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Fred C. Robinson
text,"pp. 22-5.
7 "A Supplement to Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon,"
England V (1976), 127.
Anglo-Saxon
Fred C. Robinson
Fred C. Robinson
"scribe," but writre could also mean "author," and forms of (a)writan
referring to authorial composition occur not only in the immediately
preceding petition but also repeatedly in the long list of Bede's writings which precedes the envoi. In the Corpus version, moreover, this
repetition of the verb is further emphasized by having ic wrat occur
twice where the other manuscripts lack it. In view of this verbal context, writre in line 26 of the poem would seem to suggest both "scribe"
and "author," and since Bede describes himself as having served in
both capacities ("ipse mihi dictator simul notarius et librarius"'5), we
may suspect that the writer of the verse section-a scribe, most likely,
who is speaking in Bede's voice-may be humbly following Bede's
august example (after an interval of three centuries) in both
capacities. For the royal audience the implication of such literary
pietas is that support for the scribe is also support for the author, that
scribal work and authorship are equally worthy ways of extolling the
Lord, and that both are deserving of support from God, readers, and
rulers.
The innovations in the main text of the Corpus version have long
been recognized. Thomas Miller observed that "this scribe, or editor,
has a turn for rhetoric and often recasts whole passages,'16 while
Dorothy Whitelock suggests that he was given "to deliberate alterations in order to replace archaic or dialect words and archaic syntax.'"17The revisionary bent of "this scribe, or editor," may have
extended to his adding the verse petition which gave final shape to
our envoi. He could have adapted the verses to his purpose after
finding them in another context, or he may have composed them
himself, stumbling occasionally in his handling of the meter. Whatever the case, he clearly was not inclined to "be bisne wyrcan" when
"he bet cunne." For this reason I have not treated his deviations from
the other manuscripts of the Old English Bede as blunders, automatically emending his first two petitions into conformity with those in
the other versions. His independence of thought throughout his
copying of the History would seem to require that an editor retain
variant readings whenever they make sense on their own terms or at
Bedae venerabilisopera exegetica in Lucam et in Marcum, Corpus Christianorum vol.
ed. D. Hurst (Turnhout, 196o), p. 7.
16 Miller, Part i, p. xxxi.
17 "The List of Chapter-Headings in the Old English Bede," in Old English Studies in
Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Robert B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving (Toronto, 1974), p.
266.
15
120,
10
19 "Altenglische
20
Schreiberverse,"
p. 310.
204.
Fred C. Robinson
11
21
My analysis of the meter has benefited from a discussion of the poem's prosody
with Professor John C. Pope, but since he has not seen what I have finally written on
the subject, he is not responsible for any of the conclusions I have reached. I have
drawn heavily on learned and helpful criticism by Professor E. G. Stanley of Pembroke
College, Oxford University, and have been saved by Professor David Yerkes of Columbia University and Dr. Bruce Mitchell of Oxford from more than one error.
12
aeghwylcne mann,
Pe Pas boc raede
Fred C. Robinson
13
14
25
30
fira aldor,
and Pa bredu befo,
writre
gefyrIrige
wynsum[uml craefte
Pone
Pat
awrat
handum
boc
bas
twam, (p. 484)
bam
Pe
mundum synum
Poet he mote manega gyt
his Aldre to willan;
geendigan,
se be ah ealles geweald,
and him Paes geunne
PJet he on riht mote
Rodera Waldend,
Drihten herigan.
ob his daga ende
Amen.
Geweorpe Pxet.
YaleUniversity
26
Fred C. Robinson
15
16
Fred C. Robinson
17
sense and meter if fell could be used synonymously with bocfell, but
there is no firm evidence that it could. The common meanings of bred,
on the other hand, are "board, panel, (wax) tablet." One could posit a
semantic development from the last of these meanings to "book" (a
sense development parallel with that of Latin tabellaeand codex), but
there is no documentary evidence that bredu ever came to mean
"book." If bredu is retained, it must refer to the board covers of the
book. (Note that the Riddles of the Exeter Book make reference to a
book's being bound in hleobordum:see the discussion of this passage
in the editions of the Riddles by Frederick Tupper [Boston, 1910], pp.
