Suprasegmentals, Meter, and the Manuscript of "Beowulf" 3111001059, 9783111001050

Table of contents :
I. The Nature of Non-Segmental Linear Manuscript Data 7
II. Potentialities of Notation Systems for Prosodic Features 18
III. Graphotactic Patterns in Some Fixed-Phrase Constructions 26
IV. Phonological and Syntactic Correlates of Some Graphotactic Patterns 41
V. Graphotactic Evidence for the Meter of "Beowulf" 61
VI. The Suprasegmentals and Meter of "Beowulf" 74
References Cited 84
Index of Manuscript Citations 85

Citation preview

SUPRASEGMENTALS, METER, AND THE MANUSCRIPT OF BEOWULF

JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA MEMORIAE NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA edenda curai

C. H. VAN SCHOONEYELD INDIANA UNIVERSITY

SERIES PRACTICA 71

1968

MOUTON T H E H A G U E • PARIS

SUPRASEGMENTALS, METER, AND THE MANUSCRIPT OF BEOWULF by

ROBERT D. STEVICK UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

1968

MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

© Copyright 1968 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 68-17896

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

CONTENTS

I. The Nature of Non-Segmental Linear Manuscript Data

7

Illustration of the manuscript data (1). The need to integrate linguistic, metrical, and manuscript data (8-12), in view of Bliss's scansion (8-9) and Joynes' scansion (9-12). The nature of spacing variation in the Nowell Codex (12-17), with illustration from Beowulf (12-15) and prose texts (15-17).

II. Potentialities of Notation Systems for Prosodic Features

18

Spacing does not occur systematically only at 'word' boundaries, but in some systematic relation to phonological phrasing (18). Analysis of probabilities for scribal 'writing' of non-segmental features of a (spoken) text: non-alphabetic diacritics (19), punctuation (19), reduplication in spelling (19), spacing (19-21), 'accents' (21-23). Only spacing seems to be operative in the Nowell Codex (23). The mode of analysis (using 'suprasegmentals') (24); the assumption of 'suprasegmentals' for Old English (24-25).

III. Graphotactic Patterns in Some Fixed-Phrase Constructions

26

Analysis of spacing within compound names: spacing not correlated with section divisions in the MS. (26), nor with position in verse line (26), nor with grammatical case inflections (26-30), nor with difference in the two scribal hands (30-32), nor with metrical patterns according to Bliss or Pope (32). Rather, variation in spacing is correlated in some way with syntax (32-34) and is consistent with the assumption that Old English is 'stress-timed' (34-37). Some tests of the extent of scribal deviation from the syntaxmeter-spacing pattern of correlation (37-40).

IV. Phonological and Syntactic Correlates of Some Graphotactic Patterns . .

Analysis of spacing within compounds other than names: spacing not correlated solely with morphology or syntax (41-46). Phonological factors are also operative: disyllabic first-element of compounds (46-49) and with consonant terminations (49-52) and vocalic terminations of first-element of compounds (52-53). Comparison of prose and verse texts (53-57). Comparison of name and non-name compounds (57-59). Correlation of spacing, syntax, and stress-timing (59-60).

V. Graphotactic Evidence for the Meter of Beowulf Analysis of continuous text: distinctive verse half-line spacing is prevalent (61-64), and is superseded only when syllable rate exceeds the norm (64-67). Spacing is directly correlated to timing (67). The relation of manuscript evidence to earlier formulations of meter (67-70). The evidence for isochronic meter (70-72), and the extent and preciseness of that evidence (72-73).

41

61

CONTENTS

6

VI. The Suprasegmentals and Meter of Beowulf Analysis of continuous text: metrical stress (74-76), alliteration (76-77), extra-metrical lines (77-78). The convergent evidence for pitch features and their relation to junctures (78-80). The reconstruction of meter and suprasegmentals from the manuscript of Beowulf (81-83).

74

References Cited

84

Index of Manuscript Citations

85

I THE NATURE OF NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

The scribe who began the extant manuscript of Beowulf in the Nowell Codex copied the compound beorsele three times, all in the portion of the poem centering on the hero's encounter with Grendel. Ful oft gebeotedon beore druncne ofer ealowsge oretmecgas, 482 J>aet hie in beorsele bidan woldon Grendles gu£e mid gryrum ecga. 'Full-often warriors, having drunk beer, boasted over the ale-cup that they in the beer-hall would await Grendel's attack with terror of swords.' t>a waes Geatmsecgum geador aetsomne 492 on beorsele bene gerymed. 'Then for the men-of-the-Geats together in the beer-hall was a bench vacated.' 1094 on beorsele

swa he Fresena cyn byldan wolde.

'[as much] as he the Frisian people in the beer-hall intended to encourage.' In the first instance the scribe separated the elements of the compound noun by less than enough space for a one-minim letter, in the second he began -sele on a new line, and in the third he left space enough for a two-minim letter. The second scribe copied line 2635a in biorsele with space only between bior- and -sele, about enough for one minim. The writing of beorsele illustrates features of the manuscript I deal with and problems in gathering and analyzing evidence for those features. Spacing between morphic elements in Beowulf appears to reflect manipulation of linguistic features for the making of verse, though in many instances chance factors such as division of words at line-ends or damage to the manuscript or change of scribe puts the evidence, or its significance, beyond reach.

8

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

Word-separation, Worttrennung, has been studied before, of course, in Beowulf as well as in other Old English texts. Analysis of scribal spacing necessarily proceeded from a general language-sense until linguistic techniques were developed sufficiently to supersede the more impressionistic procedures, though for good reasons the older and the recent analyses differ principally in precision and hence in some consequences but not altogether in substance. It is to confirming and revising somewhat but primarily to extending the study of scribal practice in morphic spacing that I proceed in the following pages. The ultimate purpose is to establish some further information about scribal practices, about the meter of Beowulf,\ and about some suprasegmental features of Old English. Where to begin is clear. Two systematizing kinds of knowledge, through long and careful development, now have substantial scope and exactness, and both are essential to an analysis of measure in the manuscript of Beowulf. One is linguistic findings about Old English, the other is metrical analysis of Anglo-Saxon verse. Spacing of morphs in the manuscript, if it is to be regarded as something more than the whims of the scribes and the bane of editors, will have to be integrated into the systemic formulations of Old English and of Anglo-Saxon metrics. If the extent to which it can be integrated proves to be significant, that extent of integration will make it possible at once to confirm or modify the formulations in language and meter that have been established almost entirely apart from study of morphic spacing, and in some details, at the least, extend those formulations. One reason for careful analysis of the scribal habits may be illustrated first by comparing manuscript evidence to a metrical marking undertaken without consideration of what an Anglo-Saxon scribe may have revealed in copying the manuscript. A. J. Bliss (in The Metre of Beowulf) scans all half-lines containing bëorsele as Type d3, with differences only in number of syllables in anacrusis. X

X X

— hx

d3c t»aet hie on bëorsele X

d3a

— ¿X

on bëorsele

(482)

(492, 1094, 2635 bïorsele)

Bliss's scansion, an extension of Sievers' system, is based on syllable-count and classification by stress pattern of words. Yet, as mentioned above, the scribes distinguish the spacings of bëor- and -sele. So if it can be shown that the spacing of the elements of the compound is consistent with certain systemic factors necessarily present in the poem, then there is reason to believe that the scribal distinctions are meaningful and that the metrical analysis requires correcting. We need only assume that the text accurately represents the poetic composition and that the composition is normal verse. Without these assumptions, of course, any analysis is pointless. One set of systemic factors in the poem is the pattern of two syllables under major stress in each half-line and the occurrence of alliteration coincident with at least two of those stressed syllables in every full line, one of the alliterating positions apparently

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

9

fixed on the first major stress in the second half-line and the other(s) occurring in stress-positions of the first half-line in every line. Another set of systemic factors lies in the language itself. Without stopping for the moment to review the reasons, let it be assumed that Old English resembles Modern English in having prosodie features closely related to such syntactic materials as morphological selection and orderpatterns: in j on bèorsele is a prepositional phrase, pxt hie ... bidan woldon ..., pa wzs ... bene gerymed, swa he ... byldan wolde are clauses, etc., each with its own superfix. In two instances written by the first scribe (492, 1094) the prepositional phrase on bèorsele constitutes the a half-line, but in the third (482) the phrase in bearsele occurs within a half-line in which also occur the subject of a clause and the relative conjunction serving to link clauses ; in bèorsele, coming between the subject and predicate of its clause, could be bounded by terminal junctures so that both it and the material that precedes it would contain primary linguistic stress. That is, we could expect the following prosodie features: 2

3

2|2

3

2|2 3

482 fast hie in béor + sèle bidan woldon 2

Grèndles X

Or,

—

X

3

2|2

3

1

gujje mid gryrum éega. —

2|

#

i>X

Jjjet hie in bèorsele etc.

Using superscript numerals to indicate the measure of spacing, the manuscript reading may be represented as follows: / J)a»i1hie2in°beor*sele3e/c. For 1094 the manuscript has this appearance: / on + beor 2 sele 3 . Briefly, the spacing of the manuscript is consistent with systemic features reconstructed for Old English if we take the contrast between wider and closer spacing to indicate timing contrasts distinguishing terminal and open transition junctures. Rhetorical considerations tend to confirm this as well. Hroògar speaks these lines, giving Beowulf (and the audience) a resumé of the afflictions visited upon him by Grendel. The diminution of his band of retainers is the immediate topic, and this sentence explains how he loses men even among those who do not desert him. The metrical requirements of the more general kinds are preserved by the markings given, though a detail of Bliss's classification system and scansion of the poem must be sacrificed. A second illustration of the need to watch carefully what the scribe did in spacing morphs draws on an analysis of the poetic system of Anglo-Saxon verse that produces a reading similar to that given in the preceding paragraph and in fact does take into account the spacing features, together with the occurrence of punctuation and accent marks. Miss Joynes' formulation of Anglo-Saxon poetics (in Structural Analysis of Old English Metrics) marks a real advance over earlier schemes precisely because it

10

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

builds on certain linguistic features of Old English that have been reconstructed only since corresponding features have been noticed in Modern English — especially the organization of pitch, stress, and juncture elements into superfixes. Miss Joynes simplified the basic analysis of verse by positing the principle that each line consists of four phrases, each with a pitch morpheme, with at least two having coincidence of pitch-peak and stress-peak under which fall alliteration. Spacing in the manuscript was considered, in this study, only in support of the formulation which was arrived at principally from linguistic and metrical features. That it is therefore only broadly described by Miss Joynes is no reflection on the value of her study; but the significance of the spacing is only thus generally indicated and not fully defined. The general indications were given as follows: "A space equivalent to roughly half the space of a manuscript letter was often used where / + / would be expected." Without spacing, "the elements written belong to the same syntactic construction, and the first of these elements generally has the weakest stress in the construction". One letter-space occurs commonly at the "division between forms in fixed-phrase construction", when halfspace is not used, and similar spacings "typically occur between elements in compound nouns" and between bases and prebases or postbases. Larger spacing occurs at sentence ends or termination of major metrical units (Joynes, pp. 70-71). The evidence of spacing, thus analyzed, is at best only heuristically valuable. It can be firmly corroborative, however, when it has been subjected to the same kind of analysis that has netted the distinctive prosodic features of pitch, stress, and juncture (here regarded as phonemes) and the morphemes which they constitute. This contrastive analysis can be carried far enough on the extant materials to call into question several details of Miss Joynes' account of the significance of spacing and several of her metrical markings of Beowulf verses. The beorsele example cannot be used here, since Miss Joynes does not give scansion for line 482; let us move to an example of a bit more scope and complexity. Here are four contexts in which Hrodgar occurs, each followed in turn by Miss Joynes' juncture-morpheme scansion and by an indication of spacing in the manuscript. 1296

Se waes HroJjgare haelejja leofost on gesi5es had be siem tweonum ... 'That one was to Hrothgar the dearest of warriors in the position of retainer between the seas.' 2

3

2|2

se waes Hrojj g&re 1399

2|

M wass HroSgare wicg wundenfeax.

2+

se i waes 2+ hroJ>°gare 4 hors gebated,

'Then was for Hrothgar a horse bridled, a horse with braided mane.'

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA 2

3

2|2

J>ä waes Hroö gäre

2|

11

?J)a*waes3+hro9igare4

Söna J>aet gesäwon snottre ceorlas, 1592 f>ä öe mid Hröögäre on holm wliton, t>aet ... 'Immediately the wise men, those who with Hrothgar gazed on the water, saw t h a t . . . ' 2

3

2|2

M öe mid Hr6ö gäre

3

2|2

i>a°öe 2 mid 2 hroö i gare 3 +

'the mast towered treasures.'

above Hrothgar's 2

3

maest hlifade hordgestreonum.

1899 ofer Hröögäres

ofer Hr6ö gäres

2|

2|

3

ofer 2 + hroö 2 "gares /

Detailed analysis of the spacing features based on all forty-three occurrences of Hroögar's name must be deferred (it appears in Chapter III). Within the four instances given above — which are typical — the first three contrast with the fourth in spacing of the morphic elements of the name: little or no space (i, 0) beside about enough space for a two-minim letter. It is worth looking into the possibility that the scansion should differ. That / + / occurs in any case between Hröd- and -gär is clear from the clustering characteristics of consonants. The raising of this juncture to a terminal /1 /, for metrical purposes, is not suggested, or supported, by the manuscript in the first three instances. The sentence construction suggests that the linguistic stresses available to manifest the meter are not concentrated in Hröögäre but are distributed, with only the second principal stress falling within the name. In 1296 se is used subjectivally (where the pronoun he, a name, or a phrase se + noun could be substituted); the upgrading of the pronominal to sentence-subject would be achieved, presumably, by raising the stress under which it occurs and not otherwise. Also, the position of the (dative) Hröpgäre in the equational clause suggests — on analogy with later English — that Hröpgäre may be isolable as a phonological phrase in itself. In 1592 the syntax is similar, in this instance pronominal pä (öe) serving to downgrade the clause but still appearing as the subject of its clause in which, in turn, the prepositional phrase with dative Hröögäre is interposed between subject and predication. The temporal pä in 1399 (not in a correlative pattern) may also be supposed to carry heavy stress; in this instance the larger context is also significant, for a new turn is given to the discourse, as is appropriately indicated editorially by paragraph indentation. In the final instance (1899), on the other hand, Hröögäres is in a normal (prose) position before the nounobject of a preposition, with the prepositional phrase following the subject and predi-

12

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

cate to complete the short clause. The complete phrase would have a generalized (prose) stress pattern /" A '/• To make out the metrical pattern, raising an intervening / + / to the level of a terminal, requires the terminal (or some lengthening of the interval between syllables bearing stress) to fall between the parts of the name, where it is placed above. What appears, then, is this. A terminal juncture (in this mode of analysis) in 1899 can fall only between Hrod- and -gares, and that is where spacing occurs in the manuscript. But in the other three instances the dative Hrodgare, in light of its position in the clause and the other constituents of the clauses and their ordering, appears to come between juncture points at which the verse requires terminal junctures. This circumstance establishes the requisite number of junctures — or, correlatively, major stresses — for the half-line according to Miss Joynes' scansion and leaves the elements of the name with only an intervening / + / , or its non-linguistic, metrical equivalent. That is just what the contrastive spacings in the manuscript evidence suggest. Revision of the scansion will bring into accord the suggestions of the manuscript evidence, the linguistic expectations (reconstructions), and the basic metrical requirements. So much for preliminary illustration. It will be appropriate next to describe just what the manuscript evidence is like and to outline the kinds of parallels between scribal features and the linguistic and metrical features that may be expected. In the handwriting of both scribes who copied portions of the Nowell Codex the sequences of letters representing segmental morphs are written with normal juxtaposition of a non-cursive script. At morph boundaries there may be no spacing except that used to keep the letters from touching (disregarding occasional ligatures), or there may be greater spacing; greater spacing than that of normal juxtaposition occurs only very seldom within morphic sequences of letters and does not separate inflectional from root morphemes. If greater spacing occurs, the length of the space varies from less than that required to allow a minim to be interposed (with normal separation of letters in sequence) to at least enough space for as many as two m's. A mark of punctuation may or may not occur within a larger gap between letters. The extent of the spacing is conveniently measured on a scale in which the unit is the space required for a minim: separation of morph-sequences of letters will therefore be marked with a numerical notation. The problem of measurement cannot be referred to anything else than the tact of the reader for several reasons. The two scribes shaped and spaced letters differently; a scribe varies the norm of letter spacing from time to time in ways noticeable when different pages of the manuscript are compared; adjustments to the amount of space remaining toward the end of a line are sometimes evident; erasures that have not been overwritten or blemishes in the velum may modify spacing; and so on through all the things that can affect the habits of handwriting in an extended text. Even so, at any point in the manuscript where the writing is legible, it is possible to determine whether the spacing is normal for letters in sequence, whether less than or more than or just enough space for one minim has been left, and so on.

