MARGINAL ANNOTATION IN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE MANUSCRIPTS

4.5 The Marvelous, Again
Following the relation of the Fair Woman’s history, a note marks a line that
announces the marvelous nature of the events to follow. Mordraynes will, in this
adventure, “see” “marvels”:
But from hens-forward, neuere Adel,
What Maner Merveilles that Euere thow se,
Loke that abasched no more thow be....
(Lovelich, History, XXIII.88-90)
The admonition is as apt for the reader as it is for Mordraynes himself. In the following
note, Cok marks the initial articulation of a prophecy that will subsequently be noted at
its fulfillment: 548 Cok’s notes do not necessarily permit an easy visual pairing of these
passages (nothing about the notes makes them conspicuous as a matched pair), but the
revisitation of an earlier prophecy does signal a consistency and sustained attention to
this issue across the notes. Cok notes (“bene”) the early appearance of the prophecy, and
then, when it comes to its fruition, bringing a close to the stage of the narrative it governs
(Mordraynes’s tenure on the Perilous Rock), Cok again recognizes its importance,
finding it note-worthy.
After the note on the prophecy, the events marked by Cok begin to take on a
pattern of temptation and consolation. The notes are not comprehensive, and do not
record every vision Mordraynes experiences, nor every shift in his fortunes. Neither do
they succeed very well in distinguishing Mordraynes’s visions from one another. A few
548 “In this Roche Schalt thow byden Certain / Tyl that the devel Owt the take be þ e left hond”
(ibid., XXIII.166–167). Cf. ibid., XXIV.79–80.
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