A Medieval Love Poem: 'Yet would I not the causer fared amiss'

Lovers, from British Library, Royal 6 E VII, f.150

Yet would I not the causer fared amiss,
For all the good that ever I had or shall;
Therefore I take mine aventure, iwiss,
As she that hath forsaken joys all,
And to all pain is both subject and thrall.
Lo, thus I stand without words mo, [more]
All void of joy and full of pain and woe.

Now ye that are in mirth and plesaunce [joy]
Have mind on me who was sometime in ease
And had the world at mine own ordynaunce, [at my control]
Which now is turned into all dis-ease.
Now glad were she who Fortune so could please,
That she might stand in very sycurnesse, [true security]
Never to feel the stroke of unkindness!

Departing is the ground of displesaunce,
Most in my heart of any thing earthly.
I you ensure wholly in remembrance
Within myself, I think it verily,
Which shall continue with me daily,
Since that ye must needs depart me fro; [from]
It is to me a very deadly woe.


[A paraphrase: Yet I would not wish that the causer of my sorrow fared amiss, for all the good that ever I had or shall have; therefore I take my fortune, truly, like one who has forsaken all joys, and who to all pain is both subject and thrall. Lo, thus I stand without any further words, all void of joy and full of pain and woe.
Now you who live in mirth and joy, think on me who was sometime in ease, and had the world at my disposal, which now is turned into all trouble. Now glad would she be who could so please Fortune that she might stand in true security, never to feel the blow of unkindness!
Parting is the greatest cause of sorrow in my heart of any earthly thing. I keep you wholly in remembrance within myself, I think truly, and it shall stay with me daily, since you must depart from  me; it is to me a very deadly woe.]


This is a poem from the Findern manuscript (Cambridge University Library Ff.1.6), a fifteenth-century anthology which belonged to a family in southern Derbyshire (named, and living in, Findern), and which contains a variety of verses by many different authors. There's some chunks of Chaucer and texts attributed to Hoccleve and Lydgate, but the more interesting poems are the anonymous ones, several of which (like this one) seem to be spoken by female voices. There are women's names written in the manuscript, and women certainly read and probably composed a number of these poems. Thus, this group of poems has got quite a bit of attention in recent years, and I've posted two of them here and here.

Their style appeals to me: the syntax is intricate but the vocabulary is simple, and there are few poetic flourishes - or rather, they are subordinated to the sense of the text. The stylistic ornament, such as it is, lies in the repeating and negating of certain key words - ease and disease, plesaunce and displesaunce - and the play of pronouns, from me to ye (plural) and the imagined other she, until in the last verse you, 'the causer', the object of love, is finally addressed. Long sentences wind around short phrases which stab with a startling directness: 'all void of joy and full of pain'; 'departing is the ground of displesaunce'; 'it is to me a very deadly woe.' The opening in particular is strikingly abrupt, so much so that we might wonder if a previous verse has been lost - but most of the poems surrounding this one deal with similar themes and situations of parted lovers, and they almost flow into one another (only the verse form and the genders of the speakers change). Such abrupt beginnings are not unknown in fifteenth-century verse; English poets had just discovered how effective they can be! This one works because it leads into a poem whose power lies in its confronting frankness, especially in that bold first stanza, and in the proud declaration 'Therefore I take mine aventure' ('I accept my fortune', or 'I take my chance'). Brave woman!


When I first encountered a handful of the Findern poems in a modern anthology, I remember being irked because the editor insisted on repeatedly describing them as 'felt' - 'and what kind of critical vocabulary is that?' I asked myself crossly, with all the arrogance of a first-year graduate student. But now I sympathise with that editor. It's difficult to talk about these poems without pronouncing on the veracity of their 'feeling', and the experiences they purport to describe - they seem to have more truth about them than most medieval lyrics, which are such a highly conventional form. But these poems are conventional too, and of course their degree of 'truth' doesn't have anything to do with their literary quality. The best one might say is that they strongly convey an idea of heartfelt and sincere love; if it's a poetic illusion, it's a good one. In a previous post, I compared them to the sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but I think Christina Rossetti would understand them too (read them alongside Monna Innominata...).

