Digital Index of Middle English Verse: No. 2420

DIMEV 2420

IMEV 1436.5

NIMEV 1436.5

If thou wise be will / Six keep thou which I thee ken

Six rules against the sins of the tongue — one quatrain translating two Latin hexameters inserted in two MSS of the Book of Vices and Virtues, and also occuring separately

Note: See Walther (1963)

XWalther, Hans. Proverbia sententiaque latinitatis medii aevi. 6 vols. Göttingen, 1963-69

, no. 29126-7; Walther (1969)

XWalther, Hans. Initia carmina ac versuum medii aevi posterioris latinorum. Göttingen, 1959; 2nd ed. 1969

, no. 17963; Whiting (1968)

XWhiting, Bartlett Jere. Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly before 1500. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1968

, S75; for French text cf. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M771, f.43.

Title(s): Book of Vices and Virtues

Subjects: tongue, destructive power of; advice, moral; translations

Versification: — four-line — abab

Manuscript Witnesses:

1.Source: London, British Library Addit. 17013, f. 17vb

Transcription:

Ȝif þou wis be wil
sixe kepe þou whilke I þe kenne
What þou seist whom til
of whom how whi where whenne

Note: Written as prose

Editions:

Francis, Winthrop Nelson, ed. The Book of Vices and Virtues: A Fourteenth-Century English Translation of the Somme le Roi of Lorens d’Orleans. EETS o.s. 217 (1942); repr. 1987: lxii, 54.

2.Source: Oxford, Merton College Lat. 248, f. 167ra

Transcription:

If yow wise worze wille
þi sex kepen wylke I þe ken
Wat yow says and womme tys
of womme to womme ow and wen

Note: Occurs separately.

Editions:

Wenzel, Siegfried. “Unrecorded Middle-English Verses.” Anglia 92 (1974): 55-78: 64.

3.Source: Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ 18.7.21, f. 151va

Transcription:

ȝif þu wis worþe wel
Þese sex kep wich i þe kenne
Wat þu seyst wam til
Of wam & wy wer an wanne

Note: Occurs separately in John Grimestone’s sermon notebook, translating Si sapiens fore vis… which precedes it.

Attributed Title: De Sapientia (f. 151va)

Editions:

Wilson, Edward. A Descriptive Index of the English Lyrics in John of Grimestone’s Preaching Book. Medium Ævum Monographs n.s. 2. Oxford, 1973: 61.

4.Source: San Marino, CA, Henry Huntington Library HM 147 [olim Ingilby; Sotheby’s Sale 21 October 1920, lot 23; Maggs Cat. 404 (1921), n. 23], f. 21

Transcription:

ȝif þou wys be wil
six kep þou whilke I þe kenne
What þou seist whom til
of whom how why where whenne

Note: ritten as prose.

Editions:

Francis, Winthrop Nelson, ed. The Book of Vices and Virtues: A Fourteenth-Century English Translation of the Somme le Roi of Lorens d’Orleans. EETS o.s. 217 (1942); repr. 1987: lxii, 54.

priven: verb To deprive (sb.) of (sth.), deny (sb. sth.); ppl. prived, bereaved, bereft of, deprived of; without; (b) ~ of (from), to deprive (sb. of sth.), deny (sth. to sb.), exclude (sb. from sth.); prived of (from), deprived of (sth.), bereft of; lacking, without; ben of god priving, be a robber of goods; (c) to depose (sb.), dismiss; ~ of (from), deprive (sb.) of (power, kingdom, etc.), remove or dismiss (sb.) from (office or position); (d) to take (sth.) away; prevent (sth.), deny, oppose; weaken (the body); -- also without obj. MED