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Second Book Of Kings (2 Samuel)

SECOND BOOK OF KINGS (2 SAMUEL): 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.

7365–80 The deeply romantic nature of David’s lament, complete with swooning and weeping and wringing of hands, is set in place of David’s elegy given in 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 1:19–27. As Ohlander notes, David’s lament does not fit “with the ideal of the gallant knight,” forcing an anonymous duke to tell him to cease weeping like an old woman (line 7377–78) and to take his anger against their enemies instead: “The whole passage gives a good idea of how the writer has adapted the biblical narrative to his own time and its literary tastes and traditions. Carried away by the felicity of his colourful tale he starts the next stanza in the same popular vein. . . . Needless to say there is nothing of this in the Bible” nor in HS, though OFP 57a–57b contains the same account (with a baron in place of the duke); see “Old French Parallels,” p. 217.

7394 kyng by comyn crye. That is, king by the assent of the common people, or popular acclaim. David is thus doubly anointed: of God, and of the people he will rule. Notably absent from this ideal combination is force of arms, with David’s strength said to be the result of his kingship rather than the other way around. These conditions compare favorably to those presented by Gower in his work (see, especially, his In Praise of Peace).

7398 chefe of his chevalry. See note to line 7250.

7400 Aghaell and Abaghai. Asahel and Abishai are not named in the biblical narrative until 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 2:18.

7444 so wyght a stede. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 2:18 attributes Asahel’s speed not to his steed but to the man himself, calling him “a most swift runner, like one of the roes that abide in the woods.” Either the simile was too unrealistic for the poet’s taste or he simply took the opportunity to introduce yet another element of romantic knighthood to his story.

7445–48 When Abnare saw he sewed so sore / and to his hele wold take no hede . . . he suld gyf hym gold to mede. The Paraphrase-poet makes clear Abner’s concern for the younger warrior, who is taking no care for his own safety in rushing after the more veteran fighter. The details here are more personal than Abner’s reasoning in the Bible: “Go off, and do not follow me, lest I be obliged to stab thee to the ground, and I shall not be able to hold up my face to Joab thy brother” (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 2:22). Certainly here in the Paraphrase the sense one gets of Abner is of his chivalrous quality in trying to put off the unfair fight, even offering money to the younger man if he should stop (line 7448).

7559–60 Bot Abnare ay before / was honerd next hymselfe. This detail of the seating arrangements at the feast is not to be found in either the biblical source (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 3:20–21) or in HS (2 Reg. 5 [1327]), but it sets up the coming extrabiblical account of Joab’s envy.

7569 he suld be nare. Joab’s reason for anger is here given as envy: he thought that he was the closest man to David, only to learn that Abner had been given pride of place in his absence. In the Bible (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 3:27 and 30) his cause is specifically given as one of vengeance for his brother Asahel’s death at Abner’s hand. One might speculate that the poet is uncomfortable with David’s subsequent condemnation of Joab for Abner’s death — a condemnation that could be perceived as harsh given the somewhat just cause of fraternal piety.

7613 togh. K (5:89) glosses as “tough, ‘elaborate’ (tale),” noting derivation from OE toh. The MED reveals more nuance, however, listing the specific construction maken hit tough, meaning “to be arrogant or obstinate,” under tough adj.3b. Given the poet’s highlighting of Joab’s envy in this passage (see the explanatory note to line 7569, above), it is this more negative connotation that seems intended here.

7617–20 Bot als men may suppose . . . that he had forto lede. As one might expect, this aside regarding the real reason for Joab’s act — envy — is absent from the Bible, which twice gives his cause as one of simple vengeance for his brother. See the explanatory note to line 7569, above.

