In the following poems we find the pronoun _ho_, she, still keeping its
ground against the Northumbrian _scho_.[56] _Ho_ is identical with the
modern Lancashire _hoo_ (or _huh_ as it is sometimes written), which in
some parts of England has nearly the same pronunciation as the
accusative _her_.
The Northumbrian _thay_ (they) has displaced the older Midland _he_,
corresponding to the Southern pronoun _hii_, _hi_ (A.S. _hí_). _Hores_
and _thayreȝ_ (theirs) occasionally occur for _here_.[57] The genitives
in _-es_, due no doubt to Scandinavian influence, are very common in
Northumbrian writers of the fourteenth century, but are never found in
any Southern work of the same period.
_Hit_ is frequently employed as an indefinite pronoun of all genders,
and is plural as well as singular. It is, as has been previously shown,
uninflected in the genitive or possessive case.
_Me_ in Southern writers is used as an indefinite pronoun of the _third_
person, and represents our _one_, but in the present poems it is of all
persons, and seems to be placed in apposition with the subject of the
sentence corresponding to our use of myself, thyself, himself, etc.; as,
“_He_ swenges _me_ þys,” etc. = He himself sends this, etc.[58]
“Now sweȝe _me_ þider swyftly” = Now go (thou) thyself thither
swiftly.[59]
“_He_ meteȝ _me_ þis good man” = He himself meets this good man.[60]
Sturzen-Becker (“Some Notes on the leading Grammatical Characteristics
of the Principal Early English Dialects, Copenhagen, 1868”) thinks that
I have been led astray with regard to this use of _me_, which he says is
nothing more than the _dativus ethicus_.
The _me_ in these examples may be merely an expletive, having arisen out
of the general use of the dative ethicus, but the context does not
satisfy me that it has the force of a dative. Dr. Guest (Proceedings of
Philolog. Soc., vol. i. p. 151-153, 1842-1844) has discussed this
construction at some length, and he carefully distinguishes the dative
of the 1st person from the indeterminate (or indefinite) pronoun _me_ =
Fr. one. He says that in Old Frisian the indefinite pronoun has two
forms, _min_ and _me_, “the latter of which seems to be always used as a
suffix to the verb, as _momme_, one may; _somme_, one should,” etc. The
same construction was occasionally used in our own language, and it no
doubt gave rise to those curious idioms which are noticed by Pegge in
his “Anecdotes of the Eng. Lang.,” p. 217. This writer, whose evidence
to a _fact_ we may avail ourselves of, whatever we think of his
criticism or his scholarship, quotes the following as forms of speech
then prevalent among the Londoners: “and so says _me_ I;” “well what
does _me_ I;” “so says _me_ she;” “then away goes _me_ he;” “what does
_me_ they?” Here it is obvious that _me_ is the indeterminate pronoun,
and represents the _subject_, while the personal pronoun is put in
apposition to it, so that “says _me_ I” is equivalent to “_one says,
that is I_,”[61]. These idioms are not unknown to our literature.
(1) ‘But as he was by diverse principall young gentlemen, to his no
small glorie, lifted up on horseback, _comes me a page_ of
Amphialus, etc.’ Pembr. Arcad. B. iii.
Other idioms, which have generally been confounded with those last
mentioned, have the indeterminate pronoun preceded by a nominative
absolute.
(2) ‘_I_, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was
Crab, and--_goes me_ to the fellow, who whips the dogs,’ etc. Two
Gent. of Verona, 4. 4.
(3) ‘_He thrusts me_ himself into the company of three or four
gentlemanlike dogs under the Duke’s Table.’ _Ib._ See B. Jons. Ev.
Man in his Humour, 3, 1.
Johnson considers the _me_ in examples 2 and 3 to be the oblique case of
the first pers. pron., and treats it as “a ludicrous expletive.” It is
difficult to say how he would have parsed example 2 on such a
hypothesis.
With these instances of the use of _me_ (indef. or reflexive), the
reader may compare the following:
(1) “Suche a touche in that tyde, _he_ taȝte (Gauan) hym in tene
And _gurdes me_, Sir Gallerun, evyn grovelonges on grounde.”
(The Anturs of Arther at the Tarnewathelan, p. 22.)
(2) There at the dore he (the Fox) cast _me_ downe hys pack.
Spenser’s Shep. Cal. ed. Morris, p. 460, l. 243.
Cp. _Cut me_, i. Hen. IV. Act 4. Sc. 4; _steps me_, Ib. Act 4, Sc. 3;
_comes me, runs me_, Ib. Act 3, Sc. 1.
(3) “Juno enraged, and fretting thus,
_Runs me_ unto one Æolus.” --(Virgile Travestie, 1664.)
The indefinite _me_ = one is not uncommon in Elizabethan writers. Cf.
“_touch me_ his hat;” “_touch me_ hir with a pint of sack,” etc.; “and
_stop me_ his dice you are a villaine” (Lodge’s Wit’s Miserie).
The following table exhibits the declension of the personal and relative
pronouns:--
SINGULAR.
Nom. I, thou, he, ho, hit.
Gen. My, myn, thy, thyn, his, hir, her, hit.
Dat. Me, the, him, hir, her, hit.
Acc. Me, the, him, hir, her, hit.
PLURAL.
Nom. We, ȝe, thay, hit.
Gen. Oure, yor, youre, her (here), hor, hit.
Dat. Vus (= uus), yow, you, hem, hom, hit.
Acc. Vus (= uus), yow, you, hem, hom, hit.
Nom. Who (quo).
Gen. Whose (quos).
Dat. { Whom, Wham } (quom).
Acc. { Whom, Wham } (quom).
[Footnote 56: _Scho_ occurs _once_ in the present poems.]
[Footnote 57: _Yowreȝ_ (yours) sometimes takes the place of
_youre_ in the romance of “Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knyȝt.”]
[Footnote 58: Page 92, l. 108.]
[Footnote 59: Page 91, l. 72.]
[Footnote 60: Syr Gawayn, l. 1932.]
[Footnote 61: I would say that _says me I_ = I myself say. --R. M.]