On another note, it's a source of satisfaction to me that if you google 'medieval love poem', among the top results is a post from this blog about the Findern poem 'Where I have chosen, steadfast will I be'. This fact pleases me for two reasons: firstly because it seems right that an actual medieval text should be presented to people looking for medieval love poems, alongside the rather odd pastiches which Google's vagaries throw up; and secondly, because the Findern poems are so untypical as medieval love poems go. In their air of simplicity and honesty, their absence of physical description, and their focus on memory, interiority and what Jane Austen would call 'retentive feelings', they have little in common with the mainstream literature of their age. Personally, I have limited patience with the majority of medieval love-literature, which set the pattern for much that is most unpleasant about educated men's behaviour towards women, even today; elaborate courtly games of flirtation are not to my taste, and Anglo-Saxon literature is all the better for having so little to say about romantic love - they had so many other things to be interested in! So if the casual Googler seeks a medieval love poem, why should he or she not encounter the plain-speaking fidelity of a Derbyshire gentlewoman, as well as the high-flown nonsense of courtly love, where men profess their adoration for women they have only glimpsed, and protest they'll die if these women don't obey their passing whims? I consider this high Google rating my own little triumph for gender parity in medieval studies ;) So go and read 'Where I have chosen, steadfast will I be', and do your bit...

And then reflect on whether the women who liked these poems would have agreed with Anne Elliot (from Persuasion, ch.23):

'We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions... Your feelings may be the strongest... but ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own. It would be hard, indeed' (with a faltering voice), 'if woman's feelings were to be added to all this.'

Or with this, one of the few points on which Anne and Chaucer's Wife of Bath (688-696) find common ground:

'Well, Miss Elliot,' (lowering his voice,) 'as I was saying we shall never agree, I suppose, upon this point. No man and woman, would, probably. But let me observe that all histories are against you - all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.'

'Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.'

Sketch of a woman playing a lute, on the last leaf of BL Sloane 554

This is the text as transcribed in Rossell Hope Robbins, 'The Findern Anthology', PMLA 69:3 (June, 1954), pp.610-642:

yit wulde I nat the causer faryd a-mysse,
ffor all the good that euer y had or schall;
Ther-for y take myn auenture, I-wisse,
As sche that hath for-saken Ioyus all,
And to all payne is bothe soiet and thralle.
Lo, thus I stonde with-owten wordes moo,
All voyde of Ioy an full of payne and woo.

Now ye that bathe in myrthe and plesaunce
Haue mynde on me that was sum-tyme in ease
And had the world at myn ovne ordynaunce,
Whiche now is turned in-to al disease;
Now glad wher sche that fortune so cowde please,
That sche myght stonde in verry sycurnesse,
Neuer to fele the stroke of vnkyndnesse.

Departyng ys the grownde of dysplesaunce,
Most in my hert of eny thing erthly,
I you ensure holy in remembraunce
With-in my-self y thenke hit verryly,
Wiche schall contynu with me dayly;
Syns that 3e moste nedys departe me fro,
It ys to me a verry dedly woo.

Peace

Looking back in the archives of this blog, I've learned that in summer I like to read (and post) poems about peace - the exquisite langour of quiet idyllic days, or a vivid moment of summer stillness. Past years' examples have included 'Silent Noon', 'Adlestrop', 'Audley Court', 'The Castle Ruins', 'The Busy Heart', and 'Had I the power that have the will'. And this is 'Peace' by Alfred Noyes.


Give me the pulse of the tide again
And the slow lapse of the leaves,
The rustling gold of a field of grain
And a bird in the nested eaves;

And a fishing-smack in the old harbour
Where all was happy and young;
And an echo or two of the songs I knew
When songs could still be sung.

For I would empty my heart of all
This world's implacable roar,
And I would turn to my home, and fall
Asleep in my home once more;

And I would forget what the cities say,
And the folly of all the wise,
And turn to my own true folk this day,
And the love in their constant eyes.

There is peace, peace, where the sea-birds wheel,
And peace in the breaking wave;
And I have a broken heart to heal,
And a broken soul to save.

