The Griffin's Egg: Gower's Confessio Amantis I 2545
- Author/Editor
- Burrow, John
- Title
- The Griffin's Egg: Gower's Confessio Amantis I 2545
- Published
- Burrow, John. "The Griffin's Egg: Gower's Confessio Amantis I 2545." In Chaucer to Shakespeare: Essays in Honour of Shinsuke Ando. Ed. Takamiya, Toshiyuki and Beadle, Richard. Cambridge: Brewer, 1992, pp. 81-85.
- Review
- The cup that Albinus has made of Rosemund's father's skull "was begrave / Of such werk as it scholde have, / And was policed ek so clene / That no signe of the Skulle is sene, / But as it were a Gripes ey" (CA 1.2541-45). Burrow explains the "Gripes ey" as a type of drinking vessel made of a griffin's (actually an ostrich's) egg, citing references from several late medieval wills, and he includes photos of two fifteenth- and sixteenth-century examples that clarify Gower's description. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 11.2]
- Date
- 1992
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis