Notes on the Text of John Skelton, ‘Vpon the dolorus dethe … of the … Erle of Northumberlande’

Abstract

JOHN SKELTON’S ‘Vpon the dolorus dethe and muche lamentable chaunce of the mooste honorable Erle of Northumberlande’ is generally held to be his earliest surviving English poem. It seems likely that it was composed as an immediate response to the murder of Henry Percy, fourth Earl of Northumberland on 28 April 1489. The earliest witness, British Library MS Royal 18 D. II, fols 165–66v, is considerably later: it probably dates from the late 1520s. The poem also appears in Marsh’s 1568 edition, Pithy pleasaunt and profitable works of master Skelton (STC 22608), sigs Yvi–Ziiv, a version that does not differ very significantly from the Royal manuscript. Several of the readings in both versions that have been retained in modern editions may be the result of scribal error introduced in the course of transmission.1 54: ‘Alas, I kan not fayne.’: This is the reading of the Royal manuscript and Marsh. But the sentence follows a series of rhetorical questions (‘why wer ye so stark mad? | What frantkyk frenzy fyll in your brayne? | Where was your wit and reson … | What willfull foly made you …’, lines 50–54), so fayne should probably be sayne. The likely confusion of -f- and long -s- is obvious. 96: ‘Take up whose wolde, for ther they let hym ly.’: Royal and Marsh read whos(e). But sense requires that the passage read ‘Take up whos[o] wolde.’ The error could have been easily created by misreading -o- as closed -e-. 118: ‘… O fowle mysuryd grounde,’: OED gives this as the only usage of mysuryd as an adjectival form meaning ‘unlucky’; it appears in both witnesses. The form may not be a genuine one, but formed by a scribal misreading of mysusyd (‘ill-treated’, misused’), through confusion of long -s- and long -r- here. 125–26: ‘… with thy sworde enharpid of mortall drede | Thow kit asonder his perfight vitall threde.’: The form enharpid is recorded only here in OED; it appears in both witnesses. It is possible it may be a scribal misreading for scharpid (‘sharpened’), a form that gives an alliterative phrase, sworde scharpid, particularly characteristic of Skelton’s usage here. 195: ‘With thi blode precious our fenaunce thou dyd pay’: This is the reading of both witnesses, with minor orthographic variation. Although fenaunce is glossed in Scattergood’s edition as ‘ransom, redemption’. I can find no warrant for its usage in this figurative sense in OED.2 Nor does the word appear elsewhere in Skelton’s lexicon. Emending fenaunce to penaunce seems to make better sense and to preserve the alliteration of the line.3