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Bodley 764, f. 89r:
Miluus [Siluus, Ms] mollis et uiribus et uolatu quasi mollis auis unde et nun-
cupatur rapacissimus tamen et semper domesticis auibus insidiatur. Miluus
significat ut puto rapacem uel elatum hominem ut est illud in psalterio secun-
dum hebreos: milui abies domus eiusi0.
The last three examples quoted enable us to argue that the gieda
chapter is the result of an influence from Eucherius or Hrabanus
Maurus, either directly or indirecdy, possibly through a Bestiary text,
rather than being a gloss on Psalm 103,1741. If we consider the tradi-
tion to which the text belongs, it is in faet more likely that the author
derived this item from one or various treatises on beasts, than from a
commentary on the Psalm. Eucherius and Hrabanus Maurus have
furthermore provided us with a positive interpretation of the bird
(milvus = elatus) which could be compared to the Old Icelandic gieda
= andligir menn. This equation has, anyway, only a vague similarity to
the more composite sentence of our text, which in faet finds a precise
parallel in the allegorical description that both Eucherius and Hraba-
nus Maurus devote to the accipiter.
Immediately after the milvus, the two exegetes refer to the accipiter
and while Eucherius makes brief mention of it,
Accipiter interdum sanetus, ut puto, rapiens regnum dei; in lob: numquid in
sapientia tua plumescit accipiter?42,
Hrabanus Maurus provides a longer chapter:
Accipiter avis animo plus armata quam ungulis, virtutem majorem in minori
corpore gestans. Hic ab accipiendo, id est a capiendo, nornen sumpsit. Est
enim avis rapiendis aliis avibus avida: ideoque vocatur accipiter, hoc est
raptor. Unde et Paulus dicit: Sustinetis enim, si quis accipit (II Cor. XI). Ut
[Ne] enim dicent, si quis rapit, dixit, si quis accipit. Femnt autem accipitres
40 According to James, p. 15 and McCulloch, p. 36 MS Bodley 764 belongs to the
second family of Bestiaries whose peculiarities consist in additions from Solinus,
Isidoms, Ambrosius, Hrabanus Maurus, Peter of Comwall and Giraldus Cambren-
sis.
41 Marchand, Two notes, pp. 502-3.
42 Wotke, p. 24.