Page images
PDF
EPUB

=

Soliloquies, ed. Hargrove. New York, 1902. (Yale Studies in English 13.)

Includes the Latin original.

Sun..... An OE. Homily on the Observance of Sunday, Oxford, 1901. (An English Mis

ed. Napier.

cellany, pp. 357-362.)

Wulf.... Wulfstan's Homilies, ed. Napier. Berlin, 1883. (Sammlung Englischer Denkmäler 4.)

[blocks in formation]

= Die Winteney-Version der Regula S. Benedicti, Lateinisch und Englisch, ed. Schröer. Halle, 1888.

Reference is also made to the following texts:

A. Old English Poetry.

Beowulf, ed. Wyatt.

Cambridge, 1901.

Andreas, ed. Krapp. Boston, etc., 1906.

Genesis, ed. Grein, Wülcker (Bibliothek der AS. Poesie.
Kassel, 1883-98.)

B. Middle and Modern English.

=

AV. The Authorized Version of the English Bible.
F.C.P.V. Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed.
Pollard. New York, n. d. (English Garner.)
Hal. Meid. = Hali Meidenhad, an Alliterative Homily
of the Thirteenth Century, ed. Cockayne. London,
1866. (EETS. 18.)

RV.

C. Gothic.

The Revised Version of the English Bible.

Die Gotische Bibel des Vulfila, etc., ed. Bernhardt.
Halle a. S., 1884.

Ulfilas, ed. Stamm, Heyne. 8th ed. Paderborn and
Münster, 1885.

D. Old High German.

Ev.

Otfrids Evangelienbuch, ed. Erdmann. Halle a. S., 1882.

Citations from Shakespeare are from the Globe edition; those from Chaucer from The Student's Chaucer.

CHAPTER II.

THE SIMPLE CONCESSIVE CLAUSE
INTRODUCED BY A CONJUNCTION.

The simple concessive clause introduced by a single subordinating conjunction, being much the most common of all concessive constructions in Old English, and being besides the most easily subjected to logical analysis, is naturally the first form of clause to be considered. In this chapter I shall discuss the clause first separately, then as a part of the sentence; and I shall add some comments upon idiomatic uses of the deah-clause.

THE CONCESSIVE CLAUSE SEPARATELY

1. Deah.

CONSIDERED.

A. The Connectives of the Clause.

The usual concessive conjunction is deah, which appears also in the forms peah, peh, dah, pah, and paah. It is often accompanied by the particle de (þe), so that we find many clauses introduced by deah de, peah de. With deah we may compare both Gothic pau, 'than,' 'or' (in disjunctive questions), 'in that case,' 'yet,' and pauh (in pauhjabai, although '). Other cognates are: Old High German doh, although,' 'nevertheless'; Old Saxon thoh, although,' 'nevertheless'; Old Norse þó, 'nevertheless.'

It must be noted in passing that deah has other uses besides that of concessive conjunction, for this fact sometimes involves difficulty in classifying a given

sentence. Deah is frequently employed as an adversative-'yet,' 'still,' 'however'-as are some of its cognates. It may be weakened to a mere conditional particle; it may even, in certain collocations, have an interrogative force; it may become nearly equivalent to Modern English even.

The facts that deah is adverb as well as conjunction-a usage which remains in Modern English though -and that in the concessive clause it is frequently accompanied by de, just as are forðam, ær dam and other conjunctive compounds, might lead to the hope of tracing a historical development from the adverbial Jeah through deah de and deah with de omitted, to the independent conjunction deah. The evidence, however, is not altogether conclusive. In one early text, it is true-the Vespasian Psalter-ðæhde (already written, in three cases out of the total of four, as one word) is the gloss for etsi, quanquam, and concessive si. On the other hand, in early portions of the Laws (if we may assume that they were faithfully copied) we find deah as a full conjunction: Laws 92. 7 þeah hit sie on middum felda gefohten; 94. 9 Gif hwa his agenne geleod bebycgge... deah he scyldig sie, ofer sæ. The Prose Psalms have deah throughout. In Orosius the two forms are used impartially: O. 196. 7 þeh pa senatus him hæfden þa dæd fæste forboden; 196. 17 peh pe hie swide gebrocode wæren. And not only do we find deah and deah de alternating freely in the same text, as in Orosius, the Blickling Homilies, and the collection of homilies ascribed to Wulfstan, but we find deah de predominant in some of the later writings. Ælfric shows a very marked preference for deah de-desiring, perhaps, from his strong teaching instinct, to distinguish clearly between the adverb and the conjunction. The same form is the rule in the

