_Ib._—“Thou shalt remain with them two months.” Patrick refers here to a second captivity (363₂₅), and his words (which are not lucid) misled his biographers (beginning with Muirchu) into supposing that he was captured on some later occasion. But I cannot think that his words: _et iterum post annos multos adhuc capturam dedi_, refer to the two months which he spent with the traders. They come in curiously after the incident of the dream, and before the mention of the two months. _Post annos multos_ cannot naturally be taken of the six years of his captivity in Ireland, but must mean a term of years after his escape. I believe that the sentence is a parenthetical reference to his life-work in Ireland, conceived as a second captivity. “And again, after many years, my captivity was continued.” The motive of this abrupt observation was the preceding dream, to which he attributes great significance; it furnishes, in fact, the interpretation of the dream. The second banishment to Ireland is prefigured by the great stone which lay upon his body, and which he could not resist; the sun which lightened its weight is the divine guiding which made that banishment endurable. CHAPTER III P. 37.—Patrick at Lérins. _Dictum Patricii_, see above, App. A, i. 3; Tírechán, 302₂₃ _erat hautem in una ex insolis quae dicitur Aralanensis annis xxx, mihi testante Ultano episcopo_. It seems obvious that the Bollandists and Todd were right in supposing that _Aralanensis_ arose from _Lerinensis_. The more recent view that Arelate is meant seems very improbable; though the name Arelate may conceivably have influenced the corruption (cp. App. C, 6, _ad fin._). P. 38.—Island monasteries: Gallinaria, Gorgon, Capraria, Palmaria. See Ambrose, _Hexaem._ 3, c. 5, _insulas uelut monilia_; Jerome, _Epist._ 73 § 6 (Migne, 22, 694) [c. 400 A.D.]; Sulp. Severus, _V. Mart._ 6, 5 (_Gallinaria_). For Capraria, see Rutilius Namatianus, _De reditu suo_ [c. A.D. 417], i., 439 _sqq._— squalet lucifugis insula plena uiris, and for Gorgon _ib._ 517 _sqq._ For cloisters in the Dalmatian Islands see Jerome, _Epist._ 92. For the Stoechades: Cassian, _Coll._ 18, Praef. (Migne, 49, p. 1089); Ennodius, v. _Epiphanii_, 93, _medianas insulas Stoechadas_ (so Sirmond and Vogel; _cycladas_, MSS.) _Lerum ipsamque nutricem summorum montium planam Lerinum_, described as _sanctarum habitationum loca_. P. 38.—Monastery of Lérins. For the names Lero, Lerina (Lirinus is the form in the best MSS. of Sidonius), see Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ 3, 5. Strabo, 4, 1, 10 gives the names Planasia and Leron.