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A Mumming at Windsor:
British Library Additional 29729 Verses

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f.145 recto
Folio 144 RectoFolio 144 VersoFolio 145 RectoFolio 145 Verso

Folio 145 Recto
Compare Witnesses:
I meane it thus / that word and werke were on
it is no wender / for wymen so ben echon
A daune Iohan est
yvray
hir holynesse / ffraunce did enlumyne
and crystes fayth / gretly magnefye
loo what grace / doth in wymen shyne
was assuraunce / no man may denye
to saye pleyne truthe / nys no flaterye
but stabulnesse / in wymen for to fynde
demeth youre sellfe / wher it kometh them of kynde
ffor thorougħ mekenesse / yf it be aduerted
of saynte clote / and thorough hir hygh prudence
kynge cloudoue / was to oure feyth conuerted
in her ther was / so entier diligence
ffullye deuoyde / of slouth and necligence
no stynt noughte / till that hir lord hath take
the fayth of cryst / and his errour forsake
this made the kynge / that crystes feyth toke1
ffor he was bothe / manly and righte wys
the thre crepandes / this noble kynge for soke
and in his sheld / he bare thre floure delys
sent from heuen / a tresore of great prys
after at raynes / the story telleth thus
baptysed lowly of saint remigius2
thampolle of golde / a coluer broughte adoune
with whych he was / this holy kynge ennoynte
gret pres ther was / stondinge envyronge
ffor to be hold the kynge / from poynte to poynt
ffor wher as he / stod in grete desioynt
first apaynyme / by baptyme anon righte
was so conuerted / and be h[k]anee3 cristes knight
At reygnes ther / that holy vnccyony4
conserued it for a remembraunce
and of custome / by reuolucyon
of god prouyded / with due obseruaunce
tannoynte of custome / kynges which in ffraunce
Iustly succed / the story doth vs lere
of whych / sixt henry / þat now sitteth here
Notes
  1. Trinity R.3.20 puts this and "soke," below, in the present rather than past tense.
  2. The tittle is missing from the initial "i" glyph in this word, but the scribal practice is inconsistent throughout so it still reads "mi" rather than "nn."
  3. It appears that the scribe originally took the initial "k" of this word to be an "h," then corrected themselves by writing over the existing glyph.
  4. The terminal "y" here breaks the rhyme scheme of the stanza. This terminal y glyph also appears in the first stanza of the following page as well (breaking the rhyme scheme there as well) as in , although there the rhyme scheme is kept. This suggests a terminal glyph in the exemplar that the scribe is consistently misinterpreting.