Saints' Lives edited by Assmann, and invariable in the Salomon prose fragment. The only conclusion demonstrable from the prose texts of Old English is that in the period known to us the two forms interchange. But in view of the adverbial use of deah and of its cognates in Old Norse and Old High German, and in view of the obviously connective character of Je, we may well infer the evolution: Jeah adv. > Jeah dedeah cj.; though we cannot detect the process.

2. swa.

In Old English prose, as well as in the poetry, there are a few cases where swa is used in a concessive sense. 'Although' is included among the meanings of swa by Bosworth-Toller, by Grein (Sprachschatz), by Koch (p. 445) and by Mätzner (3. 501). The clearest case I have found in the poetry is Genesis 391, which is noted by most of these writers:

hafað us god sylfa

forswapen on þas sweartan mistas.

Swa he us ne mæg ænige synne gestælan ...

he hæfð us peah þæs leohtes bescyrede.

This is much like a construction cited by Behaghel (Modi, p. 47) from Heliand: Hel. 2666 so thar was... sie ni weldun ... thoh. As a rule, however, in both prose and verse the Old English construction with swa is somewhat ill-defined, and is rather convertible into a concessive clause than distinctly marked as such. A passage from Andreas cited doubtfully by Reussner (p. 22) illustrates the difficulty: And. 260 ff.

1 The use of the colorless connective that after conjunctions is not unknown in more modern English: F. C. P. V., p. 120 Though that many men held him a perfect liver, yet his doctrine is not approved of Holy Church; Othello I. i. 71 though that his joy be joy.

him da ondswarode ælmihti God,

swa pat ne wiste, se de þæs wordes bad,
hwæt se manna was meðelhegendra,

þe he þær on warode wiðþingode.

Here the construction is a sort of weakened resultclause, implying a qualification, but less explicit than the clause with deah.

Similar clauses in the prose may likewise be regarded as weakened result or modal clauses. They are usually accompanied by a negative. Swa must be interpreted in these cases as a rather characterless connective, shading into concession, result, or manner, as the case may be, and, with the negative, corresponding to Modern English 'without,' 'not being.' In the following, as in other passages, the clause is plainly modal ; we should say, 'without seeing': Mart. 20. 27 ond on fruman he þær wunade, swa he nænigne oðerne mon ne geseah. In the following, the emphasis is on the contrast expressed; we should say 'yet': Mart. 208. 21 þa het he hig belucan on byrnendum bade, on þæm heo was dæg ond nyht, swa heo na ne geswætte. In Orosius swa appears as a conjunction clearly implying the concessive relation: O. 206. 3 him his sunu ham onsende, se was on his gewealde, swa he nyste hu he him to com. In other passages in the same work the construction is less plain; a contrast such as might be expressed by deah is evident, but it is not clear whether swa is equivalent to 'yet' (with loose coördinate concession) or to 'although' (with subordinate concessive clause): O. 260. 18 þæt þær wæron XXX M ofslagen swa nan mon nyste hwonon sio wroht com; 296. 25 ge. hiene... atugon swa swa ge woldon, 7 ealne his fultum. þæt wæs ... II CM, swa eower nan ne weard gewundod.

...

...

Finally, we have cases where swa, with a tinge of

« PreviousContinue »