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Tom Whitmore sent me the URL of this site, where Kenneth Wald has posted lost bits of medieval English lit:
A, we!That was from Sir Gawain and the Green Burgess. This bit’s from Chaucer’s “The Compleynt of Mercurie”:
A grene gome I naf
Neuer sene, ne nolde se;
But on sene, I vowche saf,
Deme I bettre thanne on to be.
Ful often have I payed that was due,Don’t throw things at me, or I’ll quote you his bits of Anglo-Saxon verse that end with the words, Byrme Scafe.
And suffred peynes, though from crime pure;
Of soor mistakes have I maad som fewe;
My part of sand have I received sure
In face, and have availled; and I dure.
Ywis, we been the champiouns, my freend,
And so we shullen fighten on till end.
At ox-cart speeds those signs must have been awfully close together.
I expect they went missing so long because people kept mistaking them for a shield wall.
The wonders of evolving languages. Like, forex, this...
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
Wait a minute...are you telling me Paul Anka ripped off Chaucer?
That's what the police reports say -- bashed in his passenger-side window and made off with his briefcase and car stereo.
Chaucer must have been joyriding in John Donne's car, then....
Sorry, think I made a connection where one was not - just spent two hours forcing undergraduates to discuss Wollstonecraft's theories of education, after 5.5 hours of sleep; my brain's fried. Ignore previous comment!
Teresa,
Don't throw things at me, or I'll quote you his bits of Anglo-Saxon verse that end with the words, Byrme Scafe.
You can quote Anglo Saxon any time you want. One of my favorite jaw-crackers is from the Battle of Maldon...
"Gefeancie fee, f0eoda waldend,
ealra fee6ra wynna fee ic on worulde gebad.
Nu ic ah, milde metod, me6ste feearfe
fee6t feu minum gaste godes geunne,
fee6t min sawul to f0e sif0ian mote
on fein geweald, feeoden engla,
mid frifee ferian..."
John: I can't do Anglo Saxon, but I can do a bit of Chaucer in Middle English if you were to give me a really good martini...
MKK
Danger, Will Robinson. Reciting large swatches of Middle English is one of the more reliable signs that I've had one too many, and I'm not the only person in our community who does that. Do it in Anglo-Saxon, and Graydon and Dr. Doyle are like to appear at your elbow. And if you want the standup version of Intro to English Metrical Romances (including all the bad ones), I can tell you who to buy drinks for. The SF world is full of defrocked medievalists.