Whether is usually cut down to whe'r, and is frequently written wher.
Benedicite once occurs as a word of five syllables, where Theseus drawls it out to express his wonder, A 1785.
where else (I believe) it is ben'cite, in three syllables only. So also By'r for by our, Book Duch. 544; A godd's halfe, id. 370.
The phrase I ne at the beginning of a line was very rapidly pronounced, almost as I n' (iin); as in I n' saugh, A 764; I n' seye, B 1139; so also Me n' (meen) for Me ne, Pitee, 105 (see the note).
[§ 116]. For further details, see Ten Brink's work on Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst. It may be as well to say that he has remarkably failed to understand the effect of the caesura, and is much troubled by the occurrence there of extra syllables. Yet this was the necessary result of Chaucer's copying French models.
The explanation is simple. The caesura implies a pause. But elision can only take place where there is NO pause. Hence the caesural pause ALWAYS prevents elision. Hence, also, there is often a redundant syllable here, just as there is at the end of the line. This is a lesson which the student should learn at once; it is easily verified.
I am aware that this lesson is difficult, being opposed to modern ideas; and it will be long before some readers will come to understand that the final e should be kept in the French word seg-e, A 56; in the pp. wonn-e, A 59; in the pp. y-com-e, A 77; in the pl. crull-e, A 81; and so on. It is true that Chaucer, in such cases, usually begins the latter part of the line with a vowel, for the sake of smoothness; but he does not do this invariably; see A 77. Much clearer examples occur in the following (A 84, 130, 184, 198, 224, 343, 491):—
And-wónder.lỳ delíver and-gréet of-stréngthe.