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

13

Certainly the variation in spacing between morphs is greater, as a general characteristic of the manuscript, than it is in many other manuscripts. The regularity of spacing approximating that of good modern printing appears later in the Peterborough continuation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for example, as well as in earlier careful copies of psalters and gospels. The random smaller variations of the spacing of the Paris Psalter represent another dimension of this matter. The Hatton MS. of Alfred's translation of The Pastoral Care, though all in prose and with its own peculiar set of internal changes, is similar to the Nowell Codex in the variation in spacing in a number of ways. In some ways still closer to the Nowell Codex in scribal variation of spacing is the prose text in MS. Royal 15 B. xxii — ^Elfric's Latin Grammar — to judge from the sample in Volume IV (Plate 91) of the Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's College Collections in the British Museum. But the Nowell Codex, though not unique in respect to scribal variation of spacing, contains texts whose nature (as well as importance) gives special interest to the features of spacing. The scribal habits in the manuscript differ from those of, say, the Caedmon MS. in ways that also suggest that variation of spacing is an aspect of the writing not to be laid solely to factors of chance or unskillfulness. The half-line units of verse in the Caedmon MS. are consistently marked with points, and spacing within the half-lines is as regular as an average copyist could be expected to make it without special attention. Pointing in the verse portions of the Nowell Codex, on the other hand, is infrequent; many points occur at the ends of sentences, which coincide, of course, with termination of verse units; nearly all occur at ends of verse lines. Like most of the poetic texts, the Nowell Codex verse text is not divided to make verse 'lines' coincide with manuscript lines. Finally, the evidence of spacing is distributed through prose as well as verse text. One could hardly hope for a better sample than that provided by the first scribe, who began with three prose pieces and continued through three-fifths of Beowulf — though one could well wish for a greater abundance of evidence. If his punctuation, as well as accent marks, are scant, if the verse is not marked into metrical units with points, then if the spacing can be found to be consistent with some other set or sets of systemic features which we should expect, the gradations of spacing and especially their contrasts may tell us a great deal. We should expect correlation of variations in spacing with either metrical features or linguistic features, or perhaps both. Failing these, there is not much else in the way of significant correlation that can be looked for. If correlations can be found but if they involve a set of features for the prose texts inconsistent with the set of features for verse text, any conclusions to be drawn from the analysis will be much more complex and their certainty perhaps will be the less. The frequency with which spacing, relative to the immediate context, is greater between verse half-lines is immediately apparent. This aspect of spacing, in fact, turns up often

14

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

in strings of successive lines, with no regular difference between relative spacing at the ends of full lines and of the half-lines that make them up. There are also, however, some several instances in which the spacing between successive half-lines is distinctively less than usual and occasionally less than that to separate any morphs within the half-line. One passage, which will come up for further analysis in a later chapter, illustrates the extremes of variation in spacing half-lines. To the text of the manuscript are added superscript numerals to indicate spacing; the edited text printed in verse lines is also given. • geseah1he in°recede rinca manige swefan 2 sibbe ge*driht 2+ samod 1 a£t*gaedere3mago1 rin ca2heap3J}a*his2 ~~ mod 2 ~ ahlog • mynte2"Jjast he°ge1daelde3+aeriJ)on1d2eg2cwome • atol aglaeca 2+ anra 2 ~ ge*hwylces3 ~ lif*wi32 ~ lice2+J>a him 1 ~ alum 1 ~ pen 1 + was 3 ~ wist2fylle2+wen*ne2+waes []?a?f7w]yrd3~i)a*-gen • ]Da?i4he (etc.) 2

1+

2+

Geseah he in recede rinca manige, swefan sibbegedriht samod astgasdere, 730 magorinca heap. M his mod ahlog; mynte J>aet he gedaelde, aer f>on daeg cwome, atol aglaeca anra gehwylces lif wi9 lice, J)a him alumpen wass wistfylle wen. Ne wass J>aet wyrd f>a gen, 735 t>aet he (etc.) 'He saw in the building many warriors, the troop-of-kinsmen, together, the group of young warriors. Then his spirit exulted; (he) intended that he should part, before day came, (he,) the terrible monster, of each one life from body, when for him was come to pass the expectation of fill-of-feasting. That fate was not yet, that he (etc.)' Relatively greater spacing regularly separates twelve successive half-lines until we reach the middle of 734, where wen and ne are scarcely separated at all. This deviation from the norm is all the more remarkable since the two words end and begin separate sentences. In a great number of other instances the 'full' spacing — about that of a two-minim letter — between half-lines is the same as that between many or all elements within the half-lines, and nothing can be concluded from this about half-line marking by spacing. We cannot, therefore, say that the spacing is specifically a device to mark verse divisions unless we choose either to limit seriously the degree of correlation of

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

15

wide spacing with half-line division or to dispose of quite a sizable number of instances by attributing them to the chance factors that accompany any set of data like that of this manuscript. The several degrees of separation suggest that something more than half-line marking — as achieved by points in the Caedmon MS. — is represented. What that something should be apparently cannot be determined by attempting to match the facts of spacing with those of various metrical analyses, with the provisional exception of Miss Joynes', and as we have seen in this case, the analysis is supported only by a broad and partial analysis of the scribal features. Another analysis, made by John A. Nist (in "Textual Elements in the Beowulf Manuscript"), takes into account the points, the 'accents', and word division; analysis of word division, however, recognizing only the opposition of space vi. no-space, does not deal with the variation in spacings. If the facts of spacing are linguistically significant, the evidence should be consistent with the prose and the verse materials; and only if the first scribe had different sets of habits for verse and prose, or followed exemplars differing in spacing characteristics even in this respect (which seems very unlikely), would the evidence in the prose and in the verse not generally be the same. That there is some consistency in the first scribe's gradation of spacings is very well illustrated in Wonders of the East (in prose), where two parallel constructions occur successively (f. 103r, 11. 16-18): 2+

se°sunnan 1+ sea6 2+ se i bi6 2 d£eges 2 hat 1+ 7 4 nih / tes2~ceald • 7 se°monan 1+ sea5 2+ se*bi8 2 nihtes 2 ~hat / 7°daeges2~ceald • 0

'The lake of the sun, it is by day hot and by night cold; and the lake of the moon, it is by night hot and by day cold.' The consistency, displayed graphically here by parallel layout, is not dependent on graphic suggestions in the lineation of the manuscript, as the line-division markings (the virgules) show. Furthermore, in the prose texts there are a number of instances in which spacing, where it is clearly contrastive, is typified by the three sentences cited next. One is: Onit>yssum2beo61~acende2+l3a0miclan*maenigo / olfenda (f. lOlv, 11. 1-2) 'In this [place] are begotten the great multitude of camels.' The only gap in the evidence to suggest phonological phrase groupings is the run-over at the line-end. The next is one of those sentences whose structure is devoid of the grace of larger patternings and resembles extempore speech in which the need for explanation is realized by the speaker (or translator) only after he is launched on his utterance. It is from Alexander's Letter (in prose).

16

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

Eac 2+ t)onne 4 he 1+ saegde 3 se i bisceop / J)onne 3- l)»i 1 eclypsis 2 wasre3t)«i4is1J)onne3_5aes / sunnan 2 asprungnis 2 o5 1 Jje 2 ]D3£re2monan / J)^i i 6a i halgan 1 triow 2 swi3e 2 wepen 2 7 0 mid 1 + micle / sare2instyred1+waeron • (f. 127v, 1. 12ff.) 'Also then he said — the bishop — when the eclipse was to be, that is, when [it is] the sun's eclipse, or the moon's, that the sacred trees (should) weep exceedingly, and were moved with great grief.' The spacing roughly matches the timing features that the structure imposes on oral reading; the passage requires heavy punctuation in the modern style. In the next example the place at which the direct discourse begins is not marked by a point as it is in some other instances but only by contrastive spacing: 3a*cwas32+se*sacerd2+locia51 ~ nu 1 ~ ealle1 up /

(f. 128r, 1. 10)

'Then the priest said, 'Now look (you [plural]) all u p . . . ' " There are very few instances where clearly contrastive spacing is not congruent with the phrase grouping we may expect. Such an instance is this one: / el 1 "reord 2 ge i me« 1+ beo3 / ...

(f. 103r, 1. 10)

'foreign-speaking men are ...' The prebase ge- is more often than not detached from the base form (in this manuscript as well as in others), in both the prose and verse texts, and this exception to the general pattern of phrase-spacing may be attributable to a slip by the scribe who was rendering elreord{i)ge in which the derivative postbase -ig and the inflection -e produced, phonemically, /+ga/; that this was common is clear from variants throughout spellings in West Saxon texts, and several medial vowels of words in Beowulf require editorial underdotting to indicate this same variation, in order to keep the meter. The scribe apparently made a natural slip (based on phonological factors) in writing the phrase. Another sample from Alexander's Letter will exhibit a common situation in the prose texts in which spacing is not sufficiently varied for its congruence with phonological phrasing to be asserted, though the evidence of the spacing is not in any way incongruent. • 3a 1 - cwom 2 - se / bisceop {)£ere stowe2+tis1to1~geanes • waes1_he / se*bisceop • x • fota 2 + upheah • 7°eall2him1 "waes / se 4 lic 1 homa 2+ sweart 2 buton 2 ~J)iem 1 toJ)um / (f. 126v, 11. 8-11) 2

2

NON-SEGMENTAL LINEAR MANUSCRIPT DATA

17

'Then came the bishop of that place towards us. He was — the bishop — ten feet high, and altogether with (respect to) him was the body dark (or black) except the teeth.' Similar variations in spacing are not present in another manuscript text of Wonders of the East, Cotton Tiberius B. v. (11th century), a manuscript which, besides its superior illustrations, has alternate Latin and English texts. The gradations of spacing between morphic sequences, the regularity with which they appear (especially in the verse texts), the variations with which they are used in the verse, and their general agreement with the presumed occurrence of timing features (analyzable as terminal junctures) and correlatively with stress distributions — all these point to the presence in the Nowell Codex of linguistic evidence of substantial value to the study of Old English and to the study of certain poetic features of Beowulf contingent upon metrical matters. This chapter has described briefly the nature of the evidence and outlined the kinds of significance it may have. The next step is to consider the probabilities of the significance and significations of the evidence for both linguistic and metrical formulations of the language and the poetry of the later Anglo-Saxons.

II POTENTIALITIES O F NOTATION SYSTEMS FOR PROSODIC FEATURES

Both scribes who contributed copy to the Nowell Codex have been maligned by modern editors for their spacing of morphs, not to mention their accuracy (or consistency) in copying (or normalizing). Klaeber, for instance, notes practices especially troublesome to an editor: while 'compounds' are, "as a general rule, written as two words", "other words are freely divided", yet "separate words are run together", with the result that "these practices are liable to result in ambiguity and confusion" (Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, p. xcix). The same list of charges specifies Dobbie's description of the manuscript: "Throughout the manuscript the spacing between words and between parts of compounds is irregular, not to say capricious" (Beowulf and Judith, p. xviii). So long as 'words' are the entities we are concerned with, as Klaeber and Dobbie and all editors are perforce, their assessments are both right and well stated. But the despair of the lexicographer or editor — ever renewed even by the conventions of modern orthography — could not, apparently, touch the scribes who copied so many documents in Old English. If they cheerfully ignored the concept of the (written) 'word' they may yet have not been capricious — not all of them, anyway. And if in some manuscripts, including the Nowell Codex, they followed conventions other than the simple binary distinction of space vs. no-space, then while they were not deeply concerned about such things as words they may still have been concerned about something. In the preceding chapter that something was identified tentatively with phonological phrasing. How might a scribe have manifest in his copy a concern for this phrasing, with its constituents of stress, timing, and pitch variations? The possibilities, of course, are as extensive as the systems of notation that may be constructed. The probabilities are narrowly restricted. The imagination of a scribe would not likely go far beyond the devices in his exemplars; if it did, his services would hardly have found continuing favor with his superiors. There was no precedent for the convenient system of superscripts devised by linguists to describe non-segmental elements of speech. Nor was there, it should be remembered, much need to provide full notation of many features other than the sequences of vowels and consonants and the positions of greater and lesser pause. Any marking other than letter sequences, morph boundaries, and major units of utterances (sections, sentences, etc.) was in most instances superfluous for the accurate construing of the written text. The nature of English (as well as other lan-

NOTATION SYSTEMS FOR PROSODIC FEATURES

19

guages written traditionally in romanic alphabet systems) has not changed in this respect. Yet any scribe may have been sensitive to speech rhythms inherent especially in timing and stress features. He would also probably be aware that ambiguity sometimes arises in the partial transcription of speech by writing that records little more than vowel and consonant sequence and boundaries of morphs or syllables and their gross affinities, or boundaries of the larger segments of discourse. Points to isolate the letters standing for numerals, 'accent' marks especially for words spelled with vowel letters only, and the like indicate that certain risks of ambiguity in the writing were recognized by scribes, and some determination to avoid them had built a minor system of diacritics into the traditions of writing English; any scribe would have known about these. If, then, he had the alphabetical system, with a few diacritics of general utility, and if in his awareness that ambiguities occasionally occurred in representing speech in which timing or stress features prevented ambiguity, he would have the more reason to develop features of writing which would reflect his sensitivity to the rhythms of timing and stress variations. The modifications in his inherited system of writing could take only a few forms. Additional (non-alphabetic) diacritics is one, but it seems not to have been used. The several marks for abbreviations may have pre-empted this possibility. Variations of what we now call type-face, font, and upper and lower case seem not to have been tried and have the inherent impracticality of sharply reducing the simplicity of alphabetic representation of vowels and consonants. Any device to represent stress or timing features would of course have to fit the unilinear character of the traditional system and not detract from its utility and efficiency. Hardly more than three modifications of the system could have been developed. One possible change consists in adding a system of marks — in the nature of commas, semicolons, period dots, etc. — employed as 'elocutionary punctuation'. This system did develop, of course, but only after the Anglo-Saxon period. A second is indication of conspicuous timing features by a contrast between single and repeated letters: the onset of a subsequent sound may readily be indicated as immediate by a single letter for the preceding sound, or as not immediate — some durational feature intervenes — if the preceding sound is represented by reduplication of letters. This system, essentially, also did develop in the writing of English, notably in the work of Orm. Modern English spelling reflects a related system only in approximating juncture at syllable boundaries within some words, and preserves remnants of what had been a related device to distinguish 'long' and 'short' vowels in Middle English. The system is not suited for representing stress or timing variations that are prosodically significant, though, without impractical extension to at least a 1:2:3 set of contrasts. Within a linear system of writing, the 'natural' and obvious way to represent rhythm of timing features or the correlated features of pitch and stress variation — without adding marks or letters — is a third device: vary the spacing such that the duration of the interval between morphic sequences of phonemes is matched by the space intervening between the letters representing them.

20

NOTATION SYSTEMS FOR PROSODIC FEATURES

We need not suppose that any scribe undertook deliberate analysis of the possibilities in the manner exemplified in the two preceding paragraphs. It would be safer to assume that no scribe ever did. To establish the likelihood of the significance of variation in spacing, on the other hand, deliberate analysis is essential. To establish the probabilities of the significations of variations in spacing requires yet another excursion into systematics. The 'given' is the contiguity of letters representing sequences of vowels and consonants as they occur in groups not admitting gaps of pause or distinctive lengthenings of any constituent phoneme. On this principle, and lacking the means and perhaps the motives to standardize thoroughly the writing on lexical or structural bases, scribes would continually face the problem parallel to the vestigal problem we now have in deciding whether to write insofar or in so far, cannot or can not (or when to use a hyphen). Just as English scribes were late in learning to assemble their gatherings so that at any opening the velum presented only hair-sides or flesh-sides on facing leaves, so some of them were late in adopting the elegance of orthography consistent with lexical principles and spacing as regularized as the letter shapes. Spacing, then, was at some time flexible. One would not space letters where interruption of the corresponding sequence of sounds should offend the intuitions of a native speaker of the language. Yet the 'sameness' of morphs — the characteristic repetition that identified them — would work with opposite effect to induce spacing of some sort whether a morph was free or whether it occurred, say, in such fixed phrases as compounds. Lack of spacing between successive letters terminating and beginning recognizably separate morphs, to take one further aspect of this, would be a result of the same sense of the speech being recorded as that which kept the contiguity of letters making up a morph. Or, more to approximate the practice of the first scribe of the Nowell Codex, a succession of morphs in which interruption by pause or by prolongation of sounds would not be normal to speech will show variously no spacing or minimal spacing. The lack of spacing of successions typified by se de is pervasive; prepositional in + (... + ) noun normally has minimal or zero spacing in the Nowell Codex unless the pattern is specifically in + h-~, whereas in is fully spaced in such constructions as scedelandum in (Beowulf\ 19). The first scribe writes beam 'son' more than twenty times with ligature ea, but beam (i.e., be-arri) 'ran (into)' with a minim's space between be- and -am. In sum, normal spacing between letter sequences that represent morphs or short morph sequences (seldom more than two members), but absence or minimization of spacing where a discontinuity in the corresponding string of speech sounds would be disturbing, or greater than normal spacing at phrase or clause boundaries — together these establish timing features or their potential of occurrence as the elements represented by variation of spacing. Contrasts in extent of spacing would be, presumably, contingent on the length of the durational factor — or potential — between morphic sequences of letters. That the variations are more pronounced and persistently present in the texts of verse than in the texts of prose would result from the greater realization of the potentials or prominence of the occurrences of rate or durational variation in the stylized speech

NOTATION SYSTEMS FOR PROSODIC FEATURES

21

that the poetic texts represent. The next most likely place for durational variations was presumably in texts representing the deliberate speech of instruction; MS. Royal 15 B. xxii has already been mentioned as resembling the Nowell Codex in utilization of variation in spacing. To cite but one example: Gram*ma • 2on°grecisc • 1+ is*~littera 3 ~on*leden / o/ji/°oni-english3staef • 2 o«i/°grammatica 2+ is 1+ stasf 1 craeft • 'Gramma, in Greek, is littera in Latin, and in English stzf[i.e., letter], and grammatica is stsefcrxft [i.e., grammar, the art of letters].' We may conclude, then, that if a scribe were sensitive to features that make up phonological phrasing, the most probable manifestation of that sensitivity in his manuscripts should be in the positions and variations of spacing between sets of letters; the spacing should vary according to the timing features and morph identifications in the utterance being represented. If this analysis is correct, it also implies that the notation of speech features remained incomplete, for stress features and pitch features were not directly or systematically recorded in the graphic systems of alphabetic symbols and spacing. One further question remains in respect to how a scribe might have translated his sense of phonological phrasing into graphic representation. It was mentioned earlier that abbreviation symbols may have pre-empted non-alphabetic diacritics on the order of the accent, the circumflex, and the like. Yet the manuscripts — the Nowell Codex included — do show use of a slant mark above letters. There is no theoretical reason why the mark (sometimes with a superior hook) should not have been used to signal, say, the primary stress — the stress-peak — of a phonological phrase. Nor is there any reason why it should not have been assigned to designating 'long' vowels, to be used at least as often as there occurred one of a minimal pair of morphs contrasting only in length of the vowel — e.g., hof 'dwelling', hof hoof'; god 'god', god 'good'; dsel 'dale', dxl 'portion'; ¡el 'awl', ¿el 'eel'; lim 'limb', lim 'anything sticky'. While most of the 'accent' marks in the Nowell Codex are placed above vowels which etymology shows to have been distinctively 'long', the purpose of the marks does not seem to be that of a vowel-length diacritic. A great many occur over the vowels in words that seem to require heavy stress for syntactic or rhetorical reasons; the following examples are from Beowulf: 100

08 5aet &n ongan 'until one began'

t>aer act hy6e stod 33 Isig ond titfus

hringedstefna

'there at the harbour stood a ring-prowed (ship) ice-covered and ready-to-set-out.'

22

NOTATION SYSTEMS FOR PROSODIC FEATURES

544 Da wit astsomne

on sa; waeron

'Then we-two together

were in the sea.'

Too often, though, one meets instances like these: J>a he hean gewat, 1275 dreame bedjeled dea^wic seon bereft of joy

'then he departed wretched, to see (his) death-dwelling.'

386 Beo Qu on ofeste, hdt in gdn 'Be thou in haste,

bid (them) go in.'

