The collection of quotations regarding P. Virgilius Maro was very entertaining. I recall reading a review of a book on PVM and wondering whether this was an April Fool's edition of the journal it was in! At any rate, the book might be worth mentioning: it's by Vivien Law, and is called, "Wisdom, authority, and grammar in the seventh centruy : decoding Virgilius Maro Grammaticus" (Cambridge University Press, 1995). She tries valiantly to place PVM within his context, and does something useful in that respect, as I recall.
Phil Thibodeau >Dear Andre'-Paul, > > P.Virgilius Maro of Toulouse (fl.ca.A.D. 630) is mentioned a few times >in Helen Waddell's "The Wandering Scholars" (1936, 7th ed. rev.): >p.30 "It was a low tide [in Latin letters] on the Continent of Europe, >except for one deep pool at Toulouse where the grammarian Virgilius Maro >agitated strangely on the secret tongues of Latin, and told his story of >the two scholars who argued for fifteen days and nights without sleeping >or eating on the frequentative of the verb "to be", till it almost came >to knives, rather like the monsters one exspects to find stranded in an >ebb." (Waddell refers to a Epist.de Verbo (Teubner, p.138) and "De >Catalogo Grammaticorum ",( pp.88-90).) > >p.40-41,n.3 "The style of Martianus Capella is thoroughly vicious, and >Virgilius Maro of Tolouse with his secret Latin known only to the >initiate sets just the kind of riddle to intrigue the barbarian mind." > > Domenico Comparetti in his "Vergil in the Middle Ages"(p.124 ,Eng >.trans) describes Virgilius Maro in the following bravura passage : >". . . that enigmatical monstrosity, at once comic and tragic, the >Vergil of Tolouse, who considered in respect of his surroundings and >origin, gives the impression of little else than a grim joke. He is >perhaps the only medieval grammarian who deserves to be called original, >but his originality takes a strange turn. Ideas, facts, names of >authors, words and rules are all alike invented by his fertile brain, >which ends by distinguishing twelve different kinds of Latin, and >putting Vergil in the time of the Flood. This strange writer, with his >claims to great grammatical authority and his adoption of the name of >Vergilius Maro to enforce those claims, reminds one irresistibly in the >squalor of his time (6th-7th century) of those hideous and putrid fungi >which are generated in the rotting leaves of autumn . . ." > >Comparetti refers (p.124,n.9) to a complete edition of Virgilius Maro's >works: I. Huemer(ed.)(1886) "Virgilii Maronis Grammatici Opera" Lipsię: >Teubner. > > > Incidentally, Ennodius (ca.A.D.473-521) was angry that the name of >Virgil had been adopted by worthless men. He addressed such a one thus: >"In tantum prisci defluxit fama Maronis, > ut te Vergilium sęcula nostra darent. >si fatuo dabitur tam sanctum nomen homullo > gloria maiorum curret in opprobrium, etc" > >[Carm. ii.118 ff quoted by Comparetti p.71 Eng. trans.] > > As far as I know P.Virgilius Maro Grammaticus of Tolouse is the only >one to have adopted the whole of Virgil's name ! I have only ever come >across a few men named Virgil: (1)Vergilius Romanus, a friend of Pliny >the Younger; (2)Virgilianus, the son of Vibius Sequester (the author of" >de Fluminibus Fontibus Lacubus etc" which preserved a line by Cornelius >Gallus on the river Hypanis);(3) one of Alcuin's fellow scholars who >adopted it as a pen name ;(4) Polydore Vergil; and its American use as a >first name is exemplified by (5) the composer Virgil Thomson, and (7) a >television character in "McHale's Navy". Are there any others, I wonder? > >Best wishes >Peter JVD BRYANT >Perth >Western Australia >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >P.S. Your quotation of the First Eclogue pleases me: it is one of my >favourite passages from Virgil. > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
