Intermezzo II: Caines iawbone, that did the firſt murder (part II: Manuscripts and texts)

This is a continuation of the Intermezzo II in the Abigor Totschläger review. Other parts:

• Totschläger artwork → https://telegra.ph/Abigor-Totschlaeger-1-05-29
• Intermezzo II, part 1 (Introduction, Shakspeariana, Hebrew tradition) → https://telegra.ph/Cains-jawbone-08-01
• Current part
• Intermezzo II, part 3 (Visuals <1400) → https://telegra.ph/Cains-jawbone-part-iii-10-10
• Intermezzo II, part 4 (Visuals 1401–1500) → https://telegra.ph/Cains-jawbone-part-iiii-10-13

The footnotes are explained here → https://telegra.ph/Footnotes-for-Intermezzo-II-10-09

Written word

Note: Those unfamiliar with Old and Middle, and Early Modern English historical and academic orthography, as well as with the insular script, please, note the common contemporary substitutes for the letters ſ (s), ƿ (w), ᵹ (g), ȝ (g or y), ꞃ (r), ꝛ (r) etc.

Beowulf

While the date of its composition is uncertain, some scholars believe it was written in the eighth or even “the seventh century” (Shapiro). It is preserved in a single manuscript that dates from either the very end of the tenth century or more likely the early decades of the eleventh century and is “known as the Beowulf manuscript”²³ (Britannica).

The Beowulf manuscript is a part of the Nowell Codex — in its turn a part of the Cotton MS Vitellius A XV — and is stored in (and was digitalised) by the British Library.

Klaeber’s²⁴ edition writes it as “siþðan Cain wearð tō ecgbanan āngan brēþer, fæderenmǣge” which Kiernan²⁵ translates as “from the time when strife arose as a sword slayer to an only brother, a paternal kinsman”

The text of Beowulf — in its “Christian contamination” as Bonnell puts it — calls Cain a knife-bane, ecg-banan, (folio 160v, line 1261 in contemporary editions). Even though Cain’s name is not pronounced, it is clear from the context and researchers generally agree about it:

…the modern critic need not assume that camp, at line 1261, is a corruption of the proper name, Cain. The word camp means “battle,” as Sisam says, but in a transferred sense it means “strife, struggle, contention.” An example of this usage is given in the Toller Supplement, from Gregory’s Dialogues: “Se camp (Lat. certamen) in þæs mannes breoste” (p. 116). The passage in Beowulf surely alludes, at least elliptically, to the first murder, but there is no more need to mention Cain’s name in this connection than Abel’s. (Kiernan)

Finally, in many current Beowulf editions camp is simply substituted with Cain.

Though its manuscript contains no images, it is peculiar that the text of Beowulf points to the idea that Abel was killed not by the hand of his brother, but by a cutting tool, a weapon (knife or sword) in his brother’s hand. According to Shapiro Beowulf is “the only Anglo-Saxon writing prior to the ninth century that speaks of a weapon.”

(The prose) Solomon and Saturn

The earliest known written source for the “jawbone of an ass” to appear as the first murder weapon.

Shapiro speaks of the text as being from the ninth century, but Henderson claims “although presumably it was composed before 1100, no editor or bibliographer has so far produced evidence for a more precise dating.” The holder of the manuscript — the British Library — speaks only of the date of the manuscript itself: “copied as a discrete unit in England in the second half of the twelfth century.”

It was hard for an outsider like me to discriminate between the sources of Solomon and Saturn. Obviously, there exists a text which is sometimes referred to as the prose Solomon and Saturn, or Debate of Saturn and Solomon (prose version), and there is a poetic text (or even two) with the same name(s). Seems like they survive in at least three manuscripts, namely CCCC 41, CCCC 422, and the Southwick Codex of the aforementioned Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, folios 86v–93v (the first murder scene in folio 91r), but it is unclear if the prose Solomon and Saturn exists only in the latter. The research is complicated by the fact that the authors of articles often omit the words prose and poetic, they speak of the texts in the three manuscripts as the sources of one literary piece (which seems not perfectly true), and thus it’s hard to understand not only which particular manuscript they refer to but also which particular text of the two (or three) they address.

