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Third Book Of Kings (1 Kings)

THIRD BOOK OF KINGS (1 KINGS): EXPLANATORY NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS: CA: Gower, Confessio Amantis; CM: Cursor mundi; CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; DBTEL: A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, ed. Jeffrey; HS: Peter Comestor, Historia Scholastica, cited by book and chapter, followed by Patrologia Latina column in parentheses; K: Kalén-Ohlander edition; MED: Middle English Dictionary; NOAB: New Oxford Annotated Bible; OED: Oxford English Dictionary; OFP: Old French Paraphrase, British Library, MS Egerton 2710, cited by folio and column; Whiting: Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases; York: York Plays, ed. Beadle. For other abbreviations, see Textual Notes.

9680 K notes comparison with Genesis and Exodus, lines 1425–26: “Siðen men auen holden skil, / first to freinen ðe wimmanes will” (Story of Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris).

9714 heldyd. See the note to line 9986.

9734 Ebron. As K notes, 3 Kings (1 Kings) 3:4 and HS 3 Reg. 5 (1351) call the place Gibeon, whereas Hebron appears in OFP 79c. This alternative location is mentioned in HS as being that given by Josephus, which is true (Jewish Antiquities 8.2.1).

9783, 86 delyver . . . delyver. In both cases, the word is being used as an adjective. K notes a parallel in Purity, line 1084.

9821–22 Thei say, “Yt wele is sene this tyd / of a new kyng a new comyn case.” K calls attention to OFP 80b, which reads: “sa gent se gabent, se jurent lur lei: “ceste semble agard (“decision”) de jovene rei.” Compare lines 9829–40.

9849–52 K notes to compare HS 3 Reg. 7 (1352): “admirati sunt assessores ejus, qui prius sententiam, quasi ab adolescente prolatam deridebant.”

9883 Fawr thowssand yeres fyfty and fyve. 3 Kings (1 Kings) 6:1 dates the start of the building to 480 years after the Exodus (440 years in the Septuagint), though HS 3 Reg. 9 (1354) notes that Josephus gives a different date, including the fact that from the creation of Adam 3,102 years had passed (compare Jewish Antiquities 8.3.1). The number of years here, 4,455, might, as K observes, be compared to OFP (see Baker, Die versifizierte Übersetzung, p. 37).

9893 The suteltes of science sevyn. K notes the similarity to Seven Sages, line 48 (in Weber, Metrical Romances, 3:5): “The suteltè of science seuyn.” The seven sciences are the seven liberal arts that were the mainstay of a medieval education. These seven areas of learning were divided into the trivium — grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic (also sometimes called logic) — and the quadrivium — music, mathematics, geometry, astronomy.

9951 Synophogy. “The Feast of Tabernacles.” Compare Leviticus 23:33, Numbers 29:12, 1 Kings 8:65, and 2 Chronicles 7:8, as well as HS 3 Reg. 21 (1366–67).

9961–63 Another hows then ordand he . . . mad in yeres thre. The sequence here is not biblical, which presents the details of Solomon’s house between those about the Temple and its dedication, but it corresponds to that in many sources, such as Josephus and HS.

9963 yeres thre. According to 3 Kings (1 Kings) 7:1, Solomon’s palace was thirteen years in the making, not three. I have found no source for the lower number and can only speculate either scribal contamination or, as a distant possibility, the poet’s interest in having Solomon spend fewer years on his palace than were spent on the Temple (seven). In the latter case, the numerology of the figures used could come into play.

9974 K notes a parallel usage of this use of “reason” in Purity, line 194.

9986 held. From OE heldan, meaning “to incline or bow.” K notes (3:17) that the “associative influence from hold is suggested by with for normal (un)to,” and compares lines 1194 (which K, 1:lxviii, had wrongly defined as “hold”), 1412, 9714, and 10121.

9988 fyrth. K notes (3:17) comparison with lines 7866 and 8854.

10037–40 God was greved . . . And sent the prophet Achyas / to warn hym. In 1 Kings (3 Kings) 11:11–13 God directly rebukes Solomon; here, in accordance with HS 3 Reg. 27 (1371), it is God’s prophet who delivers God’s condemnation, a scene brought forward from Ahijah’s encounter with Jeroboam on the road (1 Kings [3 Kings] 11:29–39).

