LYRICS OF THE WANDERING SCHOLARS. 303 field in which the two appear most intimately related; viz., the lyric. In this field, too, religious poetry prepared the way. In the last period we saw its writers introduce new forms and themes that, borrowed partly from the Middle Latin, partly from Norman art-poetry, were largely of secular origin. When the English lyric had again won honours on religious ground, it was not long before the secular lyric began to strive for the same laurels. There were many minds that united a bright and freshly concrete conception of life with literary culture; above all among the itinerant clerics. And mainly among them we have to seek the fosterers of English song in the present period. The itinerant clergy knew life as well as the schools, and came into contact with the most diverse classes. Their roving, careless, and oftentimes dissolute life invested them with the cleverness of the man of the world, though it was borne with a somewhat plebeian air; their intercourse with nature and the people kept the mind fresh with a sense for the naïve expression of feeling. Not less at home in Paris than in Oxford, they were generally acquainted with French as well as English and Latin, and doubtless knew by heart the most piquant love-songs and drinking-catches of the former. Englishmen, both of Norman and English descent, perhaps early came fraternally together in these merry circles. At their drinking-bouts in the tavern, a Babylonian confusion of tongues saluted the ear of the honest burgher, shaking his head as he passed by. This commingling of languages is illustrated in the following song, in which the English element appears only at the close. The composer was an English student residing in Paris. Dum ludis floribus velut lacinia Se dieu d'amour moi tient en tiel angustia, Ejus amor tantum me facit fervere, 1 Wright, Specimens of Lyric Poetry, p. 64, has Merour me tient, which I do not in derstand. Ele est si bele e gente dame egregia, De beal semblant et pulcra continencia, Quant je la vey, je su in tali gloria, Scripsi haec carmina in tabulis. The national lyric that now blossomed under the nurture of the English students bears the stamp of the life they led, and of the very heterogeneous influences to which they were exposed. A tone of youthful audacity, genuine and often passionate feeling, and fresh, sometimes coarse, sensuousness, marked their secular songs, that were almost without exception amorous. The form betrays the influence of the Latin strollers' songs and of French love-poetry, as well as of the English religious lyric. Celtic influence is also discernible in a few songs; a great fondness for images and comparisons, united with a certain dithyrambic tone, quickly recurring flashes of feeling and fancy, characterise the very poems that the tokens of language and metre assign to the western counties. Technical forms appear beside simpler, more popular ones. A folk-tone predominates, however, and is felt even when the strophe is courtly, or when courtly themes are handled. The English folk-song doubtless also acted strongly upon the poetry of the wandering clerics. Have we no genuine folk-songs from this period? The celebrated Cuckoo Song, dating perhaps from the middle of the thirteenth century, seems to yield the full impression of such a poem. But the music to this song,' whose notes have been transmitted with the text, betokens a well-advanced development, and its form is relatively very correct. Whoever the author was, he exactly struck the key of the folk-song. The coming of summer, with the awakening of all nature to new life, is described with drastic simplicity and with no admixture of subjective sentiment: The composition has the character of the canon. STYLE OF THE ENGLISH LYRICS. Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu! Groweth sed and bloweth med and springth the wie nu. Sing cuccu! Awe bleteth after lomb, lhouth after calue cu, Wel singes thu cuccu: ne swick thu naver nu. 305 As The itinerant clerics, to adorn their lyrics, borrowed many traits and turns of phrase from songs of summer and winter, as sung by the people. The love of nature evident in their poems, the landscape-painting that often is the background. for personal feeling, markedly deviate from the corresponding elements of French poetry,1 and have such an English air that they can only be explained by the tradition of the English folk-song. It is plain, at a glance, that the Englishman has a warmer and closer relation with nature than the Frenchman. The French poet is only interested by a certain range of phenomena, out of which he rarely moves. regards animals, for instance, he almost entirely restricts himself, in the lyric, to singing birds, except for purposes of comparison. And the poet knows no way of combining the expression of his mood and the picture he has sketched by a few touches from