Apollinaire: "Zone", l. 51Author(s): Louis AllenSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jan., 1959), pp. 74-75Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3720839 .

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Miscellaneous Notes Miscellaneous Notes

bequeathed it to Nuneaton Priory, a cell of Fontrevault founded by Robert Earl of Leicester (the twin of Waleran de Meulan). At the top of fol. 1 is a rubric: 'Iste liber constat Alicia SScheynton' et postea conventu.' It contained, amongst other items, the tenth chapter of the Merure, on the Paternoster, to which the seventh chapter, on the knowledge of oneself and God obtained by prayer and meditation, has been attached to form a conclusion. Nobody reading it as it stands could possibly guess that this conclusion did not originally belong to the rest unless he had foreknowledge of the Merure. The fact that this treatise is drawn from the full text and was not independent is proved by the opening words, which come from the beginning of the tenth chapter and make no sense torn from their context: 'Apres ceo devez saver quels sunt les set priers ke ostent tuz mals e purchacent touz biens.' While the book was at Nuneaton a later rubric was added on fol. 9b. 'Iste liber constat domine Margarete SSylemon et discipulas suas et post mortem suam conventu de Nuneton.' It appears therefore that the book was first in the care of the Prioress. Since Dr James wrote, the list of Prioresses has been recovered from the charters, and it is now known that Margaret Seliman's dates were 1367-86.1 About the time when this inscription was written, presumably soon after 1386, a second copy of the tenth chapter, without the addition of the seventh, was made to fill up a blank space on fol. 7 c. This is therefore later than the copy which does not occur until fol. 110a, and was described by Dr James as 'a second copy.. .in the original hand: longer'. The copyist does not seem to have been aware of this other version, although the manuscript was probably already bound together whether the part known as the Nuneaton Apocalypse was an insertion or not.

Dr Robbins listed eighteen French manuscripts, complete and fragmentary, of the Merure. Another complete text was later identified.2 A fragment of yet another has been recovered from a binding in the Cambridge University Library, where it is catalogued Add. 2751(8). It contains a few lines from chapter vi on one side and from chapter vII on the other, and is valuable only as evidence of the popularity of this work.

It is indeed high time that our generation gave the Merure the edition it deserves, and this would best be done by a team of three, a specialist in Old French, one in Medieval Latin, and a third in Middle English. In this way the matter could be more expeditiously and more thoroughly performed. . D M. DOMINICA LEGaE EDINBURGH

APOLLINAIRE: 'ZONE', L. 51

Most editions of Apollinaire's Alcools, including the recently collected (Euvres Poetiques edited by Marcel Adema and Michel Decaudin for the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade (Paris, Gallimard, 1956), give a rather curious reading for 1. 51 of the liminary poem 'Zone':

Les anges voltigent autour du joli voltigeur Icare Enoch Elie Apollonius de Thyane Flottent autour du premier aeroplane Ils s'ecartent parfois pour laisser passer ceux que transporte [my italics] la Sainte-

Eucharistie Ces pretres qui montent eternellement en elevant l'hostie.... (11. 48-52.)

1 V.C.H. Warwickshire, II, 69. 2 M. D. Legge, 'St Edmund's "Merure de Seinte Eglise"', M.L.R. xxIII (1928), 475-6.

bequeathed it to Nuneaton Priory, a cell of Fontrevault founded by Robert Earl of Leicester (the twin of Waleran de Meulan). At the top of fol. 1 is a rubric: 'Iste liber constat Alicia SScheynton' et postea conventu.' It contained, amongst other items, the tenth chapter of the Merure, on the Paternoster, to which the seventh chapter, on the knowledge of oneself and God obtained by prayer and meditation, has been attached to form a conclusion. Nobody reading it as it stands could possibly guess that this conclusion did not originally belong to the rest unless he had foreknowledge of the Merure. The fact that this treatise is drawn from the full text and was not independent is proved by the opening words, which come from the beginning of the tenth chapter and make no sense torn from their context: 'Apres ceo devez saver quels sunt les set priers ke ostent tuz mals e purchacent touz biens.' While the book was at Nuneaton a later rubric was added on fol. 9b. 'Iste liber constat domine Margarete SSylemon et discipulas suas et post mortem suam conventu de Nuneton.' It appears therefore that the book was first in the care of the Prioress. Since Dr James wrote, the list of Prioresses has been recovered from the charters, and it is now known that Margaret Seliman's dates were 1367-86.1 About the time when this inscription was written, presumably soon after 1386, a second copy of the tenth chapter, without the addition of the seventh, was made to fill up a blank space on fol. 7 c. This is therefore later than the copy which does not occur until fol. 110a, and was described by Dr James as 'a second copy.. .in the original hand: longer'. The copyist does not seem to have been aware of this other version, although the manuscript was probably already bound together whether the part known as the Nuneaton Apocalypse was an insertion or not.

