3197. Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium begins with a chapter 'De
Adam et Eua.' It contains the passage--'Et ex agro, qui postea
_Damascenus_,... ductus in Paradisum deliciarum.' Lydgate, in his Fall of
Princes (fol. a 5), has--
'Of slyme of the erthe, in _damascene_ the feelde,
God made theym aboue eche creature.'
The notion of the creation of Adam in a field whereupon afterwards stood
Damascus, occurs in Peter Comestor's Historia Scholastica, where we find
(ed. 1526, fol. vii)--'Quasi quereret aliquis, Remansit homo in loco vbi
factus est, in agro scilicet damasceno? Non. Vbi ergo translatus est? In
paradisum.' See also Maundeville's Travels, cap. xv; Genesis and Exodus,
ed. Morris, l. 207; and note in Mätzner's Altenglische Sprachproben, ii.
185.
3199. Cf. 'Formatus est homo ... de spurcissimo spermate'; Innocent III.,
De Miseria Conditionis Humanae, i. 1 (Köppel).
3200. So Boccaccio--'O caeca rerum cupiditas! Hii, _quibus rerum omnium_,
dante Deo, _erat imperium_,' &c. Cf. Gen. i. 29; ii. 16.