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The Digital Index of Middle English Verse
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DIMEV 6410
IMEV 4016
NIMEV 4016
When so will wit over-step
Will and Wit — eight lines (abababab)
Note: For similar lines see 6481; for another poem on this theme see 3342. Cf. also 6684.
Subjects: advice
Versification: — eight-line — abababab



Manuscript Witnesses:
1.Source: London, British Library Cotton Caligula A.IX, f. 246vb1
First Lines:
Hƿenne so wil ƿit ofer steð
þenne is wil and wit for lore…
Last Lines:
…Ac hƿenne so wil to wene ƿrieð
þe ofo of wisdom is to tore
Note: Written as prose.
Facsimiles:
Digital Facsimile of British Library Cotton Caligula MS A IX. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Caligula_A_IX.
Editions:
Wright, Thomas, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale. Percy Society 11. London: Richard, 1843: 67.
Morris, Richard, ed. An Old English Miscellany: A Bestiary, Kentish Sermons, Proverbs of Alfred and Religious Poems of the Thirteenth Century. EETS o.s. 49 (1872); repr. 1988: 192.
Brown, Carleton Fairchild, ed. English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century. Oxford: Clarendon, 1932: 65.
Dickins, Bruce. The Conflict of Wit and Will; fragments of a Middle English alliterative poem. Leeds Texts and Monographs 4 Kendal: T. Wilson, 1937: 9.
Luria, Maxwell Sidney, and Richard L. Hoffman, eds. Middle English Lyrics. New York: Norton, 1974: 152.