The conservative treatment of the old alliterative line, which probably at no time was altogether discontinued, was revived in the thirteenth and especially in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when it degenerated again in the same way as the progressive line had done several centuries before.
B. The ‘Proverbs of Alfred’ and Layamon’s ‘Brut’.
§ 43. The first subject which we have to consider here is the further development of the progressive form of the alliterative line, the representatives of which[98] are closely connected in their rhythmic form with the two specimens of the poetical parts of the Saxon Chronicle quoted above. From Alfred’s Proverbs we take No. xv (ll. 247–66):
Þus queþ Alured:
Ne schal-tu néuere þi wíf | by hire wlýte chéose, 247–8
for néuer none þínge | þat heo tó þe brýngeþ;
ac leorne hire cúste, | heo cúþeþ hi wel sóne;
for móny mon for áyhte | úvele iáuhteþ,
and ófte mon of fáyre | frákele ichéoseþ. 255–6
Wó is him þat úvel wìf | brýngeþ to his cótlýf;