10161–63 Faur score . . . nyne score yere and faur. 3 Kings 11:42 and 2 Chronicles 9:30 record Solomon’s reign as lasting forty years, as does HS 3 Reg. 27 (1371), which also states that the length of Solomon’s life is ninety-four years. Josephus, in Jewish Antiquities 8.7.8, gives the numbers as eighty and ninety-four, respectively, as does OFP 85d. It would seem, therefore, that either score, in this poet’s hands, unique in Middle English, means “ten” rather than “twenty”; or, more likely, the score of line 10163 is a scribal error.

10317–452 Beginning here the poet moves far from the 3 Kings (1 Kings) narrative to tell the story of Rehoboam, about whom little is said in that book or in HS; the details here derive from 2 Chronicles 11–12. The sequence of the narrative is likewise distant from the Bible and HS. In both these characteristics he follows Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.10, though presumably the poet’s immediate source is OFP.
10317 Aght milia knyghtes kene. 2 Chronicles 11:1 reports 180,000 rather than 8,000; Josephus says “many ten thousand men” (Jewish Antiquities 8.10.1).

10330 other thryty and one. 2 Chronicles 11:21 gives the number of other concubines as sixty; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.10.1, claims thirty, as does HS 3 Reg. 30 (1375) and OFP 87b.

10331–32 Thamar, / the doyghtur of Absolon. The syntax here is difficult, since the meaning must be “the daughter of Tamar by Absolom,” a woman named Maacah (compare 2 Chronicles 11:20–21 and HS 3 Reg. 31 [1375]). 3 Kings (1 Kings) 15:2 also gives the wife’s name as Maacah but says nothing of this ancestry, instead calling her simply the daughter of Abishalom. We find the same apparent error in OFP 87b. If someone has mistaken the name of Maacah for Tamar, it may well be due to HS, which reads “nomen matris ejus Maacha, filia Thamar, filiae Abessalon,” and thus could easily have been corrupted by eye-skip.

10371–76 A mille charyottes had he . . . And knyghtes . . . sexty milia . . . And folke on fote . . . faurty milia. 2 Chronicles 12:3 cites 1,200 chariots, 60,000 cavalry (“knights”), and countless infantry. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.10.2, numbers the footmen as 400,000. OFP 87c follows the Bible up to the numbering of the footmen, which are, as in Paraphrase, accounted to be 40,000. The origin of the Paraphrase-poet’s specific sequence of numbers is thus unknown.

10443–45 In aghtene yeres his lordschep last . . . fyfty yeres. According to 3 Kings (1 Kings) 14:21, 2 Chronicles 12:13, and Josephus, Jewish Antiquties 8.10.4, Rehoboam’s reign lasted seventeen, not eighteen, years. HS 3 Reg. 30 (1374) gives the number of years as twenty-six. In addition, these sources agree that Rehoboam took the throne at the age of forty-one, leaving his age at his death as either fifty-eight or, in HS, sixty-seven. We find the same numbers as the Paraphrase in OFP 88c.

10633–56 That the false prophet knows his fault and the truth of God’s prophet yet nevertheless works to convince Jeroboam that he should rebuild the altar and thus continue to provoke God’s wrath is contrary to 3 Kings (1 Kings) 13:33 and HS 3 Reg. 29 (1374), which places guilt upon Jeroboam alone, not on the further machinations of the false prophet. For the tradition followed here, see Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 9.1.

10669–728 As with the story of Rehoboam (see note to lines 10317–452, above), the poet makes heavy use of 2 Chronicles to tell the story of Jeroboam’s war against Abijah, which is only given passing reference in 1 Kings (3 Kings) and HS.

10679–80 He had at his ledyng / fayr folke fawrty thowssand. According to 2 Chronicles 13:3, Abijah’s army numbered 400,000. So, too, Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.11.2. The number here also appears in OFP 89d, however.

10726 fyve thowssand sloyn. 2 Chronicles 13:17 numbers the fallen as 500,000. So, too, Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.11.3.

10747 Thre yere. So OFP 90a. 3 Kings (1 Kings) 15:25 states that Nadab ruled two years, as does Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.11.4, and HS 3 Reg. 32 (1376).

10761–64 Thas that in towns war dede / howndes laped ther blode. / That dyed in other sted / ware leved to foyles fode. The gruesome specificity of the murder of Jeroboam’s family comes not from the Bible or HS but from Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.11.4.

