, whose lofty countenance it had befallen him to behold. And when the Lord had withdrawn himself, the night now driven away, he goes forth supporting his steps with a long staff. Hence Judaea, mindful, avoids eating the sinew. Which shone on the bound thigh with rigid protection. CHAPTER XXXIII. And now seeing his brother fenced about with a troop with the flock, bowed forward with stooping neck he greets the Lord. Having met, they join their breasts with much weeping. And now more and more with varied speech he asks who they are that come with accompanying hand, what crowd follows.

He teaches by what father the brides were created, and by what wage the various flocks were obtained, and straightway the daughters-in-law, with bended knee, poured out tender kisses upon their kindred's sons. But while the elder piously avoids the gifts brought forth, the gentle man soothes the pledges of the harmonious seer, and gladly runs back with his brother accompanying him alike, that in turn by speech they might gradually recount their deeds. But because the ewes advanced in a slow-moving column, the seer halted, to rule the flocks and the servants, and set up a small hut with a leafy roof, which by a fixed name he was pleased to call Tabernacles. He came to Shechem, which is in the region of Canaan, and bought for a price the neighboring lands of the earth, and hastening, he prays to God with altars built. CHAPTER 34. There the wicked Shechem defiles Dinah his beloved, and plucked beforehand the use of the tender virgin, and wishing to be joined to her father-in-law, he took away the first-fruits, bringing great gifts in exchange for the seized wife; he is slain, oppressed together with all his people. Jacob grieved that these deeds were done by the sword, speaking of the broken covenant with the allied people. CHAPTER 35. Straightway the Almighty warned the seer to depart, and to place a faithful household in the seat of Bethel; he hastens and prepares for God, and prays his sons that they break down the shrines of the gods fastened with rigid metal, and put on white garments under a covering. He himself hides the no-gods in a cave of the terebinth,

Know it from reading.

In the Vulgate it is read as Shechem, for which Juvencus wrote Corraeus, which appears to be the name of a people. For the Choraei occur in the Scriptures. Mart. Augustine, Questions on Genesis 107, 403, reads Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, but in eight manuscripts it has Hamor the Chorraean. In the Greek text it is read as Evasus; but in the manuscripts Alex. and Sar., as well as in the edition of Aldus, Corraeus.

Correct the foreskins.

After this verse, verse 1057 must be placed, as you will easily understand from the sacred text.

Perhaps: And the house faithful.

Better: formed of metal.

The Vulgate version: But he buried them under the terebinth. But the Italic version, which St. Jerome cites against Helvidius: Jacob hid them under the terebinth. Mart. Ambrose, epistle 66, to Romulus: Jacob hid the earrings with the idols of the nations: and in the book On Jacob: There he received strange gods, and hid them under the mastic tree.

And he sees the great Lord bring forth words accustomed to him, and that he himself will be prophet of the high divinity in the rich lands which the Lord had vowed to Abraham. He himself placed a name on the place, and consecrated the stone which, venerating it, he poured over entirely with clear olive oil, and he raised a house of the tower beneath the roof of Caderae. Among these things Rachel, worn out by grievous pain, made a parent by death, poured forth Benjamin from her womb. For besides the known offspring born of righteous mothers, on the third day thereafter, on which they were to bear greater wounds, he created pledges by a substituted mother of the prophet.

Willingly he acknowledged Dan, distinguished by the offspring of Ballah, whom Naphtalim urges on. But soon Zelfa bears others, Gad and Asher. He obtains this too by his merits, because he knew it would be lacking, that he should see his father's face with so great an offspring; so that he who had already been born of an aged mother, distinguished, might rejoice in twice six grandsons. Therefore when at last his life had been for twice ninety years, and drawn out through a long age, he is released, and shining white he goes forth from the weary body, about to see the holy seats which prudence gives, in which, reclining through the ages on the star-bearing beauty, he invites the snow-white just to secure joys.

