Yale Studies in English Volume 61 - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... north of heaven, and, in fact, the whole legend of the fall of Lucifer, was based on Isaiah 14. 12-3: 'Quomodo cecidisti de caelo, lucifer qui mane oriebaris? Corruisti in terram, qui vulnerabas gentes? Qui dicebas in corde tuo: In caelum conscendam, super astra Dei exaltabo solium meum, sedebo in monte testamenti in lateribus aquilonis, ascendam super altitudinem nubiam, similis ero Altissimo.' This, and other Biblical passages, such as Luke 10. 18, led to the early formation of the legend of the fall of the angels, the beginnings of which may be found in Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory. As Carleton Brown notes (Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass. 19. 124), these lines in Purity repeat directly some of the phrases of Isaiah. For references to Lucifer in Old and Middle English, see Skeat's excellent note on 1 Piers Plowman C. 2. 105; and for the development of the legend of Lucifer, see H. Ungemach, Die Quellen der Fiinf Ersten Chester Plays (Erlangen, 1890), pp. 18 ff. 215. Gollancz (Mod. Lang. Rev. 14. 153) adopts M.'s explanation that metz--mese (G. mes), 'pity, ' comparing the verb mese, 764, and amesying, Pat. 400. I have retained this reading in the text, though Bateson's suggestion (ibid. 13. 378) that metz is a scribal error for meth, had occurred to me also, and seems not unlikely in view of the other occurrences of meth (mebe) in 247, 436, 565. 222. sweved. Though I cannot distinguish the initial s, I adopt Gollancz's reading (Mod. Lang. Rev. 14. 153), since there is no instance of defective alliteration with j except at 958, where it is more easily explicable because of the proper names. G. compares Pat. 253, where the whale 'swayues to be se-bobem'; cf. NED., s. v. swayve. as be snaw bikke. Cf. Fall and Passion 25-8 (ed. Matzner, ...