01.7. Metrical Version of Koheleth

METRICAL VERSION OF KOHELETH BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR

INTRODUCTION ________________ POETICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOK ________________

[Stuart asserts that Koheleth is not poetry. Hitzig treats it very much in the same way, as essentially a formal prose ethical treatise. It is not too much to say that this overlooking the true poetical character and spirit of the composition, is, with both these commentators, the cause of much frigid exegesis, and false rhetorical division. There is, however, high authority for the other view [see Lowth’s Heb. Poetry, p. 205, 411, Eichhorn Einleitung, Vol. V., 250, 228, and Jahn’s Introduction to the Old Testament]. Ewald is decided for its poetical character, and ably maintains it. “A genuine poetic inspiration,” he says, “breathes through it all” [see Zöckler’s Introduction, § 2, Remark 3, p. 10]. He, however, regards some parts as prose (such as the little episode 9:13–16), or as mere historical narrative, which seem to present the poetic aspect, both in the thought and in the measured diction. Thus the allusion to the “poor wise man who saved the city” is as rhythmical in its parallelism (when closely examined) as any other parts, whilst it is not only illustrative of what is in immediate proximity, but is also itself of the poetic cast in the manner of its conception. Although Zöckler thus refers to Ewald, his own interpretation seems affected too much by the prosaic idea of a formal didactic treatise, with its regular logical divisions. We have deemed this question entitled to a fuller argument here, because it seems so intimately. connected with a right view of the book, both as a whole and in the explanation of its parts. The whole matter, however, lies open to every intelligent reader. The question is to be decided by the outward form as it appears in the original, and by the peculiar internal arrangement of the thought in its parallelistic relations. This latter is the special outward mark of Hebrew poetry. Though there may not be anything like iambics or dactyls discoverable, even in the Hebrew, yet every reader of the common English Version feels, at once, that he is coming into a new style of diction, as well as of thought and emotion, when, in Genesis 4:23 he finds the plain flow of narrative suddenly changed by a new, and evidently measured, arrangement, calling attention to a peculiar subjective state in the writer or utterer, and putting the reader immediately en rapport with it:

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;

Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. So is it also when he finds the inartificial, yet highly eloquent prose narrative of Exodus 14. and chapters preceding, all at once interrupted by a strain commencing thus—

I will sing unto Jahveh, for glory! glorious!

Horse and his rider hath lie thrown into the sea; or when, after the plainest historical style in Numbers 24., and previously, he is startled by such music of thought and language as this—

I shall see Him, but not now;

I shall behold Him, but not nigh;

There shall come a star out of Jacob; A sceptre shall arise out of Israel. This is not so striking in Koheleth; in some places it is barely discoverable; but such parallelism of thought and diction is really there, to a greater or less extent, and, in many parts, as clearly discernible as in Job or the Psalms; more clearly than in much of Isaiah. Thus, for example, Ecclesiastes 10:20— Not even in thy thought revile the king; Nor in thy chamber dare to curse the rich; The birds of heaven shall carry forth the sound; The swift of wing, the secret word reveal.

We may even say that it exists throughout, with a few exceptions, perhaps, that may be regarded as introductory or transition sentences, such as brief descriptions of the writer’s outward state (Ecclesiastes 1:12-13, as also 1:16) and the frequent formulas: “I said in my heart,”—“then I turned again to behold,” etc. But after each of these, the strain goes on as before. It is musing, meditative, measured thought, in a peculiarly arranged diction, sometimes presenting much regularity in its rhythmical movement, as in chaps, 1., 9. and 12., and sometimes seeming so far to lose it that it is known to be poetry only by the inward marks,—that is, the musing cast of thought, and that soul-filling, yet sober emotion which calls up the remoter and more hidden associations, to the neglect of logical or even rhetorical transitions. It is this latter feature that gives to Koheleth an appearance which its name, according to its true etymology, seems to imply—namely, of a collection of thoughts as they have been noted down, from time to time, in the memory or common-place book of a thoughtful man, not aiming to be logical, because he himself knows the delicate links that bind together his ideas and emotions without express grammatical formulas, and which the reader, too, will feel and understand, when he is brought into a similar spiritual state. Such a spiritual transition is aided by the rhythmical form, however slight, producing the feeling that it is truly poetry he is reading, and not outwardly logical statements of dogmatic truth,—in short, that these gnomic utterances are primarily the emotional relief of a meditative soul, rather than abstract ethical precepts, having mainly a scientific or intellectual aspect. In this thought there seems to be found that essential distinction between poetry and prose, which goes below all outward form, whether of style or diction, or which, instead of being arbitrarily dependent on form, makes its form, that is, demands a peculiar dress as its most appropriate, we may even say, its most natural expression. In other words, poetry is ever subjective. It is the soul soliloquizing,—talking to itself, putting in form, for itself, its own thoughts and emotions. Or we might rather say that primarily this is so; because, in a secondary sense, it may still be said to be objective and didactic in its ultimate aim, whilst taking on the other, or subjective, form, as least indicative of a disturbing outward consciousness, and, therefore, its most truly effective mode of expression even for outward uses. That this, however, maybe the more strongly felt on the part of the reader, his mind, as has been already said, must be en rapport with that of the writer, that is, it must get into the same spiritual state, by whatever means, outward or inward, suggestive or even artificial, this may be effected. Poetry is the language of emotion; and it is true of all poetry, even of the soberest and most didactic kind. This emotion may be aroused by the contemplation of great deeds, as in the Heroic poetry, whether of the epic or dramatic kind, or of striking natural objects, as in the descriptive, or of great thoughts contemplated as they arise in the mind, with more of the wonderful or emotional than of the logical or scientific interest. This is philosophical poetry,—the thinker devoutly musing, instead of putting forth theses, or aiming primarily to instruct. The utterance is from the fullness of the spirit, and, in this way, has more of didactic or preceptive power than though such had been the direct objective purpose. We have a picture of such a mind, in such a state, in this philosophical poem of Koheleth, with just enough of rhythmical parallelism to awaken the emotional interest. It is this representation of a bewildered, questioning, struggling soul, perplexed with doubt, still holding fast to certain great fundamental truths regarded rather as intuitions than as theorems capable of demonstration, which makes its great ethical value. This value, however, is found in it chiefly as a whole. It consists in the total impression; and we shall be disappointed, often, if we seek it in the separate thoughts, some of which are exceedingly skeptical, whilst others we may not hesitate to pronounce erroneous. It is this subjective picture which the higher, or the divine, author has caused to be made, preserved, and transmitted to us, for our instruction (πρὸς διδασκαλίαν—προς παιδείαν, see 2 Timothy 3:16), so that alone with some things fundamental, immutable, which the thoughtful soul can never part with, we may also learn how great the darkness that hangs over the problem of the human and the mundane destiny when illuminated by nothing higher than science and philosophy, either ancient or modern. We need not hesitate to say, that so far as these are concerned, the teaching of the book is as important for the 19th century as it was in the days of Koheleth, whoever he may have been, or at whatever early time he may have lived. Stuart thinks differently. Remarking on the affirmations respecting the vanity of what is called “wisdom and knowledge,” he says: “Put such a man as Koheleth, at the present time, in the position of a Laplace, Liebig, Cuvier, Owen, Linnæus, Day, Hamilton, Humboldt, and multitudes of other men in Europe and in America, and he would find enough in the. pursuit of wisdom and knowledge, to fill his soul with the deepest interest, and to afford high gratification.” “But it does not follow [he adds] that Koheleth felt wrongly, or wrote erroneously, at his time, in respect to these matters. Literary and scientific pursuits, such as are now common among us, were in his day, beyond the reach, and beyond the knowledge of all then living; and how could he reason then in reference to what these pursuits now are?” (Stuart, Com. on Ecclesiastes, p. 141). Now Koheleth admits that knowledge, whatever its extent, even mere human knowledge, is better than folly; it is better than sensual Epicureanism; even the sorrows of the one are better than the joys of the other, more to be desired by a soul in a right state; and yet, not in view of any small amount, but of the widest possible extent, does he say that “he who increases knowledge” (knowledge of mere earthly things, knowledge of links instead of ends, knowledge of man’s doings, merely, instead of God’s ways) only “increases sorrow." The wonder is, that there is not more commonly felt, what is sometimes admitted by the most thoughtful men of science, that the more there is discovered in this field the more mystery there is seen to be, the more light the more darkness following immediately in its train and increasing in a still faster ratio,—in short, the more knowledge we get of nature, and of man as a purely physical being, the greater the doubt, perplexity, and despair, in respect to his destiny, unless a higher light than the natural and the historical is given for our relief. In this respect the modern physical knowledge, or claim to knowledge, has no advantage over the ancient, which it so much despises, hut which, in its day, and with its small stock of physical experience, was equally pretentious. Read how Lucretius exults in describing the atomic causality, and the wonderful discoveries that were to banish darkness from the earth, and put an end to that dreaded Religio—

Quæl caput a cgi reoinibus obtendebat, Horribili super adspectu mortalibus instans.

