De Amico ad Amicam
In my translation , I choose to reject Spitzer’s usually accepted recommendation to see the od as having the d as an inverse spelling for t , and his rather convoluted logic based on that , given od is actually a standard Anglo-Norman form of the preposition . Instead , treyé is taken here to be an unusual spelling of the Middle English treue , one which is close to the Old English equivalent trywe . Given the scribe uses schent , another Middle English word that directly derives from Old English , this seems plausible . Spitzer , Leo . ‘ Emendations Proposed to De Amico ad Amicam and Responcio . ’ Modern Language Notes 63.7 ( 1952 ) , pp. 150-55 ( pp. 150-151 ; treue ( adj ) , sense 1a : ‘ faithful in romantic or marital relations ; — sometimes used of the heart ; also , sincerely in love ’ , and 1c : ‘ in address ’ , MED Online , http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED46999 ( accessed 15 June 2018 ) .
amo u rI follow Spitzer’s recommendation here of seeing these two words as one , incisto , the first person present active indicative form of * incistare ‘ to enshrine ’ , “ a nonce word the author may well have coined ” ( Spitzer , p. 154 ) .
In the manuscript , it can be seen that hatt was the original form , with the yogh written later ( seemingly by the same hand ) over the top of the flourish on the final - t , to form hattȝ . From this , I conclude two things . Firstly , the lines originally read Amore / Mortes hatt [ es ] tost sun espeye , with hattes from the Anglo-Norman hatier ‘ to challenge ’ i.e. ‘ Love’s Sword readily challenges Death ’ . This is later corrected to Amorte / Mortes hattȝ tost sun espeye , with hattȝ from the Middle English hatiȝen ‘ to feel hatred for ’ i.e. ‘ Love’s Sword always hates Death ’
tost su n espeyIn both transcription and translation , I follow Spitzer’s suggestion of adding pry to this line ; he suggests this based on the supposition of an Anglo-Norman form * trescere ( ModFr très-chère ; cf. R line 1 , treschere ) and on the necessity of adding pry to line 8 , jeo [ pry ] vous sans debat , in the Responcio in order for it to make sense ( Spitzer , p. 153 ) . Spitzer’s argument becomes all the more convincing given the constunction jeo vous elsewhere in the two poems is only ever followed by pry ( DA line 64 , pur ceo jeo vous pry , line 67 , jeo vous pry pur charité ; R line 52 , cesteȝ maundés jeo vous pry ) .
Dyȝ is interpreted here the Anglo-Norman dis ‘ days ’ . After the deaffrication of z = / ts / , s and z are entirely interchangeable ( cf. e.g. AND , s.v. tuzdis ) . Ian Short , Manual of Anglo-Norman , 2nd edition ( Oxford : Anglo-Norman Text Society , 2013 ) , pp. 113-14 .
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