We now find for the first time ye (vos) used instead of thou. French, influence must have been at work here.
‘Fader, no wretthe the nought,
Ful welcome er ye.’ — Page 41.
Some new substantives are found. In page 25 a castle is called a hold. In page 32 the old bonda (colonus) is turned into husbondman.[1] The poet elsewhere has a new sense for bond, which of old meant nothing more than a tiller of the ground: it now gets the sense of servus, as at page 184:
‘Tho folwed bond and fre.’
――――――――――
Tristrem faught as a knight,
And Urgan al in tene
Yaf him a strok unlight;
His scheld he clef bituene
Atuo.
Tristrem, withouten wene,
Nas never are so wo.
Eft Urgan smot with main,
And of that strok he miste;
Tristrem smot ogayn,
And thurch his body he threste;
Urgan lepe unfain,
Over the bregge he deste:
Tristrem hath Urgan slain,
That al the cuntre wist
With wille.
The king tho Tristrem kist,
And Wales tho yeld him tille.
- ↑ Husbonde of old meant only paterfamilias. The confusion of the derivative of bua with the derivative of bindan sometimes puzzles the modern reader.