7681–7716 No such census is recorded in this location in the Bible or HS (2 Reg. 6 [1327–28]). It has been moved, apparently, from 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 24. Ohlander observes that “[t]he result of the census described here is with two exceptions the same as that in [OFP]. A slight difference is noticeable as regards Naphtali. In the [Paraphrase (lines 7705–06)] . . . that tribe is simply said to be innumerable, whereas [OFP 60c] reads ‘De Nephtalim mil princes a guerreier. / La gent qu’il meinent nuls nes pot acunter.’ In the [Paraphrase (lines 7709–11)] Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh number six hundred thousand altogether. The OF text says ‘cent vint mil’” (“Old French Parallels,” p. 218). The origin of the numbers provided is, in any case, unknown. The results of the census in both the Vulgate and Septuagint are an Israel numbering 800,000 able-bodied men, and a Judah of 500,000, while a retelling of the census in 1 Chronicles 21:1–6 gives the numbers as 1,100,000 and 470,000, respectively. No further numbers are provided in the Bible, and other potential sources provide no clues for the detailed accounting given here: on the census CM is silent, and Peter Riga’s Aurora and Comestor’s HS give no more than the biblical enumerations.

7693 lygh als levyn. K rightly notes this to be an epitheton ornans (5:55), a line-filling rhetorical epithet that perhaps owes something to the role of the Levites in the priesthood (though the precise connection is unclear). Alternatively, the phrase could be a description of the speed by which the Levites were counted, a usage that may be paralleled in the counting of the people of Zebulon in line 7703.

7741–54 The folke within . . . this sotelty . . . done in dyspytt. The story reported here is an expansion and explanation of the Jebusites’ boast to David in 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 5:6: “Thou shalt not come in hither unless thou take away the blind and the lame that say: David shall not come in hither.” This obscure reference has been subject to much interpretation, the one apparently known to the Paraphrase-poet relating ultimately to the explanation from Josephus (via HS), who explained that even the blind and lame could defend Jerusalem’s walls due to their excellent design. The Jebusites’ ruse, then, is that David’s army will see the blind and lame guarding the walls and despair at the confidence of the inhabitants.

7763–64 Tho that wore maysturs most / had takyn a towr for strengh. That the capture of Jerusalem occurred in two stages — first, the taking of the city itself and, second, the taking of a tower within the city where stalwart defenders had holed up — comes not from the Bible. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 5:6–8 presents the taking of Jerusalem in short fashion, with few details beyond the Jebusites’ boast involving blind men (see note to lines 7741–54, above), and the parallel account of the event in 1 Chronicles 11:4–6 is similarly sparse on details, though it adds in the fact of David’s challenge to his men (see note to lines 7769–88, below). The two-stage scenario may rather owe something to the commonplace of the tower of Sion within Jerusalem. See, for instance, Hali Meithhad, where this tower represents virginity; Millett notes that the description in that text of Sion as “a tower” (tur), follows “the traditional (though inadmissable) etymology of Sion as specula ‘watch-tower’” (Hali Meiþ-had, ed. Millett, p. 26n2/5). The image of Sion as Jerusalem’s tower, however, is no doubt older in origin. Vulgate Psalm 75:3 records that God’s “place” is in Salem, an early name for Jerusalem, while his “home” is Sion, and 1 Chronicles 11:5 comes close to a distinction between the city and the citadel within when it says that “David took the castle of Sion, which is the city of David,” i.e., Jerusalem. The longest of Jerusalem’s hills, and the city’s highest point, is thus known as the Mount of Sion, itself able to function metaphorically as the “high tower” from which so much can be seen. Aside from such biblical exegesis, however, one wonders if these depictions of a tower within the city — especially as in the present case, where the tower represents the final stage of defense for the besieged city — owe much to the strands of history and legend surrounding the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. In that famous event, the city was indeed taken in stages, one of the hardest of which was the towerlike Fortress Antonia (see Siege of Jerusalem, ed. Livingston, pp. 4–5). Perhaps the 1099 siege of Jerusalem in the First Crusade might well be of note, too, since while the Romans took the city proper in one massive assault after the walls were breached, the Muslim governor was able to maintain control over the Tower of David, a medieval citadel, until he was granted free leave out of the city by the victorious crusaders.