In the latter example the alliteration falls upon in, implying some major degree of stress, yet it is the one word in its half-line without the slant mark over its vowel. There are also some pairs of phrases so similar in structure and constituents that differences in vowel marking seem to put stress-peak or pitch-peak signification of the mark out of the question: sxbat gesxt: skbat gehledd {Beowulf, 633, 895), sigenga bad: sxgenga for {Ibid., 1882, 1908). For the Nowell Codex, at least, Kemp Malone's statement (p. 29) of the occurrence of these 'accent' marks seems to assert exactly as much as can be said without qualification: the marks, over both long and short vowels, "stand in monosyllabic morphemes". The marks, it may be added, tend in most instances to occur over the vowels of a small group of words: sx, xr, ea, us, ar, up, iit, ham, ban ('sea', 'before', '[running] water', 'us', 'honor', 'up', 'out', 'home', 'bone'), etc. In the prose Wonders of the East, for example, ea is marked four times and unmarked twice (and ealond 'island' is marked once). It is tempting to try to read rhetorical significance into some of these 'accent' marks, seeing them as an approximate counterpart to italics of modern style. Four of the sixty-two occurrences of xr in Beowulf are marked with an 'accent'; two are adverbial (1187, 1587), one is conjunctive (1371), and one is prepositional (1388). Two illustrations will serve. When Beowulf has been requested — or challenged — by Hro5gar to undertake a second combat (this time with Grendel's dam) he responds to the grief expressed within Hrodgar's plea with a heroic exhortation: 'Ne sorga, snotor guma! Selre bi9 ¿eghwaem, {3set he his freond wrece, jDonne he fela murne. Ure aeghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se J)e mote 1388 domes ¿er deaj)e; fset bi8 drihtguman unlifgendum aefter selest.' 'Sorrow not, wise warrior. For each one it is better That he avenge his friend than he mourn much. Each of us must await the end

NOTATION SYSTEMS FOR PROSODIC FEATURES

23

of life in this world; may he, who is allowed, acquire fame before death; that is for a warrior, (after) being dead, afterwards best.' One may suppose that xr, if it is to have temporal force as prominent as the context indicates it should have, must be emphasized in some way lest it be lost between stresses and alliteration. Stress, timing, or pitch features may be indicated by the 'accent', — whatever will give it prominence. The second illustration shows the matter in a quite different way: str occurs in successive b half-lines with one marked and the other not. The passage occurs just prior to the one quoted immediately above. HroSgar is describing the mere — as he has heard about it — where Grendel's dam lives. The place is so forbidding that, 'Deah J)e hsSstapa hundum geswenced, heorot hornum trum holtwudu sece, feorran geflymed, ¿er he feorh sele5, 1371 aldor on ofre, xr he in wille, hafelan [beorgan]; nis jDaet heoru stow!' 'Although the heath-stalker harrassed by hounds, the hart strong with horns, should seek the forest, put to flight from afar, he will sooner give up life, (his) life on the bank, rather than he will (go) in.' Rhetorical significance of these marks can be argued only in some instances, however, but clearly is absent in many others. The distribution of the 'accents' does not seem to be related to variations in spacings between morphs either, even as a sort of back-up device to make good an oversight in spacing. (A few points may serve this purpose, as argued by Miss Joynes, pp. 76-80.) If the marks are any more than indicators that the vowel (or vocalic nucleus) is the sole vocalic element in a morph — hence preventing confusion in interpreting the script — the further significance could quite naturally be an extension of that purpose: to call attention to the intended prominence of a morph. This conclusion is similar to that reached by Miss Joynes by a different line of argument; the infrequency of occurrence of the marks, however, together with their distribution in the prose as well as the verse written by the first scribe (as indicated above) limits the strength of any claim to the 'rules' of their occurrence. It is too much to claim that an 'accent' signals a following terminal juncture. Nist stated it this way: "The general meaning of the acute accent is 'special attention needed here'" (p. 334). Taking into account, then, all the features of the manuscript, it appears that the scribes of the Nowell Codex would manifest in their writing their sense of phonological phrasing only by spacing of the morphic sequences of letters. Merely the locations of timing features were marked by punctuation, but only occasionally. 'Accents' signaled morphic distinction, and perhaps sometimes prominence, of a syllable.

24

NOTATION SYSTEMS FOR PROSODIC FEATURES

Phonemes of pitch, stress, and juncture, and their combination into superfixes, have been assumed in the preceding pages. Before proceeding to systematic analysis of manuscript evidence for phonological phrasing in the Nowell Codex — especially in the text of Beowulf — two brief statements are in order. The first concerns the mode of analysis, essentially the choice between 'prosody' and 'suprasegmentals'; the second concerns the assumption of non-segmental distinctive elements in Old English operating at phrase and clause levels. In the preceding pages it has been convenient to adopt analysis employing suprasegmentals of pitch, juncture, and stress, particularly in comment upon Miss Joynes' study. To shift at this point to analysis employing prosodic features of intonations, stress-patterns, and timing would entail a measure of awkwardness, but that is a minor consideration. Either mode of analysis will produce essentially the same conclusions, from the manuscript characteristics, about meter and non-segmental aspects of Old English. It should be pointed out, though, that a marked difference in order of analysis follows from the use of the one or the other of these modes of linguistic description. In fact, the practical order of analysis is very nearly reversed when 'pitch figure' is taken up first and when juncture (also juncture point) serves as the basis for further analysis. Prosodic analysis, in addition, would require initial hypothesizing of rhythmic verse, with the total analysis providing confirmation of the hypothesis, while the other mode of description makes it possible to deduce the nature of the verse, in respect to rhythm, from linguistic reconstructions based on manuscript evidence. Theoretically crucial differences between the two modes of description do not seem to make a practical difference in dealing with the data of the Nowell Codex; whether, for example, the 'suprasegmentals' are phonemes need not be settled. For in dealing with position and variation of graphic spacing — the necessary initial-phase of the analysis — 'junctures' or 'timing features' will serve equally well, since juncture points and positions of prosodic timing features (or their potential) are congruent in utterances, and the analysis of manuscript features deals for the most part with the positions of terminal junctures without need to distinguish among the kinds of junctures. Choice between these modes of description for the following study rests finally on practical considerations, and the mode that is (apparently) more widely known, the same one already employed in analysis of Beowulf, the one that permits the controversial question of rhythm in Beowulf-vzxse to be deferred until other matters are settled, has been adopted. The word 'prosodic' will be retained for sparing use, however, to designate collective manifestation or function of 'suprasegmentals' in complementary relation to 'syntax.' Suprasegmentals are assumed because we are doing history. We assume that our linguistic forebears spoke a language differing from ours only in ways reflected by changes gradual enough that the efficiency of the evolving language system was never impaired for contemporaneous speakers. The writings of speakers of English provide a sufficiently dense record to convince us that the changes in English have in fact been gradual. Specifically, the continuity in the alphabetic system of writing seems

NOTATION SYSTEMS FOR PROSODIC FEATURES

25

to be good enough evidence to persuade us that the segmental phonemes of early English can be reconstructed, and that they can be systematized into patterns whose degree of congruity and co-extensiveness with those of our own language is fairly high; the correspondence between successive systems at, say, one hundred year intervals, is very close. Also, there is a long tradition of assuming that Old English had features of stress, and the degrees and positions of stress within words have been reconstructed with considerable precision and in great detail. That the written records of early English, for the most part, do not indicate the position or degree of stresses has been no barrier to historical reconstruction of these data. The existence of juncture and pitch features — in phonemic terms — can be inferred in the same way as stress features have been inferred. If all dialects of English now observed have these features, and if related languages have them, and if separation of some of the linguistic communities utilizing these features is of long standing, then we have the choice of assuming independent origins of corresponding features at a time just earlier than our direct evidence reflects, or assuming common origin. In a cultural evolution, especially in the development of a language, our historical sense requires us to assume common origin; gradual development must also be posited for periods both before and after the earliest of our direct evidence. If we can reconstruct vowel and consonant phonemes from alphabetical evidence and if we can reconstruct stress features without direct evidence, we can also reconstruct other prosodic features of pitch and juncture, though in less detail. The validity and reliability of the reconstructions are tested by the usual means: every time we can deduce a factual statement about the language — in either synchronic analysis or in the historical development of the language — and find evidence indicating that the statement is true, the reconstructions have been proved to that extent. We are doing history. If some manuscripts have evidence corroborating our reconstructions of some suprasegmentals, our historical account may be extended and will be the more satisfying. If the suprasegmentals constitute part of the stuff meter, our knowledge of both linguistic and literary aspects of Old English will be the better.

Ill GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS IN SOME FIXED-PHRASE CONSTRUCTIONS

We return to Hrodgar. There is hardly a better word with which to begin the sorting and contrasting of the manuscript evidence for phonological phrasing, together with such inferences as we can draw from the analysis for reconstructing the meter of Beowulf. The name consists of two morphs, hence the parts of the name may be written either with spacing or without it. The name occurs forty-three times in the poem; all forms, of course, are in singular number, but they make up all cases of nouns and names. All but six occurrences are in the handwriting of the first scribe (S 1). Six times the formula Hrodgar mapelode begins a new sentence: 371a / Hro5*gar3ma]3elode4 'Hrothgar spoke' 456a / Hro32gar3maj5elode4 925a / Hro5 1+ gar 3 mat>elode 4 ~ 1321a / Hro3 1+ gar 3 mat>elode 4 1687a • hro8 1 gar 2+ ma8elode 4 ~ 1840a / Hro31gar3maJ)elode4~ All instances are in the hand of S 1; all are a-verses. The first four begin numbered sections of the manuscript. The few differences in degree of spacing between the parts of the name are not correlated with the difference between beginning a section of the poem or not. Let us add another set: 662a / DA 2 him 2 hroJ)*gar 2+ gewat 3 'Then Hrothgar departed' 1236a / ond°him2 ~ hrodgar 3 - gewat 2 + 'and Hrothgar departed' We keep here a-verse position and nominative case for the name but find minimal ( i or 0) spacing, suggesting that case of noun (or name) or a- verse position is not the determining factor. This is worth checking. The inflections of nominative, accusative, and vocative ('masculine') names are all

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

27

- 0 , and the writing of the name may follow the same rules for these syntactically defined cases. The accusative occurrences of the name, in the two scribal hands, are these: SI

152a

2+

hwile 2 wi32hrojD*gar3

'a (long) time against Hrothgar' 277b

3

ic*]3£es2+hro31 gar 3 ~ maeg2

'I may [advise] Hrothgar (of) help with respect to that.' 339b

4

hro8 1 gar 2 - sohton •

'[you] sought out Hrothgar' 396b

3

~ hroS^gar 1 + ge / seon 2

863a

2+

'to see Hrothgar' glaedne 2 + hro3 1 + gar /

'(the) gracious Hrothgar' 1816b

2+

h r o 8 / gar 3 grette •

'saluted Hrothgar' S 2 2010b

2

hro5*gar 2 + gretan /

'to greet Hrothgar' The vocatives are these: 367b

3+

407a

1

glaed°man / h r o 9 2 + g a r 3 +

'gracious Hrothgar' " wass^u 1 + hroQ / gar 2 hal 2 +

'Be thou, Hrothgar, hale' 417a

• Jjeo / den 3 hro8 1 + gar 2 + 'Prince Hrothgar'

1483a

/hro5*gar 2 + leofa 3 ~ 'beloved Hrothgar'

The variations in spacing of Hrod- and -gar, in these samples, clearly cannot be correlated with grammatical case or with membership in a-verses and 6-verses. Adding the other occurrences of the name with - 0 inflection does not bring any closer a morphological distribution that appears significant:

28

SI

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

61a

3

heoro 1 " gar 2 ~ ond / hro5 1 + gar 3 ~

'Heorogar and Hrothgar' 356b

3

]?aer2 "hro6 / gar2saet2

'to where Hrothgar sat' 653a / hro5 1 gar 2+ beowulf 3 'Hrothgar [greeted] Beowulf' 1017a

3

hro3°gar 2 oni/ i hroJ)ulf ?

'Hrothgar and Hrothulf' S 2 2155b / hro6°gar 2 sealde 2 'Hrothgar gave' It is otherwise, perhaps, with occurrences in which the name appears with overt inflection. Five of the seven dative-inflected occurrences of the name are written by S 1: S 1

64a

2+

J)a*waes2hro9 / gare 4

'Then was [given] to Hrothgar' 1296a

2+

seiwaes2+hro{>0gare4

'He was to Hrothgar [most beloved]' 1399a

V™s3+hro5*gare4 'Then for Hrothgar was [a horse bridled]'

1407a

3

1592a

3

{>ara 2 J)e 1- mid 2 hro3 i gare /

'of those who with Hrothgar' t>a°8e2mid2hro5*gare3 +

'those who with Hrothgar' S 2 1990b

2

ac°8u 2 ~ hro6 1 gare 2+

'But didst thou, for Hrothgar' 2129a

• l>a?f1w£es1+hro60gare/. 'That was for Hrothgar'

If we tried to write the rules of spacing in this set of data, the problem would be to choose from several rules or to choose from their possible orders. Minimal spacing

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

29

belongs to a-verses or to S 1, or with one exception to dative inflection or to final position of the name in the half-line. None of these rules would be of much value, however, so long as they operate only on dative-inflected names. There remains the genitive-inflected set: SI

235a / J)egn 2 hro5 1+ gares 2 'Hrothgar's thane' 335b

2

ic 1 - eom 2 - hro5 1 + gares /

'I am Hrothgar's [messenger]' 613a

2+

cwen 2 hro3 1 gares /

'Hrothgar's queen' 717a

3+

l)«i i he 3 ~hroJ) 4 gares 3

'that he [went to] Hrothgar's [building]' 826b

3+

sele 3 + hrod 2 ~ gares2 +

'Hrothgar's hall' 1066b / hroJ) 2 ~gares 2 scop 2+ 'Hrothgar's scop' 1456b

2

3yle 2+ hro6 1 gares2 +

'Hrothgar's spokesman' 1580a

3

1884b

2

t)on«e 2 -he / [h]ro5 2 "gares 2 +

'when he [slew] Hrothgar's [retainers]' +gi[fu] / hroQ 1+ gares 2+

'Hrothgar's gift' 1899a

3

ofer 2 + hro5 2 - gares /

'over Hrothgar's [treasure]' S 2 2020b

2

dohtor 2 hro8 1 gares2 ~

'Hrothgar's daughter' 2351b

3

sy53an 2 ~he°hro5 1+ gar[es] /

'since he [cleansed] Hrothgar's [hall]' It is possible now to eliminate some rules from the embarrassing riches afforded by

30

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

dative-inflected morphs. S 1 and S 2 seem to be generally consistent. Overt inflections are about equally distributed in this set between a-verses and ¿-verses. We are left with the final position in the half-line as the factor with only one exception for dative and genitive name forms together. Yet this is useless, since spacing differs — with one exception each — between the two case-inflected forms. With the forty-three occurrences of Hroögar's name before us we can provisionally eliminate as correlation features of spacing (a) differences in the two scribes' habits, (b) overt vs. - 0 inflection, (c) a-verse and 6-verse distribution, and (d) at least some distinctions in grammatical case. It may also be said that alliteration — coming either on or off the name — does not provide a correlating factor. The remnants — the exceptions — to the partial patterns noted for spacings of Hröd- and -gär may provide the clues for isolating the principles of spacing. These clues can be developed by extending the evidence. The two scribes wrote another two-part name, Hygelac, about an equal number of times (seventeen for S 1, fifteen for S 2), again in all singular case forms. A few halflines with this name belong to the same formula-systems as some containing Hrodgar. 335b

2

ic 1 _ eom 2 ~hroö 1 + gares /

'I am Hrothgar's [messenger]' 407b

2+

ic*eom 2_ hige 2+ laces 2

'I am Hygelac's [kinsman]' 342b

3

we°synt / higexlaces3

'We are Hygelac's [table-companions]' 339b

4

1820a

4

hro8 1 gar 2 "sohton •

'[you] sought out Hrothgar' hige 1+ lac 2 ~ secan2

'to go to Hygelac' A repeated formula shows up thus — arranged this time by a-verse and ¿-verse groups: 737a 914a 758b 813b 1530b

3+

maeg 3 ~hige 2 ~laces 4 nueg / hige2 "laces2 + 3 ~maeg2hige1laces2 + 2+ maeg 3 hyge 1- la / ces3 3 maeg2_hylaces2. 3

'Hygelac's kinsman' (There is good reason to disregard 1530b: on the same line the scribe wrote the next

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

31

word (wearp) as weap, then corrected it by a superscript r, and the name is spelled in a way not readily accountable for, indicating that the scribe was having trouble in the manuscript line.) The dative-inflected name does not show minimal spacing with the regularity with which Hrodgare does: S 1 452a

• On*send 3 ~ hige°lace3 'Send to Hygelac'

1483b

3_

hige 1 - lace 2 + onsend •

'send to Hygelac' 1830b

3

ic°on 2 hige 2 [lace] / wat 2 "

'I know in respect to Hygelac' S 2 1970b

2

hige°lace / wass1

'to Hygelac was [made known]' 2169b

2

2988b

3

~ hyge°lace1 waes /

'to Hygelac was' ~hige 1 lace°baer 2+ .

'bore to Hygelac' (Also, the first two of these last examples indicate that reversing words in a half-line may make a difference in spacing — either that or a-verse and ¿-verse alternation has that effect.) If minimal spacing is not a concomitant of dative case or a-verse and fevers e contrast, with Hygelac's name, it is regular in at least seven successive writings of the name (the MS. is damaged in the instance preceding this series): S 2 2169b

2-

hyge°lace 1 w£es /

'to Hygelac was' 2201b

3-

sy55an 2 " hyge°lac1 lasg •

'after Hygelac lay (dead)' 2355b / J ^ m o n 1 + h y g e ° l a c 1 + s l o h • 'where Hygelac was slain' 2372b

• S a u t e s / hyge°lac 2- dead • 'when Hygelac was dead'

2386b

2+

sunu 2 ~hyge°laces •

'Hygelac's son'

32

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

2434b • o58e1hyge°lac2min1 + 'or my Hygelac' 2914b

2

~ sy66an / higeMac^cwom1+.

'when Hygelac came' This is a curious collection. Though all come from S 2, he elsewhere writes the name with internal spacing. Though all occur in ¿-verses, other ¿-verses by the same scribe (as well as S 1) occur in this set. In one of the set (2386b) alliteration does not occur in the name. The sample is large enough now to make a beginning, and the clues seem to be clear. Let us turn to two recent metrical studies to see whether they can lead to the pattern. Bliss's scansion is based on grouping of syllables according to their degrees of stress in words (or as 'particles') and placement of caesura, and no assumption of isochronic rhythm; Pope's scansion (in The Rhythm of Beowulf) proceeds from a similar basis and does assume rhythmic regularity of stressed syllables. Both scan the half-lines (listed above) mseg higelaces as identical: spacing, however, is contrastive. Bliss marks, for example, as type d l b ( x x - x x ) the following: 335b 407b 717a 1399a

2

ic 1 - eom 2 ~hro5 1 + gares / ic*eom 2 ~ hige 2+ laces 2 3+ {)«i i he 3 - hrot) i gares 3 7 J)a*waes3+hro5*gare4;

2+

and as d 1 c, having one more syllable in anacrusis, 2914b

2

~ sy66an / hige^lac^cwom1+.

