inappropriate or misplaced augmentation; in broken syntax; and in broken or inferior sense.”4
Kane’s first exhibit, where an irritated Holy Church identifies Meed in WN, provides a good snapshot of both the phenomenon and Kane’s approach to it:
In þe popis palis she is pryvei as my selfe;
And so scholde sche nouȝt be for wrong was hir syre;
Out of wrong sche wer to wroþer haile many.
Talis pater talis filia.
For shal nevre brere bere bery as a vyne
Ne on a croked þorne kynde fygge waxe.
Arbor bona bonum fructum facit.
I ouȝt ben herre þan she for I come of a better.5
Kane identifies this as A 2.18–20, C 2.27α–29α (here in bold), A 2.21, and observes that in the C version A 2.20 “has been replaced by the point which C 2.28–29 are intended to drive home. Without this purpose, in WN, these lines are in the air. They can have been inserted only in ignorance of the local differences of meaning between the versions.”6 Since no poet could be ignorant of these differences, enter the officious scribe.
The chapter’s insistent and antiscribal tone and close attention to example after example might lead some readers to conclude that conflation is always marked by signs of officiousness. But in fact Kane discusses only about one-third of the conflated passages, enough to imply that all of them represent scribal intrusions from other versions.7 Many others are perfectly smooth. For example, Kane cites nine of MS N’s twenty-one sites of intrusion as officious. Of the remainder, five consist simply of the Latin found in the C version, and two are single lines in the list of companions who enter the pub during Gluttony’s confession (added as well by MSS VH(EA)MH3); none of these affects syntax.8 That leaves five sites of intrusion, totaling over sixty lines, about which Kane says nothing. All of them consist of English additions integrated seamlessly into received A.
Immediately after Holy Church’s enhanced identification of Meed in MS N, that document alone smoothly includes C 2.31–41α at the juncture of A 2.21–22. On one end line 21 is equivalent to C 2.30—indeed it would be just as accurate to say that N is simply continuing the conflation begun with line 27α9—and on the other, both A 2.22 and C 2.42 begin with the phrase “Tomorewe worþ.” Equally straightforward is the first conflation common to W and N:
“þu doted daff!” quod sche, “dul are þi wittis.
For litel lerestow I leve of latyn in þi ȝowþe:
Heu mihi quia sterilem duxi vitam Juvenilem.
It is a kynde knowyng þat kenneþ in þin herte …”10
Kane identifies this as A 1.129 and 130 into which are inserted (in bold) B 1.139–39α or C 1.140–40α. If these four lines were excerpted, though, they would simply be called either B 1.138–40 or C 1.139–41. Next, since lines 75 and 76 of A passus 3, “Ne bouhte none burgages, be ȝe ful certayn. / Ac Mede þe mayde þe mayre a bisowte,” are equivalent to C 3.85 and 115 respectively, it was very simple for N, or the text in its line of transmission that initiated the conflation, to add that version’s new intervening lines, 86–114. By the same token WN’s addition of C 2.246–51 at the juncture of A 2.194–95 (= C 2.245, 252), too, is seamless. Only a very willful scribe could have left signs of officiousness at any of these sites, given that Langland himself simply added new material at these junctures, which themselves survived the process of revision intact.
The most interesting such addition to MS N, where the friar-confessor asks Meed to engrave her name upon a window in the friary, shows that even where conflation is not a matter of simple addition, it could still be accomplished with no signs of officiousness. Here is the received A version of the episode, with the lines in question—to be replaced rather than added to in N—in bold:
“We han a wyndowe awurchynge wol stande us wel heye;
Wolde thow glase þe gable and grave ther thy name,
Sykir sholde thy soule be hevene to have.”
“Wiste I that,” quod þe womman, “þere nis wyndowe ne auter
That y ne sholde make or mende, & my name writen
That uch segg shal se y am suster of ȝoure hous.”
Ac god alle good folk suche gravynge defendeth
And saith Nesciat sinistra quid faciat dextera. (A 3.47–54)
The passage appears in National Library of Wales 733B thus:
“We have a wyndowe iwrouȝt stant us wel hiegh;
Woldestow glase þe gable & grave þere þi name,
Siker scholde þi soule be hevene to have.”
“Wist I þat,” quod þat womman, “I wolde nouȝt spare
For to be ȝour frende, frere, & faile ȝow nevre
Wil ȝe love lordis þat lecherie haunteþ
And lakkeþ nouȝt ladies þat loveþ wel þe same.
It is a freelte of flesche—ȝe fynde it in bokys—
And a course of kynde whereof we comyn alle;
Who may scape þe sklaunder, þe skaþe is sone amendid;
Hit is synne of þe sevene sonnest relest.
Have mercy,” quod Mede, “of men þat it haunte
And I schal kevre ȝour kirke, ȝour closter do make,
Wowes do whiten & wyndowes glasen,
Do pointin & purtraye & pay for þe makyng
þat evry segge schal seen þat I am sistre of ȝour hous.”
But god to alle good folke suche gravyng defendeþ:
Nesciat sinister quid faciat dexter.11
This instance appears to be N’s sole conflation from the B tradition, as this is equivalent to Kane and Donaldson’s B 3.51–63 (though only one of the two B families attests it, the other instead having a spurious version of lines that look like the ones N replaces, A 3.50–52). As such this will become very prominent later in the chapter, but for now the point is that N, whatever the source of his conflation, does not fall prey to the temptation of including both primitive and revised forms of the same passage. Since both the
