Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/323

MIRACLE CYCLES. 309 the second ' we knawes ' is the only reading that makes sense ; W and x retain the meaningless c he knawys,' while C's alteration is clearly the result of the same error in his copy. I hardly think that Y's reading, * we,' is likely to be due to an emen- dation by the scribe who had just corrupted ' boarding ' into c brandyng.' (ii) Y : Thez are the biddings ten ... 191 W : Thise ar the commaundmentis ten ... 183 C: How to kepe these comman dementis ten. 1000 X : They are my fathers commaundment. 300 Here the passages are not closely parallel, but the agreement goes to show that 'commandments' and not c biddings ' was in the original of C and W. But c biddings ' is required by the metre. (iii) Y : Mysese had neuere man more ... 213 The variants have been quoted already (p. 306). The substitution of c sorrow ' for c misease ' in W and C destroys the alliteration. Other instances might be quoted, but I think I have said enough to establish a strong presumption that W and C are not independent witnesses for the text of the earlier Y. There is just one passage which might be thought to reveal a metrical irregularity common to Y and C, but not to W ; but there is no difficulty in supposing that the earlier W contained, like Y, a redundant vocative which has been pruned away in the extant manuscript. 1 So much for the passages in which C is parallel to W. Something must now be said about those 1 Y 245, W 237, C 1053 ; but the case is a very doubtful one. V Y