La vieille ou les dernières amours d’Ovide Poëme français du XIVe siècle Traduit du latin de Richard de Fournival par Jean Lefevre Publié pour la première fois et précédé de recherches sur l’auteur du Vetula par Hippolyte Cocheris [...]

Full title: La vieille ou les dernières amours d’Ovide Poëme français du XIVe siècle Traduit du latin de Richard de Fournival par Jean Lefevre Publié pour la première fois et précédé de recherches sur l’auteur du Vetula par Hippolyte Cocheris Membre de la Société impériale des Antiquaires de France, etc., etc.

12mo. pp. [2], f. [1], pp. liv, 293, [2].

First modern edition of the French text of the principal pseudo-Ovidian imitation of the late middle ages, De vetula, supposedly Ovid’s late autobiographical poem on being tricked into bed by a wily old seductress posing as a young woman. The poem is now pretty firmly attributed to the French bibliophile and trouvère Richard de Fournival, who fl.1250–60, and its 14th-century French translation to Jean Lefèvre of Ressons-sur-Matz (Oise).

Sceptics of the early Italian Renaissance included Petrarch and Dante’s son Pietro, but English writers such as Roger Bacon and Richard de Bury advanced the spurious reputation and popularity of De vetula, and Robert Holcot’s commentary on the Biblical Liber de sapientia (c.1335) circulated the story of its discovery in Ovid’s mythical tomb near Tomis, on the Black Sea. One major importance of the imposture lies in the prophecy by ‘Ovid’ of the virgin birth of Jesus, which became a familiar Classical-Christian myth, like the Seneca-St Paul letters.

For earlier editions see D. M. Robathan, ‘Introduction to the Pseudo-Ovidian De Vetula’, in: Transactions of the American Philological Association, 88 (1957), pp. 197-207, and her 1968 edition.

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