2007/11/29 by Andrew Breeze · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Historical Studies of British Isles #Medieval Literature and History
paper · doi:10.1093/notesj/gjm184
openalex publication_date 2007/11/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
THANKS to Oxford's alumni magazine, the discovery by Professor Malcolm Godden and Dr Rohini Jayatilaka of the oldest Old Cornish has had world-wide publicity. The phrase, reading ud rocashaas, occurs in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS lat. 3363; it appears above the adjective perosa ‘loathing’ in De Consolatione Philosophiae by Boethius. In the passage, beginning metrum 1 of book IV, Philosophy tells Boethius, ‘For I have swift feathers, which fly up to the height of heaven. When quick Thought clothes herself in them, with loathing she despises the lands below (Terras perosa despicit), rises above the vast encircling atmosphere, and sees the clouds behind her back ….’ Thought eventually reaches the country of the stars. Professor Godden, echoing Professor Sims-Williams of Aberystwyth, explains ud rocashaas as ‘it hated the gloomy places’ (= Thought's opinion of earth below).1 This is partly correct: rocashaas is a third person preterite ‘hated’, where the verb is cognate with Welsh casáu ‘to hate, abhor’, and ro is a preverbal particle expressing completed action.2 But ‘gloomy places’ for ud has the fatal air of desperate translation. It cannot be right.