An Introduction to Old English Edinburgh University Press

participle. The former is either wesende or be¯onde, whilst the latter is
g
.
ebe¯on. I shall explain the prefix g
.
e- in the next chapter. There are also
two special forms for the imperative singular and plural: wes ~ be¯o and
wesa
´
~ beo
´
.
Exercise
Although it would be possible to present phrases which would test your
ability to reproduce some of the material above, I don’t believe that that
approach works as well as giving you some real Old English to analyse.
The exercise below follows the same pattern as that in Chapter 2, and
again I have excerpted a passage from Ælfric, this time from the Life of
St. Mary of Egypt:
And
t
æ¯r g
.
e-æt healfne dæ¯l 
t
æs hla¯fes
there; ate; half; part
and
t
æs wæteres ondranc and me 
t
æ¯r on niht g
.
e-reste
drank up; stayed
and on ærne morg
.
en ofer 
t
a¯ e¯a fo¯r
early morning; river went
T
a¯ onga¯n ic
.
eft biddan mine lættewestran Sancta Maria
began; again; pray; guide
t
æt he¯o me g
.
e-rihte
t
yder hire willa wæ¯re
direct; whither; willa
E
us ic
.
beco¯m on
t
is we¯sten
arrived; wilderness
and
t
anone o
e e
isne andweardan dæg
.
since; until; present
ic
.
feorrode symle fle¯onde minne God
kept apart always; fleeing ;
anbı¯dig
.
ende and g
.
e-hihtende
awaiting; rejoicing
The last line means: ‘I have always been fleeing far away, awaiting my
God and rejoicing in him’.
What I should like you to do is not merely to translate the passage into
present-day English, preferably without using the glossary at the end of
MORE NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES
37
02 pages 001-166 29/1/03 16:09 Page 37

---

the book but merely using the glosses given above. I would also suggest
that you should attempt to analyse the morphological structure of as
many of the nouns and adjectives as you can. To do this you will have to
seek the help of the glossary at the end, so try the translation first.
38
AN INTRODUCTION TO OLD ENGLISH
02 pages 001-166 29/1/03 16:09 Page 38

---

4
Verb forms
4.1 Verb types
In Old English, not wholly unlike present-day English, we can divide
verbs up into three main groups, together with a handful of irregular
verbs. The main groups are: (1) weak verbs; (2) strong verbs;
(3) modals. But there are significant general differences which should
be pointed out at once.
Firstly, you may have noticed that I have not suggested a group of
auxiliary verbs parallel to be, have and do. For the last of these there is
no problem, since do could only function as a full verb in Old English.
It is arguable, however, that the first two could function rather like an