nature, save by means of reflection. Everything rejoices in returning spring, so I must also rejoice in my love; " or, "When the nightingale begins her sweet song, it becomes me to sing mine." The English poet has more varied and richer details at his disposal, and is not wont to form an analogy of his personal sentiments with a certain phase of the life of nature, but rather lets his feelings appear as part of that life. 66 There is no doubt that whole forms and verses passed from the folk-song to the songs of the clerics. A poem that otherwise contains many non-popular elements has the following burden, very certainly not invented by the poet : Blow, northerne wynd, Sent thou me my suetying (sweetheart). Blow, northerne wynd, blou, blou, blou ! 2 There is in the entire poem no other mention of the north wind; it contains no description of nature, but, in six stanzas 1 This is true particularly of the lyric. In the French epic romances, the love of nature is occasionally shown with the same directness as in the English lyric new con sidered. • Wright, Specimens of Lyric Poetry, No. 16. full of metaphors and similes, brings out the pertections of the loved one, and depicts in four further stanzas the lovepain of the poet. The terse language and abrupt transitions of the folk-song characterise these verses throughout. "How shall he sweetly sing who thus in mourning pines? She will bring me to death long before my time. Greet her well, the sweet one with the clear eyes." " 1 And in the same poem: "I wish her what is good, she me evil; I am her friend, she is my foe; I believe my heart will break with care and sighing. May she go in God's keeping, the white pearl.” Nearly all of the few love-songs preserved from this period date from the time of Henry III. and Edward I. They originated partly in the midland district, partly in the south; alliteration and rhyme are both frequent and are more regularly used by poets belonging to the Welsh Marches. Though few in number, these productions2 present a fair variety of talent and style. A poet who probably lived in eastern Mercia, and composed in the single-rhymed strophes of four long lines, familiar to us in the religious lyric, is distinguished by his simple directness of expression and warmth of feeling. We have a love-plaint from him that begins thus: "When the nightingale sings, the woods wax green; leaf and grass and blossom spring in April, I ween, and love is gone to my heart with a spear so keen; night and day it drinks my blood, my heart doth me tene (hurt)."3 The same poet wrote a song in dialogue, that is probably meant to represent his own lot. We translate it as follows: My death I love, my life I hate, all for a lady fair; She is as bright as the day-light, none can with her compare. Sorrows and sighs and dreary mood hold me enthralled so fast, Away, thou clerk, thou art a fool, with thee I will not chide; 1 Strictly, "with gray eyes," that were considered an especial beauty in the Middle Ages. Wright, No. 11. We have translated the poems given below, from the originals, for the general reader. TRANSLATOR. Wright, No. 32. ENGLISH SONGS. If in my bower thou art caught, then shame may thee betide; Ah, well-a-day, why say'st thou thus? Have rue upon my woc! 307 Be still, thou fool! I call thee aright, will'st ever words begin? O sweet, relent, thou grievest me, thy pity I implore; For now I am as sad a man as blithe I was before. In window's shelter we could kiss full fifty times and more; Alack-a-day, why wakest thou old pain thus ruthlessly? I loved him better than my life; what boots a lie to thee? When I a clerk was in the school, much did I know of lore; From the deep wound dealt by thy love, sharp ache I've felt, and sore; Far from men's haunt, in pilgrim's garb, I've roamed the wide world o'er ; Have pity on me, lady sweet. Alas, I can no more. Thou seemest well to be a clerk, for so thou speakest still. No longer vexing dole shalt feel from my love-wounds, nor ill; Another poet who prefers the tail-rhyme, and whose great liking for alliteration often leads to obscurity, is fond o painting landscapes. A third, since he certainly belongs to the west, makes a still more liberal use of alliteration; he compares, stanza by stanza, his loved one to all manner of precious stones, flowers, birds, and the like. A fourth poet, also from the west, is partial to allegory. The song having the refrain "Blow, northerne wynd" contains the following: "I told to Love how this Beauty had seized a heart that was mine, how her knights-Sighing, Sorrowing, and Thought -had sought me. These three brought me to ruin against the power of Peace. I put further plaints to Love, how Sighing followed me, and Thought threatened to overcome me with mastery if he might, and Sorrowing sore threatened that he, for this Beauty, would lead me in baleful bands until 1 Wright, Nos. 13 and 14. 2 Ibid., No. 5. |