Thursday, July 01, 2010

Trobyll and aduersyte

Another little tidbit of exotic orthography for you, from what was perhaps the most popular play in 15th century England, "Mankind." The last lines are Job's words at 1:21. The earlier reference to iron (ern) rather than gold is a deliberate change from Job 23:10, to make his example less distant. Source: Lawrence L. Besserman, The Legend of Job in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1979), 110-111