ST. ANDREW AND THE THREE QUESTIONS: FOOTNOTES
1 Lines 876-77: [The devil] resented that he lived so / acceptably to God and man
2 Lines 886-88: Saying she wished to confess her sins [to] / And be shriven by someone / With the power to absolve her
3 Lines 930-36: To me it would be preferable (lit., dearer) to be utterly banished far out of my land, than ever, to the last day of my life, to break my vow to Christ, which I have made and always kept. And because the fame of your holiness is spread far and wide everywhere
4 Lines 979-80: For we shall not converse by our selves, just the two of us, without more [people] knowing (i.e., being present)
5 Lines 1021-22: The bishop and the rest [of the company] thought / Her verdict appropriate
6 Lines 1081-82: Therefore ask him what distance [it] is even / From earth to Heaven
7 Lines 1116-17: And told them all in detail / How the fiend came to his palace
8 Lines 1131-34: And the bishop ever from that time forward / Was more devoted to Saint Andrew, night and day, and was glorifying Saint Andrew in every way
9 Lines 1147-48: And except for Saint Peter, his own brother, / He converted more people to Christianity than any other [apostle]
10 May He (Jesus) send us all to the same bliss [as Andrew]
ST. ANDREW AND THE THREE QUESTIONS: EXPLANATORY NOTES
864 Religeouse. Religious here may mean merely "holy," but the word also often refers to some sort of "regular" regime, i.e., life according to a set "rule" such as those of the Benedictine monks or Austin canons.
888 Priests and bishops were empowered by the Church to confer absolution (God's forgiveness of a person's sins after confession) and to assign a suitable penance.
901-02 The poet's emphasis on the bishop's ingenuousness replaces a less sympathetic word of explanation, victus (variant convictus, "convinced," "overcome," with a possible pun on the homophonic noun, "companionship/intercourse") in LA (ed. Maggioni, 1.33; convictus is not translated by Ryan).
905-14 In these lines the "she-devil" coyly prompts the bishop to pay close attention to her youthful appearance (As ye ma se, translates ut cernitis but and ye tak hed is the poet's addition - line 910), while her speech is laden with other innuendoes: e.g., haf mercy (line 908) which literally translates the Latin miserere mei but in the vernacular belongs as much to the diction of courtly love as to religion; the adjective delecatly (line 911, reproducing LA's delicata) suggests a kind of pampered softness conducive to the wantonness which is one of the word's other common meanings in ME. See also lines 935-46.
909 stabelaste in youthed. Literally, "established/situated in youth." The circumlocution echoes the phrasing of LA (ed. Maggioni, 1.33): in annis puellaribus . . . constituta. See textual note on this line.
925 This use of the third singular present of OE weorthan ("become/turn out") to mean "it behooves [someone]" is a Middle Scots peculiarity. See OED worth, vb., B5.
926 And. The manuscript reading (see Textual Notes) is Or. The syntax is not quite consistent here: othir . . . or should mean "either . . . or," but the text has two or clauses, the first of which (line 926) fits the context awkwardly. The line would make better sense if its conjunction were and, since by agreeing to marry (her first alternative), the "maiden" would lose her cherished virginity. In LA, the choice is simply either to obey her father or suffer punishment (trans. Ryan, 1.19). The Scots poet, in other words, sought to make clear why obeying her father was not an option, despite the alternative prospect of being punished severely for disobedience. It seems best therefore to emend and translate the three lines thus: "So that either I was obliged to do his will, and destroy my goal [of perpetual virginity], or suffer torment great and cruel." The prospect of being cruelly punished by her father for resisting marriage recalls the legendary predicament of virgin saints such as Juliana, whose angry father had her whipped before handing her over to her former suitor for further torture and eventual martyrdom (LA chapter 43; trans. Ryan, 1.160-61; also translated in ScL 2.424-31 and in DM 1.62-70. Juliana, however, chose to suffer for her ideals rather than run away. The situation here may have reminded some readers of the historical experience of Christina of Markyate (c. 1097-1161): see Talbot, ed. and trans., The Life of Christina of Markyate.
942 gaynand. The etymology is ON gegna ("to meet/encounter") rather than OF gagner ("to win"), as asserted by Metcalfe, ScL 3.60.
