La injuria grave, que haga insoportable la vida en común

In the following, I shall first briefly introduce the classical mythological terms that appear in Anglo-Saxon sanctions and then analyse their use in these sanctions. The sanctions’ classical mythological terms can be divided into three groups (the terms are listed in descending order of frequency):

a) Appellations of hell: Tartarus, Orcus, Avern, Erebus b) Infernal waters: Styx, Acheron, (Pyri)Phlegethon, Cocytus c) Infernal beings: Cerberus, ?Vulcanus, Pluto

According to Michael Lapidge, especially the Bella Parisiacae urbis (Book III) of Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Aldhelm’s work were important sources of

Anglo-Saxon hermeneutic Latin, next to numerous glossaries.28 With regard to mythological terminology, I have not noticed any relevant terms in Abbo’s work, which is not surprising, however, in view of his very different subject matter.29 Aldhelm, by contrast, did use classical mythological terms for denoting hell, although only two:Tartarusappears multiple times in his writings andOrcusonce.30 Surprisingly, other comparatively common terms like Styx or Acheron appear to be absent from his work. Nonetheless, most classical mythological terms used in Anglo- Saxon sanctions appear in edited Anglo-Saxon glosses and glossaries.31 While some of these glossaries may be of lesser importance to hermeneutic Latin, they do nevertheless provide insights into how these classical mythological terms may have

been understood by Anglo-Saxons.32 Tartarus appears with three different Old

English interpretamenta: hell, terms denoting ‘torment’ and ‘punishment’ in hell, and terms signifying ‘abyss’.33 According to Patrizia Lendinara, interpretamenta

28_{Lapidge, ‘Hermeneutic Style’, pp. 69-76.}

29 _{On Abbo of Saint-Germain’s Bella Parisiacae urbis, see A. Adams and A. G. Rigg, ‘A Verse}

Translation of Abbo of St. Germain’sBella Parisiacae Urbis’,Journal of Medieval Latin14 (2004), 1-68; P. Lendinara, ‘The Third Book of theBella Parisiacae Urbis by Abbo of Saint-Germain-des- Prés and its Old English Gloss’,ASE15 (1986), 73-89; P. Lendinara, ‘The Abbo Glossary in London, British Library, Cotton Domitiani’, ASE19 (1990), 133-49; P. Lendinara, ‘Abbo of Saint-Germain- des-Prés,Bella Parisiacae urbis’,Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture I: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and Acta Sanctorum, ed. F. M. Biggset al.(Kalamazoo, MI, 2001), pp. 15- 18.

30_{See the excellent word index inAldhelmi opera, ed. Ehwaldi; cf. below, p. 135, n. 33, p. 136, n. 35.} 31_{On early Anglo-Saxon glossaries with classical mythological entries, see Herren, ‘Transmission and} Reception’, pp. 97-101. For introductory reading on glosses and glossaries, see P. Lendinara, ‘Anglo- Saxon Glosses and Glossaries: an Introduction’ in herAnglo-Saxon Glosses and Glossaries, Variorum Collected Studies Series 622 (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 1-26; M. Lapidge, ‘The Study of Latin Texts in Late Anglo-Saxon England: the Evidence of Latin Glosses’,Latin and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain, Studies in the Early History of Britain, ed. N. Brooks (Leicester, 1982), pp. 99-140; R. I. Page, ‘The Study of Latin Texts in Late Anglo-Saxon England: the Evidence of Old English Glosses’, Latin and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain, ed. Brooks, pp. 141-65.

32_{Note, however, that according to Patrizia Lendinara these insights can only be tentative, because} research is ‘still far from a complete understanding of the significance of glosses for the knowledge of Anglo-Saxon cultural history and literature (and indeed of the Old English language)’, see her ‘Anglo- Saxon Glosses: an Introduction’, p. 1.

