270 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
on those parts of the text which are of importance
in the present examination. In order to con-
centrate attention on my main point, I have
left unadopted, and generally, too, unnoticed,
many emendations suggested more especially
by Dr. Cheyne and Duhm which otherwise would
unquestionably deserve attention, if not accept-
ance. But the result of my examination, as I
point out at the close, appears to me to render
certain types of these emendations improbable.
In the translation all departures from the
Hebrew consonantal text, whether justified by
the ancient versions or not, are printed in italics.
Words which are unintelligible (either in them-
selves or in their context), and yet cannot be
satisfactorily emended, are left untranslated and
represented by... in some cases where a
lacuna may be suspected I have used the signs
- +. Words or letters omitted are repre-
sented by ∩. So far as the alphabetic strophes
are clear, I have printed them as strophes with
the initial letter at the head, following the method
adopted in the Authorised Version and Revised
Version of Psalm cxix. and by Dr. G. A. Smith
in his translation of Lamentations ii. and iv.
[which appeared first] in the Expositor for April
1906, pp. 327-336, [and subsequently in Jerusalem
from the Earliest Times, ii. pp. 274-283]. Those
initial letters which do not occur in the present
Hebrew text I have given in brackets alongside
- +. Words or letters omitted are repre-