63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

410 michael lapidge
so-called ‘Codex Oxoniensis Posterior’). 7 The text of DRF as preserved in
the Bodleian manuscript has evidently undergone numerous campaigns
of glossing and interpolation, with the result that there are many words
and glosses (in Latin and Welsh) embedded in the text (Lapidge 1986:
94–7). The original form of the work can only be a matter of conjecture,
but it is with the original form that we are concerned. Before turning to
the language of DRF it is essential to try to establish the original date of
composition. The date of the manuscript provides the terminus ante quem;
on the other hand, the fact that DRF is obviously modelled on the Latin–
Greek colloquies of late antiquity provides a rough terminus post quem of,
say, the fourth or fifth century, when most of the surviving Latin–Greek
colloquies appear to have been composed, and when Latin was still spoken
in the western provinces. The debt of DRF to late antique colloquies is clear
from the very opening, where the speaker is awakened by a friend; once
awake, the speaker asks the friend to bring him his clothing in language
derived from a Latin–Greek colloquy:
‘surge, lo; temp est t, si hodie surgis.’
‘surgam etiam. da mihi meum vestimentum, et postea surgam.’
‘ostende mihi ubi est vestimentum tuum.’
‘est super pedaneum, qu est ad paedes meos, vel iuxta te posui, vel
iuxtahabetur.damihimeumclobeum, ut induam circa me. da mihi
ficones meos, ut sint in ambulatione circa pedes meos.’ 8
Although the ancestry of this conversation is clear enough, there is no
trace in DRF of the Greek equivalents which accompanied the Latin conversation
in the late antique colloquies. Although Greek was taught in
schools in Gaul, there is little evidence that it was taught in Romano-
British schools. 9 What seems to have happened is that a Romano-British
(or early medieval) schoolmaster simply deleted the accompanying Greek
7 DRF has been edited by Stevenson 1929: 1–11, and more recently by Gwara 2002: 125–37. Iquote
from Stevenson’s edition rather than from Gwara’s, which is deformed by some grotesque conjectural
emendations (e.g. secabilis in line 129 of his text), and by his attempt to normalise case endings of
glosses. The title of the work derives from a colophon on fol. 46v of the Oxford manuscript: FINIT
AMEN DE ALIQUIBUS RARIS FABULIS.
8 Stevenson 1929: 1.1–6. Translation: ‘Get up, my friend, from your bed; it’s time for you, if you’re
getting up today.’ – ‘I’m getting up already! Give me my clothing, and then I’ll get up.’ – ‘Show me
where your clothing is.’ – ‘It’s here on the footstool, which is at my feet, or else I put it near you, or
it’s in the vicinity. Give me my undershirt, so I may put it around me. Give me my shoes, so that
they may enclose my feet.’
9 It may be worth noting, however, that the heresiarch Pelagius, who was originally from Britain, was
able to defend himself eloquently in Greek when he was tried for heresy at Diospolis in 415. Where
did he learn to speak Greek, if not in Britain, where he received his education in grammar and
rhetoric (before c. 380)?