Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 - Various - Страница 3
Queries
FAIRFAX'S TASSO
ОглавлениеIn a copy of Fairfax's Godfrey of Bulloigne, ed. 1600 (the first), which I possess, there occurs a very curious variorum reading of the first stanza of the first book. The stanza, as it is given by Mr. Knight in his excellent modern editions, reads thus:
"The sacred armies and the godly knight,
That the great sepulchre of Christ did free,
I sing; much wrought his valour and foresight,
And in that glorious war much suffer'd he;
In vain 'gainst him did hell oppose her might,
In vain the Turks and Morians armed be;
His soldiers wild, to brawls and mutines prest,
Reduced he to peace, so heaven him blest."
By holding up the leaf of my copy to the light, it is easy to see that the stanza stood originally as given above, but a cancel slip printed in precisely the same type as the rest of the book gives the following elegant variation:
"I sing the warre made in the Holy Land,
And the Great Chiefe that Christ's great tombe did free:
Much wrought he with his wit, much with his hand,
Much in that braue atchieument suffred hee:
In vaine doth hell that Man of God withstand,
In vaine the worlds great princes armed bee;
For heau'n him fauour'd; and he brought againe
Vnder one standard all his scatt'red traine."
Queries.—1. Does the above variation occur in any or many other copies of the edition of 1600?
2. Which reading is followed in the second old edition?
T.N.
Demerary, September 11. 1850.