How greatly does it resemble some of the boasting of our 19th century, and yet how does our modern science, with its most splendid achievements (which there is no disposition to underrate) stand speechless and confounded in the presence of the real questions raised by the perplexed and wondering Koheleth! What single ray of light has it shed on any of those great problems of destiny which are ever present to the anxious, thoughtful soul! “Our science and our literature!” How is their babble hushed in the presence of the grave! How wretchedly do they stammer when asked to explain that which it concerns us most to know, and without which all other knowledge presents only “a lurid plain of desolation,” a “darkness visible,” or to use the language of one much older than Milton, “where the very light is as darkness!” How dumb are these boasting oracles, when, with a yearning anxiety that no knowledge of “the seen and temporal” can appease, we consult them in respect to “the unseen and eternal!” They claim to tell us, or boldly assert that the time is rapidly coming when they will be able to tell us, all that is needed for the perfectibility of human life. But ask them now, what is life, and why we live, and why we die ? No answer comes from these vaunting shrines. They have no reply to the most momentous questions: Whence came we? Whither go we? Who are we? What is our place in the scale of being ? What is our moral state, our spiritual character? Is there any such thing as an immutable morality? Is there a true ethical rising at all above the physical, or anything more than the knowledge and prudent avoidance of physical consequences? Is there any hope or meaning in prayer? Is there a holy law above us to which our highest ideas of righteousness and purity have never risen? Is there an awful judgment before us? Are we probationers of a moral state having its peril proportioned to an inconceivable height of blessedness only to be attained through such a risk? Is there, indeed, a great spiritual evil within us, and a mighty evil One without us against whom we have to contend? Is there a great perdition, a great Saviour, a great salvation? Is man truly an eternal and supernatural being, with eternal responsibilities, instead of a mere connecting link, a passing step, in a never completed cycle of random “natural selections,” or idealess developments, having in them nothing that can truly be called higher or lower, because there is no spiritual standard above the physical, by which their rank and value can be determined?

Such questions are suggested by the reading of Koheleth, although not thus broadly and formally stated. In his oft-repeated cry that “all beneath the sun is vanity," there is, throughout, a pointing to something above the sun, above nature, above the flowing world of time, to that “work of God” which he says (3:14) is לעולם, “for the eternal‚” immovable, without flow, without progress, perfect, finished,—“to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be taken,”—that high “ideal world,” that unmoving Olam, where “all things stand,”—that spiritual supernatural paradigm for the manifestation of which in time, nature with all its flowing types and paradigms was originally made, and to which it is subservient during every moment, as well as every age, of its long continuance. All here, when viewed in itself, was vanity, but מַעַל הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ supra solem, above the sun, there stood the real. He was sure of the fact, though he felt himself utterly unable to solve the questions connected with it. This makes the impressiveness of his close, when, after all his “turnings to see,” and his “thinkings to himself,” or “talkings to his heart,” he concludes, as Job and the Psalmist had done, that the “fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,” and the keeping of His commandments “the whole of man” (כל האדם), his great “end,” his constant duty, his only hope of obtaining that higher spiritual knowledge which alone can satisfy the soul (John 7:17). This he fortifies by the assurance that all shall at last be clear: “For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”

It is this continual pointing to the “unseen and eternal” [לעולם] that constitutes the peculiar poetical character of the book, so far as the thought is concerned. And then there is the subjective style: “I thought to myself”—“I said to my heart”—“I turned again to see”—“I went about, I and my heart;” this, together with the measured diction into which it naturally flows, forms the more outward poetical dress. There are in Koheleth the germs of ideas that extend beyond the utmost range of any outward science, or even of any merely dogmatic ethical teaching. It was the inner spirit of the reader, through his own inner spirit, that he sought to touch. These “thinkings to himself” filled his soul with an emotion demanding a peculiar style of utterance, having some kind of rhythmical flow as its easiest and most fitting vehicle. Why it is, that when the soul muses, or when, under the influence of devout feeling, or inspiring wonder, it is thus moved to talk to itself, it should immediately seek some kind of measured language, is a question not easily answered. It presents a deep problem in psychology which cannot here be considered. The fact is undoubted. The rhythmical want is felt in ethical and philosophical musing, as well as in that which comes from the contemplation of the grand and beautiful in nature, or the heroic and pathetic in human deeds. Some have denied that what is called gnomic, or philosophical poetry is strictly such, being, as they say, essentially prose, artificially arranged for certain purposes of memory and impression. We may test the difference, however, by carefully considering what is peculiar, outwardly and inwardly, to some of the most striking examples of this kind of writing, and noting how the power, character, and association of the thoughts are affected by the rhythmical dress, even when of the simplest kind. Pope’s Essay on Man, for example, has been called simply measured prose; but it is in fact, the highest style of poetry, better entitled to be so characterized than the greater part of his other rhythmical compositions. Certain great ideas belonging to the philosophy of the world and man, are there contemplated in their emotional aspect. Wonder, which enters into the very essence of this highest species of poetry, is called by Plato “the parent of philosophy,” and this is the reason why the dry and logical Aristotle, who could intellectually analyze what he could not emotionally create, gives us that remarkable declaration (De Poetica, chap. 9.) διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ΠΟΙ΄ΗΣΙΣ ἱστοριας ἐστίν—“Wherefore it is that poetry is a more philosophical and a more serious thing than history itself.” In perusing the composition of Pope referred to, we are immediately, and without formal notice, made to feel this contemplative, wondering, emotive power, through the sympathetic influence of the outward dress. The measured style thus disposes us as soon as we begin to read. We are thereby put in harmony with the subjective state of the writer. We begin to muse as he muses, whilst the rhythmical flow causes our emotions, and associations of thought, to move easily, and without surprise, in the same smooth channel, however irregular it might seem if viewed under another aspect. We are not reading for knowledge, or ethical instruction even, but for the reception of that same emotion which prompted the seemingly irregular utterance. Under the binding influence of the melody, we no longer expect logical or scientific connections. There is felt to be a uniting under-current of thought and feeling, so carrying us along as to supply the want of these by the merest suggestions, some of them, at times, very far off, seemingly, whilst others come like inspirations to the meditative spirit, or seem to rise up spontaneously from the bubbling fountain of emotional ideas. Taking away the rhythm from such a work immediately does it great injustice, by destroying this sympathy. Put it in a prose dress, and we, at once, expect closer connections, more logical, more scientific, more formal, more directly addressed to an outward mind. The one soul of the writer and the reader is severed, the inspiration is lost, the dogmatic becomes predominant, whilst the intellect itself is offended for the want of those stricter formulas of speech and argument which its systematic instruction demands. Not finding these, we call it strange, rhapsodical, or unmeaning. What before impressed us now appears as trite truisms, and the fastidious intellect, or fastidious taste, contemns what a deeper department of the soul had before received and valued without questioning. The cause of this is in the fact that there are some thoughts, called common (and it may be that they are indeed very common), yet so truly great, that to a mind in a right state for their contemplation, no commonness can destroy the sense of their deep intrinsic worth. Truisms may be among the most important of all truths, and, therefore, all the more needing some impressive style of utterance, some startling form of diction, to arouse the soul to a right contemplation of their buried excellence. Undeterred by their commonness, the musing mind sees this higher aspect; it recognizes them in their connections with the most universal of human relations, and even with eternal destinies. The emotion with which this is contemplated calls out a peculiar phraseology, placing the thought in the foreground of the mind’s attention, and divesting it of its ordinary homely look. This startling diction appears especially in the original language, if understood. We turn such meditations into prose; first in our words, as happens necessarily in a process of rigid, verbal translation,—then in our thoughts—and having thus stripped them of that rhythmical charm which called attention to their hidden worth, their real uncommonness, we pronounce them trite and unmeaning.[1]

Koheleth in his homely prose version—especially our English Version—suffers more, in this way, than the Psalms or Proverbs, where the Hebrew parallelism is so clear in its general structure, and the antithesis of emphatic words demanded for each particular arrangement is so striking, that the poetical character appears in almost any version; the poorest translation, that has any claim to be faithful, not being able wholly to disguise it. The object, therefore, is to give to a translation of Koheleth such a rhythmical dress, be it ever so slight and plain, that the reader may thereby make some approach to the mental position of the original utterer, or assume, instinctively, as it were, something of his subjective state. It is to lead him, by something in the outward style, to feel, however slightly, the meditative, emotional, yet sobered spirit of the writer—to give the mind that turn—(and a mere starting impulse may do it) which shall make it muse as he muses, and soliloquize as he soliloquizes, without being surprised at those sudden transitions, or those remote suggestions, which seem natural to such a state of mind when once assumed. They are natural, because the writer, understanding his own thoughts, and even feeling them, we may say, needs, for himself, no such logical formulas, and the reader equally dispenses with them as he approaches the same position. They are like modulations that are not only admissible but pleasing in a musical flow, whilst they would appear as flattened chords, or harsh dissonances, if set loose from their rhythmical band. Such is very much the appearance which the thoughts of this book often present when read merely as didactic prose, and this is doing them great injustice. For one example out of many, of these seemingly abrupt transitions in Koheleth, take chap. 6:6: “unto one place go not all men alike?” There seems, at first view, little or no connection here. It is, however, the meeting of an objection that silently starts up, making itself felt rather than perceived as something formally stated: “Length of life is no advantage, rather the contrary, if one has lived in vain: Do not they both, the man of extreme longevity, and the still-born, or the born in vain, go at last to the same mother earth whence they came?” What avails, then, “his thousand years twice told?” If the reader’s mind is in harmony with the writer’s, and with his style, he sees the association, and is more affected by such apparent abruptness than he would have been by the most formal logical statement. He gets into the current of feeling, and this carries him over the apparent logical break.

