Poetic diction in the Old English meters of Boethius 9783111343143, 9783110991642

Citation preview

DE PROPRIETATIBUS LITTERARUM edenda curat

C. H. VAN S C H O O N E V E L D Indiana University

Series Practica, 50

POETIC DICTION IN THE OLD ENGLISH METERS OF BOETHIUS

by A L L A N A. M E T C A L F MacMurray

College

1973 MOUTON THE H A G U E • P A R I S

© Copyright 1973 in The Netherlands Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 72-94487

Printed in Hungary

PREFACE

This is a study of the words an Old English poet added as he changed prose into verse - words that were not to be found in the prose text before him. His additions were not few. In later times, the nature of English poetry would change,1 but in Old English, poetry required specialized syntax and diction as well as meter and alliteration.2 Even with the temptation of ready-made prose at hand, the versifier of the Meters of Boethius made copious use of the special vocabulary of poetry. To be sure, he adopted more of the prose vocabulary,3 and less of the poetic,4 than most other Old English poets. Nevertheless, between one-third and one-quarter of the vocabulary of the Meters has no counterpart anywhere in the 50,000 words of the Old English prose Boethius. The versifier would introduce a poetic word on the average every two and a half lines. It is easy enough to list this poetic vocabulary with the help of published glossaries and concordances. This study goes further, to examine how the

1

Josephine Miles notes, for English and American poetry in post-medieval times, that "most of the major language is shared in common and comes from the basic stock of the words most commonly spoken, monosyllabic or disyllabic language.... Prose, not poetry, is the specializer of language in its materials of choice." Style and Proportion: The Language of Prose and Poetry (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), p. 98. Old English prose and poetry both are specialized in this sense. 2 iElfric managed "to divorce the rhythm and alliteration of Old English poetry from its traditional vocabulary and syntax and to associate them with the vocabulary and syntax of prose", observes Peter Clemoes, "/Elfric", in Continuations and Beginnings, ed. Eric Gerald Stanley (London: Nelson, 1966), p. 203. iElfric's combination, lacking poetic syntax and diction, is generally considered to be prose. 3 See E. G. Stanley, "Studies in the Prosaic Vocabulary of Old English Verse", Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 72 (1971), 390-91; also Robert J. Menner, "The Date and Dialect of Genesis A 852-2936", Anglia 70 (1951), 290. On the problem of studying non-poetic vocabulary, with reference to Latin literature, see Bertil Axelson, Unpoetische Wdrter(-Skrifter Utgivna av Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund, 29) (Lund, 1945). 4 Menner, "Genesis A", pp. 287-88.

vi

PREFACE

poet used the words, how he seems to have chosen particular words for particular positions and functions. It will appear that the poet's use of his poetic vocabulary is anything but random. Particular stages in adapting his prose text, particular metrical and syntactic situations, and particular collocations of vocabulary, more often than semantic demands, seem to have governed his use of the poetic vocabulary, because in the Meters of Boethius the poetic vocabulary generally has a minimal role in advancing the arguments and illustrations of the prose. The poet seems to have valued the poetic diction for its formal qualities, not for its content. It simply signifies to reader or hearer that the Meters are poetry (as in the Latin original), not prose. Professor David Premack of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who has trained a chimpanzee to communicate in an impressively complex and abstract symbolic language, was recently asked whether he thought chimpanzees could be taught to communicate like humans. "No", he replied. "We have underestimated the abilities of chimpanzees, but we have underestimated the abilities of humans too." The art of even a mediocre Old English poet is far too complex for any single study to investigate completely.5 This book limits itself to one aspect of that art, the poetic vocabulary, in hopes of contributing to our still embryonic understanding of the nature of Old English poetic composition. Much of this book consists of studies of individual words and the circumstances in which the poet used them. But the forest is of interest as well as the trees. The beginnings of Chapters 2, 3, and 4, therefore, list all occurrences of all words found in the Meters but not in the prose. With the reference to each occurrence is a notation of the circumstances of that occurrence: whether or not there is a related (though different) prose source for the word; the degree of independence from the prose of the verse line in which the word appears; whether the word carries stress and alliterates. The notation is in a simple numeric code which the reader may find inconvenient at first, but which is easily learned, and which permits quick reference and convenient summary. Tables following the lists of words, and in the concluding chapter, indicate at a glance the most common situations for the use of poetic words. The tabulations should be viewed as suggestive rather than definitive; they lead into discussions of how the poet generally made use of the poetic vocabulary. 5

Another approach to the art of the Meters, focusing on formulas and formulaic systems, is illustrated in John W. Conlee, "A Note on Verse Composition in the Meters of Boethius" Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 71 (1970), 576-85.

PREFACE

vii

The prose and verse of the Old English Boethius provide the criteria for deciding which words belong in this study. Also important for the analysis is the way in which other Old English literature uses these words. The relative paucity of the surviving corpus of Old English verse and prose must of course caution against overconfident conclusions, and so must the current lack of up-to-date concordances, especially to the prose. Nevertheless, existing texts and reference materials permit one sort of useful division into three categories: first, poetic words which are apparently unique to the Meters of Boethius and found elsewhere neither in poetry nor prose; second, poetic words which occur "only or mainly in poetical texts", as indicated by Clark Hall; 6 and third, poetic words which occur freely elsewhere in both poetry and prose. Chapter 2 deals with the first group, Chapter 3 with the second, Chapter 4 with the third. In addition to the more than five hundred words which are strictly the poet's own additions, there are quite a few more that are almost poetic by this criterion. That is, they occur occasionally in the prose, but much more often in the Meters, even though the prose Boethius amounts to 50,000 words and the Meters to less than 10,000. Some of these words seem much like their entirely poetic counterparts in Chapters 2-4. Chapter 5 accordingly discusses certain "nearly poetic" words, those which never occur in the prose that corresponds to the Meters, and Chapter 6 mentions some of the "partly poetic" vocabulary, words that at times do occur in the prose source of the Meters, but more often are the poet's additions. Chapter 7 then summarizes the chief characteristics of the poetic vocabulary, and compares its use in the Meters with that in other Old English poetry - Beowulf, Judith, and the Battle of Maldon. This study began as a doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley, under the direction and with the helpful advice of Professors Alain Renoir, Paul Theiner, and Charles Witke. Their suggestions and comments have been invaluable. Professor Donald K. Fry, of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, provided bibliographical assistance. Intramural Research Grants Nos. 8028 and 9103 of the University of California, Riverside, supported the production by computer of a concordance to the prose Boethius, which helped especially with the study of nearly and partly poetic words (Chapters 5 and 6). 6

John R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed. with supp. by Herbert D- Meritt (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1960), p. [ix].

viii

PREFACE

Thomas E. Armbruster, Edgar C. Howell IV, and George Musacchio assisted in the concordance project. My wife Teri provided much encouragement and helped prepare the index of words cited, which is an essential reference tool for the user of this work. For all of this help I am grateful. Riverside, California December 1971 A. M.

CONTENTS

Preface List of Tables

v x

1. Preliminary 2. The Unique Poetic Words 3. The Exclusively Poetic Words 4. The Limited Poetic Words 5. Nearly Poetic Words 6. Partly Poetic Words 7. Conclusions

1 12 22 53 113 126 144

Bibliography Index of Words Cited

157 159

LIST OF TABLES

1. Situations of All Unique Poetic Words 2. Situations of All Exclusively Poetic Words 3. Situations of All Unique and Exclusively Poetic Words . . . 4. Situations of All Limited Poetic Words 5. Situations of mœre 6. Situations of gehwa 7. Situations of gehwelc 8. Situations of ceghwilc 9. Situations of efne 10. Situations of geond 11. Situations of wolcen 12. Situations of All Entirely Poetic Words 13. Control Group (48 Words) 14. Exclusively Poetic Words Common to MBo and Beowulf 15. Exclusively Poetic Words Common to MBo and Judith 16. Exclusively Poetic Words Common to MBo and Maldon

16 26 27 64 114 116 116 126 128 130 135 145 146 152 153 154

1 PRELIMINARY

Near the close of the ninth century A . D . and of his o w n life, King Alfred the Great of Wessex freely translated the Latin Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius 1 into 50,000 lines of vernacular prose. 2 Very s o o n thereafter, Alfred or some other West Saxon transformed into Old English poetry the Old English prose passages which correspond to certain o f the Metra in the Latin original. 3 Alfred's translation f r o m Latin into Old English prose has long been praised as a masterpiece, both o f his o w n writing and of Old English prose in general. . . . one of his books . . . more than the others is instinct with a certain anonymously personal note such as we look for in vain in English literature for hundreds of years after. This book is his version of the Consolations of Philosophy of Boethius... . 4 Richard H. Green's recent paperback translation, Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy (The Library of Liberal Arts) (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), in its excellent introduction, provides up-to-date information and a bibliography on the life and writings of Boethius and the texts of the Latin Consolation. 2 Asser's Life of Alfred, dated 893 A.D., does not mention any of the five translations by Alfred which followed Werferth's version of Gregory's Dialogues, so "we may think that none of these was begun before late in 893 or afterward". Eleanor Shipley Duckett, Alfred the Great (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 147. This book devotes two chapters to Alfred's translations; it is an excellent introduction to him and them. 3 " . . . if we accept Wülker's date 897 for the prose translation, then the Meters would probably have followed shortly after. If Alfred did not compose the Meters, then no definite posterior limit can be set except the date of the manuscript [of the version containing the Meters], about 970. But the most probable date is 897 or shortly afterwards." George Philip Krapp, ed., The Paris Psalter and the Meters of Boethius, ( = ASPR, 5) (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1932), p. xlvii. A typical example of the way in which the Old English poet relied on the Old English prose rather than the Latin Boethius is his method of determining which passages to versify. Every time the Old English prose states, "Then Wisdom began to sing", the poet begins his versifying, and he usually continues until he encounters the prose statement, "When Wisdom had sung this " The form of the Latin original was irrelevant to his decision. 4 Walter John Sedgefield, King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius

2

PRELIMINARY

The result was really a book of his own, stamped from beginning to end with his own character, inspired by his faith: a vivid, warm, clear, and simple discourse on the Christian G o d as the Center and Foundation, the Life Eternal of all souls in this world and beyond. (Duckett, Alfred the Great, p. 172.) It is common knowledge that Alfred's translation of De consolatione philosophiae is his most ambitious work and the finest achievement in the history of Old English prose. 5 Alfred's free rendering of Boethius did indeed make his translation more than either a "word by word, or sense by sense" version of the Consolation; it made it a literary and philosophical document in its own right. 6

The old English MBo,7 however, has generally been damned with as much vigor as PrBo has been praised. MBo, it seems, lacks the originality and imagination which make PrBo so much admired. It is established beyond doubt that the Cotton Metra are based directly on the corresponding prose version found in B, without further reference to the Latin original. They reproduce in metrical dress the prose version, omitting little, and adding few thoughts of any importance; and they seem to have been composed by rearranging the words of the prose version, and inserting poetical commonplaces or 'tags', to bring the lines into an alliterating form, much as a schoolboy might use a Gradus in making Latin verses. 8 Its weakness of composition, experts have argued, makes it inferior to Alfred's own prose version. Why should he have made so poor a metrical translation after he had made so decent a showing in prose? (Duckett, Alfred the Great, p. 177.) As poetry, they are not especially noteworthy. . . . (Greenfield, Critical History, p. 187.)

Insofar as criticism complains of lack of originality in MBo, it seems wide of the mark. There is no evidence that the author of MBo tried but failed to be original. Instead, it appears that he tried to give the prose the dress and ornament of poetry without changing the ideas and arguments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900), p. viii. This is a modern English translation, not the book cited elsewhere (e.g. in n. 8). 5 Kurt Otten, König Alfreds Boethius{=Studien zur englischen Philologie, neue Folge, 3) (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1964), p. 280. This passage is from Otten's English-language summary. 6 Stanley B. Greenfield, A Critical History of Old English Literature (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1965), p. 36. ' This abbreviation and others in this book are the ones proposed by Francis P. Magoun, Jr., in "Abbreviated Titles for the Poems of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Corpus", Études anglaises 8 (1955), 138-46. MBo means "The Meters of Boethius". An analogous symbol, PrBo, means "The Old English Prose Boethius". 8 Walter John Sedgefield, ed., King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899), p. xxxviii.