126-31, and by Craig Williamson [Chapel Hill, N.C., 1977], pp.
211-15.) But the book in our verses would not have been bound at the
time the scribe was finishing his job of copying and writing his closing
verses. One must therefore assume that he was thinking ahead to the
form that the book would have after it left his desk and passed
through the hands of the illuminator to the binder. That he was indeed thinking ahead to the book's future state when it would be
bound within boards is evidenced, perhaps, by the contrasting demonstratives in the sentence: Pas boc "this book" refers to the text
which the versifier has just completed and has before him; pa bredu
"those boards" refers to the board covers which the versifier assumes
will be covering the book by the time the bregoricesweard is holding it
in his hands. (Compare the way that the writer of the Metrical Preface
to Wxrferth's Translationof Gregory's Dialogues thinks forward to the
time when his reader will actually be holding his book: "5as boc ...
Pe ) u on Pinum handum nu hafast and sceawast" [11.16-17].) If the
present interpretation is correct, then we must add to the semantic
range of bred the specific meaning "book-cover," a meaning
elsewhere expressed by hleobordand spelt in Old English.
26a Contrary to C. L. Wrenn's interpretation in A Study of Old English Literature (London, 1967), p. 192, the request here is not for prayers but
for material support. The verb (ge)fyr5rian is commonly used in reference to men of high estate promoting the faith or giving support to
deserving subjects. E.g., "Da caseras woldon 5a cenan men ... fyr5rian" (Homilies of Elfric, ed. J. C. Pope, vol. 2, p. 730); "Eadgar
cynincg Pone Cristendom gefyr5rode" (AElfric'sLives of the Saints, ed.
W. W. Skeat, vol. 1, p. 468); "Cristenum cyninge ... gebyre5, Jaet he
. .. Godes cyrcean aeghwar fyr5rie" (Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. A.
Napier, p. 266). That the meter of this verse is inept was mentioned
above in the Introduction. It could be construed, perhaps, as type A
-i8
Fred C. Robinson
19
the topos appropriately: "Cor enim cum manibus levat qui orationem
cum opere sublevat....
Quisquis orat, et non operatur, cor levat et
manum non levat." (For the full text along with the Old English
translation, see Defensor's Liber Scintillarum with an InterlinearAngloSaxon Version, ed. E. W. Rhodes, EETS o.s. 93 [London, 1889], pp.
34-5.) That the precept was a commonplace before Defensor used it
seems clear from the earlier occurrences cited by E. Marshall, Notes
and Queries, 6th series, vol. 1i (1885), 477-8, while its survival late into
the Anglo-Saxon period is attested in Instructions for Christians 7ff.
("an is monnes geswinc, ober [is] mubes gebede"). Bede's deep
commitment to this monastic ideal has been eloquently described by
Father Genadio Sanmiguel in his "San Beda el Venerable en el XII
centenario de su muerte," Monasticon 2 (1935), 114: "Uniendo en consorcio estrecho el trabajo y la oracion, [Bedal logro plasmar el tipo
acabado, el ideal perfecto del monje, cuyos trazos encontramos en su
vida con mayor realce y exactitud que en ninguna otra figura de la historia monacal."
28a Manega gyt refers, perhaps, to further copies of the Old English
translation of Bede. Cf. Bede's Preface to the History where he tells
King Ceolwulf he is sending him a copy of the book so that it may be
transcribed and promulgated. "In this lending of copies for purposes
of transcription consisted the medieval process of publication," according to Plummer, vol. 2, p. 1.
29b Holthausen's deletion of his causa metri is unnecessary. Anacrusis in
the off-verse is permissable in A-lines with the caesura falling as it
does here. See A. J. Bliss, The Metre of Beowulf (Oxford, 1958), pp.
40-1.
33-4 Dobbie, Miller, and Schipper, print "Amen geweorpe Paet" as part of
the poetic text, where the words are an extrametrical embarrassment.
Holthausen and Sievers delete "geweorpe PJet" but include "Amen"
in the last half-line, where it will not scan. But the words are not part
of the verse text at all: they are the conclusion to the entire three-part
envoi.