teche, to teach.
dede, dead; lede, lead (the metal); rede, red. Also lede, to lead; sprede, to spread. Other words in -ede are doubtful.
breke, to break, speke, to speak, wreke, to wreak, have open e; but it was originally short, and these words are kept apart from others.
bene, bean; clene, clean; lene, lean; mene, to mean.
hepe, heap; lepe, to leap.
there, there; were, were; where, where. Also ere, ear; gere, gear; tere, a tear. (Fere, fear, has unstable e; cf. G. Gefahr.)
bere, to bear, dere, to harm, swere, to swear, tere, to tear, besides bere, a bear, spere, a spear[[33]], were, a weir, here, her, stere, to stir, likewise have open e; but the e was originally short, and these words are kept apart from those in the preceding set.
bete, to beat; grete, great; hete, heat; spete, to spit; swete, to sweat; threte, to threat. Also ĕte, to eat, foryĕte, to forget. (I omit doubtful cases.)
reve, to reave; greve, a grove. (But leve, to leave, is doubtful.)
(B) The following (in Troilus) have close long e only.
seche, to seek; biseche, to beseech.
forbede, to forbid; nede, need; yede, went. Also bede, to offer, blede, to bleed; brede, to breed; fede, to feed; glede, a glowing coal; spede, to speed; stede, a steed.
meke, meek; seke, to seek.
bitwene, between; grene, green; kene, keen; quene, queen; tene, vexation; wene, to ween.
kepe, to keep; wepe, to weep; also depe, deep.
fere, companion; yfere, together; here, here.
bete, flete, grete, mete, to mend, float, greet, meet; swete, sweet.
leve, dear.
[§ 37]. Of course, the rime-tests consist in this, that not one of the words in class A can possibly rime with one of those in class B, either in Troilus or in any genuine work of Chaucer.
To test this, we must first refer to Cromie's Rime-Index to the Canterbury Tales, under the headings, -eche, -ede (-eede), -eke, -ene, -epe, -ere, -ete, -eve.
The only apparent exceptions that I can find are two; and they are worth notice.
Under -eepe, we are told that leepe, 3 s. perf., rimes with keepe, n. obj. The reference is to Group A, 2688. When we look, we find that the Ellesmere MS. has wrong spellings; the words should be leep, keep. Or rather, we find that the final e is
not real, but only represents a meaningless flourish in the MS. Now it is a neat point of grammar that, although lepen, to leap (A.S. hlēapan), has an open e, its past tense (A.S. hlēop) has a close e; so that the rime is quite correct. In both words, the e is close.
The other case (A 1422) is worth citing. Mr. Cromie says, at p. 108, that here, adv., rimes with the inf. bere, to bear; which is, in my view, impossible.
The lines run thus:—