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

THE GAP IN TDE ASHMOLE M3. XI
§ 4. It is surprising to find that Mr. Stevenson edited the
Ashmole text without ever discovering that there is a great gap in
the story. He prints 1. 723, which is the first line on leaf 13 of the
Ashmole MS. (as now numbered), as if it immediately followed L
722, which is the last line on the back of fol. 12. Yet 1. 722 forms
a part of a speech of Anectanabus, and 1. 723 a part of a speech of
Alexander; and, according to the Ashmole MS., Anectanabus drops
out of the romance in the middle of uttering a sentence, and is no
more heard of, whilst a king of Peloponnesus, by name Sir Nicholas,
jumps into the story without any introduction, and is at once found
in the midst of an angry parley with Alexander. A moderate
attention to the progress of the story shews us at once, that the
Ashmole MS. must, at this point, have lost one or more leaves, and
we now know that it has, in fact, lost just two leaves, or 122 lines.
The discovery of the precise state of the case was made by Mr.
Ilessels in 1874, after a careful examination of the Dublin MS., and
comparison of it with Stevenson's edition. He found that the very
passage required to fill up the gap occurs in full in that ^.IS., which,
notwithstanding its incompleteness at the beginning and end, supplies
this very material contribution to the continuity of the story.
Even
now, the conclusion of the Romance is wanting, since the Ashmole
MS. has lost a few leaves at the end also. After making this
discovery, Mr. Hessels made a transcript of the entire MS., and
kindly consented to assist me in editing the Romance. Owing to
pressure of other work, he resigned to me the preparation of the
Notes and Glossary, and expressed the wish that my name alone
should appear upon the title-page ; but so much of the work was
done by us jointly, that it is best to describe more fully the method
of editing adopted by us.
§ 5. In the first place, a collation of Stevenson's edition with the
Ashmole MS. was made by Mr. George Parker ; and, as that
edition was printed without any punctuation, the punctuation was
difference arose. It was because it escaped my notice that 1. 3028 in Stevenson
is immediately followed by 1. 3030 ; so that, after following his numbering for
more than 3000 lines, I was thus, to my regret, thrown out. There are other
Blight differences further on, as explained at p. xiii, but the difEerence in the
numbering never amounts to more than one line.