From my diary

A very strange summer here, with hardly any summery weather.  I’ve been feeling rather stale for a while now, as you do, so I was looking forward very much to my holiday.  We had booked a trip away to a seaside town and left ten days ago.  Unfortunately my girlfriend got norovirus on day one of the holiday, and I followed a day later.  We endured an awful week in pyjamas in our hotel rooms.  Then, at the end, we we were obliged to vacate before we were actually fit to travel.  I am extremely thankful to God that I was able to drive us home safely.  The day before a short walk had left me trembling.  Thankfully my recovery is now well in hand.  But the process of putting my system back together means sitting up for a good hour after meals.  This in turn lends itself to doing some light work!

So I’ve started to create an electronic text of Ephraem Latinus, De Beatitudine Animae, from the 1547 Novesianus edition.  While I already have an electronic text of the later Menchusius edition of 1563, it would be handy to have both.  Then you can machine-compare the two.  It’s also an undemanding task, which I can pick up and put down.

The number of abbreviations in the printed text seems to be increasing, however.  These are sometimes a bit weird.  A few minutes ago I found this section.

I.e. “anima, frater * confuge semper ad Deum, …”  I liked the “per” at the end, which I have never ever seen before.

I’m expanding abbreviations as I go, and putting an “@” in the text where I am unsure, for later attention.  Rightly or wrongly, it is almost as if it is the printer who is doing the abbreviating, rather than any editor.  Who knows?  Paper can hardly have been a factor.  Possibly this was just what was in his exemplar.

The marginal note “confurge” is also interesting.  Where does it come from?

The earlier incunable with the same divisions and chapter introductions – unlike the Menchusius – gives no help.  And this is even more abbreviated:

The “semper” also has the “per” abbreviation at the end, preceded by simply “s”!  I am so glad that I didn’t try to transcribe that.

Lots of mysteries here, none of which need attention now.  I shall just keep correcting the OCR output in Abbyy Finereader, expanding the abbreviations, and we’ll see where we get to.