Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 444
Genesis and Exodus in Middle English Verse

A biblical paraphrase in verse written c. 1250, and derived from the Historia scholastica by Petrus Comestor
. It is considered to be in an East Midlands dialect and is the earliest English paraphrase from the Historia scholastica.
The vocabulary and syntax of the text has been much studied by philologists of early Middle English dialects.



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fol 12v:

Rein-bowe, men eleped reed and blo; de bio tokened de wateres wo, dat if wid-uten and is gon; de rede wid-innen tokuet on wreche dat fal get wurden fent, wan al dif werld wurde brent.

The rain-bow is called red and blue The blue denotes the water that drowned all flesh. The red betokeneth the destruction of the world by fire.

The story of Genesis and Exodus, an early English song, about A.D. 1250.
Edited from a unique MS. in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge by Richard Morris, London, Published for the Early English Text Society, by Trübner & Co. 1865