The Eagle Has Landed: A Prophetic Pun in John Gower's "Cronica tripertita."

Author/Editor
Weiskott, Eric.

Title
The Eagle Has Landed: A Prophetic Pun in John Gower's "Cronica tripertita."

Published
Weiskott, Eric. "The Eagle Has Landed: A Prophetic Pun in John Gower's 'Cronica tripertita'." ANQ: American Notes and Queries 36 (2023): 319-20.

Review
Weiskott identifies a dual-purposed pun on "Aquilonica" as referencing both "aquilo" (Henry IV's nickname) and "aquila" ("north," i.e., Ravenspur where he landed to begin his conquest of England) in the couplet (Cronica Tripertita 3. 142-43): "Vela petunt portum quem sors prope contulit ortum; Vt dux concepit, Aquilonica littora cepit." ["To fated eastern port by sail they hasten forth; The duke, as he had planned, made landfall in the North."] (319). "The allusive, compressed effect of the double hidden reference in 'aquilonica' argued for in the present note was entirely in keeping with the allusive, compressed style of Gower's composition" (320). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.2]

Date
2023

Gower Subjects
Cronica Tripertita
Style, Rhetoric, and Versification