PRELIMINARY

3

of his source. In this he succeeded. 9 The very closeness of MBo to PrBo, and the almost complete lack of other sources for MBo than PrBo,10 make MBo especially suitable for studying the diction which distinguishes Old English poetry from Old English prose. Never since the end of the Old English period, not even in the most neoclassical decades of the eighteenth century, has the language of English poetry differed so greatly from the language of prose as it did in Alfred's time; nor has the form of poetry ever again been so uniform as it was before the Conquest of nine hundred years ago. Whether he was composing an epic like Beowulf or translating the Psalms, framing riddles or narrating a saint's life, the Old English poet used only one verse form and the traditional vocabulary that went with it. Whether he was awakened in the middle of the night to sing extemporaneously on the Creation, or sat down to transform the written prose text of Boethius into poetry, it had to come out sounding the same, or neither the author nor his audience would consider it Anglo-Saxon poetry. As Greenfield says of MBo, in Alfred's "employment of the poetic vocabulary and formulas, as well as of the alliterative line, the king forged his Meters in the Old English poetic tradition, despite the intractability of much of the subject matter of the Consolation'''' (Critical History, p. 188). There was no other way. Old English poetry thus presents a marked difference between poetry and prose, and a marked invariability of form. And it offers, in MBo, an opportunity to observe a poet at work fashioning poems from a vernacular prose source, adopting certain words from the prose and rejecting others, to emerge with a diction properly poetic. This diction, and the ways in which the poet used it, are the concerns of this book.

9

The lack of originality has made some scholars unwilling to ascribe the authorship of MBo to Alfred. See Allan A. Metcalf, "On the Authorship and Originality of the Meters of Boethius", Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 71 (1970), 185-87. 10 Independent additions to MBo are so rare that they have repeatedly received special mention. The most "original" of the MBo poet's contributions is the simile, MBo 20, 169-75, likening the universe to an egg. Even this contribution, however, seems to derive from a Latin commentary. See Brian S. Donaghey, "The Sources of King Alfred's Translation of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae", Anglia 72 (1964), 30-31. For notes on the few places where MBo seems closer to Boethius' latin than PrBo, and other comments on the relationship between PrBo and MBo, see Karl Heinz Schmidt, König Alfreds Boethius-bearbeitung, Diss. (Göttingen, 1934), pp. 11, 12,13,16, 25 (n. 4), 29 (n. 4), 49 (n. 3), 54 (n. 1), 61 (n. 1).

4

PRELIMINARY

TEXTS

There are three important modern editions of the Old English Boethius, two of the MBo alone and one of PrBo plus MBo. In 1899, as the celebration of the millennium of the death of "England's Darling" approached, Walter John Sedgefield published the text of both prose and poetical versions in King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiae (Oxford : Clarendon Press), hereafter cited simply as "Sedgefield". In addition to providing the best text of the prose, Sedgefield included a 120-page Glossary which carefully records variant forms and which comes close to being a concordance.11 Soon thereafter appeared an edition of the Meters alone, by Ernst Krämer: Die altenglischen Metra des Boetius( = Bonner Beiträge zur Anglistik, 8) (Bonn, 1902), hereafter cited as "Kraemer". The most useful feature of this edition is its complete glossary and concordance, which occupies 48 pages.12 Kraemer and Sedgefield cooperated with each other in preparing their editions.13 The most recent edition of MBo is that which is now standard, The Paris Psalter and the Meters of Boethius, ed. George Philip Krapp( = The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 5) (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1932), hereafter cited as "Krapp". Its notes record the textual emendations and criticisms made in previous editions and articles, and its introduction summarizes in considerable detail what has been learned about the MSS., including also brief mention of the authorship controversy and a bibliography. Krapp is quoted for MBo, Sedgefield for PrBo. Numbers following 11

Sedgefield often gives only representative rather than exhaustive listings of the occurrences of words. I have compiled a concordance (see Preface) to supplement his glossary. Sedgefield notes some of the typographical errors in his edition on pp. xliv and 149. Among the errors he does not note are these: The last line of the entry for feeder, p. 234, should read "xvii. 26, xx. 116" instead of "xvii. 26, 116"; the fourth-to-last line of the entry for rice, p. 281, should list "ix. 10", not "ix. 3,10"; line 4 of the entry for willan, p. 317, should read "xxiv. 53", not "xxiv. 52"; the entry for Italia, p. 327, should read "7. 3, i. 12", not "7. 3, i. 15, viii. 50". Donaghey, Anglia, 72 (1964), 25, notes that Sedgefield incorrectly quotes a passage from William of Malmesbury (by leaving out verbis between the words planioribus elucidavit) on p. xxxvii. 12 After using it extensively, I have found no omissions in Kraemer's glossary, except in the case of the five most frequent words (and, he, ne, se, ptet), where the author clearly indicates he is making only a partial listing. I have found only one error: the entry for inweardlice should read XXII, 2, not XX, 2. 13 Kraemer. p. [iii]; Sedgefield, p. ix.

PRELIMINARY

5

"M Bo" indicate Meter and line number. MBo 31,2, for example, means Meter 31, Line 2. Numbers following "PrBo" indicate page and line number in Sedgefield. PrBo 49,10 thus means Page 49, Line 10. I have silently expanded the conventional abbreviations in Sedgefield's text.

TERMINOLOGY AND PROCEDURE

Words which occur only in MBo, and never in PrBo, may be termed entirely poetic as far as the Old English Boethius is concerned. Depending on their use elsewhere in Old English, the entirely poetic words fall into three categories, each treated in a separate chapter. IA. Unique poetic words are those which occur once or twice in MBo but nowhere else in Old English, neither in prose nor in poetry. IB. Exclusively poetic words are those which occur only in MBo and never in PrBo, and which in addition are marked with a dagger by Clark Hall to indicate that they occur "only or mainly in poetical texts".14 A number of words which Clark Hall marks with a dagger occur in PrBo. Such words are excluded from this group. IC. Limited poetic words are those which occur only in MBo and never in PrBo, but which Clark Hall does not mark with a dagger. Only in the Boethius translation, not in Old English literature as a whole, are these words restricted to poetry. Since there are about 50,000 words in PrBo and only 10,000 in MBo, the chances are about ten to one against a word occurring more often in MBo. Those words which defy these odds deserve some attention in a study of poetic diction, even if they do occur in the prose and thus do not count strictly as the poet's own contributions. Two chapters, therefore, deal with certain poetic words found also in the prose. 2A. Nearly poetic words are those which occur not just in MBo but also in one or more PrBo passages which do not correspond to any of the MBo. In this and the following category only those words which occur mainly in MBo are listed. Those which occur once or twice independently in MBo but dozens of times in the prose can sometimes meet the criteria for these categories, but they have little in common with the other elements of poetic diction. 2B. Partly poetic words are those which do occur at least once in PrBo 14 John R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed. with supplement by Herbert D. Meritt (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1960), p. [ix]. About onefifth of the entries in Clark Hall are marked with a dagger.

