"Lion irez, lion mariz": une interprétation nouvelle d'un passage difficile du 'Bestiaire' de Philippe de Thaon.

The Author discusses a problematical passage from Philippe de Thaon’s Bestiary, trying to elucidate it by means of a conjectural emendation, that is postulating the existence of a lectio difficilior which appears to have been misunderstood by the scribes of the existing manuscripts. In the first chapter, devoted to the lion, it is said that the animal se peint with its paws: this verb has been interpreted, so far, as (se) pendre < pendēre ‘to hang’, or (se) peindre < pingĕre ‘to paint’. The conjecture we propose is an original form sēpeint/sēpeinst, from s’enpeindre/s’empeindre < impingĕre ‘to rush at’: consequently, this passage of the Bestiary may depict a rampant lion standing on its hind legs, when it is irez, and a lion laying low to the ground, when it is mariz. This hypothesis leads to important textual consequences concerning the still-debated athenticity of the rubrics written in Latin, and offers arguments in favour of the original absence of those rubrics which are not handed down by the oldest and most reliable manuscript we possess.