CHAPTER XXXVI. And now it pleases him to divide the measured seats among his brothers. For because they could not contain many growing settlers within a narrow limit of land with their herds, the anterior mountain of Syria after the fields of Canaan receives him, and he takes rich pastures, very wealthy. Jacob, following, does not leave the kingdoms of Canaan, so that his pious mind might always rejoice in his father's rite.

CHAPTER XXXVII. There Joseph receives distinguished acts. Shining among so many brothers in such a crisis, as much as the small moon shines among the stars of heaven. Who when he had already reached seven and ten years, was keeping his father's flocks pregnant in the grassy pasture, walking as the youngest of all whom his parent produced from generous marriage-beds, or from a servant concubine. And because he flourished distinguished in the kindred band, he stirred his brothers' feelings with the cold of envy.

His father, embracing him from the whole stock of his sons, soothed him, tender in years, amid the strong bodies of his brothers.

Old Italic version: He stretched out his tabernacle beyond the tower of Ader. Thus in Jerome, Quaest. Hebraic. tom. n. p. 538. Mart. So also the Greek text.

Better, Benjamin.

Perhaps, besides the sons born of righteous mothers.

The place of this verse is after verse 1018, as I said then.

Perhaps, and Gad. Mart.

For the tall ones, namely of Isaac, who lived a hundred and eighty years. Mart.

Perhaps, ages by a support.

In the Vulgate edition it is read: Joseph, when he was sixteen years old. But the Hebrew and Chaldean text, and also the Seventy interpreters and even the old Italic version: But Joseph was seventeen years old. Therefore Saint Augustine read it so, and indeed Isidorus Clarius in his Bible. Mart.

And so that he might be more conspicuous among all, a garment flowing around covered him with varied dye. When he, already from tender years, was serving the Lord, perhaps, his eyes lulled by gentle sleep, he sees himself, mingled with his brothers, binding sheaves, while they gather the grain in the middle of the fields, and his own sheaf rise on high with upright cone, and beside it the brothers' sheaves fall with bowed neck. After the youth unfolded this in gentle speech, with fearful murmuring he stirred trembling hearts to tumult, [as] the king and lord speaking, they betrayed that the secret would be absent from the crime for him alone.

And so that his twofold anger might the more burst the sad man apart, he unfolds the dreams he had seen to his eloquent father, when all were brought near whom the line of blood binds together. For he seemed to behold the rosy sun, and the moon joined together with its trembling light, and ten stars besides rising joined with them, and as though to him as lord bending their necks bowed low. When his father had learned these things with averted face, he soon confessed that he must be adored by his trembling brothers. Straightway the young men withdraw, and among their father's flocks they search out the glad valleys through the flowering meadows; to them he goes, sent out, and wanders among the silent thickets, having been taught the remote places, with one of the young men showing the way, where the flock of his brothers had been gathered after the pasture was changed; him, as soon as he could be known afar by his varied garment, they fit a baleful plan with discordant tongues. It is settled by their decision to destroy the brother hated by all, and, once he is slain, to report it as the bite of wild beasts, while the swift ones mutter among themselves with windy murmuring: let us see whether his dreams can drive away death. Reuben, gentler, rejects this with peaceful words, and warns the gnashing brothers to hide the hard iron, recalling that it is better to plunge him in a stagnant marsh. Straightway he is stripped, and naked he is wrapped in sedge. Meanwhile Syricus was driving his Ishmaelite camels under heavy weight to exchange Sabaean wares, while he hastened to carry the harvests of the Arabs to Canopus. Therefore the hope of the younger brother was cast down by the brothers, and Judah says it is better to sell Joseph for money. The father is kept in ignorance, and seeing the garment dipped in blood, he is deceived by no fraud into believing him slain.

Ruben tears his garment with hooked hands and wraps around himself a dark garment of stones.

Read "grassy."

"By chance," "After," Mart.; or "after these things."

I think, "in the tumult."

