ABSTRACT
Locock 1911 ii 518 notes that this fragment ‘is a very illegible pencil draft, of which every other word may be doubtful.’ The lines were drafted apparently quickly in Nbk 16 f. 87r rev. beneath the continuation from f. 88v rev. of a neat transcription, in ink, of Plato, Laws 653d–654a. Written over these pencilled lines, transversely in ink, is draft of To Emilia Viviani which dates from late March 1821, thus providing a terminus ante quem for this fragment. Locock Ex 24 presumes these lines to be ‘a translation from some Latin poem’ and they may carry echoes of Lucretius, De Re. Nat. v 338–44: Quod si forte fuisse antehac eadem omnia credis, sed periisse hominum torrenti saecla vapore, aut cecidisse urbis magno vexamine mundi, aut ex imbribus adsiduis exisse rapaces per terras amnes atque oppida coperuisse, tanto quique magis victus fateare necessest exitium quoque terrarum caelique futurum
(‘But if by any chance you believe that all these things have been the same before, but that the generations of men have perished in scorching heat, or that their cities have been cast down by some great upheaval of the world, or that after incessant rains rivers have issued out to sweep over the earth and overwhelm their towns, so much the more you must own yourself worsted, and agree that destruction will come to earth and sky.’)
