Page:Old English Gospel of Nicodemus - Hulme 1904.djvu/8

8 connection: "Soð hit is þæt ic hine abæd and on clænen syndonissce hræigle befeold," etc., where A has "on clænre scytan befeold," while B omits the reference entirely.

4. ferrædden (p. 14) for forræddan (subst. ?) = "traitor, plotter," where A has "geþeaht worhton myd þam mæssepreostum." The word is not given in the dictionaries as a noun, and may therefore be considered new.

5. belefen (p. 16) = "believe" ("Hwy nolden ge belefen on hine") is, I think, the only instance thus far recorded of the occurrence of this word in OE. literature. The New English Dictionary gives no example of it before ca. 1200.

6. hogelease (p. 16) for orsorge of A and B, and corresponding to OE. hygelēas = "careless, thoughtless, foolish," is an early instance of a rather general tendency in late OE. and early ME. to discard umlaut forms and return to the stems of the primitive words. This form is not recorded in the dictionaries. Förster quotes several similar stem-forms from the Owl and Nightingale, such as hoᵹe (l. 701), hoᵹful (l. 537), hohful (1. 1289).

7. larðeign (p. 20) for lareow of A is the earliest instance of this form yet recorded. Stratmann-Bradley gives one instance of lōr-þein.

8. bisne (p. 24) for blynde (A) is a rare word in Old English. It does not occur in B.-T., Grein, Sweet, or Clark Hall, but Cook has noted its appearance three times in the Lindisfarne Gospel of St. Matthew. The references are Matt. 9:27, "gefylgdon hine (him) tuoege bisene (blinde) clioppende;" 9:28, "geneolecdon to him bisena (blinde);" 11:5, "biseno geseað halto geonges." Both Wright and Murray give a variety of forms of this word as occurring (mainly in the northern part of England) during the ME. period, the earliest of which is Genesis and Exodus, 472 (Wright), 2822 (Murray). Wright quotes: "Lamech .... wurð bisne, and haued a man Sat ledde him ofte." The word also occurs in Owl and Nightingale, l. 243: "A dai thu art blind other bisne." The word survived far down into the modern English period as bisson, bizzen, bezzen-blind (= "purblind"), beeson, etc. It occurs at least twice in Shakespeare: once in Hamlet, II, 2, 529, "Run