Spring from his lair, and lap his kindred blood: 1675 1680 1685 Why pour the fruitless strain? to winds, and waves, Deaf winds, dull waves, and senseless shades of woods But fate is in my voice, truth on my lips; What must come, will come; and when rising woes Burst on his head, when rushing from her seat 1695 His country falls, nor man nor God can save, Some wretch shall groan, "From her no falsehood flowed, With troubled steps, and took th' astonished soul 1700 With Siren songs and mournful melodies, rus. Showed her dark speech, and muttered oracles. His father was a Macedonian, from which circumstance he is designa, ted as a Chaladræan lion, (See Note on verse 1565.) 1675. The Persians are called his kinsmen, because they derived their origin from Perseus, an ancestor of Hercules, from whom Alexander claimed to be descended. 1680. These verses are perhaps allusive to the peace made with Macedonia (after it's subjugation by the Romans, who were descended from Eneas the kinsman of Cassandra), and incorporation with the Roman Empire. See Preface. 1686. Cassandra, having related the woes which the expedition of Paris must occasion, suddenly checks herself upon reflecting that no one will believe her oracles: she then derives a melancholy consolation from the knowledge that justice will be done her, when vengeance has overtaken the guilty. In the same manner in Eschylus she exclaims, Καὶ τῶνδ ̓ ὅμοιον εἴ τι μὴ πείθω, τί γάρ ; Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει, καὶ σὺ μὴν τάχει παρὼν 1689. Lepsieus is a name of Apollo. ESCHYL. Agam. 1691. For the story of Cassandra, see Note on verse 411. 1703. The Sphinx is called Phicéan, from Phiceum a mountain near Thebes. 1704. "I will shew my dark speech upon the harp." Psalm xlix. 4. The fourteen last verses are spoken by the Messenger, in his own person. But I to thee have borne her words, O King, 1705 1710 VIRO GRAVISSIMO JOHANNI DAVIES, S.T.P. SIMONDS D'EWES E. A. S. P. D. IGNOSCAS mihi, Vir doctissime, quòd rariores mei te compellent codicilli; amissâ enim quâ fruebar libertate privatus, publici nec mei juris mancipium existo. In toto vis mihi menstruo horarius literis exarandis vacat: imò sæpius inconatus, sæpissime impransus incedo. In magnis scilicet regni Comitiis justitium planè exulat; unde in ipso Domini natali ultimùm elapso, tribus duntaxat lusimus diebus; atque nos interim totos ferè integros quatuor menses vernaculæ assueti; ceterarum linguarum ne mireris si obliviscamur. Eruditissimos tuos priores mihi tradidit codicillos magister Pugh, multis mihi nominibus charus, præcipuè verò quòd nostræ pararius extitit amicitiæ: posteriores hâc ipsâ nocte læto etiam amplexi sumus animo. Utrosque expectatissima proverbiorum Celticorum interpretatio excepit. Aliquot utinam citeriorum sæculorum de religione et fide Britonum erui poterant monumenta: Homilias, et id genus alia receptam veterum Anglo-Saxonum theologiam testantia etiamnum offendimus; uti et nonnulla in Gildâ Albanio Gilda Badonico Ianonico veteri ante Bedam, utpote qui Pendæ regis Merciorum tempore scripsit. Anonymo et Nennio de religionis inter Britones Christianæ dogmatis sparsim eliciuntur: ex Thaliessini etiam poematiis, ni fallor, theologica plurima colligere potis eris. Unicum tibi, locupletis tuæ messis vice, adagium (omnium gymnasiorum parietibus inscribendum Anglo-Saxonicum remitto, plura av Os collecturus.) Cala gif ic pædde on geozode, ponne cude nu 1C rum god. O si ego legissem in juventute, tunc cognovissem nunc ego aliquid boni. Communis noster magister, tibi Pugh amicus, quæ de vetustissimis Britannico idiomate exaratis Chronicis in thesauro Cottoniano repertis cum versione Latinâ vel Anglicâ excudendis consulimus referet. Interim vale, Vir doctissime, et tuo me semper fruere. Londini, Iv. Id. Mart. c1ɔ 10CXL. 56 Biblical Criticism.-On the Hora Pelasgica. BIBLICAL CRITICISM. There is a change from the present to the future tense, in Matthew vii. 8. and in the parallel place, Luke ii. 10. which scarcely appears to agree with our Lord's design, and excites a suspicion that the Present Tense was originally found in the last clause, as well as in those preceding. The verses to which I refer are the same in both Gospels; "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; FOR every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Griesbach quotes avoiyeta as a various reading. Schaaf's Syriac Testament exhibits in both places it is opened, although the latin translation gives aperietur in the former place, and aperitur in the latter. Plantin's Syr. Test. in Chaldee characters has in Matthew and Luke. Dr. Campbell in his translation of the gospels has "it is opened," in both evangelists; but to my great surprise takes no notice in his annotations of this deviation from the received text and version. A French translation of the New Testament, ushered into the world under the eye, and by the authority of the Church of Geneva, presents "et l'on ouvre à celui qui heurte" in Matthew, but " et on ouvrira à celui qui heurte" in Luke. Some of your readers may be able to cast more light on this