Flentibus autem circa illum vicinis suis, sanctus Samson dixit “Videtis quod simulacrum vestrum non potest huic mortuo adjutorium dare? Si autem promittitis vos hoc idolum penitus destruere et non amplius adorare ego illum, Deo in me operante, redivivum resuscitabo.” Adquiescentibus autem illis, jussit eos paulo longius secedere, atque illo orante super exanimem per binas ferme horas, illum qui expiratus fuerat redivivum palam omnibus atque incolumem redidit. Videntibus autem illis, unanimes omnes una cum supradicto comite, procidentes ad sancti Samsonis pedes, idolum penitus destruxerunt.
The Reverend F. W. Paul, M.A., whose friendship it has been my privilege to share for half a century, has revised the translation on page 33. He has done so under protest. Incompetence, ignorance of monkish Latin and the corruptness of the text have been his pleas. The first no one will allow who knows him; the second is by no means uncommon; the third everyone will admit. L’Abbé Duine truly says of the _Vita Samsonis_ that _plusieurs constructions grammatical sont absolument barbares_. Mr. Paul has suggested the following emendations of the passage before us. Although drastic they appear worthy of consideration, unless they can be shown to run clean contrary to the habits of thought, the terminology and the rules of composition observed by writers of the seventh century. For quoddam phanum he would read _quendam phallum_; for mathematicum, _matrimonium_; for injecturam, _jecturâ_. We should then have in the latter part of the first sentence “he saw men worshipping a certain phallus after the custom of the Bacchantes by means of a lewd play,” and for _atque excusantibus illis malum non esse mathematicum eorum parentum in ludo servare_, “and when they said that there was no harm in their commemorating their parents’ wedlock in a play.” I have accepted _jecturâ_ for in jecturam and his translation of it. It is unfortunate that a critical edition of the _Vita Samsonis_ has not yet been prepared. L’Abbé Duine has indeed furnished some useful notes—only too few—on the syntax and the peculiar use of certain pronouns, prepositions and adjectives.[130] But, as Professor Loth truly observes, to produce such an edition a minute study of the syntax is required and also a glossary of all the words which in form or in meaning are peculiar—a glossary in which all the idioms should be exhibited. The task requires special qualifications and will not perhaps appeal strongly to those who have them. Sooner or later someone will doubtless be found to undertake it, someone, it is hoped, who is not only a scholar but who is familiar with the religious literature of the seventh and eighth centuries.