sehepunkte 24 (2024), Nr. 7/8

Prunelle Deleville: La Version Z de l'Ovide moralisé

French versions of Ovid's Metamorphoses circulated widely in late medieval France, but were usually accompanied by allegorical interpretations of the myths as well as by historical and moral commentary. First rendered into French in the first quarter of the fourteenth century by an anonymous poet, the Ovide moralisé running to nearly 72,000 verses contains the most extensive commentary. The text was revised and adapted repeatedly both in verse and in prose, through the end of the fifteenth century, when a prose version was printed.

The 'Version Z' of the title of Prunelle Deleville's fine edition is a fifteenth-century reworking of the verse Ovide moralisé that has not previously been available, but is an important witness to the evolution of the text. This version survives in four manuscripts, the oldest dating to c. 1400. At not quite 40,000 lines, this version is obviously much shorter than the original (though still very long). Much of its concision is achieved through the suppression of the religious allegories. In treating the myth of Antheon (Acteon), for example, Version Z completely omits the passage interpreting it as a figure of human salvation through Christ's Passion (vv. 604-69 in De Boer's edition), and retains only the moral message to avoid idle pursuits. In addition to his omissions, the prose author completely rewrote many passages.

The two volumes are paginated consecutively, but each of the edition's fifteen books is numbered separately; consequently citations must indicate the book as well as the line number. The Introduction is relatively short because the editor refers to material that has already appeared in the Ovide moralisé, Livre I published in 2018 as vol. 107 of the Société des anciens textes français series. A list of the other manuscripts of the Ovide moralisé is followed by brief descriptions of the four copies of Version Z and a discussion of their place in the transmission of the text (11-18). A section on the principles of the edition follows (18-30), explaining the types of corrections made and describing the layout of the apparatus. In the linguistic analysis (30-48), Deleville notes the great variety in the orthographic representation of the same sound in the base manuscript. The various features of the phonology and morphology of the manuscript lead her to suggest that its scribe came from Lorraine or perhaps Burgundy. In the section on versification (48-63), Deleville attributes its considerable irregularity both to the evolution of Middle French in the century after the original text was composed and to regional characteristics that disrupt the rhyme. After a brief discussion of sources used by the redactor (63-69), the Introduction ends with a Summary (71-95) of the fables and their commentary in all fifteen books.

As her base manuscript for Version Z, Deleville has chosen the oldest copy (Paris, BnF, fr. 870), which differs most dramatically from the original version. She has edited the text conservatively. For example, obvious scribal errors are corrected, but she has not tried to emend faults of versification or to supply omitted verses. Lines that are treated in the Critical Notes are clearly signaled in the text with an asterisk. The critical apparatus is conveniently placed at the bottom of the page, and is divided into three sections: The rejected readings and the corrections appear first, then the variant readings. A third section devoted to problems of versification notes irregularities without comment, and records vers orphelins ("orphan verses," i.e. incomplete couplets), which are explained in the Notes. Some of these arise from scribal errors, but others result from the redactor's rewriting. The Critical Notes in the second volume (1585-1970) are extremely valuable: They report the omissions and additions made by the redactor (with reference to the edition by Cornelis de Boer and, for book one, to the new SATF edition), justify emendations, identify sources, and comment on difficult passages.

The Glossary (1973-2025) is mostly selective, including words from Old French that had become rare in Middle French, but also new words and expressions that the redactor used to clarify his text. Particular attention is paid to words denoting the process of metamorphosis (e.g. muance, muer, translater, treschanger, tresmuer), narration (e.g. exposicion, fable, istoire, istorial), and authorial authority (e.g. acteur, faindre, octorité) where the list of references in complete, but in other cases the number of citations is limited. Words discussed in the Critical Notes are marked with an asterisk. The second volume ends with a Table of Proverbial phrases (2027-37), a Bibliography (2039-53) and an Index of Proper Names (2055-2100) that is helpful for identifying unusual spellings of familiar names (e.g. Ogustus for Augustus).

In spot-checking the edition with the digitized microfilm on the Gallica site, I noted a couple of minor misreadings: in I, 219 (107) for Celuy read Celui; I, 845 (130) for Mais read Mes. Folio 2vb begins with the rubric, not with verse I 249 (108). I also found a few typographical errors: the asterisk following I, 462 (116) should be placed at the end of the next verse to match the note (1592); the note marked v. 998 (1600) should read 988; the note for v. 1194 (1602) should read 1190; the note for v. 1846 (1610) should read 1845. These are all minor slips, and do not detract from the overall quality of the edition.

La Version Z de l'Ovide moralisé is an excellent edition, the result of an immense amount of very careful work. It presents a "secular" version of the Ovide moralisé that appealed to an aristocratic audience in the fifteenth century and also served as the basis for print editions in the sixteenth. In making this version available to scholars for the first time, Prunelle Deleville has made a major contribution to the field of Late Medieval French Literature.