A nun's prayer to her guardian angel

A guardian angel defends a praying man (BL Cotton Tiberius B III, f. 147v)

Since writing my post on medieval prayers to a guardian angel this time last year, I've been keeping an eye out for prayers on this subject; the previous post has proved popular, so I hope there's interest out there for some more. I recently encountered three more verse prayers (all in Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, ed. Carleton Brown (Oxford, 1939)), of which this was my favourite:

'A prayer to the good angel'

O swete angell, to me soo deere,
that nyght and day standithe me neere
ffull loueyngly with mylde moode,
Thankyng, loueyng, loue & praysyng,
Offer for me to Ihu, our kyng,
ffor his gyfftes greate and goode.

As thow gothe betwix hym and me,
And knowethe my lyffe in euery degre,
Saying it in his presence,
Aske me grace to loue hym truly,
To serue my lorde with hertt duly,
With my dayly diligence.

Keepe me from vice and all perells,
Whiles thowe with me dayly trauells
In this worlde of wyckednesse;
Sett me my peticions grauntede
By thy praier dayly haunted,
Yff it please thy holynes.

O swete angell, that keepeth me,
Bryng me to blysse, I pray the!

This comes from a fascinating manuscript (now Henry E. Huntington Library, Ellesmere MS. 34 B.7) of Latin antiphons and hymns, intended for a community of nuns, which also contains a small collection of English prayers. Unusually, many of the rubrics for the antiphons are in English, too.  You may know one of the pieces, the beautiful Latin lullaby 'Qui creavit coelum', which is often known today as the 'Song of the Nuns of Chester'. The manuscript bears the inscription 'This book [be]longeth to Dame Margery Byrkenhed of Chestre' (see the bottom image here); Margery was probably a nun at St Mary's in Chester, and the English prayers were perhaps collected for her own private use. So this prayer to a guardian angel, one of the most personal types of prayer in any case, is given extra interest because we may know the name of the woman who used it.

The prayers have titles such as 'a good prayer' or 'a devout prayer'; this one is headed 'to the good angel', which is, as I discussed in my previous post, a common Middle English phrase for what we call a 'guardian angel'. Here's a modernised version of the poem:

O sweet angel, to me so dear,
Who night and day standeth me near
Full lovingly, with mild mood, [gentle mind]
Thanks, honour, love and praising,
Offer for me to Jesu, our king,
For his gifts great and good.

As thou goest betwixt him and me,
And knowest my life in every degree,
Telling it in his presence,
Ask me grace to love him truly,
To serve my Lord with heart duly,
With my daily diligence.

Keep me from vice and all perils,
While thou with me daily travels
In this world of wickedness;
Cause my petitions to be granted
By thy prayer daily haunted,
If it please thy holiness.

O sweet angel, who keepest me,
Bring me to bliss, I pray thee!

I was intrigued by the line 'by thy prayer daily haunted', having always unthinkingly assumed that haunt in the sense of' 'frequent' (v) was a metaphorical use of the word, adopted from the ghostly kind of haunting; but of course it's completely the other way around. In Middle English, haunt meant 'to practise habitually, or to frequent' (as the MED entry for haunten shows), and the word had nothing to do with spirits in any way before the sixteenth century - the OED's first citation for the verb in connection with 'unseen or immaterial visitants... imaginary or spiritual beings, ghosts, etc.' is from 1597. So there's nothing odd about the use of this word in reference to the angel's prayers.

The appealing image of the angel 'going betwixt' heaven and earth, busily telling God what the person in its charge has been doing, reminded me of this meditation:

For the fulfilling of the behests of the eternal Father, thousands of thousands glide in swift flight twixt heaven and earth, like industrious bees that flit to and fro between their hive and the flowers; a busy throng, innocent and stainless, neither laggard nor disobedient...

The poem certainly envisages an angel flitting around all over the place - not only moving between God and its charge, but 'standing near' her night and day, travelling with her everywhere 'in this world of wickedness', and haunting heaven with its prayers; an industrious bee indeed!

