The Visual Structures

Investigation of both the internal and textual sources of Figures 60 and 61 shows that Oresme's initial challenge to the reader of identifying the precise content of the upper register may not have been too difficult. A second exercise, supplying a

definition of the missing word, relégation , might possibly have presented a greater obstacle. Yet recognition of the ostracism/exile theme might also have sparked comprehension of the climactic message of the lower left quadrilobe, to cut down men of the state who had become too powerful. More problematic is the reader's understanding of the meaning of the lower right quadrilobe both in itself and in relation to the preceding scenes.

Does the visual structure of the illustrations help the reader to interpret the ensemble? The four-scene format certainly requires that the tale be compressed. The treatment of the upper register as a single unit, tied together by the king's baton, combines the request for advice with the action of ostracizing a powerful person. In verbal terms the act parallels a definition of the word relégation . Justifying the action taken, the lower left quadrilobe is the equivalent of a maxim or proverb summarizing a message such as "Off with their heads." The scene on the lower right constitutes a concluding moralizing judgment or warning about the preceding episodes. A possible moral might be: "Rectify disproportionate power relationships in the body politic." In structuring the illustration Oresme could have applied certain techniques used in his translations: definition, compression, comparison, and exemplification.^[31] In Chapter 18, Oresme refers to the Periander/Tarquin tale as "en parabole." Oresme's apparent use of the term to mean a proverb would explain the pithiness of the visual structure of Figures 60 and 61. Yet another strategem may have guided Oresme in proposing the program. In all versions of the Periander/Tarquin tale a constant characteristic is "silent communication." This theme is embodied in Periander's action (or that of the peasant in Figure 60) of pulling up the tallest plants, identified in the various versions of the tale as corn, wheat, or poppies. The corollary of silent communication is the understanding of the message by the person requesting advice via the report given by the uncomprehending envoy. Søren Kierkegaard alludes to the Periander/Tarquin tale in the epigraph to his famous work Fear and Trembling : "What Tarquinius Superbus said in the garden by means of the poppies, the son understood but the messenger did not."^[32] Oresme's elimination of inscriptions may well have carried out in the illustration the important theme of silent communication. As the illustration of Book IX in C shows (Fig. 41), Oresme enjoyed providing riddles for his readers to solve. What greater compliment to their acuity could he offer than the silent communication of the Periander/Tarquin tale?