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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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The reader is requested to bear in mind, in reading this piece, tedious in its elaborate struggles after effect, that the constant repetitions of words and expressions with which his patience will be tried, are due to the original. It was irksome to reproduce them; but fidelity is a translator’s first law.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-1 · Original source
(Author Uncertain.)
i.e., in another clime or continent. The writer is (or feigns to be) an African. Helicon, of course, is in Europe.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-4 · Original source
15 ’Neath other star. And simultaneously
I have endeavoured to give some intelligible sense to these lines; but the absence of syntax in the original, as it now stands, makes it necessary to guess at the meaning as best one may.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-9 · Original source
In copious rills.
“But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne.”—Shakespeare, Macbeth, act iii. scene 2.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-11 · Original source
And ’scape the penalties of flame eterne,
Sermone tenus: i.e., the exertion (so to speak) needed to do such mighty works only extended to the uttering of a speech; no more was requisite. See for a similar allusion to the contrast between the making of other things and the making of man, the “Genesis,” 30–39.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-14 · Original source
Of wild; who by a word could stretch forth heaven;
“Immemor ille Dei temere committere tale! Non ultra monitum quidquam contingeret.” Whether I have hit the sense here I know not. In this and in other passages I have punctuated for myself.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-19 · Original source
The warning’s range he was not ought to touch.
“Some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, some an hundred-fold.” See the parable of the sower.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-26 · Original source
With various usury, new harvests rise
I have ventured to alter one letter of the Latin; and for “quos reddere jussa docebit,” read “quos reddere jussa dolebit.” If the common reading be retained, the only possible meaning seems to be “whom she will teach to render (to God) His commands,” i.e., to render obedience to them; or else, “to render (to God) what they are bidden to render,” i.e., an account of themselves; and earth, as their mother, giving them birth out of her womb, is said to teach them to do this. But the emendation, which is at all events simple, seems to give a better sense: “being bidden to render the dead, whom she is keeping, up, earth will grieve at the throes it causes her, but will do it.”
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-33 · Original source
195 Being bidden, will with grief upyield. All stand
i.e., “the king.” The “Atridæ” of Homer are referred to,—Agamemnon “king of men,” and Menelaus.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-37 · Original source
The son of Atreus with his diadem
I have corrected “his” for “hic.” If the latter be retained, it would seem to mean “hereon.”
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-40 · Original source
To these the Lord will mandate give, to range
Or, “there.” The question is, whether a different tree is meant, or the rose just spoken of.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-43 · Original source
It wears, such odour breathes. A tree it stands,
Here again it is plain that the writer is drawing his description from what we read of the garden of Eden.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-45 · Original source
305 Thence water parted lands. The garden robed
“Salus,” health (probably) in its widest sense, both bodily and mental; or perhaps “safety,” “salvation.”
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-46 · Original source
And health without a care is gladsome here
Reliquam vitam, i.e., apparently his life in all other relations; unless it mean his life after his parents’ death, which seems less likely.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-47 · Original source
Tended his parents; and his other life
This seems to be the sense. The Latin stands thus: “Flammas pro meritis, stagnantia tela tremiscunt.”
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-49 · Original source
Of fire, wrath’s weapons, they ’gin tremble all.
This is an extraordinary use for the Latin dative; and even if the meaning be “for (i.e., to suffer) penalty eternal,” it is scarcely less so.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-52 · Original source
To penalty eternal; go beneath
“Artusque sonori,” i.e., probably the arms and hands with which (as has been suggested just before) the sufferers beat their unhappy breasts.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-57 · Original source
And flames, and limbs sonorous, will outrise
“Ipsa voce,” unless it mean “voice and all,” i.e., and their voice as well as their palms.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-59 · Original source
Starward they stretch their palms at the mere sound,
Here again a correction suggested in Migne’s ed., of “suam lucem” for “sua luce,” is adopted.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-61 · Original source
475 Of ours to see His light and can the same
“Qui” is read here, after Migne’s suggestion, for “quia;” and Oehler’s and Migne’s punctuation both are set aside.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-62 · Original source
You unawares, and that last day, which is
Helicon is not named in the original, but it seems to be meant.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-3 · Original source
Of Helicon, and gladsome woods that grow
i.e., from the solid mass of earth. See Gen. i. 9, 10.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-16 · Original source
70 Disjoined; and man’s dear form with His own hands
i.e., the dust into which our bodies turn.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-23 · Original source
Why out of somewhat could He not compound
i.e., the surface or ridge of the furrows.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-24 · Original source
Is not their surface animated soon
This passage is imitated from Virgil, Æn., vi. 305 sqq.; Georg., iv. 475 sqq.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-36 · Original source
Of babes the groaning orb resounds. Then tribes
Cardine, i.e., the hinge as it were upon which the sun turns in his course.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-41 · Original source
In the meridian of His cloudless seat.
I adopt the correction (suggested in Migne) of justis for justas.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-51 · Original source
In torments just. God bids your bones descend
Or, “in all the years:” but see note 5 on this page.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-54 · Original source
Are turned to plough it, and for all the years
Or, “assume the functions of the heavenly life.”
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-64 · Original source
510 Receive the gifts of the celestial life;
“Auram,” or “breeze.”
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-18 · Original source
The breath of life did breathe.
Cf. Ps. xlix. 14 (xlviii. 15 in LXX.).
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-22 · Original source
Or else to live wholly the life of sheep,
Subitæ virtutis ab alto.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-34 · Original source
Of sudden power. When thus God comes, with voice
Comis, here “the heads.”
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-35 · Original source
Outbelches living peoples; to the hair
See the “Genesis,” 73.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-42 · Original source
The gem: here shines the prasinus; there glows
This seems to be marshmallows.
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-44 · Original source
It all breathes life; and there Crete’s healing gift
i.e., the “guerdons” and the “threats.”
Editorial footnote · A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord, Chapter uncertain, editorial note cite_note-58 · Original source
He ’stablished them by sending prophets more,