'Thou shalt not, man, abyde here ay'

Solomon (BL Royal 1 E IX, f. 163v)

Hec sunt verba prophetica:
Amittes mundi prospera.

O man, whiche art the erthe take froo,
Ayene into erthe thou shalt goo;
The wyse man in his lore seith soo:
Amittes mundi prospera.

Bysshop or emperoure though that thou be,
Kynge, prince or duke of high degree,
Emperesse or quene or lady free,
Amittes mundi prospera.

Though of richesse thou haue thy wille,
Of mete and drinke having thy fille,
When dredefull dethe shall come the tille,
Amittes mundi prospera.

Job seith: 'Good Lorde, of me haue myende,
For why my lyfe is but a wyende:
To erth I shall ayene by kyende.'
Amittes mundi prospera.

Thou shalt not, man, abyde here ay,
But as a floure shalt fade away;
Therfore to the I dare wele say:
Amittes mundi prospera.

Criste graunt vs grace that we come may
To heven blis, that lasteth aye,
Where is no nyght, but ever day
Et infinita prospera.

This text comes from a manuscript of poems and carols (now Cambridge University Library MS. Ee 1.12) which was compiled by a Franciscan friar, James Ryman, in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Carols from Ryman's collection have featured on this blog several times before, most recently 'Behold and see', and I've been intending to post this one for a little while, as appropriate for this season of Lent. After watching the service for the reburial of Richard III this morning, it feels even more apt. The poem draws on Lenten texts - the 'wise man' of the first verse is Solomon, in an allusion to Ecclesiastes 3:20, and the reference to Job comes from Job 7:7 - but its theme is almost ubiquitous in medieval literature; some of my favourite expressions of it can be found under this tag. James Ryman was compiling his manuscript at Greyfriars in Canterbury c.1492, some seven years after his brother Franciscans had given Richard III his first burial in Leicester; but no fifteenth-century reader of this poem would have needed civil wars or bloody battles to remind them that earthly power is fleeting, and that worldly prosperity passes away from kings and commoners alike.

Hec sunt verba prophetica:
Amittes mundi prospera.

O man, which art the earth taken fro, [from]
Again into earth thou shalt go;
The wise man in his lore saith so:
Amittes mundi prospera.

Bishop or emperor though thou be,
King, prince, or duke of high degree,
Empress or queen or lady free,
Amittes mundi prospera.

Though of riches thou have thy will,
Of meat and drink having thy fill,
When fearsome death shall come thee till, [to]
Amittes mundi prospera.

Job saith: 'Good Lord, of me have mind,
For my life is but a wind;
To earth I shall again by kynde.' [according to my nature]
Amittes mundi prospera.

Thou shalt not, man, abide here aye,
But as a flower shalt fade away;
Therefore to thee I dare well say:
Amittes mundi prospera.

Christ grant us grace that we come may
To heaven's bliss, that lasteth aye,
Where is no night, but ever day
Et infinita prospera.

Job in prosperity and wretchedness (BL Royal 1 E IX, f. 136v)

The sermon given at today's reinterment was, as is entirely fitting, a sermon for the twenty-first century - focusing on 'harmony in place of conflict', 'mutual respect and honour', 'the “we” society rather than the “me” society'. It's interesting to speculate what a fifteenth-century preacher would have said if called upon to preach on the same occasion. The situation might have seemed to offer almost too obvious a moral lesson, a memento mori nearly too good to be true: a king who strove so hard to gain and keep power, reduced in the end to nothing more than a skeleton in a grave. I wonder if our hypothetical medieval preacher, looking out over all today's civic pomp and pageantry, would have talked about the vanity of earthly ambition and the emptiness of worldly power - if his sermon would have sounded like Ryman's poem, or 'Earth upon earth':

Erthe oute of erthe is wondirly wroghte,
Erthe has geten one erthe a dignite of noghte,
Erthe appon erthe hase sett alle his thoghte
How that erthe upon erthe may be heghe broghte.

Erthe upon erthe wolde be a kinge
Bot how erthe to erthe sall, thinkes he no thinge.
When erthe bredes erthe and his rentes home bringe
Thane shall erthe of erthe have full harde parting.