Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/38

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NOTES AND QUERIES. CB* s. vn. JAN. 12, iwi.

NOTE ON A PASSAGE IN CHAUCER'S

' PROLOGUE.' (9 th S. vi. 365, 434, 463.)

THE proposed reading hrcegelees (gown- less) has been declared out of the question, but not on reasonable grounds. With re- gard to the sound of the g in hrcegel, Yernon, in his * Anglo-Saxon Guide,' gives the following rule: "G is never soft; when placed, however, between two of the vowels ce, e, i^ or ?/, or at the beginning of a syllable, &c., it has the sound of ?/." But he adds in a note : " It is likely that g before e or ?', and (like h) at the end of a syllable, was guttural, as it often is in German and always in Dutch." Murray ( 4 Encyc.Brit.')says : "TheOld English g beside the sound in 'go ' had a guttural sound, as in the German tag, Irish inagh, and in certain positions a palatalized form of this approach- ing ?/, as in 'you ' if pronounced kyou or g/iyou" And again : " The dialects differed in phono- logy, the Northern retaining the guttural values of, g, and sc." Ellis states: "It is possible that there was a tendency in those times [Anglo-Saxon] to pronounce g final or medial as gh, just as the Upper Germans now do, and the Dutch pronounce their g in all positions." Sweet, in his 'Anglo-Saxon Reader,' gives the g in question the sound of y as in "you," but he is dealing with one dialect only, and has the qualification that the pronunciation of the letters has been determined with " considerable certainty."

According to Ellis, "in the thirteenth, four- teenth, and fifteenth centuries it is almost a straining of the meaning of words to talk of a general English pronunciation." Different versions of words, as eyren and eggys, lie and ligge,gate and yate, much and muchel, existed in different districts at one period, and still exist, except the first. As the g re- tained its guttural sounds in the 'four- teenth century (whatever may have been the Anglo-Saxon original), there is nothing more likely than that Chaucer, reading hraffel, for instance, in the poem 'Judith ' should give the g a guttural value, which is more to the point than the correct pro- nunciation, even if it could bo ascertained beyond doubt. The spoiling of hra^elees is sufficiently like recchelees to make the one easily mistaken for the other, either with or without the initial h in the former The form rail occurring in the twelfth century (rail also occurs as rceilhus in Wright's 4 Vocabulary,' Xo. 13) does not prove the other form obsolete, as it is well known that

words persist a long time in poetry and speech after they have disappeared from prose writing. Gate and yate show the persistence of two forms of a word, the one in writing, the other in local speech. Yate is not in the list of words in Johnson's * Dictionary/ yet it is still used in Lancashire and in Scotland. It was also known to Johnson as used in the language of rustics, as he mentions when treating of the letter g.

As to the contention that an emendation is not required, if any one, not in the position of Dr. Sangrado, will read the lines con- cerned and think for himself, he will come to the conclusion that recchelees is not an ap- propriate word, as did Ten Brink, Skeat (1889), and Ellis ; and he will further agree with the last named that " cloysterlees was only a gloss which crept into the text from v. 181 and renders that line a useless repetition," and is therefore not Chaucer's doing.

Chaucer relates that the monk held two "texts" directed against monks to be ground- less. He acknowledges that both apply to himself : the first from his being a hunter, the second from his being recchelees; but he holds that the conclusion in each case does not follow. That is to say : though a hunter, the conclusion that he is not a holy man is false ; though recchelees, the conclusion that he is like a fish out of water, and therefore doomed to destruction, is inaccurate. His opinion of the two sayings is endorsed by Chaucer in 1. 183. Now, it is surely a hopeless case for a monk or any man to acknowledge himself to be reckless, and then deny that he does wrong. It is necessary that the word recchelees should have such a meaning that the monk could acknowledge it was applicable to him, and yet leave him a character to defend ; that is, it could not be reckless. The word is used in a saying evidently different from that con- cerning hunting, whereas "reckless" would apply as well to a hunting monk as to a cloisterlees one, or better. If " reckless " were ever the word, the separate consideration of hunting is manifestly unnecessary. In the description of the monk prominence is given to two features namely, his love of hunting and his love of fine dress ; so that it is appro- priate, or rather necessary, for him to hold that hunting, fine dress, and being out of a cloister were either not faults in a monk or trifling ones.

" Gownless " as a meaning suits the passage well. Like "being a hunter," it conveys a reproach to a monk, not to other men ; and a monk could acknowledge himself to be gown- less without acknowledging himself to be doomed to destruction.