Piers the Plowman

[sister_raphael]

Checking a few quotes I'm using from three versions of Piers the Plowman. Here's my oldest (printed 1888) from my vintage book library and the newest, printed in 1992. I really don't know which version to use. Is the new translation using more modern words for things, or more accurate ones? The third version of the quote is similar but a bit different again.

All authors have solid research credentials.The oldest is a bit more swear-y, and uses the very old words for things, which I like.

These two are Piers Plowman by William Langland, written c.1370-1386. A New Translation of the B Text. A. V. C. Schmidt. The World’s Classics, Oxford University Press in 1992 and The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman by William Langland. According to the version revised and enlarged by the author about A.D. 1377, edited by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, Litt.D. Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press Series in 1888.

I own both versions, with the 1888 in my antique book collection.

Comments

[cmcmck]

The B text is the best in my opinion.

I can read it aloud in the original middle English.

Langland came from the Malvern area which is local to us so the dialect he writes is west Midlands.

B Text opening, which I love!

In a somer seson, whan softe was þe sonne,
I shoop me into shroud as I a shepe weere,
In habite as an heremite, vnholy of werkes,
Wente wide in þis world wondres to here.
Ac on a May morwenynge on Maluerne hilles
Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me þoȝte.
I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste
Under a brood bank by a bourne syde;
And as I lay and lenede and loked on þe watres,
I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.
þanne gan I meten a most merveillous swevene,
þat I was in a wildernesse, wiste I neuere where.

[sister_raphael]

It's such a beautiful opening, isn't it? I feel the book doesn't get as much love as it should. Yes, people do know about it and everything, but it doesn't get quoted as much as other texts do. :)