7769–88 David’s challenge to his men comes not from 2 Kings (2 Samuel), but from the retelling of the event in 1 Chronicles 11:4–6, though the biblical challenge is for the first man to kill a Jebusite whereas here it is for the first man to enter the besieged tower.

7791 The folke then namyd yt David Towre. See note to lines 7763–64, above.

7835–36 A wyfe bare Absolon / and his suster Thamar. Absalom and Tamar are not mentioned in the list of children born to David in Jerusalem that appears at this point in the Bible (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 5:13–16; so, too, HS 2 Reg. 7 [1329]). Rather, Absalom is mentioned in the earlier list of children born to him in Hebron (3:2–5), briefly told here in lines 7499–7500, and Tamar is named first at 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 13:1, at the beginning of the lengthy sequence involving her and her brother Absalom and half-brother Amnon. Their appearance here in the course of the narrative is surely due to their prominent roles to come.

7917–20 This lesson wyll us lere: / non suld neght howled thyng / Bot thei that have power / grauntyd of Goddes gyfyng. The lesson is vaguely like that which Comestor attributes to Josephus: “Dicit Josephus eum percussum, quia tetigit arcam cum sacerdos non esset” (HS 2 Reg. 9 [1330]). The additional weight given to the exemplum, however, might well be appropriate to the late medieval struggles over the priesthood in the poet’s contemporary surrounds.

8030–36 The treatment of David’s messengers is one that is picked up in a number of contemporary poems, including Siege of Jerusalem (lines 357–74) and The Alliterative Morte Arthure (lines 2330–70).

8105 I wott full well. David does, indeed, know her loneliness full well, his statement a self-incrimination before the very man he has made a cuckold.

8114 his wyfe to glose. The use of the verb glosen here is interesting. The term typically means to gloss something (commonly a text) or to flatter a person, but the implication here is undoubtedly sexual, as if to beget a new meaning. David hopes that Uriah can glose Bathsheba, thus creating the illusion that David’s child is actually Uriah’s. This sexual allusion will remind readers of the several uses of the word in Chaucer, particularly the Wife of Bath’s statement about her fifth husband, that “So wel koude he me glose / Whan that he wolde han my bele chose” (CT III[D]509–10), where the implication is more of performance than mere flattery or coaxing.

8225–32 That David’s response to God’s announcement of punishment is to compose psalms is a detail recorded in neither the Bible at this point nor in HS. It does, as K notes (1:clxxxvii), match OFP 125c. Though there are three psalms that begin Miserere mei Deus (line 8225) — Vulgate Psalms 50, 55, and 56 — the specific psalm referred to here is no doubt the first of these, which is so often used in Church liturgy and music as to be referred to often as simply “the Miserere.” This psalm, the fourth of the so-called penitential psalms, has traditionally been tied to David’s confession of his sin with Bathsheba (see Vulgate Psalm 50:1), an association that appears in even the earliest Greek and Hebrew records and surely functions as the source for its incorporation into the narrative here.

8245–48 He dyde away his garmentes gud, / and in a seke he sett hym down. / He weped . . . and kest powder apon his crown. The specifics of David’s behavior are given in 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 12:16–20 as a refusal to change clothes and the undertaking of a solitary fast. The further details here — a casting away of garments in order to sit in sackcloth and ashes — are traditionally attributed to the scene as a result of the proverbial nature of such a penitential act (see, e.g., Daniel 9:3, Judith 4:15, and Esther 4:1).

8271 fawt of fode. As 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 12:26 relates, the vital lack is not that of food but of water.

8281–83 Anon, the kyng of Amonys . . . His crown. The crown, according to 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 12:30, is not from the head of Ammon but from the (presumably statuary) head of Milcom, the god of the Ammonites (see also 4 Kings [2 Kings] 11:5).

