Lancelot Of The Laik - A Scottish Metrical Romance, (About 1490-1500 A.D.) A Scottish Metrical Romance, About 1490-1500 A.d.

A SCOTTISH METRICAL ROMANCE, ABOUT 1400--1600 AD. RE-EDITED FROM A MANUSCRIPT IN THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND GLOSSARIAL INDEX, - 1865. - PREFACE, - A FORMER edition of the present poem was printed for the Maitland Club, in 1839, and edited by Joseph Stevenson, Esq. It has saved me all trouble of transcription, but by no means, I am sorry to say, that of correction. Those who possess the older edition will readily perceive that it differs from the present one very frequently indeed, and that the variations are often such as considerably to affect the sense. Many of the errors in it such as ca.szcabtyee for casuabytse, grone, for gone, reprent for repent are clearly typographical, but there are others which mould incline me to believe that the tran- scription was too hastily executed several passages being quite meaningless. Near the conclusion of 3Ir Stevensons preface we read The pieces which have been selected for the present volume1 are printed with such errors of transcrip- tion as have crept into them by the carelessness of the scribe a statement which certainly implies that there was no intention on his part of departing from the original. Yet that he some- times unconsciously did so to such an extent as considerably to alter or destroy the sense, the reader may readily judge from a few examples - l The volume contains other poems besides cc Sir Lancelot. LINE. EDITION OF 1839. TRUE READING OF THE MS. fatil fatal, unarmyt zinarmed, can here, rendit rent, refuse refusal, felith feeletlz, vyt7 speiris, cumjmg coming, he war, promyfl, ane desyne, born, havin, Hymene, such, a1 so y-vroght, chichingis, love, fatit fated. enarmyt fully armed. camnere. vondit woulzded. reprefe defeat. fetith setteth. rycht. spuris. cunyng skill. be war beware. punyi3 punish. medysyne. lorn lost. harm. hyme him. furth .forth. a1 foly vroght. thithingis tidings. lore teac7zing. Etc. Several omissions also occur, as, e. g., of the word off in 1. 7, of the word tressore in 1. 1715, and of four whole lines at a time in two instances viz., lines 1191-4, and 2877-80. It will be found, in fact, that the former text can seldom be safely quoted for the purposes of philology and I cannot but think Mr Stevensons claim of being accurate to be especially unfortunate and the more so, because the genuine text is much simpler and more intelligible than the one which he has given. The original MS. is to be found in the Cambridge Uni- versity Library, rnsrked Ek. 1. 5. It formerly formed part of a thick volume, labelled Tracts but these are now being separated, for greater convenience, into several volumes. The MS. of Lancelot has little to do with any of the rest as regards its subject., but several other pieces are in the same hand-writing and, at the end of one of them, an PREFACE. vii abstract of Solomons proverbs, occur the words, Expliciunt Dicta Salamonis, per manum V. de F. This hand-writing, though close, is very regular, and my own impression certainly is that the scribe has almost always succeeded in preserving the sense of the poem, though there is much confusion in the dialectal forms, as will be shewn presently. The present text is as close a fac-simile of the MS. as can be represented by printed letters, every peculiarity being preserved as fa, r as practicable, even including the use of y for P or th so that the reader must remember that yow in 1...