On the contrary, the Vulgate version: "And they cast him into an old cistern, which had no water." Mart. It would certainly be better, remembering "dried up." Ambrose, in the chapter on Joseph: "He was stripped of his tunic……… But the cistern was dry."

The Vulgate does not say that Joseph was then stripped of his garment, but only when he was sold to the Ishmaelites. But when his brothers intended to present the garment dipped in blood to their father, it is more likely that he was stripped immediately. Mart. The same order of the narrative is kept by the recently cited Ambrose.

Perhaps, "garments." And the following verse seems to be to be placed before this one.

The father, afflicted with grief, seeks the lost one. Him, lately received, the eunuch of Pharaoh was holding, accustomed to load the gilded tables of the tyrant with dishes, and to rejoice in the clatter of the great kitchen. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Meanwhile Thamar gives birth, while the joys of guilt please her in her gladness, and her womb is filled with a twin offspring, of whom the first boy, who deserved the lights of life, thrust forth and sent out his hand beforehand, which a skillful woman binds with a purple garment; soon he is hidden in the womb, and by a changed turn the other is immediately born, holding the anterior parts, who had been second by lot. Since he had once been separated by a boundary, he has the name Zara; the other they called Phares. CHAPTER XXXIX. The faithful guard of the Lord was preserving Joseph, not suffering him to live subject to a harsh law.

For previously he was called herus, and he gives all things to the servant, nor indeed in empty hope; for the gentle lord increased more generously from another all the things that the young man was keeping. Yet the gentle one did not obtain Petafreta by love. For because her eyes flashed with a conspicuous face, the lady, badly wounded, begs for intercourse with the servant. But the boy now shuns the foul deed, and refuses to press his consecrated bedchamber with immoderate sin. But the woman, ruined to no purpose by forbidden flames, explores soft approaches and watches for opportunities. By chance, when she found the house empty and him alone, she presses on and, having grasped him by the hand, forces him to lie with her. He leaps up eagerly and strips the garment from his body, and slips away between the lady's two arms. The woman cries out and takes strength from the accusation. Shouting, she claims that the young man, confident in his beauty, has violated the sweet honor of her chastity, while he, slippery with youth, burns and strives to climb into his master's bed. Indeed she even accosts her husband with a sad voice and wishes to subject the innocent defendant to the punishment she has chosen. Believing these things as true, he shuts Joseph in prison, in which the king's punishment was already confining his servants. Soon the keeper of the prison soothes him with a gentle heart, and seeing him innocent, appoints him to oversee the prison. CHAPTER XL. There by chance two men, whom the fierce tyrant, stirred by a dark will, had confined in the lofty hall, shut in, were trembling with fearful heart at their punishment, and while they stole glances with anxious cares, they saw dreams announcing future events. When he had surveyed these mournful men with a clear light, he asks the causes and compels them to confess hidden things.

At once he who used to give the accustomed wines to the tyrant speaks what seemed to him to have appeared in the night during sleep:

By chance, not hope.

St. Augustine, in his Questions on Genesis, calls him Putefret; the Vulgate version, Putiphar. Mart.

Virgil, Aeneid IV: "You alone knew the soft approaches and the times of your husband."

From Juvenal, Satire 6, v. 285.

I was beholding a vine leafy with green shoots, while it creeps and hangs bound from its own lash, and among the vine-leaf folds that there were three branches, and a golden grape hung from a nectar-sweet cluster. Then the king's cup, from which he pours gentle draughts, foamed with tender must, which his right hand pressed, and which the master, having received it, held in his ready palm. Then the young man clearly reveals all the things shut up: that the three branches are three days, on the days that follow he will send him back again, restored, and he will seek again his favor, about to mix for the gentle king the cups he saw. "Only accomplish this," he said, "for such merits, that, when confidence in speaking has been granted you, you may remove our punishment, which is due to no crime. The Hebrew people was named to me. For sold as an exile, I, a noble man, went into servitude because of my brother's crime." After these things, the chief baker says what seemed to him: that on my head I seemed to carry three baskets, filled with royal dishes and lavish provision, which countless birds were carrying off in their talons. With these words, speaking indeed true things but harsh, he declares that he will soon be slain by the hard sword, and that his head, torn off, will be fixed on a high stake, which birds will straightway tear apart with curved beak. He was restored to his place; this one was cut down with his body maimed. CHAPTER.

