The Grave (MS Bodley 343) reading notes
Plan: get out of house and get through these middle english debate poems today, with no distractions.
Reality: eating crow about the time I played pile-on on a medieval list about middle english being something my daughter could read with a gloss and thus not worth the whining from undergrads (and grads!). While I still maintain this is true for chaucer, it I most asuredly not true for MS Bodley 343. And here I am without a glossary or dictionary, feeling like the worlds worst medievalist.
Wtf is "d(ae)th hefd tha c(ae)ye" ?? [eta: try g for yogh and thorn for d - death holds the key] Why could I type a thorn on phone accidentally testerday but not on purpose today? Do they make junicode for blackberries? And most importantly, how can I ever hope to call myself an anglo-saxonist if I can't handle some twelfth-century alliterative poetry?
ETA: Does Junicode not have a yogh? Seriously? Or am I just too lame to find it?
Now, with a proper keyboard and some more coffee... and Clark-Hall... (this seems to reward the anglo-saxonist more than the chaucerian), I will type the damned thing up here from my photocopy.
ETA: Have found conybeare's 1826 version, which differs from Thorpe's 1834 version in Analecta Anglo-Saxonica (the text has somebody's handwritten marginal translation of a few lines, but apparently the original owner of the volume gave up or got bored). Conybeare's has, however, an editorial (versus marginal) translation into both English and *Latin,* because that's apparently what you did for fun as a scholar back in the day (snort). At any rate, as I'm looking at two different transcriptions and two different translations, I'll just have to come up with my own readings and arguments for the differences. This poem was alarmingly hard to track down - probably because it's never anthologized that I've seen (I only know about it from Raskalnikov's footnote in her _Body Against Soul_, and she doesn't treat the poem because it's not technically a debate -- the body doesn't talk back). Also, I'm gathering, it's maybe not as impressive a specimen as some of its peers. Though at least it didn't drag on and on and on and enough already like the freakin' Worcester Fragment SA.
Q to self: origin of 'conscience'?
ETA: from Thorpe's 1834 Analectica (p 142):
Ðe wes bold gebyld bold (n, -es/-), house, dwelling
er ðu iboren were;
ðe wes molde imynt
er ðu of móder cóme;
ac hit nes nó idiht,
ne Þéo déopnes imeten;
nes gýt ilóced,
hú long hit Þé wére:
Nú me Þé bringæð,
10 Þér ðú béon scealt
nú me sceal Þé meten
and ða mold seoðða:
Ne bið nó Þin hús
healice itinbred,
hit bið unhéh and láh,
Þonne Þu list Þer-inne:
ðe hele-wáges beoð láge,
sid-wáges unhége,
þe róf bið ibyld
20 Þire broste ful néh;
swá ðu scealt on mold
wunien ful cald,
dimme and deorcaæ:
Þet den fulæt on honde.
Dureleas is Þæt hús
and dearc hit is wiðinnen,
ðær Þu bist feste bidytt
and Dæð hefð Þa cæge:
ladlíc is Þæt eorð-hús,
30 and grim inne to wunien,
ðér Þu scealt wunien,
and wurmes Þe tódeleð:
Ðus ðu bist ilegd
and ladæst Þine fronden;
nefst ðu nénne fréond
Þe Þe wylle faren to
ðæt efre wule lókien
hú Þe Þæt hús Þe likie,
Þæt æefre undón
ðé wule ða dure
and Þé æfter lihten;
for sóne Þú bist ládlic,
and lád tó iséonne;
for sóne bið Þin hæfet*
faxes biréued,
al bið ðes faxes
feirnes forsceden,
mæle hit nán mit fingres
feing strácien.
[last six lines are considered an addition by some scholars including Siebert; Thorpe notes they are in a different and nearly illegible hand]
Reality: eating crow about the time I played pile-on on a medieval list about middle english being something my daughter could read with a gloss and thus not worth the whining from undergrads (and grads!). While I still maintain this is true for chaucer, it I most asuredly not true for MS Bodley 343. And here I am without a glossary or dictionary, feeling like the worlds worst medievalist.
Wtf is "d(ae)th hefd tha c(ae)ye" ?? [eta: try g for yogh and thorn for d - death holds the key] Why could I type a thorn on phone accidentally testerday but not on purpose today? Do they make junicode for blackberries? And most importantly, how can I ever hope to call myself an anglo-saxonist if I can't handle some twelfth-century alliterative poetry?
ETA: Does Junicode not have a yogh? Seriously? Or am I just too lame to find it?
Now, with a proper keyboard and some more coffee... and Clark-Hall... (this seems to reward the anglo-saxonist more than the chaucerian), I will type the damned thing up here from my photocopy.
ETA: Have found conybeare's 1826 version, which differs from Thorpe's 1834 version in Analecta Anglo-Saxonica (the text has somebody's handwritten marginal translation of a few lines, but apparently the original owner of the volume gave up or got bored). Conybeare's has, however, an editorial (versus marginal) translation into both English and *Latin,* because that's apparently what you did for fun as a scholar back in the day (snort). At any rate, as I'm looking at two different transcriptions and two different translations, I'll just have to come up with my own readings and arguments for the differences. This poem was alarmingly hard to track down - probably because it's never anthologized that I've seen (I only know about it from Raskalnikov's footnote in her _Body Against Soul_, and she doesn't treat the poem because it's not technically a debate -- the body doesn't talk back). Also, I'm gathering, it's maybe not as impressive a specimen as some of its peers. Though at least it didn't drag on and on and on and enough already like the freakin' Worcester Fragment SA.
Q to self: origin of 'conscience'?
ETA: from Thorpe's 1834 Analectica (p 142):
Ðe wes bold gebyld bold (n, -es/-), house, dwelling
er ðu iboren were;
ðe wes molde imynt
er ðu of móder cóme;
ac hit nes nó idiht,
ne Þéo déopnes imeten;
nes gýt ilóced,
hú long hit Þé wére:
Nú me Þé bringæð,
10 Þér ðú béon scealt
nú me sceal Þé meten
and ða mold seoðða:
Ne bið nó Þin hús
healice itinbred,
hit bið unhéh and láh,
Þonne Þu list Þer-inne:
ðe hele-wáges beoð láge,
sid-wáges unhége,
þe róf bið ibyld
20 Þire broste ful néh;
swá ðu scealt on mold
wunien ful cald,
dimme and deorcaæ:
Þet den fulæt on honde.
Dureleas is Þæt hús
and dearc hit is wiðinnen,
ðær Þu bist feste bidytt
and Dæð hefð Þa cæge:
ladlíc is Þæt eorð-hús,
30 and grim inne to wunien,
ðér Þu scealt wunien,
and wurmes Þe tódeleð:
Ðus ðu bist ilegd
and ladæst Þine fronden;
nefst ðu nénne fréond
Þe Þe wylle faren to
ðæt efre wule lókien
hú Þe Þæt hús Þe likie,
Þæt æefre undón
ðé wule ða dure
and Þé æfter lihten;
for sóne Þú bist ládlic,
and lád tó iséonne;
for sóne bið Þin hæfet*
faxes biréued,
al bið ðes faxes
feirnes forsceden,
mæle hit nán mit fingres
feing strácien.
[last six lines are considered an addition by some scholars including Siebert; Thorpe notes they are in a different and nearly illegible hand]