6

PRELIMINARY

passages corresponding to the MBo, but not as often in these PrBo passages as in MBo. Listings of words in the following chapters give the location of each occurrence in MBo together with certain prominent aspects of the "situation" of the word in that occurrence, as specified by four numbers and sometimes an asterisk or a hyphen. The numbers signify as follows: 1 - The word is independent of PrBo; that is, there is no related, similar word in the corresponding passage of PrBo. An example is eallmcegene in this passage: gif hi ne diowedon hiora fruman. (PrBo 136,31) gif hi eallmasgene hiora ordfruman (MBo 29,95)15 2 - The word is dependent on PrBo; it derives from a related, similar word in the corresponding passage of PrBo. Examples are gif, hi, hiora, and ordfruman in the line quoted above. 3 - The entire MBo line is independent of PrBo; no MBo word containing a stressed syllable derives from a related similar word in PrBo. Several such lines occur when the poet, independent of PrBo, likens the universe to an egg: J)asm anlicost

Ipe on aege bid,

(MBo 20,169)

Any word in the line fits in this category. 4 - The verse containing the word in question is independent of PrBo, but the opposite verse derives at least in part from PrBo. More precisely, none of the stressed words in the verse containing the word derives from PrBo, but at least one of the stressed words in the other verse does. In MBo 29,95 above, eallmcegene is in this situation, because the two prosederived words sharing its verse are unstressed, while both words in the other verse derive from PrBo. 5 - The verse containing the word in question derives at least in part from PrBo, while the opposite verse is independent of PrBo. More precisely, at least one of the stressed words in the verse containing the word derives fromiYito, but none of the stressed words in the other verse does. This situation is thus the reverse of 4. Both hiora and ordfruman in MBo 16 Italicized words or parts of words in MBo citations derive from the corresponding PrBo text. Words not italicized are the poet's independent additions.

7

PRELIMINARY

29,95 fall into this category. The word in question need not itself be derived from PrBo\ such is the case in this occurrence of monnes: t>aere saule. {PrBo 81,25) Hio is jsast maeste maegen

monnes saule

(MBo 20,202)

6 - Both verses derive at least in part from PrBo. More precisely, at least one stressed word in each verse derives from PrBo. Every word in the following line of Meter 20 fits in this situation: ac ponne hio ymbe hi selfe smead, (PrBo 81,30) Iponne hio ymb hi selfe secende smead-, (MBo 20,221) (In determining situations 3 through 6, only the words which contain the four primary stresses in each line are considered.) 7 - The word alliterates. 8 - The word does not alliterate. Designations 7 and 8 refer only to primary alliteration. Words which alliterate, of course, carry primary stress. In the case of those which do not alliterate (designation 8), a further designation is added: an asterisk (*) if the word carries primary stress, a hyphen (-) if it does not. 9 - The word occurs in the on-verse. 0 - The word occurs in the off-verse. A combination of four of these numbers describes the "situation" of any word in MBo. The situation designation includes these parts in this order: 3, 1 4, 7 9 (* or 5, or or or 2 or 8 0 - ) 6 In MBo 29,95, for example, eallmcegene is in situation # 1479; ordfruman is in situation #2570. In MBo 20,169, age is in situation # 1370, fte in # 1380-, bid in # 1380*. In the listings of words in the following chapters, the situation appears in parentheses after the line designation. For example, the occurrence of age just mentioned would be listed as 20,169(1370). For words in poems other than MBo it is possible to determine only two of these four parts of the situation, that is, whether a word alliterates

8

PRELIMINARY

or not, and in which verse it appears. Each occurrence may be designated with two digits: 7 or 8

9 or 0

r or -)

The occurrence of geardagum in the opening line of Beowulf, for example, can be listed as Bwf 1(70). The lists of words are arranged according to the entries in Kraemer's glossary, for two reasons: Kraemer makes more and finer distinctions among forms than Sedgefield, and he generally uses the forms actually found in MBo rather than the standardized Early West Saxon forms of Sedgefield's glossary. Of course, Kraemer's greater scattering of words under different headings cannot be considered a priori more true to the Old English poet's own sense of the boundaries of words than Sedgefield's distribution. One way to judge what distinctions a poet made between forms is to observe the ways in which he used the different forms, and many of the following comments on individual words discuss the relationships, or lack of them, among uses of related forms. On some occasions Kraemer's greater distinctions seem important; there are times, for example, when the poet consistently makes different uses of certain words distinguished only by the presence or absence of the ge- prefix. At other times Sedgefield's practice of combining ge- prefixed and unprefixed words under the same heading seems more appropriate. In any case, the proportions and percentages in the statistics would remain about the same if Sedgefield's headings were used, although the tabulations and listings would differ slightly. THE COMPOSITION OF THE METRICAL PSALMS In an effort to see exactly how such poetry is put together, I have . . . sought to analyze an Anglo-Saxon poetic translation. . . . Since the Anglo-Saxon poet translated his source word for word, if we compare the wording of the Roman Psalter with the wording of the Anglo-Saxon poetic version, we may gain a great deal of insight into how the poet composed. 16 16

Robert E. Diamond, The Diction of the Anglo-Saxon Metrical Psalms (= Janua Linguarum. Series Practica, 10) (The Hague: Mouton, 1963), p. 6.

PRELIMINARY

9

The slim volume in which this passage occurs is one of the few previous attempts to study closely the way in which an Old English poet transformed a prose source into poetry. The PPs, Robert Diamond's subject of study, derives of course from the Latin Prose of the Bible rather than from Old English, and studying the composition of PPs poses problems that the investigator of MBo does not have to deal with. In the case of PPs, the investigator must consider the procedure of translation as well as the procedure of versification, and it is not always easy to distinguish them. Yet Diamond does make a number of remarks and venture some conclusions which are valuable as starting points for the investigation of MBo. First, according to Diamond, the poet of the Paris Psalter was faced with a set of rather binding rules. H e had to (1) render the sense of the original; (2) group his syllables into the Five Types of verses, A , B, C, D , and E ; (3) arrange the verses in alliterating pairs; and (4) if h e added any w o r d s in order to satisfy the requirements of meter and alliteration, they must add little or nothing to the sense of the original, (p. 7) 1 7

It is instructive to draw up a similar list for MBo. The poet of the Meters of Boethius had to (1) retain (rather than render) the sense of the original - which already deviated quite widely from its original; (2) regroup the prose syllables into acceptable Old English verses: verses which would sound poetic to his auditors; (3) arrange the verses in alliterating pairs; and (4) add, subtract, or alter words, phrases, and sentences to make a clear distinction between the prose and metrical passages. Above all, MBo had to sound poetic. For some of the devices which the PPs poet used in fulfilling these aims Diamond specifically claims general applicability. One such device is the use of an empty, redundant phrase to fill out a verse or provide alliteration. "Using a prepositional phrase to make a word into an A-verse is the commonest formulaic device of all in Old-English poetry; it is also very widely used in the psalter translation" [e.g., PPs 91.3.2a] (p. 7). Diamond also lists a number of "colorless" adverbs, or nouns in the dative case used adverbially, words which "fill out a complete verse and provide the required alliteration". Using such words, Diamond says, is "one of the favorite tricks of the psalter poet" (p. 7). Among the dozen or so words which Diamond includes in this category are fagere (PPs 17

In regard to item 4: The PPs poet keeps so close to his original that Diamond calls one slight deviation "a daring rhetorical sally for our literal translator" (p. 47).

