"Birds Do It, Bees Do It": Avian Variance in Two Italian Witnesses of Richard de Fournival's Bestiaire d'amour

Abstract

Abstract: This article examines the implications of a textual variant found in two Italian witnesses of Richard de Fournival's Bestiaire d'amour that transforms the section on bees and song into one about birds and song. These witnesses are not entirely unique, as the bees are eliminated from nearly half of the surviving manuscripts of the Bestiaire in clearly intentional ways. The high concentration of variants to the bee section in this manuscript tradition destabilizes any authority that might be attributed to the dominant bee text and highlights a tension between Richard's claims about bees and the views of his readers. The specific textual features of the two Italian manuscripts on which I focus, Morgan Library, M. 459 and Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plutei, LXXVI. 7n, make plain the ways in which bees were not an intuitive example in a discussion of song. Despite ample textual clues that the passage is about bees, as found in the most-used version of the text, the creators of these Italian witnesses assumed it had to be about birds because birds sing and bees do not. The variations found in these manuscripts also make an explicit interpretation of the text, clearing up an ambiguity regarding the application of the bees to the lover's situation. These variations make it plain that the bees-turned-birds represent the lover who is drawn in by his lady's song. Rather than representing scribal errors or corruptions, these variants give insights into the life of the text, illustrating how it was received, understood, and transmitted over time.