Detail View: Medieval Collection: Orpheus and Eurydice
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Image Number:
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JRL0927322dc
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Reference Number:
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English MS 2
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Previous Accession Number:
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Crawford MS 2
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Link to Catalogue:
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Image Title:
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Orpheus and Eurydice
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Parent Work Title:
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Fall of Princes
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Alternative Parent Work Title:
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Falle of Pryncys
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Creator:
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Lydgate, John, 1370?-1451?
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Creator Role:
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Author
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Display Creator:
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Lydgate, John, 1370?-1451?
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Date Created:
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15th-16th century
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Page:
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30v
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Image Sequence Number:
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030v
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Description:
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Fall of Princes. Book one: Venus told Adonis not to hunt savage beasts but he ignored her and was killed by a wild boar, so Venus turned him into a flower. Orpheus then appears to Boccaccio. Orpheus was ugly but a good musician and he had a harp that Mercury gave him with which he won his dead wife Eurydice back from the underworld. However he looked behind at Eurydice as they made their way out of the underworld and lost her again. Lydgate comments that some husbands would happily lose their wives, but Orpheus loved Eurydice and lost her. Orpheus was eventually torn apart at a festival of Bacchus (Dionysus). The text returns to Narcissus and the prediction of Tiresias that his life would end when he first saw his own face and that many women would love him in vain, as none of them were beautiful enough to please him. Small illuminated and coloured initials introduce the verses. The written space is 285 x 200 mm in two columns and the script is rather an ugly and unstable anglicana formata.
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Language Code:
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enm-GB
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Subject:
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English literature
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Subject:
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English literature--Manuscripts
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Subject:
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Poetry, Medieval
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Subject:
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Mythology, Greek--Poetry
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Subject:
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Mythology in literature
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Subject:
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Literature, Medieval--Manuscripts
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Subject:
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Literature, Medieval
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Subject:
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Mythology, Greek, in literature
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Category of Material:
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Manuscripts
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Sub-Category:
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Codex
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Technique Used:
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Handwriting
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Technique Used:
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Illumination (image-making process)
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Medium:
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Ink
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Support:
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Vellum
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People Covered:
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Boccaccio, Giovanni, 1313-1375
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People Covered:
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Venus (Roman deity)
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People Covered:
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Lydgate, John, 1370?-1451?
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People Covered:
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Mercury (Roman deity)
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Item Height:
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417 mm
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Item Width:
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292 mm
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Current Repository:
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John Rylands University Library, The University of Manchester, U.K.
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Provenance:
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Fairfax, Brian, 1676-1749, the commissioner of customs and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
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Provenance:
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Child, Francis, Sir, 1735-1763, of Osterley Park, Middlesex.
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Provenance:
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Lindsay family Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, former owner
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Rights Holder - Image:
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The University of Manchester Library
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Rights holder - Work:
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The University of Manchester Library
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Access Rights:
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References:
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Parts of this catalogue have been reproduced from Ker, N.R., 'Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 400. By kind permission of Oxford University Press
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References:
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Tyson, Moses, 'Hand-List of the Collection of English Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library' (1928), p.7.
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References:
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Bergen, Henry, 'Lydgate's Fall of princes.' (London: Pub. for the Early English Text Society by H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1924-27.)
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Bibliographic Citation:
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Morgan, Margery M., 'A specimen of early printer's copy: Ryland English MS 2', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 33 (1950), pp. 194-6.
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Notes:
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Ostensibly the work is an adaptation of Laurent de Premierfait's 1409 translation of Giovanni Boccaccio's 'De casibus vivorum illustrium', a collection of moralized tragedies, extending from Adam to King John of France, that were designed to illustrate Fortune's fickle nature and the downfalls brought on by sinful living and unjust government.
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Date Captured (yyyy-mm-dd):
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2009-08-11
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Multi Page Number:
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330
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Image Creation Technique:
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Digital capture by Heritage Imaging, The University of Manchester Library
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Date Image Added (yyyy-mm):
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2009-10
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Metadata Language:
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eng-GB
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