Dat teen scoon moeste ghestorven sijn! Het vijfde vers van het Egidiuslied.

Abstract

The fifth verse of the well-known song over the death of Egidius is hard to understand and it has led to various interpretations. One explains the form teen as 'together', as 'one of them' or as a negative particle: 'it seemed death did not exist'. A major problem though lies in the fact that the information is given in a subordinate clause whilst the main clause is completely redundant. As I tried to prove, the existing verse does not present the original reading, which must have run as follows: dat teen scoon moeste ghestorven sijn! i.e. 'alas, that one of us had to die now!' A scribe misread the modal adverb scoon as the finite verb sceen and corrected the word order.