The Test of Venery in Ipomadon A

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Notes

I would like to thank Ad Putter and William Sayers for helpful comments and suggestions, and James I. McNelis for making his unpublished edition of The Master of Game available to me.

1. The organization of the story in three parts has been proposed by various critics; see Schmidt and Jacobs 1980: 2:45–47, Meale 1984:151, and Burrow 1994:26–27. In the analysis of the hunting episode, I include references to the other two Middle English versions of Ipomedon, the couplet Ipomydon B and the prose Ipomedon C, which I quote from Kölbing's edition (1889). The tail‐rhyme Ipomadon A is quoted from Purdie (2001). For a short overview of the relationship between these versions, see Hornstein 1967:153–55. All translations are my own, unless otherwise stated.

2. The sequence of events is presented as follows: “They [the Fere's parents] levyd togeddur but yers ten;/A chyld they gatte betwene them þan” (79–80), i.e. they begot their daughter after having been married for ten years; “The elevenyth yere bothe she and he/Dyede wythoute lesynge” (83–84), i.e. her parents die one year after the Fere's birth. Thaon interprets the events in a different way and states that “the heroine is said to be eleven … when her parents die” (1983:60).

3. In line 152 I print the manuscript reading, which has been emended by the poem's both modern editors. Purdie renders the line as “And sethe of chasse the chevalrye”: “And then the knightly practice of hunting” (Purdie 2001:258 n. to line 152; cf. Kölbing 1889:367 n. to line 152). This emendation represents an unnecessary intrusion: on the one hand, it involves a superfluous repetition of the hunting activity described again in 155 (cf. Kölbing, loc. cit., and Bjorklund 1977:199); on the other, line 153, whose sense flows from the previous line, describes an activity easily associated with chivalry, not with hunting. Additionally, it would have been a serious omission on Talamewe's part not to instruct his pupil in the art of chivalry, as Purdie's emendation would imply. The manuscript reading translates as “the pursuit of chivalry,” with a metaphoric use of the term “chasse” (cf. OED, s.v. “chase,” sb.¹ 1, and MED, s.v. “chacen,” v. 6), a word that describes Ipomadon's chivalric training as an incomplete but still on‐going task. Kölbing's emendation, “And sethe the chasse and chevalrye,” clarifies the enumeration of Ipomadon's areas of training, but it represents a gratuitous alteration of meaning, since the third activity, hunting, is added later by means of “also.” In the prose Ipomedon C we read how our hero has been taught “to iuste, to tournay” (324.18).

4. On “pryce”, see OED, s.v. “price,” sb. 12; Burrow 1994:28, considers it one of the keywords of the poem.

5. This was already the case in the late twelfth century when the Anglo‐Norman original was composed; according to Queffelec, “chasser constitue la distraction favorite des seigneurs de Normandie en temps de paix” (1980:424), and was “practiced like a kind of surrogate warfare (…) and was considered a practical training for warfare” (Marvin 2006:132).

6. Note that in the later Ipomedon C the hunt is conducted in a park: “she made ordan in a parc a grete huntyng” (325.43–44); cf. Sir Gowther : “Hontyng lufde he [Gowther] aldur best,/In parke and in wylde forest,” lines 178–79.

7. All quotations from The Master of Game (MG hereafter) are from the recent, unpublished critical edition by McNelis (1996), which uses as base text New Haven, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 101. This edition is forthcoming in the Middle English Texts series published by Universitätsverlag C. Winter, Heidelberg, and is much more reliable than the only published edition of this text (Baillie‐Grohman 1904), whose scholarly shortcomings have been exposed by McNelis (1996:67–71).

8. On these hunting modalities, see Cummins 1988; 2002:39–42, and Thiébaux 1974:28–40. Also relevant is the recent monograph by Almond (2003), though this needs to be consulted with caution since its scholarly dependability has been compellingly called into question (Scott‐Macnab 2002 for 2005:23–33).

9. Note that my punctuation of these lines departs from Purdie's. In addition, Purdie's preferred translation for line 584—“Before any of them were startled into disarray [i.e. flushed out]” (2001:262 n. to 584–86)—seems inaccurate. In the case of bow and stable hunting the main objective is to drive the animals in the direction of the stables of bowmen. As Cummins explains, “[in bow and stable hunting] the quarry animals are prevented from escaping sideways by lines of beaters or in some cases by a continuous physical barrier” (2002:42). Therefore, this line should be translated as, “Before any of them could escape out of their way.” This translation is closer to Kölbing's interpretation, although he misunderstands “Or”: “Oder einer (war) aufgescheucht von seinem wege” (1889:375 n. to line 58), “Or [recte Before] one was started from its way.”

