From the Seat of the Pyle? A Reading of Maxims I, Lines 138-40.(Critical Essay)

Publication: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology

Publication Date: 01-APR-00

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The three-part collection of Old English poetic maxims and other gnomic material in the Exeter Book which is known as Maxims I contains several discrete, individually-structured, short-item lists. Examples are lines 71-74, Forst sceal freosan, fyr wudu meltan etc.,(1) and 129-31, Scyld sceal cempan, sceaft reafere etc.(2) One list of this kind occurs at the beginning of the third and final section into which the collection is divided in the manuscript. Containing six brief items, and occupying lines 138-40 of Maxims I, it is distinguished by its position at the head of the new section and by the special treatment given to its first word: Raed is fully capitalized, begins a new line after a break, and has an initial letter which is both very large and lightly decorated. The list itself comprises a series of parallel phrases, all grammatically dependent on the verbal auxiliary and sentence subject (sceal mon) in the first half-line, and its end is clearly marked, both by a scribal punctuation point (a raised dot after onettan) and by the beginning of a new sentence in the following line: Til mon tiles ond tomes meares ("A good man is mindful of a good and tame horse," 1. 141). The manuscript text, which is very clear with no alterations or erasures, is as follows:(3)



RAED sceal mon secgan rune writan leop gesin gan leofes gearnian dom areccan daeges onettan.

This makes good sense as it stands (as will be argued in detail below) but only one editor, W. S. Mackie, retains the manuscript reading.(4) Other editors, beginning with Benjamin Thorpe in 1842(5) and including Bernard Muir in 1994, have emended leofes to lofes. The list has been variously translated, either following the manuscript:

One shall utter good counsel, write runes, sing poems, desire a friend, expound judgement, be diligent daily. (Mackie, p. 43)

Or following the emended text:

Counsel shall a man utter, runes write, songs sing, praise merit, judgement declare, by day hasten. (Thorpe, p. 342)(6) A man shall utter wisdom, write secrets, sing songs, merit praise, expound glory, be diligent daily.(7) Good advice should be said out loud, a secret written down, a song sung; fame is to be earned, a judgement pronounced, a man should be busy in the daytime. (Shippey, p. 71)

Of these translations, those of Thorpe, Mackie, and Gordon follow the original structure of the list closely, retaining the parallel phrasing and reflecting the dependence of all the items on the initial sceal mon; Shippey's departs from it significantly, dispensing with both these features and moving the subject (mon) from the first item to the last. Gordon has a slightly different interpretation of the first item, choosing to interpret raed as `wisdom,' whereas the other translators give it the more usual meaning `counsel, advice.' In addition, Shippey gives a particular interpretation to the verb secgan (`said out loud'), which is not overtly present in the text--as he also does to writan (`written down') in the next item. Both Gordon and Shippey have chosen to translate run with its more common meaning `secret,' rather than the less common `runic symbol/character,' and both have followed Thorpe's emendation to lofes. Mackie has adopted `runes' and retained leof, `a friend'; his choice of `desire' follows Grein and Wulker's suggestion(8) that gearnian, which most scholars see as a contraction of ge-earnian `to earn, merit, deserve,' might possibly be a verb geornian, related to the adjective georn `desirous, eager.' Mackie's interpretation is shared by Muir who, in his commentary, translates the unemended version of this item as "be eager for a loved one."(9) The other translators read gearnian as a contraction of ge-earnian, but then they all accept the emendation of leofes to lofes: that is, they translate the item as "merit praise" or "earn fame" rather than as "merit a friend." Gordon's translation of dom areccan as "expound glory" fits well with the emended fourth item concerning praise/fame (although what to "expound glory" actually means is problematic), whereas the choices of Thorpe ("judgement declare") and Shippey ("a judgement pronounced") are clearly understandable and more in line with the tenor of the (unemended) first three items.

