On Tuesday Feb 17 Bill East wrote:
>Gallo canente spes redit, With the cock-crow hope returns,
>aegris salus refunditur, health is restored to the sick,
>mucro latronis conditur, a sword is fashioned for the robber
>lapsis fides revertitur. faith returns to the lapsed
Am I alone in finding this verse a little puzzling? At first sight
one can read "cock-crow" as a synonym for "every day": these things
(both good and evil) happen to someone, somewhere, every day.
Yet the hymn-writer also seems to be saying that these things happen
*specifically* at daybreak. Is he saying, then, that faith and hope
desert us while we sleep, and that we take them up again when we
awake and see daylight again?
What about robbers? Wouldn't we expect them to be active by night
and to fear the coming of the dawn? I can't read the word "latro"
without recalling the phrase (?from Seneca), "ut iugulent hominem
surgent de nocte latrones" ("robbers rise by night that they might
kill a man"). If they were highwaymen, perhaps that'd put a
different complexion on it....
Confused? I am.
Mark Harris
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