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Fortune's Wheel in The Roman De La Rose

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

The wheel as an attribute of Fortune is of Roman origin, and, together with the globe which often takes its place, signifies the inconstancy of the goddess. In Roman art the wheel or globe is. represented as being held in the hand of the goddess, or lying at her feet; she is sometimes represented as standing on the globe. Motion of the wheel is not implied in its postures.

In Latin literature previous to the middle ages the references to the globe or wheel as attributes of Fortune are few in number, the earliest of them being seemingly that of Pacuvius (second century B. C.): “Fortunam insanam esse et cæcam et brutam perhibent philosophi saxoque instare in globoso prædicant volubili.” Cicero (first century B. C.) writes in Piso, 10, 22: “cumque ipse nudus in convivio saltaret in quo cum illum saltatorium versaret orbem ne turn quidem fortunæ rotam pertimescebat.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1909

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References

page 332 note 1 Cf. Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, tome deuxième, deuxième partie, Paris, 1896, p. 1277.

page 332 note 2 Cf. e. g. Reinach, Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, tome ii, p. 263.

page 332 note 3 P. 104 Rib. Cf. P. Cornelii Taciti Dialogus De Oratoribus, ed. by Alfred Gudeman, Boston, 1894, p. 246.

page 333 note 1 See Du Sommerard, Les Arts au moyen âge, Album, vol. vi, series 4, plates 37–40. Cf. Matzke, “To take time by the forelock,” Pub. Mod. Lang. Asso. of America, vol. viii (new series i), pp. 329–330.

page 334 note 1 Cf. Sypherd, Studies in Chaucer's Hous of Fame, London, 1907, for a discussion of Fortune's mutability as treated in mediæval literature.

page 334 note 2 Cf. Langlois, Origines et Sources du Roman de la Rose, Paris, 1891.

page 334 note 3 Reimpredigt, hgg. von H. Suchier, Halle, 1879, strophe 123.

page 334 note 4 Hgg. von H. Micheland, Bib. des Lit. Vereins in Stuttgart, vol. xiii, p. 522, vv. 2–3.

page 335 note 1 P. p. Scheler, Bruxelles, 1874, vv. 855–857. G. Paris assigns the approximate date 1270 in his Esquisse Historique, p. 174.

page 335 note 2 Jubinal, Nouveau Recueil, vol. i, p. 197. Date 1276, or not long after; Gröber, Grundriss, ii, 829.

page 335 note 3 Hgg. von F. Stehlich, Halle, 1881, vv. 37–40. Date after 1277; cf. F. M. Warren, On the Date and Composition of Guillaume de Lorris' Roman de la Rose, in these Publications, vol. xxiii, pp. 272–274.

page 336 note 1 Cf. Langlois, op. cit., pp. 136–138. See the citations from Boethius given above.

page 337 note 1 Op. cit., p. 149.

page 337 note 2 Wright, The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets, vol. ii, pp. 268 f.

page 339 note 1 Anticlaudianus, distinctio viii, cap. 1.

page 341 note 1 Op. cit., p. 137.