Est’ ptica epopsa: a Croatian Glagolitic Exemplum and its Cultural Context

Polazište je studije ptica epopsa, tj. pupavac, koja je kao natuknica potvrđena u Rječniku crkvenoslavenskog jezika hrvatske redakcije. Na primjeru odlomaka iz Zbornika duhovnog štiva (Arhiv HAZU, sign. IV a 48), a potom i na odlomku iz Tkonskoga zbornika (Arhiv HAZU, sign. IV a 120) te iz ćirilskoga Šibeničkoga zbornika (Arhiv HAZU, sign. III a 20) nastojali smo naći ishodište prikaza pupavca u kontekstu brige za ostarjele roditelje što nas je odvelo u najdublje slojeve istočnjačkih predaja čiji odraz pronalazimo u Fiziologu i Bestijariju, a potom i u Cvijetu kreposti.The present study is devoted to a short text on the bird epopsa or laupapa, i.e. on the hoopoe, which is preserved in two Croatian Glagolitic manuscripts: the The Miscellany of Spiritual Reading (Archive of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, call no. IV a 48) in the form of an exemplum (this text is the basis for the headword epopsa in the Dictionary of The Church Slavonic Language of the Croatian Redaction), and in the Tkon Miscellany (Archive of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, call no. IV a 120) in its ninth chapter on charity. Through the text on the hoopoe we tried to attain the origins of the positive allegorical representation of the hoopoe in the context of care for ailing parents. Literary-historical analysis leads to distant layers of eastern traditions. Their refl ection came to the European traditions through the Physiologus (an example is presented from the Šibenik Miscellany written in the Cyrillic script, Archive of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, call no. III a 20) and the Bestiary, and later through Fiore di Virtu. This is an interesting example of the literary transmissions through cultural contacts in the formation of animalistic concepts in the context of the European Christian spirituality