Part 4 (1/2)

that alle ine frend beon fro e fledde.

Cf. _Death_ 97.

Hwer beo alle ine freond et fayre e bi-hehte And fayre e igretten Bi weyes and bi strete.

Nu heo walle wrecche Alle e forlete Nolde heo non herestonkes[19]

Nu e imete.

_MS. Cambr._ l. 21 (C).

When erth has gotyn erthe alle that he maye He schal haue but seven fote at his laste daye.

Cf. _Soul & Body_ (_MSS. Auchinl._, _Digby_).

Now schaltow haue at al i sie Bot seuen fet, vnnee at.

The play upon the word _earth_ recurs in other English poems. Cf.

_A Song on the Times_ (MS. Harl. 913), early fourteenth century--

[20]Whan erthe hath erthe i-gette And of erthe so hath i-nou?, When he is therin i-stekke, Wo is him that was in wou?.

where the idea and the two rime-words are the same as in _MS. Harl._ 2253--

Ere toe of ere ere wy woh, Ere oer ere to e ere droh, Ere leyde ere in erene roh, o heuede ere of ere ere ynoh.

It will be remembered that these two MSS. (Harl. 913 and 2253) are the two which preserve texts of the A version, and the opening lines of the _Song on the Times_ would appear to give further proof of a connexion between the two A texts.

Further, in _MS. Lansdowne_ 762 (v. _Reliquiae Antiquae_ I. 260), under the heading _Terram terra tegat_, occur these lines:--

First to the erthe I bequethe his parte, My wretched careyn is but fowle claye, Like than to like, erthe in erthe to laye; Sith it is, according by it I wolle abide, As for the first parte of my wille, that erthe erthe hide.

In this case the English words are evidently based upon the Latin phrase, but this does not disprove an English origin for the poem _Erthe upon Erthe_, since any verses of the kind must ultimately have been based on the idea that man is dust, and the idea itself must have been first presented and have become widely known through such Latin elegiac phrases as _Memento h.o.m.o quod cinis es et in cinerem reverteris_, or _De terra plasmasti me_, both of which so frequently accompany _Erthe upon Erthe_, or as the above cited _Terram terra tegat_. The verse in _MS.

Lansdowne_ might rather be considered as supplying further proof of the popular tendency to replace such phrases by English verses, expressing the same idea, but themselves English, not Latin in origin, and making the most of the possible word-play. Such word-plays were evidently popular between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Cf. the well-known pa.s.sage in _Piers Plowman_, c. xxi. 389.

So lyf shal lyf lete ther lyf hath lyf anyented, So that lyf quyte lyf, the olde lawe hit asketh.

_Ergo_, soule shal soule quyte and synne to synne wende.

In view of this evidence, I am inclined to think that the Latin version in MS. Harl. 913 is the translation, and the English the original, and that the oldest form of _Erthe upon Erthe_ which has been preserved is that found in the four lines in MS. Harl. 2253:--

Ere toc of ere ere wy woh &c.

Short riddling stanzas of the kind, based upon the Latin phrases mentioned above, may have been popular in the thirteenth century, and this particular one was evidently known and used by the author of the _Song on the Times_.[21] The writer of the version preserved in MS.

Harl. 913 seems to have been a more learned man, acquainted with poems like the Dialogues between _the Soul and the Body_, who elaborated the four lines of MS. Harl. 2253, and perhaps other verses of the same kind, into a poem of seven six-lined stanzas, the additional couplet often introducing a new idea precisely as in the case of the similarly expanded verse-form in MS. Porkington. Either this man or a later transcriber appears to have added the Latin rendering which accompanies the poem, and to have further exercised himself in varying the word-play. Heuser[22] points out that the mistakes in the MS. would support the view that the English text is a copy of an original in another dialect, and it is possible that the Latin version belongs to this MS. alone, since a second poem in the same MS. is accompanied by an unfinished translation into Latin.

This theory as to the origin of the two texts of the A version receives further support from the fact that it also accounts most satisfactorily for the development and popularity of the B version. Apart from the play on the word _erthe_ and the similarity of the theme, there is only one point of close verbal connexion between the two versions. In MS. Harl.

913 (A) the sixth stanza runs as follows:--

Er gette on er gersom & gold, Er is i moder, in er is i mold.

Er uppon er be i soule hold; Er ere go to ere, bild i long bold.

Er bilt castles, and ere bilt toures; Whan er is on ere, blak be e boures.