It may be said, too, that such a rhythmical Version may be all the more faithful to the thought on this very account of its rhythmical form. It may be more literal, too, if by literal we mean that which most truly puts us in the mental position of the old writer, giving not only the thought, as a bare intellectual form, but, along with it, the emotion which is so important a part of the total effect, and even of the thought itself regarded as an integral state of soul. To accomplish this, Hebrew intensives must be represented, in some way, by English intensives, of like strength, though often of widely different expression. There is often, too, an emotional power in a Hebrew particle which may be all lost if we aim to give only its illative force. This is especially the case with a גַּם or a כּי. The former always expresses more or less of surprise or wonder, along with its additive force of too, or moreover. The translation is to be helped, in such cases, by our expressive particle yea, or some interjectional form such as, ah! this too I yea, verily, this too! Again, the illative power in the Hebrew particle may be much wider, and more varied, than that of any single one which we may select as corresponding to it in any single case. Thus כִּי connects by denoting a cause, reason, or motive; but it may be a reason against, a reason notwithstanding, as well as a reason for; just as the Greek ἔνεκα may mean for the sake of, or in spite of—for all that—as ἕνεκα ἐμοῦ, “on my account,” or for all that lean do. In the latter case כִּי should be rendered although, a meaning rare in other parts of the Bible, but quite common, we think, in Ecclesiastes, and furnishing the right key to some otherwise obscure passages. Thus in chap. 6:4, כִּי־בַהֶבֶל בָּא is rendered, “for he cometh in with vanity,” which simply inverts the illative aim of the particle as determined by the context. It reads as though the ’f coming in with vanity and departing in darkness," were assigned as the cause, or reason why, the abortion, or the “vainly born,” is better than he who “vainly lived,”—thus making it the reason why instead of the reason notwithstanding, as it truly is. When we render it although, and supply the same particle in all the connected clauses, the meaning, which is so confused in our common English Version, becomes not only clear but most impressive. Again, this very frequent little word may be a transition, or starting particle, denoting a reason, and an emotion connected with it, but this emotion arising from an under-current of thought, or from something that starts up to the mind during a pause in the soliloquizing discourse. The speaker sets off again with a כִּי, yet, surely, yea verily so is it; as though what he had been thinking must have been thought by others near him. There are quite numerous examples of this kind in Koheleth, but the best illustration may be taken from a passage in Job where the ultimate thought is very similar to the one which pervades this book. To explain it there is required the very admissible supposition of a brief pause, or silence, holding still the flow of the discourse after some impassioned utterance. This is in accordance with the nature of grave oriental speaking, whether dialectical or continuous. It may be said, too, that such pauses of emotional silence, though occupying much shorter intervals in the middle of the dialogue, are of the same kind, and of the same spirit, with the silence described Job 2:13 : “And they sat with him on the earth seven days, and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great.” Some such rest of silence may be supposed to have occurred after the impassioned close of the 27. chapter. We are almost driven to this view from the fact, that the 28 seems to have so little of direct, or, in fact, of any discoverable connection with it. When Job begins again “to take up his parable,” his thoughts seem to have drifted to a great distance; and yet, during the silence, the thread has been preserved. It has been carried away by a devious current, but we recover it again before the new strain closes. So great has seemed the difficulty of connecting these two chapters, that Pareau (De Jobi Notitiis, etc., p. 247) reasons plausibly to show that there has been a misplacement, and that chap. 28. should come immediately after chap. 26. But there is a better explanation, and more in harmony with the spirit of this wonderful book. After the strong appeal of the 27., and the vivid picture, there presented, of the bad man’s ruin, we find Job, instead of applying it directly to his own defence, or his defence of the ways of God, starting off in a strange manner, and with this particle כִּי, presenting no reason for what was said, seemingly, just before, but forming, as it were, the transition chord to a new modulation: “For there is a vein for the silver” (כִּי יֵשׁ) or, “surely there is an outlet for the silver, and a place for the gold,” etc. What is the illative force of כִּי in this place, or what connective office does it perform at all? Far off, as it would seem, from the former train of thought, the speaker goes on to describe the human zeal and energy in its search for the treasures and secrets of nature. And most graphically is this done. The references in the beginning are to mining operations, in which men had made what might seem a wonderful progress in the earliest times: “He (man) puts a limit to the darkness” [he pushes farther and farther back the horizon of the unknown]; “he searches out to the very end (as Conant well translates it) the stone (the ore) of darkness, and of the shadow of death.” Away from the ordinary human haunts “he hangs suspended” (over the shaft of the mine). In wilds which even “the vulture’s eye had not seen, nor the fierce lion ventured to tread, he sendeth forth his hand, and turneth up the mountain from its roots.” “He cutteth out channels in the rocks,—he bindeth the fountains from overflowing, and that which is most hidden bringeth he forth to light.” Now what is the association of thought that led to this? We soon see it. It reappears in that yearning interrogatory: “But where shall wisdom be found? O where is the place of understanding ?” All these discoveries, however great they may be conceived to be (and the searching appeal is as much to our own as to the earliest times) are not wisdom—הַחָכְמָה—“the wisdom.” They give us not the great idea or reason of God in the creation of man and the world: “The deep” (the great Tehom) still “saith, it is not in me; the sea saith, it is not with me.” “It is not found in the land of the living,” in the world of active life; and yet, strange as it may seem,” a rumor thereof “has reached the dark, silent unboasting under-world”. “Death and Abaddon (the state in which man seems to be lost, or to disappear) say, we have just heard the fame thereof with our ears.” It is the wisdom which is known only to God, or to those to whom He reveals it,—His moral purpose in the origination and continuance of nature, and in the dark dispensations of human life. It is the spiritual idea of the supernatural world, to which the natural is wholly subservient, but to which neither its ascending or descending links do ever reach. To this, all unknown as it is, though firmly believed, does Job appeal in repelling the shallow condemnation of his friends, and the shallow grounds on which they place it. This is God’s wisdom, which was with Him when He made nature and the worlds. Man’s wisdom is to believe in it, to submit himself to it, to stand in awe of it, and to depart from evil, as the beginning of that course through which alone there can come any clearing of the mystery to the human soul. This connects the speaker with the former train of thought, or the vindication of God’s ways as righteous, however dark they may seem in the human history, whether of the race or of the individual. The pause, the apparent break, is that which leads to the higher strain. So it is in the musings of Koheleth, less sublime, perhaps, less impassioned, but with no less of grave impressiveness. It is only when we thus read it as meditating, soul-interrogating, poetry, that we get in the right vein for understanding its subtle associations of thought. In Koheleth, too, as in Job, there are certain underlying ideas, firmly held, and that never change. Though “clouds and darkness are round about” them, they form the מְכוֹן כִּסֵּא “the foundation of the throne,”—the settled basis of his belief in the eternal Righteousness. These no scepticism ever invades. They have not the appearance of inductions from experience, or from any kind of logical argumentation; neither are they so put forth. They are rather holy intuitions, inspirations we might style them, which admit of no uncertainty: “I know that whatsoever God doeth is for the olam,” the eternity, the world idea; “nothing can be put to it nor any thing taken from it” (3:14). Earth may be full of wrong, but “there is One Most High above all height, that keepeth watch” over the injustice and oppression of men (5:7): Though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, but it shall not be well with the wicked” (8:12). He knew it; his faith not only went beyond sight, but stood strong even in opposition to sense and earthly experience: “I said in my heart, the righteous and the wicked God shall judge;” for “there, too” (שָׁם, even there, in the great Olam, or world plan, mentioned just above), “is there an appointment for every purpose, and for every work” (3:17). This judgment will not be merely through blind “physical consequences,” as though it were man’s highest duty to obey nature [according to a favorite modern system of naturalizing ethics], instead of ofttimes having to fight against it,—but hy a glorious and unmistakable manifestation of God Himself, somewhere in the malkuth kol olamim, or cycle of the Olams. It shall be “when God demands again the ages fled” [3:15], יְבַקֵשׁ אֶת נִדְדָּף, literally, “makes inquisition,” or “seeks that which is pursued.” As the solemn proclamation is sent after the fleeing homicide, so shall He demand again the ages of wrong that have chased away each other in the revolutions of time. They shall be summoned to stand before His bar. The past is not gone; it is to appear again in the judgment, as real as in the events for which it is to be judged. Yea, more real will be that reappearing than any thing in the unheeded movements of the present. Neither will it be the exhibition of a general or abstract justice: “For God will bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil” [12:14]. It is this strong Hebrew faith in the Holy Justice which the Rationalist commentators overlook in their absurd comparing of some things in this book with the dogmas of the later[2] Grecian schools. It wholly severs the reverent, God-fearing Koheleth from the sensual Epicurean, on the one hand, and the fatalizing, naturalizing Stoic, on the other. His darkness is better than their light, his very doubts are more suggestive than their most “positive philosophy.” It is this God-fearing, yet man-loving, spirit, that makes his calm utterances so much more impressive than all their babbling disputations about pleasure and pain, the summum bonum, and the reality of evil. All good, he teaches, is from God, even the power to find any satisfaction in eating and drinking (2:24, when rightly interpreted, 5:18, 19), and yet again,“sorrow is better than mirth” (8:3), not on account of any ascetic merit in the endurance of pain and grief, but because a saddened state of soul is more in sympathy with a sad and fallen world, such as the writer evidently conceives it to be [see 7:29; 9:3; 3:18]. “Sorrow is better than mirth,” because it has more heart, more thought; it is more becoming, more humane, and, therefore, more rational in view of the vanity of life, and its abounding woes. It is better, as purifying and beautifying the soul, and thus producing, in the end, a serener happiness (7:3).

“For in the sadness of the face the heart becometh fair;” as יִיטַב לֵב should be rendered, giving a clear and impressive antithesis, and being in accordance with the more common usage of the phrase, as denoting comeliness, or even cheerfulness of spirit, rather than moral improvement merely, as our common version gives it: As the face is outwardly marred by such grief for the woes of human life, the heart grows inwardly in serene spiritual beauty. Never was this more impressively illustrated than in the life of the “Man of sorrows,” whose “visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14; Isaiah 53:3).

