Page:Elizabeth Elstob - An English-Saxon homily on the birth-day of St. Gregory.djvu/85

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Birth-Day of S. Gregory.
5


heom lifes wæs geswu-
telode჻ He wæs fram
cildhade on boclicum
larum getyd. & he on
þære lare swa gesæli-
glice þeah ꝥ on eal-
re Romana byrig næs
nan his gelica geþuht჻
He gecneodlæhte æfter
wisna laneowa gebyrnun-
ga. & næs forgytel ac
gefæstnode his lare
on fæst-hafelum ge-
mynde. he hlod mid
þurstigum breoste þa
fleowendan lare þe he
eft æfter fyrste mid
hunig swetre þrohte

made known unto them the
way of Life. He was from
his Childhood instructed in
the knowledge of Books, and
he so prosperously succeeded
in his Studies, that in all the
City of Rome there was none
esteemed to be like him.
He was most diligent in fol-
lowing the Example of his
Teachers, and not forget-
ful, but fixed his Learning
in a retentive Memory. He
suck'd in with a thirsty De-
sire the flowing Learning,
which he often, after some
time, with a [1]Throat sweeter
than Honey, and with an

  1. With a Throat, i. e. Voice or Tongue. This is the very Character which Cicero, the great Roman Orator, gives of Nestor, the wisest of the Grecians; of whom he says, Ex ejus lingua melle dulcior fluebat oratio. De senectute, cap. 9. But he tells us Homer had said it before him; and you'll find he did, Iliad. i. v. 249.

    τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκίων ῥέεν αὐδή·

    ———Whose Tongue pour'd forth a Flood
    Of more than Honey sweet Discourse.
    Chapman's Transl.

    This, it seems, was the received Character of St. Gregory's Eloquence, as appears from Goscelin of Canterb. who in his Hist. Min. c. 22 styles him Mellifluus Papa Gregorius, Angl. Sacr. Part. II. p. 65. And no doubt this Author took the Notion from Paulus Diaconus, in the very words which are translated in this Homily, and which are thus in Latin: Hauriebatque sitibundo doctrinæ fluenta pectore, quæ post congruenti tempore mellito gutture eructaret. See his Life of St. Greg. in the Bened. Edit. p. 1 c. 2.