10. Yamamoto, 2000:106 n. 17, mistakenly construes lines 578ff. as a reference to the stage in hunting par force de chiens known as the assembly or “gathering.” Surely, the gathering was usually staged in a locus amoenus (following the advice in MG, the gathering “shuld be in a faire mede, wele grene, where faire trees wexen all aboute … and a clere well or som rennyng brook besydes,” p. 260), but it did not require pitching camp, and its purpose was to bring together the hunters who had previously taken part in an exploratory quest “to gather evidence as to both the location and suitability for hunting of several harts” (Cummins 1988:34). The scene described in Ipomadon A mentions neither the main group's involvement in a preliminary quest, nor their examination of the evidence gathered therefrom.

11. These are the two characteristics that define this type of hunt, as Cummins explains: “There is no preliminary quest, and no selection of a preferred beast” (2002:40). Note that Purdie also considers that bow and stable is the method adopted for the hunt in Ipomadon A (2001:261–62 n. to 567ff.).

12. Gaston Phébus's contemptuous remark is revealing of the attitude against hunting with bows: “Des arcs ne say je pas trop, mes, qui plus en voudra savoir, si aille en Angleterre, quar c'est leur droit mestier” (pp. 272–73): “I don't know a whole lot about bows, but if anyone wants to know more, he should go to England, since this is their rightful talent.” Cf. Parlement of the Thre Ages, lines 40–44, which describe a poaching scene where the hunter cowardly hides and shoots his bow.

13. Note that in The Master of Game the term “great hart” is used specifically to describe the hart with the dominant role in the herd: “sometyme a grete herte hath anoþer felewe þat is called his squyer” (p. 156).

14. MED, s.v. “lacen” (c): “to loosen (the skin of a hart), cut open.” The skin, described here as being flayed off the carcass, is later spread open and hounds are fed titbits on it as a reward. On the curée, see Cummins (1988:44–46); for this scene in the story of Ipomedon, see Sayers 2003:24–25 n. 24.

15. Note that my punctuation of the passage departs from Purdie's and follows Kölbing's. Regarding the number of animals, see Purdie 2001:264 n. to 731. Yamamoto wrongly states, “Ipomadon's prowess in hunting is demonstrated by his slaying of seven enormous harts” (2000:122; emphasis added).

16. Cf. The Master of Game, “And the maistir of þe game, and the sergeaunt, and þe yomen at hors shuld comen home and blow the mene atte halle dore, or atte celere dore” (p. 273). Note that the word mene also caused problems to another English translator of Twiti's hunting manual who, instead of conveying the same sense as the line quoted above, renders it as “Than blow at the dore of halle þe pryse,” BL MS Cotton Vespasian B XII (ed. Danielsson, Twiti, The Art of Hunting, 63–64 n. to line 52; see n. to line 51 to understand the full nature of the error in this inferior witness); see also Putter 2006:383 n. 57.

17. Note that Kölbing emends it as “mene,” which is also a variant form for meine (q.v. MED).

18. For a discussion of this passage of Gottfried's Tristan (lines 2788–3317), see Sayers 2003:1–17. It seems probable that Hue de Rotelande found inspiration in this episode from the Tristan story, since he was certainly acquainted with it (Holden, in Hue de Rotelande, Ipomedon, 51).

19. Unlike in the case of Ipomydon B, in which “the heroine is portrayed as being preoccupied with Ipomedon's identity and social rank more than with his prowess” (Thaon 1983:58; cf. Marvin 2006:141), in Ipomadon A the Fere is already convinced of Ipomadon's noble condition (cf. lines 501–2). The prose Ipomedon also confirms that “she come more to behold hym, than the heides” (p. 326.13–14).

20. As Rooney has argued, “the princess of Calabria loves Ipomadon more when she sees his proficiency in hunting” (1993:86). The reading in the prose Ipomedon C provides support to this interpretation: “the ladie had so mych ioye, to behold him, that in partie she began to lufe him” (p. 326.1–2).

21. Here I reproduce the reading in the Egerton and Dublin manuscripts, as the reading “sursegle” of Holden's base text is of obscure sense (see Holden in Hue de Rotelande, Ipomedon, 524 n. to 641).

22. The contemporary and actual audience of Ipomadon A included the anonymous author of The Parlement of the Thre Ages (Sánchez‐Martí 2006:167), which contains a hunting scene as well (cf. n. 12).