the conclusion of the stanzas beginning at xi. 9. This, it is true, involves (1) the excision of the words ‘for youth and the prime of life are vanity,’ and (2) an alteration of the construction of xii. 1, 2 (reading ‘and evil days shall come’ &c.). This violent change is no doubt justified by Bickell on metrical grounds, but as I cannot unreservedly adopt his metrical theory, I have not sufficient excuse for accepting his rearrangement of the text.
I wish some better remedy than that of Grätz could be devised. I would gladly close these Meditations with admiration as well as sympathy. But at the risk of being called unimaginative, I must venture to criticise the entire conclusion of the original Book of Koheleth (xii. 1-7). Most English critics admire the poem on the evils of old age which follows on the earnest ‘Remember,’ and naturally think that it requires some specially sublime saying to introduce it. I do not join them in their admiration, and consequently find it easier to adopt what seems to some the ‘low view’ of Dr. Grätz. Observe that we have already met with an eulogy of wedded bliss side by side with a gloomy picture of death in an earlier section (ix. 9, 10).
This is the poem (if we may call it so) with which the second exhortation of Koheleth is interwoven—
Ere the evil days come, and the years approach
of which thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them:
Ere the sun be darkened, and the light, and the moon, and the stars,
and the clouds keep returning after heavy rains [the winter rains, i.e. old age]:
In the day when the keepers of the house [the hands and arms] tremble,
and the strong men [the feet and legs] bow themselves,
and the grinding-maids [the teeth] cease because they are few,