This kind of scansion is of no help, because the very places where differences in writing are most noticeable are not recognized at all by the classification of half-line types. One of these half-lines provides an especially striking conflict between timing features represented in the rhythm-based scansion by Pope and whatever timing features the manuscript may show if spacing can be shown finally to reflect them. Pope scans 717a as I i «T J* I J j l> indicating the longest duration between onset of syllable (or between syllable-peak?) in the two parts of the name Hrodgar; the manuscript leaves no space in that position only. Whatever the validity and value of these representative metrical analyses, they cannot help us here. We shall return to them, however, in Chapter V. If morphology, broad structure of the verse line, individual scribal habits, and the main traditions of scansion do not throw light on the spacing of the morphs in the manuscript, there is yet syntax. The genitive-inflected forms of Hrodgar have more

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

33

than minimal spacing between the elements of the name in all but one instance, and the syntax varies in providing contexts for the spaced morph-combinations: six of the eleven are post-nominal genitives, one is pre-nominal, with the noun in the same halfline; four are pre-nominal genitives with the noun in a following half-line; but the genitive Hrodgares with minimal spacing also is pre-nominal with the noun in a following half-line. With respect to morphology and word-order patterning no syntactic difference shows up at this level of analysis. The half-line with minimal spacing within the name is 717a pxt he hropgares; we can eliminate 1899a ofer hrodgares as not further similar in syntax. Of the remaining instances two are fairly close: 1580a ponne he hrodgares and 2351b syddan he hrodgares. It would be difficult to posit a plausible difference among the three conjunctive forms that would affect the spacing within the name. A more promising procedure is to work from the contexts to see whether some other difference in the expression may be present. The context of the last example is a passage on Beowulf's reaction to the news of the dragon's depradations. He has ordered a shield to be made, he feared not the imminent fight, 'nor did he fear at all the force of the dragon ..., because formerly he had survived many battles..., when he, the victory-blest man, had cleansed Hrodgar's hall.' In the second example. Beowulf is searching the lair of Grendel's dam (whom he has just struck down) for Grendel intending 'to repay Grendel for many attacks which he wrought against the Danes more often than once, when he struck at Hrodgar's retainers, ate up fifteen of the sleeping folk of the Danes, etc.' But in the first example the half-line occurs early in an understated sentence: 'That was not the first occasion that he [Grendel] visited Hrodgar's dwelling': 717

Ne waes Jjaet forma si3 J}£et he Hrodgares ham gesohte.

In the other contexts he is subject of a dependent clause that follows other clauses in which the hero has been both designated (by name or descriptive title) and referred to by the same pronoun he. In 717, by contrast, he is the initial and only designator of the actor, Grendel. Rhetorically, he in 717 also invites prominence through contrastive stress, for the sentence is one of the series first describing Grendel's approach to Hrodgar's hall: the pronoun is directly designative — it needs, so to speak, demonstrative force, and not to be merely grammatically referential. In short, there is a syntactic difference in the contexts of he in 717 and in 1580 and 2351, and probably a rhetorical difference as well. There is a difference which can make a difference. Syntactic features and graphic spacing seem to correspond, being congruently distributed. The analysis just given accounts for the one exception in the spacing of the two parts of genitive Hrodgares and can be regarded only as an ad hoc explanation unless it is shown to be an instance of regularly operating principles related to syntax or meter or perhaps both. If stress distribution, inferred from more than 'word' (or fixed-phrase) structure, inferred in fact from more than verse half-line structure, helps

34

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

to account for minimal spacing of parts of a name, then let us return to some of the instances of minimal spacing to test whether stress distributions inferred from the larger syntactic structures are correlated to spacing factors. Only one of the seven dative-inflected forms Hrodgare did not show minimal spacing within the name. Dative-inflected forms in Old English are not as restricted as, say, genitive-inflected forms as to position in a sentence in which they appear; their position is in part contingent upon presence or absence of a preposition, presence or absence of accusative forms, nominal vs. pronominal form-class, etc. In some positions in a clause, at least, they may have constituted phonological phrases in themselves, or headed a phrase that included a preceding preposition, especially if they are nouns rather than pronouns. Some illustration may clarify this — all examples are marked as if prose in matter-of-fact, narrative, non-contrastive statement. 2

3 1 ^ He was Hro5g&r. 'He was Hro3gar.' 3 1# 2 H£ sohte Hr66g£r. 'He visited HroSgar.' 2 ^ 3 2 11 HroQg&r md^elode. ... 'HroSgar spoke. ...' 23 2|2 3 2[2 3 1# Hr63glr ond Hr6j)iilf geJjEegon medoful mdnig. 'HroSgar and Hrojmlf partook of many a mead-cup.' 23 2|23 2|2 3 1# S6 wafes HroSgSre h&lejja l^ofost. 'He was to HroSgar the most beloved of warriors.' 2|4l^ofost.1# or ...23haelejDa 2 2|2 3 2| 23 2|4 1 # ... l>one selestan ... Jjiira £>e mid Hr63g&re hdm eahtode. 2 3 2|2 3 1 # ... J»one selestan ... Jj&ra Jje ham eahtode mid HroSglre. '... the best ... of those who with HroSgar ruled the dwelling.'

Now if in at least certain positions in the order of sentence elements these dativecentered constructions constituted phonological phrases in themselves, any part of a sentence, either preceding or following this construction, would consist of at least one phonological phrase and would consequently have at least one primary stress. We may ask, then, how should all this be manifest in variation of spacing in the writing of the speech? The well-known drill in Modern English that begins "English is easy" illustrates the principle to be introduced at this point. Both the following are normal: 2 3 i # (a*) English is easy. 23 2|2 3 1 # (a) English is easy.

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

35

The latter is congruent in its superfix structure with the following: 2|2 3 1 # English is very easy. 2 3, 2|2 3 1 # (c) The English lesson is very 6asy. (b)

23

Furthermore, the interval between stress (and pitch) peaks is about equal for a, b, and c, and can easily be fully equalized without distorting any of the utterances. If we assume that Old English and Modern English are alike in being stress-timed, we should expect that morphic elements of a construction will occur more rapidly under one phrasal superfix than the same set of elements under two phrasal superfixes. Writing, if it were to reflect the difference in rate by variation in spacing, would show minimal spacing between, say, separable parts of a fixed phrase when the construction of which it is a part came under a single phrasal superfix. So long, therefore, as it seems clear that verse half-lines manifested two major 'metrical' stresses, we should expect dative-inflected Hröögäre to appear with minimal spacing in every instance in which the half-line in which it occurs contains other sentence materials that the structure of the sentence indicates may constitute a phrase — i.e., contain a primary stress. As we saw earlier, all but one dative-inflected Hröögäre has minimal spacing; all but that one occurs at the end of a half-line containing material that may and even in prose probably would constitute a phrasal unit. (Some details of the syntactic analysis of three of these examples were given in Chapter I.) The minimally spaced Hröö- and -gares in 717 is explained in parallel fashion. The one exception (1990b) may be attributable to S 2 just beginning his part of the manuscript, to less precision in spacing (the space of one minim intervenes), to chance, or to the construction itself: it may be that the other materials in the half-line, ac öü, were not in this sentence part of a separate ('prose') phrase. In short, the exception may not be an exception; there is insufficient evidence upon which to base a decision. Another set may also be explained in the same way. The seven successive occurrences of Hygelac's name beginning at 2169b, as we saw, have minimal spacing between the parts of the name, though they include all case forms as suffixes and represent all syntactic cases but vocative. Six of the constructions have sentence material following the name that presumably could stand under a separate stress morpheme if meter required it — phrase- (or sentence-) final verbs, adjective complement, postnominal determinative (possessive) pronoun. The other, sunu hygelaces (2386b), as we shall see, could have had internal spacing in the name without causing surprise. Still other examples may be explained in this way, and many more may be added if the general proportions of the spacing in the manuscript lines involved are taken into consideration. Three instances will suffice. In 152a hwile wiö Hröpgär, minimal spacing occurs within the accusative form of the name, and the prepositional phrase appears to form a separate phonological phrase. Stress on both name and verb is to be expected in 662a Dä him Hröpgär gewät (and similarly in 1236a), hence the minimal spacing that appears between the parts of the name. In 277b Ic pses Hröögär mzg, the

36

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

space of one minim within the name is less than half the space preceding and following the name. We have accounted for the exception to the usual spacing of genitive Hrodgares and have gone further to account for other data. The second side of this explanatory procedure has to do with more than minimal spacing of the elements of a fixed phrase, here illustrated with names. In all but the one occurrence of Hrodgares there is at least the space for one minim between the elements of the name, but never as much as the space for two. Let us consider that in so far as genitive inflection is a concomitant of more limited syntactic characteristics than are most other noun inflections, the internal spacing of genitiveinflected nominal forms may, too, have essentially syntactic correlates. A genitiveinflected nominal form occurs contiguous with a noun — normally before the noun in prose, either before or after the noun in verse; exceptions seem to belong to elaborations in verse, to 'variation', involving syntactically 'interruptive' constructions; the discontinuous constructions are peculiar to poetry. If we may assume the noun phrase superfix of normal speech in Old English to have been congruent to that of Modern English in the same way that ordering of elements of the phrase is congruent, the stress on any element of a noun phrase preceding the noun was less than that on the noun, e.g., Hropgares scop (1066b) 'HroQgar's scop'; a following genitive form, terminating a substantival construction, would stand under the heavier stress, as cwen Hrddghres (613a) 'the queen of HroSg&r'; or, 1009b Healfdenes stinu 1040b sunu Healfdenes

'Healfdene's son' 'the son of HSalfdene.'

In Modern English it is possible to separate the last example into two phonological phrases, the son and of Healfdene; but the construction can be quite normally a single phonological phrase, and, if the construction is rendered as two phrases they must be linked phonologically under a larger superfix pattern, a complex contour. The point is this: genitive-inflected names and nouns are determinative, tied to a noun in contiguity, and associated with the noun by a single phrase superfix or by a complex superfix contour if metrical factors require that the construction be broken into two phonological phrases. Any half-line, therefore, consisting of a genitive-inflected noun or name and the noun it 'modifies' will necessarily distribute the two stresses of the meter between the two words; the rapidity of the syllable sequence will be less than that of the same sequence under one stress morpheme: 2 3 ^ i (a) Heo waes Hrodgares cwen. 23 2|2 3 1 (b) H6o waes Hrodgares cwSn. 23 2|2 3 2|4 ^ 1 (c) H6o waes Hrodgares cwen.

# 'She was HroQgar's queen.' # #

37

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

On the model of the "English is easy" set, the speed of succession of the non-inflectional syllables of Hröögäres decreases throughout this set. To have only cwen Hröögäres within a phrasal unit, to correspond to the text of the poem, we may take this sample marked first as prose: 2

3

2\2

^

3

2\\

(d) Eode Wealhf^ow förö, cwen Hröögäres, etc.

(612b-613a)

'Wealhtheow went forth, Hrothgar's queen.' Now if two primary stresses are imposed by meter upon a morphologically defined two-word phrase, not only must linking occur (presumably by pitch contours), but the rate of succession of syllables can be reduced even further: 2

3

2|23

2||2

2|3

2||

Eode WealhJj^ow forth cw6n Hr6ögäres, etc.

If distinctive spacing between parts of the name is to reflect the timing, it will surely reflect it under these circumstances; it does in fact occur every time as as much space as can be given without tending to equal the space between other morphic sequences in the line. Again it will not be necessary to deal in full with similar instances. The regularity of more than minimal spacing of Hröd- and -gär may be predicted from the presumable prose counterpart, for example, of this construction — 2

3

211

Hroögär majjelode. ...

'Hroögar spoke. ...'

Accusative and vocative instances of the name have a minim's space (or more) in halflines consisting of the name and a preceding adjective or appellative: glxdne Hrödgär (863a), glxdman Hrödgär (367b), peoden Hrödgär (417a). On the other hand, the presumable juncture, in prose, between the words Hrödgär leofa (1483a) would not require linkage by complex contour (of pitch), but only by raising the juncture from /|/ to /||/, in turn tending to take up the timing in the juncture rather than by slowing the succession of syllables in the fixed-phrase (the name). How much allowance we should make for chance deviation from any principles of spacing must also be decided. Any extended sample of handwriting is bound to show some variation. It was mentioned above that if the proportions between spacing within a fixed-phrase and that on both sides of it are taken into account, the regularity of the scribal habits appears all the greater. So long as the principle of contrast is not compromised, we need not restrict the analysis to the specific numerical values assigned to the spacing at any given point. Also, any apparent deviations from the principle call for additional scrutiny, if the principle and its efficacy are to be understood fully. Further samples may now be introduced for preliminary measure of the deviation

38

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

and efficacy of the phonological-syntactical basis for accounting for spacing-variation. The best samples lie in further occurrences of names containing two etymological root morphemes, since it is reasonable to suppose that they were recognized by the scribes every time as single morphemes (as proper names) and not as morpheme sequences. Some occur with enough frequency to warrant significant inferences, especially when they recur in identical formulas. Ecgjjeow's name occurs sixteen times, twice with nominative - 0 inflection, fourteen times with genitive inflection. All sixteen occurrences are in ¿-verses. The two scribes differ in writing the name — S I using p, S 2 using 6 consistently. But in the genitive-inflected forms the spacing between the parts of the name is consistently less than the spacing before and after the name. It varies from no space to enough space for one minim. For example: 529b 3 + beam 1 + ecgpeowes/ 957b 3 + beam 1 + ec1 Jjeowes3 1550b 2+ sunu 1+ ecg°beowes 2+ 1817b 3 bearn 2 "ecgpeowes 2 S 2 2398b / sunu2ecg*5eowes • SI

'son of Ecgtheow' If this variation seems allowable, since at least internal spacing contrasts with spacing on either side of the name, we must grant that the exception to the spacing of genitive Hrodgares was something of a lucky thing, given the cue it afforded; it could about as easily not have apeared with spacing contrastive with other genitive forms as 1550b ecgpeowes appears here as a deviant from the principle outlined above. But let us add the nominative forms of this name: 263b

3

373b

3

ecg°J)eow2haten •

'named Ecgtheow' ecg2]jeo2haten2 +

'named Ecgtheow' These two should be alike, but appear to add to 1550b ecgpeowes a second exception, whichever one we designate as a departure from the norm. The compounds with ecg-, in both nouns and names, show features of special interest, though. While there is only one instance of lack of space in ecgpeowes, one spelling (always emended to ecg-) is ecpeowes, in 957b, with some spacing before -peowes. It is about the same space as that filled by g in 1550b, where the letter is shortened, narrowed, and made to overlap the preceding c in a way not normal to S l's writing (the letter has the shape 3). Elsewhere we find these related compounds: 1262a

/to 1 _ ecg°banan 2 '[became] slayer-with-the-sword'

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

39

2893a / up l ofer 2 + ecg 2 ~ clif 2 'up over the sea-cliff' 84a

/ l>«/ 0 se 1 -secg 2+ hete 2+ 'that the hostility'

1738a

3+

ecg 2 he[te]/eowe8 3 ~

'manifests hostility' 596a

3

980b

2

atole 2 ecg 2 "t)rsece /

'terrible sword-storm (i.e., fight)' sunu / ecMafes2

'Ecglaf's son' (In 84a, secg- is regularly emended to ecg-.) The one exception among these, in 1262a, to full spacing between the elements of the compounds with ecg- again shows the modified j (i.e., g) in the space for a two-minim letter; S l's 3 is usually wider than a normal two-minim letter. It is safe to guess that in 1262a and 1550b the scribe remembered to put in the 3 after having written the word without it, but overlooked the omission in 957b and 980b. The two (nominative) occurrences of Ecgjseow's name, then, appear to have had internal spacing of the morphic elements which was lost in one instance, 263b, by addition of 3; the crowding of the letter is evident from its modified shape. The reason for omission of 3 from ecg- compounds in the four instances — an omission made good three times — is not easy to explain. Neither the Old English grammars nor the editions account satisfactorily for it, and citations in the Bosworth-Toller Dictionary do not offer obvious clues. Nevertheless, once the original omissions are noticed, it is clear that the scribal habits for writing Ecgfceow's name conform to the principle derived above, thereby providing further confirmation of the principle, and measuring further the efficacy of the principle. The rhythm of 263b should be deduced from 373b, and not the other way around, if spacing is to be taken into account. The writing of Ecglaf's name may also be noticed. S 1 wrote it in all five occurrences, all with genitive inflection, always with minimal spacing even in the exceptional spelling eclafes (980b). Further tests, on the other hand, turn up more variability in the spacing of components of a name than the ecg- compounds suggest. Healfdene's name offers a prominent example. The name occurs seventeen times, sixteen of which have genitive (singular) inflection. (Healfdena, genitive plural, as a tribal name, also occurs once.) In the sixteen identical forms — three written by S 2 — the spacing varies to the extent illustrated in these half-lines: 189b

3_

maga 2 + healf i denes 2

40

GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

645a 1652b 1867a 2143b 1009b

2

sunu 2 healf 2- denes / sunu 2 healf i denes / 3+ mago 2+ healf 1 denes 3 2+ maga / healf*denes • 2+ healf 1 denes 2+ sunu 2 ". 2+

'son of Healfdene' Spacing within the name contrasts with that on either side of the name, though internal spacing is widely variable. Other compounds with -dene show other variations. To take but two examples: 601a / to i gar 2 denum 2 'from the Spear-Danes' 1856b

2

o«i/°gar2denum2.

'and for the Spear-Danes' Metrical stress can fall on only the etymological roots in the name and not on the preposition or conjunction; hence the wide spacing within the name is to be expected on grounds derived above. To sum up. The spacing between elements of fixed-phrases, represented in this chapter by names, contrasts generally with spacing of the fixed-phrases among adjoining morphs. There are further contrasts of degree of spacing between the elements of the names. These contrasts are correlated with syntactic characteristics of the larger construction in which they occur to a much higher degree than they are correlated with morphology. They are not significantly correlated with the different scribal hands, position in the verse line, or other factors attendant upon their context or production. And the degree of correlation of spacing characteristics with syntactic features appears to be sufficiently high to warrant concluding — for the material at hand — that syntax and spacing are causally related and both interact in some way with meter.

IV PHONOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC CORRELATES O F SOME GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS

Syntax, metrical stresses, and spacing of morphs in the manuscript of Beowulf interact in some ways, as we have seen. Whether these sets of features interact systematically except in occurrences of proper names must be considered next. We shall continue to use morph sequences defined by their inflectional, syntactic, and semantic characteristics as compounds. Compound nouns whose second element is -rxs offer a limited, varied, and typical set with which to begin. They are listed in full in order of occurrence. S 1

300a

2

t>»i1l)one3hilde2raes /

'that the storm-of-battle' 526a

4

6eah i l)u 1 + heaSo 1 + raesa 3 "

'though thou the storm-of-battle' 557b

3

heat>o2~raes / for 1 + n a m 2

'storm-of-battle destroyed' 824a

2

~ aefter / J)am2wasl°rasse3

'after the murderous-rush' 1047b

3

heaJ)o 2 + rassas 2 + geald 2 -

1519b

2+

'paid-for the storms-of-battle' masgen 2 ~ r s s 1 + for*geaf 3

'gave mighty-impetus' 1577b

2+

gu3*raesa / fela 3

'many war-rushes' S 2 2072a

• hond*raes 2 haele3a 2+ 'hand-fight of warriors'

42

PHONOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC CORRELATES

2101a

3

me°t)one2~wael1+raes1

'[recompensed] me for the murderous-rush' 2426b

2

gu5*raesa / genaes2

'[I] survived [many] war-rushes' 2531a

1

after / wael*raese2

'after the murderous-rush' 2947a

2

wael*raes / weora 2 -

'murderous-rush of men' 2991a

2

geald1t)one1+gu61raes1.

