EXERCISES ON CHAPTER I. Ex. 1. Turn into modern English the following lines from Beowulf : Swá1 begnordodon 2 Geáta3 leóde 4 Hláford 5 sínne 6 Héord-gneâtas7 Cwaedon 8 paet he waere Wyrold-cyninga9 Manna mildust 10 And mon-bwaerust " Leódu 12 lípost 13 And leóf 14 geornost.15 [The original MS. is in Old English letters, which are somewhat like the modern German. Our present type is Roman.] 1. So. 2. Mourned forconnected with yearn. 3. The Geats, probably goths. 4. Leode, people— hence modern word layman. 5. Contracted now into lord. Fem. Hlaefdige -whence lady. 6. Thus. 7. Hearth-companions. Gneata is found now in High German as Genoss, in Low German as Knote (fellow)-whence Eid-gnote (conspirator), corrupted in French into Huguenots. 8. They quoth-hence our word bequeath. They say that he was the form war is still found in some dialects of English. 9. Of world-kings—of men. Cyninga and manna are possessive plurals. 10. The mildest. Est, ost, and ust are found indifferently as the superlative. We have ost in fore-m-ost. 11. Gentlest. 12. The dative-to. 13. Mildest. We have still lithe in Shakspeare's phrase, the lither sky; and perhaps blithe is a relative of it. 14. Glory. 15. Most eager-connected with yearn. Ex. 2. Turn into modern English the following lines from Caedmon:— Us1 is riht micel2 baet we rodera 3 weard 4 wereda 5 wuldor-cyning wordum herigen 7 modum 8 lufien. He is maegna sped heofod 10 ealra 11 heah-gesceafta 12 Fréa 13 Elmihtig. 1. The dative=for us. 2. Much right = very or greatly right. Micel is a diminutive of much; and much, in the sense of great, is still found in the names of places, as Much Wenlock. 3. Of the skies. 4. The warden. Guardian is a Norman-French form of the Old English word. So we have wile and guile; wise and guise; war and guerre; ward and guard; ward-robe and garde-robe; warrant and guarantee; William and Guillaume. 5. Of hosts. 6. Glory-king. 7. Herigen and lufien = praise and love. En is the = sign of the infinitive mood. 8. Wordum and modum-both in dative plural = with words, and in our minds. Mod exists in the modern form of mood. German Muth. 9. The essence of power. 10. Head. 11. Of all the genitive plural. 12. High creatures. Sceaf is the old form of shape. 13. Lord. Ex. 3.-Turn into modern English the following from King Alfred's translation of Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy : 1 We sculon yet,2 of ealdum leasum 3 spellum,4 be5 sum bispell 6 reccan.7 Hit gelamp9 gio,10 baette an hearpere waes, on baere beode 11 þe Thracia hatte.12 Daes 13 nama waes Orfeus. He haefde 14 an swide 15 aenlic 16 wíf. Seo 17 waes háten Eurydice. Đá ongann 18 monn secgan 19 bé 20 þam hearpere, baet he mihte 21 hearpian baet se 22 wudu wagode 23 for bam swege,2 and wilde deor 25 baer 26 woldon to-irnan 27 and standan swilce 28 hí táme waeron, beah 29 hí menn oththe 30 hundes wið 31 eodon,32 þaet hí hí na ne33 onscunedon.84 1 24 1. Shall. 2. Now. 3. Old lying stories. So we have in the Bible to seek after leasing. When compounded, it means void—hence our word less. Use, useless void of use. 4. Spell now means charm, or something recited, except in gospel-good story. 5. To thee-the dative. 6. Sum byspell an example. So modern German beispiel. 7. Reckon. The words recount, tell, and reckon contain the double meaning of relate and tell. 8. Hit, the old form of it, and the proper neuter of he. The old possessive of hit was his. The new possessive, its, is a malformation and is not above two hundred years old. It is found neither in the Bible nor in Shakespeare. 9. Happened. 10. Formerly. 11. A people or country. The same root is found in the words Teut, Teut-on, Teut-onic, Deut-sch, Dut-ch, doit (the name of a small coin). 12. Was called. The word is found in Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton in the form hight, which is a contraction of the Gothic haihait. The Goths formed their past tense by what is called reduplication. Another "survival" of this in our language is the word did: it is the last d in the word which represents the verb do. 13. Thaes, the possessive singular of thaet, and = his. 14. Had. 15. Very-an adverb from swithe, strong. 