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Adrian and Ritheus
Adrian and Ritheus is an Old English prose literary text preserved in British Library manuscript Cotton Julius A ii, fols 137v-140. It consists of a dialogue of forty-eight formulaic questions and answers between the titular 'Adrianus' and 'Ritheus'. Adrianus interrogates Ritheus using the formulaic expression Saga me ('tell me'); Ritheus responds using the formulaic Ic þe secge ('I tell you'). The nature of the questions posed varies between the factual and the enigmatic, but the style of questioning is "usually short and to the point".
Many of the questions asked in Adrian and Ritheus are also featured in the prose version of Solomon and Saturn, a text with "clear relationships" to the former. Twenty of Adrian and Ritheus' forty-eight questions are common with Solomon and Saturn. Bisher identifies the text as part of a "'question and answer' dialogue genre" along with Alfred's translation of Gregory's Dialogues and Augustine's Soliloquies, but characterises Adrian and Ritheus and its analogues as having a '"lighter, more humorous tone".
Another source is the popular Joca Monachorum, whose question formula Dic mihi is the direct Latin equivalent to the Old English Saga me.
In the 41st question of the dialogue, Adrianus asks of Ritheus,
Saga me hu wæs crist acenned of maria his meder. [Tell me how Christ was born from his mother Mary.]
To this, Ritheus replies,
Ic þe secge, ðurc þæt swiðre breost. [I tell you, through the right breast.]
Speculation that the Virgin Mary did not give birth to Christ in the natural fashion was not settled officially until the First Lateran Council of 1123. Nonetheless, Ratramnus and Radbertus, both of Corbie, Francia, would each write a treatise discussing the parturition during the ninth century. The latter satirises the notion that Christ was born from an orifice other than the womb, which suggests that such a belief was held by his some of Radbertus' Frankish contemporaries. Meanwhile, the trope of characters being born from their mother's side is common in Irish legend; Greenfield and Calder consider Irish folklore a significant influence on Adrian and Ritheus' adaptation of the Joca Monachorum.
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Adrian and Ritheus
Adrian and Ritheus is an Old English prose literary text preserved in British Library manuscript Cotton Julius A ii, fols 137v-140. It consists of a dialogue of forty-eight formulaic questions and answers between the titular 'Adrianus' and 'Ritheus'. Adrianus interrogates Ritheus using the formulaic expression Saga me ('tell me'); Ritheus responds using the formulaic Ic þe secge ('I tell you'). The nature of the questions posed varies between the factual and the enigmatic, but the style of questioning is "usually short and to the point".
Many of the questions asked in Adrian and Ritheus are also featured in the prose version of Solomon and Saturn, a text with "clear relationships" to the former. Twenty of Adrian and Ritheus' forty-eight questions are common with Solomon and Saturn. Bisher identifies the text as part of a "'question and answer' dialogue genre" along with Alfred's translation of Gregory's Dialogues and Augustine's Soliloquies, but characterises Adrian and Ritheus and its analogues as having a '"lighter, more humorous tone".
Another source is the popular Joca Monachorum, whose question formula Dic mihi is the direct Latin equivalent to the Old English Saga me.
In the 41st question of the dialogue, Adrianus asks of Ritheus,
Saga me hu wæs crist acenned of maria his meder. [Tell me how Christ was born from his mother Mary.]
To this, Ritheus replies,
Ic þe secge, ðurc þæt swiðre breost. [I tell you, through the right breast.]
Speculation that the Virgin Mary did not give birth to Christ in the natural fashion was not settled officially until the First Lateran Council of 1123. Nonetheless, Ratramnus and Radbertus, both of Corbie, Francia, would each write a treatise discussing the parturition during the ninth century. The latter satirises the notion that Christ was born from an orifice other than the womb, which suggests that such a belief was held by his some of Radbertus' Frankish contemporaries. Meanwhile, the trope of characters being born from their mother's side is common in Irish legend; Greenfield and Calder consider Irish folklore a significant influence on Adrian and Ritheus' adaptation of the Joca Monachorum.