'requited the war-rush' The lexical sets do not altogether correspond to sets established by the spacing within the compounds: while headoraes has apparently 'full' spacing (526, 557, 1047) and wxlrxs (824, 2101, 2531, 2947) usually has minimal spacing, gudrss (1577, 2426, 2991) has some variation. Several other sets show as much or more correlation with manuscript spacing. Accusative-inflected compounds (300, 1047, 1519, 2101, 2991) have 'full' spacing, except for 2991 which is ambiguous. The compounds construed with genitive plural forms (and fela) in the same half-line (1577, 2072, 2947) have minimal spacing. Once again it is necessary to test the patterns of correspondence further, until any provisional formulation must be discarded or until it can be considered adequate to describe the characteristics of the language, the meter, and the scribal habits. Variations of spacing within sets established by the shared feature of case inflection were shown, in the instance of names, not to be correlated with the morphological factor. It is the same with common nouns, as the following minimally spaced accusative forms show — a few examples from many, with some adjective compounds — countering the pattern of the accusative-inflected compounds with -rxs : 120a

2-

won°sceaft 2 wera/

'the misery of men' 899a / ofer2wer*l>eode3 'across nations' 1410a

/enge 2+ an*pa5as 3 'narrow (single-file-) path'

1416a

3

wyn°leasne / wudu 3 -

'the joyless wood'

PHONOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC CORRELATES 2+

1919a

43

wudu 2 ~wyn°suman 2+

'the fair wood (i.e., ship)' 1995a

2

2456a

3

~ t ^ S u ^ o n e 2 ~ wael^gsst2 ~

'that you [not approach] that murderous-spirte' ~win°sele 1+ west / ne2~

'the deserted wine-hall' Nor is there a sufficient regularity in spacing of half-lines consisting of a compound noun with a genitive plural form to appear significant. A brief test will show this, using hondrxs hxleda as the basis for comparison. 2072a

• hond*raes2h®leSa2+ 'hand-fight of warriors'

467a / hord 3+ burh 2+ haele^a • 'treasure-city of warriors' 1198a

3+

1047a

3

hord 2- ma[6]um 2+ h£eleJ)a /

'treasure of warriors' hord 1 +weard2haele / Jm3

'treasure-guard of warriors' 1852a

3

"hord 1 + weard 2 + h®lel)a/.

'treasure-guard of warriors' Minimal and full spacing alternate in other instances of this syntactic pattern: 430a

2+

657a

3

freo*wine/folca 2 +

'noble-friend of the folk' 6ryJ) 1+ aern 1+ dena 3 ~

'mighty-hall of the Danes' 120a

2

~won°sceaft 2 wera /

'the misery of men' 1171a

3

gold 1 wine 3 gume / na 2 +

'gold-friend of men'

44

PHONOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC CORRELATES

1028b

3

1411b

3

gum 1 + man 1 na / fela 2 +

'many men' ~nicor 3 + husa 2 ~fela • etc.

'many abodes-of-water-monsters' If, though, we have reason inferred from the writing of names to expect some congruence in the spacing of compound nominals in similar syntactic and metrical constructions, then either the inference was false and the scribal habits of spacing were manifest only in the writing of names, or there is a factor not yet isolated to account for the different characteristics of spacing within compounds shown in the last set of examples. On the basis of writings of beorsele with which we began in Chapter I, it should be expected that nouns and names will show similar characteristics of internal spacing for compound forms and any differences will be distributed so as to indicate the operation of another principle of writing, or random variation. There is similar spacing within the compound in some sets of half-lines already cited. These are similar — 824a

2

~£efter / J>am2wael°raese3

2531a

1

'after the murderous-rush' sefter / wael^rase2 —

'after (the) murderous-rush' and these are similar — 1577b

2+

guS*rsesa / fela 3

'many war-rushes' 2072a

• hond±raes2fela2+

2947a

2

'hand-fight of warriors' wael*raes / weora 2 ~ —

'murderous-rush of men' and both contain examples in the hands of both scribes. We have also seen the consistency of 1198a

3+

1047a

3

hord 2 ~ma[3]um 2+ hsele{)a /

'treasure of warriors' hord 1 +weard2h£ele / J>a3

PHONOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC CORRELATES 3

1852a

45

~hord 1+ weard 2+ haele]3a /.

'treasure-guard of warriors' Elsewhere we find S 1 396a S 2 2049a 2605a

2

under 1 here 2+ griman 3 ~ • under 2+ here 1 griman 2 1+ under / here'griman 1 + , 'under {i.e., wearing) war-masks'

and there are a great many other sets consisting of identical half-lines that are spaced internally in nearly congruent patterns. Any additional principle or principles of spacing must be sought, as before, in contrastive circumstances. Some sample sets of half-lines in which spacing is contrastive even though syntax and other characteristics are alike are the following. (a)

33a

2

~isig / e*he2 " win1 ~ reced 2+

'to where he [might perceive] the wine-building'

PHONOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC CORRELATES

2410a

59

• to*~]3£es05e / h e ^ o r ó ^ s e l e 2 - . 'to where he [knew] the earth-building'

It also produces more extensive sets of data such that, for example, only the initial connectives in the following pair of half-lines need be considered in metrical and syntactic analysis: 482a

/ {)«f1hie2in0beor*sele3 'that they in the beer-hall'

2233a

3

swa* "hy 1+ on*gear*~da / [gum]7,

'as they in former-days' It remains to see what kind of interaction there may be between syntax and spacing with compound nouns and adjectives in relation to meter, given the conditions defined in the course of this chapter. Direct comparison with constructions involving names analyzed in Chapter III is not practical: names and adjectives do not occur in identical constructions, though some comparison may be warranted between such partially similar constructions as Hrédric ond Hroómund and yrre ond anrxd; nor are names and nouns fully comparable despite their morphological congruences, and there are in fact almost no identical constructions of significance in which compound nouns and names may be found to contrast. If it is possible to demonstrate briefly that variations in spacing involving compound nouns and adjectives are concomitants of syntactic and metrical differences, we may then proceed to examine stretches of discourse longer than the half-line of verse and inquire further into the relations of writing, meter, and syntax. The pair of half-lines cited just above offer a ready example. The first, 482a ¡>xt hie in béorsele, was given preliminary analysis in Chapter I, and need be described here only as consisting of two phrasal units pxt hie and in béorsele; in accordance with the model represented in Chapter III by "English is easy, etc." the speed of the sequence of beor- and -sele will be greater than that of the same sequence when a half-line consists of only in béorsele (as in 492a, 1094a, 2635a) and each element of the compound falls under a metrical stress. The other half-line, 2233a swá hy on géardagum, has spacing characteristics parallel to those of the other half-line; again there are contrasting instances in lb in géardagum and 1354apone on géardagum in which enough space for two minims (or more) is left between the elements of the compound. One explanation holds for this set of data and proceeds in the same manner as that used to correlate spacing, syntax, and meter with spacing within names. The won- compounds are mutually contrastive and provide a set with minimum chance for extraneous factors to affect the spacing, for they occur within just over three hundred lines, all in a-verses, and in one scribal hand:

60

PHONOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC CORRELATES

434a

2+

105a

2

for 1 his 2 won 2 hydum/

'for his recklessness' won 1 sasli 1+ wer 2+

'unhappy man' 120a

2

~ won°sceaft2 wera /.

'the misery of men' For 434a there is no reason in the context, alliterative pattern, or other matters to infer stress for the preposition or determinative pronoun, hence if two metrical stresses are to occur they must fall on the two elements of wonhydum; linguistically we should expect therefore an increase in the interval between the syllable peaks, and that is what the spacing of the manuscript apparently implies. For 105a, the structure of attributive adjective preceding the noun it 'modifies' implies secondary and primary linguistic stresses on won- and wer which, when falling under metrical stress-points and separated by two lesser-stressed syllables, may be inferred to have conditioned a syllable-rate more rapid than that for wonhydum but less rapid than the rate that would be conditioned by an intervening combination of syllable(s) and terminal juncture. The spacing corresponds to the inferred syllable-rate, expecially when the third instance is considered, in which wonsceaft may be inferred in similar ways (by analogy with Modern English and the examples in Chapter III) to be separated from wera by a terminal juncture /|/, the two phonological phrases linked by complex pitch contour. The explanation offered here can be tested by adducing further examples in which a compound noun precedes a genitive plural form with which it structures, in the same half-line, and the compound has phonological characteristics permitting minimal spacing to occur. Several have been cited earlier in this chapter; to these may be added as analogically corroborative some instances in which minimal spacing is not permitted, yet variations of spacing are congruent to those in which minimal spacing occurs: the set headed by hondrzs hxleda early in this chapter, for example, shows three of four constructions to have congruent variations of spacing. Postnominal adjectives together with the noun they modify, both in the same half-line, are syntactically similar to constructions represented already by wonsceaft wera; they exhibit parallel characteristics of spacing, as may be illustrated by 2456a winsele westne and 1919a wudu wynsuman, both cited earlier. We may conclude, then, that compound names, nouns, and adjectives — though each class may be subject to some special rules of its own — exhibit variations in spacing that are related to systemic factors of syntax and meter, and all classes share some of the same rules regarding occurrence of variations.

V GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER O F

BEOWULF

To pursue an analysis of other morph combinations at the fixed-phrase level with the thoroughness of the foregoing analyses of names, nouns, and adjectives would be to delay unnecessarily the examination of continuous text. The findings in such further analysis would be of little value to the present study, for the only other large group of fixed morph combinations is that of verbs. One of the two elements of verbs — aside from inflectional suffixes — is normally a first element properly classified as a prebase: a-, be-, ge-,for-, on-, od-, o f , to-, ofer-, ymb-, ed-. Except for and- in andswarian (which probably should not be analyzed as a prebase), these elements have a lower degree of stress, major stress coming on the second (root) morph of the verb. For this reason, apparently, none of the prefixed elements except in andswarian is employed in the alliterative pattern of a verse line, or seems to fall under metrical stress. Analysis of the spacing of verb prebases and root morphs would consequently not show the position of and hence the interval between metrical stresses. Adverbial morph combinations can be dealt with on the basis of their inferred stress patterns and their morphological affinity to adjectives. Whether continuous text of Beowulf exhibits evidence of concomitant variation in spacing, syntax, and meter may now be considered in some detail. The systematic nature of the spacing of elements of compounds should lead us to expect that the scribal habits manifest in the writing of fixed-phrases may also be manifest in free phrases and their combinations. That some effects of these habits can be traced here and there in prose, as we saw in Chapter I, prompts the same expectation. Perhaps the best way to begin is to sort the evidence in an extended passage of the poem first in terms of the gross contrasts in spacing, then proceed to lesser contrasts and the deviations from the patterns of correlation that appear at various stages of analysis. Following is a line-by-line transcription of a segment of the manuscript text (11. 433-455), with superscript numerals added to indicate the spacings. Text no longer legible is supplied in italic. This segment of the manuscript is in many ways typical of the work of S 1, and appears to be uninterrupted copying. Very few letters are missing, there seems to be only one alteration, at f. 141 v, 1. 13, and that is within one word (sldne). The edited text, according to Klaeber, is given subsequently. f. 141v

3+

haebbe 1+ ic*eac

62

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

10 geahsod3-l)aet0se1+ffiglaeca2+for1his2won2hydum w£ep+na2neirec1ce5 • ic^aet 1+ J)onne 2+ for 1 hicge swa1 ~me2hige+lac2~sie3~min1mon1+drihten modes2bli5e • J)astiicisweord2+bere3~oJ)5e2sidne scyld3~gealo2~rand2to1gut)e • ac1 -ic*mid 15 grape 2+ sceal 2+ fon 1 wid2feonde2+7*ymb feorh3 ~ sacan3 ~la31 +wixm2 ~gu32sele3geo 20 tena 3 leode 3 "etan 2 ~unfor 1 hte i swa 2 he f. 142r oft 2+ dyde 3- maegen 2 hre3 2- manna2+na7/>u min 2 ne 1+ j)earft 2+ hafalan 2 hydan • ac1he me2habban2 wile3deore2fahne3 ~gif1 "mec dea5 2- nime3 • byre52+blodig2~wael3_byrgean 5 J>ence32ete31 ¿ingen*ga2un*murnlice mear^caS 2+ mor 2 ~hopu 2 no°3u 2+ ymb 2 ~ mines ne1 +t»earft3lices1 + feorme 3 leng 1+ sorgi an • Onisend3-hige°lace3gif*mec2hild nime4beadu2 ~ scruda 2+ betst 2 ~ {)aet0mine2breost 10 were33+hrasgla2selest2t>Eet°is2+hraedlan2 ~laf welandes2ge1 ~ weorc2gae51 ~ a°wyrd*swa°+hio*scel •

435

440

445

450

'Hsebbe ic eac geahsod, Jjaet se aeglsca for his wonhydum waepna ne recceQ; ic Jjaet Jionne forhicge, swa me Higelac sle, min mondrihten modes bliSe, t>£et ic sweord bere ojjde sidne scyld, geolorand to gu^e, ac ic mid grape sceal fon wi5 feonde ond ymb feorh sacan, la3 wi3 laj>um; 3xr gelyfan sceal Dryhtnes dome se fie hine dea3 nime8. Wen' ic f>aet he wille, gif he wealdan mot, in J)sm guSsele Geotena leode etan unforhte, swa he oft dyde. mtegen HreSmanna. Na ]du mlnne Jiearft hafalan hydan, ac he me habban wile d[r]eore fahne, gif mec dea3 nime3; byre3 blodig wael, byrgean fenced, ete3 angenga unmurnlice, mearcaS morhopu; no 3u ymb mines ne {jearft lices feorme leng sorgian.

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

63

Onsend Higelace, gif mec hild nime, beaduscruda betst, Jjaet mine breost were3, hraegla selest; J>aet is Hraedlan laf, 455 Welandes geweorc. Gae6 a wyrd swa hio seel!' 'I have also learned (by inquiry) that the monster, because of his recklessness, cares not about weapons; I therefore scorn (that), as Hygelac may be to me, (Hygelac) my liege-lord, gracious of mind, that I should bear sword or broad shield — yellow-shield - to the battle, but I with grasp shall grapple with the enemy and contend for his life, foe against foe; there shall leave himself to the judgment of the lord he whom death takes. I expect that he intends, if he may manage it, in the battle-hall the people of the Geats to eat fearlessly, as he often has done, the military-force of Geats. Not at all will you need to hide my head, but he will have me stained with dripping-blood if death takes me; he will carry off the corpse, he intends to taste of (it), (he) the lone-goer will eat ruthlessly, will mark [with blood] the moor-retreats; not at all need you concerning my body's sustenance be troubled longer. Send to Hygelac, if the battle takes me, the best of war-garments that protects my breast — the best of corselets; that is a heritage of Hrethel, the work of Weland. Fate goes ever as it must.' Typically, spacing between half-lines of verse — whether within verse-lines or from one line to the next — is greater more often than not than is spacing between morphs within the half-lines; in this sample it is greater in three-fourths of the half-line terminations. In five other positions spacing cannot be assessed, since termination of verse half-line and manuscript line coincide. Wherever half-line spacing is clearly greater there is, on the evidence of morphological and word-order analysis, a juncture point. (The evidence for identifying these juncture points is that which governs editorial punctuation, on which in the case of Beowulf there is a high degree of consistency among editions.) Yet there are a few half-line terminations with spacing about equal to spacing between at least two constituent words or morphs, and a few terminations with less spacing between preceding or succeeding morphs. Together these equal or lesser spacing terminations represent no less than ten percent of the

64

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

half-line divisions, perhaps as much as fifteen percent, depending on how closely the differences in the intervals are to be measured. Some of these, too, occur at unquestioned juncture points. If the greater half-line spacing were taken as a correlate merely of the occurrence of terminal juncture, we should have to say — on the basis of this sample — that the scribe's habits were somewhat less fixed in this respect than in some other respects identified in Chapters III and IV. Those positions in which less spacing occurs between half-lines than between morph constituents of the preceding half-line are within 11. 444, 450, 453. Let us begin with 453 and first posit certain features on the basis of morphology, word-order characteristics, and inferred suprasegmentals. Each of the half-lines in the major sentence unit, 452a-454a, is a separate construction capable of standing under a separate superfix. Major stresses are inferred from patterns of word-stress and alliterative patterns of the verse, as well as analogy with Modern English, to fall on the following morphs: -send Higehild nime beadu- betst breost wereS hraegla sel-. Terminal junctures between half-line constructions, inferred from the pattern of sentence elements and the dramatic context, may be posited as follows: Onsend Higelace 11 gif mec hild nime 11 beaduscruda betst | £>aet mine breost wereS 11 hraegla selest. # The position marked here as /|/ is that in which less than normal half-line spacing occurs. The posited occurrence of /|/ is not sufficient condition to account for the lesser spacing, however, for greater half-line spacing can be found in more instances than not where the same juncture will be inferred. Once again it appears to be necessary to consider the rate of syllable-utterance in relation to major stresses and junctures. The phrase preceding the half-line point concludes with a stressed syllable (it is a "Type E" half-line), and the one following begins with three syllables, in two words, preceding the first major stress in the b half-line. There are very few a-b halfline sequences in the portion of the poem copied by S 1 that are exactly parallel in number and pattern of word-stress. (In traditional — Sievers and Bliss — scansion the pattern is "Type E" followed by a 'foot' with three syllables in anacrusis preceding two major stresses in succession.) In 190, 1536, 1584, 1613 there is clearly an intervening juncture greater than /|/; in 545 the half-line point comes at the end of a manuscript line; in two others — 573 unfaegne eorl,

Wyrd oft nere5 J)onne his ellen deah!

'Wyrd often saves the undoomed nobleman when his courage is strong.'

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

65

and 633

Ic Jjaet hogode, f>a ic on hold gestah, sjebat gesaet mid minre secga gedriht ... 'I resolved that, when I set out on the ocean, sat down in the sea-boat with my band of men ..

