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Poznań 2012

JĘZYK W POZNANIU

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Projekt okładki: Wydawnictwo Rys

Rysunek na okładce: Konrad Juszczyk

Redakcja naukowa:Konrad Juszczyk

Beata MikołajczykJanusz Taborek

Władysław Zabrocki

Recenzenci:dr hab. Eliza Pieciul-Karmińska, prof. UAM

prof. dr hab. Piotr Wierzchoń

Redakcja techniczna: Michał Piosik

© Copyright by autorzy & Wydawnictwo Rys

Wydanie I, Poznań 2012

ISBN 978-83-63664-09-1

Wydanie:

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www.wydawnictworys.come-mail: rysstudio@o2.pl

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Helena Sobol(Warszawa)

The Paleography of an Old English Poetical Text

The paper discusses the role of paleographical evidence for the analysis of medieval texts, exemplified by problems pertaining to Resignation. This Old English poetical text is solely preserved in the manuscript known as the Exeter Book, which dates to the 2nd half of the 10th c. AD. Until 1920 editors would erroneously recognise the poem’s initial line, although thus obtained first word of the text had been unattested. Also, during the copying process the scribe made numerous mistakes, of which some were corrected already in the manuscript by the writer himself or his medieval readers, but others were left unnoticed—such is the case especially with repetitions and omissions.

1. Introduction

Paleographical evidence is crucial to the philological study of medieval texts. Even though the editions describe details of the manuscript evidence in their critical apparatus, none can offer a full differentiation between the medieval writer’s actual product and the modern editor’s emendations and interpretation. The issue shall be exemplified by Resignation1, an Old English poem present solely in 1 The present study is based on my MA thesis, in which I analyse Resignation in

a multi-disciplinary perspective; hence the choice of text for exemplification. Unless stated otherwise, all quotations from Resignation come from Klinck (1992), the most reliable edition in existence. Since the first edition, Thorpe (1842), textual study of Resignation has inspired much scholarship, which is most fully described in Klinck (1992). A thorough and authoritative literary theoretic approach has been offered in Sieper (1915), but Klinck provides

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the Exeter, Dean and Chapter MS 3501, commonly referred to as the Exeter Book (folios 117 recto – 119 verso), which dates to the second half of the 10th c. AD2. The text combines penitential prayer with Germanic elegiac motifs, beginning in addresses to God for help and mercy, and ending in a seemingly pagan conclusion that if you cannot change your fate, you should bear it well. The main paleographical issues of Resignation discussed here concern two phenomena: the layout of the manuscript page, and the copying process.

2. The layout of the manuscript page

The end of the preceding text, Judgement Day I, is marked by a point followed by punctuation of the type ‘:7’ (see Fig. 1). This combination of signs constitutes a kind of final punctuation which is used most often in the Exeter Book, as described by Förster (Cham-bers et al. 1933: 62). Additionally, since the last manuscript line of Judgement Day I (folio 117 verso l. 16) nearly reaches the right-hand margin, the scribe left blank the right half of the manuscript l. 17 (Resignation begins in the left half of this line). Combined with placement of the initial A so that the rest of the first line of Resigna-tion follows its top (Age mec ‘Accept me’), the layout defies modern practice to such an extent that before Holthausen (1920: 28) all editors overlook this first line and attach the initial A to the second line of the poem, reading Ahelpe, min se halga dryhten ‘Help, my holy Lord’. In doing so they may have been additionally misguided by the positioning of the modern pencilled cross to the left of l. 2 helpe ‘help’ (imperative)3. Thus created was the hitherto unattested

a broader and more extensive study. It is also the only edition offering a thorough linguistic examination of the text, with numerous innovative observations, and the only one defending the unity of Resignation against the otherwise uncriti-cally accepted theory of Bliss & Frantzen (1976).

2 For the present paper the manuscript itself has not been consulted. All images reproduced by permission of the Dean & Chapter of Exeter Cathedral.

