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1 |
1 So frail man’s life, woman-born, so full of trouble, 2 brief as a flower that blooms and withers, fugitive as a shadow, changing all the while; 3 and is he worth that watchfulness of thine, must thou needs call him to account? 4 (Who can cleanse what is born of tainted stock, save thou alone, who alone hast being?[1]) 5 Brief, brief are man’s days; thou keepest count of the months left to him, thou dost appoint for him the bound he may not pass. 6 And wilt thou not leave him undisturbed for a little, till the welcome day comes when drudgery is at an end? | 1 Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseriis. Qui quasi flos egreditur et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra, et numquam in eodem statu permanet. Et dignum ducis super hujuscemodi aperire oculos tuos, et adducere eum tecum in judicium? Quis potest facere mundum de immundo conceptum semine? nonne tu qui solus es? Breves dies hominis sunt: numerus mensium ejus apud te est: constituisti terminos ejus, qui præteriri non poterunt. Recede paululum ab eo, ut quiescat, donec optata veniat, sicut mercenarii, dies ejus. |
7 ἔστιν |
7 Were he but as the trees are! A tree has hope to live by: pollarded, it still grows green, and fresh branches spring from it. 8 Root and stock old and withered, down in the dusty earth, 9 but at the breath of water it revives, and the leaves come, as they came when it first was planted. 10 For us mortal men, death; a stripping, and a breathing out of the soul, and all is over. 11 Where is the sea, when its waters dry up, the river when its bed is empty? 12 So man falls asleep, never to rise again while heaven endures; from that sleep there is no waking, there is no rousing him. 13 Ah, if the grave were only a place of shelter, where thou wouldst hide me away until thy anger was spent, with a time appointed when thou wouldst bethink thyself of me again![2] 14 Ah, if the dead might live again! Then I could wait willingly enough, all the time of my campaigning, till I were relieved at my post; 15 thou wouldst summon me at last, and I would answer thy summons, thy creature, safe in thy loving hand![3] | 7 Lignum habet spem: si præcisum fuerit, rursum virescit, et rami ejus pullulant. Si senuerit in terra radix ejus, et in pulvere emortuus fuerit truncus illius, ad odorem aquæ germinabit, et faciet comam, quasi cum primum plantatum est. Homo vero cum mortuus fuerit, et nudatus, atque consumptus, ubi, quæso, est? Quomodo si recedant aquæ de mari, et fluvius vacuefactus arescat: sic homo, cum dormierit, non resurget: donec atteratur cælum, non evigilabit, nec consurget de somno suo. Quis mihi hoc tribuat, ut in inferno protegas me, et abscondas me donec pertranseat furor tuus, et constituas mihi tempus in quo recorderis mei? Putasne mortuus homo rursum vivat? cunctis diebus quibus nunc milito, expecto donec veniat immutatio mea. Vocabis me, et ego respondebo tibi: operi manuum tuarum porriges dexteram. |
16 ἠρίθμησας δέ |
16 So jealous a record thou keepest of every step I take, and hast thou never a blind eye for my faults? 17 Instead, must thou seal up every wrong-doing of mine, as in a casket; embalm the memory of my transgressions?[4] | 16 Tu quidem gressus meos dinumerasti: sed parce peccatis meis. Signasti quasi in sacculo delicta mea, sed curasti iniquitatem meam. |
18 |
18 Nay there is no help for it; mountain-side or cliff that begins to crumble scales away and vanishes at last, 19 water hollows into the hard rock, and floods wear away the firm ground at last, and thou hast made no less inevitable man’s doom. 20 His brief mastery thou takest away for ever; the lively hue changes, and he is gone. 21 His children rise to honour, sink to shame, and he none the wiser; 22 nothing man feels save the pains that rack him in life, the griefs that fret his soul.[5] | 18 Mons cadens defluit, et saxum transfertur de loco suo: lapides excavant aquæ, et alluvione paulatim terra consumitur: et hominem ergo similiter perdes. Roborasti eum paululum, ut in perpetuum transiret: immutabis faciem ejus, et emittes eum. Sive nobiles fuerint filii ejus, sive ignobiles, non intelliget. Attamen caro ejus, dum vivet, dolebit, et anima illius super semetipso lugebit. |
[1] In the Hebrew text, this verse reads simply, ‘Who can bring the clean from the unclean? Not one’; there is no agreement either as to the meaning of the phrase or as to its relevance in the discussion, and some think it has been accidentally misplaced.
[2] Cf. Gen. 8.1.
[3] The unfulfilled condition here expressed is represented in the Latin version as if it were something which is actually happen, but such a rendering is plainly out of harmony with the context.
[4] There has been much discussion over the meaning of these two verses, and over the position which they occupy in the argument. Some think they are part of the unfulfilled condition which goes before, and that the hiding away of man’s sin is represented as something desirable; others, that they express the actual condition of things, and that man’s sins are represented as treasured up against him, i.e., remaining unforgiven. Once again the suspicion arises that they really belong to a different context.
[5] The words ‘in life’ do not occur in the Hebrew text, and some think that the verse refers to the (entirely self-regarding) unhappiness of the soul after death.
Knox Translation Copyright © 2013 Westminster Diocese
Nihil Obstat. Father Anton Cowan, Censor.
Imprimatur. +Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster. 8th January 2012.
Re-typeset and published in 2012 by Baronius Press Ltd