This list seems particularly open to the charges of aesthetic inferiority and even banality which have been levelled at Maxims I,(10) and a perceived inferiority may be the reason why S. A. J. Bradley left these lines out of his 1982 translation of the poem.(11) The list seems to state the obvious:(12) rune writan could mean simply that one should write runic characters, which would match "(one should) singsongs": what else, after all, would one do with alphabetic characters or songs? Gordon and Shippey have tried to suggest more depth of meaning by choosing to translate run with its alternative meaning `secret.' Perhaps in a culture where few people were literate it was safer to write one's secrets down rather than to whisper them and risk being overheard. This interpretation places the emphasis on the verb writan rather than on the noun rune, and suggests that the point of this list is to pair certain nouns with appropriate actions. Shippey reinforces this interpretation by making a contrast between `said out loud' and `written down.' The emendation to lofes in item 4 and the resulting observation that fame (or praise) is to be earned (or merited) raises the moral tone, although Shippey's reading of item 5, "a judgement (is to be) pronounced," takes us back to the level of "a song (should be) sung." The final item, which can be literally translated as "(one should) be active by day" seems particularly unimpressive and anticlimactic. Mackie's and Gordon's translation raises it to an injunction to the Christian virtue of diligence, and Shippey's can be interpreted the same way, recalling perhaps another maxim: "the devil makes work for idle hands." Bosworth and Toller suggest a similar background: "Raed sceal mon secgan, daeges onettan (cf. the night cometh, when no man can work)."(13) Shippey defends his emendation of leofes in part by asserting that "`lof' leads on more easily to `dom,'"(14) which suggests that he sees both the fourth and the fifth items of this list as concerned with individual reputation. This, however, is an older, heroic concept that sits uneasily with the monkish exhortation to diligence, and neither seems to have much connection with speaking advice out loud, writing secrets down or singing songs. Is this list after all just an example of an inferior versifier's muddle-headedness, or could there be another explanation of its form and background? In attempting to answer this question I will look first at the details of its composition.

COMPOSITIONAL ANALYSIS

The structure of the list in Maxims I 138-40 which, for convenience, I shall refer to here as the prescribed-actions list, is very similar to that of another list from Maxims I, the characteristic-possessors list (ll. 129-31), which occurs on the same page of the manuscript and which I have analysed in detail in a recent article.(15) Like that list, this one falls into two parts with an equal division of items; it may be analysed as follows (the numbers on the left are item numbers):

Part one Part one is distinguished by the use of 1 Raed sceal mon secgan accusative (only) nouns; an opening item 2 rune writan implies the organizing principle (those 3 leop gesingan actions which should be undertaken) and is set apart by both phrasing and length; a matched item pair (2-3) gives a list signal and closes part one; end-rhyme (-an) and the dependence of all the items on sceal mon links the two parts and gives overall unity to the list. Part two Part two is distinguished by the 4 leofes gearnian dominance of genitive nouns; head-rhyme 5 dom areccan (leo-, ge-) in items 3-4 links parts one 6 daeges onettan. and two; a pattern change (to an accusative noun) gives a close signal and provides a further link with part one; a return (to a genitive noun) with variation (to a verb without an object; to the general as opposed to the particular) provides closure.

Like the characteristic-possessors list, this list has a complex structure and employs devices which apply both to the list as a whole and to its two parts separately. The devices which apply to the list as a whole are as follows. It begins with a unique opening item which is set apart from the following items by its phrasing pattern (it alone includes the phrase sceal mon) and by the number of words it contains (four as opposed to two).(16) The organizing principle (those actions which should, or must, be undertaken),(17) expressed in the phrasing pattern "sceal mon + verbal infinitive," is implied in the opening item and clarified as the list proceeds, and each successive item provides another example. The opening item also ensures the overall unity of the list, as all the subsequent items are dependent on the sentence subject (mon `one') and the prescriptive modal verb (sceal `shall/ should') contained in it. This unity is supplemented by the parallel phrasing of items 2-6, each of which has the pattern "noun + verbal infinitive" and by the rhyming endings in -an repeated for each item.(18) The opening item is followed by a pair of items, matched in both length and phrasing pattern, which signals that a list is beginning. As we have seen, these two items also begin a parallel series, but they are distinguished as a pair by the accusative case of their opening nouns (the noun in the next item, item 4, being genitive)(19) and, as the audience first hears them, they constitute a distinctive signalling pair.(20) The whole list is brought to a close by means of a double pattern-change in the final item (item 6). First, there is a change from verbs used with a direct object (secgan, writan, gesingan, gearnian, and areccan) to a verb without an object (onettan).(21) Second, there is a switch in focus from particular actions to activity in general and from the objects of action to the time (expressed by a genitive used adverbially: daeges, `by day') appropriate for activity...

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