More on the medieval universe
Aug. 20th, 2007 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricSubsequent to my musings on the Venerable Bede, I would like to offer you the wonderful world of Byrtferð's Enchiridion. It's a text on chronology, basically. Weeks, days, months, seasons, years- and their relations to the heavenly bodies, to the four elements, and to man as a microcosm. It appears to be a translation of either his own or someone else's (I'm unsure, i've only read the photocopied pages in the course reader) Latin text. The edition I have as // original and modern text- so the left hand side alternates between Latin and OE, and the right hand side, entirely in english, looks daft because it's just repeating itself in circles.
Anyway, Byrtferð was a poetic sort of a guy, it seems. When his OE diverges from the latin, it's for one of two reasons- a) to give a basic arithmetic lesson- "in one day there are twenty-four hours, and in two days there are forty-eight hours", etc. or b) to wax lyrical about the beautiful way the universe is ordered. Expanding on a little sea-imagery in the Latin, here is what he has to say about the science of calcuating the seasons:
We have touched with our oars the waves of the deep water; we have seen as well the mountains by the salty shore of the sea, with with billowing sails and prosperous winds we have harboured on the coast of the fairest nation. The waves stand for this profound science, and the mountains stand for the magnitude of this science. Therefore it says 'where we saw the lilly's blossom' (the beauty of the comptus), 'there we sensed the roses' fragrance' (we percieved the profundity of the comptus)... Therefore I shall not be silent either on account of the eloquence of the literature or for the sake of those learned men who have no need to discuss these things among themselves. But we have touched the deep sea and the mountains of this work...*
I'm very impressed with Byrhtferð. More so than I was with Bede's The Reckoning of Time (sorry, Bede). Anyone with a deep passion for what they study is bound to impress me. And what a pretty pretty image. So go Byrtferð.
*Byhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Peter S Baker & Michael Lapidge, pg 17
Anyway, Byrtferð was a poetic sort of a guy, it seems. When his OE diverges from the latin, it's for one of two reasons- a) to give a basic arithmetic lesson- "in one day there are twenty-four hours, and in two days there are forty-eight hours", etc. or b) to wax lyrical about the beautiful way the universe is ordered. Expanding on a little sea-imagery in the Latin, here is what he has to say about the science of calcuating the seasons:
We have touched with our oars the waves of the deep water; we have seen as well the mountains by the salty shore of the sea, with with billowing sails and prosperous winds we have harboured on the coast of the fairest nation. The waves stand for this profound science, and the mountains stand for the magnitude of this science. Therefore it says 'where we saw the lilly's blossom' (the beauty of the comptus), 'there we sensed the roses' fragrance' (we percieved the profundity of the comptus)... Therefore I shall not be silent either on account of the eloquence of the literature or for the sake of those learned men who have no need to discuss these things among themselves. But we have touched the deep sea and the mountains of this work...*
I'm very impressed with Byrhtferð. More so than I was with Bede's The Reckoning of Time (sorry, Bede). Anyone with a deep passion for what they study is bound to impress me. And what a pretty pretty image. So go Byrtferð.
*Byhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Peter S Baker & Michael Lapidge, pg 17