Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/216

210 Moore drysne is used in the sense of "worthy of reverence or respect," for example:

Wæs he for his árfæstum dædum eallum his geferum leof & weorð & ondrysne (Blickling Homilies, 213, 11 f.);

Now "reverence" fits the Beowulf passage at least as well as "etiquette." In the light of the evidence we have, therefore, it would seem best to give up the accepted interpretation of for andrysnum and return to that of Thorpe, who translates it "from reverence."

Instead of mǣre, which was introduced into the text by Grien in 1867, was adopted by Heyne in his second edition (1868), and has appeared in all subsequent editions that I have seen except Arnold's (1876), we should read mǣru. The form of Grein's emendation was in accordance with the grammatical information of the time; even his Kurzgefasste angelsächsische Grammatik, published in 1880 after his death, says in regard to the j-stem adjectives: "Wo … der wurzelvocal keinen umlaut zulässt, unterscheidet sich die declination dieser adjectiva von der gewöhnlichen adjectivdeclination eben nur durch das e in den flexionslosen formen, d.h. im nom. sg. m. f. n. und im acc. sg. n."