THE LIFE OF SAINT KATHERINE, BOOK 2: FOOTNOTES

1 Lines 56-60: The Greek word "Cata" means, in English, / "Over all" or "all"; "ryne," in our language, / Means "falling." Together (i.e., "Catherine") they connote that, within her, / All the turmoil of sin and shame / Was vanquished and never approached near her

2 I have professed a completely different lifestyle [than they wish for me]

3 Are about to be dispersed and ruined because of me

4 Say what they want, as they are used to doing

5 Lines 234-35: A clerk there had carefully taught him what to say, down to the least detail

6 Lines 246-47: Lady, you could have thought this over well enough / By now, if you had wanted to

7 Lines 284-85: Even if he still lived, by God, he would be no more / Than one man: without others what could he

8 We think these practices are not suitable to you

9 Lines 394-95: Your lordships (i.e., the titles and properties) were nobly won / Before you could walk, even before you existed, and only later came into your hands

10 I accept your arguments, when they amount to anything

11 Lines 564-65: And I hate / Having to say this; I do so only because of my oath

12 Lines 605-06: I.e., Were you to marry, you would not have so many annoying duties

13 Lines 616-18: If only God would allow that at whatever cost - / Upon my body - things ran as smoothly / Throughout my land as they do in Cyprus

14 Lines 698-700: It would not be to my advantage, / For though it (failure to govern) would vex everyone here, / I know very well that it would affect me most

15 Lines 743-45: But though such bad fortune [in marriage] is often found among the poor, / It is not thus among such great royalty / As those with whom we now wish to promote you

16 Lines 806-07: And in not one of my words do I misrepresent, / With a meaning other than the word should have

17 But nothing has turned out as we expected

18 Lines 855-56: Also, even if we labored to please him, / He would not please us, with you alive

19 Lines 967-68: In past times, on account of the strife and conflict / That reigned everywhere among the people

20 Lines 974-76: Because, when all are equal (peers), / There is no one who will do anything for anyone else: / One person argues for one opinion, another argues for the opposite

21 Do not set your mind on a plan of such great peril

22 As far as I am concerned, the horse is stuck in the mire (i.e., I am at a loss)

23 Lines 1133-34: Every action, truly, has two parts: / Planning the deed, and actually carrying it out

24 Both wisdom when serious and power in obtaining his will

25 Lines 1193-96: No man, unless he is really stupid, / Will do otherwise than agree with me and say / That it is better, when there is no alternative, / To take the one thing (wisdom) / Than to lack both (wisdom and strength)

26 Lines 1241-42: And the very tree that once bore green (unripe fruit) / Now bears red or white fruits of different sorts

27 Lines 1272-73: By common consent, he had composed an argument / Which, if he has any luck, he will present

28 Lines 1319-20: To tell the truth, she was appointed, by patent letter, / To be God's viceroy

29 I will not settle for less than you rated me

30 It is the logical conclusion of your arguments

31 Lines 1410-11: Know how to set right everything [that might go wrong] / Before it completely collapses (goes completely wrong)

32 Lines 1432-33: It is reasonable that his shining face / Should surpass the brightness of her who is his servant

33 May God never send any realm a king who wears a caul (woman's cap)

THE LIFE OF SAINT KATHERINE, BOOK 2: NOTES

11 found. MS: foud.

14 Sche knowyth not yet the rode. A crucifixion pun: rode means both way and cross.

24 us. Not in MS.

36 othyr. MS: odyr.

55-66 For thus it menyth . . . and thi love. Capgrave is adapting the etymology of Katherine's name provided in Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda aurea.

250 It is more sykyr a bryd in youre fyste. The first known record of the popular proverb,"A bird in hand is worth two in the bush." See Whiting, Proverbs, B301. The speaker continues with two more proverbs,"The gray hors whyl his gras growyth / May sterve for hunger" (lines 253-54; compare Proverbs, G437) and"The sore may swelle long or the herbe / Is growe or rype" (lines 256-57; compare Proverbs, S504).

260 now. Deleted in MS.

267-71 To se the boweles cut oute of his wombe . . . be foure and be fyve. Reference to the method of executing traitors by hanging, drawing, and quartering.

276 se men flete and also se hem synk. Probable allusion to a judicial ordeal (the"cold-water ordeal"), dating from c. 800, wherein the accused was cast into water; sinking indicated innocence, floating guilt. See Henry Charles Lea, The Ordeal (1866; rpt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1973), pp. 72-88.