Below the verse in the manuscript is this prayer:

O my Lord Jesu Christ, as it hath pleased thee to assign an angel to wait on me daily and nightly with great attendance and diligence, so I beseech thee through his going betwix us that thou cleanse me from vices, clothe me with virtues, grant me love and grace to come see [sic] and have without end thy bliss before thy fair face, who liveth and reigneth after thy glorious Passion with the Father of heaven and with the Holy Ghost, one God and persons three without end in bliss. Amen.

Clearly this prayer and the poem are two separate texts; maybe Margery also liked to keep an eye out for prayers to guardian angels, and collected them when she found them.

Here's a wonderful illustration of a fifteenth-century English lady praying to her guardian angel, from British Library, Royal 2 A XVIII, f.26:

This lady is rather grander than Margery Byrkenhed of Chester would have been - the manuscript was made for Margaret Beauchamp, Duchess of Somerset, mother of Margaret Beaufort, and grandmother of Henry VII. The kneeling woman has a scroll saying 'sub umbra alarum tuarum protege me', 'hide me under the shadow of thy wings', and the angel is saying, 'Dominus custodiat te ab omni malo', 'the Lord preserve thee from all evil'; both are quotations from psalms used at Compline. Note that the woman is, in fact, covered by the angel's wing.

The text on the page is a Latin prayer to the guardian angel - the first three verses of this prayer, which is probably the ultimate source of a guardian angel prayer still widely used today ('Angel of God, my guardian dear...'). The man who composed that prayer, three hundred years before this manuscript was made, was a monk at St Augustine's, Canterbury, and a near neighbour and contemporary of Eadmer, whose interest in guardian angels I described in this post. I wonder if the two of them ever discussed this particular devotion.

Bablock Hythe

I first became interested in the poetry of Laurence Binyon last year, when I read 'Ferry Hinksey', and then again in the autumn, in 'the time of the burning of the leaves'; I've been waiting from that time until now - 'the time of wild roses' - to post the following poem. 

Bablock Hythe

In the time of wild roses
As up Thames we travelled
Where 'mid water-weeds ravelled
The lily uncloses,

To his old shores the river
A new song was singing,
And young shoots were springing
On old roots for ever.

Dog-daisies were dancing,
And flags flamed in cluster,
On the dark stream a lustre
Now blurred and now glancing.

A tall reed down-weighing,
The sedge-warbler fluttered;
One sweet note he uttered,
Then left it soft-swaying.

By the bank's sandy hollow
My dipt oars went beating,
And past our bows fleeting
Blue-backed shone the swallow.

High woods, heron-haunted,
Rose, changed, as we rounded
Old hills greenly mounded,
To meadows enchanted;

A dream ever moulded
Afresh for our wonder,
Still opening asunder
For the stream many-folded;

Till sunset was rimming
The west with pale flushes;
Behind the black rushes
The last light was dimming;

And the lonely stream, hiding
Shy birds, grew more lonely,
And with us was only
The noise of our gliding.

In clouds of grey weather
The evening o'erdarkened,
In the stillness we hearkened;
Our hearts sang together.

I love this dreamy poem, especially the fourth verse. Bablock Hythe (like Ferry Hinksey in the Binyon poem linked above) is a place on the Thames, upriver from Oxford, and formerly the site of a ferry-crossing. According to this site - which I highly recommend if you want to explore the literary history of the Thames - Bablock Hythe is eleven miles by winding river from Oxford, though only four miles by road. (It's not far from Stanton Harcourt, which gives me an excuse to link to one of my favourite posts.) If Binyon's lovers were lucky, they might have encountered there the Scholar Gipsy, 'crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock-hithe'; their woods, meadows and 'old hills greenly mounded' can all be found in Arnold's poem, too:

...in my boat I lie
Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats,
'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,
And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumnor hills,
And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.
For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground!
Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe,
Returning home on summer-nights, have met
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock-hithe,
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,
As the slow punt swings round;
And leaning backward in a pensive dream,
And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers
Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers,
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream.

'Bablock Hythe' was published in Binyon's England and Other Poems in 1909. This collection also contains a poem about the Battle of Stamford Bridge, which begins:

"Haste thee, Harold, haste thee North!
Norway ships in Humber crowd.
Tall Hardrada, Sigurd's son,
For thy ruin this hath done-
England for his own hath vowed.