Dr Robbins listed eighteen French manuscripts, complete and fragmentary, of the Merure. Another complete text was later identified.2 A fragment of yet another has been recovered from a binding in the Cambridge University Library, where it is catalogued Add. 2751(8). It contains a few lines from chapter vi on one side and from chapter vII on the other, and is valuable only as evidence of the popularity of this work.

It is indeed high time that our generation gave the Merure the edition it deserves, and this would best be done by a team of three, a specialist in Old French, one in Medieval Latin, and a third in Middle English. In this way the matter could be more expeditiously and more thoroughly performed. . D M. DOMINICA LEGaE EDINBURGH

APOLLINAIRE: 'ZONE', L. 51

Most editions of Apollinaire's Alcools, including the recently collected (Euvres Poetiques edited by Marcel Adema and Michel Decaudin for the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade (Paris, Gallimard, 1956), give a rather curious reading for 1. 51 of the liminary poem 'Zone':

Les anges voltigent autour du joli voltigeur Icare Enoch Elie Apollonius de Thyane Flottent autour du premier aeroplane Ils s'ecartent parfois pour laisser passer ceux que transporte [my italics] la Sainte-

Eucharistie Ces pretres qui montent eternellement en elevant l'hostie.... (11. 48-52.)

1 V.C.H. Warwickshire, II, 69. 2 M. D. Legge, 'St Edmund's "Merure de Seinte Eglise"', M.L.R. xxIII (1928), 475-6.

74 74

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Miscellaneous Notes Miscellaneous Notes

The original version of the poem as printed in Les Soirees de Paris for December 1912 (cf. (Euvres Poetiques, Pleiade, p. 1032) gave the italicized words as follows:

ceux qui transporte....

Clearly this was a misprint, but it is surely not the pronoun which should be rectified, and 'Sainte-Eucharistie' is not the subject of the relative clause, as if the Eucharist were said to be transporting the priests as they rise up into the sky, elevating the host, the host pulling them on. There is no indication in the poem that it is the Eucharist which has become an aeroplane. What Apollinaire says is that the twentieth century changes into a bird and rises up into the air like Christ:

Et change en oiseau ce siecle comme Jesus monte dans l'air.

It is therefore 'ce siecle'-the 'volante machine' of 1. 70-which carries the priests. The original image is not an unfamiliar one; the priest carries the Host through

the streets to the sick, and passers-by (who become in the poem the angels, and also Icarus, Enoch, Elias and Apollonius of Tyana) make way for him. Again, in the poem the priests cannot be said to be borne up by the Eucharist if in fact they themselves are raising it up ('en elevant l'hostie'). The correction should have been made in the verb, and the line should read:

Ils s'ecartent parfois pour laisser passer ceux qui transportent la Sainte-Eucharistie.

DURHAM LOUIS ALLEN

WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE: 'ALS MIN ANDER HANT'

When Walther in his elegy (124. 1) says nu bin ich erwachet und ist mir unbekant daz mir hie vor was kiindic als min ander hant

the general meaning is clear, but the usage of ander has puzzled scholars. Does Walther mean, as J. Grimm asserts, 'my left hand' or simply 'my hand', the usual interpretation? German commentators are, I believe, unaware that a similar problem exists in English literature. Spenser on several occasions uses other in a sense which N.E.D. refers to as 'evidently archaic'. Thus in Faerie Queene we find:

and in her other hand She stretched forth a long white sclender wand (v. vii. 7).