XLI. Meanwhile, with the lapse of time now rolling on through years, the stars were again turning their courses toward the eastern sky. Then the Nile's ruler saw these dreams. For it seemed to him, as he gazed upon the pleasant river, that he saw seven heifers sleek of body, cropping the budding grass on the green bank. To these others, foul with leanness, joined their steps. And while—a wonder!—the sluggish creatures scarce clung to their bones, they swallowed the choice heifers with gaping maw. Dreams are joined, not discordant in their matching causes; behold, he sees seven ears of grain from a fruitful shoot, and others thin and void of the seed of spelt—a horror to tell!—as if they devoured the laden crops. Sad at heart, he by no means keeps this vision confined in his mind, but in alarm he ordered all who are skilled in such things to be present, inquiring what the meaning of these hidden matters might be. And when the consulted Memphis seer fell silent, the young man who, lately released from prison, used to serve the wine, speaks out: that he, with Joseph revealing it, had returned to his lost place, and that his companion had been put to death. Swiftly men are sent to bring the seer, stripped of every charge, quickly from the foul dungeon, and to trim his unshapely cheeks and his hair fed by the prison, that they might make him grow green again in his former form. Therefore the honest man, when consulted, returns such answers as these. And he teaches that the cows are messengers of years, and declares that the light ears signify seven cycles.

I thought, and by their own bond.

Note that "fundos" stands for "propagines" (shoots).

"Pupare," to grow, is a barbarous word, which is attested by Ducange from Papias, and from the Statutes of Saluc, collation 7, ch. 196.

"Forte," foul with leanness.

For thus from the deeds, future marvels [are prefigured] in forms, so that seven years may be fruitful enough for the land, and it may produce dread famine along with a like period: so that the dry earth, with thirsty veins, may consume the pale grass in a dusty furrow. For dreams are joined to double visions; God commands sure things to stand by joined thunder. Rather, while there is time, while there is care of healing, choose from all a leader who is prescient of these things. With judges appointed, let him, exalted, govern all Egypt, and let him exact a fifth from whatever harvest, so that the abundance first given to the fertile lands may hold sway over the barren years when the crops are consumed. The seer's opinion is received with the applause of the nobles. The ruler himself also at last, with calmed heart, exalts the one recounting true things with lofty honor, and orders him to be borne as prefect through all the cities; then he crowns the seer's finger with a shining ring, soon wraps him in fine linen cloaks with a saffron robe, a pliant circle of gold is put around his neck, and the new ruler stands higher in his chariot. And the loud herald increases the terror of the judge. Moreover, a wife is chosen for him, whose name is Aseneth, whom Petephres, the seer, begot from a renowned lineage. From her the father immediately becomes [the father] of twin offspring. The elder is called Manasseh, the younger Ephraim.

By the counsel of the noble Egyptian seer, whatever the lean time could scarcely take in, he kept full granaries, so that when need demanded he might bring forth the hidden grain to all who asked. Afterward, when dread famine, spread through the whole world, compelled trembling men to be what could be eaten, the people cry out and urgently beg the king for food. He orders the prince Joseph to give grain to the sorrowful, a father in counsel, and he filled all the rejoicing. CHAPTER XLII. Meanwhile Jacob, now that the funeral of his son had been wept, sends twice five young men from his numerous offspring, to procure distant grain for themselves at a price; but he does not allow Benjamin, the youngest of all, to go, lest the weak boy be unable to bear the hard labor. And when they had already come to the walls of the land of Faria, they bowed low, sought the ground, and greet their brother, marveling at him seated high on a lofty seat. Yet they do not recognize him, seen after a long time. When the prophet beheld them, with remembering mind he rebukes them and terrifies them with many a word as they tremble. He claims to ask why they have come, what abundance of crops there is, and what men hold the rich lands in their governance.

