And there's the "fierie" sword of Gen. 3 (Bishops'; in the Geneva
it's "the blade of a sworde shaken," while Tyndale has "a naked sword
moving in and out.")
Margaret
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In Joshua 5:13-15, Joshua sees the captain of the Lord's host with a
drawn sword in his hand. Unfortunately in the biblical text (as
opposed to the illustration from the Bible storybook I remember from
childhood), the weapon does not specifically glow. But one assumes
that the chariots of fire (2 Kings 2 and 6) associated with Elijah
and Elisha did.
Margaret
At 03:46 PM 5/30/2008 -0400, you wrote:
>RC's armor, we are told in FQ 1.1.14, "made / A litle glooming
>light, much like a shade, / By which he saw" the ladylike features
>of the monster Error. Where came that light in?
>
>I've been working through a new anthology, The Virgilian Tradition:
>The First Fifteen Hundred Years (Yale, 2008), and I notice there
>that in two twelfth-century romances, the Old French Roman d'Eneas
>and the Middle High German Eneit, Aeneas is instructed by the sibyl
>to use his sword for light in the underworld (pp. 574, 601). This is
>interesting: in Virgil's Latin, Aeneas is instructed to whip out his
>sword -- and also told that swords have no effect on ghosts. So what
>does he need a sword for? The romancers give an explanation.
>
>I like source hunting! But I don't believe Spenser had direct access
>to either of these poems. (I started looking for evidence about ten
>years ago, but the trail peters out s. XIV.) What's more likely is
>that all three poems have a common source. Any ideas? Where else in
>biblical, classical, or romance lit do we find weapons that glow or
>armor that gives off light? (I know that some gemstones were thought
>to have this property, but no jewels are mentioned here.)
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
>English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
>East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Margaret R. Christian, Ph.D. [log in to unmask]
Associate Professor of English Office: (610) 285-5106
Penn State Lehigh
Valley Home: (610) 562-0163
8380 Mohr Lane fax: (610) 285-5220
Fogelsville,
PA 18051 USA
http://www.lv.psu.edu/professional/mrc1/
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