[890] Otho A. vi, of the tenth century, but much injured in the Cottonian fire of 1731.
[891] Bodl. 180 (2079); early twelfth century. There are also some transcripts and various readings taken by Junius from these two MSS.
[892] Lib. I. metr. 6; Lib. II. metr. 2; Lib. IV. metr. 7. The reason of this omission is probably due to the fact, that in these three instances Alfred’s prose translation omits the formula with which it generally introduces the Metra: ‘Then Wisdom began to sing.’ This has been made an argument against Alfred’s authorship of the Metra. But it is surely quite possible that Alfred, coming back to his work after some time (see below, pp. 189 f.), and making his alliterative version without fresh reference to the Latin, should, in the absence of the usual formula, have overlooked the poetical character of these sections. In one case, Lib. I. metr. 7, the introductory formula is wanting, and yet the section exists in the verse translation. But here the poetical character of the section is much more obvious, and it is followed by a formula which often follows the Metra, ‘then was Wisdom silent for a while,’ c. vii. ad init.; so cc. xvii. ad init., xxiv. ad init., xxxix. §§ 2, 4, xli. § 2. A still more frequent concluding formula is ‘ða ongan he eft spellian.’
[893] Sedgefield, pp. 1, 151.
[894] e.g. Leicht: ‘schon die veränderte Form, die Alliteration und der mit ihr verbundene Stil mussten darauf führen dass neue Gedanken angeregt wurden, wenn der Dichter derselben fähig war,’ cited in Wülker, Grundriss, p. 431. This ‘mussten’ is, to use a favourite formula of German criticism, ‘rein willkürlich.’
[895] So Hartmann, in Wülker, p. 425.
[896] Of Betty Foy he says, ‘I never wrote anything with so much glee’; of Laodamia, ‘It cost me more trouble than almost anything of equal length I have ever written,’ Morley’s edition, pp. 88, 530.
[897] p. 167: ‘Tres Eryci uitulos, et Tempestatibus agnam,’ Aen. v. 772.
[898] The passage occurs both in the Gesta Regum and in the Gesta Pontificum. In the former it runs thus: ‘sensum librorum Boetii de Consolatione planioribus uerbis enodauit, quos rex ipse in Anglicam linguam uertit,’ i. 131; in the latter ‘elucidauit’ is substituted for ‘enodauit,’ and the supercilious words are added: ‘labore illis diebus necessario, nostris ridiculo,’ p. 177. The G. Pont, is later than the G. Regum, see G. R., I. xix.
[899] Grundriss, p. 427.