33

OE hellin HyGl 2 (43.8; 67.2.2; 70.5; 72.2; 128.3), SedGl 2.1 (70); cwicsusl in HyGl 3 (43.8; 67.2.6; 70.5; 72.2; 128.3), AldV 1 (1293), AldV 13.1 (1249);hellewitein AldV 1 (1293, 2179), AldV

13.1 (1249, 2218), AntGl 4 (455); tintregu in AldV 13.1 (685); grundleas seað in AldÆ 1 (39);

suggest a shift in the meaning of Tartarus in Anglo-Saxon England.34 However,

there may instead have been simultaneous interpretations, because the

interpretamenta merely vary their emphases on aspects shared by Vergil’s Tartarus

and the Christian hell. The term Orcus seemingly appears only in the Aldhelmian

glosses, where it is rendered as ‘death’.35AvernandErebusare both rendered ashell in Old English, but Erebus is once given the connotation of depth.36 Styx is glossed twice as helle mere, ‘lake of hell’, and Acheron is glossed in Latin as fluuius aput

inferos, ‘river in the Lower World’.37 An alternative name for Pyriphlegethon is Phlegethon and only the latter seems to appear in Anglo-Saxon glosses.38 One gloss presents Phlegethon like the other waters of the underworld asinferni fluminis, ‘river of hell’.39The other occurrence ofPhlegethonis interesting because, glossed in Latin

and Old English, its Old English interpretamentum is closer to the classical

mythological description of Pyriphlegethon than the Latin one: in Latin it is glossed as de fluuio infirni, ‘of the river of hell (or underworld)’, in Old English as of

ligespiwelum flode, ‘fire-vomiting stream’.40 The name Cerberusis glossed as canis

qui hostiarius inferni dicitur, ‘a dog which is called doorkeeper of hell’, in the

Ælfric’s Grammar is not a glossary, but it provides valuable translations of Latin words into Old English.

34 _{P. Lendinara, ‘Glosses and Glossaries: the Glossator’s Choice’, in herAnglo-Saxon Glosses and} Glossaries, pp. 27-63, at 58-9.

35

Old Englishdeaðesin AldV 2.3.1 (107); Old Englishmuþesin AldV 1 (900), AldV 13.1 (837). The appearance ofmuþ, ‘mouth, opening, door’, is puzzling. Yet, because the complete Latin lemma reads orci mortisandorci .i. mortisrespectively,muþesmay be a mistake formorþes, ‘of death’.

36_{Avern: OEhellin HyGl 2 (3.6), HyGl 3 (3.6), CorpGl 2 (1.920); Erebus: OEhellin ClGl 1 (2202,} 3009), ClGl 3 (2114);helle seaþin AntGl 4 (453);profundum infernumin CorpGl 2 (5.227).

37_{Styx: AntGl 4 (454), ÆGram (p. 72); Acheron: CorpGl 2 (1.116).}

38_{The prefixpyri-, which is derived from the Greek wordπυρο, ‘fire’ (cf. PrudGl 1, 207), emphasizes} that the Phlegethon is a fiery water.

39_{HlGl (F461).} 40

PrudGl 1 (207);ligespiwelum (lieg, ‘fire, flame’ + spiwan, ‘spit; vomit’) appears to be a literal rendition of Latinflammiuomus, an adjective that appears often in Anglo-Saxon sanctions. According to Michael Lapidge flammiuomuswas already used by Bede for its poetic register, see M. Lapidge, ‘Poeticism in Pre-Conquest Anglo-Latin Prose’, Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose, ed. T. Reinhardt, M. Lapidge and J. N. Adams, Proceedings of the British Academy 129 (Oxford, 2005), pp.

321-37, at 331. Donald Bullough has discussed the adjective flammiuomus in the context of

Leiden Glossary and similarly in the second Erfurt Glossary as Ceruerus canis

inferni, ‘Cerberus, dog of hell’.41 In the Old English Alfredian translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae, Cerberus is presented as ‘helle hund […] þæs nama wæs Ceruerus, se sceolde habban þrio heafdu’.42Cocytus is the only term which I have not found in any published Anglo-Saxon glossary, but, as pointed out above, it was used in the Bible. The classical mythological terms used in infernal imagery of sanctions for denoting hell, describing its landscape and inhabitants are glossed only rarely with references to their mythological context. Instead, most glosses appear to interpret them in a distinctly Christian manner.