(4) Verbs. In the Infinitive and Gerund, apart from the cases of do, go, se, sle, &c., few instances occur of the loss of final e. The verb sein (sain) has seie and also say, and beside the regular infinitive pute we have also put in several instances, the next word beginning with a vowel or mute h. The cases are as follows: ‘And thoghte put hire in an Ile,’ i. 1578, ‘To put his lif,’ &c., i. 3213, ‘put eny lette,’ ii. 93, and so also ii. 1021, iii. 1166, iv. 756, 2615, v. 273, viii. 892: but also, ‘It oghte pute a man in fere,’ i. 462, ‘To puten Rome in full espeir,’ ii. 1551, ‘Theucer pute out of his regne,’ iii. 2648, &c. In addition to the above there are a few instances of the same in other verbs, as ‘get hire a thank,’ ii. 60, ‘It schal noght wel mow be forsake,’ ii. 1670, ‘flitt his herte aside,’ iv. 214, ‘let it passe,’ viii. 2056. (In vi. 202, ‘If that sche wolde ȝif me leve,’ we ought perhaps to read ȝive with S: cp. i. 1648.)
The gerund ‘to done’ is common, but we do not find either ‘to sene’ or ‘to seine.’
Present Tense. In the 1st pers. sing, of the present, apart from such forms as do, go, &c., and prai beside preie praie, there are a few cases of apocope, as in the infinitive: ‘Than cast I,’ iv. 560, ‘let it passe,’ iv. 363, ‘I put me therof in your grace,’ i. 732, ‘I put it al,’ v. 2951, ‘I red thee leve,’ vi. 1359, ‘Nou thenk I,’ vii. 4212. In two of these instances it will be noticed that the following word begins with a consonant.
In the 3rd pers. sing. the syncopated and contracted forms are very much used by Gower. He says regularly bit, ett, get, put, schet, set, sit (2nd pers. sist), smit, writ; arist, bint, fint, holt (halt), lest, went, wext; berth, brekth, bringth, crith, drawth, drinkth, falth, farth, forsakth, leith, lyth, preith, spekth, takth (or tath), thenkth, ȝifth, and only occasionally draweth, drinketh, fareth, kepeth, sitteth, waxeth, &c. In vi. 59 the best MSS. agree in giving sterte for stert, and in viii. 2428 most have sitte for sit, but these are probably accidental variations. For the 3rd pers. plural Fahrenberg (p. 404) quotes several supposed instances of th ending. Of these most are expressions like ‘men seith,’ where ‘men’ is used as singular indefinite. One only is valid, viz. vii. 1107, ‘Diverse sterres to him longeth’: cp. vii. 536.
Preterite. With regard to the tense formation of Strong Verbs reference may be made to the Glossary, where all the characteristic forms are recorded. We confine ourselves here to a few remarks.
The following instances may be noticed of gradation between the singular and the plural of the preterite: began, pl. begunne begonne, gan, pl. gonnen, ran, pl. runne, wan, pl. wonne, bond, pl. bounden, fond, pl. founden, song (sang), pl. songe sunge, sprong, pl. spronge sprungen, drank (dronk), pl. drunke, bar, pl. bere (beere), brak, pl. brieken, spak, pl. spieke, sat, pl. sete(n) siete(n) seete, bad, pl. bede, lay (lih), pl. lihe leie(n), wax, pl. woxen, wrot, pl. write(n), rod, pl. riden, ches, pl. chose, and among preterite-presents can, pl. conne, mai, pl. mowe, schal, pl. schulle schull schol, wot, pl. wite.
There are some few instances in F of strong preterites with irregular -e termination in the 1st or 3rd pers. singular, but in no case is this authenticated by metre or rhyme. The following are examples in which F and S are agreed, ‘schope a wile,’ v. 4278, ‘he bare him,’ v. 5236, ‘which sihe his Soster,’ v. 5810, ‘lete come,’ vi. 1186, ‘he tho toke hire in his arm,’ viii. 1732. These are perhaps mistakes, and they have sometimes been corrected in the text on the authority of other MSS.
The 2nd pers. sing. has the -e termination, as sihe (syhe), iii. 2629, iv. 599, were, iv. 600, knewe, vi. 2313, come, viii. 2076, but tok, i. 2421. The 2nd pers. sing. of the preterite-present mai is regularly miht (myht), never ‘mayest.’ Occasionally the best MSS. give it as mihte, e.g. i. 2457, vii. 2637, 3819, but there is no metrical confirmation of this form. The preterite plural is very rarely found without -e, as v. 3300, 7534, vii. 3574.
Among Weak Verbs those which have the short or syncopated form keep the -e termination almost regularly. Such preterites are, for example, aspide, cride, deide, leide, obeide, payde, preide, seide, teide, hadde, made, brende, sende, answerde, ferde, herde, solde, spilde, tolde, wende, betidde, dradde, fedde, fledde, hedde, gradde, ladde, radde, spedde, spradde, crepte, duelte, felte, hente, kepte, kiste, lefte, lepte, loste, mente, slepte, wente, wepte, alihte, caste, dihte, grette, knette, kutte, laste, liste, mette, plyhte, putte, schette, sette, sterte, triste, arawhte, broghte, cawhte, oghte, roghte, schryhte, soghte, strawhte, tawhte, thoghte, wroghte, cowthe, dorste, mihte, moste, scholde, wiste, wolde.
At the same time it must be noted (as in the case of the infinitive) that with some of these forms there is an occasional tendency to drop the -e before a vowel at the beginning of the next word (that is, where elision would take place), and the agreement of the best MSS., especially F and S, makes it certain this was sometimes done by the author. It is impossible to trace any system, but the number of verbs affected is not large, and in nearly every case the instances of this kind of elision-apocope are largely outnumbered by the examples of normal inflexion in the same verb[Y].