What is clear though is that “upon the whole, although its subjects be similar, there is no one question found in the poetic Salomon and Saturn which is repeated […] in the prose version…” (Kemble²⁶)

Cross and Hill²⁷ edit it as:

Saga me for hwam stanas ne synt berende.

Ic þe secge, for ðon þe abeles blod gefeoll ofer stan þa hyne cham hys broðer ofsloh myd annes [esole]s cyngbane.

Kemble translates²⁸ it as: “Tell me why stones are not fruitful? I tell thee, because Abel’s blood fell upon a stone when Chain, his brother, slew him with the jawbone of an ass.”

A careful reader may notice an erased space in the manuscript where the word eſoleſ was put in the transcript. Here is what Cross and Hill²⁹ have to say about it:

Thorpe 34 [i.e. Benjamin Thorpe’s work³⁰ published in 1834] reads: esoles, for an erased word after ‘annes’. The visible top of the first ‘e’ and of an ‘l,’ together with a clear ‘s’ [ ſ ] in appropriate positions support his suggestion, as does an incomplete sense without the erased word. We accept the suggestion as an emendation not as a reading.

Rijmbijbel, Jacob van Maerlant (1271)

Van Maerlant completed the Rijmbijbel in 1271.³¹ The major part of the work is a rhymed translation and adaptation of Peter Comestar’s Historia scholastica (in which no murder-weapon is mentioned in the first murder scene). Rijmbijbel was copied many times, probably not by Maerlant himself, or maybe even re-written (by whoever) many times and thus it exists in at least fifteen manuscripts in which the contents deviate to some degree. Not all of the manuscripts mention the first murder weapon.

In the earliest surviving manuscript — KB Brussels Ms. 15001 (ca. 1285–1300) — no jawbone is mentioned (based on the online version of the 1983 edition by Maurits Gysseling, lines 861–4). A later manuscript — BPL 14 C, folio 9v (ca. 1460–70) — doesn’t mention it either. (Untrustworthy) wiki says these two manuscripts provide the most faithful text of the work.

The jawbone is missing in the University of Groningen Library manuscript HS 405 (folio 27v), dated ca. 1325–39.

But the jawbone is present in J. David’s Rymbybel van Jacob van Maerlant,³² which Shapiro refers to. David does not say which manuscript he based his edition upon (at least not its scanned version online), but if we trust the untrustworthy wikipedia, his edition is based on a late fourteenth century manuscript. It says:

…Daer quam die viant vander helle /
Eñ ghaf hem den raet
Dat hine beſt te doot ſlaet
Met ere eſels cake :

Shapiro translates it as:

The fiend came from hell
And gave him counsel
To strike him dead
With the jaw-bone of an ass.

The jawbone is as well present in the KB 10 B 21 manuscript in the Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum in The Hague. It’s unknown when exactly it was written, but the illumination was done by 1332. Lines 858–62 of the transcript say:

Daer quam die viant van der helle
Ende gaf hem den raet
Dat hine best doot slaet
Met ere esels kake

Finally, I found one scanned manuscript, which leaves no doubt. It is MS 19545, dated ca. 1325, in the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels. Folio 6r (image 19, i19) has the lines:

D’ quā die viant vand’ helle
E n̄ g(ī?)af hem den raet
D athine beſt te doet ſlaet
M et ere eſels kake

The earliest manuscript does not mention the jawbone, nor do several later ones. Those which do mention were written in the fourteenth century — after van Maerlant’s death in ca. 1291. I doubt the jawbone image was common in the Dutch-speaking areas at the date of the composition of Rijmbijbel. And I still doubt the lines belong to van Maerlant himself and are not an addition of a later copyist.

(Note: while collecting information on Rijmbijbel I came across the Northern Dutch History Bible {De Noordnederlandse Historiebijbel} dated ca. 1400 — there Cain kills Abel with a hoof of a donkey.)

