L.3.6KD.3.6 What man of þis molde · þat hire were leueste
M.3.6KD.3.6What man of þis molde þat hire were leueste
Cr1.3.6KD.3.6 What man of this molde that her were leuest
W.3.6KD.3.6 What man of þis moolde . þat hire were leuest
C.3.6KD.3.6 What man of molde · that hir were leuest
O.3.6KD.3.6 What man of þis molde þat hir were leuest
R.3.6KD.3.6 What man of þis worldR.3.6:
The beta reading is molde. However, the entire a-verse represents a
problem. F's rendering of this half-line, What wyȝe of þis world, may
be the original, descended vertically from alpha. If that were the case, R (which is usually
much more faithful to copytext than F) would have slipped into the same modernized form for
the first stave word as beta did (man) but preserved the second as
rendered in alpha and Bx, (i.e., worlde), creating an instance of faulty
alliteration. By contrast, having modernized wyȝe out of this line,
beta would then have gone on, in the interest of alliterative regularity, to invoke the
archaism molde as a replacement for the original worlde. Unfortunately for this theory, the evidence from the other versions fails to
provide it with much support. The evidence of the A witnesses
overwhelmingly favors man as the first stave of this half-line. And a
significant majority of the same manuscripts supports worlde as the second
stave (RaUHaEKWa = molde), agreeing exactly with the testimony of
manuscript R in the B tradition (against both F and beta). Among the C copies, the agreement with R's non-alliterating phrase is universal. If
Langland's metrics seem too embarrassed by this evidence, it is still possible to theorize
that he intended the first stave word of the line to be What rather than
man, but this hypothesis remains awkward since it would require an
elevation of were in the b-verse from its apparent position in a
dip. þat hire were leuest .
F.4.6KD.3.6What wyȝe of þis world / þat she were levest.