2.  Sisara:  middle syllable short.

     4.  Debbora:  middle syllable short.  Prophetes masc., Prophetis
     fem.; meaning, propheta.

     10.  Accersitis:  last syllable but one long; meaning, vocatis.

     15.  Perterreo, perterres; meaning, in pauorem conuertere. 
     Active.

     17.  Cinci (the Kenites):  middle syllable long.

     15.  Desilio, desilis, desilii or desiliui:  middle syllable
     short in trisyllables in the present; meaning, de aliquo salire
     siue descendere festinanter.

     21. clauus, masc., claui:  meaning, acutum ferrum, malleus,
     masc., mallei:  meaning, martellus.

     tempus, neut.:  meaning, pars capitis, for which some people say
     timpus.

For Daniel vi, the story of Daniel in the lions’ den, the commentary is even briefer: 

     6. surripuerunt:  meaning, falso suggesserunt.  Surripio,
     surripis, surrepsi(!):  meaning, latenter rapere, subtrahere,
     furari.

     10. comperisset; meaning, cognouisset.  Comperio, comperis,
     comperi:  fourth conjugation.

     20. affatus:  meaning, allocutus.  From affor, affaris; and
     governs the accusative.

We must not exalt ourselves above the author.  He is very humble.  ’Let any imperfections in the book’, says his preface, ’be attributed to me:  and if there is anything good, let it be thought to have come from God.’  He gave them of his best, explaining away such as he could of the difficulties which had confronted him.  But one can imagine the disgust of even a moderate scholar if, wishing to study the Bible more carefully, he could obtain access to nothing better than Mammotrectus.

Though Erasmus has not much to tell us of his time at Deventer, a fuller account of the school may be found in the autobiography of John Butzbach (c. 1478-1526), who for the last nineteen years of his life was Prior of Laach.[12] Indeed, his narrative is so detailed and so illustrative of the age that it may well detain us here.  He was the son of a weaver in the town of Miltenberg (hence Piemontanus) on the Maine, above Aschaffenburg.  At the age of six he was put to school and already began to learn Latin; one of his nightly exercises that he brought home with him being to get by heart a number of Latin words for vocabulary.  After a few years he came into trouble with his master for laziness and truancy, and received a severe beating; his mother intervened and got the master dismissed from his post, and Butzbach was removed from the school.

     [12] Butzbach’s manuscripts from Laach are now in the
          University Library at Bonn, but have never been printed. 
          I have used a German translation by D.J.  Becker, Regensburg,
          1869.