The punctuation, inverted commas, and regular use of initial capitals in the text are the Editor’s. The MSS. vary in their use of capitals, the same MS. being often inconsistent with itself, while the Cambridge text frequently employs them for unimportant words in the middle of the line, as p. 33, l. 45, Ar, &c. Capitals have been added in the case of all proper names. Letters and words which are obscure or illegible in the MS., or which appear to have been accidentally omitted, are enclosed in square brackets, and a hyphen has been inserted where the MS. separates a prefix or particle from the rest of the word. The MS. writings ff, þ, ȝ, v for u and vice versa, have been retained in the text, and ɫɫ, ŧħ, expanded to lle, the, but it was not thought advisable to expand m~, n~, to me, ne, nor other letters such as d, r, g, when written with a final flourish. Fifteenth-century scribes appear to have used such flourishes at the end of the word rather as a matter of habit than with any particular meaning, and the forms to which expansion of them would lead, such as one, onne for on, are frequently most improbable. It was therefore thought better to ignore such flourishes, or to indicate the persistent use of them by a footnote.
As the conclusions arrived at in the Introduction with regard to the relationship of the English and Latin versions in MS. Harl. 913, and the verbal connexion with the Soul and Body Dialogues, agree, to some extent, with those indicated by Heuser, Die Kildare-Gedichte, pp. 176-80, it is only reasonable to state that the greater part of the work upon the subject had been done, and a projected article upon it written in reply to Professor Fiedler’s in the Modern Language Review, before I had any knowledge of Heuser’s text, and that my conclusions had been formed independently of his, though his have helped to strengthen and confirm them. Moreover I owe his work a very real debt, since I first learned from it of the existence of the Cambridge Text, which has been a most important link in the building up of the general theory as to the connexion between the different versions of the poem.
In conclusion, it is a pleasure to express thanks for kind and courteous assistance to the authorities of the British Museum, the Public Record Office, the Bodleian, Cambridge University Library and Lincoln Cathedral Library; to the librarian of Lambeth Palace Library, to whom I am indebted for the collation of the Lambeth text; to the authorities of Magdalene College, Cambridge, for permission to copy and print the Maitland text; to Lord Harlech for the loan of the Porkington MS.; to Professor Fiedler for permission to use the Brighton text; to Professor Priebsch, who pointed out the text in MS. Harl. 4486; to Miss Helen Sandison, of Bryn Mawr College, U.S.A., for the discovery of the text in the Appendix and for two of the Analogues, and to Professor Skeat for valuable advice and suggestions. In particular this text owes much to my Father, Sir James Murray of the Oxford Dictionary, who has read the proofs, and in the midst of his own arduous work has always been ready with help and advice, to my friend Miss K. S. Block, Lecturer in English at the Royal Holloway College, and, above all, to Dr. Furnivall, in whom all scholars and students of English mourn to-day the loss of a great pioneer, and an ever-ready friend and adviser.
Oxford,
July 1910.
Since this was sent to press two other copies of the B version have come to light at Cambridge, and have by kind permission been inserted on pp. 47, 48 as Appendix II:—
(B 19) MS. Trinity College R. 3. 21, fol. 33, vo, a copy of the normal B version in seven stanzas.
(B 20) MS. Trinity College B. 15. 39, fol. 170, which contains nine stanzas of the expanded text preserved in MSS. Lambeth and Laud, and appears to represent a distinct copy of the original of these two (see Introd. p. xix).
[1.] A second Latin version of an Erthe poem, together with the same poem in Anglo-French, and in Middle English, occurs on the back of a Roll in the Public Record Office, dating from the time of Edward II (Exr. K. R. Proceedings, Bdle. 1; old No. 845/21), and in a 19th cent. transcript of this in MS. Brit. Mus. Addit. 25478; it is given in the Appendix. Both the Latin and the French appear to be translations or paraphrases of the English, with an additional verse or two.