Blair Collection > Vestigia celtica

67
adds, " this use of the preposition ann in
conjunction with the possessive pronoun, is
nearly akin to that of the Hebrew 7 (for),
in such expressions as these; He made
me (for) a father to Pharaoh, and (for) lord
of all his house, rinn e mi V am athair do
Pharaoh, agus 'n am thighearn os ceann a
thighe tiile, Gen. xlv. 8. Thou hast taken
the wife of Uriah to be (for) thy wife,
zhabh thiL bean Uriah gu bhi 'n a mnaoi
dhuit fein, 2 Sam. xii. 10."
But Dr. Stewart entirely evades the real
difficulty of his own quotations. Taken
literally, bha e 'n a dhuine ionraic = \N^s he
in his man just ; ^nd ghabh thu bean Uriah
gu bhi 'na mnaoi dhnit fein = t2.\iQn hast
thou (the) wife of Uriah to be in her woman
to thyself. The real question is, how are
we to explain the use of the preposition
and possessive pronoun in this very peculiar
idiom ? And it appears to me that the
idiom is one which, to the philologist, is
fraught with a depth of interest such as can
be measured only by its undoubted ob-
scurity. I must, however, frankly confess