3 Anderson (1986: 56, 108f) suggests that both this cross and a similar one at fol. 98 recto, which marks the beginning of Soul and Body II, have been left by George Hickes, a 17th/18th c. ‘mighty scholar’ researching the Germanic

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verb ahelpan, with Resignation as the only occurrence referred to in the standard dictionary by Bosworth & Toller (1898)4.

Fig. 1. Folio 117 verso: the beginning of Resignation.

Unexpectedly, a similar right indentation occurs on folio 118 recto l. 1, i.e. l. 9 of Resignation (see Fig. 2). After the feal- part of manigfealdan ‘manifold’ (accusative plural) one third of the manu-script line stands blank and the word is continued in the next line. As noticed in Grein & Wülker (1894: 218), no erasure traces appear after feal. The indentation remains a mystery.

Fig. 2. Folio 118 recto: an unexpected right indentation.

antiquities and ‘non-juring divine and titular bishop of Thetford’ (both quota-tions from Chambers in Chambers et al 1933: 34).

4 However, 23 years after the publication of Bosworth & Toller’s (1898) An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Toller (1921) reported two more attestations in the glosses to Rituale Ecclesiae Dunelmensis. Nevertheless, these attestations do not validate reading Ahelpe at the beginning of Resignation.

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3. Scribal errors and corrections

The material in the Exeter Book has been copied from one or more sources (cf. Muir 1994: 18-19); during this process the scribe introduced many corrections. For example, the shape of the letter <r> which was used by Anglo-Saxon scribes resembles the modern lower-case <n> with a straight descender instead of its left ‘leg’, or minim. Muir (1994) reports that the <r> of Resignation l. 26 firendæda ‘sinful deeds’ (nominative plural) has been corrected from <n> by adding this descender, for the lower serif ending the left minim of the original <n> remains clearly visible (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Folio 118 recto: firendæda ‘sinful deeds’ (nom. pl.) with <r> corrected from <n>.

Another example described in Muir (1994) is Resignation l. 101 faroðe ‘sea’ (dative singular), where the scribe wrote <d> instead of <ð> (i.e. the letter eth, denoting either [θ] or [ð]) but added a cross-bar so as to change it into <ð> (see Fig. 4). This correction is also clearly visible because the Anglo-Saxon letter <d> has a nearly horizontal ascender, turned to the left, and so looks like a mirror image of the modern lower-case <σ> (sigma, see Figs. 5 and 6).

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Fig. 4. Folio 119 verso: faroðe ‘sea’ (dat. sing.) with a d-shaped <ð>.

Fig. 5. Folio 118 recto: an example of the Anglo-Saxon letter <d>.

Fig. 6. Folio 118 recto: an example of the Anglo-Saxon letter <ð>.

However, the scribe did not correct all the (presumable) errors. For instance, all editions except Thorpe (1842), Grein (1858), and Sieper (1915), preserve the manuscript reading of Resignation l. 3: ond wundor eall, min wundorcyning ‘and all wonders, my King of wonders’ (see Fig. 1). Yet wundorcyning ‘King of wonders’ does not appear anywhere else in the corpus. In place of the modern

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European final rhyme the Old English verse was governed by the initial rhyme, alliteration, i.e. repetition of the initial consonant of accented syllables.5 Thus, wundorcyning ‘King of wonders’ produces the aesthetically dubious effect of alliteration carried by two identi-cal noun stems. Thorpe emended to wuldorcyning ‘King of glory’, a well-attested poetic word, the assumption being that the scribe’s exemplar read wuldorcyning ‘King of glory’ but the scribe inadvert-ently copied wundorcyning ‘King of wonders’. The hypothetical misspelling is plausible on paleographical grounds after the similar wundor ‘wonders’ (accusative plural). Arguments for the emenda-tion to wuldorcyning prevail, though admittedly the manuscript form wundorcyning would not be precluded by its morphology (a well-formed compound), meaning (a plausible epithet for God), and presumable rhetorical effect (intentional repetition).