"The earls have fought, the earls are fled.
From Tyne to Ouse the homesteads flame.
York behind her battered wall
Waits the instant of her fall
And the shame of England's name.

"Traitor Tosti's banner streams
With the invading Raven's wing;
Black the land and red the skies
Where Northumbria bleeds and cries
For thy vengeance, England's King!"

Three more English rivers there - a long way from the tranquil Thames at Bablock Hythe.

For more poems about lovers and rivers, see this post.

'And all was Deo gracias'

Clerks singing (British Library, Harley 2899, f.75)

A late fourteenth-century poem on the theme 'Deo Gracias' (in modernised form):

In a church where I did kneel
The other day, in the morning,
The service pleased me very well,
And so the longer would I lyng. [stay]
I saw a clerk a book forth bring,
Which pointed was in many a place;
Fast he sought what he should sing,
And all was 'Deo Gracias'.

All the choristers in the choir
At that word fast did cry:
The noise was good, and I drew near
And called a priest full privily,
And said: 'Sir, by your courtesy,
Tell me, if you have a space,
What it means, and for why
You sing this Deo Gracias.'

In silk that comely clerk was clad,
And o'er a lectern leaned he;
And with his words he made me glad,
And said: 'Son, I shall tell thee.
Father and Son in Trinity,
The Holy Ghost, ground of our grace,
Also, many times thank we
As we say Deo Gracias.

'To thank and bless him we are bound
With all the mirth that man may minne: [make]
For all the world in woe was wound
Until he crept into our kin, -
A lovely girl he lit within,
The worthiest that ever was,
And shed his blood for our sin:
And therefore, Deo Gracias.'

Then said the priest, 'Son, by thy leave
I must go on with my service,
I pray thee, do not be aggrieved,
For thou hast heard all my device,
The cause why it is the clerks' wise, [custom]
And Holy Church memory of it has,
Unto the prince so great of price,
For to sing Deo Gracias.'

Out of that church I went my way,
And on that word was all my thought,
And twenty times I did say,
'God grant that I forget it not!
Though I were from good fortune brought,
What help were me to say 'alas'?
In the name of God, whate'er be wrought,
I shall say 'Deo gracias.'

In mischief and in bonchief both, [trouble and good fortune]
That word is good to say and sing,
And not to wail nor to be wroth,
Though all be not to your liking.
For sorrow shall not ever lyng,
And some time pleasure will o'er-pass,
But ay in hope of amending,
I shall say 'Deo Gracias.'

Amend what thou hast done amiss,
And do well then, and have no dread,
Whether thou be in bale or bliss;
Thy good endurance shall bring thee reward.
If thou thy life in pleasure lead,
Look thou be kind in every case,
Thank thy God, if thou well speed,
With this word, Deo Gracias.

If God hath given thee talents mo [more]
Than he hath others, two or three,
Then I advise thou rule thee so
That men may say good things of thee.
Beware of pride, and boasting flee;
Thy virtues let no sin deface,
But keep thee clean, courteous and free,
And think on Deo Gracias.

If thou be made an officer,
And art a man of great might,
What cause thou judge, look that it be clear, [just]
And take from no man his proper right.
If thou be strong and fierce in fight,
With ill will no man ever chase,
But fear thy God both day and night,
And think on Deo Gracias.

If we this word in heart will have,
And ay in love and loyalty lende, [live]
From Christ by covenant we may crave
That joy that shall never have end,
Out of this world when we shall wend,
Into his palace for to pass,
And sit among his saints hende,
And there sing Deo Gracias.


This poem survives in the Vernon Manuscript (as well as two other poetry compilations).  The Vernon MS contains a wide range of texts, but its set of what might be called 'poems on moral themes' form a group with distinctive shared features: most notably, the repetition of a single phrase in the last line of every verse, around which the theme of the poem builds itself. These poems tend to be long, wordy and somewhat rambling, as you might think this one is; there's not much sense of a logical progression of ideas, or a plan for where the poem is going! This can make some poems of this kind inaccessible or even tiresome, but at its best the loose structure creates a kind of meditative effect, where interconnecting thoughts circle around the one fixed point of the repeated phrase (my favourite example is 'This world fareth as a fantasy', one of the best of all the Middle English lyrics).