Cursor Mundi (aka Cursur o Werld)

“The Cursor Mundi is a verse history of the world, based on scripture, telling the story of mankind from Creation until Doomsday. The poem, which is almost 24,000 lines long in some versions, was written by an unknown poet in the north of England about 1300. Although the original composition has not survived, it was copied many times over the next 150 years, and is now extant in nine manuscripts.” (Horrall³³)

According to Horrall, Cotton MS Vespasian A III copied around the year 1340 “is the extant manuscript which is closest to the poem actually written by the mediaeval poet.” In Morris’s³⁴ transcript the lines speaking of the jawbone are as follows:

A-gain abel he raysed strijf,
Wit murth he did his broiþer o lijf;
Wit þe chafte ban of a ded has
Men sais þat þar wit slan he was;

The Cotton MS Vespasian A III manuscript seems not yet fully digitalized by the British Library where it is being stored, so I cannot be sure Morris’s transcript is precise. But two other manuscripts were relatively easy to find.

First was the Göttingen manuscript — 2 Cod. Ms. theol. 107r Cim. — the date of which cannot be named more precisely than the second half of the fourteenth century.

id est:

Again abel he raiſed a ſtrijf
wid murther he broght his broþ(er) o lijf
wid y cheke bon of ane aſſe
Men ſay yat abel ſlain waſſe

The second easily found manuscript was Trinity College MS. R. 3. 8.

The jawbone part is very close to the Cotton manuscript:

id est:

Aȝeyn abel he roos in strif
Wiþ murthere brouȝt hī of his lif
Wiþ a cheke boon of an aſſe
Men sayn abel slayn waſſe

Two other manuscripts speak in a similar manner.

• Fairfax MS 14, Bodleian Library: “wiþ þe cheke of an dede asse // mon says þat þar-wiþ slayne he was”³⁵
• Arundel MS LVII, College of Arms: “Wiþ a cheke boon of an asse // Men seyn abel slayn wasse”³⁶

Þe Lyff of Adam and Eue, aka (Prose) Life of Adam and Eve

The origin of the manuscript is still debated, but dated ca. 1381–1400. Now stored in Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, as Eng. Poet. a 1. Also known as Bodelian MS 3938 and the Vernon Manuscript. The first murder scene is to be found in folio 393r.

The manuscript says: “And þr caym slouh Abel. Wt þe cheke bon of an Aſſe. he smot hī on þe hed. And þr he bilafte ded. in þe feld of Damaſſe.”

A transcript of the piece can be found in Horstmann.³⁷

Towneley play(s) aka Towneley cycle

Also known as the Wakefield plays, they constitute a unique manuscript titled Huntington MS HM 1, stored in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. The library record dates the manuscript ca. 1490–1510. The first murder scene is in folio 6r.

When it comes to dating the texts and the manuscript, Professor Garrett P. J. Epp writes: “While most of the plays were likely written much earlier, the manuscript itself is now thought to have been produced as late as the mid-sixteenth century. The initial letters at the beginning of the first two plays imitate those of sixteenth-century English printed books — a decorated letter in a black square, outlined in red — while the plays that follow begin with (increasingly) elaborate strapwork capitals, of a style found in sixteenth-century northern England.”³⁸ Bonnell dated the play ca. 1360–1410.

We yei that ſhal thou ſore abite
With cheke bon or that I blyn /:/ ſhal I the & thi life twyn /
So lig down ther and take thi reſt /:/ thus ſhall ſhrewes be chaſtyſed beſt.

So, cheke bon is obviously cheek-bone, the jaw-bone. (An edited transcript can be found in Garrett.³⁸)

The N-Town Plays aka the Hegge Cycle

Also known as the Hegge plays or cycle, or Ludus Coventriae cycle, they constitute the manuscript Cotton Vespasian D VIII now stored in the British Library. Though the manuscript is dated 1468, Bonnell suggests “the dates of the first seven plays are probably much older.” The first murder scene is in Play III, “Cain and Abel”, folios 19v–20r.

(Note: read ꝛ as r)

What yu ſtynkyng loſel & is it ſo
doth god ye love & hatyht me
yu xalt be ded I xal ye ſlo
yi lord yi god yu xalt nevyꝛ ſe

(Continued on the following page, folio 20r)

Ty thyng mor(e) xalt yu nevyr do
Wt yis chavyl bon I xal ſle ye
yi deth is dyht yi days be go
out of my(n) handys xalt yu not fle

wt yis ſtrok I ye kylle
Now yis boy is ſlayn & dede
of hym I xal nevyr mor(e) han drede—
he xal her(e) after nevyr ete brede
Wt yis greſſe I xal hym hylle

Chavyl means jaw. See Chavel in the Dictionary of Archaisms and Provincialisms.

