Texts

Irish glosses to the Brevis expositio Vergilii Georgicorum

  • Old Irish
  • prose

Two Old Irish glosses to the Brevis expositio Vergilii Georgicorum, a commentary on Virgil’s Georgics, as it stands in a Florence MS (Plutarch 45.14). The glosses in this manuscript reflect a later stage of transmission in which they are found integrated within the main text and were presumably copied by a scribe who had no knowledge of Irish.

Language
  • Old Irish
Form
prose (primary)
Textual relationships
(Possible) sources: Brevis expositio Vergilii GeorgicorumBrevis expositio Vergilii GeorgicorumLatin commentary on Virgil’s Georgics, books I and II. The extant texts are comparable to parts of the so-called Scholia Bernensia and are thought to represent an early medieval recension of material that may have originated in late antiquity. The presence of two Old Irish glosses has been taken to speak in favour of Irish involvement in the compilation of this recension. This notion has been reinforced by more intricate arguments based on textual relationships with the Scholia and another Virgilian commentary, which precedes the Expositio in three out of four manuscripts.
Related: Glosses on PhilargyriusGlosses on PhilargyriusOld Irish glosses to Iunius Philargyrius’ commentary on Virgil’s Eclogae, al. Bucolica. While the original manuscript containing them is lost, they are found in continental copies of the commentary produced in the 9th and 10th centuries, presumably transcribed by scribes who had no knowledge of the Irish language.

Classification

Sources

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

[ed.] Lambert, Pierre-Yves, “Les gloses celtiques aux commentaires de Virgile”, Études Celtiques 23 (1986): 81–128.
Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 23, 1986: <link>
105
[ed.] Stokes, Whitley, and John Strachan [eds.], Thesaurus palaeohibernicus: a collection of Old-Irish glosses, scholia, prose, and verse, 3 vols, vol. 2: Non-Biblical glosses and scholia; Old-Irish prose; names of persons and places; inscriptions; verse; indexes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903.  
comments: Reprinted by DIAS in 1987, together with Stokes' supplementary volume.
Internet Archive: <link> Internet Archive – originally from Google Books: <link> Wikisource: <link>
48 (nos. 125–126)
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
November 2019, last updated: September 2023