$Unique_ID{how00180}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Apocrypha, The
Chapter 17}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Various}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{footnote
gr
darkness
light

}
$Date{1611}
$Log{}
Title:       Apocrypha, The
Book:        Wisdom Of Solomon, The
Author:      Various
Date:        1611

Chapter 17

     For great are thy judgements, and hard to ^3 interpret;
     Therefore souls undisciplined went astray.
     For when lawless men had supposed that they held a holy nation in their
          power,
     They themselves, prisoners of darkness, and bound in the fetters of a
          long night,
     Close kept beneath their roofs,
     Lay exiled from the eternal providence.
     For while they thought that they were unseen in their secret sins,
     They were ^4 sundered one from another by a dark curtain of
          forgetfulness,
     Stricken with terrible awe, and sore troubled by spectral forms.
     For neither did ^5 the dark recesses that held them guard them from
          fears.
     But sounds ^6 rushing down rang around them,
     And phantoms appeared, cheerless with unsmiling faces.
     And no force of fire prevailed to give them light,
     Neither were the brightest flames of the stars strong enough to illumine
          that gloomy night:
     But only there appeared to them the glimmering of a fire self-kindled,
          full of fear;
     And in terror they deemed the things which they saw
     To be worse than that sight, on which they could not gaze.
     ^7 And they lay helpless, made the sport of magic art,
     And a shameful rebuke of their vaunts of understanding:
     For they that promised to drive away terrors and troublings from a sick
          soul,
     These were themselves sick with a ludicrous fearfulness:
     For even if no troublous thing affrighted them,
     Yet, scared with the creepings of vermin and hissings of serpents, they
          perished ^8 for very trembling,
     Refusing even to look on the air, which could on no side be escaped.
     ^9 For wickedness, condemned by a witness within, is a coward thing,
     And, being pressed hard by conscience, always ^10 forecasteth the worst
          lot:
     For fear is nothing else but a surrender of the succours which reason
          offereth;
     And from within the heart the expectation of them being less
     Maketh of greater account the ignorance of the cause that bringeth the
          torment.
     But they, all through the night which was powerless indeed,
     And which came upon them out of the recesses of powerless Hades,
     All sleeping the same sleep,
     Now were haunted by monstrous apparitions,
     And now were paralysed by their soul's surrendering;
     For fear sudden and unlooked for ^11 came upon them.
     So then every man, whosoever it might be, sinking down ^12 in his place,
     Was kept in ward shut up in that prison which was barred not with iron:
     For whether he were a husbandman, or a shepherd,
     Or a labourer whose toils were in the wilderness,
     He was overtaken, and endured that inevitable necessity,
     For with one chain of darkness were they all bound.
     Whether there were a whistling wind,
     Or a melodious noise of birds among the spreading branches,
     Or a measured fall of water running violently,
     Or a harsh crashing of rocks hurled down,
     Or the swift course of animals bounding along unseen,
     Or the voice of wild beasts harshly roaring,
     Or an echo rebounding from ^13 the hollows of the mountains,
     All these things paralysed them with terror.
     For the whole world beside was enlightened with clear light,
     And was occupied with unhindered works;
     While over them alone was spread a heavy night,
     An image of the darkness that should afterward receive them;
     But yet heavier than darkness were they unto themselves.
     But for thy holy ones there was great light;
     And the Egyptians, hearing their voice but seeing not their form,
     Counted it a happy thing that they too had suffered,
     Yet for that they do not hurt them now, though wronged by them before,
          they are thankful;
     And because they had been at variance with them, they made supplication
          to them.
     Whereas thou didst provide for thy people a burning pillar of fire,
     To be a guide for their unknown journey,
     And withal a ^1 kindly sun for their ^2 proud exile.
     For well did ^3 the Egyptians deserve to be deprived of light and
          imprisoned by darkness,
     They who had kept in close ward thy sons,
     Through whom the incorruptible light of the law was to be given to ^4
          the race of men.

[Footnote 3: Or, set forth]

[Footnote 4: Gr. scattered by.]

[Footnote 5: Gr. the recess.]

[Footnote 6: Some authorities read troubling them sore.]

[Footnote 7: Some authorities read And the mockeries of magic art lay low,
and shameful was the rebuke &c.]

[Footnote 8: Or, trembling, and refusing to]

[Footnote 9: This is the probable sense: the Greek text is perhaps slightly
corrupt.]

[Footnote 10: Most authorities read hath added.]

[Footnote 11: Some authorities read was poured upon them.]

[Footnote 12: Gr. there.]

[Footnote 13: Or, a hollow]

[Footnote 1: Gr. unharmful.]

[Footnote 2: Or, aspiring]

[Footnote 3: Gr. they.]

[Footnote 4: Or, future time Gr. the age.]