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My efforts to “translate” Chaucer’s Middle English made me look at a sample very closely, That that revealed a discrepency in the Chaucer records. In a line of the Miller’s Tale is Chaucer describing a lady’s eyebrows, and says, "And they were arched and black as any sloe." The Middle English, according to almost every on-line version, reads “And tho were bent and blake as any sloo.¹ But Goofy has linked us to page-images from 1476, which show "And tho were bent and blak as any slo." (4th line of page) Why the discrepancy? (There seems to be an earlier manuscript-copy extant, but I couldn’t find it on-line. Perhaps someone else can?) ¹E.g., versions by Harvard (line 3246 of the entire work) and The Electronic Literature Foundation (line 60 of tale) | ||
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Collating and editing MSS is a lengthy and difficult task. Most people don't seem to realize that many of our older books exist in sometimes wildly differing MSS. For example, take Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain. There are literally hundreds of MSS from within a century or so of its publication. The Penguin paperback edition is based on one scholarly edition which in turn is based on one MS. I have both, and I have another scholar's doctoral dissertation which is a cataloging (and comparison) of the many other divergent MSS. Take Shakespeare's plays. Most scholars agree that none of the Bard's MSS survive. Take just one play: Hamlet. There are two earliest published quartos: one, the first, often called the bad and the second, often called the good quarto. They are very different. How different? Compare these two versions of the famous "to be or not to be" soliloquy:
The first is from the bad quarto, and the second is how the scene is in most modern editions of the play. The bad quarto is assumed to be a pirated edition that one of the minor players in Hamlet dictated the the printer. Other scholars opine that the bad quarto is an earlier version. My point is, the first quarto is the earliest version of the play. Why isn't it the one printed in modern editions. So, I guess your question is, you should get some scholarly books on Chaucer, and the many MSS and print editions, read up on them, and then make your decision. (Also, I don't see that there's much difference between blak and blake, except the latter is possibly two syllables. How does the line scan. You also know that many latter critics felt that Chaucer was not a very good poet, because he often got the meter and rhyme of his poems wrong. They did not realize that English had changed between Chaucer's time and their own.) [Addendum: You might want to read the article on textual criticism on Wikipedia. It will point you at some of the major works in this field, some of which are on line, others of which should be available in a good public or university library. For example, W W Greg's "The Rationale of the Copy-Text" is available online. BTW, Greg was the grandson of James Wilson, the founder of The Economist magazine.]This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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Actually what it says is "And they were bent and blak as ony ſlo" but other than that I can't help you. | |||
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Another view of Caxton's (and his apprentice, Wynkyn de Worde's) errors and omissions:
[Addendum: The first page of the Hengwrt MS is online. It is the oldest extant MS.]This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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To give you some kind of idea of the variety of Medieval MSS, here are excerpts from six MSS that were edited in the 19th century by the Early English Text Society (EETE which is still in existence and was closely tied to the New English Dictionary, aka OED): 1. Petworth MS 3246. And Þoo were bent and blake as eny sloo / 2. Lansdowne MS 3246. And Þo were bente . and blake as any . slo . 3. Ellesmere MS 3246. And tho were bent / and blake as any sloo 4. Corpus MS 3246. And Þo were bent and blak as any slo 5. Harleian MS 3246. And Þo were bent as blak as a slo 6. Cambridge MS 3246. And Þ⁰ were bent & blake as is a slo The reader is directed to the variation in spelling, letters used, punctuation, and difference in wording. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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Walter William Skeat, author of an etymological dictionary still in print, edited a complete works of Chaucer in the late 19th century. In a chapter of this work, he gives an account of the MS sources of the Canterbury Tales. It is well worth a read. In it, he discusses, the evolution of Chaucer's poem, and how the tales fall into nine distinct groups.
—Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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Here's an article about biochemists using algorithms developed for genetics and cladistics to trace the pedigree of the various manuscripts of The Wife of Bath's Tale. | |||
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