The last issue to be discussed in the present paper is the apparent gap at Resignation l. 99: Nat min *** / hwy ic gebycge bat on sæwe (ll. 99f.) ‘My […] does not know how I shall buy a boat on the sea’. Without doubt some sense is missing, despite the intact condition of the manuscript at this point (see Fig. 7). Grein (1858) prints l. 99: nat min [sefa sarum geswenced] ‘my [mind, troubled with grief]’ – a fully conjectural emendation, implausible because of its great length: it is impossible to guess correctly at three consecutive words of which the manuscript shows no trace whatsoever. The emendation also contains a grave breach of the metrical rules, as the presence of two alliterating words, in this case sarum ‘grief’ (dative plural) and geswenced ‘troubled’ (nominative singular), was forbidden in the second half of the line. To my knowledge all the other editors refuse to emend because they view plausible restoration here as unattainable. Indeed, confident reconstruction of the whole l. 99 does appear impossible. Yet Grein’s suggestion seems contextually tenable so far as it seeks to restore a word meaning ‘mind’, a likely

5 This is a great simplification of the complex issue of Germanic metre. The standard description of the issue is Sievers (1893); a brief outline may be found in Pope (2001: 129ff.). Though standard and still used, the model described in these works is rapidly becoming outdated because of much new research done in the field.

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part of the speaker capable of knowing anything. A restoration with some paleographical plausibility would be min [mine] ‘my [mind]’ (nominative singular). The word usually occurs in the form myne, but as mine it is present in the Exeter Book at l. 33 of The Riming Poem. Hence, if the scribe encountered min mine ‘my mind’ in his exemplar for Resignation, he might have automatically omitted one of the two words to correct a presumed repetition.

Fig. 7. Folio 119 recto: Nat min *** hwy ic gebycge bat on sæwe ‘My […] does not know how I shall buy a boat on the sea’.

4. Conclusions

In the paper I have endeavoured to exemplify the use of paleo-graphical evidence for the philological study of a medieval text. Two adjacent and visually similar, though different, words in the exemplar could easily induce the scribe to copying error. He might repeat the same word twice or wrongly suppose that the presence of two consecutive similar words were an error on the part of the scribe who copied his exemplar, which results in omitting one of the words. Modern editors are also fallible, and their erroneous recognition of where a text begins leads at times to writing dictionary entries on words which might have never existed (at least, according to the evidence available to the specific lexicographers).

Bibliography

Anderson, James Edward (1986): Two Literary Riddles in the Exeter Book. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

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Bliss, Alan / Frantzen, Joseph Allen (1976): “The Integrity of Resignation”. Review of English Studies 27, 385–402.

Bosworth, Joseph/Toller, Northcote Thomas (1898): An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon.

Chambers, Raymond Wilson/Förster, Max/Flower, Robin (1933): The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry. London: Lund.

Grein, Christian/Michael, Wilhelm (1858): Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie. II. Göttingen: Wigand.

Grein, Christian/Michael, Wilhelm/Wülker, Richard Paul (1894): Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie. II. Leipzig: Wigand.

Holthausen, Ferdinand (1920): “Zu altenglischen Dichtungen”. Anglia Beiblatt 31, 25–32.

Klinck, Anne Lingard (1992): The Old English Elegies. A Critical Edition and Genre Study. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Muir, Bernard James (1994): The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.

Muir, Bernard James (2006): The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. DVD.

Pope, John Collins (2001): Eight Old English Poems. London; New York: Norton.

Sieper, Ernst (1915): Die altenglische Elegie. Straßburg: Trübner.Sievers, Eduard (1893): Altgermanische Metrik. Halle: Niemeyer.Thorpe, Benjamin (1842): Codex Exoniensis. London: Pickering.Toller, Thomas Northcote (1921): An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Supplement.

Oxford: Clarendon.