The wars of Alexander: an alliterative romance translated chiefly ...

X MR. STEVENSON 3 EDITION.
internal evidence, that these two fragments are by the same author,
and belong to a poem which, when complete, must have been of
very great length. Fragment C, here edited, is wholly independent
of these, in the sense that it was written by a different translates
"Whatever it has in common with them is due to their common
source. Accordingly, the remarks below refer to fragment C
exclusively.
§ 3. Of the two MSS. containing this fragment C, viz. MSS.
Ashmole 44, and Dublin D. 4. 12—which will henceforth be called
simply the Ashmole and Dublin MSS.—the former is the more important,
partly because it contains a much larger portion of the story,
and partly because it is more correctly written. It was printed by
Mr, Stevenson in full, and has thus become known, being frequently
cited by Dr. Morris and other writers, whilst it has also been
made use of by Matzner and Stratmann in their Middle-English
Dictionaries. ^Ir. Stevenson's text (like that of his edition of
fragment B) is by no means free from faults, and was doubtless
printed from an imperfect transcript, without due collation of the
proof-sheets with the MS. itself.^ Thus in 1. 15, he prints " forwart
for " ioTwith," and " ettitlis " for " ettillis," though the latter word
is rightly given in the Glossary. In 1. 16, he has "o3efulle3t" for
" a^efullest," and so on. In some cases the errors are still more
sorious ; as in 1. 70, where " it semyd " is turned into " or myd," and
in 1. 417, where "sweuyi" appears as "sodeyn." Nevertheless, the
transcription was, in general, well made, and a little more caution
would have given us a faithful text throughout, excepting in such
minute particulars as the use of ]> for th, & for and, and the mode of
expressing contractions. The chief defects of the edition, after all,
are due to the fact that the Dublin MS. was not consulted. Mr.
Stevenson does, indeed, mention it, but says that he only knew of it
through the kindness of Sir F. Madden, who had made a note that
it commenced with 1. 678 of the Ashmole text, and ended with 1.
3426.2
^ Such a collation would have detected the omission of two whole lines in
the transcript, viz. 4002* and 4733.
2 L. 3425 of the present edition. As it is always my endeavour to keep to
old numberings of lines, for the sake of reference, I must explain how this