BL Donatus poems

Poems heading a miniature in a 12th century manuscript

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=2879

From Arundel 43 f. 80v (a 12th century German manuscript) in the British Library, poems to the the first poem compares the breaking open of fruits, nuts, wine-jars and bees’ cells, which in each case reveals the more valuable contents inside, to the similar discovery of knowledge, once the real meaning is found ‘beneath’ the literal meaning; the second poem is a simple tribute to the scribe of the manuscript, the painter of Donatus’ portrait and the author of the manuscript; ; at the end of Sedulius Scotus’s Expositio super primam edicionem Donati grammatici. Public Domain.