A Mirror for Deaf Ears? A Medieval Mystery

Pseudo-Ovid is one of the more prolific authors of the high Middle Ages. Put differently, the Roman poet Ovid was liked so much that he was often imitated by authors whose names we do not know, but who were successful enough in their efforts to be judged worthy of being transmitted with the genuine poems of Ovid. In some instances, it was not before the nineteenth or even the twentieth century that a composition was proven to be medieval. The pseudo-Ovidian verses that form the background to the question in the title of this paper circulated as De medicamine aurium, ‘Medicine for the ears’, and are linked, as we shall see, with a mirror, a work which, like so many in the Middle Ages, has speculum in its title. Here is the text and a translation: