‘De aymant en dyamant’: Lexical transmutations in the works of Philippe de Mézières

Abstract

In Old French the same term, pierre daymant, can designate both diamonds and lodestones; by the late fourteenth century, the names diverge, becoming dyamant and aymant. Even after this lexical development, residual resemblances remain. Philippe de Mezieres exploits the minerals’ erstwhile identification in his metaphor of a compass, which he includes in three works: the Livre de la vertu du sacrement de mariage and the Songe du vieil pelerin (late 1380s) and the Epistre au roi Richart (1395). Continually rearranging the diamond and lodestone as found objects, Mezieres draws attention to the differing material properties and ‘affordances’ of minerals and of poetic language. The contrast between what one can do with minerals and what one can do with words opens a multidimensional space in which humans can alter their reality. Advancing fiction as the site where observation and authority are reconciled, Mezieres’s compasses highlight how much words (are) matter.