subject. W. N. July, 1816. ON THE HORE PELASGICE. THE HORE PELASGICE of Dr. MARSH, Bishop of Llandaff, though considered by the public as adding to his fame, seems to me to be founded in a false assumption, Following the authority of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he supposes that the Pelasgi derived their name from Pelasgus, a king who had ruled over them; and that being a wandering tribe they spread over Peloponnesus, Attica, Boeotia, Phocis, Euboea, Thessaly, and Thrace. That a tribe, however dis posed to wander, should thus pervade every province, while their progress must have been impeded by those who were already in possession of those places, appears improbable; and the suppo sition is directly contradicted by Herodotus, who positively asserts that the Pelasgi did not change their place of abode, oйdaμý exwpnoe, lib. i. 56. Two persons are said to have existed under the name of Pelasgus; one, the son of Jupiter and Niobe, the other the son of Larissa and Neptune, Dion. Hal. 1. i. c. 17. p. 14. But this account is evidently fabulous; and the circumstance of the last being a son of Neptune or a son of the sea, implies that he was some trans-marine adventurer, called IIλarys, from réλayos, on the same principle as Morgan, the celebrated Welshman, was on the continent designated Pelagius. The Greeks were divided into two bodies, those within the Ægean sea, in Greece properly so called, and those on the continent. When it was necessary to speak of the former in contradistinction to the latter, or to any other foreign nation, they were from Téλayos called Pelasgi, the term being used not to express a distinct race of the Greeks, but the situation of the Greeks in regard to the sea. Now this explanation implies three things: namely, that Pelasgia or Pelasgi were in early times general names, designating all Greece and its inhabitants; that the names were used chiefly by foreigners, and originated with them in the same manner as natives of Great Britain are occasionally designated abroad Islan→ ders, though such a designation be seldom used among themselves, or that when a Greek writer, such as Homer or Herodotus, em. ploys it, he employs it to express the Greeks in opposition to some other nation; and lastly, that Pelasgi was the most ancient appellation, and that when superseded by another, a change took place only in the name, not in the tribe. Thus Herodotus, lib. viii. 44. says, that the Athenians were at first Pelasgi, but were not called Athenians till Erectheus succeeded to the throne. When, therefore, we read in Thucydides of a temple in lib. ii. c. 17., or in Herodotus, lib. v. 64., of a wall called Teλaσyınòv, we are not to conclude with Dr. Marsh, that this wall or temple was built by a distinct tribe of Greeks who once inhabited Athens; but that it was an old wall or temple which still remained, and built by the inhabitants under the ancient name of Pelasgi. These inferences lay aside Bishop Marsh's inquiry as perfectly nugatory; and yet they may for the most be drawn from his own words. "It appears," says he, p. 7., "from the expression xaтà Thy Exλáða κατὰ τὴν ̔Ελλάδα aoay that the Pelasgi once occupied the whole of Greece. Hence, according to Herodotus, Greece in general was originally called Пleλaryla." Again, in the note, he writes, quoting Virgil and Ovid, "The term Pelasgi is frequently used by Latin writers to denote the Greeks in general, especially when they are speaking of the early ages of Greece." It must not, however, be disguised, that a great deal of obscurity and uncertainty hangs on the subject of the Pelasgi, arising from the inconsistent and even contradictory views, which not only the different writers, but the same writers, among the Greeks, have given of this tribe. When the term Pelasgi became pretty generally employed to express the insular Greeks, in contradistinction to other people, it was natural for the islanders themselves to adopt it occasionally, not to express themselves as a whole nation in opposition to other nations, but to designate certain tribes among themselves, who occupied, or were once known to occupy, the vicinity of the sea. One fact will illustrate this conclusion. Stephanus Byzantinus explains Θεσσαλία as being ή πρότερον Πελαστ γία. For this reason Πελασγοί was another name for Θέσσαλοι. We are then to conclude that Πελασγία is synonymous with Θεσσαλία, and Πελασγοί with Θεσσαλοι. But Θεσσαλία, or Thessaly, was a district so called from its connexion with the sea on the eastern side, Θεσσαλία being a corruption of θαλασσία, i. e. Θαλασσία . On the same principle then the kindred names Пeλayla and Πελασγιοι were derived from πέλαγος. What is true of Thessaly is true also of Peloponnesus, which from its insular situation was called λaryla. If these general remarks are just, the inquiry of Dr. Marsh falls to the ground, as founded altogether on misconception. I will in a future Journal make a few observations on the Digamma, and examine whether he is more correct in his ideas of the real nature of this letter, than he is of the origin of the Pelasgi. J. JONES. |