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Complete historical editorial footnotes. These notes retain the original edition’s wording; individual note authors are unspecified.
English translation and editorial credits: Sydney Thelwall.
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These two lines, if this be their true sense, seem to refer to Lot’s wife. But the grammar and meaning of this introduction are alike obscure.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-2 · Original source
In change corporeal its penal badge:
Lit. “from,” i.e., which, urged by a heart which is that of a saint, even though on this occasion it failed, the prophet dared.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-4 · Original source
Which in his saintly heart the prophet dares?)
“Tarshish,” Eng. ver.; perhaps Tartessus in Spain. For this question, and the “trustiness” of Joppa (now Jaffa) as a port, see Pusey on Jonah i. 3.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-6 · Original source
Seeks Tarsus, through the signal providence
Mandare (Oehler). If this be the true reading, the rendering in the text seems to represent the meaning; for “mandare” with an accusative, in the sense of “to bid the tardy coils tighten the girth’s noose,” seems almost too gross a solecism for even so lax a Latinist as our present writer. Migne, however, reads mundare—to “clear” the tardy coils, i.e., probably from the wash and weed with which the gale was cloying them.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-10 · Original source
To pass from hand to hand the tardy coils
Tunc Domini vates ingesta Spiritus infit. Of course it is a gross offence against quantity to make a genitive in “us” short, as the rendering in the text does. But a writer who makes the first syllable in “clamor” and the last syllable of gerunds in do short, would scarcely be likely to hesitate about taking similar liberties with a genitive of the so-called fourth declension. It is possible, it is true, to take “vates” and “Spiritus” as in apposition, and render, “Then the seer-Spirit of the Lord begins to utter words inspired,” or “Then the seer-Spirit begins to utter the promptings of the Lord.” But these renderings seem to accord less well with the ensuing words.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-11 · Original source
Words prompted by the Spirit of the Lord:
i.e., apparently with shells which had gathered about him as he lay in the deep.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-13 · Original source
125 Outrising on the spot, scaly with shells,
This seems to be the sense of Oehler’s “Nauta at tum Domino leti venerando timorem Sacrificat grates”—“grates” being in apposition with “timorem.” But Migne reads: “Nautæ tum Domino læti venerando timorem Sacrificant grates:”— “The sailors then do to the reverend Lord Gladly make grateful sacrifice of fear:” and I do not see that Oehler’s reading is much better.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-14 · Original source
Of death make grateful offering of his fear;
These words are not in the original, but are inserted (I confess) to fill up the line, and avoid ending with an incomplete verse. If, however, any one is curious enough to compare the translation, with all its defects, with the Latin, he may be somewhat surprised to find how very little alteration or adaptation is necessary in turning verse into verse.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-16 · Original source
A witness was he (in his very self),
“Metus;” used, as in other places, of godly fear.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-3 · Original source
More fires of rain supernal. For what dread
Genitus (Oehler); geminus (Migne) ="twin clamour,” which is not inapt.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-9 · Original source
Meantime the rising clamour of the crew
Ejusdem per signa Dei.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of Jonah the Prophet, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-7 · Original source
40 Of the same God; nor marvel is’t, I ween,