10

PRELIMINARY

149.4.1), strange (PPs 141.3.2), and pearle (PPs 91.4.2), all of which are limited poetic words in MBo. Diamond finds that "such short adverbs as eac, geo, hrade, etc. are also used to fill out B-verses" (p. 7); one such short adverb which he notes in his commentary is uppe (PPs 81.6.1), another limited poetic word in MBo. In his brief introduction Diamond also notes "that the poet looked ahead at least as far as the ofF-verse of a line in choosing his diction" (p. 8), because often the poet will insert a colorless, almost meaningless word in the on-verse to alliterate with a word carrying an important part of the translation which appears in the off-verse.18 Checking the MBo poet's practice in this regard should provide even more definite conclusions, since we can ask if the poet puts "poetic" words in the on-verse to alliterate with words taken directly from the prose, not merely translated, in the ofF-verse. The opposite pattern, which Diamond also observes, is one in which "the poet, as so often, starts off with a straightforward, word-for-word translation in the on-verse . . . and then relies on a formula to make the ofF-verse out of the next Latin phrase that he has to deal with" (p. 34). This pattern (#1470, 1480) and the previous one (#1479, 1489) are among the most common for entirely poetic words in MBo.

PRELIMINARY STATISTICS

Before discussing the separate groups of poetic words, let us first note some of the statistics regarding poetic words as a whole in MBo. Of the 1821 entries in Kraemer's glossary, 558 or 31 per cent are entirely poetic words; for these 558 entries the concordance finds no occurrence anywhere in PrBo. Of the 558, however, 106 or nearly one-fifth are words which at least some of the time have analogues in PrBo (situation # 2 — ) , though of course in different forms and usually under different headings in Sedgefield's glossary. The 106 entries which at least some of the time derive from the prose include 94 which always do so and 12 which do so only part of the time. Individual listings for words in situation # 2—- (derived from PrBo) in the following three chapters are prefaced with marks indicating the kind of relationship each MBo occurrence has with PrBo ; explanations of these marks appear at the start of the next chapter. There are com18 One "clear case" of this practice occurs in PPs 118.55.1; another in PPs 118.58.3 (Diamond, pp. 4 2 ^ 3 , 44-45).

PRELIMINARY

11

pounds of which the prose contains one element (such as magencrceft, MBo 26,105, based on craft, PrBo 116,29), words to which the poet has added a prefix or suffix (such as ordfruman, MBo 29,95, based on fruman, PrBo 136,31) or from which he has removed a prefix or suffix (such as unawendende, MBo 11,13, based on unawendendlicne, PrBo 48,27), or merely forms which come under close but different headings in the glossaries (such as smolte, MBo 6,8, based on smylte, PrBo 21,4). Even if one were to count the 106 words derived from PrBo ( # 2 ) as not poetic, fully one quarter of the vocabulary of MBo would still be entirely poetic. This high proportion provides support for the assumption that, in his attempt to make his verses sound poetic, the MBo poet took special care to introduce poetic diction. Of course, many entirely poetic words appear only once or twice, while the most frequently appearing words in MBo are not entirely poetic. But even considering the number of words in the poem rather than the number of glossary entries, the entirely poetic diction - not to mention the nearly and partly poetic diction - is significant. Out of about 10,000 words in the 1750 lines of MBo, 848 or 8.5 per cent are entirely poetic. A word in the entirely poetic category appears, on the average, once every 2 1/2 lines (although in fact they tend to cluster somewhat).19 That is how often the reader, or the Old English poet's auditors, would encounter a word not to be found anywhere in the approximately 50,000 words of PrBo. To be sure, any group of words chosen at random and scattered among the MBo would probably include many not in PrBo. But the poet of MBo had no need to choose words at random. He had before him a complete stock of words, in Old English prose, expressing exactly what he wanted to say in poetry, yet he was not content merely with using these words and occasional fillers. He clearly went out of his way to use diction which differed from that of the original, words which would be considered poetic. Using such markedly different diction, yet changing the actual content of the poems so little as to earn the nearly universal condemnation of nineteenth-century critics for being "unimaginative", the poet may have succeeded better than those critics realized.

19

In contrast, Robert J. Menner finds that "prose words", which occur in Old English prose but are "otherwise unexampled in the poetry", appear every 10.6 lines in MBo, every 17.9 lines in PPs, and every 31.8 lines in Bwf. "The Date and Dialect of Genesis A 852-2936", Anglia 70 (1951), 290.

2 THE UNIQUE POETIC WORDS

This chapter and the two following ones, dealing with the three groups of entirely poetic words (words which occur only in MBo, not in PrBo), will each begin with a list of all of the words in the group and a table summarizing the patterns in which they occur. Each list follows the headings and order of Kraemer's glossary, modified in a few instances to accord with Krapp's text. Kraemer explains in the headnote to his glossary (p. 102; my translation): "Verb forms with ge- are always to be found under ge- plus the infinitive. When verbs with the prefix geoccur only in the past participle in MBo, the ge- appears in parentheses. . . . I always print p initially, 6 medially and finally, without regard to the text." Whenever Sedgefield's headings vary significantly from Kraemer's, they are given in parentheses following Kraemer's headings. Occasionally if Sedgefield's classification were followed, his heading would include PrBo entries; an asterisk follows the Sedgefield variant heading in these instances. After the heading appears first the number of occurrences of the word in MBo, then a dash, then the location of each occurrence together with the designation for the situation of that occurrence, using the four digits explained in the preceding chapter. Symbols which precede headings for words in situation # 2 (derived from a related word in PrBo) signify as follows: P S C * *R *U *K

-

Prefix added to PrBo word to produce this word Suffix added to PrBo word to produce this word PrBo contains just one element of this compound word PrBo contains an analogue, listed under a different heading in Sedgefield's glossary - Prefix dropped from PrBo word to produce this word - Suffix dropped from PrBo word to produce this word - This word is one element of a PrBo compound word

