A Book of Middle English. J. A. Burrow
in the main clause. Common correlatives are þa … þa, ‘when … then’, or so … so: þa þe king Stephne to Englaland com, þa macod he his gadering, ‘when King Stephen came to England, (then) he held his council’, 1/5–6; þa he hafden al his iweden, þa leop he on his steden, ‘when he had all his gear, (then) he leapt on his steed’, 3/25. The inversion in the main clause is a useful indication that þa is an adverb, ‘then’, not a conjunction, ‘when’.
5 After an adverbial phrase that has been fronted for emphasis: by love may he be getyn, ‘he may be reached by love’, 6/222.
6 In negative statements with ne, particularly in early verse: ne kep ich noʒt, ‘I don’t care’, 2/154; ne schaltu nevre, 2/209 (see 5.7).
7 After there, where there is used as a dummy subject: þer ys moche Latyn in þeus bokes, 12/47. Earlier it was used in place of there: it nis no bot, ‘there is no remedy’, 5/552. Sometimes, especially in early texts, there is no dummy subject: wes nævre gæt mare wreccehed on land, ‘there was never before more misery in the land’, 1/43.
5.9.2 The Object
A pronoun object often precedes the verb, its inflected form determining its relationship: þe biscopes and lered men heom cursede ævre, 1/50–1. The same order is possible with a noun object, and even a noun object with a relative clause, as lordes here: that sche þe lordes ate feste / That were obeissant to his heste / Mai knowe, ‘so that at the feast she may get to know the lords who were subject to him’, 13/103–5.
5.9.3 Prepositions
In verse, and particularly in alliterative verse, prepositions may follow the noun or pronoun: þe peple biforne, ‘in front of the people’, 9/123; him barones besyde, ‘barons beside him’, 11/142. Deferred prepositions at the end of relative or infinitive clauses, of the type þe prik þat he schoteþ to, 6/199–200, can be brought forward, especially in verse: þe werst piler on to biholde, ‘the worst pillar to look at’, 5/367; this present to plese with Honger, ‘this present to please Hunger with’, 7b/318.
5.9.4 Relative Clauses
A relative þat‐clause is quite often separated from the antecedent to which it refers, and this can cause difficulty since it is not possible in Modern English. In he shal have my soule þat alle soules made, 7b/96, it is obvious enough that the antecedent of the þat‐clause is he and not my soule, ‘he who made all souls shall have my soul’. Less obviously, al studied þat þer stod, 9/237, is ‘all those who were standing there looked intently’, not ‘all looked intently at the one who stood there’, though it is only the context that determines it; and þe man marred on þe molde þat moʒt hym not hyde, 8/479, makes better sense as ‘the man who could not shelter himself suffered on the bare earth’, than as ‘the man suffered on the bare earth that could not shelter him’.
5.9.5 Adverbial Phrases
The position of adverbial phrases is very flexible, and they may even be placed outside the clause to which they belong: in worlde quat weghe þou was, ‘what man you were in the world’, 11/186. This is especially characteristic of Gower: wiþ al his herte and most it hateþ, ‘and most hates it with all his heart’, 13/56; wiþinne his herte and tok a pride, ‘and grew proud in his heart’, 13/135.
5.9.6 Verb in Final Position
A common word‐order is for the verb to come at the end of a subordinate clause, particularly in verse: Ne schaltu nevre so him queme / þat he for þe fals dom deme, 2/209–10; þis watz kynges countenaunce where he in court were, 9/100.
5.10 Recapitulation and Anticipation
A pronoun may recapitulate or anticipate a clause or a noun phrase. There are some good examples of this in Piers Plowman. In prestes and oþer peple towarde Peres they drowe, 7b/190, they stands for the noun phrase which is separated from its verb. In meschef hit maketh they ben so meke, 7b/212, hit anticipates the clause that follows. In ho‐so beste wrouhte / He sholde be huyred, 7b/120–1, He sums up the preceding clause ‘whoever did best’, and the same structure is seen in þat was bake for Bayard hit may be here bote, ‘what was baked for Bayard, (it) may be their salvation’, 7b/178. In alle þat grat in thy gate for Godes love aftur fode / Part with hem of thy payne, 7b/284–5, the inflected form hem both sums up the clause of l. 284 and establishes its dependence on Part with. The same structure, again with an imperative verb, is illustrated from the York Play: this traitoure here teynted of treasoune / Gose faste and fette hym, 15/77–8.
6 Metre
6.1 Introduction
Two distinct metrical traditions are represented in this book: rhymed verse and alliterative verse. The verse of French and Anglo‐Norman poets was the chief model for the former; the history of alliterative verse is less clear, but it is a verse‐form native to Germanic peoples and used by the Anglo‐Saxons. English rhymed verse is based on the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables; alliterative verse is based on stress and is syllabically variable.
6.2 Rhymed Verse
Throughout the period the standard form of rhymed verse was the couplet of eight or nine syllables, with four beats or stresses. This is seen at its most controlled in Gower’s Confessio Amantis, in which the author’s metrical precision has been faithfully transmitted by a scribe no less attentive to the syllabic regularity of the metre. Almost invariably Gower has an iambic line of eight syllables:
Som góodly wórd þat þée was tóld (13/24)
or nine syllables if the last is unstressed:
Wiþ ál his hérte and móst it háteþ (13/56)
The reader may begin with the expectation that word‐endings containing a vowel, such as ‐e, ‐ed, ‐es, are to be pronounced as a syllable. So in the first line:
The více cléped Ávantánce (13/1)
both vice and cleped have two syllables, and Avantance has four. Similarly, dukes, helpe and soghte are all disyllabic in:
Wher þei þe dukes helpe soghte (13/241)
The chief exception to this is that a final vowel is elided before another vowel, and before h‐ when it is silent or in an unstressed syllable. So while the ‐e of make is sounded in make myn avant (13/37), it is lost in make avanterie (13/40), and by the same principle the word ‘token’ has one syllable in tokne or lettre (13/25). Because the h‐ of hond is aspirated, the final ‐e of the adjective ‘own’ is sounded in his oghne hond (13/81). The ‐e of scholde is sounded before have in 13/144 because have is stressed, but that same ‐e is elided in 13/41, scholde have do, where have is unstressed. Despite its spelling, hire is generally a monosyllable, whatever sound follows, as the examples of it in 13/86–8 demonstrate. Words such as evere and nevere are disyllabic, nev’re, with the second ‐e‐ elided (e.g. 13/32), so that with the final ‐e lost before a vowel they become monosyllabic, as in For évere I schál (13/220).
These rules sound complicated when listed in this way, but – such is the meticulousness of both poet and scribe – reading Gower aloud with attention