8333–34 Then wysed he all his men away / and bad them spere all as thei yede. That Amnon orders his men to bar the doors behind them as they leave, effectively locking him and his sister into his bedroom, is not biblical. The locking of the doors does, however, add a chilling precognition to Amnon’s plan: he expects that he will resort to rape — a fact confirmed by his awareness, in line 8361, that “all was sperd” for him to take her by force.

8343–60 The biblical account of Tamar’s reaction to Amnon’s desires (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 13:12–13) is substantially different. There, Tamar complains that it would be shameful for Amnon to rape her, especially when they can, as only half-siblings, rightfully marry (a practice only later forbidden it seems; see Leviticus 18:9). Tamar therefore suggests that Amnon present his suit to David. We get none of this in the Paraphrase, however, where the poet omits any chance whatsoever of a proper union between the half-siblings and instead presents a deeply frightened but nevertheless remarkably calm Tamar chastising Amnon in the manner of a preacher or confessor, advising him to throw the intent of his heart to Heaven, to ask God’s forgiveness for such evil thoughts. She says, too, that she would rather lose her inheritance and be exiled from her homeland than to have sex with him. Tamar’s simultaneous roles as victim and counselor, and her resolute determination to remain a virgin no matter the cost, no doubt owe much to hagiographical traditions, where such behavior is often the norm with many female saints and martyrs.

8393 So all this stryfe was haldyn styll. Following HS 2 Reg. 14 (1335), the Paraphrase-poet omits a substantial subtext to the biblical account of this story: David’s knowledge. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 13:21 makes clear that David learns about the rape almost immediately, yet he does nothing to punish Amnon. The poet, we might assume, is not satisfied with the rather soiled image of David thus painted, and so he falls silent on the question of David’s knowledge (indeed, he does not even indicate that David learns about the tragedy after Amnon’s murder).

8439 Jessor with the kyng of Cirre. That Talmai, king of Geshur, is also thereby king of Syria is an association not made at this point in the Bible or in HS. We later learn that Geshur is an Aramean kingdom (see 2 Kings [2 Samuel 15:8]), but not the identification of Aram with Syria.

8440 his syb man on his moyder syde. Absalom’s kinship with Talmai, the king of Geshur — Talmai is his grandfather through Absalom’s mother Maacah — is not mentioned at this point of the Bible but earlier, at 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 3:3.

8493–94 Then ware thei frendes fast, / the kyng and Absolon. According to 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 14:24 David ordered Joab to retrieve Absalom to Jerusalem and to “let him return into his house” but “let him not see my face.” While these biblical facts are followed in HS (2 Reg. 14 [1336]), the Paraphrase-poet again seems at pains to clear away any stain on David’s reputation in this sordid family affair.

8497–8504 DBTEL observes that of all the potential responses to Absalom and his life, medieval writers seem most preoccupied with his beauty; thus “Absalom’s name appears frequently in the interminable lists of Ubi sunt? poems, a popular poetic form emphasizing the transitoriness of life and the fragility of beauty” (p. 12). This concentration on Absalom’s physical appearance, especially his luxurious hair, led to Absalom becoming “a type of feminine beauty.” Nowhere is this perhaps more evident than in Chaucer’s Prologue to The Legend of Good Women (F.249, G.203), where Absalom is the first name listed in his balade cataloguing beautiful women (see also his characteri-zation of Absolon in The Miller’s Tale).

8501 Of twenty libri wegh was his hare. This weight corresponds to OFP 67d (“vint livres”), whereas both 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 14:26 and HS 2 Reg. 14 (1336) give the weight as two hundred shekels (Ohlander, “Old French Parallels,” p. 218). Two hundred shekels, according to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 7.8.5), would equate to five pounds.