These great underlying ideas of Koheleth, and the manner in which they appear, form its most peculiar characteristic. It is its recognition that distinguishes the thoughtful reader from the one who would flippantly characterize the style of the book as homely, and its thoughts as confused and common-place. These immutable truths may be compared to a strong and clear under current of most serious thinking, rising, at times, above the fluctuating experiences that appear upon the surface, and as constantly losing themselves in the deeper flow. It is the feeling of this under current that may be said to form the subjective band of thought. It furnishes the true ground of that rich suggestiveness which pervades the whole composition, and thus constitutes an important element of its poetical character. In giving a rhythmical version, however plain, to such a book as Koheleth, it should be borne in mind that some degree of inversion as well as measured or parallelistic movement, is among the demands of the poetical style in all languages. Such inversion, however, exists to a much less degree in the Hebrew, than in the Latin and Greek, and may, therefore, be more easily represented in English. In truth, a version may he made more clear, and more literal, as well as more musical, in this very way. It may sometimes be accomplished by a faithful following of the original in its scantiness as well as in its fulness. Our English version of the Bible inserts in italics the substantive verb where it is not in the Hebrew. It does this, often, to the marring of the thought, and the enfeebling of the emotion: “From everlasting unto everlasting thou art;” how much more forcible, and, at the same time, more rhythmical, the literal following of the Hebrew: from everlasting thou. This may seem a very slight difference, but the effect on a wide seale, had such literal following been constantly practised, would have been very strongly felt. “Vanity of vanities,” says our English version, “all is vanity.” Leave out the useless substantive verb: “Vanity of vanities, all—vanity.” A very slight change again, but it has more effect for the ear, as well aa for the feeling. It is no longer an abstract, dogmatic affirmation, but an exclamation of wonder. Intensive phrases, however, generally refuse a strict verbal rendering, unless they have become naturalized, as it were, in our language, through a long used literal translation of the Scriptures, or in any other way. Thus that oft-repeated “vanity of vanities” (the Hebrew use of the construct, state with the plural for something superlative) may stand as it does, instead of being rendered “most vain,” or “utterly vain.” So again for the Hebrew סוֹבֵב סבֵֹב (1:6), the most literal is the best sounding, as well as the most forcible translation: “Whirling, whirling,” or “round, round,”—“round about, round about”—instead of our tame and prosaic rendering: “it whirleth about continually,” or the still poorer Vulgate: Lustrans universa in circuitu. In other cases, a verbal rendering will not do at all; and yet in some way, must their intensiveness be given, or it is no true translation,—that is, no translation, or setting over, of what is most essential, which, in such a book as Koheleth, is the emotion, the state of soul, rather than the bare description orethical thought. Thus, for example, in the Hebrew, the plural is sometimes used to express what is superlative or very great; as in chap. 2:8, the expression שִׁדָּה וְשִׁדּוֹת which, in our English version is most strangely rendered, “musical instruments and that of all sorts.” The best Jewish authority regarded שִׁדָּה as the feminine of שַׁד, the common word for the breast, used here (the only case of its occurrence) as more feminine and voluptuous, and representative of Solomon’s numerouswives and concubines. See Kimchi, and Aben Ezra who cites as a parallel phrase, רַחַם רַחֲמָתָים (“a damsel or two,” expressed euphemistically) Judges 5:30. Now render this literally, “a breast and breasts,” and how tame it sounds; how bare is it of all emotion ! We want something to express this intensive sense, be it an intensive particle, or any other intensive word—“the breast, yea, many breasts,”—the seven hundred fair female bosoms on which Solomon, in “the days of his vanity,” had the choice of reposing. The manner of saying it, and the feeling with which it is said, would furnish no slight argument that it is a real, and not merely a representative Solomon, who is speaking here. Sometimes this emotion, this intensity, is expressed, or rather suggested, simply by the rhythmical form of the translation, even though it be of the slightest kind;—the inverted or measured style immediately indicating such an emotional state of soul, as other language, in another order, would not have done. For all these reasons, it is no paradox to assert, that a rhythmical version of the book, such as is here attempted, may be the most true and literal, placing the reader’s soul in some degree of harmony with that of the writer, not only as regards the general subject, but also in respect to the true thought and feeling of particular passages. To answer this purpose, there is need only of such a degree of inversion as our language most easily admits, and which might have been much more freely used than it has been in our common version. Such a style, freely employed in rendering all the poetical books, would have become naturalized in English through this very means. It might have been called prose, but would have had much more of the power of the poetical, and would have enabled us, whilst rendering most literally, to have entered more deeply into the thought of the sacred books through the emotion which is such an essential accompaniment of the thought, and of which a poor prose translation almost wholly divests it. In addition to this more inverted style, there is required only the simplest iambic movement, made as smooth as possible, but without much regard to the equality of the lines. The Version accompanying may be open to criticism in these respects, but the effect would, in fact, be weakened by having it too labored, even if that could be consistent with literalness. In short, there is wanted, for such a purpose, just enough of rhythm to arrest the attention, and set the mind in the direction of the inward harmony, without occupying it with an excessive artificialness. On these accounts it is hoped that the attempted rhythmical version will give the reader a better view, by giving him a better feeling of Koheleth (both as a whole, and in its parts) than can come from the very homely and defective prose translation of our English Bible, or even from the Germanof Zöckler, which is rhythmical only in appearance; since it simply follows the Hebrew accents in the divisions of the parallelisms, which are less evident in this book than in other parts of the Bible styled poetical. In the version offered, there is very little of what can be called addition or paraphrase. Some few places there are, in which brief explanatory words have been placed in parenthetical brackets, but they are not used to any greater extent than the explanations and connections that are found in the marginal readings of our English Version. These additions, though marked by enclosing lines, are included in the measured movement, and may, therefore, be read without interrupting it. They show the connections of thought, which are virtually in the Hebrew, in cases, often, where a verbal translation would fail to exhibit the full power of its conciseness. In such instances they are not additions, nor explanatory paraphrases, but genuine parts of a true translation. In other cases, the mere inversion discloses the association of thought, which we fail to see in the common rendering, because its unhebraical order divests certain words of that emphasis through which the connection is plainly marked in the original—more plainly, sometimes, than by any logical terms of assertion. The measure employed is the Iambic, with occasional use of the Choriambus. The most usual lines are the pentameter, or the common English blank verse line, the Iambic of seven feet, the most musical of our English measures, with, occasionally, the less musical, because less used, Senarius. The shorter lines, of three or four feet, are used for the transitions and cadences which mark the flow of thought. One who carefully compares it with the original will see that the translation here attempted keeps to the Hebrew accentual divisions, with very rare exceptions, and, in most cases, (although a somewhat difficult task) to the measure of their verbal conciseness. Some few parts are regarded as bare prose, and are given accordingly, such as the first verse of the book, the passages from ver. 12 to ver. 14, and verses 16 and 17, of the first chapter, as also verses 9 and 10 of the twelfth chapter. These are viewed as simply introductory to what follows. Without at all affecting our view of the authenticity and inspiration of the book, they may be regarded as scholiastic prologues, or epilogues, made by some other hand, as explanatory of the whole poem, or of some particular things in it; as, for example, verses 9 and 10 of chap. 12 seem to be an added note (by some enthusiastic admirer, himself divinely guided) to show that Solomon’s own language answers the description given in verse 11 that follows, beginning: “words of the wise, etc.” The reader will find remarks on these, both by Zöckler and the editor, in their respective places.—T. L.] METRICAL VERSION

____________ SAYINGS OF KOHELETH SON OF DAVID, KING IN JERUSALEM

____________

N. B.—The marginal numbers denote the chapters and verses of the common English Version. The smaller figures in the text refer to the brief notes in the margin, explanatory of differences between this and the common Version, or referring to pages where such explanations may be found.

I The introductory Thought and constant Refrain. Continual cyclical changes in Nature and in Human Life. Nothing new beneath the sun

Chapter I ²O vanity of vanities! Koheleth saith;

O vanity of vanities! all—vanity.

³     at gain to man in all his toil, he toils beneath the sun?

⁴One generation goes, another comes; But the earth for the world[3] abides.

⁵     Outbeams[4] the sun, and goes beneath, the sun;

Then to his place, all panting,[5] glowing,—there again is he.

⁶     Goes to the South, the wind, then round to North again;

Still round and round it goes; And in its circuits evermore returns the wind.

⁷The rivers all are going to the sea; And yet the sea is never full;

Whence came the rivers, thither they return to go.

⁸All words⁶ but labor; man can never utter it. With seeing, eye is never satisfied; With hearing, ear is never filled.

⁹     What was is what again shall be;

What has been made, is that which shall be made;

There’s nothing new beneath the sun.

¹⁰     Is there a thing of which, its said, Lo this is new?

It hath already been in worlds that were before.

¹¹Of former things the memory is gone; Of things to come shall no remembrance be With those that shall come after.

II

Koheleth gives an account of himself, his kingly estate, his pre-eminence in Wisdom and experience, with meditations on the fruitlessness of human efforts, and the sorrows of knowledge. Prose mingled with verse.

Chapter I

^{12, 13}I Koheleth was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I set my heart to seek and to explore by wisdom all that is done beneath the sun,—That painful study which God has given to weary with.

¹⁴I looked on all the works performed beneath the sun; And Lo! all vanity, a chasing⁷ of the wind.

¹⁵That which is crooked cannot be made straight; The lacking can’t be numbered.

¹⁶     Then said I in my heart, Lo ! I have become great; I have increased in wisdom beyond

¹⁷all before me in Jerusalem; my heart hath seen much wisdom, and knowledge. Yea, I set my heart to know wisdom,—to know vain glory, too, and folly. This also did I see to be a caring for the wind.

¹⁸For in much of wisdom there is much of grief; And who increaseth knowledge, still increaseth sorrow.

