-ele; -ene. Rimes in -ēle and -ēne are all regular. So also in -eme, -emeth. The rimes in ēmen are imperfect.
-epe. Slepe has unstable e; cf. Goth. slēpan.
-ere. Unstable e occurs in fere, fire, as explained above; also in here, to hear, A.S. hȳran, hēran; and again, in dere, dear, A.S. dȳre (as well as dēore). Also in yere, year, because the ēa in A.S. gēar is not the usual diphthong ēa, but due to the preceding g; the Goth. form is jēr, so that the M.E. is unstable, by the
rule. Bere, a bier, is from the verbal stem bǣr-on, corresponding to Goth, bērun; hence the e is unstable.
But a real exception occurs in the riming of lere, to teach, with here, here (T. ii. 97, iv. 440). Lere, A.S. lǣran, Goth. laisjan, should have the open e; but it here rimes with a word in which the e is close. This is one of the exceptional words noted by Ten Brink (Chaucers Sprache, § 25). No explanation is offered, and I know of none, unless it be that it was confused with lére, cheek, from A.S. hlēor. But we must note the fact.
-ete. The exceptional words are bihete, mete (to dream), strete, street. Bihete is really a false form for bihote (A.S. bihātan); the e is due to confusion with the pt. t. bihēt, where hēt is for A.S. hēht, the result of contraction; hence the e is doubtful and unstable. Mete, to dream, is from A.S. mǣtan, of unknown origin; hence we may regard the e as doubtful. Strete, a street, answers to A.S. strǣt, Mercian strēt, mod. E. street; hence the e is unstable, as explained above.
-eve. Ten Brink (Ch. Studien, §§ 25, 23) thinks that leve, sb., leave, was treated as if with close e by confusion with bilēven, to believe, which, he says, has close e. Whatever be the right explanation, we must set aside leve, leave, as an exceptional word. So also eve, eve, A.S. ǣfen, Mercian ēfen, has a variable vowel; see Sweet, O.E. Texts, p. 602.
[§ 36]. Having now considered the doubtful cases, which may be altogether set aside, it remains to draw up the list of words in which the quality of the long e, at least in Troilus, admits of no doubt. The result gives us a valuable set of test-rimes, by which the genuineness of a poem attributed to Chaucer may be investigated. Of course, a few divergences may admit of explanation; but the presence of a large number of them should make us extremely suspicious.
The list is as follows.
(A) The following words (in Troilus) have open e only. (I omit some doubtful cases, in addition to those discussed above; and only give those which ought certainly to have the open vowel.)