'Deo Gracias', with its chatty opening, is a particularly interesting specimen. Its narrator shares the endearing habit of his contemporaries, Chaucer and (especially) Langland, of witnessing something interesting and then going up to the nearest person and basically asking, 'hey, what's going on?' The person explains it to him until they run out of time, or get frustrated with the narrator's denseness, and they go off again, leaving the narrator to ponder what they've learned and then explain it to us, the readers.  I don't know that this narrative setting with the choir and the clerks particularly contributes to the moral theme of the poem, but it's a nice touch!  I suppose the idea is to model the practice of absorbing a phrase from the liturgy into private devotion; 'In summer before the Ascension' does a similar thing.  The Catholic Encyclopedia has some useful references for the liturgical and non-liturgical uses of the phrase 'Deo gracias', which gives context to this poem's focus on the words as a multi-purpose reminder of gratitude to God in all situations.

The Langland-esque beginning is one thing I like about this poem; another is that it's so positive and upbeat. It says that if you cultivate what self-help books like to call an 'attitude of gratitude', everything will basically be fine: if you're happy and successful, be grateful; if you have power, use it wisely; 'amend what you have done amiss', and don't worry about it.  If only all moral poems could make the life of virtue sound so pleasant and easy!  There are some lovely touches in the language, too - in the middle of a poem about something completely different, it's easy to overlook just how beautiful those four lines about the Incarnation are: 'all the world in woe was wound/Until he crept into our kin, - / A lovely girl he lit within,/The worthiest that ever was'.  Those verbs ('crept' and 'alighted') are quite commonly used in Middle English writing to describe the conception of Christ; carol-writers, particularly, opt for 'alight' (it rhymes with a lot of other words...).  Besides the rhyme potential of both verbs, they suggest an attempt to find language for the Incarnation which indicates a kind of unearthly movement, sudden, gentle, almost imperceptible.

Those four lines also reminded me that the most famous use of the phrase 'Deo gracias' in a medieval lyric is the last line of 'Adam lay ibounden', which similarly draws attention to the fact that it's using a line from the Latin liturgy in a vernacular song ('therefore we may sing, Deo gracias').  And in the preceding verse, 'the Holy Ghost, ground of our grace' might make you think of Julian of Norwich (or of T.S.Eliot): 'our Lord... shewed these words, and said: I am ground of thy beseeching: first it is my will that thou have it; and after, I make thee to will it; and after, I make thee to beseech it, and thou beseechest it.'

Finally, on a less elevated note, I found the line 'In mischief and in bonchief both' amusing, because who knew that the opposite of 'mischief' was 'bonchief'?  It makes complete sense, and is still ridiculous.

Here's the poem in the form I found it, in Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, ed. Carleton Brown (Oxford, 1952):

In a chirche þer i con knel
þis ender day in on morwenynge,
Me lyked þe servise wonder wel,
For-þi þe lengore con i lynge.
I sei3 a clerk a book forþ bringe,
þat prikked was in mony a plas;
Faste he sou3te what he scholde synge,
And al was Deo gracias.

Alle þe queristres in þat qwer,
On þat word fast gon þei cri:
þa noyse was good, & I drou3 neer
And called a prest ful priueli,
And seide: 'sire, for 3or curtesi
Tel me, 3if 3e habbeþ spas,
What hit meneþ, and for-whi
3e singe Deo Gracias.'

In selk þat comeli clerk was clad,
And ouer a lettorne leoned he;
And wiþ his word he maade me glad,
And seide: 'sone, I schal telle þe,
Fader and Sone in Trinite,
þe holy gost, ground of vr graas,
Also oftesiþe þonke we
As we sei Deo Gracias.

'To þonke & blesse him we ben bounde
With al þe murþes þat mon mai minne:
For al þe world in wo was wounde
Til þat he crepte in-to vr kinne, -
A louesum buirde he li3te with-inne,
þe worþiest þat euer was,
And schedde his blod for vre sinne:
And þerfore Deo Gracias.'

