2日間の記事 ([2023-01-16-1], [2023-01-17-1]) で標題の諺について考えてきた．今回は Speake の諺辞典と OED より，歴史的なヴァリエーションを拾い出してみよう．
・ c 1340 R. Rolle in G. G. perry Religious Pieces (EETS) 88 When Adam dalfe [dug] and Eue spane ... Whare was than the pride of man?
・ 1381 in Brown & Robbins Index Middle English Verse (1943) 628 Whan adam delffid and eve span, Who was than a gentilman?
・ a1450 in C. Brown Relig. Lyrics 14th Cent. (1924) 96 When adam delf & eue span, spir, if þou wil spede, Whare was þan þe pride of man þat now merres his mede.
・ a1450 T. Walsingham Historia Anglicana (1864) II. 32 Whan Adam dalf, and Eve span, Wo was thanne a gentilman?
・ c1525 J. Rastell Of Gentylnes & Nobylyte sig. Aviv For when adam dolf and eue span who was then a gentylman.
・ 1562 J. Pilkington Aggeus & Abadias I. ii. When Adam dalve, and Eve span, Who was than a gentleman? Up start the carle, and gathered good, And thereof came the gentle blood.
・ 1777 T. Campbell Philos. Surv. S. Ireland xxxii. 308 England..had its Levellers, who, aggrieved by the monopoly of farms, rebelliously asked, When Adam delved, and Eve span, Where was then your Gentleman?
・ 1979 C. E. Schorske Fin-de Siécle Vienna vi. When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman? The question had ironic relevance for the arrivé.
・ 2013 New Statesman May (online) An oral peasant culture, such as still survives in the Balkan countryside, is a fertile context for the transmission of history and ideas through ballad and song. This is not so different from 'When Adam Delved and Eve Span', which we've inherited from our 14th-century Peasants' Revolt.
delve の過去形としては，後期中英語の段階から従来の強変化形に加えて新しい弱変化形も現われていたことが分かる．一方，今回の証拠の範囲内では，過去形 span は不変であり，現代標準的な spun に置き換えられた例はない．また，疑問詞として who の代わりに where が用いられているもの，a gentleman や your gentleman のように the 以外が用いられているものもあった．gentleman の代わりの pride of man というのもおもしろい．
最後に，古風あるいはほとんど使われない名詞 delve について一言触れておきたい．これは古英語 gedelf (> PDE delf) に遡る一種の異形とも解釈できるかもしれないが，初出が1590年の Spenser Faerie Queene であることを考えると，Spenser 流の懐古的・擬古的な言葉遣いが反映された，動詞 delve からの品詞転換 (conversion) の事例とととらえることもできそうだ（cf. 「#1410. インク壺語批判と本来語回帰」 ([2013-03-07-1])）．見方次第だが，死語の復活に類するものといえる．
・ Speake, Jennifer, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. 6th ed. Oxford: OUP, 2015.
英語史において，現代の標準英語 (Standard English) の直接の起源はどこにあるか．「どこにあるか」というよりも，むしろ論者が「どこに置くのか」という問題であるから，いろいろな見解があり得る．書き言葉の標準化の兆しが Chaucer の14世紀末に芽生え，"Chancery Standard" が15世紀前半に発達したこと等に言及して，その辺りの時期を近代の標準化の嚆矢とする見解が，伝統的にはある．しかし，現代の標準英語に直接連なるのは「どこ」で「いつ」なのかという問題は，標準化 (standardisation) とは何なのかという本質的な問題と結びつき，なかなか厄介だ．
Crowley (303--04) は，標準英語の形成に関する論考の序説として "Renaissance Origins" と題する一節を書いている．標準化のタイミングに関する1つの見方として，洞察に富む議論を提供しているので，まるまる引用したい．Thomas Wilson, George Puttenham, Edmund Spenser という16世紀の著名人の言葉を借りて，説得力のある標準英語起源論を展開している．
The emergence of the English vernacular as a culturally valorized and legitimate form took place in the Renaissance period. It is possible to trace in the comments of three major writers of the time the origins of a persistent set of problems which later became attached to the term "standard English." Following the introduction of Thomas Wilson's phrase "the king's English" in 1553, the principal statement of the idea of a centralized form of the language in the Renaissance was George Puttenham's determination in 1589 of the "natural, pure and most usual" type of English to be used by poets: "that usual speech of the court, and that of London and the shires lying about London, within lx miles and not much above" (Puttenham 1936: 144--5). In the following decade the poet and colonial servant Edmund Spenser composed A View of the State of Ireland (1596) during the height of the decisive Nine Years War between the English colonists in Ireland and the natives. In the course of his wide-ranging analysis of the difficulties facing English rule, Spenser offers a diagnosis of one of the most serious causes of English "degeneration" (a term often used in Tudor debates on Ireland to refer to the Gaelicization of the colonists): "first, I have to finde fault with the abuse of language, that is, for the speaking of Irish among the English, which, as it is unnaturall that any people should love anothers language more than their owne, so it is very inconvenient, and the cause of many other evils" (Spenser 1633: 47). Given Spenser's belief that language and identity were linked ("the speech being Irish, the heart must needes bee Irish), his answer was the Anglicization of Ireland. He therefore recommended the adoption of Roman imperial practice, since "it hath ever been the use of the Conquerour, to despise the language of the conquered, and to force him by all means to use his" (Spencer 1633: 47).