— there is little basis other than rhetorical considerations and spacing between the half-lines for deciding whether the juncture was understood (by the scribe or perhaps an earlier writer) to be /1/ or /| |/. Since it is the spacing that is to be assessed for possible significance at this stage, any decision on 573 and 633 should be deferred. Though the evidence does not warrant a firm conclusion for 453, we may put down tentatively, on the basis of the passages mentioned so far, that three syllables of anacrusis following a half-line terminating in a major stress, with no more than /|/ to be inferred between half-line constructions, tends to produce less than the usual spacing between half-lines of verse. Another instance with lesser spacing between half-lines occurs in 444, in the passage reproduced above. The spacing is only half that required for a minim — a very rare circumstance in the text of the poem. There are only two other a-b half-line sequences in S l's hand with just the same number and pattern of word-stress elements. One occurs in 833, in which half-line point and manuscript line-end coincide; the other occurs in 1808, where the juncture is probably /||/ and spacing is normal for between half-lines. The sequence of key stresses in 444, inferred from word-stress and alliteration is as follows: etan linforhte,

swa he oft dyde .

Four syllables between un- and oft — if the interval between recurrence of major stresses is approximately equal throughout the line — implies a rapidity modeled in the spacing in the manuscript text. If exact parallel in number and pattern of stresses is more restrictive than the nature of the data warrants, other lines may be compared to 444; the following line (445) may be selected for convenience: msegen Hr^Qmanna.

Na ]du minne Jjearft. ...

If the difference in syllable-count of oft and of minne may be disregarded (as it probably should be, both words carrying stress and alliteration), then the difference in spacing of half-lines depends on the intervening juncture, if anything other than chance. A closely similar line is the third one listed as having lesser spacing between halflines in the passage reproduced above. In 450 a / # / presumably intervenes between the half-lines, with the inferred pattern here shown: mearcad morhopu # no 5u ymb mines ne {jearft. ... There are no exact parallels in sequence of stresses in the verse line in the copy provided

66

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

by S 1. The five syllables in four morphs intervening between mor- and mines, again if syllable-rate is contingent upon interval between stresses, would conform to the pattern set by the spacing — in this instance the number of morphs (and secondarily, syllables) overriding the effect of the terminal / # / . The balance between the kind of juncture inteverning between half-lines and the number of less-stressed morphs intervening between the major-stressed morph on either side of the half-line boundary seems to be fairly exact. Lines 438 and 446 are nearly alike in distribution of stresses; both have a point separating the half-lines, and three syllables of anacrusis in the b half-line do not produce lesser spacing between the half-lines. In 441, where there are three morphs containing five unstressed syllables around the half-line division, there is normal half-line spacing and we need infer no more than /|/ between the halves of the line. It appears that beyond the limits approximated in the examples of 453, 444, 450, the construction in the b half-line was broken into segments with the result that lesser spacing between half-lines was not registered. The breaking into smaller constructions, in fact, seems to occur in both b and a half-lines, and the greater the number of morphs (and unstressed syllables) the more pronounced the division by spacing into constituent constructions. A clear example of this is the following, which begins a new sentence following Higelace onsend: 1484a

• maeg / }3onne2onij32em1 + golde 2+ ongitan 3 ~. '[The lord of the Geats] may then perceive in that gold.'

In 291, 689, 1601, which are similar in this respect to 441, there are both an inferrable /||/ or / # / and one more syllable of anacrusis in the b half-line, and in all three the spacing between half-lines is normal. We should return now to what has been referred to as 'normal' or 'usual' spacing between half-lines. It has been noted that the spacing is greater, in more instances than not, than within the contiguous half-line constructions; it has also been noted that the evidence of morphology and word-order patterning in Old English marks these half-line boundaries as juncture points. Now since in the manuscript greater spacing occurs in most instances at these places, and since the subsequent half-line may begin with a stressed syllable or with one, two, or three unstressed syllables (or, less commonly, more), the spacing cannot be said to mark a following stressed morph; it can, apparently, only be said to correspond to the position in the linguistic sequence of the poem where juncture may — and presumably did — occur. A very good illustration may be found in the three gif clauses in the passage given; the spacing consistently allows for approximately three minims before gif, and the word never, according to the alliteration, bears major stress. What reason is there for the further inference that juncture (or some timing factor manifest in the same manner) did occur in these positions? The negative reason that there is no basis for not supposing that juncture was occurring is as important as any,

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

67

though of course it does not directly establish the fact. We have the evidence, on the other hand, of variations in the spacing of fixed-phrases, in which non-minimal spacing corresponds regularly to those positions in which we have reason to expect the interposition of non-minimal interval between the constituent morphs; and conversely, in those fixed-phrases which show contrastive spacing, minimal spacing corresponds regularly to those positions in which we have reason to expect the interposition of minimal interval. If, therefore, variation in spacing corresponds to variation in interval between elements of fixed-phrases; and if variation in spacing also occurs where variation in interval between free phrases may occur and in some instances may safely be assumed to have occurred; then there is presumptive evidence that greater spacing between half-lines signals the writer's sense that a longer interval between morphs is occurring. There is nothing else than juncture among the reconstructed linguistic materials to manifest that interval. When S 1 leaves noticeably more space between (written) morphs, the position of that spacing in the morphic sequence normally corresponds to a position in which a greater interval (in speech) between morphs is to be expected. We have seen this in fixedphrases and within half-lines and, in the sample in hand, in half-line sequences. With fixed-phrases and with lesser spaced half-line sequences we have also seen that noticeably less space between (written) morphs normally corresponds to a position in which a shorter interval (in speech) between morphs is to be expected. The remaining sequences to consider are those in which there is lesser spacing between elements of free phrases. To list all the sequences in the passage given above would be superfluous. Suffice it to say that in the hand of S 1 in this portion of his work the space of approximately two minims appears to be the norm from which variations of 'greater' and 'lesser' are to be determined. (For S 2 the norm is a little more than one minim's space.) Then, if variations are assessed specifically in their immediate contexts (and if the phonological rules of spacing of compounds are recalled), it will be apparent that lesser spacing between elements of free phrases also corresponds to positions in which a shorter interval — no terminal juncture, at the least — is to be expected. The consistency of spacing — before gif clauses, as mentioned, and briefly illustrated also in f. 141v, 11. 15-16, fon wid feonde and lad wid lapum — may also be observed. Variation in spacing — between half-line phrases, within fixed-phrases, among elements of free phrases — corresponds to variation in interval between morphic sequences with such regularity as to be attributable only to the scribe's sense of speech rhythms. That is the same conclusion derived a priori in Chapter II. The a priori conclusions about the signification of variations in spacing have now been duplicated a posteriori by analysis of evidence in the manuscript. Reasoning from the manuscript evidence, however, has proceeded from an important assumption that must not be left unexamined: a general regularity of interval between major stresses in

68

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

Anglo-Saxon verse. There is no need here to repeat John Collins Pope's argument (in The Rhythm of Beowulf) for the rhythmic nature of the verse; it is a cogent argument based on the disposition of stressed and unstressed syllables, the coincidence of initial 'rests' in the measures of the rhythm (i.e., pauses or lengthening of intervals between syllables) and 'pauses' to clarify the 'sense', and the use of a harp to accompany performance of verse compositions. The argument from the use of the harp is the least forceful, as has been generally recognized; the other parts of the argument for rhythmic verse, nevertheless, do not fall if we refuse to accept the assumption that the harp was still in use in the tenth century. Pope's analysis does "[make] possible the otherwise impossible task of including all the syllables of Germanic verse, together with the stresses that reveal their meaning, within the limits of a strict meter" (Pope, p. 40). If Pope's argument may be only mentioned but not repeated in support of the assumption of regularity of interval between morphs standing under major stress, opposing argument must be reviewed explicitly. Paul F. Baum, for example (in "The Meter of Beowulf"), counts as certain, on the absence of knowledge of early Germanic music, only that if Beowulf were chanted with musical accompaniment "There is no reason to suppose that... the lines were delivered in isochronous groups" (p. 75). The conclusion of Baum's analysis of the meter of the poem, on the other hand, is ambivalent with regard to regular meter: "no strict consistency" is to be expected, "but rather a free and flowing series of accomodations of the rhythm of Anglo-Saxon to the fundamental trochaic base" (p. 162). Bliss is more explicit in rejecting isochronous rhythm, objecting to the assumption of it on grounds that "the chronometric theory" is difficult to apply to Old English, that (repeating Baum's point) we have no evidence that Anglo-Saxon chanting was isochronous, and that an adequate interpretation of the verse may be based on an assumption that the rhythm, like that of the Gregorian chant, was non-isochronous (esp. pp. 1-2, 106-108). (Bliss is cited for expository and not for polemical purposes.) It is not practical to try to disprove the "difficulty" of applying a "chronometric theory" of verse to Old English. If one takes the entire text of Beowulf (or other poems) the difficulty is real or it is not, depending upon who is making the application. "How natural it sounded", is Pope's description (p. 39) of his discovery that 'Type B' and 'Type C' half-lines could be read to a regular beat. Bliss's objection that a rhythm that is non-isochronous is most appropriate to the reading of Beowulf may be set aside quickly. Bliss takes the most frequent single sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables ('Type A') as the norm, then shows that displacement forward or backward in the sequence of one or the other or both the major stresses produces the other four 'Types' and no others (p. 108). His 'displacement' theory accounts for exactly what is stated — the 'five Types' with which he began. But any claim for its appropriateness to the reading of the poetic text has not been established by the theory. The third objection — the lack of evidence — is at once the least relevant and the most grave. Nothing stands in the way of assuming regularity of interval between

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

69

morphs under major stress, and certainly the analogy between Old and Modern English is more to be credited than doubted, if the analogies are traced in the language structures rather than in the metrical modes: changes in the language are less 'deepseated' than Bliss implies. (Miss Joynes, in Chapter II, has demonstrated the extent of congruence between a number of aspects of early and contemporary English.) The gravity of the objection that there is no evidence for the verse of Beowulf being isochronic may be dismissed, it would seem, if the nature of evidence in historical reconstruction is properly considered, and if the data of spacing of morphs in the Nowell Codex is taken into account. One kind of evidence that something existed in the past is statement, by a trustworthy contemporary source, of the existence of a thing or state of affairs. Another is the unquestioned continuity of existence of a thing — be it an artifact or a convention — into the present. Another, in its simplest form, is a series of events that both permits and requires only one inference about intervening events: if we know that Caesar was in Gaul and that later he was in Rome, we have 'evidence' that between those events was another, that Ceasar traveled from Gaul to Rome. There is a difference between verification of an assertion and confirmation of an assumption (i.e., an hypothesis). For Caesar's traveling between two geographical points, the confirmation is in the data (in this case, testimony) of his being in two different places in a known sequence. For so complex a matter as the rhythm of an Old English poem the evidence and the procedure are more extensive, but the technique of confirmation is the same. From an assumption and the unquestioned data certain inferences may be made; the inferences are, in strict logic, predictions. Then to the extent that it is found that inferences from the hypothesis (or assumption) and the original data correspond to additional empirical data, the assumption is to that extent confirmed. In a very common sense of the word, we have 'evidence' that the state of affairs posited in the assumption was an actual state of affairs. The process of developing evidence that confirms an assumption is, of course, in one sense circular: it begins and ends with the same assertion about a state of affairs. In so far as it functions as discovery procedure, however, its circularity is irrelevant, and the process is, after all, the means to some of the best historical knowledge we have. It should be added that the process of developing 'confirming evidence' is altogether circular unless the inferences are tested against new, definite, empirical evidence; the total circularity of arguing from ad hoc hypotheses with a closed and fixed set of data is useless. Unless it is procedurally possible to disconfirm the assumption, the argument is futile; unless the separate set of data corresponds to the inferences that may be developed with the use of an assumption to develop a prior set of data, nothing will have been established. It is in this sense that Pope's argument from the existence of Anglo-Saxon harps and their possible use for accompanying the recitation of a late Old English poem is not finally convincing, though his conclusions may be true. (That they are probably true will be shown later.) But if to the inferences Pope

70

GRAPHOTACTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE METER OF "BEOWULF"

develops from the text of the poem we can match independent data that is both definite and extensive, we will have that evidence necessary to establish the probability of isochronic verse — the probability of regular intervals between morphs under major stress. It is the scribal variation of spacing that provides the evidence that has otherwise been lacking — 'evidence' in both senses distinguished above. It was shown above that greater and lesser spacings of morphs in the manuscript of Beowulf correspond with a high degree of regularity to the positions in which longer and shorter intervals between syllable peaks are to be expected in the speech being represented. (It will be remembered that the prose texts copied by the same scribe have the same features of spacing.) It has also been said that spacing does not occur between a root and an inflectional morpheme. There are, nevertheless, spacings that have not yet been described — those within a root morpheme. They occur much less commonly than in other positions described, and are characteristically minimal — though occasionally as great as normal separation of words, elements of compounds, and the like. They occur more commonly in the verse than in the prose texts. In the passage reproduced earlier in this chapter are the following, listed here in their verse half-line contexts: 434b / wasp i na 2 ne i rec 1 ce5 • 442b 3 gif J he / weal M a r m o t 2 + 444a 3 "etan 2 "unfor 1 hte* 449a 2 ete6 1 angen i ga 2 450a I mear i ca5 2 + mor 2 - hopu 2 . It is not possible to make contrastive studies with these data that would be extensive enough to be trustworthy. It can only be said, for example, that wxpna has identical internal spacing in 434b and 1559b, and no distinct internal spacing in 1045a, 1452a, 1509a. The significance of spacing within a sequence of letters representing a root morph can be inferred from the position — between syllables, and especially following continuants, or, in recced, manna, bryttad, geneahhe, initial articulation and release of a lengthened consonant: wherever slight prolongation of a syllable tends to equalize the phonetic material between major stresses without, however, approximating a juncture larger than / + / , the spacing may occur. In some sections of S l's writing it is more frequent than in other sections. It is syllable boundaries, not morph boundaries, that are thus marked. How close can we come to showing major stresses to have occurred at equal intervals, on the basis of scribal spacing in the manuscript of Beowulf, is the final aspect of the problem of isochronic vs. non-isochronic 'rhythm'. It must be allowed, at the outset, that the regularity of a metronome cannot be expected for stressed morphs through indefinite stretches of the verse. Neither ordinary speech nor verse continues without pauses, major or minor. Section divisions of Beowulf are the most obvious positions for major pauses, and to admit extended pauses in those places in no way weakens the

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case for isochronous rhythm. At lesser intervals than section divisions minor pauses — quite distinct from terminal junctures — may also be admitted. Whenever, for example, a line begins Hrodgar mapelode 'Hrodgar spoke' or a shift in time and place is introduced in a new line by Da 'Then,' the new turn in the substance of narration may warrant a preceding pause. Isochronic rhythm, after all, is established — is operative — when stretches of discourse of only moderate length maintain a fair regularity of interval between recurrent classes of phonetic materials; stretches as long as the paragraphs marked by modern convention are more than enough to establish the meter, averaging as they do more linguistic material than most stanzaic forms. The minimum stretch of discourse in which regular intervals between morphs under major stress must be maintained is that of the sentence; the sentences in Old English verse, it will be remembered, consist of an integral number of half-lines. The usual stretch, of course, will be several sentences. Without allowances of these kinds, we should be hard put to defend elsewhere, for example, the assertion that Troilus and Criseyde is written in rhyme royal or the assertion that Shakespeare's plays are written (for the most part) in blank verse. We may allow, too, that the manuscript evidence of spacing of morphs can imply isochrony without a graphic regularity even approaching the extremes of vertical rulings to align the writing of stresses syllables. There is no need for exaggerated graphic regularization. A writer — or a reader — would have not only spacing to guide him in reproducing the rhythm of the poem; he would have, as well, his knowledge of both the linguistic system and the metrical system in terms of which the poem was made. The manuscript text of Beowulf indicates by any test that the scribes had a native knowledge of Old English, and it is consequently difficult to suppose that they did not also have a native knowledge of Anglo-Saxon metrics. What is to be wondered at, if we stop to consider it, is the extent and consistency with which spacing varies in accordance with syntactic and general metrical features. If we ask what is the most likely cause for the scribe's remarkable thoroughness in varying spacing in accordance with certain linguistic and metrical features, when the variations consistently point to equalization of interval between stressed morphs, there seems to be only one answer: a regularity in interval between stressed morphs (in speech) that must indeed have been isochronic. The preceding argument provides an indirect proof, in the final analysis, but a proof based on more factors than others offered heretofore. Its chief recommendation over earlier arguments rests on its utilizing additional evidence whose authenticity is equal to that of the 'segmental' text itself— the evidence in the manuscript of variation in spacing the morphic sequences of letters. There is yet one more consideration. If the meter of Beowulf is isochronic, and we can safely assume that ordinary prose was not 'metered' in like manner, then are there any differences in S l's writing of verse and prose that will reflect the differences in verse rhythm and 'prose rhythm'? The variation in spacing elements of identical or similar compounds appears to be greater in the verse than in the prose, as would be

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expected if the stress-peaks in verse were regularly timed; the writing of garsecg, described in Chapter IV, is perhaps the best illustration. The relatively low frequency with which compounds occur in the prose texts, however, severely limits the extensiveness and hence the forcefulness of the evidence. One other difference should be expected in scribal spacing of prose and isochronic verse. If less and greater than normal word spacing are contrastive, one reflecting minimal interval and the other reflecting non-minimal interval between morphs (in speech), then in prose we should expect never to find the boundaries of sentences, major clauses, or the like marked by less than normal spacing (unless, perhaps, a point intervenes or a capital letter begins a new morphic sequence). In the prose texts of the Nowell Codex there are in fact no less-than-normal spacings in such positions; in most instances they are greater than normal. On the other hand, the coincidence in verse of less-than-normal spacing and sentence or clause boundaries where juncture can be inferred as surely as in prose, together with a certain number of morphs (or syllables) intervening between stressed morphs (especially if the stresses are identified by alliteration) — under these circumstances we could say that only a timing factor as fixed and as imperative as isochronic meter can be inferred to have been operating. We have seen one marked example of this already in line 444, and two less marked examples in 450 and 453. The prime example occurs in 734 ... wistfylle wen. Ne waes¡>xt forma sid ... (cited in Chapter I), in which half the space for a minim separates the half-lines which, in turn, end and begin separate sentences. To conclude this section of analysis of the spacing, timing, and meter of continuous text of Beowulf we may return to the question of the extent and 'accuracy' with which the scribes who copied the verse text may be expected to have manifest in their script the suprasegmentals and meter of the poem. (Pitch features — assuming their existence — were not registered by variations in linear spacing, and we may delay consideration of them until the chapter that follows.) It will be appropriate at this point to narrow the field to the work of the first scribe: S 1 copied both prose and verse, his variations are the more pronounced, and, though S 1 and S 2 were generally consistent, it is safer to specify habits, finally, of one scribe rather than the shared or perhaps composite habits of two. By the accuracy of the scribe's 'writing' of timing features is meant the clarity and consistency with which those features are registered in the manuscript. In the writing of compounds — names, nouns, and adjectives — the accuracy has been shown to be quite remarkable. In one sample of continuous text, analyzed at the beginning of this chapter, the accuracy has also been shown to be of a high order. Unless the limits of the scribe's accuracy are also defined, however, we shall not be in a position to assess the weight of manuscript evidence in drawing inferences about the reading of individual lines or about the positing of linguistic stress features. One set of limitations undoubtedly lies, in the maximum number of syllables or morphs that are written with zero or minimal spacing. Two morphs written together are common, especially

