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Its
structure offers some problems, perhaps caused partly by remoteness from
the original text (see note
on line 48). Its basic unit is a six-line stanza, rhyming aaabab;
the stanzas are also linked in most cases by the repetition in their
first line of a keyword taken from the end of the previous stanza (e.g. gladschipe
(5) . . . glad (7), wyf (12, 13), eyen (24) . . . heye
(25). However, neither the stanza-structure nor the linking is wholly
consistent. There are two extra lines (37-8) following the sixth
stanza which do not seem to belong there, and the final stanza is
missing a line; although the first line of most of the stanzas has four
stresses, line 7 seems to have two and line 19 three; and there is no
apparent linking (unless lystne 38 and herkneth 39 count)
between the last four stanzas. |
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Set up by Bella Millett, enm@soton.ac.uk. Last updated 24 July 2003 . London, British Library, Harley MS 2253 f. 67r, reproduced by permission of the British Library; no further reproduction permitted. |