THE UNIQUE POETIC WORDS

*D

13

- This compound word is made of two separate elements both found in PrBo

Whenever one of these symbols is enclosed in parentheses, only some of the occurrences of the word have the designated relationship with PrBo; these occurrences are then marked separately. If there are no parentheses, all occurrences of the word have the designated relationship with PrBo. Long vowels are not marked except when marking is necessary to distinguish otherwise similar words. However, the part of speech of each word is noted. Abbreviations for the parts of speech are the conventional ones.1

LIST OF UNIQUE POETIC WORDS

P œlceald adj. 1-24,19(2679) P œlcrceftig adj. 1-20,38(2670) atrendlian v. 1 - 5,17(1389*) balocrœft m. (bealocrceft) 1 - 26,75(1470) bryrdan v. 1 - 13,3(1579) codlice adv. 1 - 25,36(1470) cynegerela m. (cynegierela) 1 - 25,23(1479) cypera m. 1 - 19,12(1389*) C earfoôtœcne adj. 1 - 20,147(2670) efnbehefe adj. (efenbehefe) 1 - 12,7(1470) P efnede adj. (efeniede) 1 - 20,167(2679) P efnlica m. (efenlica) 1 - 20,19(2570) efnmcere adj. (efenmcere) 1 - 10,32(1379) *U endebyrd f. 1 - 13,4(2670) *D eordgesceaft f. 1 - 20,194(2679) famigborda m. 1 - 26,26(1370) fifelstream m. 1 - 26,26(1379) firenfull adj. 1 - 15,7(2679) For the most part they are the abbreviations Sedgefield uses. They signify as follows: adj. adjective adv. adverb anv. anomalous verb f. feminine noun m. masculine noun n. neuter noun

pi. plural prep, preposition pron. pronoun sv. strong verb rv. reduplicating verb v. weak verb

14

THE UNIQUE POETIC WORDS

C fiscnet n. (fiscnett) 1 - 19,11(2579) folcgewin(n) n. (folcgewinn) 1 - 1,10(1379) fulluhtpeawas mpl. 1 - 1,33(1379) gearmcelum adv. 1 - 1,5(1470) geneahsen adj. 1 - 4,12(1479) P geondstyrian v. 1 - 6,15(2579) geradscipe m. 2 - 22,48(1470),50(1379) gimreced n. (gimmreced) 1 - 8,25(1370) C glioword n. (gliwword) 1 - 7,2(2679) C hœftedom m. 1 - 25,65(2670) hildetorht adj. 1 - 25,9(1470) C hroffcest adj. 1 - 7,6(2579) hronmere m. (hranmere) 1 - 5,10(1479) ismere m. 1 - 28,63(1479) C mœgenstan m. 1 - 5,16(2579) merecondel f. (merecandel) 1 - 13,57(1470) C meresmylte adj. 1 -21,12(2570) miscyrran v. (miscierran) 1 - 2,8(1379) mynle f. 1 - 26,67(1379) myrgen n. (myrigen) 1 - P,5(1379) neodfracu f. 1 - 31,15(1370) niôerheald adj. 1 -31,23(1379) P ofersœlô f. 1 - 5,27(2679) ofhende adj. 1 - 25,34(1370) P anhealdan rv. (onhealdan) 1 - 11,42(2680*) redigmod adj. 1 -25,17(1379) runcofa m. 1 - 22,59(1479) samrad adj. 1 - 11,96(1579) scriâe m. (scride) 1 - 28,11(1470) P sinbyrnende adj. (sinbiernende) 1 - 8,52(2670) C sincstan m. 1 - 21,21(2679) snawceald adj. 1 - 29,8(1470) swœfan v. 1 - 8,47(1379) *TJ swifto f. 1 -28,3(2589*) tier noun 1 - 20,81(1589-) tirwine m. 1 - 25,21(1379) toscriôan sv. 1 - 20,93(1489*) toswifan sv. 1 - 11,36(1379) totellan v. 2 - 16,15(1479); 20,11(1579) piodfruma m. (ôeodfruma) 1 - 29,91(1470)

15

THE UNIQUE POETIC WORDS

*D unrihtfioung f. (unrihtfeoung) 1 - 27,1(2570) untiorig adj. (unteorig) 1 - 28,17(1380*) wohfremmend m. 1 - 9,36(1370) weorulddrihten n. (worulddryhten) [listed under weoruld in Kraemer's glossary] 1 - 29,1(1470) C woruldgitsere m. 1 - 14,1(2670) woroldwuniende adj. {woruldwuniende) 1 - 13,17(1479) ymbebcetan v. (ymbbatan) 1 - 24,37(1470) ymbscridan sv. 1 - 20,208(1480*) ymbsprace adj. (sprcec*) 1 - 10,59(1380*) Unique words stand out from other words in MBo above all because they alliterate. One would expect stressed words to alliterate in somewhat more than half of their appearances, since the second stress of the offverse should never alliterate and only one stress of the on-verse has to alliterate. Among unique words, however, all but eight of sixty-nine occurrences alliterate. Rarely are unique words found in the second, non-alliterating stress of the off-verse, and when they do appear there it is usually because they are related to words or formulas which regularly turn up in such positions. A typical example is ymbsprace, whose unique appearance in MBo 10,59 hiora gelican

hwon ymbspraece,

turns out to be similar to the occurrence of sprcec in MBo when it is not derived from PrBo: Oft ic nu miscyrre

cu3e spraece

{MBo 2,8)

Another unique word in this situation, untiorig, also follows a pattern, one which may have been known to the MBo poet. It occurs once in MBo: sudheald swifed, swift, untiorig. {MBo 28,17) Five times related words occur in the same situation in the Paris Psalter: Eagen me swylce eac teoredon, {PPs 118.82.1) Gif mine grame ]aencead gast teorian, {PPs 141.3.1) Rece hi gelicast ricene geteoriad; {PPs 67.2.1) Forjaam de ure dagas ealle geteorudun, {PPs 89.9.1) Me is heorte and flaesc hearde geteorad; {PPs 72.21.1)

THE UNIQUE POETIC WORDS

s 3 e o u

o H

a

o H

^oVoo I o oX r

o

#

é

00 #

o 00 #

o

#

o H

CT\

#

/•S /"S \0\0 o\o\ m ( rs ^

s 1—4

\0\0 ONf«. o\o\ Tf ON r- ** «n eah eordlices auht ne halded, (MBo 20,166) Another unusual case is that of the word swifto, which does not alliterate when it appears in a line derived from PrBo 125,31-32, pees roderes fareldes and his swiftnesse (#2589): rodres swifto,

ryne tunglo, (MBo 28,3)

