"What aileth you so rathe for to arise;"
where rathe means "early, soon."
The earliest use of the comparative degree which I can find, is in a piece of Anglo-Norman poetry preserved in Hickes's Thesaurus, and given in Ellis's Specimens, vol. i. p. 73.:
"The chrystal turneth into glass
In state that it rather was."
Here we have the adverbial form; but in Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, iii. 1342., we find the adjectival form:
"But now to purpose of my rather speech,"
where, according to the principle laid down by Dr. Latham, in his English Language, p. 262., 2nd edit., we should, I suppose, pronounce it rayther.
This word has sustained various modifications of meaning, but they are in general easily deducible from the original signification: e.g. the phrase "I had rather" is easily explained, as far as the word rather is concerned; for that which we do more quickly, we do preferably. But in such expressions as "I am rather tired," equivalent to "I am a little tired," the explanation is not so obvious. In this case rather seems to mean "In greater degree than otherwise." Now, in such sentences as "I am glad you are come, the rather that I have work for you to do," rather seems to require the signification "in a greater degree;" and may we not therefore explain the case in question as an elliptical expression for "rather than not?" If
so, is it not a solitary instance of such a construction in our language? Perhaps some of your correspondents can inform me, at what period this use of the word was introduced; for it is doubtless a modern innovation.