for alle thys world to wynne
wold not do a synne.
[Page 16.] MS. Laud Misc. 23. This is the only text which is not written in metrical lines. The MS. being small, it was not as a rule possible to fit one line of the poem into a single line of the page, and the run-on lines involved waste of space. The scribe wrote verse 1 in metrical lines, verses 2 and 3 as if in two long lines, and the remainder of the poem in paragraphs, each paragraph coinciding with a verse. Each new line or paragraph is indicated by a red capital, and the metrical lines are distinguished by pause-marks (√̣, ·, √, |), and by touching up the first letter of the line in red. In vv. 6, 7, and 8, the scribe appears to have lost count of the lines, as the three verses are written in two paragraphs, and letters in the middle of a line are often marked in red. At the top of the first leaf a later hand has scribbled the words haue made me. A few other such scribbles occur elsewhere in the MS.
l. 26 (p. 17). Thi body that was rank and louyd of alle men, is hatyd. The reading is inferior to MS. Lambeth, l. 27:
þan þi bodi þat was rank & undeuout of alle men is bihatid—
and the change led to the placing of the pause (indicated in the MS.) after men.
l. 27. Out of the erthe cam to this erthe his wantyng garnement. This line seems to be a compromise between the readings of MSS. Lamb. and Rawl. P.
(MS. Lamb. 28)
Out of þis erþe cam to þis erþe þis wrecchid garnement.
(MS. Rawl. P. 37)