'I am true Love that false was never; I left my kingdom glorious. I purveyed her a palace full precious ; 'My fair love and my spousé bright! I saved her from beating, and she hath me bet ; I clothed her in grace and heavenly light; This bloody shirt she hath on me set : For longing of love yet could I not let [hinder it]'; I have loved her ever as I her het [promised] 'I crowned her with bliss and she me with thorn; I brought her to worship, and she me to scorn; I did her reverence and she me villany : To love that loveth is no maistry [over-mastering]. Quia amore langueo. 'I sit on this hill for to see far, I look into the valley my spouse to see; Now runneth she awayward, now cometh she narre [near], Yet out of my sight she may not be. Some wait their prey to make her to flee, I run to-fore [forward] and fleme [drive] her foe : Return, my soul, again to me, Quia amore langueo. 'If thou be foul, I shall make thee clean, If thou be sick, I shall thee heal, If thou mourn ought, I shall thee mene [care for]; Spouse, why wilt thou not with me deal? Foundest thou ever love so leal? What will thou, soul, that I shall do? I may not unkindly thee appeal, Quia amore langueo. Long and love thou never so high, My love is more than thine may be. With children's meat? my love, not so 'Wax not weary, mine own wife! Ofter times than in disport. In weal and in woe I am aye to support; Thy meed is marked, when thou art mort, The following lines are from a piece entitled How the Goode Wif thaught hir Doughter, written, says the edition of 1597, nine years before the death of Chaucer, i.e. in 1391. Hazlitt does not think it quite so early. Similar religious and moral admonitions frequently recur in the subsequent age. Daughter, if thou wilt be a wife, and wisely werche [work], Go to church when thou may'st, let [stop] for no rain; Blithely give thou thy tithes and offerings both : But give them blithely of thy good, be not too hard; Treasure he hath that feeds the poor, dear child. The while thou sit'st in church, prayers shalt thou daily bid, And laugh thou none to scorn, nor old nor young; Sweet of speech shalt thou be, glad, of mild mood; Keep thee from sin, from villainy [low conduct], and shame ; And if thy neighbour's wife have rich attire, Make thou therefore no strife, and burn thou not as fire, Now have I taught thee, daughter, as did my mother me ; Better were child unborn than one untaught, dear child. Now thrift and thedam [prosperity] mayst thou have, my dear sweet bairn ; Of all our former fathers, that e'er were, or are-n, Of prophets and of patriarchs that ever were alive, John Barbour was Archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357, and died in 1395. He knew England well, having often travelled in this country. His Bruce, a long poem in fourteen books, was completed in 1378. It is wholly historical, written to celebrate the deeds of the patriot king. But there was throughout it a tone of reverence; and a few lines may be quoted here, relating a wellknown incident of the battle of Bannockburn : When this was said, that now said I, 1 Hazlitt's Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, 1864, vol. ii. 190-2: Doughter, gif thou wilt ben a wif, and wiseliche werche, Sir Ingrahame said: 'Ye say sooth now; For their trespass to God they cry. 1 Barbour's Bruce, ed. by J. Jamieson, 1720, bk. ix. 69-82 : Quhen this wes said, that er said I, The Scottis men comounaly Knelyt all downe, to God to pray. CHAPTER IV THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH sacred poetry in the fifteenth century is almost always in the minor key, plaintive and penitential. A deep feeling of religious fear on the one hand, and an earnest but trembling confidence in the greatness of Divine love on the other hand, are struggling, as it were, which is to have the mastery. It is often pathetic and beautiful; but on the whole there is a shade of sadness upon it, which is doubtless in some degree borrowed from the external troubles of the period. The poetry of this century, religious as well as secular, commences with the composition of Dan John Lydgate, a monk of Bury St. Edmunds. He lived to advanced years, and died about 1446, nearly half a century later than his friend Chaucer. He is best known by his Story of Thebes. But he was a prolific writer, and, in addition to the many compositions which are undoubtedly his, appears by internal evidence to have been the author of various anonymous poems, remaining to us from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Others followed in his steps, and caught his tone of thought. I quote some verses from his Testament. It was written in his old age, and contains far more words taken from the French than most of his earlier poems : No song so sweet unto the audience [hearing] |