20

THE UNIQUE POETIC WORDS

The common adjective swift (listed among the "partly poetic" words in chapter 6) appears six times in MBo; five times it alliterates and once it does not. The one instance when it does not alliterate is the only instance of swift in MBo being derived from PrBo ( # 2 — ) , and in this line, based on Ic habbe swide swifte fepera (PrBo 105,4), the word also appears at the end of a verse: Ic hcebbe fidru

fugle swiftran,

(MBo 24,1)

indicating that when swift carried part of the meaning of the prose the poet carefully included it in the MBo even though it did not alliterate, whereas he used swift independently in MBo only when it would perform a useful alliterating function. The poet frequently seems to choose between prosaic content and poetic form, rather than trying to unite form with content. He will make a point bluntly, then add a poetic touch. Two of the unique words appear twice. One is geradscipe. Its two occurrences are based on this prose passage: rihtwisnesse on him naefS? Nis nan swa swide bedaeled ryhtwisnesse J>aet he (PrBo 95,17-18) They appear within three consecutive metrical lines: rihtwisnesse ne geradscipes ? Nis Jseah aenig man Ipxtte ealles swa Jaaes geradscipes swa bereafod sie (MBo 22,48-50) Both times the unique word is used in common situations; it alliterates, takes up a line or verse not derived from PrBo, and appears in the onverse, the most common situation when the entire line is independent of PrBo (#1379), as well as in the off-verse, the most common situation when a stressed word of the other verse is from PrBo ( # 1470). The most interesting characteristic of this word is that the poet re-uses it almost instantly after he discovers it and then seems to forget about it, since he never uses it again. The MBo poet's habit of finding a poetic word, using it several times in rapid succession, and then neglecting it, is too pronounced and frequent to be dismissed as mere chance or the effect of specialized subject matter. There will be more examples of this practice on the following pages, especially in the chapter dealing with limited poetic words. Aside from those few words whose appearances are forced into uneven patterns by

21

THE UNIQUE POETIC WORDS

the subject matter, the words which follow this pattern were probably not strongly present in the poet's mind as part of the poetic vocabulary, or he would have used them more evenly throughout his work. The other unique word used twice is totellan. At first it appears in the fairly common pattern ( # 1479) involving alliteration in an independent verse with a verse derived in part from PrBo 67,32, pe we hatad Tyle: toteled tidum,

Jsaet is Tile haten;

(MBo 16,15)

but its second instance is in a relatively rare pattern where the verse containing the unique word derives from PrBo while it is the other verse that is independent (#1579): du de tida fram middaneardes fruman od done ende endebyrdlice gesettest, {PrBo 79,12-13) tidum totaldes,

swa hit getaesost waes,

{MBo 20,11)

Here too there seems to be a clear explanation for the deviation from the norm. Just the first word of MBo 20,11 derives from PrBo; apparently it called to the poet's mind the other word with which he had associated tidum in an earlier on-verse, with roughly similar subject matter. The new verse then contained a word from the prose and a poetic word; the poet could rest content and eke out the line with a filler phrase. Two of the unique poetic words, myrgen and endebyrd, along with the exclusively poetic word endebyrdes, belong to families of "prosaic" words as described by E. G. Stanley.3 The particular forms of the words given here are poetic, but related words with different affixes and grammatical functions appear most of the time only in prose.

3

"Studies in the Prosaic Vocabulary of Old English Verse", Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 72 (1971), 393, 410-11.

3 THE EXCLUSIVELY POETIC WORDS

LIST OF EXCLUSIVELY POETIC WORDS

P celbeorht adj. 1 - 29,50(2670) almcegen n. (eallmcegen) 2 - 29,3(1480*),95(1479) * alwealda m. (eallwealda) 1 - 11,22(2679) alwuhta fpl. (eallwihta) 1 - 20,253(1480*) beadurinc m. (beadorinc) 1 - 1,18(1470) C beamsceadu f. 1 - 8,28(2679) beorn m. 5 - 1,52(1679); 8,34(1579); 13,23(1470); 21,41(1470); 26,75(1579) blate adv. 2 - 8,54(1579); 20,115(1579) brego m. 1 - 20,43(1470) breostcofa m. 1 - 9,32(1470) burgsittende mpl. (burgsittend) 1 - 27,17(1470) campstede m. 1 - 26,14(1370) corder n. 1 - 26,85(1479) dcegrim n. 1 - 26,33(1470) dogorrim n. 1 - 10,67(1579) dreorig adj. 1 - 22,33(1470) eaden participle 1 - 31,9(1370) *D eafi.sc m. 1 - 19,24(2670) eafora m. 1 - 26,35(1689*) eagorstream m. 2 - 20,118(1470), 122(1470) P ealdgecynd n. 2 - 13,40(2579); 25,57(2570) ealdgeweorc n. 2 - 11,40(1480*); 20,116(1380*) eargeblond n. (eargebland) 1 - 8,30(1479) P efenbeorht adj. 2 - 20,231(2579),233(2579) elde mpl. (ielde) 5 - 8,38(1579); 12,17(1479); 13,60(1479); 20,100(1479); 29,33(1479) *Uendebyrdes adv. 2 - 11,21(2679); 20,12(2679) (P)eorlgebyrdf. 2 - 9,26(1370); 10,27P(2670)