III The Attempt to unite Pleasure and Wisdom—Figure of the Unruly Horse—The reining of the Flesh—The Heart guiding as Charioteer—Koheleth’s ample means for tho Experiment—Its wretched Failure—All Vanity.

Chapter II ¹Then said I in my heart again—

Go to—I’ll try thee now with pleasure.

Behold the Good. This, too, was vanity.

²Of laughter, said I, it is mad; Of mirth—O what availeth it?

³Then in my heart I made deep search,— To rein⁸ my flesh in wine; My heart in wisdom guiding; To take near hold of folly, till I saw What kind of good is that for Adam’s sons “Which they would get, the numbered days they live, Beneath the heavens.

⁴     Great works I did.

Houses I builded, vineyards did I plant, ⁵Gardens and parks; fruit trees of every kind ⁶I planted there. I made me water pools, To water thence the wood luxuriant⁹ of trees.

⁷     I gat me serving men, and serving women;

Thralls of my house were born to my estate;

Whilst store of cattle, yea of flocks were mine, Surpassing all before me in Jerusalem.

⁸     I gathered to me also silver—gold,—

Treasures of kings, the wealth of provinces.

I gat me singing men, and singing women. That choice delight of Adam’s sons was mine,— The breast¹⁰—yea many breasts.

⁹So I was great, and grew in greatness more than all Who were before me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also still stood firm to me.

¹⁰Of all mine eyes did ask I nought refused. My heart I held not back from any joy. For joyful was my heart in all my toil. And this my portion was from all my toil ¹¹Then looked I to the work my hands had wrought The labor I had labored in the doing; And Lo! all vanity—a chasing of the wind; No gain beneath the sun.

IV

Contemplation of Wisdom and Folly—Koheleth is sure that Wisdom far excels Folly—But he Is puzzled to see how slight the practical Difference in Life—One seeming Chance to all—All alike forgotten—Koheleth’s Grief—His Hatred of Life and Discontent.

Chapter II ¹²Again I turned to think of wisdom, madness, folly; For what shall he do who succeeds the king?

[What else than] that which they have done already.

¹³As light excels the darkness, so I thought[11] There surely must be gain to wisdom over folly.

¹⁴The wise man’s eyes are in his head [they say[12]], The fool in darkness walketh. And yet I know that one event awaits them all.

¹⁵Then said I in my heart Like the fool’s chance so hath it chanced to me; And wherefore, then, am I the wiser?

I told my heart, this, too, was vanity.

¹⁶     As of the fool, so also of the wise;

There’s no remembrance that abides forever;¹³ In that the days are coming—have already come— When all is clean forgotten.

Alas!¹⁴ how is it that the wise should die as dies the fool!

¹⁷And then I hated life. For grievous seemed the work performed beneath the sun, Since all is vanity—a chasing of the wind.

¹⁸I hated also all the labor I had wrought. For I must leave it to a man who shall come after me.

¹⁹     Will he be wise or foolish? who can know?

Yet he will rule in all for which I’ve toiled, In all I’ve wisely planned beneath the sun.

This, too, was vanity.

V Koheleth’s Desperation—All vanity again.

Chapter II ²⁰Thus I revolved¹⁵ until it made my heart despair, Of all the labor I had wrought beneath the sun.

²¹For so it is; there’s one whose toil is evermore In wisdom, knowledge, rectitude; And then to one who never toiled he yields it as his prize.

O this is vanity—an evil very sore.

²²For what remains to man in all his labor? In all his heart’s sore travail, as he toil beneath the sun?

²³     Since all his days are pain, his occupation grief.

This, too, is vanity.

VI The true Good not in the power of man—Who could more to find it than Koheleth! All the gift of God.

Chapter II ²⁴The good is not in¹⁶ man that he should eat and drink, And find his soul’s enjoyment in his toil.

This, too, I saw, is only from the hands of God.

²⁵For who could more indulge? Who faster, farther, run¹⁷ (in such a race) than I?

²⁶To him who "hath found favor in His sight Doth God give wisdom, knowledge, joyfulness; But to the sinner gives He travail sore, To hoard and gather for the man whom he approves.

This, too, was vanity—a caring for the wind.

VII A time for every thing. The great world time, or world problem, which men can never find out.

Chapter III ¹To every thing there is a time, A season fit, to every purpose under heaven;

²A time to be born—a time to die, A time to plant—a time to dig up what is planted, ³A time to kill—a time to heal, A time to break—a time to build again, ⁴A time to weep—a time to laugh, A time to mourn—a time to dance, ⁵A time to scatter stones—a time to gather them again, A time to embrace—a time to refuse embracing, ⁶A time to seek—a time to lose, A time to keep—a time to cast away, ⁷A time to rend—a time to sew, A time to hold one’s peace—a time to speak, ⁸A time to love—a time to hate, A time of war—a time of peace.

⁹     What gain to him who works, in that for which he labors?

¹⁰I saw the travail God hath given the sons of men, That they should toil therein.

¹¹Each in its several time, hath He made all things fair; The world-time¹⁸ also hath He given to human thought;

Yet so, that man, of God’s great work, can never find, The end from the beginning.

VIII In worldly things, enjoyment mi success the only good proposed. This God’s gift. The Inquisition of the Past.

Chapter III ¹²There is no other good in them, I know, But to enjoy, and to do well in life;

¹³Yea, more,—to every man, That he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in his toil—

Even this is God’s own gift.

¹⁴For all God’s work, I know, is for eternity.[19] No adding to it—from it no diminishing. And this He does that men may fear before Him.

¹⁵What was is present now; The future has already been; And God demands again the ages fled.²⁰

IX The Injustice in the world God’s sure Judgement—God’s trial at men to prove them—Human Life and its Destiny at judged by human conduct—“Man who in honor and abideth not is like the beasts that parish”—One chance, seemingly, to all.

Chapter III ¹⁶Again I looked beneath the sun— The place of judgment—wickedness was there. The place of righteousness—I saw injustice there.

¹⁷Then said I in my heart: The righteous and the wicked God will judge. For there‚²¹ too, unto every purpose, and for every work, ¹⁸There is a time appointed. This said I in my heart—because of Adam’s sons— When God shall try them—for themselves to see That they—in their own estimation²²—are as beasts.

¹⁹(So seems it)—one event for man, for beast,—one doom for all. As dieth this, so dieth that—one breath is for them all.

There is no pre-eminence to man above the beast.

Since all is vanity.

²⁰     Unto one place (the earth) go all alike.

All come from earth, and all to earth return.

²¹For who (among them) is it that discerns,[23] The spirit of the man that goeth up on high, The Spirit of the beast that downward goes to earth?

²²And so I saw there was (for them)[24] no higher good Than that a man should joy in his own work, Since this his portion is. For who shall take him there to see What shall be after him?

X

Koheleth turns again—The sight of oppression changes the view—The Dead seem better off than the Living—Labor, when it prospers, only a source of envy—The envious fool’s content in his idleness.

Chapter IV ¹And then I turned again—

I looked on all the oppressions done beneath the sun. For Lo! the tears of the oppressed, who had no comforter;

Whilst on the oppressors’ side was power, to them no comforter.

²O then I praised the dead who died long since, More than the living men who now survive.

³Ah! better than them both is that which hath not been, Nor ever seen the evil work performed beneath the sun.

⁴Again I thought of toil as prospering in its work, That this is cause of hate to one man from his neighbor.

Yea, this is vanity, a caring for the wind.

⁵     The fool (in envy) folds his hands and his own flesh devours.

⁶For better (saith he)²⁵ is the one hand full of quietness, Than both hands fall of toil and windy vain desire.

XI Another vanity—The lone Miser—The good of Society.

Chapter IV ⁷I turned to look again beneath the sun— And Lo! another vanity!

⁸There is one alone; he has no mate, no son or brother near, And yet there is no end to all his toil. With wealth his eyes are never satisfied.

Ah me!²⁶ for whose sake do I labor so? Or why do I keep back my soul from joy?

O this is vanity and travail sore.

⁹Better are two than one, for then there is to them A good reward in all their toil.

¹⁰For if they fall, the one shall raise his friend. But woe to him who falls alone, with none to lift him up.

¹¹If two together lie, they both have heat; But how shall one be warm alone?

¹²If one be stronger, two shall stand against him. Nor quickly can the triple cord be broken.

XII

Changes in the individual and political life—The lowly exalted, the high abased—Changes in the world-life—The passing generations.

Chapter IV ¹³Better the child, though he be poor, if wise, Than an old and foolish king, who heeds no longer warning.

¹⁴For out of bondage comes the one to reign; The other, in a kingdom²⁷ born, yet suffers poverty.

¹⁵     I saw the living all, that walked in pride[28] beneath the sun.

I saw the second birth²⁹ that in their place shall stand.

¹⁶No end to all the people that have gone before; And they who still succeed, in them³⁰ shall find no joy.

This, too, is vanity, a chasing of the wind.

XIII

Reverence in worship—In speaking—Observance of vows. Against superstition, dreams and fortune-telling—Fear God alone.

Chapter V.

N. B.—In the Hebrew this chapter begins with ver. 2.

¹     O keep thy foot when to the house of God thou goest.

Draw nigh to hear.

’Tis better than to give the sacrifice of fools; For they know not that they are doing evil.^{31 2}O be not hasty with thy mouth, nor let thy heart be rash To utter words before the face of God. For God in heaven dwells, thou here on earth.

Be, therefore, few thy words.

³As in the multitude of care there comes the dream, So, with its many words, the voice of fools.

⁴     When thou hast made a vow to God, defer not to fulfill.

He has no delight in fools—pay, then, as thou hast vowed.