16. One-like. We have lost this expressive word, and have put in its place the Franco-Latin word unique. The Germans have a kindred form, einzig. 17. She. The old word seo or heo is still found in Lancashire in the form hoo. 18. Then began. 19. One to say. 20. About. 21. Was able to. 22. The wood. 23. Wagged. ""Tis merry in the hall, where beards wag all." 24. Sound. Chaucer uses swough; and sough is still used in Scotland. It signifies a long-drawn sound. 25. Beasts. The German form of the word is Thier. Shakspeare has: "Rats and mice and such small deer." Its limitation to animals of the hart species is late. 26. Thereto, thither. 27. Irn or urn, to run-a form still found in Devonshire. The transposition of the r is very common, and is plainly seen in burn, brunt; turn, trundle; and three, third. The German language, which has had a much more regular development than ours, and is truer to its past, has the r always adhering to the first consonant-as in the above three words, brennen, drehen, and dritte. 28. Such = as if they were tame. 29. Though. 30. Or. Oththe is a form of other, which has been contracted into or. The negative is nother--still used in the North, which has been shortened down into nor. 31. Against. This sense is still found in the compound withstand, and in Chaucer's withsay, which we now make gainsay. 32. Goed, i.e., went. The tendency of an initial or a final g to vanish either to the ear or to the eye, or to both, is very common. So daeg has become day; waeg, way; gearn-an, yearn; etc. In Berlin and the Rhine Provinces the same tendency is strong in the present day. Thus gehen is pronounced yehen, and gut, yut. 33. That they did not shun them. The repetition of negatives is very common in Old English; the one intensifies the other. Chaucer has as many as four in one sentence, He nevir yit no vileinye ne sayde In al his lyf unto no maner wight. He never yet in all his life said anything rude to any kind of person. The modern habit of making one negative destroy, instead of intensify, another, is borrowed from the Latin. Milton has "Nor did they not perceive him "=" They saw him.” 34. Shunned. Ex. 4. Learn the translation of the following passage from the SAXON CHRONICLE. The extract is from the Peterborough Chronicle, the year SAXON CHRONICLE. Se cyng Willelm waes swide wis man, and swide rice, and wurðfulre1 and strengere bonne 2 aenig 3 his foregengra waere. He waes milde på 5 godů mannu be God lufedon, and ofer eall gemett stearc7 þā mannū he widcwaedon his willan... Eac9 he waes swyse wurdful. briwa 10 he baer his cynghelm 11 aelce geare, swa oft swa 12 he waes on Engleland, on Eastron he hine 13 baer on Winceastre,14 on Pentecosten on Westmynstre, on Midewintre on Gleaweceastre. And þaenne waeron mid hi ealle þa rice men ofer eall Englaland, arcebiscopas, and leod-bis15 abbodas 16 and eorlas, begcopas, 17 and cnihtas. Swilce 18 he waes eac swyde stearc man and raede, swa man ne dorste nan nas 19 þing LITERAL RENDERING. ... The King William was very wise man, and very rich, and worthfuller and stronger than any of his foregoers were. He was mild to those good men that loved God, and over all meting stern to those men that withquoth (gainsaid) his will. . . . Eke he was very wonderful. Thrice he bore his king-helmet each year, so oft so he was in England, at Easter he it (her) bare at Winchester, at Pentecost at Westminster, at Midwinter in Gloucester. And there Iwere with him all of the rich men over all England, archbishops and lay-bishops, abbots and earls, thanes and knights. Such he was eke very stern man and terrible, so that one not durst none thing against his will do. . . . Among other things (ne) is 1 In rendering such passages in class, the English on the right may be covered with a piece of paper. ongean his willan dón. ... Betwyx rice mid his bosum full goldes un- not to forget the good peace that he made in this land, so that one man who was himself (a) possessor, might fare over his kingdom with his bosom full of gold undismayed. 