'
One is not very clear what all this means, but it has, at any rate, a
solemn air about it, which prepares one for the development of its
first-named personage, the ape, into the mystical ape of the
sanctuary. The cow, too,--says another famous Celt-lover, Dr. Owen,
the learned author of the Welsh Dictionary,--the cow (henfon) is the
cow of transmigration; and this also sounds natural enough. But Mr.
Nash, who has a keen eye for the piecing which frequently happens in
these old fragments, has observed that just here, where the ape of
the sanctuary and the cow of transmigration make their appearance,
there seems to come a cluster of adages, popular sayings; and he at
once remembers an adage preserved with the word henfon in it, where,
as he justly says, 'the cow of transmigration cannot very well have
place.' This adage, rendered literally in English, is: 'Whoso owns
the old cow, let him go at her tail;' and the meaning of it, as a
popular saying, is clear and simple enough. With this clue, Mr. Nash
examines the whole passage, suggests that heb eppa, 'without the
ape,' with which Mr. Herbert begins, in truth belongs to something
going before and is to be translated somewhat differently; and, in
short, that what we really have here is simply these three adages one
after another: 'The first share is the full one.
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