Vitruvius, ‘Caecius’, Nero, and Philip Massinger. - The Object of Absolution in the Dies Irae

Abstract

Résumé ‒ L’expression gray-eyed utilisée pour qualifier les Germains à la fois par l’auteur anonyme de la pièce Néron (1624) et par Philip Massinger (Roman Actor, 1629) est à rapprocher de l’adjectif caesius employé par Vitruve (De architectura, 6, 1, 3). ‒ Hypothèsessur l’identification originelle du personnage visé par l’expression Qui Mariam absolvisti dans le Dies irae.

Abstract ‒ Trying to suggest an appropriately Germanic ‘otherness’, the Nero author and Massinger simplified caesius, which is properly an intermediate gradation between two colours, into an absolute ‘gray’, and did so because, as an iris chrome, it is rare enough to evoke the exotic. ‒ In the Dies irae, our first thought, when reading Mariam without a toponymic agnomen, will be of the mater Dei and not of the in civitate peccatrix (Luke 7.37). The authorities of the Roman church certainly think so, for, as part of their reforms to the liturgy, they have rewritten the line Qui Mariam absolvisti into Peccatricem qui solvisti.

Rodney Stenning EDGECOMBE
Associate Professor Emeritus
University of Cape Town, South Africa
rodney.edgecombe@uct.ac.za