A Long or a Short Farewell? Bede’s Scansion of uale at Versus de die iudicii 161, “et dic uale fratribus almis”

Abstract In all the discussion of the prosodic “errors” to be found in the closing lines of Bede’s Versus de die iudicii , the scansion in line 161 of “uale” as a pyrrhic, with a short final e , has not been deemed worthy of comment. And yet, with the anomalous exception of Virgil, Ecl . 3.79, and Ovid, Met . 3.501 (both of which involve hiatus), the classical and late antique verse with which Bede was familiar provided numerous examples of the word scanned “correctly,” that is as an iamb, with a long final e . This paper considers why Bede chose to scan “uale” this way, examining the appearance of “uale” in Roman comedy and its relation to colloquial speech, the technique of epic correption and the extent to which it was understood by Bede, and the notion of “frozen” imperatives and their evolution into intransitive nouns, especially when used as the object of verbs such as “facere.” It suggests that Bede’s decision to scan “uale” as a pyrrhic was grounded in the knowledge gleaned from the treatises of earlier grammarians on nouns and the length of their final syllables. Finally, the paper considers the influence of Bede’s example on later Anglo- Latin and continental poets over the next three centuries.