Tertullian

“ If this be the true reading, the rendering in the text seems to represent the meaning; for “mandare” with an accusative, in the sense of “to bid the tardy coils tighten the girth’s noose,” seems almost too gross a solecism for even so lax a Latinist as our present writer. Migne, however, reads mundare—to “clear” the tardy coils, i.e., probably from the wash and weed with which the gale was cloying them.↑ Tunc Domini vates ingesta Spiritus infit. Of course it is a gross offence against quantity to make a genitive in “us” short, as the rendering in the text does. ”

“ Embarked, and cleaving ’neath the lowest waves
A wave: his sails the intestines of the fish,
Inspired with breath ferine; himself, shut in;
145 By waters, yet untouched; in the sea’s heart
And yet beyond its reach; ’mid wrecks of fleets
Half-eaten, and men’s carcasses dissolved
In putrid disintegrity: in life
Learning the process of his death ”

“ But a writer who makes the first syllable in “clamor” and the last syllable of gerunds in do short, would scarcely be likely to hesitate about taking similar liberties with a genitive of the so-called fourth declension. It is possible, it is true, to take “vates” and “Spiritus” as in apposition, and render, “Then the seer-Spirit of the Lord begins to utter words inspired,” or “Then the seer-Spirit begins to utter the promptings of the Lord.” ”