935-46 In the equivalent passage of LA the devil-woman's more consciously artful rhetoric makes the bishop's admiration for her "wyss spekyne" (line 955) more understandable: ". . . I have sought refuge under the wings of your protection, hoping to find a place with you where I might enjoy the secret silence of holy contemplation and avoid the pitfalls [presentisque uite uitare naufragia] of [the present] life, and escape from the disorders of the noisy world" (ed. Maggioni, 1.33; trans. Ryan, 1.19). In the Scots version these choice phrases are replaced by the diction of secular love lyrics, as the devil-woman appeals to the bishop's gentill will (line 938) and pitté (line 939) to rew on her in sik distrese (line 940).
957-62 Compare LA: "Be free from care, daughter, and fear not, because he for whose love you have despised, in manly fashion [uiriliter], yourself, your family, and your possessions, will in return bestow upon you abundance of grace in this present life and the fullness of glory in the life to come" (ed. Maggioni, 1.34; my translation). The Scots poet simplifies the Latin here, notably suppressing the adverb uiriliter, with which the conduct of holy women, especially early virgin martyrs and early ascetics, was dignified, but which would have clashed here with the poet's ongoing depiction of the relationship between bishop and devil-woman in courtly terms. See Bjerre-Aspegren, The Male Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church, pp. 115-43.
971 Coincidentally, Alison of Oxford uses the same expression to fend off the urgent advances of Nicholas the clerk in Chaucer's Miller's Tale (CT I[A]3285).
972-76 As if to suggest the development of a more-than-clerical relationship between the two, the she-devil affects no concern for the possible immorality of his invitation, but only, as befits a figure in a courtly romance, anxiety for their public, worldly reputations. Notice the flirtatious hint of litill cause (line 976), which is the Scots poet's addition.
987-88 The bishop would presumably be seated, like any medieval baron, at a table for himself and other dignitaries (in this case his new ward, facing him), usually on a slightly raised platform or dais, while the other clerics and retainers would be arranged according to their ranks at longer tables down the length of the hall. This arrangement, and the name "High Table," is still maintained in the dining halls of Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Lawe or lave (line 987) was in common usage in OE (laf, lit., "leavings/what is left"), but largely confined to Scots in the ME period and later.
989 in a rane. "Continuously"; the phrase is a Northern expression of obscure origin; rane also can mean "a prolonged cry" or "a rigmarole." The poet follows the Latin (LA, ed. Maggioni, 1.20) in emphasizing the bishop's obsessive gazing at the devil-woman's beauty (Intendit in eam crebro episcopus eiusque faciem non desinit intueri et pulchritudinem admirari, "the bishop gave her continuous attention and did not cease gazing at her face and marveling at her beauty" - our translation). Metcalfe, however, posits a noun arane, "conversation," from OF aresne, ultimately from Latin adrationare (ScL 3.68) but this word in ME and Middle Scots is represented by areyne or arenyie, i.e., the legal term arraign, "indict/call to account."
990-91 The interruption in sense between fane (line 990) and Quhen (line 991) suggests that two lines are missing between them, as Metcalfe points out (ScL 1.91 and 3.69). They probably paraphrased part of a sentence in LA about how the bishop's heart was wounded through his eyes: Sicque dum oculus figitur, animus sauciatur (ed. Maggioni, 1.34, "And thus when the eye is fixed, the heart is wounded" [our translation], a variation on the medieval proverb, ubi amor, ibi oculus). The same topos, of course, is common in medieval romances of love (e.g., Chaucer's Knight's Tale, CT I[A]1077-79).
994 lykyne. Apparently a shortened form of the verbal noun, lykynge, since the rhyme word is persavynge (compare "spekyne" in line 955). Although the present participle suffix in Scots is -and, nouns formed from verbs preserve the OE gerund suffix, -ung/-ing, which in ME eventually replaced the present participle suffix -end.