10823–24 kyng of Matenours, / Benedab by name. S gives his name, here and elsewhere, as Amynadab. Compare 3 Kings (1 Kings) 15:18 and 2 Chronicles 16:2, where Ben-hadad is the king of Syria. HS 3 Reg. 32 (1376) reads “Benadad regem Syriæ,” and OFP 91a has the similar “Benadab”; so the origin of S’s Amyna-dab is unclear. The Paraphrase-poet does seem indebted to something like OFP in replacing “Syria” or “Damascus” with Matenours (the reading in both S and L): OFP introduces him as king of “Mascedonurs,” a reference I can find nowhere else.

10847–48 He byged yt wele and fayre / with store that he thore fand. This stands contrary to 3 Kings (1 Kings) 15:22 (and Josephus and HS), which clearly states that, rather than finishing Baasha’s fortification of Ramah, Asa razed the con-structions and used the materials to build Geba and Mizpah.

10859 Agary. 3 Kings (1 Kings) 16:9 calls him Zimri, as does Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.12.4, and HS 3 Reg. 32 (1377). The source for the Paraphrase here appears to be OFP 91a: “Edementers le trahi azarie, un son ebreu, si li toli la vie” — though where OFP derived this unique form of his name remains unknown.

10966 Tyre. Compare 3 Kings (1 Kings) 16:31, or HS 3 Reg. 34 (1378), where he is simply king of the Zidonians. Our poet is here following the OFP 91d: “la fille al rei de tir e de sydun” — though this connection between Tyre and Sidon is made clear earlier in 3 Kings (1 Kings) 5:1–6.

11365–11460 In the Bible (3 Kings [1 Kings] 20–21), the Naboth episode follows the siege of Samaria, whereas here it precedes it. HS 3 Reg. 37–39 (1381–86) follows the Bible. The change is in accordance with OFP (see Bonnard, Les Traductions de la Bible, p. 102) and in line with Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.13.7–8.

11502 Chylder. While the primary meaning of the word, “children,” cannot be wholly discounted here — it would almost certainly call up images of the so-called Children’s Crusade of 1212 — it is more likely that a secondary use of the term, meaning “youth in service” is meant here (MED child, n.5b). This latter option would be consistent with 3 Kings (1 Kings) 20:14, which calls them “servants of the princes of the provinces” (so, too, HS 3 Reg. 37 [1382]).

11506 faur hunderth. 3 Kings (1 Kings) 20:15 gives the number of servants as 232, as do Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.14.2, HS 3 Reg. 37 (1382), and OFP 94c.

11513 Fyve thowsand. That 5,000 were slain is not recorded in either the biblical source (3 Kings [1 Kings] 20:20–21) or HS 3 Reg. 37 (1382). K notes (3:59) that the number derives from OFP 94c: “Si unt Ebreu plus de cinc mile ocis.”

11545 A hunderth thowssand and wele mo. The wele mo includes, as related in 3 Kings (1 Kings) 20:29, 27,000 men killed when the wall falls upon them. HS 3 Reg. 38 (1383) omits this detail, as does OFP 94d.

11589 A prophett, Machias. 3 Kings (1 Kings) 20:35 does not name the prophet, though Micaiah’s subsequent antagonistic appearance at 22:8 might well explain his association with this earlier prophet. This identification appears in HS 3 Reg. 38 (1383), but it goes back to Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.14.5.

11650 In preson he dyd hym cast. Ahab takes no such action to the unnamed prophet in 3 Kings (1 Kings) 20:43. The response to imprison him appears in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.14.5, and thereafter in HS 3 Reg. 38 (1383), probably coinciding with the king’s response to Micaiah’s predictions of failure at 22:26–28.

11670 Godely. See 4 Kings (2 Kings) 8:18, 26 and 2 Chronicles 21:6, 22:2, where she is called “Athaliah,” as she is in HS 3 Reg. 39 (1384). Nevertheless, the Paraphrase-poet follows OFP in consistently terming her “Godolie.”

11733–44 I sall hym stryke in the face . . . and he stroke hym with all his mayn. This test by striking is far different than 3 Kings (1 Kings) 22:24–25 and HS 3 Reg. 39 (1385), though it is that presented by Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.15.5.

11745–52 This digression on the paradoxical failure and success of testing a prophet appears to be unique to the Paraphrase. Not even Josephus, who appears to be the ultimate source for this particular test (see note to lines 11733–44, above), bothers to address the issue.