7. 1. The old comparative was in re. 2. bonne, then, and than, are three forms of the same word. "John is taller then James" (comes next): in this sentence the identity of meaning in then and than is visible. 3. Aenig. A g final is refined into a y. 4. The possessive plural of foreganger. 5. ba-tle dative plural. 6. Gemett-in High Dutch or German, mess-en. Stark is the newer form. 8. Wiscwaedon. Wid is now only found in the word withstand. Cwaed is now quoth, and is also found in the compound bequeath. 9. Eac-eke-German auch. 10. Plural. 11. Helmhence the compound Gild-helm, altered in French into Guillaume. 12. As often as. 13. Feminine. 14. Wince astre. The ending is the Latin castra, a camp or military station. This is one of the six words left us by the Romans during their occupation of this island. Caster is the Northern form, as in Lancaster, Tadcaster; cester is the Midland form, as in Leicester, Worcester; chester is the Southern and Western form, as in Chester, Winchester, Dorchester. 15. Leod German Leute = lay. The word lay (G. Lied), a song, is from a different root. 16. A Hebrew word for father. "Whereby we cry Abba (that is) Father." 17. The German word for a man was Degen; and the secondary meaning was afterwards a sword. 18. Swilce is connected with swa þáet. 19. Nan=none. 20. Ne is is contracted into nis; ne am into nam; ne were into nere; ne wot into not. 21. Frið has now disappeared from our language, except in proper names, as Frederick, Aelfred=All-peace, etc. 22. Aht, a part of the verb to owe, which used to mean to possess. 23. Far-an, to go. Hence, a far country= one which needs a great deal of going to; fare-well-go in health; field-fare a bird that goes about in the fields; thorough-farea place through (or thorough) which one goes; fare = money paid for going in a ship or in a cab. 24. Ungederad without dread. The word is the participle past. The 9 became softened into a y; and in Spenser we find ydrad, unydrad. Ex. 5. In the two extracts from Beowulf and Caedmon, select those words which have been contracted in our modern English, thus:— Ex. 6. Select the same class of words from the extracts in Exercises 3 and 4. Ex. 7. Select from the whole four extracts the words which are now obsolete, and give their meanings. Ex. 8. Turn the passage in Ex. 3 into modern English. Ex. 9. Turn the passage in Ex. 4 into modern English. 1. CHAPTER II. ENGLISH LITERATURE DURING THE NORMAN PERIOD. HE English-speaking population of this island were too much depressed in spirits and overridden by the perpetual presence of their Norman conquerors, to be able to cultivate literature of any kind. The English language itself was no longer spoken by the ruling classes: was everywhere despised, like the people who spoke it, and was neglected by almost all as a lan guage to write in--as a literary language. From the end of the eleventh century down to 1362 (that is, for nearly three centuries), French was the language used in churches, in courts of law, and in political business. Nay; so far did the Normans carry their oppression, that little boys at school were obliged to translate their Latin into French, and the mother tongue was banished from the schoolroom. From 1066 down to 1200 the English people were either trying to regain their freedom, or sorrowing in silence over its loss; and in neither case was any English (or “AngloSaxon") literature produced in the island. 2. LAYAMON (or Lazamon, or Laweman), a priest of Ernley-onSevern (now called Lower Arley), wrote, about the year 1206, a book called The Brut. It is a kind of history of the English people. It was then the fashion among historians to trace the history of all the European nations up to the Trojans; and to account for their dispersion and settlement in the West by a reference to the fall of Troy. Brutus was supposed to be a great-grandson of Æneas; and, after the burning of his native city, to have sailed further west than his |