307 And yet of this punchyng oft he knew ryght nowt. In other words, Costus did not personally supervise each and every execution.

of. Repeated in MS.

470 you. Not in MS.

476 I wepe so sore I may no lengere ryme! Here and elsewhere (for example, 3.1251, 4.1666), Capgrave's characters betray an almost Brechtian consciousness that their stories are unfolding in rhyme royal stanzas.

510-23 Nabugodonoser . . . Goddys grace. Daniel's dealings with Nebuchadnezzar are recounted in Daniel 1-4. According to Daniel 6, Darius (not Nebuchadnezzar) threw Daniel to the lions.

510-67 Capgrave is establishing Katherine's propensity towards conversion: her know-ledge of and respect for Scripture (Genesis, Daniel), her desire to know more about Daniel's god, and her purely perfunctory reverence for her own pagan gods (lines 564-67). Katherine's study of Scripture, however, might have made her a problematic example for fifteenth-century lay readers.

580 Ovyde seyde. Capgrave is paraphrasing views in the introduction to the Remedium Amoris.

582 medecyn comyth ovyr late. Proverbial: Whiting, Proverbs, M484.

735-42 Valerye . . . in this forsayd werke. The Dissuasio Valerii ad Ruffinum philo-sophum ne uxorem ducat was a popular misogamous tract written by Walter Map in the late twelfth century.

786 that astate I trede all undyr fote. Capgrave may be alluding to popular representations of Katherine of Alexandria trampling the emperor Maxentius. See Introduction, p. 2.

825 Aristoteles Elenkes. Aristotle's De sophisticis elenchis (On Sophistical Refutations) was a standard textbook for late-medieval students of dialectic. Aristotle dissects the various rhetorical tricks employed by sophists, whom he defines as people who wish to appear wise without actually being so. In so doing he pro-vides a veritable treasure trove of rhetorical fallacies, which Katherine accuses her opponent of using.

883 ye. MS: eye.

909 othir that have abyden long. Capgrave evokes the stories of various lovers (Troilus, for example, or Dido) whose initial resistance to love resulted in a tragic romance.

958-59 mo wyse hedes . . . the bettir is it. Proverbial. See Whiting, Proverbs, H227.

961-93 qwy / That o man above many shall have governing . . . cuntré abowte. The view that kingship results from the voluntary submission of free people to another's authority (pactum subjectionis) is found in the work of various late-medieval political theorists, including Marsilius of Padua (Defensor pacis, especially 1.8-9), Duns Scotus (Ordinatio 4.15.2), and Nicholas of Cusa (Concordantia, especially 2.21-41, 3.4). The idea goes back to Greek and Roman times, for example, Cicero's De officiis (especially 2.21-41) and Aristotle's Politics (especially 3.14). For general discussions of consent theories and related matters, see Jeannine Quillet, "Community, Counsel and Representation," in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350-c. 1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 520-72; and Anthony Black, Political Thought in Europe, 1250-1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 136-85.

994 thei. Not in MS.

1106 whil. Rawlinson reads wyll, a careless scribal error. I have emended for sense according to Arundel.

1116 grype ne take. The lord is literally saying that no one can overcome Katherine's arguments, but, since the overall debate concerns Katherine's marriage, we may infer a sexual innuendo.

1124 To Gorgalus tyme. See 1.568 ff. for Capgrave's account of Gorgalus, king of Syria, and his descendants.

1154 as wyse. Repeated in MS.

1159 he. Not in MS.

1167-68 ten or twelve / Schuld geve exaumple rathere than schall oone. John Gower expresses the same opinion in his discussion of government in the Confessio Amantis (Prologue, lines 157-58).

1191-92 syth ye sey that I am now so wys, / Than have I o thing. See line 1148.

1204 in2. Not in MS.

1231 Athenes, of wysdam it beryth the key. Athens was the home of such renowned philosophers as Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. In Chaucer's Knight's Tale, when Theseus is said to be"lord and governour" of Athens (I [A] 861), the implication is that he is wise, a man renowned for"his wysdom and his chivalrie"(line 865).

1247 ff. lych a griff am I. The Apostle Paul develops and explores this simile in Romans 11:13-24.

1286 Mynerve. Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom.

1304 Babel. See 1.533-95. Alexandria was founded by the sultan Babel, who named the city Babylon after himself. When Alexander the Great conquered Babylon, he renamed it Alexandria.

1354 The Fyrst Mevere. See Aristotle, Natural Science, Book 8, and Metaphysics, Book 12.

1371 do. Not in MS.

1467 we2. Not in MS.