CHAPTER II.

I SAID in mine heart, Go │ SAID then I in my heart, to now, I will prove thee │ Come now, I will try thee with with mirth, therefore enjoy │ mirth, and so get a sight of a pleasure: and, behold, this │ real-good; but see now, this is also _is_ vanity. │ altogether an evanescent thing. │ Of laughter, I said Delirium:

II. (1.) =I said, even I= (the personal pronoun is not redundant, it indicates that Koheleth is recording his own experience), =in my heart= (this formula usually introduces in this book a thought more specious than true), =Come now, I will try thee with mirth and see into good= (_i.e._ still addressing his heart, ‘to see a real good;’ טוב is used in this book as a technical word, like _bonum_ in the _summum bonum_); =and behold= (stating a manifest fact) =also this= (emphatic, signifying this same mirth) is a =vanity= (an evanescent thing; joy or mirth then is too short-lived to be considered a real good).

2 I said of laughter, _It │ and of mirth, What will _that_ is_ mad: and of mirth, What │ do? doeth it? │

(2.) =To laughter I said, Madness= (that which is made mad, see note to