Perhaps, when they have been arranged thus.

It is not understood what "with a thunderclap joined" means; see whether it should be restored as "God commands sure things to stand together with the tyrant."

"Who" for "for whom," or "for whom," as we have noted elsewhere. Mart.

Read: "For which by double."

I think it should be read: "Let her sustain the barren."

Perhaps "to consume" for "to assume." But some verse seems to be missing to express the meaning.

They allege that they do not know the tricks, and they confess that they, twice six brothers once under one father, held a conspicuous home; that of all these the last-born was to preserve his father's labors, but that another would already long since be absent in celebrated death. That they, hating dire famine and the land of Canaan, which condemned seeds with scanty nurture, sought wares for sale and grain put up for bidding. The seer speaks, swearing by the ruler's name, that the young men must be shut in harsh custody until they produce their brother, whom their gentle father had. Three are bound together under the care of the guards, and then, released, they left one to be kept. And none the less, bursting their hearts with hidden grief, they recall how just the dangers that rise against them, because they had handed over an innocent brother in forbidden peace, and late pay the penalties of their crime under the judge. Reuben, retelling these true things, weighs down his words, and the immense crime, committed against his will. The seer is moved by these things, recognizing the brothers' quarrels, and turning with silent eyes he beats his breast in weeping. Amid these things Simeon is received into the circle of the brothers, a faithful hostage for all as they return.

Then the young men seek the grain they had asked for, and, weighed down by the immense mass, they are pressed on in silence; and now, in the middle of the journey, while he unties the bonds of the sack, one of them gives his brothers the money they had found to look at. They all do this; soon, when the price has been discovered, marveling, they praise the great man with the utmost rivalry. And now, as they approach the threshold of their father’s house, the father rejoices at their return and asks for one of them. Learning everything—both the money and the gifts—he takes it in, and complains bitterly that another son will now be absent. Then, when the food had been consumed and the grain brought, and necessity was forcing them to prepare provisions again at a price, it was in no one’s mind to turn back to Memphis, unless the father should order the youngest brother to go with them. When, groaning much, he was unwilling to send him anywhere, Reuben asks for his brother with faithful speech, entrusting two pledges to his father, free from care. Judah follows, and proclaims that he cannot return, having attested the words of stern Joseph. CHAPTER 43. When the aged father, now more gentle, had drunk these things in, he gives the young man, pouring a broad stream over his face. They depart, and carry with them lightly fragrant incense, and joining a drop of incense with terebinth, carrying honey among the fragrant vapors, and a double price, so that no error might be joined together, because the coins had been hidden in the closed sacks. When Joseph saw them in the conspicuous hall,

Pharia, or Pharos, was a town of Egypt, on an island joined almost to the mainland, once a royal residence, concerning which Lucan says in his book: "Indeed, report of my lineage led me to the Pharian cities." Mart.

"By chance, from all these." Mart.

"By peace, perchance by pact." Mart.

Correct: "fragrant incense."

He orders them to celebrate joyful banquets with him. Nevertheless they come murmuring, and with anxious guilt they cast about that they had been summoned under a plot laid with deceit, because they had been unable to return the silver counted out beforehand and given to the seer, placed in their own sacks; yet they would report that he would be free of all these things, and that he was not accustomed to live by hoarded treasure previously suppressed. As they say such things, the steward restrains them with his speech, and teaches them to know that he has been defrauded of no money, but that if any profit of advantages were given to the men, no one should say it was his own, nor the seer's, nor the king's. Simeon runs to meet them all and presents himself, and while he offers water to the men and fodder to the mules, the seer enters surrounded by a great company of soldiers; at whose sight the brothers bring forth their dutiful gifts. When he had gone through them all with gentle speech, he asks whether their father was strong in health. After they said he was safe and lived rightly, Joseph confirms that the seer cleaves to God as the gift of life, and always presses on toward what is right. And as though Benjamin were not known to him, he consults the young men and eagerly inquires, and then prays for every advantage for the boy, for the praise of God.