Similar examples can be found in F.Q. ii. iv. 4; ii. xi. 23; v. xii. 36. English opinion is divided. Some hold that other means 'left', but N.E.D. considers this merely a

possibility, referring to German ander for support. This is a vicious circle, for we are bacl again with Grimm. On the other hand N.E.D. classifies the Spenser quotations under the definition 'one of two', which it rightly claims as common Teutonic usage. This meaning is frequently found in Old English. Among examples quoted by N.E.D. are:

Him wearp oper ea3e mid anre flan ut ascoten (King Alfred Oros. III. vii. 3). An strsel hine gewundode on his oper 3ewenge (O.E. Martyrol. 22 June 106).

Old Saxon has a similar usage. Thus Heliand (5581) has: 'thero theobo o6er' (cf. E. H. Sehrt, Vollstandiges Worterbuch zum Heliand, Gottingen, 1925, p. 422). Like- wise Old Norse can say: 'Egill pessi hefir abra h6nd' (only one hand) and this usage

The original version of the poem as printed in Les Soirees de Paris for December 1912 (cf. (Euvres Poetiques, Pleiade, p. 1032) gave the italicized words as follows:

ceux qui transporte....

Clearly this was a misprint, but it is surely not the pronoun which should be rectified, and 'Sainte-Eucharistie' is not the subject of the relative clause, as if the Eucharist were said to be transporting the priests as they rise up into the sky, elevating the host, the host pulling them on. There is no indication in the poem that it is the Eucharist which has become an aeroplane. What Apollinaire says is that the twentieth century changes into a bird and rises up into the air like Christ:

Et change en oiseau ce siecle comme Jesus monte dans l'air.

It is therefore 'ce siecle'-the 'volante machine' of 1. 70-which carries the priests. The original image is not an unfamiliar one; the priest carries the Host through

the streets to the sick, and passers-by (who become in the poem the angels, and also Icarus, Enoch, Elias and Apollonius of Tyana) make way for him. Again, in the poem the priests cannot be said to be borne up by the Eucharist if in fact they themselves are raising it up ('en elevant l'hostie'). The correction should have been made in the verb, and the line should read:

Ils s'ecartent parfois pour laisser passer ceux qui transportent la Sainte-Eucharistie.

DURHAM LOUIS ALLEN

WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE: 'ALS MIN ANDER HANT'

When Walther in his elegy (124. 1) says nu bin ich erwachet und ist mir unbekant daz mir hie vor was kiindic als min ander hant

the general meaning is clear, but the usage of ander has puzzled scholars. Does Walther mean, as J. Grimm asserts, 'my left hand' or simply 'my hand', the usual interpretation? German commentators are, I believe, unaware that a similar problem exists in English literature. Spenser on several occasions uses other in a sense which N.E.D. refers to as 'evidently archaic'. Thus in Faerie Queene we find:

and in her other hand She stretched forth a long white sclender wand (v. vii. 7).

Similar examples can be found in F.Q. ii. iv. 4; ii. xi. 23; v. xii. 36. English opinion is divided. Some hold that other means 'left', but N.E.D. considers this merely a

possibility, referring to German ander for support. This is a vicious circle, for we are bacl again with Grimm. On the other hand N.E.D. classifies the Spenser quotations under the definition 'one of two', which it rightly claims as common Teutonic usage. This meaning is frequently found in Old English. Among examples quoted by N.E.D. are:

Him wearp oper ea3e mid anre flan ut ascoten (King Alfred Oros. III. vii. 3). An strsel hine gewundode on his oper 3ewenge (O.E. Martyrol. 22 June 106).

Old Saxon has a similar usage. Thus Heliand (5581) has: 'thero theobo o6er' (cf. E. H. Sehrt, Vollstandiges Worterbuch zum Heliand, Gottingen, 1925, p. 422). Like- wise Old Norse can say: 'Egill pessi hefir abra h6nd' (only one hand) and this usage

75 75

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