1000 purchess oportunité. Compare the blander Latin equivalent (LA , ed. Maggioni, p. 34): quando possibilitas se offerret, "when the opportunity might arise" (our translation). The poet's technique of creative fidelity to his source is nicely illustrated in the subtle differences between the Latin and the vernacular, in that the Latin possibilitas is directly translated with oportunité, but the syntax is altered to make the bishop the active subject. The original meaning of purchess in OF and ME is to "seek after," "obtain," or "procure," often nefariously. The word seems carefully chosen here, not only because etymologically it is related to the "chase" (the practice of hunting), which is a common medieval metaphor for erotic desire, but also, perhaps, because one of the meanings of the noun purchess in Northern usage is "concubine" (see OED purchase, sb., 3b).
1009 hone. "Delay," a Northern dialect word of obscure origin.
1010-11 This pedestrian piece of enjambement is one of the poet's rare moments of lazy or unskillful writing.
1019-20 The devil-woman's insinuation, that the bishop should not deign to keep company with dull, ignorant people, adds the temptation of pride to that of lust.
1027-30 It is interesting that here the bishop abandons his habitual way of addressing the devil-woman, using Lady (line 1027) rather than "douchtyr" (line 957) and abandoning the fatherly singular pronoun, appropriate for a bishop addressing a young woman, in favor of the more gallant and courtly plural form (ye . . . yore) for the first time, as if acknowledging her as his peer and mistress at this crucial moment.
1036-44 The five "wits" or senses are those of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch; the organs of the first four are all part of the "face" in a way, but touch is more usually associated with the hands. The devil-woman's questions, as if she is under some sort of divine compulsion, revolve around the crisis at hand. Thus the answer to the first question is the miraculous nature of the very thing - a beautiful face - that is enticing the bishop to commit the sins of lust and pride. The answer also emphasizes that the face is the location of all the potentially dangerous bodily senses, which up to this point in his life the bishop has successfully disciplined and controlled in his devotion to God and St. Andrew. On the second question, see explanatory note to lines 1057-62.
1057-62 The Christocentric impulse in medieval thought is nicely illustrated in this answer. Not the highest mountain on earth but the human physique of Jesus in Heaven is "where the earth is highest." This second question points specifically away from the beautiful, enticing physicality of the devil-woman to the one body to which the bishop should be devoted, Christ's (corpus Christi, the phrase used in LA, ed. Maggioni, p. 35, at this point). The pilgrim's answer also invokes the doctrine of the Incarnation, by which Christ is both God and man, divine spirit and human flesh, and which lies at the center of the Christian faith that the devil is seeking to undermine. On the cult of Corpus Christi in the later Middle Ages, see Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture.
1058 hevyne empyre. The "empyrean" (lit.,"fiery") is the highest and outermost of the nine crystalline spheres that in Ptolemaic cosmology form the structure of the universe. In Christian thought this sphere of fire became identified with the abode of God and the angels. The word hevyne is often used to refer to a cosmic sphere.
1074 doucht. Third person singular, past tense (here with present meaning) of dow,"to be valid, worthy, profitable, useful"; from OE dugan, which became obsolete in the later Middle Ages except in Scotland. Compare Modern English doughty.
1081-82 The third question, admirably suited to the context in various ways, continues to thematize the relationship between earth and Heaven that has loomed large in the previous questions and underlies the basic tensions in the story. The question is also apparently much more common in such games of question and answer than the first two. For some of the different answers recorded (e.g., one step, into the grave and up to heaven; or one day, since Christ made the trip in a day), see Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, H682. Finally, the question allows the pilgrim to go on the offensive, for in affecting not to know the answer and deferring to his opponent's expertise, he is able to reveal the devil-woman's true identity with a sarcastic flourish (lines 1085-96). He is also performing a saintly ritual and hagiographic topos, in that he is not only proclaiming his opponent's identity but also reminding her that she is a damned spirit, defeated by God (compare the encounters of saints and demons in the Lives of Antony and Guthlac and the legend of the Finding of the Holy Cross).
1096 umlape. See also textual note. The verb combines the ON prefix um- ("around/about"; compare OE ymb) and ME lap ("enfold/coil"). Lap has no known OE or other etymology.
Fanding, "temptation," is from a common OE word (fandian) that remained current mainly in the North in the later Middle Ages.
1099 rednes. An orthographic variant of radness; Northern dialect rad is from Old Norse hrddr, "frightened/alarmed."