Nor can he hold back his groans or stop his weeping, but with tender affection he hides himself anxiously in his chambers and seeks remedies for his excessive grief. Afterward, when he had reclined at table, the servants set out the feast. He eats and soothes their hearts with easy courtesy, and he rejoices to set out the divided portions one by one for each, and he extends them and assigns them to his elder brother alone. CH. 44. And when the desire for eating had now been checked by their being sated, after they had loaded the mules with the weight placed upon them, the cup is hidden, by Joseph's command, in the sack of Benjamin, in the accustomed manner, and the gleaming cup is concealed among your belongings, Benjamin, more precious by its craftsmanship. And now, having begun their journey, they are not many miles away when suddenly a royal band surrounds them unawares and holds them seized, demanding the shining cups; they upbraid the one who is to become a servant, whom they ensnare with the charge. It is agreed, and all at once they open their own loads, and they uncover the cup that was sought, and they leave behind their brother and seek Joseph, and, telling what had been done, they straightway unfold the commands of their dear father.

Perhaps, having been placed on.

One may conjecture that at that time all things were free from the theft.

By fate, perhaps by juice. Mart.

It is faulty, as are many other things. The discourse seems to concern the younger brother from the sacred text.

Perhaps they taunt the stolen thing.

Schram reads, "they uncover the sought cup." It would seem better, "and they gather back the sought cup," or, if you wish to observe the meter, "they uncover both the sought cup and the cup."

Namely the land of Gessen. For thus the Italian version has: "And you shall dwell in the land of Gessen of Arabia." Mart. Ambrose, On Joseph, ch. 12, "Gessem of Arabia." So also many of the Greeks. That "of Arabia" is absent in the Hebrew volumes, Sabatier notes from Jerome.

CHAPTER XLV. The prophet, moved by prayers, orders all to depart, and makes himself a brother to his brothers. Fixed, they stiffened with fear, and condemning themselves in silent guilt, they restrain their voices in dread. Soon he entices the accused, and calling them nearer, he demands that they tell what words will please their father, what things are, what have been, what are soon to be brought: urging them to migrate their seed, and when the flocks are gathered, he offers the neighboring hills of the Arabs to those coming. So that, because the land would be dry for the next five years, he might feed all the kinsmen with heaped-up grain. The king learns these decrees of the man with a joyful heart, and asks Joseph to take up the company of dancers, and orders him to hand over free grain to his brothers. Wagons are given to the men, grain, cups, bread, and the mules sweat as they carry great weights.

Five cloaks are given to Benjamin, and five to the parent, and three hundred coins stamped with the die. But other young men, with the praise of the second reward, receive twin garments of snow-white cloth. When the father learned these things, taking the gifts given, he breathes again, hastening to depart from his native land. CHAPTER XLVI. And he seeks Egypt, which is joined to the fields of the Arabs, leading out the young men under his paternal guidance five times seven, and ten, as the servant Genesis provided. And while the crowds hasten with eager effort, Judah runs ahead and flies before the band of brothers. And he tells Joseph that the parent is standing not far off. He swiftly climbs the chariot and goes out to meet him, receiving the longed-for company when he sees his father. CHAPTER XLVII. And he returns quickly and runs to the court of the king, reporting that the shepherds are hastening, so that the crowd of dear ones may live in the fertile grass of the separated lands. The Memphite ruler himself also urges the prophet and orders him to settle the brothers in the rich fields. After these things the aged old man, with the tyrant asking, speaks gently of how many years he is endowed with, what his house is, and what the cause of coming to Canopus, and he honors the distinguished leader with much praise. Nor less in the meantime does Joseph send gifts worthy of his own, and gives a great talent to be carried to the leader, by which the court was enriched from the grain sold off.

