Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative, and Ethics--Essays in Honor of David Lyle Jeffrey

Chapter 3: Books and Their Readers: Visual Storytelling in the Copenhagen Ovide moralisé

     Books and Their Readers Visual Storytelling in the Copenhagen Ovide moralisé K. Sarah-Jane Murray with Tyler F. Walton Like Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Ovide moralisé (Moralized Ovid) in verse occupies a strategic place in the intellectual tradition of Western Europe. We assume it to be the work of a single poet (probably a Franciscan friar) who was educated at,or at least maintained close ties with,the University of Paris.1 An inscription at the beginning of MS Paris BNF fr.24306 indicates it was composed for a queen“Johanne”of France,most likely Jeanne de Bourgogne , who married the future Philippe V of France in 1307.2 Furthermore, since most (perhaps all) of the manuscripts of the Ovide moralisé were commissioned and owned by noble patrons, we know it was well received in court circles. This popularity endured well into the fifteenth century, as the single illumination of MS New York Pierpont Morgan 443 (ca. 1400–1410) attests.On the opening folio,the scribe presents his manuscript of the Ovide moralisé to King Charles V of France, with the Duc de Berry and Jean sans Peur looking on. Given the Ovide moralisé’s presence in royal courts, it is tempting to hypothesize that its author may have been a court confessor. 60 Books and Their Readers 61 In this essay we explore the complex representations of authorship and authority articulated by a key grouping of illuminations in the Copenhagen manuscript of the Ovide moralisé (Royal Library Thott 399), copied in the second half of the fifteenth century. In the Copenhagen manuscript, as we show, visual storytelling plays an important role in shaping and informing the reader’s entry into the work. A superficial look at the illuminations might result in either misunderstanding or mere puzzlement. However, these images constitute a distinct iconographic program that invites us, through a close examination of the text and integrated commentary , to probe the relationship of medieval readers and authors to their pagan books,and to contemplate the role of art—especially clergie—in the Christian’s quest for salvation. I As Jean-Yves Tilliettes notes, the Ovide moralisé pushes modern readers beyond their comfort zone. Stretching over 72,000 verse lines, the medieval opus “terrifies” anyone who confronts the 2,000-page critical edition established by Cornelius de Boer in 1938–45. For those who dare to take up the challenge, the meandering narrative guides its reader on a redemptive quest, from the creation of the world (1.1–453) to the promise of the Beatific Vision in which all redeemed Christians will participate in the afterlife (15.7540–48), freed from the desires and misguided affections to which many of Ovid’s protagonists succumb. The narrator, throughout this journey, occupies a number of roles: poet and philosopher, storyteller and theologian, pilgrim and priest.3 In its very nature, the Ovide moralisé is complex. It includes the first full translation into Old French of the fifteen books of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (approximately 12,000 lines in the Latin source), augmented with detailed, integrated passages of commentary composed in octosyllabic rhyming couplets and replete with moral and allegorical interpretations of the antique myths and legends Ovid fashioned into his perpetuum carmen . In addition, the roughly 60,000 lines added by the Old French author draw on scripture, the works of the church fathers and other biblical commentary traditions, Franciscan theology (especially the works of Saint Bonaventure),4 scholastic thought (for example, the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas), and a long-standing tradition of commenting on Ovid in Latin,including but not limited to Fulgentius,the threeVatican mythographers ,Arnoulf of Orléans (who was the first to attach a specifically Christian meaning to the fables of the Metamorphoses), and John of Garland. Vernacular literature also paved the way for the encyclopedic fourteenthcentury poem from the twelfth-century lais about Pyramus and Thisbe, Narcissus, and Philomela (the latter presumed to have been composed by Chrétien de Troyes) to the Roman de la Rose and even, perhaps, Dante’s Vita Nuova. The author of the Ovide moralisé frequently (and quite intentionally) blurs the line between translation and commentary.Paule Demats observes that the translation of the Metamorphoses takes up approximately half of the complete work, totaling 36,092 lines in Old French—a significant increase over Ovid’s 12,000 lines. Another 8,000 lines, seamlessly grafted to (and almost indistinguishable...