276
Notes
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attributed to Nicetas, Bishop of Remesiana, circa 400 a.d.
95
25. "grees" (Lat. gradus): steps. "A song of degrees," or "steps," is a name given to some of the Psalms.
"Sharp arrows and coals wasting" is quoted from one of these (Ps. 119 Vulg., 120 Hebr.).
"Pierced and inflamed with thy love," so Augustine says here in substance; "I could not weary of meditating on thy wonderful and loving counsels towards the salvation of the human race."
96.
8. "truffes and japes": deceits and tricks. Truffe (the same word is in the French text) is apparently connected with trifle and perhaps with truffle. Jape, like Fr. japper, to bark, is probably of imitative origin; the succession of meanings would be (1) foolish noise, (2) buffoonery, (3) tricks.
19. "Tiberina," sc. "Ostia": the port of Rome.
28. "lest he should be let": hindered. Lat. ne impediretur.
99.
12. "ravished out of his meats": " carried away by the pleasure of eating" is probably what the translator understood by this phrase. But he has really blundered very curiously. "Raptatus extra metas necessitatis" is the text of S. Aug.: "carried beyond the limits of necessity."
100.
2. "and thou blamest him": and (often written an) for "if."
101.
12. " If I die never, etc." Orig.: "Si nunquam, bene; si aliquando, quare non modo?" This cryptically condensed utterance has been rendered unintelligible in the French and the Caxton versions. "If I did never well but seldom, wherefore should he deliver me now?" is one form it takes.
102.
20. Augustine's idea of the Two Cities and their Kings has been adopted and worked out by S. Ignatius de Loyola in his famous Meditation "on Two Standards." See his Exercitia Spiritualia, of which there are many versions and developments, or the interesting story, "The Two Standards," by Dr William Barry.
104.
20. "engine" (Lat. ingenium): ability, talents.
105.
23. "volumes . . . among whom." Observe use of whom as a neuter relative.
S. BRANDON
The oldest versions we possess of the "Acta Brandani" go back to the tenth or eleventh centuries a. d. The picturesque and poetic narrative they contain is but one among several of similar character