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when one is a determinative, prepositional, or conjunctive form; but three morphs seldom are thus written, and, as shown, three or more presumably standing under successive weaker stresses are broken into groups, in the writing. Other limitations are found in the fixed habits of spacing a two-syllable initial morph in a compound: since spacing regularly occurs, we lack contrastive circumstances from which to infer contrasts in stress distribution or occurrence of juncture or other timing features or rate of utterance of syllables. Within a verse half-line, contrastive spacing does not seem to occur regularly under circumstances other than those described earlier; when a half-line has a large number of morphs, some variations in spacing seem frequently to be random. An additional limitation is that the spacing between syllables of a morph appears to be determined by phonological and graphic factors, as well as by metrical factors. That double consonants commonly are spaced, whatever the differences in syntactical and metrical contexts there may be, is a major instance. Still another limitation in the scribe's 'accuracy' of spacing is evident when longer segments of the manuscript are examined. If one begins reading at about line 475, for example, observing spacing in conjunction with word-stress, alliteration, and syntax, the spacing serves as a reliable guide to regularization of interval between major stresses and to determination of juncture points. At 662, however, the 'accuracy' of spacing abruptly drops; the division between sections IX and X of the poem occurs at exactly this point. Then, within section X, the 'accuracy' of spacing is gradually restored, and continues into the subsequent section. An interesting concomitant of this varying 'accuracy' of spacing is the variation in frequency and seriousness of errors in spellings and of omission of lines or portions of them. Again, the consistency of spacing with syntactic and metrical features is more reliable in the latter part of S l's copy than it is at the beginning of the poem. If we recognize these limitations in the reliability of variation in spacing and at the same time regard the spacing in the same manner as we regard the 'segmental' text the following conclusion may be in order. Since there is no reason to doubt that the scribe had native knowledge of Anglo-Saxon metrics as well as the Old English language, we may expect the evidence of contrastive spacing to be significant, while allowing at least as much for errors or inconsistencies in the spacing as in the writing of the morphic elements. Inattentiveness, unwillingness to erase, failure to make extensive corrections, and the like affected the accuracy of both the spacing and the spelling. We should make even more allowance, in fact, for deviations in spacing, since clearly there were no conventions governing spacing that were at all near the conventions of spelling in clarity, exactness, and completeness. Errors and incompleteness in the 'writing' of spacing, however, no more undercut the systematic nature of the spacing features than do omissions of words and half-lines, misspellings, and inconsistencies in normalizing spellings undercut the linguistic and literary 'systems' represented in the text. In short, the limitations in 'accuracy' of spacing merely impose restrictions on the exactness or extent with which the evidence of spacing can be brought to bear in deciding the most probable reading of a number of individual lines.

VI THE SUPRASEGMENTALS AND METER OF BEOWULF

Remaining considerations with respect to the manuscript evidence for metrical and suprasegmental features in Beowulf may be introduced by way of closely analyzing an additional passage of the text. Because the passage is specially chosen to introduce further considerations and not to demonstrate again what has been shown in preceding chapters, it is rearranged here in verse units (lines); superscript numerals, as before, are added to indicate spacing, and manuscript line-division is registered by virgules. On the facing page is an edited text (macrons and punctuation supplied), in which either the morphs or the syllables in which metrical stress occurs are printed in italic. 710 Da 2 + com 2 + of 1 "more 3 under2mist3~hleoJ)um2 gre / ndel 3+ gongan 2 godes 2+ yrre 2+ baer 3 mynte / se 1+ man 2 sca5a 3 man 1 na 2 cyn i nes 3 + sumne2be / syrwan2 + in°sele 2+ Jjam 1 + hean 2 + wod 1+ under 2 "wolc / n u m 3 - to*~t>£es2]3eihe2~win1~reced2+ 715 gold^ele^ume / na 2 + gear i wost 2+ wisse • fcet1tum2fahne2 + ne / waes1 +J)aet2for1 ~ma 2 si5 3 + J)^i i he 3- hroJ) i gares 3 ham / ge*sohte • nasfre 2+ he 2 ~ on*aldor 2 dagum 2 ~ aer / ne?si]jSan2+ heardran3h£ele3 hael25egnas / fand 2 + 720 com 2_ j5a 1+ to°recede 2+ rinc 2- si9ian 2 ~ drea / mum3bedseled2+ duru*sona 3 on 4 arn 2 fyr / bendum 2_ fasst 3 syt»6an 3 he 1+ hire 2 folmum / (aet-hr)an • On 1- braed 2 t)a i bealo 2+ hydig 2+ 5a / (he ge-)bolgen2~waes2 + recedes 1+muJ>an2~ raj>e / £efter2J)on2 725 on°fagne 3 -flor 2+ feond 1+ tred / dode 3 " eode 1 + yrre 2 + mod 2 him1 ~ of^eagum 1+ stod / ligge2gelicost2 + leoht 1- unfaeger • geseah'he / in°recede2 rinca 1+ manige 2+ swefan2sibbe / ge*driht2 + samod 1 aet*gaedere3 730 mago^in / ca 2 heap 3 J)a*his 2 "mod 2- ahlog • mynte2 ~ Jjset / he°ge1daelde3+ asril)on1daeg2cwome • atol I aglaeca2 + anra 2 ~ge*hwylces3 ~

THE SUPRASEGMENTALS AND METER OF "BEOWULF"

lif i wi5 2 _ lice 2 + J)a / him 1 ~ alum 1 "pen 1+ waes 3wist 2 fylle 2+ wen* ne2+waes / fc^i'wyrd3 ~ J>a* ~ gen • 735 J>a?i 4 he 2- ma 1- moste 2+ man*na / cyn*nes3~ 5icgean 2+ ofer 2 ~J)a 1 "niht 3 710 Dà com of more under mist-hleopum Grendei gongan — Godes yrre bxr; mynte se mànscaòa manna cynnes sumne beiyrwan in sele J)àm héan : wod under wo/cnum to pxs {je he wf/jreced, 715 goldsele gumcaa, gearwost wisse— fxttum /a/me. Ne waes \>xt forma sid ])£et he Hrópgàres hàm gesóhte. Nsèfre he on aWordagum xr ne sipòan heardraa hxle, healòegnas fand. 720 Cóm J>a tó recede rinc siòian dreamum bedxled. Duru sona onarn /prbendum /¡est, syj)6an he hire folmum aethràn ; onbrxd bealohydig, 5a he gebolgen wxs, recedes mùpan. Rape after pon 725 on /agne fior fèond tredàoàt, eode yrre-mòd; him of éagum stód Ugge ge/icost léoht wafxger. Geseah he in recede rinca manige, swefan sibbegedriht samod setgxdere, 730 magormea heap, {jà his mód àhlóg: mynte Jjaet he gedxlde, aer J>on dxg cwóme, atol agisca, ama gthwylces lìf wiò lice, fa. him à/wmpen wxs vrà/fylle wèn. Ne waes J>£et wyrd gén 735 jDset he ma moste manna cynnes óiegean ofer niht. 710 'Then came from the moor under mist-slopes Grendel going— he bore God's wrath; The evil-doer intended of the race of men to ensnare a certain one in that high hall : he advanced beneath the clouds to where he the wine-hall, 715 the gold-hall of warriors, knew most surely, [the hall] decorated with (gold) plates. That was not the first occasion that he Hrothgar's house sought.

75

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720

725

730

735

Never in days-of-life did he before or since harder luck, hall-thanes, find. Came then to the building the warrior journeying, deprived of bliss. The door immediately sprung open [the door] firm with fire (-forged)-bonds when he touched it with (his) hands. Then the evil-intender swung open, when he was enraged, the opening of the hall. Quickly after that onto the shining floor the fiend stepped, (he) went angry-minded; from his eyes issued fire most like to a horrible light. He saw in the building many warriors, the troop-of-kinsmen sleep, together, the group-of-young-warriors. Then his spirit exulted: he intended that he would part ere day came, (he) the terrible monster, of each one life from body, when to him was befallen expectation of fill-of-feasting. That fate was not yet that he was allowed more of the kin of men to partake of after that night.'

Metrical 'stresses' are assigned on the basis of spacing in the manuscript, and second arily by syntactic criteria. In four instances the placement of stress is uncertain: perhaps 718a should mark he instead of Nzfre, 726a eode and not -mod, 729a -driht and not swefan, 735a ma and not he. Though rhetorical, 'interpretive' criteria may remove uncertainty about these, it will be better to proceed to analysis of the passage, allowing these uncertainties to stand rather than introduce decisions that tend to reflect modern readers' conditionings that are difficult (perhaps impossible) to distinguish at this level. Probably the most exceptional results of following the scribal spacings in marking metrical 'stresses' are the two failures to assign metrical stress in the b half-line to the obviously alliterating morph or syllable: 711b Godes yrre bier, and 721b Duru s6na onarn. In neither instance is the alliteration obscured, however. The b half-line begins with the alliterating syllable; the alliterative stave has been unmistakably established by its double occurrence in the a half-line — in each instance here a two-word construction; and a major syntactic boundary separates the a and b halves of the line. The spacing is sharply contrastive in 721b; in addition, the context dictates the probability of emphasis on sona rather than on Duru. The spacing is not sharply contrastive in 711b. The syntax, however, points to higher stress on the head of the noun-phrase yrre than on the modifer Godes-, to reverse the stresses would be, presumably, to emphasize its being God's anger as opposed to someone else's anger — producing an emphasis inappropriate or unnecessary from about any standpoint from which the

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clause is to be regarded. There seems, in short, to be no reason in the rhetoric, the metrical scheme, the syntax, or the spacing to assign high, metrical stress to these two alliterating words; the evidence all points the other way. Also exceptional, from the point of view of traditional formulation of Anglo-Saxon meter, is the assignment of the first major stress in a b half-line to a non-alliterating morph that occurs prior to the alliterating one: 714b to t>aes J>e he winreced. Again it is phrase structure matched by scribal spacing that directly signals these metrical stresspositions. The factors by which the alliterative structure is kept intact must again be accounted for, and they are not far to seek. The prominence of winreced, required for completing the alliterative linking of the parts of the line, is guaranteed by a higher linguistic stress, or the coincidence of high stress and pitch-peak (either analysis is possible), on the alliterating syllable. Further prominence is provided in the syntactic structure of the sentence, and reflected, we may suppose, in the prosodic features. The appositional goldsele gumena that follows winreced — a 'variation' in Old English verse style — imposes a higher level syntactic boundary following winreced than following to pxs. Both the boundary features and the implications for placement of pitch-peak provide the prominence of winreced to complete the alliterative requirements of the line. And additional indication of scansion at variance with traditional formulations occurs in 722b: sypdan, by spacing features, appears to be extra-metrical. That is, the regularity of the interval of occurrence of metrical stresses apparently must be suspended while sypdan — bounded by preceding and following full intervals — is uttered; or, to restate this, meter must be suspended for this word if the rest of the line is read in the normal metrical pattern. To propose the extra-metrical reading of sypdan, of course, requires assumption that the text is faithful to the verse composition. Though there is some obscurity in the manuscript copy of the end of the verse line, it is at least clear that hran was written (see Malone's note on the line) and whatever may have preceded it would not affect metrical analysis of sypdan etc. The scribe made erasures in the line that provides the context for 722b, including an erasure after hran before the point; yet the erasures do not indicate untrustworthy text — they in fact suggest that the scribe took the trouble to get it right. Greatest doubt about the integrity of the text would be in order, of course, if the metrical implications of the line and the scribe's spacing were not to be found elsewhere. They are found occasionally, in fact, a clear example occurring in 1718: 2+

for5 2 + ge i freme / de 3+ hwae£ere 3+ him 2 ~on*fer(h)]3e 3 greow 2 .

'advanced [him] forth.

Yet, in his heart grew ...'

It may be observed that spacing in the line preceding this one is as clearly contrastive as the spacing in the passage under discussion. To mention but one more clear example, 970 reads thus:

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/feond 2 + on 1 fe{5e4hwas|3ere3heI his 1+ folme 2 for / let2, 'the fiend in going.

Nevertheless, he left his hand.'

In some other places hwset (interjection) perhaps should also be regarded as extrametrical. The scansion of942b and 1652a would be regularized by setting the exclamation outside the meter. In the earlier line the manuscript evidence is no guide, however, since hwset occurs at the manuscript line-end; in the latter the significance of spacing hwxt must be deduced from other deductions from spacing, hence is less reliable. Probably, 1652 should read: Hwaet 11 we

Jjas sjelac stinu Healfdenes.

'Lo! We [have brought] to you these objects of sea-booty.' At any rate, there is sufficient evidence to posit extra-metrical elements in the text as normal though infrequent, and confined to the beginning of a half-line. Additional analysis of the passage may be more brief. Identical half-lines are 712b and 735b, manna cynnes, both with syllable-spacing in both words. Of more interest is the relation of spacing of 716 and 734. The latter line was offered as an example (in the preceding chapter) of the reflection, in the writing, of rate of syllable utterance and its relation to junctural features at half-line boundaries. The similarity of the lines in grammatical components, number of syllables, and distribution of stresses argues for similar rates of syllable utterance between the second and third metrical stresses of the line. The spacing is different. It can only be argued that in 716, with inflectional -ne terminating the clause (sentence) and followed by the negative particle ne beginning the next clause, since both are segmentally identical and both weakly stressed, the separation — the boundary — between them was more prominent and occasioned normal half-line spacing: articulation of both, separate articulation of phonemically identical successive syllables was obligatory. But in 734 the continuant n terminating the stressed (root) syllable wen and the n of ne beginning the following clause need not have separate articulation and probably did not have, the syllable and clause boundaries being indicated by some other (i.e., prosodic) means: hence there was no hindrance to the minimal spacing between wen and ne that registered the rate of syllable utterance in that section of the verse line. The two lines should be read as nearly alike in meter as the articulational characteristics allow. We are in a position now to consider directly the implications of the manuscript for the remaining set of suprasegmental features — those of pitch. It has already been said that scribal variation in spacing signals intervals or durations — timing features of whatever sort — and in its very nature in linear script it cannot signal pitch features if it is in fact a 'writing' of timing. And, of course, the manuscript text consists of only letters and their spacing, a few 'accent' marks, and some pointing. There is no evidence

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in the manuscript, therefore, to be interpreted directly for specifying pitch features. Not only that, but there is no evidence in the manuscript to indicate that segmentation of the utterances was marked by pitch features instead of some other type of features operating at the syntactic level. If anything is to be said about pitch, it must proceed from the assumption that pitch features are the most likely type of suprasegmentals in the inventory of Old English prosodic devices, aside from stress and juncture. The assumption can be made with as much assurance as historial inference from comparison of spoken Germanic languages will sustain. That there was a set of features in addition to stresses and junctures is also, however, implied by the manuscript text. The implication of these additional features — presumably pitch features — is strongest, of course, in passages where the timing features are most clearly indicated by spacings. If, as argued in the preceding chapter, the verse was rhythmic in the regularization of interval between major stresses, then the timing features (junctures) that signal phrase and clause structure would hardly be sufficient to keep the syntax-signaling intact: contrasts of timing which in ordinary prose speech differentiate junctures were at times superseded by variations in timing to keep the meter. To cite but one instance from the passage analyzed earlier in this chapter, the interval between wen and Ne, in 734, at a sentence boundary was several times smaller than the interval between elements of compounds such as misthleopum; less than between object and predicate, as in Godes yrre bxr\ less than the interval between appositional elements, as in winreced, goldsele gumena; less than the interval between subject and object-modifier, as in paet he Hropgares; less, or at least no greater, than the interval between syllables of words, as in fxttum or manna cynnes; and so on. Morphology and word-stress could conceivably have been sufficient to mark misthleopum, manna cynnes etc., but in the syntactic examples timing was inadequate. If junctures in Old English had voice-pitch constituents, those would be sufficient in most instances, certainly, to mark the syntactic constituents and constructions. There remain other instances, though, in which pitch features are more needfully implied. Once again, among the citations already introduced, it is 734 that provides the clearest example — one of several in the poem. Since the spacing, and all that it implies, indicates minimal interval between the sentences ... wen. Ne ..., and since, as already established, the probabilities are that at this sentence boundary the terminal and initial n in the orthographic requirements did not correspond to separate «-articulations — as the scribe heard the poem; it then seems highly probably that pitch features beyond any that the terminal juncture may have carried must have been present. For to signal sentence boundary within a single articulation, with metrical requirements canceling timing features of the juncture, would have been nearly impossible by, say, falling pitch unless pitch features of phrase superfixes had also been present and to some extent congruent. Certainly, to reject the suprasegmental features here posited as pitch features would be to allow far less redundancy of speech signals than is attested in other languages. Whatever the Old English suprasegmentals were in their

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THE SUPRASEGMENTALS AND METER OF "BEOWULF"

phonetic manifestations, it seems reasonable to suppose that phonemic notation of 734 would not be complete if it did not contain markings of at least the number and difference of kind that appear in the following: 2

3

1 # 2

3

2|

... wistfylle wen ne wass J>aet wyrd J>a gen ... Or, to take one other instance, the length and complexity of some sentences also casts doubt on the efficacy of distinctive features of stress and juncture together with inflection and word-order in signaling the segmentation of the longer utterances and the relations of the segments. Redundancy of features again seems too severely restricted to be probable when pitch superfixes are not allowed, say, for 731a-734a — and this is somewhat less long and complex than many sentences in the poem. That scholars, working carefully and analytically and collectively, can construe the text in sentences and their major constituents — for editorial punctuation, explanatory notes, and the like — should not be taken as evidence that Old English had only morphology and word-order to signal syntax; and as here argued, addition of stress and juncture to the reconstruction of Old English still seems to be short of what may be regarded as a plausible reconstruction of the language in which Beowulf was originally known. The argument to establish pitch features in the language represented by the scribe who began the Nowell Codex has been complex. In response to the argument it can be said, after all, that the existence of pitch features may be easily assumed for Old English, as noted more than once, by historical projection into the past, and by comparison of Germanic languages and dialects present to linguistic observation and analysis. The argument from manuscript evidence does not, then, fill a serious gap in the reconstruction of Old English. Yet it does serve two purposes of a more modest kind. One is that it proceeds from evidence contemporary with the language that is being reconstructed, to show the high probability of the presence in Old English of a set of suprasegmentals which were not recorded in the writing system of the AngloSaxons. The procedure involves deductions from general characteristics of language systems (especially degree of redundancy) together with data provided by a tenthcentury text, as opposed to reconstruction that otherwise must proceed solely from general characteristics of linguistic history and data from times much later than the language being reconstructed. The second purpose is to push the analysis of the manuscript evidence as far as possible, in order to establish, among other things, independent justification for the assumption of pitch features that was employed however marginally in earlier stages of this study. Another purpose, not carried out here, for developing whatever evidence there is for positing pitch features among the suprasegmentals of Old English has to do with reconstruction of the poetic features of Beowulf. In addition to all the other techniques of analyzing the poetry, it appears that it may be possible to calculate (though only in broad terms, to be sure) the functional load of pitch superfixes, and to identify characteristic loci where pitch features held prominence by virtue of reduced degree

