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INTRODUCTION
§ 1. In An Essay on Alliterative Poetry, written by myself, and prefixed to vol. iii of the Percy Folio MS, ed. Hales and Furnivall, I have explained that there are no less than three poems (all fragmentary) in alliterative verse on the subject of the Romance of Alexander the Great. These I denote by the letters A, B, and C; they are as follows.[1]
A. A fragment preserved in MS. Greaves 60, in the Bodleian library, beginning—"Yee þat lengen in londe · Lordes and ooþer." This was edited by me for the E.E.T.S. in 1867, being printed in the same volume with William of Palerne, pp. 177-218. It has never been printed elsewhere.
B. A fragment preserved in MS. Bodley 264, beginning—"Whan þis weith at his wil · weduring hadde." This was edited by Mr. Stevenson for the Roxburghe Club in 1849, and is now reprinted in the present volume.
C. A fragment preserved in MS. Ashmole 44, in the Bodleian library, of which a portion is also found in MS. Dublin D. 4.12. It begins—"When folk ere festid & fed · fayn͏̄ wald þai here," and was also printed by Mr. Stevenson at the same time and in the same volume; without, however, collation with the Dublin MS., which is of later date than the Ashmole MS.
It will be understood that the remarks I have now to make relate to fragment B only, unless the contrary be expressed.
§ 2. There is but one copy of fragment B, and it is imperfect both at the beginning and the end. The portion preserved has been handed down to us in rather a curious way. The MS. in which it
- ↑ See also p. xxx of my Preface to William of Palerne, &c.
