Lewe thy syne & lyffe in right,
And þan shalt thou lyffe in heuyn as a knyght.
The text, as a whole, is badly written with many erasures, and points to a careless hand.
The additional stanzas cited in the table as independent contain mere variations on the main theme, and it is highly probable that the more expanded texts are the later, and represent individual additions to a popular poem, since they generally fail to maintain the internal rime on the word erthe which is an evident characteristic of the genuine verses. In the case of the five MSS. in question, MS. Harl. 4486 might be taken to represent the original type, and MSS. Lamb., Laud[11], and Titus an expansion of this, while the author of Rawl. P. was obviously acquainted with the Lambeth text, or its original, and added to it certain stanzas of his own, leaving out three of the verses in Lambeth to make room for these. Whether the eighth stanza which MSS. Harl. 4486, Lamb., Laud, and Rawl. P. have in common belongs to the original type of the B version, or was itself a later addition, can scarcely be determined, but as it seems to be confined to these four texts, the latter view is perhaps the more probable. It must, however, have been added early, as it occurs already in MSS. Lamb. and Laud before 1450, and preserves the principle of the internal rime on erthe. The relative dates of MSS. Lambeth and Rawl. P. as fixed by Furnivall and Madden (MS. Lamb. 1430-1450, R. P. after 1450) would bear out this theory of the relationship between these two texts, and it may further be noted that both have the same prefatory De terra plasmasti me, otherwise found only in MS. Harl. 1671, and that both exhibit the same tendency to employ a direct personal mode of address, and to lengthen out the original text by superfluous words.
Cf. for example, MS. Harl. 4486, verse 5 (so MS. Laud, verse 8)—
Why erthe loueth erthe wonder me thynke,
Or why that erthe for erthe swete wylle or swynke, &c.
with MS. Lamb. verse 8—
Whi þat erþe to myche loueþ erþe, wondir me þink,
Or whi þat erþe for superflue erþe to sore sweete wole or swynk