⁵     ’Tis better that thou shouldst not vow, than vow and not perform.

⁶Give not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; Nor say before the angel:³² “ ’twas an error.”

Wherefore should God be angry at thy voice? And why the labors of thy hands destroy ?

⁷Though dreams abound and vanities, presagings numberless, Yet fear thou God.

XIV Be not stumbled at sight of oppression and oppressors—There are Higher Powers than they—And God is over all:

Chapter V.

⁸     When, in a province, thou beholdest the oppression of the poor,—

Bold robbery of judgment and of right; At such allowance marvel not.

Since One most high, above all height, is keeping watch.

Yes—there be higher³³ far than they.

⁹For every (rank) has profit from the soil, The king himself owes³⁴ homage to the field.

XV Wealth never satisfies—The laborer’s contented sleep.

Chapter V ¹⁰Who silver loves, with silver ne’ er is satisfied, Nor he who loves increase of wealth, with revenue. This is another vanity:

¹¹When wealth increases, they increase who spend; And what the owner’s gain, except to see it with his eyes?

¹²     Sweet is the laborer’s slumber, be it less he eat or more;

Whilst the abundance of the rich permits him not to sleep.

XVI Another sore evil—The hoarding miser, who loses his wealth and dies poor—Darkness, Sickness, and Wrath.

Chapter V.

¹³          There is another grievous woe I’ve seen beneath the sun,—

Wealth hoarded to its owner’s hurt.

¹⁴With the sore travail (it had cost)³⁵ that wealth departs; The son whom he begets is left with nothing in his hand.

¹⁴Then bare, as from his mother’s womb he issued forth, Doth he return (to earth) poor as he came, And nothing takes he of his toil to carry with him there.

¹⁶O a sore evil this! In all points as he came, so shall he go, And what his profit that he thus should labor for the wind?

¹⁷     Yea, all his days doth he in darkness eat.

Abundant sorrow, sickness too is his,³⁶ and chafing wrath.

XVII The Summing up of Koheleth’s experience—The true Good, the Good that is fair—The ability to see good in anything is God’s own gift—“His favor is more than life”—Makes the mere enjoyment of life little remembered.

Chapter V.

¹⁸          And now behold what I have seen!

Good³⁷ that is fair, to eat and drink, and see the good In all the toil that one may toil beneath the sun, The number of the days that God has given ¹⁹To be his portion here—yea, every man, As God has given him wealth and great estate, And power to eat thereof, To bear his portion, and be joyful in his toil— This good³⁸ (I say) is God’s own gift.

²⁰For little will he call to mind, the days that he has lived, When God doth thus respond to him in joyfulness of heart.

XVIII

Koheleth turns again to the dark side—The rich man to whom God has not given the true good—compared to the untimely birth—He who vainly lives, less blessed than the vainly born

Chapter VI.

¹Another evil have I seen beneath the sun, And great it is to man;

²There is one whom God endows with wealth, And store of goods, and glorious estate; Who nothing lacks of all his soul desireth, Yet God gives him no power to eat thereof; For one, an alien³⁹ born, devoureth it;

This, too, is vanity, a very sore disease.

³     Though one beget a hundred sons—though he live many years,—

Yea, though to countless days his life extends— His soul unsatisfied with good, and he no burial have; The untimely born, I said, is better sure than he.

⁴For though⁴⁰ in vanity it comes, and into darkness goes,— And darkness cover deep its name,—

⁵     Though⁸ it hath never seen the sun, nor aught hath ever known,—

Yet better rests (the vainly born) than He [who vainly lived];

⁶Yea, though he lived a thousand years twice told, Yet never saw the good.

Unto one place, go not all men alike?⁸

XIX

Unsatisfactoriness of human life and efforts—To the Wise, the Fool, the Poor—Content better than the Wandering of the soul—The frailty and earthliness of man as indicated by his name Adam—He cannot strive with his Maker—Multiplication of words—They only increase vanity.

Chapter VI ⁷All toil of man is ever for his mouth; And yet the appetite is never filled.

⁸     What profit to the wise (’tis asked)⁴¹ beyond the fool?

What to the poor, though knowing how to walk before the living?

⁹     Better the eyes beholding (say)¹⁰ than wandering of the soul.

This, too, is vanity.

¹⁰     What each thing is, its name was named of old;

Known thus for what he is,⁴² is Adam (named from earth); And that he cannot strive with One so far in might excelling.

¹¹     Though many words there are, in vain they multiply;

What profit then to man ?

¹²For who knows what is good for man in life, The number of the days of his vain life, He spendeth like a shadow gone ? For who can tell to man What shall be after him beneath the sun ?

XX The sorrowful aspects of life bettor than the jovial—Better than the song of fools the chidings of the wise—Here, too, there is vanity—Since insolence of station and bribery may cause even the wise to err.

Chapter VII ¹Better the honored name than precious oil;

Better the day of death than that of being born.

²     Better to visit sorrow’s house than seek the banquet hall;

Since that (reveals) the end of every man, And he who lives should lay it well to heart, ³Better is grief than mirth; For in the sadness of the face the heart becometh⁴³ fair.

⁴The wise man’s heart is in the house of mourning; The fool’s heart in the house of mirth.

⁵Better to heed the chiding of the wise Than hear the song of fools.

⁶For like the sound of thorns beneath the pot, So is the railing laughter of the fool.

This, too, is vanity.

⁷For even the wise may arrogance⁴⁴ inflate, A bribe his heart corrupt.

XXI

Sundry maxims—The end determines—Be patient—Fret not—No mark of Wisdom to praise the past—In Wealth there is defence of life, in knowledge life itself—In prosperity be joyful—In adversity be thoughtful—God hath set one over against the other.

Chapter VII.

⁸     Better the issue of a thing than the beginning.

Better the patient than the proud in soul.

⁹O be not hasty in thy spirit angrily to grieve; For in the bosom of the fool such anger ever dwells.

¹⁰     Say not, why is it, days of old were better days than these ?

’Tis not from wisdom comes such questioning.

¹¹Wisdom is fair with fair inheritance;⁴⁵ And gain excelling hath it then for men.

¹²In Wisdom’s shade, as in the shade of Wealth, [Defence of life]⁴⁶; but knowledge hath pre-eminence (in this), That wisdom giveth life to its possessor.

¹³Survey the works of God; For who can make that straight which He hath left deformed?

¹⁴In days of good, be thou of joyful heart; In evil days, look forth (consider thoughtfully) How God hath set the one against the other, That aught of that which cometh after man may never find.

XXII

Koheleth’s sad experience—the wicked prospering—the good depressed. Over-righteousness—Be not too knowing—The fear of God the only safety—Wisdom stronger than strength—None righteous, no, not one—Heed not slanders.

Chapter VII.

¹⁵Much have I seen, of all kinds,⁴⁷ in my days of vanity. The righteous man who perished in his righteousness; The wicked man, with life prolonged in wickedness.

¹⁶     Nor over-righteous be, nor over-wise;

     For why thyself confound ?

¹⁷     Nor over-wicked be, nor play the fool;

     Why die before thy time ?

¹⁸Better hold fast the one, nor from the other draw thy hand; But he alone who feareth God comes out unscathed⁴⁸ from all.

¹⁹One wise man there may be whom wisdom stronger makes, Than ten the mightiest captains in the city;

²⁰But one,⁴⁹ a righteous man, on earth is never found, Who doeth always good and sinneth not.

²¹     [Learn this] too, give not heed to every word that flies;

Lest thine own servant thou shouldst hear reviling thee;

²²For many the time, as thine own soul well knows, That thou thyself hast other men reviled.

XXIII

Koheleth’s desire to learn the great past. He then turns to seek wisdom in human life. The evil woman—A good one hard to find—One man in a thousand. Man made upright; now fallen.

Chapter VII.

²³     All this have I essayed for wisdom’s sake.

O that I might be wise, I said, but it was far from me;

²⁴     Far off—the past, what is it ?⁵⁰ deep—that deep, O, who can sound ?

²⁵Then turned I, and my heart, to learn, explore, To seek out wisdom, reason—sin to know,—

Presumption,—folly,—vain impiety.

²⁶Than death more bitter did I find the wife Whose heart is nets and snares, whose hands are chains. The blest of God from her shall be delivered; The sinner shall be taken.

²⁷     Behold, this have I found, Koheleth saith;

[As reckoning] one by one, to sum the account;

²⁸     That which my heart was ever seeking though I found it not:

Out of a thousand, one man have I found;

Amidst all these, one woman seek I still.

²⁹This only have I found—behold it,—God made man upright; But they have sought devices numberless.

XXIV

Wisdom lighteth up the face. Koheleth’s kingly admonition—Submission to right authority. The rebellious spirit—Safety of obedience.

Chapter VIII.

¹     Who like the wise, or him who knows the reason of a thing ?

Man’s wisdom lighteth up his face,—its aspect stern is changed.

²I, a king’s mouth (do speak it),⁵¹ heed it well; By reason, also, of the oath of God;

³In anger, from the [ruler’s] presence hasten not; Nor boldly stand in any evil thing; For that which he hath purposed will he do.

⁴Where’er the mandate of a king, there, too, is power; And who shall say to him, what doest thou ?

⁵     Who simply keeps the statute knows⁵² no harm;

Yet still, the wise in heart doth time and judgment heed.

XXV

Man’s evil great, yet reason and justice in it all—No resistance in the warfare with death. Impotency of wickedness.

Chapter VIII.

⁶For surely unto every purpose is there time and judgment fixed, Although⁵³ man’s evil be so great upon him, ⁷Unknowing, as he is, of all that is to come. For how it shall be, who is there to tell him ?

