11/17: getting to know

...a particular page from a 13th century Bible containing part of the Book of Daniel.  I first read it in 2004, and every so many years I get to translate it with my Latin students.  Each time I return, it's like meeting up with an old friend.  The page has mistakes as well as additions and corrections made by a later reader (and some of those "corrections" seem like new mistakes).  Its writing is very tiny and highly abbreviated.  Its verso is hard to read because it's the rougher side of the animal skin and the ink didn't go on as smoothly.  I love it.  When I had some time to spend with it today before the students came to class, it moved me into a zone of both comfort and alertness.  Thank you, 13th century scribe, and thank you, later reader/annotator.  You had no idea that you would be/were/are a good thing in my day.