An edited transcript with explanations can be found in Sugano.³⁹

A Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament

The poem was probably composed around 1400–10, the two surviving manuscripts are not original. They are MS Selden Supra 52 (fols. 2a-168a) dated middle fifteenth century in the Bodleian Library, and Longleat House MS 257, formerly known as Bath 25, (fols. 119r-212r) dated ca. 1457–69 (Martí⁴⁰), in the private collection of the Marquis of Bath. Seems like none of the manuscripts are publicly available online, hence the following quote is taken from Kalén⁴¹:

MS Selden Supra 52, folio 4a:

Soyn Eue consauyd and bare a chyld,
Cayn, that sythyn so cursyd was
Be cause of Abell meke and myld
That he slow with a cheke of a nase;

(Romans are for those who are used to read manuscripts.)

Origo Mundi

Written in the fourteenth century — probably its third quarter — Origo Mundi is a Middle Cornish play, a part of the mediaeval mystery cycle Ordinalia, “written in a script which the [Bodleian Library] catalogue entry assigns to ‘the first half of the fifteenth century’ [… The] stage directions and names of characters [are given] in Latin. Middle Cornish is a Celtic language closely related to Welsh and Breton and was formerly the vernacular of Cornwall, Britain’s westernmost shire.”

Origo Mundi survived in the Bodley 791 manuscript, dated 1425 by the Bodleian Library. The first murder scene is in folio 5v (shown above).

(Note: read ꝛ as r)

abel whek ol na wra vry • rag/ pup traol a fyth da
dre weres agan dev ny • anef/ an arluth guella
ke yn rak del ym kyrry • yn hanow dev a wartha
venytha na ſowyny • tan he(n)ma war an challa
—
Tūc ꝑcuciet/ eū in capite t/ moriet-r et/ dicit/ lucifer.

Harris⁴² translates it as:

Cain: Dear Abel, don’t worry. With the Lord’s help, all will be well. As you love me, lead on. … And now, by God, to make sure you’ll never know success, take this in the chaps! (Then he shall strike him on the head, and he shall die, and Lucifer says:)

Even though Bonnell lists Origo Mundi as another example of the use of the jawbone, it seems from the text that it is Abel who received a strike in the jaw rather than him being beaten by a jawbone. Still, Origo Mundi is worth mentioning in this context, as in another Cornish play — Gwreans an bys — Abel receives a strike in the jaw with a jawbone.

An alternative transcription and a translation can be found in Norris.⁴³

Caxton’s Game of the Chesse, aka A Book of the Chesse Moralysed

Shapiro dates the work ca. 1474, the incunabula in the Library of Congress is dated ca. 1482.

The first murder story can be found in the chapter “The iii tractate of the offices of the comyn peple. the firſt chappitre is of the offyce of the labourers & werkemen.”

& thus be gan thenuye that caym had ayenſt abel / For hys wyf was fayrer than cayms wyf / and for this cauſe he ſlewe abel wyth the chekebone of a beſte

A transcript (of unknown quality) can be found in Project Gutenberg.

Queſtions bitwene the maiſter of Oxinford and his scoler (aka The Master of Oxford’s Catechism)

Note: ꝛ is changed to r.

A rework of the prose Solomon and Saturn, “written in the reign of Henry V”,⁴⁴ although the manuscript is being dated between 1509 and 1564. Stored in the British Library, the manuscript is known as Lansdowne MS 762 (folios 3v–5r), the first murder scene is told in folio 4v.

Generally, the jawbone part repeats what has been quoted from Solomon and Saturn, with the most notable change being the characters themselves — Saturn became the scoler or clerc, Solomon became the maister.

(Note: read ꝛ as r)

/C[lerc]/ Why bereth not stonys froyt as well as trees? /M[aister]/ for cayme ſlough his brother Abell with the bone of an Aſſe cheke.

Gwreans an bys, aka The Creacion of the World (Cornish mystery play)

A play written down by William Jordan (Loth⁴⁵) exists in at least “four copies”⁴⁶ (wikipedia lists two more). I found online a digital copy of the oldest manuscript — MS Bodley 219 — which is dated August 12, 1611, “but [it] appears a transcription of a much older original.”⁴⁷

The first murder scene is in folio 12v.

