[ I.—DESCRIPTION OF THE MS., ETC.]

A former edition of the present poem was printed for the Maitland Club, in 1839, and edited by Joseph Stevenson, Esq. It has saved me all trouble of transcription, but by no means, I am sorry to say, that of correction. Those who possess the older edition will readily perceive that it differs from the present one very frequently indeed, and that the variations are often such as considerably to affect the sense. Many of the errors in it (such as casualtyee for casualytee, grone, for gone, reprent for repent) are clearly typographical, but there are others which would incline me to believe that the transcription was too hastily executed; several passages being quite meaningless. Near the conclusion of Mr Stevenson’s preface we read: “The pieces which have been selected for the present volume[1] are printed with such errors of transcription as have crept into them by the carelessness of the scribe;” a statement which certainly implies that there was no intention on his part of departing from the original. Yet that he sometimes unconsciously did so to such an extent as considerably to alter (or destroy) the sense, the reader may readily judge from a few examples:—

LINE.EDITION OF 1839.TRUE READING OF THE MS.
[26].fatil (fatal),fatit (fated).
[285].unarmyt (unarmed),enarmyt (fully armed).
[682].can here,cam nere.
[700].rendit (rent),vondit (wounded).
[764].refuse (refusal?),reprefe (defeat).
[861].felith (feeleth),ſetith (setteth).
[1054].vyt,rycht.
[1084].speiris,spuris.
[1455].cumyng (coming),cunyng (skill).
[1621].he war,be war (beware).
[1641].promyß,punyß (punish).
[2010].ane desyne,medysyne.
[2092].born,lorn (lost).
[2114].havin,harm.
[2142].Hymene (!),hyme (him).
[2219].such,furth (forth).
[2245].al so y-vroght,al foly vroght.
[2279].chichingis (!),thithingis (tidings).
[2446].love,lore (teaching). Etc.

Several omissions also occur, as, e.g., of the word “off” in [l. 7], of the word “tressore” in [l. 1715], and of four whole lines at a time in two instances; viz., lines [1191-4], and [2877-80]. It will be found, in fact, that the former text can seldom be safely quoted for the purposes of philology; and I cannot but think Mr Stevenson’s claim of being accurate to be especially unfortunate; and the more so, because the genuine text is much simpler and more intelligible than the one which he has given.

The original MS. is to be found in the Cambridge University Library, marked Kk. 1. 5. It formerly formed part of a thick volume, labelled “Tracts;” but these are now being separated, for greater convenience, into several volumes. The MS. of “Lancelot” has little to do with any of the rest as regards its subject, but several other pieces are in the same hand-writing; and, at the end of one of them, an abstract of Solomon’s proverbs, occur the words, “Expliciunt Dicta Salamonis, per manum V. de F.”[2] This hand-writing, though close, is very regular, and my own impression certainly is that the scribe has almost always succeeded in preserving the sense of the poem, though there is much confusion in the dialectal forms, as will be shewn presently.

The present text is as close a fac-simile of the MS. as can be represented by printed letters, every peculiarity being preserved as far as practicable, even including the use of y for þ (or th); so that the reader must remember that yow in [l. 94] stands for thow, and yis in [l. 160] for this, and so on; but this ought not to cause much difficulty. The sole points of difference are the following:

1. In the MS. the headings “Prologue,” “Book I.” etc., do not occur.

2. The lines do not always begin (in the MS.) with a capital letter.

3. The letters italicized are (in the MS.) represented by signs of contraction. One source of difficulty is the flourish over a word, used sometimes as a contraction for m or n. I have expanded this flourish as an m or n wherever such letter is manifestly required; but it also occurs where it is best to attach to it no value. In such instances, the flourish occurs most frequently over the last word in a line, and (except very rarely) only over words which have an m or n in them. It would thus seem that their presence is due to the fact of the scribe wanting employment for his pen after the line had been written, and that the flourish therefore appears over certain words, not so much because the n is wanting in them, as because it is there already. Such words have a special attraction for the wandering pen. Still, in order that the reader may know wherever such flourishes occur, they have all been noted down; thus, in [l. 46], the stroke over the n in “greñ” means that a long flourish occurs drawn over the whole word, and the reader who wishes to expand this word into “grene” or “grenn” may easily do it for himself, though he should observe that the most usual form of the word is simply “gren,” as in lines [1000], [1305].