There are several notable features to be drawn from these Renaissance observations on English, a language which, it should be recalled, was being studied seriously and codified in its own right for the first time in this period. The first point is the social and geographic basis of Wilson and Puttenham's accounts. Wilson's phrase "the king's English" was formed by analogy with "the king's peace" and "the king's highway," both of which had an original sense of being restricted to the legal and geographic areas which were guaranteed by the crown; only with the successful centralization of power in the figure of the monarch did such phrases come to have general rather than specific reference. Puttenham's version of the "best English" is likewise demarcated in terms of space and class: his account reduces it to the speech of the court and the area in and around London up to a boundary of 60 miles. A second point to note is that Puttenham's definition conflates speech and writing: its model of the written language, to be used by poets, is the speech of courtiers. And the final detail is the implicit link between the English language and English ethnicity which is evoked by Spenser's comments on the degeneration of the colonist in Ireland. These characteristics of Renaissance thinking on English (its delimitation with regard to class and region, the failure to distinguish between speech and writing, and the connection between language and ethnicity) were characteristics which would be closely associated with the language throughout its modern history.
英国ルネサンスの16世紀に，(1) 階級的，地理的に限定された威信ある変種として，(2) 「話し言葉＝書き言葉」の前提と，(3) 「言語＝民族」の前提のもとで生み出された英語．これが現代まで連なる "Standard English" の直接の起源であることを，迷いのない文章で描き出している．授業で精読教材として使いたいほど，読み応えのある文章だ．同時代のコメントを駆使したプレゼンテーションと議論運びが上手で，内容もすっと受け入れてしまうような一節．このような文章を書けるようになりたいものだ．
上記の Puttenham の有名な一節については，「#2030. イギリスの方言差別と方言コンプレックスの歴史」 ([2014-11-17-1]) で原文を挙げているので，そちらも参照．
・ Crowley, Tony. "Class, Ethnicity, and the Formation of 'Standard English'." Chapter 30 of A Companion to the History of the English Language. Ed. Haruko Momma and Michael Matto. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. 303--12.
昨日の記事「#2725. ghost word」 ([2016-10-12-1]) で，derring-do （大胆な行動，必死の勇）という語について触れた．今回は，この幽霊語についてもう少し詳しく解説しよう．
昨日見たように Chaucer の In durryng don . . . がこの表現の端緒となったが，その後 John Lydgate (1370?--1450?) の Troy Book (a1420) では dorryng do という綴字で使用された．これが，1513年の版本では誤植により derrynge do として現われている．この誤植された綴字は，そのまま Edmund Spenser (1552?--99) が受け継ぎ，これを動詞句としてではなく名詞句と誤解し，Shepheardes Calender (1579) の October において "manhood and chevalrie" と注解を与えた．この語は，後に Sir Walter Scott (1771--1832) により Ivanhoe (1819) で deeds of such derring-do として用いられ，これを19世紀のロマン派の作家たちが頻繁に模倣したことにより，一般化した．
OED では，"pseudo-archaism" とレーベルが貼られた上で，次のように語源の解説がある．
The words come incidentally in their ordinary sense and construction followed by the object 'that' (= what, that which) in Chaucer's Troylus; whence, in an imitative passage by Lydgate, in an absolute construction more liable to misunderstanding; Lydgate's dorryng do was misprinted in the 16th c. editions (1513 and 1555) derrynge do, in which form it was picked up by Spenser and misconstrued as a subst. phrase, explained in the Glossary to the Sheph. Cal. as 'manhood and chevalrie'. Modern romantic writers, led by Sir W. Scott, have taken it from Spenser, printed it derring-do, and accentuated the erroneous use.
上記に挙げた作家たちによる用例を，OED より再掲しよう．
c1374 Chaucer Troilus & Criseyde v. 837 Troylus was neuere vn-to no wight..in no degre secounde, In dorryng don [v.rr. duryng do, dorynge to do] þat longeth to a knyght..His herte ay wiþ þe firste and wiþ þe beste Stod paregal, to dorre don [v.rr. durre to do, dore don] that hym leste.
1430 Lydgate tr. Hist. Troy ii.xvi. (MSS. Digby 232 lf. 56 a/2; 230 lf. 81 a/1) And parygal, of manhode and of dede, he [Troylus] was to any þat I can of rede, In dorryng [v.rr. doryng(e] do, this noble worþy wyght, Ffor to fulfille þat longeþ to a knyȝt, The secounde Ector..he called was. [1513, 1555 In derrynge do, this noble worthy wyght.]
1579 Spenser Shepheardes Cal. Oct. 65 For ever who in derring doe were dreade, The loftie verse of hem was loved aye. [Gloss., In derring doe, in manhood and chevalrie.]
. . . .
1819 Scott Ivanhoe II. xv. 300 Singular..if there be two who can do a deed of such derring-do. [Note. Derring-do, desperate courage.]
1843 E. Bulwer-Lytton Last of Barons I. i. vi. 107 Such wonders and dareindo are too solemn for laughter.
1866 G. W. Dasent Gisli 107 Such a deed of derring-do would long be borne in mind.
1885 R. F. Burton tr. Arabian Nights' Entertainm. (1887) III. 433 Who is for duello, who is for derring-do, who is for knightly devoir?
Lydgate の用例をみると，Spenser より前の段階で，すでに動詞句としてではなく名詞句として解されていた可能性がありそうだ．
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