þen seide þe preost: 'sone, be þi leue
I moste seie forþ my seruise,
I preye þe tak hit nou3t in greue,
For þou hast herd al my deuise,
Bi-cause whi hit is clerkes wyse,
And holychirche muynde of hit maas,
Vnto þe prince so muchel of prise,
Forte synge Deo Gracias.'

Out of þat chirche I wente my way,
And on þat word was al my þou3t,
And twenti tymes I con say,
'God graunte þat I for-3ete hit nou3t.'
þou3 I weore out of bonchef brou3t,
What help weore to me to seye 'allas!'
In þe nome of god, what-euer be wrou3t,
I schal seie 'Deo gracias.'

In Mischef and in bonchef boþe,
þat word is good to seye and synge,
And not to wayle ne to bi wroþe,
þau3 al be nou3t at vre lykynge.
For langour schal not euer lynge,
And sum tyme plesaunse wol ouer-pas,
But ay in hope of a-mendynge,
I schal seye 'Deo Gracias.'

A-mende þat þou hast don amis,
And do wel þenne, and haue no drede,
Wheþer-so þou beo in bale or blis;
þi goode suffraunce schal gete þe mede,
3if þou þi lyf in lykyng lede.
Loke þou beo kuynde in vch a cas,
þonk þi god, 3if þou wel spede,
Wiþ þis word, Deo Gracias.

3if god haþ 3iue þe vertues mo
þen he haþ oþure two or þre,
þenne I rede þou rule þe so
þat men may speke worschupe bi þe.
Be fert of pruide, & bost þou fle,
þi vertues let no fulþe de-faas,
But kep þe clene, corteis & fre,
And þenk on Deo Gracias.

3if þou beo mad an Offycer,
And art a Mon of muche miht,
What cause þou demest, loke hit be cler,
And reue no mon from him his riht,
3if þou beo strong and fers to fiht.
ffor envye nener mon þou chas,
But drede þi god boþe dai & ni3t,
And þenk on deo gracias.

3if we þis word in herte wol haue,
And ay in loue and leute leende,
Of crist bi couenaunt we mow craue
þat ioye þat schal neuer haue ende,
Out of þis world whon we schul wende,
In-to his paleys for to paas,
And sitte a-mong his seintes hende,
And þer synge Deo Gracias.

Three Thoughts: 'Death, and the little perpetual daily dyings'

Three texts I came across this week, which resonated with each other.

I

John Donne, from his last sermon, 'Death's Duel':

This exitus à morte is but introitus in mortem; this issue, this deliverance, from that death, the death of the womb, is an entrance, a delivering over to another death, the manifold deaths of this world; we have a winding-sheet in our mother's womb which grows with us from our conception, and we come into the world wound up in that winding-sheet, for we come to seek a grave.
...
That which we call life is but hebdomada mortium, a week of death, seven days, seven periods of our life spent in dying, a dying seven times over; and there is an end. Our birth dies in infancy, and our infancy dies in youth, and youth and the rest die in age, and age also dies and determines all. Nor do all these, youth out of infancy, or age out of youth, arise so, as the phoenix out of the ashes of another phoenix formerly dead, but as a wasp or a serpent out of a carrion, or as a snake out of dung. Our youth is worse than our infancy, and our age worse than our youth. Our youth is hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not; and our age is sorry and angry, that it cannot pursue those sins which our youth did; and besides, all the way, so many deaths, that is, so many deadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of this life, as that death itself would be an ease to them that suffer them.


II

William Wordsworth, from 'Intimations of Immortality':

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy:
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.


III

Walter Pater, from Marius the Epicurean:

There is a certain grief in things as they are, in man as he has come to be, as he certainly is, over and above those griefs of circumstance which are in a measure removable -- some inexplicable shortcoming, or misadventure, on the part of nature itself -- death, and old age as it must needs be, and that watching for their approach, which makes every stage of life like a dying over and over again. Almost all death is painful, and in every thing that comes to an end a touch of death, and therefore of wretched coldness struck home to one, of remorse, of loss and parting, of outraged attachments. Given faultless men and women, given a perfect state of society which should have no need to practise on men's susceptibilities for its own selfish ends, adding one turn more to the wheel of the great rack for its own interest or amusement, there would still be this evil in the world, of a certain necessary sorrow and desolation.

