The Glossa Ordinaria on the Song of Songs

Book excerpt: In this translation of glosses on the Song of Songs, Mary Dove offers a readily accessible and inexpensive resource for students and scholars. Anselm of Laon, possibly assisted by his brother Ralph, is credited with compiling the Glossa Ordinaria on the Song of Songs, drawing from earlier commentaries by Origen, Gregory the Great, Bede, Alcuin, Hrabanus Maurus, Haimo of Auxerre, and Robert of Tombelaine as well as contributing his own readings of the text. As Dove notes in her introduction, the text is quite complicated, with each manuscript page divided into three columns - the biblical text in large letters in the center column, with space left for interlinear glosses, and glosses in smaller letters in both the right- and left-hand columns. (This format is not reproduced in this translation.) The number of surviving manuscripts (over seventy) shows that plenty of readers enjoyed the challenges the text offered, and for modern readers, the Glossa Ordinaria is the first place to go to find medieval interpretation of biblical texts.