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The “Corones Two” of the Second Nun's Tale: A Supplementary Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John Livingston Lowes
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Extract

In an earlier article in these Publications I pointed out that the roses and lilies brought by the angel to Cecilia and Valerian symbolized martyrdom and virginity, and so focussed in themselves the significance of the story. My illustrations, however, were all drawn, as it happened, from the Sermones aurei of Jacobus de Voragine. It is perhaps worth while to put beyond any possible doubt the fact that the symbolism which permeates the Sermones was both widespread and familiar. I shall, accordingly, round out the argument presented three years ago by a number of additional passages drawn from a variety of sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , 1914 , pp. 129 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1914

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References

1 Vol. xxvi, No. 2 (June, 1911), pp. 315-23.

2 Lines 6135-37 (ed. Raynaud, Vol. xi, p. 201).

3 Li Romans de Carité et Miserere de Renclus de Moiliens, Poèmes de la fin du xii siècle, ed. A.-G. Van Hamel, Paris, 1885, stanzas cxciii-vi, pp. 238-40.

4 Lives of the Saints, xxxiv, E. E. T. S., 114, pp. 356 ff.

5 Homilies, ii, 546, 2 : “On the Nativity of the Holy Martyrs.”

6 Homilies, I, 444, 13 : “ On the Assumption of the Blessed Mary.” Professor Frederick Tupper—who has indicated the mystical meaning of the two flowers in the notes to his Riddles of the Exeter Book, p. 166—has been kind enough to call my attention to these two passages.

7 Alcuini (Albini) Carmina (Monumenta Germaniœ Historica, Poetarum Latinorum medii ævi, Tom. i, 310); No. ix (Ad aram sanctarum virginum) of the “Inscriptiones ecclesiæ sancti Vedasti in Pariete.”

8 Sedulii Scotti Carmina (Mon. Germ. Hist., Poet. Lat. med. æv., iii, 231); No LXXXI, ll. 41-42, “De rosœ liliique certamine idem Sedulius cecinit.”

9 Chevalier, Repertorium hymnologicum, No. 32994. So No. 32993, with the substitution of castitatis for virginitatis..

10 No. 32990.

11 No. 10628.

12 No. 40556.

13 No. 10631.

14 No. 32998.

15 No. 21647; cf. No. 21646. A somewhat different turn is given to the symbolism in another hymn, quoted in the Analecta Bollandiana, vi, 395 (Hymni, Sequentiœ aliaque carmina sacra hactenus inedita, Cod. Brux. 9786-90, *f. 238va, xv cent.):

Ave, virgo gloriosa,
Toti mundo gaudiosa,
Beata tu Cecilia;
Rubens sicut florens rosa,
Tota dulcis et formosa
Candore vincens lylia.

16 Quoted in Taylor, The Mediœval Mind, ii, p. 200. I am indebted to Professor H. M. Beiden for this reference. Traube's study of the poem (Abhand. Bairish. Akad. Philos.-pkilol. Klasse, 1891) I have not been able to consult.

17 G 27-28.