In the Vulgate edition, only seventy souls are said to have entered Egypt with Jacob; but the Seventy translators, and the Italic version, which Juvencus follows here, count seventy-five, with which St. Stephen agrees in Acts 7:14. Mart. It should be corrected to "ten each" instead of "ten each" (feminine), and for "ut farmula" I should read "ut formula." As for the number of souls who entered Egypt, Ambrose in one place counts [them as one number], in another as 75. In truth, if Joseph's great-grandsons are counted by prolepsis, the number will be 75; otherwise 70.

And there already the peoples, as they traded, lacked bronze; the Memphis throng, with herds displayed in rivalry, the poor buys grain, with Joseph setting the price. Stripped also of these, they hand over themselves and your lands, on the command that the seed thereafter should grow into harvests. Alone the possession of the priests was not taken away, for it pleased [him] that grain should not be sold to them gratis. Thence a tax of a fifth of the crops is imposed on the people, which remains and is preserved as a fixed rule by established law. Meanwhile, reckoning that the times of his life were fulfilled, Jacob adjures his son, revolving things to come, that he should lay his limbs in the tombs of his ancestors. He nods assent to the one praying, with his right hand placed beneath the thigh, and he touches the tip of the slow staff, promising. CHAPTER XLVIII. And the old man, having arranged his grandsons on either side, soothes them with words, while little by little he sips kisses. But wondrously the right hand is consecrated to Manasseh, while Ephrem, the elder by birth, is touched by the left. By the prescient mind of the old man, the elder is compelled to serve the younger, and the first hope yields its place to the second.

However much he wished to divert those hands by a sideward turn, Joseph could not nonetheless call back the pious words.

Perhaps. Which remains, and with the end fixed.

In the Vulgate, chapter 47, at the last verse, it is read: Israel adored God, turning to the head of the bed. And thus, as Augustine says in question 162, it is had in the Hebrew: Israel adored at the head of the bed. Yet the same holy doctor observes that the Latin codices read: And he adored upon the head of his staff, or on the head of his staff, or on the top, or upon the top, that is, upon the top of Joseph's staff; perhaps because Jacob had taken the staff from him when the same son swore to him, and while he held it, after the words of the one swearing, not yet having returned it, he presently adored God. For he was not ashamed to bear for a little while the emblem of his son's power, where the figure of a great matter was being prefigured. Mart. Even the Seventy translators read: And he adored upon the head of his staff, or of his staff.

But after he had ratified for his sons the sure benefits of the prophet, he gives Shechem and the sword, and gives arrows to his own son, so that he may climb more brightly to lofty honor above all. CHAPTER 49. Then he calls his sons, and to all he gave gifts, and he establishes twice six tribes from their names. When all these things had been unfolded, now deprived of sight in both eyes, he assigns to his pledges things destined to endure long, and to the offspring of his sons things previously not granted, and to a long age. The prophet departed in body alone from earthly things. CHAPTER 50. And he gave to mourning ten times seven days of light, while the crowd venerates the tomb of the deceased. Indeed even his sons wept for seven days with abundant tears, as Joseph restored peace to his innocent brothers, while he disregarded the old anger. He himself also, after he had already passed a hundred years, and ten, having measured the time of approaching death, declares to his brothers the order that was to come, by which they might be able to recall their step and leave the Nile, provided that they carry back the composed ashes and bones, and bear them with them to be buried in the tombs of the ancients. Thus at last, after the times of a long, bright life, he departed, and sought God, and left his body.

The Vulgate version reads the last verse of chapter 48 thus: I give you one portion above your brothers. What that portion is, the Italian version explains more clearly: I give you Shechem, preeminent above all your brothers, with which the Seventy translators agree. Mart. Shechem is the same city as Sichem. Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine also read Shechem for "one portion."

For the verse to scan, one may read "Atque vehant," or "Et revehant.