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A Mumming at London:
British Library Additional 29729 Verses

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f.143 recto
Folio 140 RectoFolio 140 VersoFolio 141 RectoFolio 141 VersoFolio 142 RectoFolio 142 VersoFolio 143 RectoFolio 143 VersoFolio 144 Recto

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Folio 143 Recto
Compare Witnesses: •
off verry magnanymyte •
thinges gret doth vnderfonge •
takinge in pryses1 / which ben stronge •
and moste she doth hir pouer preue •
a communalte2 for to releve •
namely vpon a grounde of truth •
than in hir ther is no slouthe •
ffor to mayntayn the good comune •
and also the assaultes of fortune •
of verrey stedfastnesse of thoughte •
all hir chaunges / she sette at noughte •
ffor this uertu magnyfycence •
thorough hir mighty excellence •
she armed thos philosophers coulde3 •
off wordly thinge / that they nought tould •
recorde vpon dyogenes4 •
on plato5 and on socrates6 •
she made cypionn7 of cartage •
to vnderfonge in hys age •
ffor comune preufyte thinges grete •
and for no dred list not lett •
agaynst rome that mighty toune •
for to defende his g regyon •
she made hector8 for hys cite •
to spare for non adversyte •
but as amyghty champyon •
in the defence of troyes toun •
to dye with outen fere or dred •
and thus this lady who taketh hed •
makith hur champyons stronge •
parralus thinges to vunderfonge •
till that they ther purpose fyne •
record of the worthes nyne •
off / other eke that were but late •
In9 meane prynces / of latter date •
henry the fyfte / I dare seye soo •
he myght be tould for on of the •
empryses that were begonne •
he left not til they wer wonne •
and I supposse / and yow list see •
that thos ladyes all thre •
were of his counsayle doutles •
.i. republica •
Notes
  1. Trinity R.3.20 has "enpryses" here, which provides a different reading. ↩
  2. There is an otiose tittle over what should be the final glyph before the "a" in this word. ↩
  3. Trinity R.3.20 has "oolde" here, which might fit better, but the structure of words like "comune" in line nineteen of this section and "cometh" in the incipt, when compared with "smoothe" in the third line of f.140r and "doo" in the third line from the top of f.141 indicate that this is meant to be a "co" construction. ↩
  4. Bracketed on both sides ↩
  5. Bracketed on both sides. ↩
  6. Bracketed on both sides ↩
  7. Bracketed on the left. ↩
  8. Bracketed on the left ↩
  9. The EETS edition corrects this to "I," in one of the few instances of correction that MacCraken noted. ↩

The work on this manuscript witness was generously supported by a ZKS-Lendrum Fellowship in the Scientific Study of Manuscripts and Inscriptions at the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Durham University. The transcription of this work is owned by the editor and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The images are (c) British Library Board (British Library Additional MS 29729) and rights are reserved.