THE EXCLUSIVELY POETIC WORDS

23

eordbuendm. 6-10,25(1470),36(1470); 12,18(1370); 19,13(1470); 26,94(1379); 29,71(1470) edelstol m. 1 -9,11(1579) edelweard m. 1 - 1,24(1370) ferhd m.n. 4 - 9,37(1579); 22,52(1379),60(1679); 27,24(1579) ferdloca m. (ferhdloca) 1 - 24,5(1479) firas mpl. 4 - 4,39(1470); 7,11 (1470) 8,32(1679); 19,2 (1470) folcgesid m. 1 - 1,70(1470) frea m. 5 - 11,40(1470),67(1370); 17,9(1479); 20,121(1470); 26,63(1480*) freadrihten m. (freadryhten) 1 - 26,9(1479) geador adv. 1 - 13,49(1480*) gefrage n. 2 - 20,82(1480*), 248(1480*) (ge)fricgan sv. (fricgan) 1 - 9,27(1370) gelac n. 2 - 20,173(1379); 26,29(1589-) gemet adj. 1 - 29,41(1379) geondwlitan sv. 1 - 30,15(1580*) gepruen sv. (dwerari) 1 - 20,134(1579) gelpscada m. (gielpscada) 1 - 9,49(1470) ginfast adj. 1 - 20,227(1579) giomon(ri) m. (geomann) 1 - 1,23(1370) gumrinc m. 1 - 26,53(1579) gud f. 2 - 1,9(1370),23(1379) * W / r adv. 1 - 6,4(2679) Ate/em. 1 - 1,53(1579) heeled m. 12 - P,10(1379); 7,6(1370),18(1479); 9,57(1679); 10,1(1479),68(1470); 13,32(1479); 21,37(1679); 26,49(1479); 28,49(1370); 29,22(1470),57(1470) headorinc m. 1 - 9,45(1379) C heofonsteorra m. 1 - 20,232(2579) heofontorht adj. 1 - 23,3(1470) heofontungol n. 1 - 22,24(1379) herbuende mpl. 1 - 29,60(1470) hererinc m. 1 - 1,71(1379) heretema m. (heretiema) 1 - 1,31(1370) hige m. (hyge) 4 - 11,53(1370); 15,9(1370); 19,45(1470); 31,20 (1370) higesnot(t)or adj. (hygesnottor) 1 - 10,7(1470) Maw m. 1 - 10,43(1379) holm m. 1 - 11,30(1379)

24

THE EXCLUSIVELY POETIC WORDS

hordgestreon n. 1 - 14,11(1479) hreder m. 1 - 25,46(1489-) hruse f. 4 - 10,43(1370); 29,52(1379),62(1670); 31,13(1479) hyhtlic adj. 1 - 21,11(1579) hyrst f. 1 - 14,9(1379) inwidponc m. {inwitdanc) 2 - 9,8(1470); 27,23(1470) i'scald adj. (isceald) 1 - 27,3(1670) lagustream m. 3 - 11,43(1480*); 20,111(1480*); 26,16(1379) leodfruma m. 1 - 1,27(1379) leohtfruma m. 1 - 11,72(1479) lidmon(n) m. (lidmann) 1 - 26,63(1470) lindwigendm. 1 - 1,13(1379) lungre adv. 1 - 7,19(1470) C magencraft m. 1 - 26,105(2679) mcegd f. maiden 1 - 26,67(1370) magorinc m. (magurinc) 2 - 1,26(1379); 10,56(1379) mere m. 1 - 28,39(1370) mereflod m. 1 - 27,2(1470) merehengest m. 1 - 26,25(1479) merestream m. 5 - 11,65(1470); 16,9(1470); 20,114(1480*); 28, 34(1479),38(1479) meretorht adj. 1 - 13,61(1479) middelniht f. 1 - 28,48(1479) (C)modsefa m. 9 - 1,74C(2679); 5,39C(2679); 7,24C(2679); 11,98C(2579); 12,22C(2670); 22,31C(2579),47(1379); 28,69 (1479); 31,22C(2579) rasettan v. 1 - 9,14(1379) (C) ryneswift adj. 2 - 20,208(1579); 24,28C(2579) sceotend m. 1 - 1,11(1370) secg m. [second occurrence listed under secggesitle in Kraemer's glossary] 2 - P,7(1379); 9,42(1479) sigedrihten m. (sigedryhten) 1 - 20,260(1470) sigepeod f. 1 - 1,4(1370) sincgeofa m. (sincgiefa) 1 - 1,50(1379) stepan v. (stiepan) 1 - 15,8(1480*) *T)sumurlang adj. (sumorlang) 1 - 4,19(2579) sundbuende mpl. 3 - 8,13(1470); 24,21(1470); 26,48(1470) sudheald adj. 1 -28,17(1379) sware adv. (swcere) 1 - 9,56(1379) swearte adv. 1 - 8,47(1379)

THE EXCLUSIVELY POETIC WORDS

C

C C

(C)

25

sweg(e)l n. (swegl) 1 - 22,23(1470) swegeltorht adj. (swegltorht) 1 - 29,24(1579) swegle adv. 1 - 28,62(1579) til(l) n. (till) 1 - 20,172(1389*) poncolmod adj. (dancolmod) 1 - 19,14(1479) prcegan v. 1 - 28,25(1379) pragmalum adv. 2 - 26,80(1479); 28,56(1470) prymcyning m. 1 - 20,205(1479) unsnyttru f. (unsnytro) 1 - 9,11(1470) uprodor m. 1 - 29,50(2579) wad f. 1 - 27,13(1380*) wealaf f. 1 - 1,22(1379) welhwilc pron. adj. (welhwelc) 1 -20,191(1470) werpeodf. 4 - 9,21(1370); 24,35(1470); 26,73(1670); 29,28(1470) wigend m. 1 -26,31(1470) wingedrinc n. 1 - 25,39(2570) wintergerim n. (winter*) 1 - 28,27(2579) wlitan sv. 3 - 4,54(1670); 24,10(1470); 31,14(1479) wlitebeorht adj. 1 - 25,4(1479) wlitetorht adj. 1 - 28,61(1670) wongstede m. (wangstede) 1 - 8,56(1470) wordhord n. 1 - 6,1(1470) weoruldbuende mpl. (woruldbuend) 3 - 8,35(1470); 27,27(1470); 29,81 (1470) woruldearfod n. 4 - 5,29C(2579); 7,26(1470), 35(1370), 49C(2670); wuldorcyning m. 1 - 20,162(1479) ymbsittende m. (ymbsittend) 1 - 25,14(1379)

Exclusively poetic words, those which occur in MBo and other Old English poetry but not in PrBo nor very often, according to Clark Hall's criteria, in other Old English prose, make three times as many appearances in MBo as do the unique poetic words (see Table 2). Of the three types of entirely poetic words, the exclusively poetic ones occur in the most definite patterns. Like the other kinds, they rarely derive from related words in the prose ( # 2 — ) , only 28 times out of 206, less than 14 per cent. More than unique or limited poetic words, they occur in lines or verses independent of PrBo. And they alliterate (situation # — 7 - ) even more than the unique words. Just 18 times out of 206, less than 9 per cent, the exclusively poetic words do not alliterate. Never is an

THE EXCLUSIVELY POETIC WORDS

X> o e H o V

o H

©

#

i

© 00 #

©

t-

#

o o #

H

o\ t-

1/1 ON t-i H 00 iS

#

riTtviOvi«

######

o H

THE EXCLUSIVELY POETIC WORDS •o V

e B

r- r-i o\o\o\q (N "xj- OO Tf OO i-H 'n'O n M co i (N — tN V>