The Latin original of Sawles Warde was again adapted by the writer of the supplement to the Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 263-9, presumably Dan Michel of Northgate; his version is much closer to the original, and he does not seem to have been acquainted with that of his predecessor.
[1]. With the title comp. ‘Mid alle cunne warde (= custodia) . . . wite wel þine heorte, uor soule lif is in hire; ȝif heo is wel iwust,’ AR 48/5; ‘þonne se weard swefeð, | sawele hyrde,’ Beowulf, 1741 (with Holthausen’s note).
[2]. Si &c.: S. Matt. xxiv. 43: V has ‘veniret’ with S. Luke xii. 39.
[3]. a bisne: a forbisne T.
[5]. to is omitted by R: to witen T: comp. ‘To wyten vs wyþ þan vnwihte,’ OEM 72/4; ‘ihereð hu ȝe schulen witen ou wið þes deofles wieles, þet he ou ne biwrenche,’ AR 224/20, and see [48/299 note]. þe unwiht of helle: so HM 41/19; ‘of þe laðe vnwiht þe hellene schucke,’ id. 41/35.
[6]. þes lauerd: þe husebonde RT.
[8]. hire: so all MSS.; the writer is thinking of the allegory rather than of his grammar. With breoken comp. 62/20. mon &c.: R has, mon . in wið þe monnes wit iþis is þe huselauerd . , T, mon . Jnwið . þe monnes wit iþis hus is te huselauerd. Kluge, adopting the text of B, punctuates þis hus, . . ., is seolf þe mon inwið; þe monnes wit i þis hus is þe huselaverd; while W, omitting ‘i þis hus,’ which does not fit into his metrical scheme, has þis hus, . . . , is seolf þe mon . inwið þe monnes wit is þe huselauerd. In both cases ‘inwið’ is adverbial, as at 130/57, and the sense yielded is intelligible. But it diverges strangely from the original, ‘Pater iste familias animus potest intelligi, cuius familia sint cogitationes et motus earum, sensus quoque et actiones tam exteriores quam interiores. . . . Domus est conscientia, in qua pater iste habitans thesauros (see 118/27) virtutum congregat, propter quos ne domus effodiatur, summopere vigilatur,’ V 207 e, 208 a. All three writers appear to have been contending with a faulty archetype: the original may have been:—
þis hus þe ure lauerd spekeð of · is seolf þe mon
nes inwit; wit i þis hus is þe huselauerd,
where the first line is actually that found in R: the division of mon-nes would readily give rise to the corruptions of all three MSS. In the Ayenbite of Inwyt the Latin is translated, ‘Hous . is inwyt|in huychen þe uader of house woneþ . þe hord of uirtues gadereþ,’ 263/24. For inwit comp. ‘wiðinnen us suluen, ure owune conscience, þet is, ure inwit,’ AR 306/1, 206/5. When the writer afterwards speaks of the house of the body, 127/369, he is using a familiar expression, for which there is nothing corresponding in the Latin original. wit is Reason = animus rationalis: the contest between it and Will is also in HM 15/23-36; the embodiment of the latter as the ‘fulitohe wif’ is due to our writer.