The play is written in the Cornish language, while the instructions in the manuscript are provided in English. (I copied the text in Cornish to the limit of my abilities from MS. Bodl. 219.)

Cain prepares the jawbone — A chawbone readye — and tells Abel:

Rag errya ſure wr ow fyn
me ath wiſke harlott jawdyn / may thomellẏ theth kylban
kym ar henna te ploos adla, waran challa : gans aſkorn an challa
[Abell ys stryken wt a chawe bone & dyeth]

Neuss⁴⁸ translates it as follows:

[A jawbone ready.]
For grumbling at me, surely,
I shall beat you, you villain, that you fall on the back of your head.
Take that, you dirty outcast, on the jaw with a jawbone!
[Abel is struck with a jawbone and dies.]

An alternate transcript and translation can be found in Stokes.⁴⁹

The Breton Play aka the Breton Mystery, aka La Création du Monde, aka Mystère Breton

Bonnell: “In the drama [the jawbone] appears on the continent only in the Breton play.” Bonnell and Shapiro date the play ca. 1550.

As is clear from the title, the piece was created in Brittany — “seems to have originated in the Tréguier area […] Evidence from the manuscripts take us back only to the later part of the seventeenth century [1663], but the date of composition is clearly earlier, even though dating texts with this kind of transmission is always very difficult. […] assigning a (slightly later) sixteenth-century date to the Breton work would seem reasonable” (Murdoch⁴⁸)

The work is known in a variety of (incomplete) manuscripts,⁴⁹ but I found no public library record of them, to say nothing about digital copies of the manuscripts. Hence I quote a transcript and translation by l’abbe Eugène Bernard published in three volumes of Revue Celtique⁵⁰ 9–11 in 1888–90. It is being said it’s a transcript of the MS Fonds Celtique 12, presumably stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France. Loth says⁵¹ that Bernard’s transcript may contain mistakes and the translation is overly poetic.

Excerpt I⁵²

Bernard’s transcript:

Caïn dre eur valis hac un anvi ive,
A assistas he vreur da vonet d’ar mené,
Hac hen hac o cafet manjouer un asen,
Hac o rein d’ehan un tol gant-han a dreus he pen.
Goat Abel a crie memeus bete an Env,
Evit goulen venjans dirac ar gouir Doue.
Dont a ra ar Maro d’hen lemel d’eus ar bet,
Ha Caïn criminel dirac Doue rentet.

Bernard’s translation into French:

Caïn avait par malice et aussi par envie, accompagné Abel sur la montagne : là il trouva une mâchoire d’âne, et la saisissant, il en porta un coup sur la tête de son frère. Le sang d’Abel criait jusqu’au ciel, demandant vengeance devant le Tout-Puissant. La Mort vient retirer Abel du monde, et Caïn ne fut plus qu’un criminel aux yeux de Dieu.

Google translation into English:

Cain had out of malice and also out of envy, accompanied Abel on the mountain: there he found the jawbone of an ass, and seizing it, he struck a blow on the head of his brother. Abel's blood cried out to the sky, asking for vengeance before the Almighty. Death comes to take Abel out of the world, and Cain was no more than a criminal in the eyes of God.

Excerpt II⁵³

Bernard’s transcript:

Caïn a coms.

Caet am eus aman manchouer un asen;
Me a raï d’it gant-han breman, voar da clopen.
Sacrifi da ine breman da Doue an Tat,
Rac evit er bet-man ne ri pelloc’h nep mat.

— Caïn a ra un tol voar pen he vreur: ma sorti.

Bernard’s translation:

Caïn.

Je trouve ici la mâchoire d’un âne, je vais t’en donner un coup sur la tête. Offre maintenant ton âme en sacrifice à Dieu le Père, car en ce monde tu ne feras plus rien. — Cain frappe son frère à la tête. Il sort.

Google translation:

I find here the jawbone of a donkey, I'll give you a blow on the head. Now offer your soul as a sacrifice to God the Father, for in this world you will no longer do anything. — Cain punches his brother in the head. He goes out.

Continue reading → https://telegra.ph/Cains-jawbone-part-iii-10-10