literally, "The Again-biting of In-wit," i.e.
Remorse of Conscience. This is the best specimen of the Kentish
dialect of the fourteenth century, and is remarkable for being much
more difficult to make out than other pieces of the same period. The
whole work was edited by Dr Morris for the Early English Text Society
in 1866. A sermon of the same date and in the same dialect, and
probably by the same author, is given in _Specimens of Early English_,
Part II. The sermon is followed by the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria,
and the "Credo" or Apostles' Creed, all in the same dialect; and I
here give the last of these, as being not difficult to follow:

Ich leve ine God, Vader almighti, makere of hevene and of erthe.
And ine Iesu Crist, His zone onlepi [_only son_], oure lhord, thet
y-kend [_conceived_] is of the Holy Gost, y-bore of Marie mayde,
y-pyned [_was crucified_, lit. _made to suffer_] onder Pouns Pilate,
y-nayled a rode [_on a cross_], dyad, and be-bered; yede [_went_]
doun to helle; thane thridde day aros vram the dyade; steay [_rose,
ascended_] to hevenes; zit [_sitteth_] athe [_on the_] right half
of God the Vader almighti; thannes to comene He is, to deme the
quike and the dyade. Ich y-leve ine the Holy Gost; holy cherche
generalliche; Mennesse of halyen [_communion of holy-ones_];
Lesnesse of zennes [_remission of sins_]; of vlesse [_flesh, body_]
arizinge; and lyf evrelestinde. Zuo by hyt [_so be it_].

A few remarks may well be made here on some of the peculiarities of
Southern English that appear here. The use of _v_ for _f_ (as in
_vader_, _vram_, _vlesshe_), and of _z_ for _s_ (as in _zone_, _zit_,
_zennes_) are common to this day, especially in Somersetshire. The
spelling _lhord_ reminds us that many Anglo-Saxon words began with
_hl_, one of them being _hl{-a}fweard_, later _hl{-a}ford_, a lord;
and this _hl_ is a symbol denoting the so-called "whispered _l_,"
sounded much as if an aspirate were prefixed to the _l_, and still
common in Welsh, where it is denoted by _ll_, as in _llyn_, a lake.
In every case, modern English substitutes for it the ordinary _l_,
though _lh_ (= _hl_) was in use in 1340 in Southern. The prefix _y-_,
representing the extremely common A.S. (Anglo-Saxon) prefix _ge-_, was
kept up in Southern much longer than in the other dialects, but has
now disappeared; the form _y-clept_ being archaic. The plural suffix
_-en_, as in _haly-en_, holy ones, saints, is due to t