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6 - The Cheerful Science: Nicholas Oresme, Home Economics, and Literary Dissemination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Elizabeth B. Edwards
Affiliation:
University of King's College, Halifax
Christopher Cannon
Affiliation:
New York University
Maura Nolan
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Summary

In 1371, Nicholas Oresme, scholar, academic, councillor of Charles V and later Bishop of Lisieux, completed a translation and commentary in French on the Pseudo-Aristotelian Livre Yconomique, and one on Aristotle's Politics, companion works to his earlier commentary on the Ethics. Produced under the aegis of a publication program of Charles V, Oresme's commentaries are remarkable for many reasons. Both text and gloss are in French, in a striking departure from the usual scholastic context of such works, and they thus introduce many neologisms and new terms for concepts. They are found in deluxe manuscripts, with wonderful programs of illustration, as befitting royal commissions. Oresme's glosses are designed for a different reader than academic commentaries, because they aim at forming an educative program in the public good. But the best reason for calling attention to them is for their originality and charm. For example, in speaking of the proper deportment of married couples, Oresme's gloss surprises and delights by its etymological literalism (where ‘T’ is text and ‘G’ is gloss):

T. Car en tel apparat que ont le homme et la femme qui sunt ensemble par marriage, tel aournement ne differe en rien des parlers que l'en seult faire es tragedies.

G. C'est a dire que tel excés de cointise est leaide chose et deshoneste, aussi comme sunt les paroles de tragedies. Ou selon une autre exposition, tele chose donne Acheson de parler en mal, aussi comme l'en parle es tragedies. Ce sunt dicties et rimes de choses villaines et deshonestes. Et est dit de tragos en grec, que est bouc ou beste puante; car en signe des ordes paroles et diffamees que l’en disoit en teles rimes, l’en donnoit un bouc.

[T. For the outward adornment of the couple may be no different from the speeches commonly associated with tragedies.

G. That is to say that such an excess of affectation is ugly and unseemly, like the words used in tragedies. Or according to another commentator, such a thing gives opportunity for evil tongues, such as one hears in tragedy. Tragedies are ditties and rimes about base and improper things. And the word is derived from tragos in Greek, meaning goat or stinking animal, because to symbolize the filthy words and scandal of these rimes, a goat was sacrificed.]

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Medieval Latin and Middle English Literature
Essays in Honour of Jill Mann
, pp. 91 - 112
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2011

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