A Curious Harpour in Helle : An Edition of the Commentary on the Orpheus Metre of De consolatione philosophiae in Manuscript Thott 304 2º

Abstract

Aapo Takala: A Curious Harpour in Helle. An Edition of the Commentary on the Orpheus Metre of De consolatione philosophiae in Manuscript Thott 304 2º The article presents an edition of the commentary on the Orpheus Metre in Ms. Thott 304 2º. The manuscript is located at the Royal Library in Copenhagen and it contains an English verse translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae and an accompanying prose commentary. The manuscript, the translation, and the commentary are rare examples of literary culture in late medieval England. The manuscript can be dated to the early fifteenth century and it probably is the copy made specifically for the patron of the translation, the noblewoman Elizabeth Berkeley. In the sixteenth century it was used as exemplar for a printed edition of the translation: the printer’s markings can still be seen in the manuscript. The commentary is the most comprehensive medieval English commentary on De consolatione philosophiae, and only extant in this manuscript and in the sixteenth-century printed edition. The manuscript has previously been studied in a handful of articles and one Master’s thesis. Thus far, there has been no extensive research on the commentary. In addition to the edition, the article includes a discussion of the manuscript’s background and an overview of previous research on it.