Note to Anon (FoGT) 30^III

[All]: It is obvious from the elaborate prose explanation of the meaning of the hap. leg. þokumenn ‘fog-men’ in l. 2 (probably a calque on Lat. nebulo ‘a worthless person, wretch’) that the author of FoGT considered the use of this word to illustrate the figure he called ansimehisa. He states that the term refers to people who waste all their money on food and drink, and whose folly prevents them from seeing the light of true morality, just like people incarcerated in a dark prison. His use of þokumenn does not really illustrate the standard sense of the figure antimetabola, which the Doctrinale (Reichling 1893, 176, ll. 2610-11), following earlier authorities like Isidore of Seville, defines as cum verbis vertit antimetabola sensum: / non, ut edas, vivas, sed edas ut vivere possis ‘antimetabola changes meaning with words: you do not live so that you may eat, but you eat so that you may live’. Thus a rearrangement of the same words in two clauses can bring about a change of meaning. This is not what FoGT’s use of þokumenn does, but it is notable that the stanza as a whole is influenced by the Lat. adage non ut edas vivas, sed edas ut vivere possis.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Reichling, Dietrich, ed. 1893. Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei. Monumenta Germaniae paedagogica 12. Berlin: A. Hofmann & Comp. Rpt. 1974. Burt Franklin Research and Source Works Series, Studies in the History of Education 11. New York: Burt Franklin.
3. Internal references
4. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, The Fourth Grammatical Treatise’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=34> (accessed 20 April 2024)