Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/167

 The Cursing of Vcnizchs. 135

as he hung by the hair of his head in the forest which witnessed the discomfiture of the rebel army. The king came to his own again and returned in triumph to Jeru- salem, the people flocking to welcome him at the ford over the Jordan, which he had lately crossed in haste, a fugitive and an exile. And the first to meet him at the ford was the very man who had so lately cursed and stoned him. There stood Shimei, the Benjamite, waiting for him ; and when the bearer who had carried the king through the water deposited his royal burden respectfully on the shore, the quondam railer and bully, now turned toady and lickspittle, fell on his face before the king and begged for mercy, saying, "Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, neither do thou remember that which thy servant did perversely the day that my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart. For thy servant doth know that I have sinned : therefore, behold, I am come this day the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king." The same hot-headed soldier, who would have had Shimei's blood when he cursed and stoned the king, now earnestly requested to be allowed to take it when the fellow fawned and grovelled before his Majesty. But again the king calmly checked the impetuo- sity of his too zealous adherent, saying that no blood should sully the happy day of the royal restoration. So saying, he turned to Shimei and gave him his life. " Thou shalt not die," he said; and confirmed the pardon with an oath.^ The parallel is of happy augury for M. Venizelos. He, too, we believe, will return in honour and glory to his own

"2 Samuel, xix. 15-23. In verse 18 the English version has: "And there went over a ferry Ijoat to bring over the king's household." But the true read- ing and translation of the passage seems to be : "And they passed to and fro over the ford in order to bring the king's household over." See S. K. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew I'cxt and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 2nd edition (Oxford, 191 3), p. 335. So far as I am aware, there is no evidence of a ferry over the Jordan in antiquity. People had simply to splash through the water, or to ride over it on the backs of men or beasts.