Abbotsford Club > Penni worth of witte

PEEFACE. vii
Another writer, the Flemish poet Dietric van Assenede, who also flou-
rished in the 13th century, translated tliis romance into Flemish verse. It
contains 3978 lines, and has been published as Part III. of the " Hora; Bel-
gicfc," edited by Henry Hofimann. " Floris ende Blancefloer, door Diederic
van Assenede : mit einleitimg, anmerkungen und glossar, herausgegeben
von Hoffmann von Fallersleben." Leipzig, 1836, 8vo.
Fleck cites, near the commencement of his poem (1. 142) an earlier pro-
duction, of a Robert d'Orbent: —
Ez hat Ruopreht von Orbent,
Getihtet in welschen
Mit rimcn migevelschen
Dcs ich in tiiischen willen lian.
A similar version, " Flores och Blanzefloi'," in the Swedish language, by
Gustaf Klemming, is attributed to the early part of the 14th century. It
forms the commencement of a valuable series of ancient popular literature,
publishing, at occasional intervals, " Samlingar utgifna af Svenflva Fornflcrift-
SaUfliapet." Stockholm, 1844, et seq., 8vo.
Mr Ellis, in his English Metrical Enmances, has given an analysis of this
romance from the text of the Auchinleck MS., supplying from Tressan the
defective portions of the story. The prose romances of Florice and Blanche-
flour bclono- to a much more recent period, and are enumerated by Brunet,
in the last edition of his flannel du Libraire.
The existing copies of the English version are more or less imperfect, and
the one probably would not supply the deficiencies of the other. The copy
best known forms part of a volume in the University Library of Cambridge,
(Gg. iv. 27.) It contains about 800 lines, and begins, as follows, with line 8 of
the present text : —
Heo tok forth a wcl fair ring,
Of hire finger a riche ryng ;
Mi sone, heo sedc, haue this ring,
Whil he is thin, ne dute nothing,
That fur the brenne, ne adi'enche sa.
Ne ire[n] ne steil ue mai the sle: