Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: [there is] no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Ver. 1. Come down.] From thy lofty top and towering state, as the head city of the world. a
Sit in the dust.] b As a mourner. Job 2:8 ; Job 42:6 So Judea, being subdued by Vespasian, was pictured upon money coined by him as a handmaid sitting on the ground. Sic ruet alto a culmine Roma!
O virgin daughter of Babylon.] Thou that hast never yet been subdued. So Venice hath for her motto, ‘Intacta maneo'; so Cologne-upon-Rhine is called ‘the virgin city.'
Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.] So as queens use to be - Cleopatra, for instance.
a Sic transit gloria mundi., So fleeting is the glory of the world.
b Cyrillus wrote εν τω οκοτει .