- Commentary
-
Commentary
Text
Genesis 1: 24-25.
Illustration
the Creation of the Animals. God stands in a three-quarters pose facing right, very similar to f.2r, except that now his tunic is red and his cloak blue. He has no beard. On the right are three compartments. The elephant at the top is drawn from the same model as f.65v, except it is in reverse. Below him are a hare, a squirrel holding a nut and a cat. This is not the soft tabby of f.5r but the spiky tailed animal found on Ashmole f.9r. The position of its tail coming through its legs and across its back is like the model in Ashmole. Below in the damaged area are a bull and lion, and at the bottom a goat, stag and horse. There is a tiny amount of splattered blue paint beginning on the right side of the cat, a very rare example of carelessness or perhaps an accident. A similar image of a beardless God standing to the left of his created animals is found in the narthex mosaics at St Mark's, Venice. It is significant that the mosaic also includes a hare because this creature is not mentioned in the Bestiary. The damaged area has been scraped and smudged. It corresponds almost exactly with the pricking on the recto and probably occurred when the pricking took place. Initial type 3.
- Transcription and Translation
-
Transcription
D\ixit quoque\ deus:\ Produ\cat ter\ra ani\mam\ vivent\em in\ genere\ suo,\ iu\menta et\ reptilia\ et bestias terre secundum species suas. Factumque est\ ita. Et fecit deus bestias terre iuxta species suas, et iu\menta et omne reptile terre in genere suo.\Translation
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind' (see Genesis, 24-25).
