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XVI. Further Extract from the Exeter Manuscript in a second Letter from the Rev. J. J. Conybeare, Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, to Henry Ellis, Esq. F.R.S. and S.A.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

J.J. Conybeare
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Extract

The Anglo-Saxon Poem of which I enclose a Specimen is contained, together with various others, in the Volume preserved in the Library of Exeter Cathedral, an extract from which I had, in November last, the honour of submitting to the Society. Its subject, the Reproach of a Spirit in misery to the body which it formerly inhabited, will doubtless be recognized by those who are conversant with our early Poetry as one upon which the genius of our Minstrels, or rather perhaps of our monastic Versifiers, was not unfrequently exercised. The Exordium of this ancient composition will be found (if I have rightly translated the passage in question, which is somewhat obscure,) to contain a singular instance of popular superstition relative to the time during which the soul was permitted to revisit the Earth after its separation from the body.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 17 , 1814 , pp. 189 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1814

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References

page 190 note * The sense of this clause is by no means clear to me. The word “” which occurs once in Cædmon (p. 74. 1. 4.) is supposed by Lye to be derived from “,” Refugium. or however, appears in the compounds , Bed-time—, the Solstice— an Apartment. Its signification in these compounds and in the passage of Cædmon above mentioned seems to be Tempus, Mansio, or Statio. If be taken in the latter of these senses it may be understood as construed in the Latin Version; if in the former, it may signify ‘aliquando.’ Should the word , or be allowed to have signified ‘time’ (as it must if be correctly translated Conticinium, vid. Lye in voce) it will afford us a more plausible Etymology of the Adverb Yet, than the one proposed by Mr. Horne Tooke. The derivative adverbs (existing in algates,) and , will then appear to be formed from the oblique cases by the same analogy as ‘whiles’ and ‘whilom’ from ‘Hwil’ Tempus. The old Teutonic Zit Tempus (vid. Schilter's Glossary in voce) may be derived from the same source. The following word I have ventured to render, querulus, or stridulus, (from Hrem, Vocifera) rather than compos as Lye has given it. The only meaning I can discover for is basis, fundamentum, ). I suspect it in this place to be a mistake of the transcriber for or .