143-151. Based on, ‘Sit cibus parcus, minuantur artus. | Unde non mandis
miseros (_a. l._ pauperes) juvabis | Penitens defle dominoque semper |
dic miserere,’ T.
143. #Feste# &c. is explained, confirm thyself in steadfastness; but for
this ethical sense festnen is used everywhere else (see 147/142) and of
seems to be without parallel, though ‘steðeluest . . . of’ occurs at
129/24. The expression is rather pointless and corresponds to nothing in
the ways of the serpent, while ll. 109, 110 are the only ones which have
no interpretation in the ‘significacio.’ Furthermore the last half of
the line is defective. Now l. 144 clearly represents the second line of
the original quoted above, which means, from what you do not eat you
will help the poor, and it depends for its point on the sparing of food
enjoined in the preceding line of the original. Accordingly we should
expect something in l. 143 to correspond to it, which as printed above
means, let your food be sparing and your limbs reduced by bloodletting
(minutio, see 66/103-105 notes). If the poet had before him, or misread
his copy so, muniantur artes, he might translate, Feste þe of fastenes.
⁊ filste þe of þewes, that is, fortify thyself by fastings and help
thyself by virtues. For he would find ars explained by Papias as bene
recteque vivendi virtus . . . ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρετῆς, id est a virtute. And the
scribe by anticipating ste þe from the last half of the line might
readily produce stedefastnesse.