DEATH AND LIFFE:

An Alliterative Poem

PREFACE

A new edition of this unique and beautiful alliterative poem has long been felt to be a desideratum. The Hales-Furnivall reprint of Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, published in 1868, where Death and Liffe is edited by Professor Skeat, is out of print, and Arber's modernization of the piece in the Dunbar Anthology is of little use for scholarly purposes. No other reprint exists, though an edition was promised some years ago by Professor Gollancz as a future number of his excellent series, Select Early English Poems. The present edition aims to make the poem accessible with a somewhat more extensive critical apparatus than falls within the scope of Professor Gollancz's plan. The publication, since the HalesFurnivall reprint, of various important alliterative poems, with further studies of the alliterative style and meter, and the accumulated comment of several scholars, notably York Powell, Brotanek, Holthausen, and Miss Edith Scamman, have made possible a fuller illustration of Death and Liffe and a more accurate account of its literary relations than have heretofore been given.

The poem is well worth study, both from the scholarly and from the purely literary point of view. There are few finer things in the whole range of Middle-English poetry. The author has brought to his didactic theme a lofty imagination and a sense of poetic phrase which make Death and Liffe rank high even among the most powerful productions of the alliterative school. Its noble solemnity and religious fervor are touched with a romantic grace, and the subject is handled with the artistry of a poet bred in the traditions of such matchless works as Gawain and the Green Knight and The Pearl. The unusual combination of conventional materials gives to the work an exceptional degree of originality, a fact which has been somewhat obscured by undue insistence on the author's debt to Piers Plowman. Unfortunately the text of Death and Liffe is corrupt beyond the powers of a modern editor to restore, or even, in some places, to explain. Originally written in the archaic diction affected by writers of the alliterative school, the piece was copied by a scribe or scribes to whom many of the expressions were unintelligible. The latest copyist, moreover, was very careless. As a result the manuscript is a chaos of modernization and sheer blunder. A striking example is the line & I ffayrlye befell, so fayre me bethought,

which would seem to be a scribe's "translation" of some such original as the following:

& a fayrlye befell, of fayrie me thought.

The present editors, while correcting some obvious errors, have thought it unwise to attempt any such restoration of the poem as was recommended by York Powell. Many of his suggestions have, however, been incorporated in the notes. In general the introductory sections on language and meter and the vocabulary are the work of Dr. Steadman; the discussions of the debate form, the theme and the sources are by Professor Hanford. For the conclusions as to date and for the textual and literary notes we are jointly responsible, though the work of collation has been chiefly borne by Dr. Steadman. We have used a rotograph facsimile of the manuscript and have been able to correct several errors in the Hales-Furnivall reprint, notably the omission of line 447. J. H. H., J. M. S., Jr.

Chapel Hill, June 5, 1918.

INTRODUCTION

I. THE MANUSCRIPT

'Death and Liffe is preserved in the famous Percy Folio MS., "a long narrow folio volume containing 195 Sonnets, Ballads, Historical Songs, and Metrical Romances, either in the whole or in part, for many of them are extremely mutilated and imperfect.'

The transcripts seem to have been made about 1650 by one person, who often grew so weary of his labor as to write without due regard to the meaning of his copy.

Death and Liffe, standing between The Turk in Linen and Adam Bell, occupies pages 384-390 of the Ms.

II. THE LANGUAGE

A. Phonology and Inflections.

Short Vowels

O. E. a gives a in this poem: asketh, 5, haue, 15, fareth, 22, naked, 91, art, 129, care, 131.

O. E. a/n gives an in the majority of cases, and, less often, on: rann, 4, 218, manye, 23, hangeth, 66, standeth, 82, 257, hand, 96; but wrongfully, 15, long, 162, rouge, 138.

O. E. a gives a regularly: that, 1, etc., was, 26, what, 35, brake, 265. O. E. ag appears regularly as ai or ay: layd, 71, may, 181, braynes, 265, maydens, 215, 437, slaine, 219, day, 244.

O. E. e appears usually as e, often as ea, and rarely as ee: necke, 91, her, quelleth, 213, wretch, 233, helpe, 242, tell, 85; freake, 161, 176, speake, 220; deere, 427. In feild, 319, we have ei, but in feeld, 64, ee.

O. E. e/r. appears as ar in clarkes, 85, etc. (but clearkes, 8), marde, 141, 243.

O. E. eg appears as ai: sayth, 221, way, 308, fraine, 130.

O. E. i appears as i, y. See lines 1, 5, 15, 17, 21, 54, 74, etc.

O. E. o gives o: body, 6, word, 5, hope, 19, god, 20, gold, 62.

O. E. u gives oo: doore, 10, wood, 39; or o: loue, 69, 107, some, 202, sonne, 18; and u only in rudd, 66.

O. E. u/nd appears as ound: ground, 3, mound, 377.

O. E. -ug, appears as ou: fowles, 81.

Preface to the first American edition of Percy's Reliques, Phil., 1823,

page x.

Long Vowels

O. E. & becomes ō usually, but sometimes ōō: both, 11, holy, 19, ghost, 19, glode, 28, hore, 31, drove, 3, more, 47; brood, 25 (beside brode, 63). In monosyllables: noe, 11, loe, 183, woe, 140, the spelling oe is common. O. E. aw appears as õu, ów: know, 47, soule, 2, 236, nought, 9.

O. E. & (Mercian ē) appears as ea in breath, 34, leadeth, 124, feare, 130, weapon, 171, deale, 263; as ee in sleepe, 35, deeds, 103, weeds, 185, beere, 331.

O. E. &g appears as ay, ai: gray, 73, etc.

O. E. è gives éẻ usually: keene, 10, sweete, 23, greene, 26, deeme, 87, speede, 117; and, less often, &: breme, 74, etc. In neighed, 137. (from O. M. genegan) the spelling ei occurs.

O. E. i appears regularly as i, y. See lines 4, 10, 12, 73, 215, 181, etc. O. E. ō appears as ōō or, less often, as ō: booke, 16, blood, 4, looke, 29, flood, 113, sooth, 120, others, 6, etc. In the monosyllable doe the spelling oe is common. Of. the development of O. E. ¿.

O. E. ō/h and ō/g give ou: bowes, 23.

O. E. ū appears regularly as ou, ow: south, 50, mouth, 67, etc., downe, 195, how, 368. The Ŏ in selcothes, 182, is unusual.

Diphthongs

O. E. ea appears as o in bold, 7, behold, 139, dolve, 275, old, 422, told, 391; as a in all, 12, 203, etc., barnes, 81, 242, walled, 207; and as ea in bearnes, 90, 110, 144, 424. Welder, 125, is unusual.

O. E. eo appears as o in world, 5, 117, workes, 17, worth, 248; as a in hart, 7, 18, 128, carved, 156, 247; and as ea in earth, 7, 11, heaven, 59, 135, learned, 179, 302. Erles, 53, and burnes (verb), 165, show e and u.

O. E. ea regularly gives ea: death, 10, greaten, 17, leaves, 25, stream, 27, beames, 92, 407, etc.; but e in red, 4, nere, 148.

O. E. éo gives ee in freelye, 18, deepe, 38, deere, 53, 254, see, 162, etc., trees, 194, feend, 236, leeds, 339; ea in deare, 424; and e in lere, 170.

Consonants

O. E. sc appears regularly as sh, and hw as wh.

Inflections

Verb

Present Indicative: 1st person, -e or no ending.

2nd person, -est, ten times.

-es, four times (299, 363, 366)."

Es for est is found in the superlatives riches and comlyes.