Digital Index of Middle English Verse: No. 6751

DIMEV 6751

IMEV 4202

NIMEV 4202

With this beetle be he smitten

An English quatrain in a Latin story of the foolish father who gave away his goods, sometimes found in Bromyard’s sermons

Note: See Gomme (1890)

XGomme, G. L. “'A Highland Folk-Tale Collected by the Late J. F. Campbell and its Origin in Custom.” Folk-Lore: A Quarterly Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution & Custom 1. (1890): 197-206

, 199, 204.

Subjects: sermons, verse in; translations; illustrations, verse accompanying

Versification: — four-line — aabb

Manuscript Witnesses:

1.Source: Cambridge UK, Trinity College O.9.38 (1450), f. 47

Transcription:

With thys bytel be he smete
þat all þe worle mote hyt wete
þat yevyt hys goode to hys kynne
& goth hym selfe a beggynd

Note: Written as 2 lines.

Editions:

Furnivall, Frederick James, ed. Hymns to the Virgin and Christ…and other religious poems. EETS o.s. 24 (1867); repr. 1973: 35.

2.Source: London, British Library Royal 7 E.IV, f. 45v

Editions:

Wright, Thomas. A selection of Latin stories. Percy Society 8. London: Richard, 1842: 28.

3.Source: London, British Library Royal 8 E.XVII, f. 83v

Editions:

Wright, Thomas. A selection of Latin stories. Percy Society 8. London: Richard, 1842: 221.

Brown, Carleton Fairchild. A Register of Middle English Religious & Didactic Verse. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press for the Bibliographical Society: 1916-20: 1.362.

4.Source: London, British Library Royal 18 B.XXIII, f. 81v2

Transcription:

with þis betull be he smytte
þat all þe world well it will
þat ȝeweþ þe vnkeend all is þinge
and goyþ hym selfe on beggynge

Note: Written as prose. In a sermon for Septuagesima.

Editions:

Furnivall, Frederick James, ed. The Babees Book, etc. EETS o.s. 32 (1868); rev. ed. Early English Meals and Manners London: Trübner, 1876; repr. 1973: 35.

Ross, W. O., ed. Middle English Sermons from British Museum MS. Royal 18 B. xxiii. EETS o.s. 209 (1940); repr. 1987: 90.

D’Evelyn, Charlotte. Peter Idley’s Instructions to His Son. Boston: Modern Language Association of America; and London: Oxford UP, 1935: 226.

5.Source: London, British Library Addit. 35287, f. 104v

Transcription:

With this mace be he smete
That al the worlde may it wete
That geuyth a way his owne thynges
And goth hymselff a beggyng

Note: Separate from Latin story; added to final leaf of MS by hand of the fifteenth century with a crude illustration of the mace.

6.Source: Eton, Eton College 34, f. 192

Transcription:

Wyth thys betyll be he smete
As I wyll þat all þe werld it wete
That to the vnkynde ȝeue all thynge
And goth hymselfe on beggyng

Editions:

Lucas, Peter J. “Another Text of ‘With this beetle be he smit.’” Notes and Queries n.s. 26 [224] (1979): 396-7: 397 (including composite text and variants).

7.Source: Leicester, Leicestershire Record Office BR II/3/3 [formerly Old Town Hall MS], f. 1

Transcription:

With a Centyll be he beton
that all hys goddȝ to gyn chyldere leyton
And gyffeȝ a wey hys thyng
& goys hym selff abeggyng

Note: With 2495 added to blank folio at front.

8.Source: Manchester, John Rylands Library Lat. 394, f. 18v

Transcription:

With a betull be he smeton
Þat alle þe world may it weten
Þat ȝeues his childe alle his þynge
and gooth hym selfe abegynge

Note: Two lines, in a series of Latin & English proverbs; followed by its Latin equivalent, ‘Prioli qui sua dat vt victum querere purgat / Malleus hunc feriat quilibet vt videat.’

Editions:

Pantin, William A. “A Medieval Collection of Latin and English Proverbs…from Rylands Latin MS. 394.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 14 (1930): 81-114: 105.

9.Source: Dublin, Representative Church Body Library, Dublin Black Book of Christ Church, f. 1