These are the edition's working notes, published as they were written. They record, work by work, where Migne's plate is defective or the reading uncertain: the printed form, what the English does with it, and why. They are not a groomed apparatus. Where a note argues with itself, withdraws an earlier decision, or leaves a question open, that is the record of how the reading was actually reached, and it is left standing — a conjecture that is visible can be checked, and one that has been tidied away cannot.
The English never silently repairs the page. A construable but wrong reading is rendered literally and the conjecture is recorded here, never applied to the text. How the English is produced and checked →
Chunk numbers below predate the 2026-07-05 re-chunk (chapter heads recovered; boundaries shifted). Locate cruces by column mark, not chunk.
Printed-Latin problems rendered literally (not emended). Chunk / column / Latin as printed / problem.
- Chunk 0, col 1188B — "Dicitur Salomon secundum hos tres libros quos fecit XXX habuisse vocabula" — Says Solomon had thirty (XXX) names, but the passage lists and expounds only three names (Idida, Ecclesiastes, Solomon), tied to the three books just enumerated. "XXX" is almost certainly a corruption of "tria" (three). Rendered literally as "thirty."
- Chunk 1, col 1193A–B (scripture block) — "Aequitatui meo in curribus Pharaonis assimilavi te" — "Aequitatui" is not a valid Latin form. Evidently a misprint for "Equitatui" (dative of equitatus, "cavalry") — confirmed by the commentary lemma at col 1194A/1193D reading "Equitatui meo." and by the running gloss "assimilavi te equitatui." Rendered as "cavalry."
- Chunk 2, col 1196C — commentary lemma "domorum vestrarum" ("of your houses") comments on a scripture block (col 1195B) that reads "tigna domorum nostrarum cedrina" ("of our houses"). Internal nostrarum/vestrarum discrepancy. Lemma rendered as printed ("your houses").
- Chunk 3, col 1198B (scripture block) — "Surge, prospera amica mea" — "prospera" where the Vulgate and this commentary's own lemma (col 1200A) read "propera" ("make haste"). Likely a misprint (prospera / propera). Rendered as printed ("prosper").
- Chunk 3, col 1199C — commentary lemma "Similis est hinnulo servorum." ("young hart of the servants") where the scripture reads "hinnulo cervorum" ("young hart of the harts") and the immediately following gloss reads "filius cervorum." "servorum" is a misprint for "cervorum." Rendered as printed ("of the servants").
Note (NOT logged as a crux — deliberate variant, rendered as printed): Chunk 3/4, "umbra abiit et recessit" (Song 2:11) prints umbra ("shadow") where the Vulgate reads imber ("rain"); the commentary at col 1200A glosses Umbra explicitly, so the variant is genuine and load-bearing, not a typo. Rendered "the shadow has gone and departed." <!-- corpus-polarity-sweep 2026-07-28 --> ## Corpus polarity sweep — 2026-07-28
Blind Opus read of the Latin/English pair for sense-reversing defects (one word or one letter asserting the opposite of what the context requires). 4 site(s). Migne's defects are recorded here and rendered literally in the English; our own errors were fixed in place. Full context: data/sweeps/corpus-polarity/REPORT.md.
1199C — sense-reversing-letter (migne, medium confidence)
Printed: Similis est hinnulo servorum. Ipse est enim filius cervorum, id est prophetarum et patriarcharum qui veloces cervi fuerunt.
Conjecture: hinnulo cervorum (s- for c-, one letter); the lemma printed a few lines earlier at 1198A reads correctly "capreae hinnuloque cervorum"
The very next sentence denies what the lemma-gloss just asserted: "Ipse est enim filius CERVORUM, id est prophetarum et patriarcharum qui veloces CERVI fuerunt" — the whole exposition is of harts, not servants, and the scriptural lemma quoted at 1198A/1201B is "hinnuloque cervorum" in both places. Our English carried the defect through literally ("of the servants") and then translated the correction ("the son of the harts") in the following clause, so the English contradicts itself in two consecutive sentences.
1200A — sense-reversing-letter (migne, low confidence)
Printed: Jam enim hiems transiit, umbra abiit et recessit … Umbra, id est, persecutio, id est, grando contundens, jam abiit et recessit**
Conjecture: imber abiit et recessit (Cant. II, 11), and Imber, id est persecutio
The commentary's own gloss on the word is "grando contundens" — bruising hail — which glosses rain (imber), not shade; and the same commentary uses umbra in the opposite, favourable sense a few lines away ("et inclinentur umbrae, id est transeant ignorantiae hujus vitae," 1201C, 1207A) and in the protective sense at 1197B ("Sub umbra illius sedi, id est in protectione ipsius"). A shadow that is a bruising hail-storm is asserted against the book's own settled use of umbra.
1209B — sense-reversing-letter (migne, medium confidence)
Printed: Crocus est herba habens aureum florem, per quem intelligitur divina sapientia, quae non debet in aliquo esse cum timore, sed cum nardo, id est cum humilitate.
Conjecture: cum tumore for cum timore — 'divine wisdom ought not to be in anyone with SWELLING (pride), but with spikenard, that is, with humility'
The non ... sed construction requires the thing excluded to be the opposite of humilitas, and in this very chunk that opposite is named twice as tumor/elatio, never timor: a few lines earlier 'ubera tua ... sunt pulchriora vino, id est omni mundana sapientia quae inebriat et SUPERBIRE FACIT habentes' (wisdom's proper danger is pride, not fear), and 'montes pro nimia elatione'. The same author uses tumor for pride explicitly at 1209C, 'fistula ... purgat optime TUMORES pulmonis ... quae aufert TUMORES a cordibus eorum, et faciunt seipsos viles'. As printed, the text forbids divine wisdom to be accompanied by fear, which reverses the standard doctrine the commentary elsewhere assumes and destroys the pride/humility antithesis the sentence is built on. The English reproduces the reversal literally.
1217B — sense-reversing-letter (migne, low confidence)
Printed: et hoc dicit ante oculos tuos, id est intelligentiam quam exerces ad cognitionem plenam mei
Conjecture: averte oculos tuos for ante oculos tuos — the lemma-repeat, 'and this he says, TURN AWAY thine eyes'
The lemma under exposition is 'Averte oculos tuos a me', and the commentary quotes it correctly twice within the next few lines: 'Modo, quia dixit: AVERTE OCULOS, ne ista conquereretur...' and 'Non ideo dixit ut oculos AVERTAT quod peccatum sit'. The gloss slot 'et hoc dicit X, id est ...' everywhere else in this work repeats the lemma verbatim; 'ante' turns the bridegroom's command to turn the eyes away into an assertion that the understanding is held before them. The English follows the plate.