1108 The poet betrays some anxiety as to how to handle this part of the story. In the Latin source there is a brusque statement to the effect that bishop "bitterly reproached himself, and with tears prayed for pardon for his fault" (trans. Ryan 2.20). The Scots poet softens this somewhat by invoking the late medieval distinction between committing a sin in fact (which would have "shamed" the bishop and destroyed his physical chastity) and, as here, consenting to it with the will. The implication seems to be that the bishop may have erred but Andrew has saved him from something much worse.
1135 ff. From this point the Scottish author leaves the Latin source (which recounts one more Andrew miracle) and concludes with his own tribute to the saint. His apology for breaking off, namely that he is alde and swere (line 1139,"old and slow"), recurs several times in ScL, as pointed out by Metcalfe in his note to line 1139 (ScL 3.71). The word swere, here meaning "reluctant/indolent," from OE swr (grievous/oppressive), survives in the ME period mainly in the North. See OED sweer.
ST. ANDREW AND THE THREE QUESTIONS: TEXTUAL NOTES
Abbreviations: MS = Cambridge University Library MS Gg.2.6, fols. 29v-32v; M = Metcalfe's 1896 ed. of ScL (Legends of the Saints in the Scottish Dialect of the Fourteenth Century).
863 Ane. Space is left for an initial A two lines high.
865 affeccione. So MS. M: affecione.
868 Outane. MS: Outare. M's emendation. Outane, meaning "except," is the usual form elsewhere in the manuscript. It is the reduced form of outtane (out + tane, past participle of ta, the Northern variant of take), lit., "taken out."
870 he. Inserted above the line in MS.
872 to say. MS: to țe say.
873 almychtty. So MS. M: almychty.
879 fellounly. MS: fellouny.
909 stabelaste in youthed. A later hand has noted the Latin constituta in the margin, probably indicating that at least one reader was reading the text against LA. See the explanatory note to this line.
911 fosterit delecatly. MS: fosterit is delecatly. The verb is, "written between the lines . . . probably by a later hand," is adopted as the correct reading by M, ScL 1.89, but it seems redundant in the sentence and clashes grammatically with "am I" in line 912.
925 his. MS: is. M's emendation.
926 And. MS: Or. M's emendation. See explanatory note to this line.
928 Forethi. MS: Fore. M's emendation.
938 Opand. MS: offerand. The manuscript reading makes little sense and is probably an error for opand ("hoping"), as noted by M (ScL 3.67), following Horstmann. M leaves the manuscript reading offerand in his text, however.
947 And. Space is left in the manuscript for an initial A two lines high.
955 spekyne. So MS. M emends to spekynge.
958 He. MS: Hym. M's emendation.
964 servand. MS: v inserted by a later hand.
968 Will chese. MS: will ese chese.
978 thar thee. MS: ar țe. M does not emend, but suggests thar the as an alternative (ScL 3.68). The impersonal verb thar, "need" (from OE thurfan), takes a dative of respect. Schone is the verb "shun," used intransitively in some Northern texts to mean "be afraid."
999 Waittand. MS: wittand. M's emendation.
1001 Thane. Space is left in the manuscript for an initial thorn two lines high. In the right-hand margin, a later hand has written peregrinus.
1008 tharfor. So MS. M reads țarefor.
1030 the. So MS. M reads Ʒe.
1039 in sum. MS: is sum. M's emendation.
1042 Sene. MS: Send. M: Sen.
1054 at. MS: țat. M's emendation (the th- is marked for deletion by a later hand in MS).
1055 heyest. So MS. M reads hyest.
1071 Bot. Space is left in the manuscript for an initial B two lines high.
1080 at. MS: țat. M's emendation.
1084 and. M: quha. M's emendation seems unnecessary. Possibly the word he has dropped out at the beginning of line 1085.
1096 umlape. MS: vnlape. M's emendation.
1100 And tald. MS omits And. M's emendation.
1116 tham. M: ța. In MS there is a light stroke over the a.
1119 tham. MS: țare. M's emendation.
1120 walk. So MS. M reads wakk but the variant spelling walk for wake is widely attested in Middle Scots.
1150 mastir. So MS. M expands as master.