erþ vp erþ . falliþ fol frow
erþ toward erþ . delful him drow.
of erþ þou were makid . and mon þou art ilich
in on erþ awaked . þe pore and þe riche.
The connexion between these two versions might be explained in two ways. The short version of MS. Harl. 2253 may be the beginning of a transcript of the longer poem in which the scribe broke off because his memory failed him, or because he was only acquainted with a popular version of the opening lines. On the other hand, the short version may be the older, and the more learned composer of the poem in MS. Harl. 913 may have been elaborating this and other such riddling stanzas current at the time. But any attempt to decide between these two possibilities must necessarily depend upon the conclusion formed as to the relation of the Latin stanzas in MS. Harl. 913 to their English equivalents, and this question will be more conveniently discussed in connexion with the general origin of the Erthe upon Erthe poems. As regards the date of the two MSS., MS. Harl. 2253 is generally ascribed to the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the Kildare MS. (MS. Harl. 913) is dated c. 1308 by Crofton Croker, c. 1308 to 1330 by Heuser, while Paul Meyer is of opinion that it may belong to an earlier period still. The dialect of both poems is South Midland, probably of the western part of the district. MS. Harl. 2253, which is commonly associated with Leominster, has heuede (4). MS. Harl. 913 has lutil, schrud, muntid, heo, mon, lond, and S. Midl. forms of verbs. We have therefore two types of the A version, standing in close verbal relation to each other, of much the same date and dialect, and representing in all probability the kind of Erthe poem current at the end of the thirteenth century in the South-west Midland district.
[ The B Version.]
As will appear from the foregoing account of the MSS., the eighteen texts of the B version vary considerably in length, many of them introducing stanzas which do not recur elsewhere. A comparison of the number and arrangement of the stanzas in each text is given on the next page, the stanzas being numbered according to the order of their arrangement in the text to which they belong, and the corresponding stanzas in the various texts grouped under columns. MSS. Thornton, Selden, and Egerton have no mark of strophic division, but fall naturally into mono-rimed stanzas of four lines. All the remaining texts are arranged in four-lined stanzas with mono-rime,[9] with the exception of MS. Porkington, which represents an evident expansion of the original metrical scheme, an additional long line being attached to each stanza by means of a short bob-line, giving a six-lined stanza, aaaabb. In MS. Rawl. Poet. each long line is written as two short lines, so that the usual four-lined stanza appears in this text as two stanzas, each consisting of four half-lines. This arrangement is facilitated by the regular internal rime on the word erthe. The order of the fifteenth-century MSS. of the B version observed in the table corresponds to that in the foregoing list of MSS., and in the printed text, and is not always strictly chronological, it being more convenient for purposes of comparison to group the texts according to their length. It will be seen that the three late texts (MSS. Harl. 984, Maitland, and Reidpeth) revert to the normal seven-stanza type, and that this appears to have been the form of the poem known to the compiler of the Cambridge text, a comparison of which is added.
The “Independent Stanzas”, here shown as a separate table, were printed as the last column of the main table, following “Common Stanzas”.
| Text. | Common Stanzas. | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Wm. Billyng’s Text | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | — | — | |||||
| 2. | MS. Thornton | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | — | — | |||||
| 3. | MS. Selden, supra 53 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | — | 4 | 6 | |||||
| 4. | MS. Egerton 1995 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |||||
| 5. | MS. Harl. 1671 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |||||
| 6. | MS. Brighton | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |||||
| 7. | Stratford Inscription | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |||||
| 8. | MS. Rawl. C. 307 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | — | — | |||||
| 9. | MS. Harl. 4486 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ||||
| 10. | MS. Lambeth 853 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 10 |
| 11. | MS. Laud Misc. 23 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 10 |
| 12. | MS. Cotton Titus A. xxvi | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | — | — | — | — | 5 | 6 | — | — |
| 13. | MS. Rawl. Poet. | 1.2. | 3.4. | 6.5. | 7.8. | 11.12. | — | — | 31.32. | 15.16. | — | 9.10. | 13.14. |
| 14. | MS. Porkington 10 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 12 | |||||
| 15. | MS. Balliol 354 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 15 | 16 | |||||
| 16. | MS. Harl. 984[10] | (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | 6 | 7 | |||||
| 17. | MS. Maitland | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |||||
| 18. | MS. Reidpeth | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |||||
| The Cambridge Text | 1 | 3.8. | 2 | 10 | 9 | 11 | — | ||||||
| Text. | Independent Stanzas. | ||||||||||||
| 8. | MS. Rawl. C. 307 | stanzas 6. 7. 8. (3) | |||||||||||
| 13. | MS. Rawl. Poet. | 17 to 30. (14) | |||||||||||
| 14. | MS. Porkington 10 | 7 to 11 (5) | |||||||||||
| 15. | MS. Balliol 354 | 6 to 14 (9) | |||||||||||
| The Cambridge Text | 6. 7. 13. 18 resemble A Version. 4. 5. 12. 14 to 17. 19 to 22 independent (11) | ||||||||||||
It will be seen from the table that eleven of these texts have seven stanzas in common, and that fifteen of them have five in common. Of the three remaining texts, MS. Harl. 984 has a missing leaf, but would clearly appear to belong to the seven-stanza type, raising the above numbers to twelve texts of seven stanzas, and sixteen of five. MS. Selden again obviously represents the usual seven-stanza type with the accidental omission of verse 5. MS. Titus has four of the customary five verses, breaks off to follow the arrangement of the Lambeth MS., and comes to an end after copying two of the additional verses in the Lambeth text before reaching the usual fifth verse. Assuming that it represents a transcription of the Lambeth text, MS. Titus might be classed with the five-stanza type, or possibly, like MS. Lambeth, with the seven-stanza type. It may therefore be assumed that all eighteen of the B texts have five stanzas in common, or are based upon such a common type, and that thirteen, or possibly fourteen of them, represent a common type with seven stanzas, six of which are further found in the Cambridge text. These common stanzas vary very little in the different MSS. as regards either the actual text or the order of lines and stanzas, and it seems probable that the normal B version consisted of seven stanzas, ending with a personal exhortation which has been omitted, or possibly not yet added, in five of the texts. In four MSS.—Lambeth, Laud, Rawl. P., and Harl. 4486—an interesting final stanza, containing a prayer, has been added. Three of these texts, MSS. Lamb., Laud, and Rawl. P., correspond in three other additional stanzas, which seems to point to some closer relationship between them, and two, or more strictly one and a half, of these additional stanzas are also found in MS. Titus, which appears to be a transcript of the Lambeth text. The scribe of MS. Titus followed the Lambeth text until he reached the middle of verse 6, when he apparently wearied of the task, and broke off with a new couplet of his own, entirely foreign in idea and metre to the Erthe upon Erthe poems:—