The present critical edition of Simeon Polockij's Vertograd mnogocvetnyj is based on a textological study of the following three manuscripts which contain the text: 1. An autograph, undated (Gosudarstvennyj Istoričeskij muzej [Moscow], Sinodal'noe sobranie, No. 659), designated A in the present edition; 2. A scribal copy dated August 1678 (GIM, Sin. 288), designated B; 3. A scribal copy dated August 1678 (Biblioteka Rossijskoj Akademii nauk [St Petersburg], No. PIA 54, formerly Biblioteka Akademii nauk SSSR [Leningrad], No. 31.7.3), designated C. The editors decided to adopt C as the base copy because, although it is not in the author's hand, it represents the final recasting of the text. It was Simeon's own wish that the work be fundamentally re-designed so that the poems would appear under an alphabetised series of titles, and it may reliably be assumed that C displays the form in which he hoped his work would appear in print.
What is presented here is a critical edition of the literary rather than linguistic or historical kind[102]; consequently the editors have in general followed the guidelines laid down in 1955 by the Sector for Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for their projected series of scholarly monographs and editions of works of Old Russian literature[103]. In accordance with these guidelines, the orthography of C has been altered by replacing
obsolete letters by their equivalents in the modem Russian alphabet, as follows:
i /ï ) и
oy )y
ω ) o
ѩ/ѧ ) я
ѵ ) и
ѕ ) з
ѯ ) кс
ѱ ) пс
ѳ )ф
In words of Greek origin the diphthongs aѵ and eѵ have been rendered as ав and ев (Август, Еваггелие, Евва). The words Паѳмос and ѳрон have been rendered as Патмос and трон in accordance with modem spelling conventions. The letter е (jatˊ) has been retained because it conveys a sound of diphthongal origin midway between i and e; in literary Russian jat» denoted the sound e , in Ukainian it denoted i. In the poetry of Simeon Polockij the letter е occurs in rhymes paired sometimes with e, as in the rhymes море : горе, прийде : виде, рече : человече, and somteimes with и, as in the rhymes толице : человеце and превелика: человека. The short vowel й is reproduced as it occurs in C. This letter is written as и in the autograph, though a syllable count shows that the author regarded it as short. The line Авеля праведнаго достойно хвалити ( Авель 3’, 1:1) appears to have 14 syllables as it stands in A, but В and C record the spelling достойно, which yields the correct 13-syllable line. Since this discrepancy in orthography is a regular one it is not recorded as a variant in the footnotes.
The letter ъ (jer) is omitted when it occurs at the end of a word. Titlos are expanded according to spelling found elsewhere in C. Superscript letters are brought down into the line. In cases where a final soft consonant is superscript, the letter ъ (jer») has been supplied. In accordance with the principles of modem word-division prefixes have been printed as part of the following word, whether or not they are written separately in one or all of the manuscripts. Thus, съ сечено ) съсечено, въ скоре ) въскоре, въ ниде ) въниде. Where the particles же and ли are written in C as part of the preceding word, they are printed separately in the present edition. As a consequence of this separation the letter ь has been supplied for words ending in a soft consonant on the basis of examples to hand elsewhere in the manuscript where the same words are written separately, e.g. колже ) коль же, сутже ) суть же. удобже ) удобь же, вонже ) во нь же, нанже ) на нь же, занже ) за нь же, плотже ) плоть же, естже ) есть же, естли ) есть ли. Where in С the particle ся is prepositive to the verb and has been agglutinated to the preceding word, it has been printed separately, e.g. похотся раждает ) похоть ся раждает. In the combinations донели/донеле же, донде же. зане же. иде же, поне же, ни же, та же the element же has been regarded by the editors as a particle and printed separately, although it is possible that in 17th-century texts it was already considered a component part of the word. The conjunction воеже is printed as one word. Relative pronouns with the particle же are normally written as one word in the three manuscripts. The present edition retains this convention for the four short pronouns иже, еже, яже. and юже; longer pronouns are separated into two words, e.g. его же. Variants between the three manuscripts as to whether the particles же, ли and ся are written as part of the preceding word or separately are not footnoted.
