2. A Strain of Sodom.: 7

⁷ "Divinos;" i.e., apparently "superhuman," as everything heavenly is.

⁸ Of hospitality - bread and salt, etc.

⁹ "Mensa;" but perhaps "mensae" may be suggested - "the sacred pledges of the board."

¹⁰ "Dispungit," which is the only verb in the sentence, and refers both to pia pignora and to amicos. I use "quit" in the sense in which we speak of "quitting a debtor," i.e., giving him his full due; but the two lines are very hard, and present (as in the case of those before quoted) a jumble of words without grammar; "pia pignora mensa Officiisque probis studio dispungit amicos;" which may be somewhat more literally rendered than in our text, thus: "he zealously discharges" (i.e., fulfils) "his sacred pledges" (i.e., the promised hospitality which he had offered them) "with (a generous) board, and discharges" (i.e., fulfils his obligations to) "his friends with honourable courtesies."

¹¹ Altera = alterna. But the statement differs from Gen. xix. 4.

¹² "Istam juventam," i.e., the two "juvenes" (ver. 31) within.

¹³ "Fas" = osion, morally right; distinct from "jus" or "licitum."

¹⁴ i.e., Lot's race or family, which had come from "Ur of the Chaldees." See Gen. xi. 26, 27, 28.

¹⁵ I use "preventing" in its now unusual sense of "anticipating the arrival of."