06-05-2021, 06:05 AM
Whilst I would love to dwell on bagpipes, Scottish, Swiss, Bulgarian, Galician-Portuguese or otherwise--thank you so much JKP!--I must proceed with the difficult work of reading and interpreting more lines of Middle English text near the bottom of folio page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . (You know you're on the right track when the work stops being enjoyable, because you're not just making up whatever you would like the text to read, but rather you must attempt to figure out the meaning that the original author was actually intending to convey.)
It has been a while since I posted the preceding lines, so I will refresh readers' memories with the interpretation and translation of the two lines preceding the new lines to follow below:
" Spur soueth hotər : theiris son risəth o bimoueth "
" al-to siteth yong, hoting acme gatteething riteth "
" Spur ["Hotspur"] sows/begets hotter : their son rises, ever mocks [Bolingbroke] "
" He absolutely reigns young, promising at maturity he stabs the gap-toothed [Bolingbroke] "
Again, these are the 7th and 6th lines of text up from the bottom of folio page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Now here I will present below the 5th, 4th, and 3rd lines up from the bottom of this page.
And so forsooth the following three lines forthwith:
EVA transliteration:
[ opolkeor olchocfhy cphol chypaldy cholols chkaiin olfcham ]
[ sysheos okaly cheos otey ykar ls aiin okaiin ytolkal ]
[ dtshol dytal okar olol sheol qockhy qokaly salol dalam ]
Yorkist cipher letter values:
" fOsteOR OsYOnK mch YKpissK Ychchl YtO chtYiB "
" lKtheOl disK YeOl feK Ktir sl O OtO Kpctis "
" spthOs sKpis Otir OsOs theOs hOnK hOtisK lisc sisiB "
My interpretation of these lines:
" foster, os-yong macch ek-gossip, lacche oute BiYtch "
" alacke-loueth dising, louey feng riting, als o out o capacites "
" spathest scapes, outir-usest theus hong, hout-isynge schil/lich, si-sib "
Modern English translation:
" Child, as a young companion and pal, take the life of the bitch"
" Alack, [the bitch/Bolingbroke] loves dice-playing, loves cutting a catch, as/also [cutting] one out of legal rights "
" You spat out misdeeds, shamelessly you use decrees to hang [people], surpassing legal right, distant relative "
In the last line above the addressee is now clearly Bolingbroke, rather than the young Percy, heir of the deceased "Hotspur". This transition has been set up by the previous line, which begins the description of Bolingbroke's offenses. I also note that the last line above uses the familiar or "disrespectful" singular "thou" forms of the verbs "spathest" and "usest".
Please keep in mind that Bolingbroke was Henry IV, the king of England at the time when these lines were written. With this in mind, you may understand the need for absolute secrecy and obscurity on the part of the author(s) in the composition of this manuscript. I too would use Spanish-trained rather than English or French scribes, writing in a Spanish-style script, and use German rather than English or French to make notes in the marginalia, if I were the Duke of York and I were writing such things about the king! I would also use an extremely obscure cipher as well. I would make any illustrations ambiguous enough to be plausibly deniable as Yorkist imagery if necessary, just in case the manuscript fell into the wrong hands of Henry IV or an official in his court.
Geoffrey
It has been a while since I posted the preceding lines, so I will refresh readers' memories with the interpretation and translation of the two lines preceding the new lines to follow below:
" Spur soueth hotər : theiris son risəth o bimoueth "
" al-to siteth yong, hoting acme gatteething riteth "
" Spur ["Hotspur"] sows/begets hotter : their son rises, ever mocks [Bolingbroke] "
" He absolutely reigns young, promising at maturity he stabs the gap-toothed [Bolingbroke] "
Again, these are the 7th and 6th lines of text up from the bottom of folio page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Now here I will present below the 5th, 4th, and 3rd lines up from the bottom of this page.
And so forsooth the following three lines forthwith:
EVA transliteration:
[ opolkeor olchocfhy cphol chypaldy cholols chkaiin olfcham ]
[ sysheos okaly cheos otey ykar ls aiin okaiin ytolkal ]
[ dtshol dytal okar olol sheol qockhy qokaly salol dalam ]
Yorkist cipher letter values:
" fOsteOR OsYOnK mch YKpissK Ychchl YtO chtYiB "
" lKtheOl disK YeOl feK Ktir sl O OtO Kpctis "
" spthOs sKpis Otir OsOs theOs hOnK hOtisK lisc sisiB "
My interpretation of these lines:
" foster, os-yong macch ek-gossip, lacche oute BiYtch "
" alacke-loueth dising, louey feng riting, als o out o capacites "
" spathest scapes, outir-usest theus hong, hout-isynge schil/lich, si-sib "
Modern English translation:
" Child, as a young companion and pal, take the life of the bitch"
" Alack, [the bitch/Bolingbroke] loves dice-playing, loves cutting a catch, as/also [cutting] one out of legal rights "
" You spat out misdeeds, shamelessly you use decrees to hang [people], surpassing legal right, distant relative "
In the last line above the addressee is now clearly Bolingbroke, rather than the young Percy, heir of the deceased "Hotspur". This transition has been set up by the previous line, which begins the description of Bolingbroke's offenses. I also note that the last line above uses the familiar or "disrespectful" singular "thou" forms of the verbs "spathest" and "usest".
Please keep in mind that Bolingbroke was Henry IV, the king of England at the time when these lines were written. With this in mind, you may understand the need for absolute secrecy and obscurity on the part of the author(s) in the composition of this manuscript. I too would use Spanish-trained rather than English or French scribes, writing in a Spanish-style script, and use German rather than English or French to make notes in the marginalia, if I were the Duke of York and I were writing such things about the king! I would also use an extremely obscure cipher as well. I would make any illustrations ambiguous enough to be plausibly deniable as Yorkist imagery if necessary, just in case the manuscript fell into the wrong hands of Henry IV or an official in his court.
Geoffrey