to drink; wôeron tô farenne, they were to go; ic hœbbe mete tô etanne, I have to eat; synd forðfarene, they are gone. The Future was expressed by shall and will, and also by the Present; we still say, ‘another word, and I go.’ Ic môt, þû môst expressed permission, and was very seldom used in our sense of must, expressing need.[1]
Our fathers translated the Latin debeo by sceal; we have lost this old sense of that verb, except in a phrase like ‘he should do it.’ In the Imperative mood, utan was used where we say let, as utan tô-brecan, let us break; this old form lingered on to 1250. We see an attempt to supply the want of a Middle voice in such phrases as hê heþohte hine, ‘he bethought him,’ and the later, ‘I fear me.’
I give a few forms, which we should not expect, found in English writers before the Conquest. These I have taken from March's Anglo-Saxon Grammar, published in 1870.
The Article, as in Homer, sometimes stands for the Pronoun; seô for heô; as, seô lufath hine.[2] Hence comes our she.
The Preposition of is used to express material instead of the old Genitive. Thus we find not only scennum scîran goldes, but also reâf of hœrum.[3] Compare Virgil's templum de marmore ponam. This of and this de have been the parents of a wide-spread offspring in modern