⁸Over the spirit, none has power to hold it back; No strength availeth in the day of death; For in that warfare there is no release; And wickedness is impotent to free the sinner there.

XXVI A close survey—Power hurtful to its possessors—The wicked rulers dead—Buried in Pomp—Forgotten.

Chapter VIII.

⁹This too I saw—’twas when I gave my heart To every work that’s, done beneath the sun— That there’s a time when man rules over man to his own hurt.

¹⁰’Twas when I saw the wicked dead interred; And to and from⁵⁴ the holy place (men) came and went;

Then straight were they forgotten in the city of their deeds.

Ah! this was vanity.

XXVII

Human presumption arising from impunity—Judgment slow but sure—No good to the sinner notwithstanding appearances—“Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him—Joy to the righteous, it shall be well with him.”

Chapter VIII.

¹¹Since sentence on an evil work is not done speedily, Therefore the hearts of Adam’s sons are filled with thoughts of wrong.

¹²Yet though the sinner sin a hundred times, with life prolonged, Still know I this—it shall be well with those who worship God,— Who stand in awe before Him.

¹³But for the sinner there is nothing good; Nor shall he lengthen out his days that like a shadow (flee), This man who hath no fear (to sin) before the face of God.

XXVIII

Koheleth’s faith grows weak again—He stumbles at the sight of the same seeming chance to all—It is then that he extols pleasure—No good except to eat, etc.

Chapter VIII.

¹⁴’Tis vanity, what’s done upon the earth, for so it is, That there are righteous unto whom it haps as to the vile, And sinners, too, whose lot is like the doings of the just. For surely this is vanity, I said.

¹⁵     ’Twas then⁵⁵ that pleasure I extolled :

How that there was no good to man beneath the sun;

Except to eat, and drink, and here his joy to find; And this alone attends him in his toil, During all the days of life that God has given beneath the sun.

XXIX The mystery deepens—No human philosophy can solve the problem of life—We can only say, “all things are in the hands of God:” Human Love and Hatred—The unknown All as it bears upon all—The seeming outward confusion in moral states—The still greater invisible evil in the hearts of men—Then to the unknown after state—Hope in the living—The highest form of death inferior to the lowest life.

Chapter VIII.

¹⁶According as I gave my heart to know what wisdom was, And to explore the travail sore that’s done upon the earth, [So sore that day and night the eyes no slumber take] ¹⁷’Twas then I saw that man can never find the work of God; That work which now is going on beneath the sun. For though one labor in the search, his search is all in vain.

Yea, though the sage⁵⁶ may boast his knowledge, still he finds it not.

Chapter IX.

¹     For this before my heart I set—all this to understand—

Even this (great mystery) how that the righteous and the wise, With all their works, are in the hands of God. Their love, their hatred too; man knows it not, the all⁵⁷ that lies before him;

²The all according as it is to all—one fate to all— The just, the vile, the good, the pure, the one with sin defiled; To him who offers sacrifice—to him who gives it not; As to the good, so unto him that sins; As to the perjured, so to him who fears to break his oath.

³Yes, this the evil sore in all that’s done beneath the heavens: That thus one doom should come to all alike. And then, so full of evil are the hearts of Adam’s sons !

Yea, madness in their hearts, whilst they do live;

Then to the dead they go.

⁴For there is hope in one whose life still joins⁵⁸ the living throng. To a living dog there’s greater worth than to a lion dead.

XXX

Koheleth’s views of the stats of the dead—Not as a state of extinction, but as opposed to the present active, loving, hating, scheming life—The unknown state of being to which there is no participation in the works of this world “beneath the sun.”

Chapter IX.

⁵The living know that they must die, the dead they nothing know. For them there is no more reward, forgotten is their name.

⁶     Their hate, their love, their zeal, all perished now;

Whilst the world lasts, no portion more have they, In all the works performed beneath the sun.

XXXI On this there follows a strain of sorrowing irony—[In language the opposite of 1 Cor. 7:29]—Alas O man!—If it be all of life to live—Then go thy way, eat, drink thy wine—There is no judgment—God accepts thy works—Get all the good thou canst out of “thy day of vanity”—There is no work or scheme in Sheol. Comp. Wisdom of Solomon, 2:6.

Chapter IX.

⁷Go then, with gladness eat thy bread, and merrily drink thy wine, For God already hath accepted all thy works.

⁸In every season be thy garments white, And oil be never wanting to thy head.

⁹Live joyful with the wife whom thou hast loved, During all the days of thy vain life,—that life⁵⁹ Which God hath given to thee beneath the sun—

Yea, all thy days of vanity. For this thy only portion is in life, And in thy weary toil which thou hast toiled beneath the sun.

¹⁰Do then whate’er thy hand shall find in thine own might⁶⁰ to do, For there’s no work, no plan, no knowledge, no philosophy⁶¹, In Sheol, where thou goest.

XXXII

Koheleth turns again—He revises and retracts what had been said—All such advice to live merrily is vain, because there is no certainty in human affairs, and human efforts-—All Wisdom, therefore, and all resolving to be happy may be in vain.

Chapter IX ¹¹I turned again to look beneath the sun. Not to the swift the race I saw, nor victory to the strong, Nor to the wise secure their bread, nor to the prudent wealth, Nor favor to the knowing ones, but time and doom to all.

¹²     For man knows not his time.

Like fishes taken in the net, or like to birds ensnared, So are the sons of Adam snared when comes the evil hour, And falls upon them suddenly, unwarned.

XXXIII

Koheleth gives an historical example of the little avail that wisdom is to its possessor, yet still protesting its desirableness, and its intrinsic superiority to strength and weapons of war—How sin and folly, too, may render it ineffectual, and even turn it to evil.

Chapter IX ¹³This, too, I saw, a mystery⁶² great [to me] beneath the sun:

¹⁴A little city—few its men—a monarch great invading, With hosts surrounds, and builds against it mighty mounds of siege.

¹⁵A man was found therein, a poor man, yet most-wise. This man the city by his wisdom saved;

Yet no one did that poor wise man remember.

¹⁶     Then said I, true it is, that wisdom’s more than strength;

Yet see—the poor man’s wisdom—how despised, his words unheard!

¹⁷Words of the wise! in quiet are they heard Beyond the shout of him who rules o’er fools.

¹⁸     Sure, wisdom is a better thing than instruments of war;

Though all its good so great one sinner may destroy.

Chapter IX ¹Like as dead flies, with frothy taint, the fragrant oil corrupt, So taints⁶³ a little folly, one for worth and wisdom famed.

XXXIV A series of moral meditations, having more of suggestive than of logical association—Their main drift, that men should employ their faculties in the best way they can, notwithstanding the little efficiency of human wisdom in seccuring good and avoiding evil.

Chapter IX ²The wise man’s heart is on his right, the fool’s heart on his left.

³Even by the way, as walks the fool, his understanding fails, And unto every one he meets, his folly he proclaims.

⁴     If e’er against thee swell the ruler’s rage, leave not thy place;

Though great the offence, the yielding spirit calms.

⁵Another evil have I seen beneath the sun : An error such as comes from princes’ favor;

⁶     Folly is set on high, the rich sit lowly on the ground.

⁷     Servants on horses mounted have I seen;—

Princes, like servants, walking on the earth.

XXXV There is danger, too, in the ordinary avocations of life.

Chapter X.

⁸Who digs a ditch himself may fall therein. Who breaks a hedge, a serpent there may bite him.

⁹He who removeth stones, gets hurt thereby, Who cleaveth trees, by them is put in peril.

¹⁰If dull the iron, and its edge he fails to sharpen well, Then greater force he needs,⁶⁴ and help of wise dexterity.

XXXVI The babbler—Speech of the wise—Of the foolish—Vain predictions.

Chapter X.

¹¹A serpent that without enchantment bites— So is the slanderer’s tongue; no gain hath it to its possessor.

¹²     Words of the wise man’s mouth,—they’re words of grace;

Lips of the fool,—the fool himself they swallow up;

¹³     His words in folly that began, in raving madness end.

¹⁴Predicting⁶⁵ words he multiplies; yet man can never know, The thing that shall be, yea, what cometh after who shall tell ?

¹⁵Vain toil of fools ! it wearieth him,—this man that knoweth naught That may befall his going to the city.⁶⁶

XXXVII

Evils of bad government—A blessing on the well-ruled State—Evils of slothfulness—The feast for joy—But money answers all—Revile not the powerful, or the rich.

Chapter X.

¹⁶     Woe unto thee, O land,—thy king a child,—

Thy nobles rising early to the feast.

¹⁷     Blessed art thou, O land,—thy king the son of princely sires,—

Thy nobles timely in their feasts, for strength,—not revelry.

¹⁸Through slothfulness the building goes to ruin; When hands hang down, the house lets⁶⁷ in the rain.

¹⁹For mirth do men prepare the feast, and wine to gladden life; But money is the power that answers all.

²⁰Not even in thy thought revile the king, Nor in thy chamber, dare to curse the rich; The bird of heaven shall carry forth the sound; The swift of wing the secret word reveal.

XXXVIII Be boldly liberal—Let nature have its course—But do thy present duty—The Spirit’s mysterious way—The secret of life known only to God—Be diligent and leave the issue to God—Life is sweet, but remember the day of darkness.

Chapter XI.

¹Upon the waters boldly cast thy bread; For thou shalt find it after many days.

²     To seven a portion give, yea, more, to eight;

Thou knowest not what evil may be coming on the land.

³     If clouds be full of rain, they pour it on the earth.

Whether to North, or South the tree shall fall, Where’er it falls, there shall it surely lie.

⁴He who observes the wind shall never sow. Who gazes on the clouds shall never reap.