THE SUPRASEGMENTALS AND METER OF "BEOWULF"

81

of redundancy of pitch and other suprasegmentals, morphological patterning, and word-order patterning. Analysis of scribal variation of spacing in the Nowell Codex has not produced criteria by which emendation of the prose or verse texts can be carried further or posited with greater assurance than heretofore, on other grounds. The analysis sheds no light on problems of the technique of composition of the text, of date, of provenance, of authorship, or of intention. Nor is the analysis promising for more exact understanding of the nature or purpose of the hypermetric lines in the verse. The analysis has produced, on the other hand, some information about scribal practice, about meter, and about some suprasegmentals of Old English — information of potential utility to both linguistic and literary study. The two scribes who copied the texts in the Nowell Codex were consistent in the uses of variation in spacing, though the second scribe provided less frequent variation and less contrast in the variations than did the first scribe. Both, however, practiced variation of spacing to a greater extent than did the scribes of other verse texts and the scribes of prose texts. S 1, especially, used contrastive spacings — in verse as well as prose — to mark smaller constituent constructions than those marked by spacing in, say, the Parker Chronicle. In the text of Beowulf S 1, again the more distinctive, also varied the spacing of syllables of a word or components of fixed phrases in ways that seem to reflect his sense of the speech more than they reflect his knowledge of lexical units or his commitment to scribal economies. The scribal practices in the Nowell Codex provide evidence for reconstructing the suprasegmentals of the 'spoken texts'; the corpus is large enough to warrant generalization from these texts to pervasive characteristics of Old English. Terminal juncture points are indicated by spacing patterns to the extent that the relations of juncture points to word-order patterning and morphological patterning can be fully demonstrated ; on the basis of those relations — regular complementation — most of the juncture points (and junctures) can be predicted for the complete texts. (That these points correspond to those assigned by modern readers using the rules of Modern English confirms the principle of minimum change in language history, and indicates that change is least in the system of suprasegmental features of a language.) The scribal variations of spacing strongly imply that in Old English junctures had distinctive timing features; whether timing was the primary distinctive feature cannot be determined, though its prominence may be guessed from the variation of spacing and its consistency and clarity. By implication from location of junctures, together with such verse characteristics as alliteration, the stress superfixes of phrases require at least three distinctive stress levels, and four stress levels seems more probable. Also, by implication from the adjustments of linguistic features to the requirements of meter, pitch features — 'pitch figures' — may be posited as a fully operative part of the inventory of prosodic devices in Old English. From the scribal practices and their linguistic implications for both prose and verse texts, formulation of the meter of Beowulf may be refined and corrected. That the

82

THE SUPRASEGMENTALS AND METER OF "BEOWULF"

verse was rhythmic there can be no doubt. Or, to restate this in the most conservative manner possible: the manuscript evidence requires one and only one conclusion — that for the Anglo-Saxon scribes the verse was rhythmic. The rhythm was based on interval between stressed syllables. The linguistic stress of the syllables constituting metrical stresses was not limited to primary stress, and commonly was secondary stress; in some instances, most clearly in half-lines consisting of one 'word', syllables that in normal prose speech would have had tertiary stress may occur in the metrical 'stress' position, with raised stress, apparently, compensated for by timing, morphology and probably intonation factors. A few words, in addition, seem best regarded as extra-metrical; they are typically interjectional or conjunctive. The role of alliteration is slightly different under this analysis than under earlier ones. Alliteration is still the primary linking device in the meter, defining the 'line' — a unit independent of clause and sentence. Instead, however, of defining the crucial positions of metrical stress by invariably occurring in metrically stressed syllables, the position of alliteration appears to be defined by the position of metrical stresses, primarily, and also secondarily by position in relation to junctures and pauses as they are deployed for metrical purposes. That is to say, key alliteration may occur in a syllable which does not fall under metrical stress while still having the prominence requisite for linking half-lines in pairs — as 'lines'. That alliteration nearly always occurs in metrically stressed syllables is nevertheless the case, since the stress and the regularity of interval between major stresses provide by far the most frequent factors of prominence that the alliteration must have to establish the linkage that constitutes 'lines'. The meter of Beowulf, stated most briefly, appears to consist of regularized incidence and grouping of principal linguistic stresses, in turn presupposing coincidence of (phonological) phrase- and clause-boundaries with half-line boundaries; in addition to which, alliteration furnishes the phonological linking of the 'line' unit. Though the metrical art of the poem is complex, the principles of the form — like those of the sonnet or the sonata forms — are not. The principles may be simply formulated when the basis of the meter is understood: it is from the suprasegmentals — the syntax-signals — and alliteration rather than from merely the syllables and wordstresses that the meter is made. Linguistic prosody must be prior to literary prosody in the reading or scansion of Beowulf. To provide a scansion of Beowulf is not within the intention of this study. It will also be apparent that to provide a prosodic scansion would require reprinting the entire text or, at the least, an abstract of it containing all stressed syllables plus a few others carrying alliteration plus a few others that are extra-metrical. Or, of course, a coded index of patterns of levels of stress, positions of junctures, positions of alliteration, etc. could be devised, to be supplemented with indications of priority of various suprasegmentals wherever adjustments are required by manipulation of these features for the making of meter. A coded index is a cumbersome device, usually, for all except

THE SUPRASEGMENTALS AND METER OF "BEOWULF"

83

the deviser and perhaps a few others, and a metrical abstract of the text would hardly be an economy for anyone but the printer. For economy, utility, and reliability in restoring the suprasegmentals and meter to the text of Beowulf, the manuscript (facsimile) is our best resource.

REFERENCES CITED

Citations from the Nowell Codex are based on the following facsimile editions: Kemp Malone (ed.), The Nowell Codex: British Museum Cotton Vitellius A. Second MS (= Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, vol. XII, Copenhagen, 1963). Beowulf: Reproduced in Facsimile from the Unique Manuscript British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius A. xv, with a transliteration and notes by Julius Zupitza (2nd ed.) (Early English Text Society, Original Series, No. 245), London, 1959. The edited texts of the contents of the Nowell Codex that have been followed are these: Stanley Rypins (ed.), Three Old English Prose Texts in MS. Cotton Vitellius A. xv ( = Early English Text Society, Original Series, No. 161, London, 1924). Fr. Klaeber (ed.), Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed. (Boston, 1950). Other sources (excluding facsimiles of Old English MSS.): Paul F. Baum, "The Meter of Beowulf", Modern Philology, XLVI (1948-1949), 73-91, 145-162. A. J. Bliss. The Metre of Beowulf (Oxford, 1958). Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (ed.), Beowulf and Judith (= The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, vol. iv, New York, 1953). Mary Lu Joynes, Structural Analysis of Old English Metrics, University of Texas, Dissertation, 1958. John A. Nist, "Textual Elements in the Beowulf Manuscript", Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, vol. xlii (1957), 331-338. John Collins Pope, The Rhythm of Beowulf (New Haven, 1942).

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPT CITATIONS

This index lists all manuscript citations in the preceding pages. It is keyed to Kemp Malone's facsimile edition of The Nowell Codex, the only facsimile edition of both prose and verse texts. (Julius Zupitza's facsimile edition of Beowulf utilizes a different folio numbering; his transliteration, with both manuscript and verse line numbering, however, will enable a reader using this edition to locate manuscript data without inconvenience). Alphabetical indexing is extensive in Stanley Rypins' edition of Three Old English Prose Texts..., and is exhaustive for Beowulf in Fr. Klaeber's edition of the poem. Hence the following index is ordered according to folio and line numbering of the manuscript. Verse line

MS. locus

Christopher (Folios 94r-98r) 96r. 11

Page

56

Wonders of the East (Folios 98v-106v) 98v. 1 55 98v. 12 55 lOOr. 8-9 55 lOOv. 1 56 lOlr. 16 55 lOlv. 1-2 15 102v. 17-18 57 103r. 10 16 103r. 16-18 15 106r. 4 56 106r. 16 56 106r. 17 56 Alexander's Letter to Aristotle 107r. 7 108r. 16 108v. 17 108 v. 18 109r. 14 109r. 18 109v. 16 lllv. 2 112r. 4 112v. 9 113r. 14 113r. 14-15 113v. 6-7

(Folios 107r-131v) 53 55 55 55 54 55 54 56 54 54 55 53 56

Verse line

MS. locus

Page

113v. 11 113v. 12 113v. 13 114r. 19 116v. 9-10 117v. 8 118r. 3 118r. 13 119r. 2 119r. 15 119v. 11 119v. 13 119v. 15 120v. 6 122v. 15 124r. 8 126v. 8-11 127r. 9 127 v. 12-16 128r. 10 131r. 12 131v. 2 131v. 4

56 55 56 56 56 54 54 55 56 54 54 54 53 56 56 54 16 56 16 16 55 54 54

Beowulf (Folios 132r-201v) lb 132r. 2 132r. 19-20 19b 32a-33a 132v. 9-10 33a 132v. 9-10 49a 133r. 3 133r. 14-15 61a

59 20 21 45 57 28

86

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPT CITATIONS

Verse line

MS. locus

Page

Verse line

MS. locus

Page

64a 78a 84a 100b 105a 120a 125a 131b 152a 156a 189b 190a-b 193b 226a 235a 260a 263a 263b 277b 291a-b 300a 325a 329a 335b 339b 342b 349a 356b 367b 371a 373a 373b 377b 386a-b 396a 396b 407a 407b 411a 417a 430a 433a-455b 434a 434b 437b 438a-b 441a-b 442b 444a 444a-b 445a-b 446a-b 449a 450a

133r. 16-17 133v. 8-9 133v. 14 134r. 9 134r. 13 134v. 8 134v. 12 134v. 17-18 135r. 15 135r. 18 136r. 9 136r. 9-10 136r. 12-13 136v. 18 137r. 6 137v. 8 137v. 10-11 137v. 11 138r. 4 138r. 15-16 138v. 3 139r. 7-8 139r. 11 139r. 17 139v. 1 139v. 3-4 139v. 10 139v. 16-17 140r. 7-8 140r. 13 140r. 15 140r. 15 140r. 19 140v. 6-7 140v. 15 140v. 15-16 141r. 5-6 141r. 6 141r. 9-10 141r. 14-15 141v. 6-7 141 v. 9-142r. 11 141v. 10 141v. 11 141v. 13 141v.l4-15 141v. 17-18 141v. 18-19 141v. 20 141v. 20-142r. 1 142r. 1-2 142r. 2-3 142r. 5 142r. 6

28 47 39 21 60 42,43, 60 46 46,51 27, 35 50 39 64 47 53 29 51 58 38,39 27, 35 66 41,42 53 53 29, 30, 32 27, 30 30 52 28 27, 37 26 49 38, 39 53 22 45 27 27 30, 32 52 27, 37 43, 53 61-67 60 70 61 66 66 70 64,70 65, 66, 72 65 66 70 64,70

450a-b 452a 453a-b 456a 467a 480a-483b 482a 491a-492b 492a 502b 515a 516b-517a 526a 529b 537b 540b 544a-b 545a 545a-b 557b 572a-573b 596a 601a 612b-613a 613a 632a-633b 633a 636a 645a 653a 654a 657a 662a 689a 689a-b 695a 710a-736a 711b 712b 714b 716a-b 716b-717b 717a 718a 721b 722a 722b 726a 728a-735a 729a 731a-734a 734a-b 735a 735b

142r. 6-7 142r. 8 142r. 9-10 142r. 13 142v. 3 142v. 15-18 142v. 17 143r. 5-7 143r. 6-7 143r. 19 143v. 12 143v. 13-14 144r. 3 144r. 6 144r. 14 144r. 17 144r. 20-144V. 1 144v. 1 144v. 1-2 144v. 12-13 145r. 6-7 145v. 8 145v. 13 146r. 5 146r. 5 146v. 2-4 146v. 3-4 146v. 6 146v. 13 146v. 20 146v. 20-147r. 1 147r. 3 147r. 8 147v. 13 147v. 13-14 147v. 18 148r. 13-148v. 17 148r. 14 148r. 15 148r. 17 148r. 18-19 148r. 18-20 148r. 19 148r. 20 148v. 3 148v. 3-4 148v. 4-5 148v. 8 148v. 9-16 148v. 10-11 148v. 12-15 148 v. 15 148v. 16 148v. 16-17

65, 66, 72 31,64 64, 65, 66, 72 26 43 7 8,9,10,45, 59 7 8,9, 59 52 57 52 41,42 38 57 56 22 52 64 41,42 64, 65 39 40 37 29,36 65 22 48 40 28 57 43 26, 35, 73 49 66 57 74-80 76 78 57, 58,77 78 33 29, 32, 33, 35 76 76 48 77 76 14 76 14, 80 70, 78,79, 80 76 78

87

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPT CITATIONS

Verse line

MS. locus

Page

Verse line

MS. locus

737a 758b 813b 824a 826b 833a-b 846b 861a 863a 895b 899a 914a 925a 942b 944a 957b 970a-b 980b 993b 998b 1007b 1009b 1017a 1028b 1040b 1045a 1047a 1047b 1066b 1093b-1094a 1094a 1119b 1139b 1160a 1171a 1177a 1187a 1195b 1198a 1205a 1236a 1262a 1274b-1275b 1287b 1296a 1296a-1297b 1314a 1321a 1331a 1354a 1368a-1372b 1371b 1384a-1389b 1388a

148v. 18 149r. 17 150v. 8-9 150v. 17-18 150v. 20 151r. 5-6 151r. 18 151v. 10-11 151v. 12 152v. 1 152v. 4 152v. 16-17 153r. 8 153v. 3-4 153v. 5 153v. 16 154r. 7-8 154r. 15-16 154v. 7 154v. 11-12 154v. 19 155r. 1 155r. 7 155r. 17-18 155v. 8 155v. 11-12 155v. 13-14 155v. 14 156r. 13 156v. 17-18 156v. 18 157v.1 158r. 1 158v. 1-2 158v. 16-17 159r. 2 159r. 12 159v. 1 159v. 3 159v. 9-10 160r. 16 160v. 19 161r. 9-11 161v. 1 161v. 9 161v. 9-10 162r. 6 162r. 14 162r. 3 163r. 2 163r. 14-17 163r. 16-17 163v. 8-13 163v. 12

30 30 30 41,42,44 29 65 50 49 27, 37 22 42 30 26 78 51 38,39 77, 78 39 57 48 48 36,40 28 44 36 70 43,44 41,42 29, 36 7 8, 9, 59 47 52 53 43 52 22 47 43,44 46 26,35 38, 39 22 49 11,28 10 58 26 46 59 23 22 22 22

1399a 1399a-1400b 1407a 1410a 1411b 1416a 1451b 1452a 1456b 1483a 1483b 1484a 1509a 1513a 1519b 1530b 1536a-b 1550b 1559b 1577b 1580a 1582b 1584a-b 1587b 1590a 159la-1592b 1592a 1601a-b 1613a-b 1631b 1633b 1638a 1652a 1652b 1687a 1718a-b 1738a 1740b 1752b 1796a 1808a-b 1816b 1817b 1818a 1820a 1830b 1840a 1852a 1856b 1867a 1878b 1882b 1884b 1898b-1899b

164r. 1 11,28, 32 164r. 1-2 10 164r. 7 28 164r. 10 42 164r. 11 44 164r. 14-15 42 165r. 3-4 51 165r. 4 70 165r. 8 29 165v. 13 27, 37 165v. 13 31 165v. 13-14 66 166r. 16 70 166r. 19-20 45 166v. 3 41,42 166v. 12 30 166v. 17-18 64 167r. 8 38, 39 167r. 17 70 167v. 1-11 41,42,44 167v. 12-13 29, 33 167v. 14-15 52 167v. 15-16 64 167v. 18-19 22 167v. 21 45 167v. 22-168r. 2 11 168r. 1 28 168r. 8-9 66 168r. 19-20 64 168v. 15 46 168v. 17 49 168v. 21 47 169r. 13 52, 78 169r. 13 40 170r. 2 26 170v. 9-10 77 171r. 6-7 39 171r. 10 45 171v. 1 45 172r. 17 49 172v. 5-6 65 172v. 12-13 27 172v. 15 38 172v. 15-16 53 30 172v. 17 173r. 4-5 31 173r. 14 26 173v. 2 43,45 40 173v. 6 40 173v. 16 174r. 5 47 174r. 9 22 174r. 10-11 29 11 174v. 6-7

Page

88

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPT CITATIONS

Verse line

MS. locus

Page

Verse line

MS. locus

Page

1899a 1908b 1918a 1919a 1970b 1990b 1995a 2010b 2020b 2028b 2049a 2051a 2069a 2072a 2077a 2086b 2101a 2129a 2143b 2155b 2169b 2201b 2233a 2243b 2250a 2328b 2334a 2351b 2355b 2357a 2360b 2372b

174v. 6 174v. 15 175r. 4 175r. 5 176r. 13-14 176v. 12 176v. 16 177r. 11 177v. 2 177v. 9 178r. 8 178r. 10 178r. 7 178r. 10 178r. 14 179r. 2 179r. 17 180r. 2 180r. 16-17 180v. 10 181r. 3 181v. 15 182v. 4-5 182v. 13-14 182v. 19 184v. 12 184v. 17 185r. 12 185r. 16 185r. 17 185r. 21 185v. 10-11

11, 12,29, 33 22 48 43, 60 31 28,35 42,46 27 29 45 45 46 48 41,42,43,44,49 50 48 42 28 40 28 31,35 31 50, 59 48 50 47 53 29, 93 31 53 46 31

2385b 2386b 2398b 2410a 2420a 2426b 2429a 2434b 2456a 2502a 2531a 2537a 2605a 2608a 2635a 2661a 2695a 2768b 2798a 2843a 2893a 2901b 2902a 2914b 2947a 2984a 2988b 2991a 3006a 3072b 3132a 3143b

186r. 2 186r. 3 186r. 16 186v. 5-6 186v. 14-15 186v. 20-21 187r. 2 187r. 7 187v. 5-6 188v. 6 189r. 11-12 189r. 16-17 190v. 14-15 190v. 17-18 191v.2 200r. 5 200v. 12-13 193r. 10-11 193v. 13 194v. 10 195v. 9 195v. 15 195v. 15-16 196r. 4-5 196v. 8-9 197r. 17 197r. 20 197v. 1 197v. 14 199r. 6 20 lr. 8 201r. 16-17

50 31,35 38 59 45 42 53 32 43,46, 57, 60 49 42,44 50 45 50 7, 8, 59 46 49 47 50 45 39 48 47 32 42,44 47 31 42 50 48 51 47