Early Britain by Grant Allen (books recommended by bts TXT) 📕

For a token of glory, that thou here lookest on.
That I unsoftly, gloriously accomplished,
In war under water: the work I dared,
With much labour: rightly was
The battle divided, but that a god shielded me.

Or, to translate more prosaically:–

"Beowulf, the son of Ecgtheow, addressed the meeting. See, son of Healfdene, Prince of the Scyldings; we have joyfully brought thee this gift from the sea which thou beholdest, for a proof of our valour. I obtained it with difficulty, gloriously, fighting beneath the waves: I dared the task with great toil. Evenly was the battle decreed, but that a god afforded me his protection."

In this short passage, many of the words are now obsolete: for example, _mathelian_, to address an assembly (_concionari_); _lac_, a gift; _wig_, war; _guth_, battle; and _leod_, a prince. _Ge-digde_, _ge-nethde_, and _ge-twæfed_ have the now obsolete particle _ge_-, which bears much the same sense as in High German. On the other hand, _bearn_, a bairn; _sunu_, a son; _sæ_, sea; _tacen_, a token; _wæter_, water; and _weorc_, work, still survive: as do the verbs _to bring_, _to look_, and _to shield_. _Lust_, pleasure, whence _lustum_, joyfully, has now restricted its meaning in modern English, but retains its original sense in High German.

A few lines from the "Chronicle" under the year 1137, during the reign of Stephen, will give an example of Anglo-Saxon in its later and corrupt form, caught in the act of passing into Chaucerian English:–


This gære for the King
| This year fared the King Stephan ofer sæ to Normandi;
| Stephen over sea to Normandy; and ther wes under
| and there he was fangen, forthi thæt hi wenden
| accepted [received as duke] thæt he sculde ben alsuic alse
| because that they weened the eom wæs, and for he
| that he should be just as his hadde get his tresor; ac he
| uncle was, and because he todeld it and scatered sotlice.
| had got his treasure: but he Micel hadde Henri king
| to-dealt [distributed] and gadered gold and sylver, and
| scattered it sot-like [foolishly]. na god ne dide men for his
| Muckle had King saule tharof. Tha the King
| Henry gathered of gold and Stephan to Englaland com,
| silver; and man did no good tha macod he his gadering
| for his soul thereof. When æt Oxeneford, and thar he
| that King Stephan was come nam the biscop Roger of
| to England, then maked he Sereberi, and Alexander
| his gathering at Oxford, and biscop of Lincoln, and the
| there he took the bishop Canceler Roger, hise neves,
| Roger of Salisbury, and Alexander, and dide ælle in prisun, til
| bishop of Lincoln, and hi iafen up hire castles.
| the Chancellor Roger, his
| nephew, and did them all in
| prison [put them in prison]
| till they gave up their castles.

The following passage from Ælfric's Life of King Oswold, in the best period of early English prose, may perhaps be intelligible to modern readers by the aid of a few explanatory notes only. _Mid_ means _with_; while _with_ itself still bears only the meaning of _against_:–

"Æfter tham the Augustinus to Englalande becom, wæs sum æthele cyning, Oswold ge-haten [_hight_ or _called_], on North-hymbra-lande, ge-lyfed swithe on God. Se ferde [went] on his iugothe [youth] fram his freondum and magum [relations] to Scotlande on sæ, and thær sona wearth ge-fullod [baptised], and his ge-feran [companions] samod the mid him sithedon [journeyed]. Betwux tham wearth of-slagen [off-slain] Eadwine his eam [uncle], North-hymbra cyning, on Crist ge-lyfed, fram Brytta cyninge, Ceadwalla ge-ciged [called, named], and twegen his æfter-gengan binnan twam gearum [years]; and se Ceadwalla sloh and to sceame tucode tha North-hymbran leode [people] æfter heora hlafordes fylle, oth thæt [until] Oswold se eadiga his yfelnysse adwæscte [extinguished]. Oswold him com to, and him cenlice [boldly] with feaht mid lytlum werode [troop], ac his geleafa [belief] hine ge-trymde [encouraged], and Crist him ge-fylste [helped] to his feonda [fiends, enemies] slege."

It will be noticed in every case that the syntactical arrangement of the words in the sentences follows as a whole the rule that the governed word precedes the governing, as in Latin or High German, not _vice versa_, as in modern English.