⁵’Tis like the spirit’s way;⁶⁸ thou knowest it not; Or how the bones do grow within the pregnant womb;

Even so thou knowest not the way of God, Who worketh all.

⁶Then in the morning sow thy seed; Nor yet at evening stay thy hand. For which shall prosper, this or that, Or both alike shall profit bring, Lies all beyond thy ken.

⁷     Sweet is the light, and pleasant to the eye to see the sun.

⁸Yet if a man live many years, rejoicing in them all,⁶⁹ The days of darkness let him not forget, That they are many; all that cometh, still is vanity.

XXXIX

Youth warned of Judgment—Declared to be Vanity—Early Remembrance of the Creator—Old age and its gathering Darkness—The dissolving Earthly House. Figure of the Castle with its Keepers—Its men of Might—Its Purveyors, or Grinders—Its Watchmen—Its closing Gates—Fears of old age—Its Burdens—Its Hoary Hairs—Its failing Desire—The Beth Olam, or House of Eternity—Other Figures—The Broken Lamp—The Ruined Fountain—The Flesh to Dust—The Soul to God. The closing cry of Vanity—Hebel Hebalim—“A vapor that appeareth for a little while,” Jas. 4:14.

Chapter XI ⁹Rejoice O youth in childhood; let thy heart Still cheer thee in the day when thou art strong.⁷⁰ Go on in every way thy will shall choose, And after every form thine eyes behold; But know that for all this thy God will thee to judgment bring.

¹⁰O then, turn sorrow from thy soul, keep evil from thy flesh; For childhood and the morn⁷¹ of life, they, too, are vanity.

Chapter XII ¹Remember thy Creator, then, in days when thou art young;

Before the evil days are come, before the years draw nigh; When thou shalt say—delight in them is gone.

²Before the sun, the morning light,⁷² the moon, the stars, grow dark, And after rain the clouds again do evermore return;

³Before the keepers of the house do shake, Its men of might [its strong supporters] bend, And they who grind, in strength and numbers, fail; When darkness falls on them who from the turret windows watch;^{73 4}And closing are the doors that lead abroad;⁷⁴ When the hum⁷⁵ of the mill is sounding low, Though it rise⁷⁶ to the sparrow’s note, And voices⁶ loudest in the song, do all to faintness sink.

⁵When they shall be afraid of what is high; And terrors fill the way; And the almond⁷⁷ tree shall bloom, The insects’ weight oppress,⁷⁸ And all desire shall fail; For thus man goes to his eternal house,⁷⁹ Whilst round about the streets the mourners walk—

⁶Before the silver cord shall part,⁸⁰ the golden bowl be dashed, The bucket broken at the spring, the wheel at cistern crushed, ⁷And dust goes down to earth from whence it came, And soul returns again to Him who gave it at the first.

⁸O vanity of vanities, the preacher saith, O vanity of vanities ! all—vanity.

XL A prose Scholium by the general author, or compiler, praising the wisdom of Koheleth, and the excellence of his doctrine, with a closing poetic extract from the Solomonic meditations, as suitable to it. This is followed by the solemn conclusion to the whole as taken from the same ancient source.

Chapter XII

⁹     And moreover; Because the Preacher was wise,⁸¹ he continued to teach the people knowledge.

¹⁰     Yea, he gave an attentive ear, and sought out, and set in order, many parables. The Preacher sought to find acceptable words, and what he wrote was upright, even words of truth.

¹¹     Words of the wise! like piercing goads are they;

Like driven nails their gathered⁸² sentences, All from One Shepherd given. The Grand Conclusion ¹²Be warned, my son,—’tis only left to say— Of making many chapters⁸³ there’s no end; And thinking long is wearying to the flesh.

¹³     The great conclusion hear:

FEAR GOD AND HIS COMMANDMENTS KEEP, FOR THIS IS ALL OF MAN.

¹⁴For every work, yea, every secret deed, Both good and evil, God will surely into judgment bring.

Footnotes: 

[1] [Such common-places abound in the best poetry, ancient or modern. Often, when rightly set, they furnish its most precious gems. Especially is this the case with the more sombre and meditative poetry, as in Young’s Night Thoughts, and the more serious poems of Tennyson. “Many of the ideas of his In Memoriam,” says a certain critic, “are the merest common-places; strip them of their stilted verbiage, and there is nothing left but the most vapid truisms.” Such criticism is, itself, both vapid and shallow. Common ideas have their uncommon or wonderful aspects, which the common mind fails to see, or loses sight of because of their supposed commonness. Thus, time presents a very ordinary conception, but think of it in connection with its infinite past, its infinite future, its infinitesimal present, or as an immeasurable cycle repeating itself, and “demanding the ages fled,” as Koheleth represents it (chap. 1:10; 3:15), and how full of the most solemn awe, as well as the deepest personal interest. Take, for example, one of the most ordinary truisms that we find in almost every mouth: “The past is gone, we can never recall it.” How tame and prosaic it sounds when presented merely as a truth or dogma. But give it a subjective interest such as comes from the diction and association in which Young presents it, and how full of emotion!

Hark! ’this the knell of my departed hours; Where are they ? With the years beyond the flood; or as it appears in the Hebrew parallelism of Koheleth (chap. 7:24):

Far off! the past—where is it?

Deep! a deep, O who shall find it? Or as the kindred thought meets us in the musings of Tennyson : But the tender grace of a day that is dead, Will never come back to me. Of course, it will never come back. As a mere fact, or preceptive statement, we want no teacher, inspired or uninspired, to tell us that. But what, then, has changed the dry truism into a thought so full of the most touching interest that we read the simple lines over and over again, wondering at the strange power that is in them. It is in the rhythm, some would say. This is true, but not in the mere auricular sense. The rhythm has an effect, though the measure is of the simplest kind. It will be found, however, on analysis, to consist in the fact of its disposing the reader to the meditative or subjective state of soul. It sets the mind soliloquizing, unconsciously, as it were. It makes the thought and language seem, for the moment, as though they were the reader’s own. It brings the idea to him in its emotional rather than in its intellectual, or dogmatic, aspect. In other words, it presents the uncommon side of the seeming truism. It is not only a deep view of being in general, but it is one that belongs to himself; and this is the secret of his emotion.—T. L.]

[2] [The earlier Greek ideas, as manifested in their solemn dramatic poetry, before the Epicurean philosophy had been fully introduced, remind us strikingly, sometimes, of the language and ideas of the Bible. Nowhere else, out of the Scriptures, is this doctrine of retributive justice, and its awful certainty, more sternly set forth. The manner of expression, sometimes, shocks our more merciful Christian ideas; yet still we recognize in them the primitive dogma of the divine unfailing Justice, as inseparable from the divine Power and Wisdom:

ὴ παλαίφατος

ΔΊΚΗ ξύνεδρος Ζηνὸς ἀρχαίοις νόμοις:

Diké, renowned of old, Who shares, by ancient laws, the throne of Jove. soph (Ed., col.1381.—T. L.] [3]See P. 45.—

[4]P. 35, Text Note to 5:5—

[5]P. 38, note.—

[6]P. 39, and Text Note, pp. 35, 36.

[7]P. 36, Text Note to 5:14.

[8]P. 54, third note.—

[9]P. 56, first note.—

[10]P. 56, second note.

[11]P. 53, Text Note to 5:13—

[12]P. 58, proverbial saying.—

[13]P. 58, second note.—

[14]P. 58, third note. V.

[15]P. 59, second note.

[16]P. 60, note.—

[17]P. 61, third note.

[18]P. 67, note, also Excursus on Olamic Words.

[19]Words, p.51.—

[20]Excursus, p. 72.

[21]P. 69, note.—

[22]P. 70, 71, note.—

[23]P. 72, note.—

[24]The same.

[25]P. 81. 9.

[26]P. 81, second note. 12.

[27]Excursus, p. 84.—

[28]The same.—

[29]Excursus, p.85.

[30]The same.

[31]P. 89, and note p. 141.—

[32]P. 90, second note.

[33]P. 91, second note.—

[34]P. 92, note.

[35]P. 93, second note.—

[36]P. 94, note.

[37]P. 94, second note.—

[38]The same.

[39]P. 99, first note.

[40]P. 100, note also p. 177, Int. to Met. Ver.

[41]Question and Answer.—

[42]P. 101, note.

[43]P. 179, Int. to Met. Vers.—

[44]P. 106, note, and Text Note, p. 104.

[45]P. 107, first note.—

[46]P. 107, second note.

[47]P. 108, first note.—

[48]P. 109.—

[49]P. 109, third note.

[50]Note pp. 113,114.

[51]P. 113, Text Note to 5. 2.—

[52]P. 117, note.

[53]P. 118, first note.

[54]P. 119, note.

[55]P. 120, note.

[56]Pp. 67, 68, note.

[57]Vaihinger, p. 124, 2d col.—

[58]P. 125, 1st note.

[59]P. 126, second note.—

[60]Excursus II., p. 135, 1st col.—

[61]Excursus I., p. 131, 1st col.

[62]P. 127, note.—

[63]P. 138, note.

[64]P. 140.

[65]P. 141, note.—

[66]Pp. 141, 142, note.

[67]P. 143, second col.

[68]Excursus, p. 147.—

[69]P. 151, note.

[70]Pp. 151, 152, note.—

[71]P. 152, second col.—

[72]P. 154, first note—

[73]P. 155, first note—

[74]P. 155, second note.—

[75]P. 155, third note.—

[76]the same.

[77]P. 157, first note.—

[78]P. 157, second note.—

[79]Excursus, p. 158.—

[80]P. 160, second note.

[81]Notes 165, 166.—

[82]p.165, Text Note to v. 11.—

[83]P.168, first note, and Appendix to Int., p.30.