Psalm Translations: Out of the deep

(Disclaimer: these are not all translations. It's just a small selection of words and music based on, or inspired by, Psalm 130.)

From the Book of Common Prayer:

1 Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord : Lord, hear my voice.
2 O let thine ears consider well : the voice of my complaint.
3 If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss : O Lord, who may abide it?
4 For there is mercy with thee : therefore shalt thou be feared.
5 I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for him : in his word is my trust.
6 My soul fleeth unto the Lord : before the morning watch, I say, before the morning watch.
7 O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy : and with him is plenteous redemption.
8 And he shall redeem Israel : from all his sins.

Thomas Morley (the best of a poor selection on youtube):



From the earliest complete English prose Psalter (here) - the Midland Prose Psalter (c1350–1400):

1. Ich cried, Lord, to þe for þe depe; Lord, here my uoice.
2. Ben þin eres made vnder-stondand to þe voice of mi praier.
3. Lord, yif þou hast kept wickednes, Lord, who shal holde hem vp?
4. For help is to þe, & ich susteined þe, Lorde, for þy lawe.
5. My soule helde vp gode in his worde, my soule hoped in our Lord.
6. Hope, þe folk of Israel, in our Lord fram þe mornynge kepinge vn-to þe niyt.
7. For merci is at our Lord, & at him is plentiuose raunsoun.
8. And he shal raunsoun þe folk of Israel fram alle her wickednes.

Orlando di Lassus:



From the Wycliffite Bible, c.1390s:

1 Lord, Y criede to thee fro depthes; Lord, here thou mi vois.
2 Thin eeris be maad ententif; in to the vois of my biseching.
3 Lord, if thou kepist wickidnessis; Lord, who schal susteyne?
4 For merci is at thee; and, Lord, for thi lawe Y abood thee.
5 Mi soule susteynede in his word; my soule hopide in the Lord,
6 Fro the morewtid keping til to niyt; Israel, hope in the Lord.
7 For whi, merci is at the Lord; and plenteous redempcioun is at hym.
8 And he schal ayenbie Israel; fro alle the wickidnessis therof.

'Ayenbie' is typical of the diction of the Wycliffite Psalms; it's literally 'again-buy', that is, ransom.

Orlando Gibbons:



Christina Rossetti, De Profundis:

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter'd fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.



And a poem of the same name by the young C. S. Lewis (published in Spirits in Bondage, 1919):

Come let us curse our Master ere we die,
For all our hopes in endless ruin lie.
The good is dead. Let us curse God most High.

Four thousand years of toil and hope and thought
Wherein man laboured upward and still wrought
New worlds and better, Thou hast made as naught.

We built us joyful cities, strong and fair,
Knowledge we sought and gathered wisdom rare.
And all this time you laughed upon our care,

And suddenly the earth grew black with wrong,
Our hope was crushed and silenced was our song,
The heaven grew loud with weeping. Thou art strong.

Come then and curse the Lord. Over the earth
Gross darkness falls, and evil was our birth
And our few happy days of little worth.

Even if it be not all a dream in vain
— The ancient hope that still will rise again —
Of a just God that cares for earthly pain,

Yet far away beyond our labouring night,
He wanders in the depths of endless light,
Singing alone his musics of delight;

Only the far, spent echo of his song
Our dungeons and deep cells can smite along,
And Thou art nearer. Thou art very strong.

O universal strength, I know it well,
It is but froth of folly to rebel;
For thou art Lord and hast the keys of Hell.

Yet I will not bow down to thee nor love thee,
For looking in my own heart I can prove thee,
And know this frail, bruised being is above thee.

Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right,
Our mercy and long seeking of the light,
Shall we change these for thy relentless might?

Laugh then and slay. Shatter all things of worth,
Heap torment still on torment for thy mirth—
Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth.