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ERUDICE. Eurydice was Orpheus's wife. Her name in Greek means "wide-judging" and was applied to princesses. While strolling with a group of Naiads through the grass after her wedding, Eurydice fell dead, bitten at the ankle by a snake. Orpheus mourned for her, then went down to Hades to seek her. He pleaded with Persephone to let her go or, if that was not possible, to accept them both. Touched by the music of his lyre, the Eumenides released Eurydice on condition that Orpheus not look backward until he had left the valley of Avernus, the entrance to the underworld. Just as they were nearing the margin of the upper world, Orpheus looked back, and Eurydice immediately slipped back to the underworld (Met X.1-85; OM X.1-195). Virgil's slightly different version appears in Georgics IV.453-529.

There are two references in the Chaucerian corpus: in the Boece and in the Troilus. Lady Philosophy's version, Bo III, Metr 12, ends the story thus: "Allas! whanne Orpheus and his wyf weren almost at the terms of the nyght . . . Orpheus lokede abakward on Erudyce his wife, and lost hire, and was deed." The moral Boethius attached to the fable, that the man who seeks to raise his mind to the clarity of the sovereign day loses all the excellence he has gained if he turns his eyes to the pit of hell, is the first in the development of allegorical interpretations of the story and inspired several commentaries during the medieval period on the meaning of Eurydice in the fable. John Block Friedman suggests that for Boethius Eurydice represents temporalia, the things of the earth; she is the concupiscent part of man, preventing him from reaching the light. The next commentary, written by Remigius of Auxerre about A.D. 904 and titled Incipit expositio in libro Boetii de Consolatione phylosophiae Remigii, uses both the Ovidian and the Virgilian accounts; here, Eurydice is an "insignificant thing." Giovanni del Virgilio states the contrary in an explanation of the Metamorphoses (c. 1325). For him, Eurydice appears as "profound thought." Fulgentius derives Eurydice from eur dike or "profound judgment" in Mythologies III.10 and associates her with tonic harmony. The Boethian view, however, prevailed throughout the period. The other reference appears in Tr IV.785-791. Criseyde assures Troilus that, although they may be parted on earth, they will be together in the Elysian Fields, like Orpheus and his wife, Erudice. [Orpheus]

Erudice, the OF variant in Jean de Meun's translation of Boethius, appears medially, Tr IV.791.


V.L. Dedeck-Héry, "Le Boece de Chaucer et les Manuscrits français de la Consolatio de Jean de Meun." PMLA 59 (1944): 18-25; ibid., ed., "Boethius' De consolatione by Jean de Meun." MS 14 (1952): 232-233; John B. Friedman, "Eurydice, Heurodis, and the Noon-Day Demon." Speculum 41 (1966): 22-29; ibid., Orpheus in the Middle Ages, 98-100, 231; Fausto Ghisalberti, ed., "Giovanni del Virgilio Espositore delle 'Metamorphosi.'" Il Giornale Dantesco 34 (1933): 89; Fulgentius, Fulgentius the Mythographer, trans. L. Whitbread, 96-98; Ovid, Met, ed. and trans. F.J. Miller, II: 64-71; Sir Orfeo, ed. A.J. Bliss; Virgil, Georgics, ed. and trans. H.R. Fairclough, II: 228-233.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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