8507–08 and he ware oght greved, / then was he fell os fyre. In these two lines the poet alludes to the whole of 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 14:28–33, which describes how Absalom, after living two years in Jerusalem under a sort of house arrest (see note to lines 8493–94), summons Joab to argue his case before the king. When Joab twice fails to come to Absalom, Absalom orders his servants to set fire to Joab’s fields. The conflagration stirs Joab’s attention, and he at last manages to reconcile Absalom and David.

8517 be faur yeres ware past. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 15:7 reads forty years in the Hebrew and the Vulgate, whereas the Paraphrase follows the Septuagint and Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 7.9.1, in reading four years. HS 2 Reg. 15 (1337) notes the discrepancy, and Ohlander observes that OFP parallels the Paraphrase here, too (“Old French Parallels,” p. 218).

8546 knyght, swyer, knave, and page. There is, of course, no biblical parallel for such a list, which is clearly medieval.

8657–60 Bot aftur sone, os men may rede, / this grome . . . Be David dome . . . lost his lyf, yf yt ware late. Though David refuses to react to Shimei’s insults at this time, and he will later swear not to kill Shimei (see 2 Kings [2 Samuel] 19:18–23), his dying words, it seems, are to instruct his son and heir Solomon to at last be avenged upon him (see 3 Kings [1 Kings] 2:8–9, 36–46).

8687–88 That Natan told before / bud unto end be broght. Though HS 2 Reg. 16 (1338) does not make this association, the poet follows the tradition that identifies the “neighbor” of Nathan’s pronouncement in 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 12:11 as Absalom, whose family comes from a neighboring land (see Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 7.9.5).

8717 Take me ten thowsand men of myght. This does not match the number as given in the Bible or in HS, both of which record 12,000. A parallel can be found, as K notes (1:clxxxvii), in OFP; and Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 7.9.6 also puts the number at 10,000.

8783–84 Ne thei dowt no dele / for gune ne grett ingyne. The poet’s depiction of siege warfare is once again anachronistically medieval.

8787 Faur barons wuned ther besyde. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 17:27 gives three aides, naming all three. That there were four men, barons all, corresponds to OFP 70a (Ohlander, “Old French Parallels,” pp. 218–19).

8792 faur thowsand. The size of David’s army is not given in the Bible. The Paraphrase here fits with Josephus’ description of the size (Jewish Antiquities 7.10.1), but it conflicts with HS 2 Reg. 18 (1339), which reports that it is seven thousand strong. It is difficult to know whether this is firm evidence of the poet’s direct use of Josephus or simply a scribal error in which the numeral for four has been introduced by scribal eye-skip from line 8787.

8828 I hope thei held all that thei hette. A rare interjection on the part of the poet, who seems swept up in the narrative himself.

8849–50 The wynd heyved up his hare on hyght / so that yt cached into a tre. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 18:9 says only that Absalom’s head was caught in the branches of an oak, but the Paraphrase follows a very old tradition (see, e.g., Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 7.10.2), building on the description of Absalom in 14:26, that he was caught by his hair.

8851 His sted. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 18:9 places Absalom upon a mule, a detail supported by HS 2 Reg. 17 (1339). Both the Paraphrase and OFP (70c) place him upon the far more knightly horse (Ohlander, “Old French Parallels,” p. 219).

8859–60 He bede a boy fyfty schylyng / to sla hym. The payment is in accordance with OFP 70d (Ohlander, “Old French Parallels,” p. 219) and Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 7.10.2. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 18:11 places the price at “ten sicles [shekels] of silver and a belt.”

8879–80 And hedyd was Amon / for Thamar. The recollection of Absalom’s beheading of his half-brother for Tamar’s rape effectively sums up Absalom’s life.

8943 A bryg full wysly have thei wroyt. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 19:18 gives no impression of a bridge. Indeed, the Vulgate explicitly refers to David crossing a ford in the Jordan. The Septuagint refers to a ferry built by the Benjaminites that carries the king across the river. The Paraphrase here follows HS 2 Reg. 18 (1340), which is itself probably derived from Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 7.2, who describes a crossing made on a bridge of boats.

