M.7.152KD.7.143αEcceM.7.152: Kane and Donaldson record this word as Eice. derisores et iurgia . cum eis ne crescant & cetera
Cr1.7.152KD.7.143α Ecce derisores et iurgia cum eis ne crescant .
C.7.153KD.7.143α Ecce derisores & Iurgia cum eis ne crescant &cetera.
R.7.154KD.7.143α
EcceR.7.154: Many B manuscripts
read Eice, including F and numerous beta copies; however, the
most authoritative beta copies (including LMCrW) all agree with R on Ecce. The latter variant is clearly erroneous with regard to the original
Vulgate text, but it probably already existed as a Vulgate variant long before Langland's
day since the same paleographic factors that would have induced multiple independent errors
in both directions among Piers Plowman scribes already were in place. Even
Kane-Donaldson fall into this pit, mistranscribing R's Ecce
as Eice because it is barely possible to construe
(generously) the <cc> as <ic> joined at the top by a ligature—until one
notices, in the preceding tag at R7.142, that the R scribe does not avail himself of a
ligature when writing the <ic> of solliciti. There is
no way to know which word Langland himself wrote, but since all A
manuscripts attest Ecce, the odds are, as Rigg and Brewer
theorize in Piers Plowman: The Z Version (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1983): 111, that various B scribes attempted to do
for Langland what Kane-Donaldson unconsciously do for R: repair the damage quietly. See
John A. Alford, Piers Plowman: A Guide to the Quotations
(Binghamton: MRTS, 1992), p. 57, for discussion of this tag.
derisores &cetera .R.7.154: R omits the end of this citation, which in
beta reads: iurgia cum eis ne crescant &c. F's version of
the rest of the citation is, typically, unique: & exibit cum eo
iurgium cessabitque cause & contumelie.
F.5.1136KD.7.143αEice derisorem & exibit cum eo iurgium / cessabitque cause & contumelie.F.5.1136: F differs significantly from Bx which reads "E[j]ice derisores & iurgia cum eis ne crescant &c." The added phrases are drawn from Proverbs 22:10. See John A. Alford, Piers Plowman: A Guide to the Quotations (Binghamton: MRTS, 1992), p. 57, for discussion.