A brief list will show the principal modifications undergone by nouns in the process of modernisation. _Stan_, stone; _snaw_, snow; _ban_, bone. _Cræft_, craft; _stæf_, staff; _bæc_, back. _Weg_, way; _dæg_, day; _nægel_, nail; _fugol_, fowl. _Gear_, year; _geong_, young. _Finger_, finger; _winter_, winter; _ford_, ford. _Æfen_, even; _morgen_, morn. _Monath_, month; _heofon_, heaven; _heafod_, head. _Fot_, foot; _toth_, tooth; _boc_, book; _freond_, friend. _Modor_, mother; _fæder_, father; _dohtor_, daughter. _Sunu_, son; _wudu_, wood; _caru_, care; _denu_, dene (valley). _Scip_, ship; _cild_, child; _ceorl_, churl; _cynn_, kin; _ceald_, cold. Wherever a word has not become wholly obsolete, or assumed a new termination, (_e.g._, _gifu_, gift; _morgen_, morn-ing), it usually follows one or other of these analogies.

The changes which the English language, as a whole, has undergone in passing from its earlier to its later form, may best be considered under the two heads of form and matter.

As regards form or structure, the language has been simplified in three separate ways. First, the nouns and adjectives have for the most part lost their inflexions, at least so far as the cases are concerned. Secondly, the nouns have also lost their gender. And thirdly, the verbs have been simplified in conjugation, weak preterites being often substituted for strong ones, and differential terminations largely lost. On the other hand, the plural of nouns is still distinguished from the singular by its termination in _s_, which is derived from the first declension of Anglo-Saxon nouns, not as is often asserted, from the Norman-French usage. In other words, all plurals have been assimilated to this the commonest model; just as in French they have been assimilated to the final _s_ of the third declension in Latin. A few plurals of the other types still survive, such as _men_, _geese_, _mice_, _sheep_, _deer_, _oxen_, _children_ and (dialectically) _peasen_. To make up for this loss of inflexions, the language now employs a larger number of particles, and to some extent, of auxiliaries. Instead of _wines_, we now say _of a friend_; instead of _wine_, we now say _to a friend_; and instead of _winum_, we now say _to friends_. English, in short, has almost ceased to be inflexional and has become analytic.

As regards matter or vocabulary, the language has lost in certain directions, and gained in others. It has lost many old Teutonic roots, such as _wig_, war; _rice_, kingdom; _tungol_, light; with their derivatives, _wigend_, warrior; _rixian_, to rule; _tungol-witega_, astrologer; and so forth. The relative number of such losses to the survivals may be roughly gauged from the passages quoted above. On the other hand, the language has gained by the incorporation of many Romance words, shortly after the Norman Conquest, such as _place_, _voice_, _judge_, _war_, and _royal_. Some of these have entirely superseded native old English words. Thus the Norman-French _uncle_, _aunt_, _cousin_, _nephew_, and _niece_, have wholly ousted their Anglo-Saxon equivalents. In other instances the Romance words have enriched the language with symbols for really new ideas. This is still more strikingly the case with the direct importations from the classical Greek and Latin which began at the period of the Renaissance. Such words usually refer either to abstract conceptions for which the English language had no suitable expression, or to the accurate terminology of the advanced sciences. In every-day conversation our vocabulary is almost entirely English; in speaking or writing upon philosophical or scientific subjects it is largely intermixed with Romance and Græco-Latin elements. On the whole, though it is to be regretted that many strong, vigorous or poetical old Teutonic roots should have been allowed to fall into disuse, it may safely be asserted that our gains have far more than outbalanced our losses in this respect.

It must never be forgotten, however, that the whole framework of our language still remains, in every case, purely English–that is to say, Anglo-Saxon or Low Dutch–however many foreign elements may happen to enter into its vocabulary. We can frame many sentences without using one word of Romance or classical origin: we cannot frame a single sentence without using words of English origin. The Authorised Version of the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," and such poems as Tennyson's "Dora," consist almost entirely of Teutonic elements. Even when the vocabulary is largely classical, as in Johnson's "Rasselas" and some parts of "Paradise Lost," the grammatical structure, the prepositions, the pronouns, the auxiliary verbs, and the connecting particles, are all necessarily and purely English. Two examples will suffice to make this principle perfectly clear. In the first, which is the most familiar quotation from Shakespeare, all the words of foreign origin have been printed in italics:–

To be, or not to be,–that is the _question_:
Whether 'tis _nobler_ in the mind to _suffer_
The slings and arrows of _outrageous fortune_;
Or to take _arms_ against a sea of _troubles_,
And, by _opposing_, end them? To die,–to sleep,–
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand _natural_ shocks
That flesh is _heir_ to,–'tis a _consummation_
_Devoutly_ to be wished. To die,–to sleep;–
To sleep! _perchance_ to dream: ay, there's the rub
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this _mortal_ coil,
Must give us _pause_: there's the _respect_