01 April 2010

The Marriage of Research and Teaching

It's funny that Dr Virago should have mentioned this recently. Because I've been trying to decipher a very difficult couple of pages I found in a manuscript last summer, written on white space between two other texts, and not mentioned in any catalogues I consulted. Here is what I have come up with so far (I've supplied punctuation):

On a nyht in November, nyh upon midnyht,
I slumbered into slepeing and slipped into swevenes,
mette wyth maistresses of mervelous lerning.
Teching hyht that one, Reserche that othere;
hond in hond fared thei over hyh hilles,
disputed and debated ther drawing togideres.
"Can we consorten?" quod Teching, ac "Contra!" quod her comrade.
"Sikerer is that we semen as sistren,
for the world ne weneth that we go a-wooing;
Turpitudinem sororis tuae non revelabis."

Of course, it will probably turn out that what I've read as "Reserche" is actually "Vnferth" and this is some late-medieval re-working of Beowulf.

If I figure out the rest of the page, I'll let you know.

4 comments:

Fencing Bear said...

Love it! I hope you find the rest.

Dr. Virago said...

Oh wow! That's awesome!

moria said...

LuLz! "Slumbered into slepeing" is inconstruably medieval enough that you had me, for a minute.

Dr. Virago said...

*headdesk* I just came back to this and just noticed the date on the post.

Well, it's still awesome -- just awesomely creative on your part!