8971 Joab wold full fayn have hym aflayd. In 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 19:21 and HS 2 Reg. 18 it is Joab’s brother Abishai who desires to wreak vengeance upon Shimei; the alteration here might be the result of the poet’s efforts to simplify the biblical narrative by streamlining characters whenever possible.

9025–26 Syr Cyba, that I of ayre sayd, / was lord of Myfbosett land. Ohlander was the first to realize that the Paraphrase-poet is here guilty of “a remarkable confusion of persons” (“Old French Parallels,” p. 221). The present man, who rebels against David’s rule, is Sheba, the son of Bochri, a Benjaminite (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 20:1). The earlier man with whom the poet has mingled Sheba’s identity (first noted at line 2621) is Ziba, a man who was first a servant of Saul and later became the steward of Mephibosheth (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 9:2–13). The Bible is clear in delineating the identities of the two men, as are HS and OFP. The poet’s confusion is no doubt the result of their names being both very similar in Latin (Siba and Seba) and identical in Old French (Siba).

9137 A lady. 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 20:16 identifies her as a “wise woman.”

9187 Natan the prophett. In both the Bible (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 21:1) and HS (2 Reg. 20 [1342]) David receives his answer directly from God. Whether the poet derives this unique detail from another unknown source, or makes the alteration for other reasons — perhaps to reinforce the necessity of the priesthood, for instance — is unknown.

9189 Duke Josue. Joshua first made contact with the people of Gibeon in Joshua 9:3–27.

9222 gud wone. 2 Kings [2 Samuel] 21:6–9 specifies that only seven of Saul’s male heirs were handed over to the Gibeonites, a detail repeated in HS.

9233–34 Diligam te, Domine, / this salme he sett and sayd yt fast. This is Vulgate Psalm 17. Both HS 2 Reg. 21 (1343) and OFP 74b provide the Latin title.

9258 fyfty milia rekynd ryght. This number is tenfold shy of both the Bible (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 24:9) and HS (2 Reg. 23 [1345]), both of which record 500,000. A parallel, as K notes once again (1:clxxxviii), is OFP.

9273–76 HS 2 Reg. 23 (1346) and OFP 75a both follow 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 24:13 in giving the choice between seven years of famine, three months of war, or three days of pestilence. The Paraphrase-poet has the choice between seven years of war, three years of famine, and three days of pestilence. I know of no source for this change.

9319–24 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 24:18 labels the site of David’s altar only as the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. HS 2 Reg. 23 (1346) follows Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 7.13.4) in making the further association of the site with the hill whereupon Abraham offered up his son Isaac. The final connection of the location with Mount Calvary is found in the French tradition; e.g., OFP 75b (Ohlander, “Old French Parallels,” pp. 221–22).

9337–9625 The poet subsumes the final events of David’s reign, which are told in the first chapters of 3 Kings (1 Kings) into his paraphrase of 2 Kings (2 Samuel). This makes a clear and logical sense, and actually follows the division of books in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities 7–8, though whether the poet would have access to this fact is subject to question. See also the explanatory note to lines 9469–9618, below.

9386 Naomy. According to all known sources, this should be Benaiah the son of Joiada, as it is in OFP 76c.

9422 well that is named Wyon. That Gihon was a principal source of water for Jerusalem is a detail found in 2 Chronicles 32:30.

9469–9618 The death of David, in which he names his son Solomon as his sole heir and entrusts his care to the lords of the land, is greatly expanded from its biblical source, 3 Kings (1 Kings) 1–2. Both its displacement to the end of 2 Kings and its expansion to this very medieval, feudal setting, is in accordance with OFP (Ohlander, “Old French Parallels,” p. 222).

9611 Begynnyng, myddes, and ende. The poet clearly thinks of his presentation of the life of David as a narrative unit, a tale of the triumphs and woes of kingship.