Pearl’s Hyperbola/e and God’s Spotless Spot: Beautiful Excess and DeficiencyArnold Sanders, Associate Professor of English, Goucher College

Medieval Institute International Congress, 2013

Folio 45v, lines 469-503"Cortaysé," quoth I, "I leve,And charyté grete be yow among.Bot my speche that yow ne greve, . . . . .Thyself in heven over hygh thou heveTo make thee quen that was so yonge.What more honour moghte he acheveThat hade endured in worlde strongeAnd lyved in penaunce hys lyves longeWyth bodyly bale hym blysse to byye?What more worschyp moght he fongeThen corounde be kyng by cortaysé?

9

"That cortaysé is to fre of dedeYf hyt be soth that thou cones saye.Thou lyfed not two yer in oure thede;Thou cowthes never God nauther plese ne prayNe never nawther Pater ne Crede - And quen mad on the fyrste day!I may not traw, so God me spede,That God wolde wrythe so wrange away.Of countes, damysel, par ma fay, Wer fayr in heven to halde asstate Other elles a lady of lasse aray -Bot a quene! Hit is to dere a date."

"Ther is no date of Hys godnesse,"Then sayde to me that worthy wyghte,"For al is trawthe that He con dresseAnd He may do nothynk bot ryght.As Mathew meles in your Messe,In sothfol gospel of God almyght,In sample He can ful graythely gesseAnd lyknes hit to heven lyghte.'My regne,' He says, 'is lyk on hyghtTo a lorde that hade a vyne, I wate.Of tyme of yere the terme was tyghtTo labor vyne was dere the date.'

Folio 45v, lines 469-80

"Cortaysé," quoth I, "I leve,And charyté grete be yow among.Bot my speche that yow ne greve, . . . . .Thyself in heven over hygh thou heveTo make thee quen that was so yonge.What more honour moghte he acheveThat hade endured in worlde strongeAnd lyved in penaunce hys lyves longeWyth bodyly bale hym blysse to byye?What more worschyp moght he fongeThen corounde be kyng by cortaysé?

Fol. 38r and 38v

Hyperbola: showing the two foci, the axis of symmetry connecting

them, and the asymptotes they pursue to infinity

The Four Conic Sections

Folios 48v-49r, lines 685-756

Fol. 48v, l. 720 and Fol. 49r, l. 721-4

Folio 51v, lines 901-11and 912-35

Fol. 51v, ll. 901-19

Folio 38r

Poem as Circle Poem as Hyperbola

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