Mapping the Anglo-Saxon Intellectual Landscape: The Old English Maxims I and Terence's Proverb “Quot homines, tot sententiae”

Abstract

This article presents a source history of lines 167-68 in the Old English wisdom poem Maxims I. A classical Latin sententia by Terence ("Quot homines, tot sententiae") has been identified as source or analogue for line 167 ("Swa monige beoþ men ofer eorþan, swa beoþ modgeþoncas"), but no detailed examination of the validity of this identification, of the Latin proverb's transmission, or of possible intermediate sources has been offered. This article first shows that the Old English analogue to the original proverb extends over two instead of only one line, paralleling a longer version of the Latin proverb than previously assumed. After an excursus on the status of Terentian material in Anglo-Saxon England, I suggest that, besides Terence as ultimate source, a line in Ovid's Ars Amatoria may have more immediately influenced the Old English poet's phrasing. In addition to investigating the source history of two specific lines, this article demonstrates the valuable contributions that source study continues to make to the larger field of Anglo-Saxon studies by presenting a case study that illustrates how source analysis can be used to map more accurately and more completely the intellectual landscape of Anglo-Saxon England.A TERENTIAN PROVERB IN OE MAXIMS I 49 a more or less random compilation of aphorisms, with (at least in part) native Germanic roots. 2 Like the similar sapiential collection Maxims II, 3 Maxims I constitutes a collection of observations on human society and the natural environment that does not exhibit any clearly logical or even sequential structure on a first reading. 4 Much scholarly work on Maxims I has centered on the question of unity and coherence, producing widely differing opinions. 5 Even though the poem does not show any immediately coherent argues that the Exeter Book was made at Exeter in the mid-to late-tenth century (see Chapter IV, especially at 94), whereas Gameson, while not disputing the general dating of the manuscript, excludes Exeter as the place of production (1996, 136, 179, with detailed paleographical analysis on 162-79) and tentatively proposes Glastonbury instead (179). Abbreviations used in this article: ASPR = The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records; CCCM = Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis; CCSL = Corpus Christianorum Series Latina; CSEL = Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum; L = Latin; ModE = Modern English; OE = Old English; PL = Patrologia Latina (ed. J.-P. Migne).

Saving the “Undoomed Man” In Beowulf (572b-573)

“…Given the wealth of scholarship on the concept of wyrd (e.g., Phillpotts 1928;Timmer 1941;Kasik 1979;Weil 1989;Pollack 2006) and Old English maxims (e.g., Williams 1914;Cavill 1993Cavill , 1999Deskis 1996Deskis , 2005Deskis , 2013Shippey 1977Shippey , 1978Thayer 2003;Kramer 2010;O'Camb 2013), this proverb has enjoyed considerable scholarly attention. 1 The significance of the word unf3ge in this proverb, however, has received relatively less treatment.…”