Now let us try how MR. THORPE'S proposed salice=wicker, or sallow, with or without the basket, will suit the context. The fisherman is asked, "Quales pisces capias? = What fish do you take?" The answer is Anguillos &c. &c. et qualescunque in amne natant salu = Eels &c. &c., and every sort whatever that in water swimmeth [wicker/sallow] basket! Let it be remembered that the question here is not, "How dost thou take fish?" which had been put and answered before, but "What fish dost thou take?" and then let common sense decide; for the fisherman having already mentioned that he cast nets and hooks, and [spyrian/spartas], i.e. baskets, now only replies as to the fish he takes.
MR. THORPE calls the A.-S. dialogue a Gloss; is it not rather an interlineary version? like those in use, in later times, of Corderius, and used for the same purpose.
I have no doubt that upon more mature consideration MR. THORPE will see that it could not be a substantive that was intended; and, as he admits my conjecture to be specious, that he will, in the course of his very useful labours, ultimately find it not only specious but correct. Meanwhile, I submit to his consideration, that beside the analogy of the Gothic sprauto, we have in Icelandic spretta, imperf. spratt, "subito movere, repente salire, emicare;" and sprettr, "cursus citatus," and I do think these analogies warrant my conclusion.
I embrace this opportunity of submitting another conjecture respecting a word in MR. THORPE'S edition of the Anglo-Saxon Paraphrase of the Psalms. It occurs in Ps. cvi. ver. 10., "Quid exacerbaverunt eloquium Domini," &c., which is rendered: "Forthon hidydan Drihtnes spræce ægwaes ægype." In a note MR. THORPE says: "ægype, non intelligo," and gives a reason for deeming the passage corrupt. To me it seems to express the generally accepted sense of exacerbaverunt: and here a cognate language will show us the way. Icelandic geip, futilis exaggeratio; atgeipa, exaggerare, effutire: ægype, then, means to mock, to deride, and is allied to gabban, to gibe, to jape. In the Psalter published by Spelman it is rendered: hi gremedon spræce godes. In Notker it is widersprachen, and in the two old Teutonic interlinear version of the Psalms, published by Graff, verbitterten and gebittert. Let us hear our own interesting old satirist, Piers Plouhman [Whitaker's ed. p. 365.]:
And God wol nat be gyled, quoth Gobelyn, ne be japed.
But I cease, lest your readers should exclaim, Res non verba. When I have more leisure for word-catching, should you have space, I may furnish a few more.
S.W. SINGER.
Feb. 11. 1850.
Ælfric's Colloquy.—I have my doubts whether MR. SINGER'S ingenious suggestions for explaining the mysterious word sprote can be sustained. The Latin sentence appears clearly to end with the word natant, as is not only the case in the St. John's MS., mentioned in MR. THORPE'S note, but in fact, also in the Cottonian MS. There is a point after natant, and then follows the word Saliu (not salu) with a capital S. Any person who examines the handwriting of this MS. will see that the word, whatever the transcriber may have understood by it, was intended by him to stand alone. He must, however, have written it without knowing what it meant; and then comes the difficulty of explaining how it got into the MS. from which he copied. It has always appeared to me probable that the name of some fish, having been first interlined, was afterwards inserted at random in the text, and mis-spelt by a transcriber who did not know its meaning. A word of common occurrence he would have been less likely to mistake. Can saliu be a mistake for salar, and sprote the Anglo-Saxon form of the corresponding modern word sprod, i.e. the salmon of the second year? The salar is mentioned by Ausonius in describing the river Moselle and its products (Idyll. 10, l. 128.).