Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/330

316 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH reducing the latter to eight ' biddings ' only. The matter is developed at some length, and the incon- gruity is not very apparent. In C, however, the passage is considerably compressed so that no one could help noticing the unusual form of the ex- position. I conjecture that the compression was due to AC, and that the compiler of x disapproved of what he found there. Anyhow he substituted what is meant to be a version of the ordinary decalogue, though it is true that he has made a sad mess of it. That x borrows nothing from the incidental expansions of C or from the lengthy appendix is, I conjecture, simply due to these being additions of C not present in *. It is true that the appendix contains lines clearly suggested by phrases occurring earlier in W, but I imagine that these lines appeared in K in their original places, and that it was merely the compiler of C who dropped them there and worked them into his appendix. 1 1 A curious point, which at first sight raises a rather serious difficulty, occurs in x 229. This is the first line of scene 3, and the passage is not parallel to any of the other texts. Nevertheless the line in question, Heare our reason right on row . . . seems reminiscent of two lines in Y : And rede youre resouns right on rawes ... 50 To here cure reasouns redde by rawes ... 86 The first of these occurs in scene 2, which has nothing parallel either in W or C, the second in scene 3 where W has : To here oure sawes red by rawes ... 62 but where C is again divergent. And yet it is almost certain that the compiler of x must have known both lines of Y, or else a line