Early English Alliterative Poems

Title: Early English Alliterative Poems

Editor: Richard Morris

Release date: October 19, 2009 [eBook #30282] Most recently updated: March 2, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30282

Credits: Louise Hope, David Starner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

This e-text is based on the 1869 (second) edition of the Alliterative Poems. A few apparent misprints were checked against the 1864 edition, but the texts as a whole were not closely compared.

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Full Contents Preface The Pearl (separate file) Cleanness (separate file) Patience (separate file) Glossarial Index (separate file) Sidenotes Details of Text and Layout

EDITED FROM THE UNIQUE MANUSCRIPT BRITISH MUSEUM MS. COTTON NERO A. x

BY

RICHARD MORRIS

Published for THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY by the OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

FIRST PUBLISHED 1864 SECOND EDITION 1869 REPRINTED (1869 VERSION) 1965

Original Series, No. 1

ORIGINALLY PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN, HERTFORD AND NOW REPRINTED LITHOGRAPHICALLY IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD BY VIVIAN RIDLER, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

Contents (added by transcriber)

Items in italics do not have headings in the body text.

Remarks Upon the Dialect and Grammar

Description of the Manuscript

Contractions Used in the Glossary

Collected Sidenotes (section added by transcriber)

PREFACE.

All page references in Arabic numerals refer to the main text, located in a separate file. Parenthetical Roman numerals do not correspond to the editor’s section headings, but the text summary is generally similar to the appropriate headnote.

The following poems are taken from a well known manuscript in the Cottonian collection, marked Nero A. x, which also contains, in the same handwriting and dialect, a metrical romance,1 wherein the adventures of Sir Gawayne with the “Knight in Green,” are most ably and interestingly described.

Unfortunately nothing can be affirmed with any certainty concerning the authorship of these most valuable and interesting compositions. The editor of “Syr Gawayn and the Green Knight” considers that Huchowne, a supposed2 Scotch maker of the fourteenth century, has the best claims to be recognised as the author, inasmuch as he is specially referred to by Wyntown as the writer of the Gret gest of Arthure and the Awntyre of Gawayne.

I do not think that any certain conclusions are to be drawn from the Scotch historian’s assertion. It is well known that more versifiers than one during the fourteenth century attempted romance composition in the English language, having for their theme the knightly deeds of Arthur or Sir Gawayne. These they compiled from French originals, from which they selected the most striking incidents and those best suited to an Englishman’s taste for the marvellous. We are not surprised, vi then, at finding so many romance poems treating of the exploits of the same hero, and laying claim to be considered as original productions. In Scotland, Huchowne’s works might no doubt have been regarded as the standard romances of the period, but that they were the only English gests is indeed very doubtful.

The Early English alliterative romance, entitled the Morte Arthure, published from a manuscript in Lincoln Cathedral by Mr. Halliwell,3 is considered by Sir F. Madden to be the veritable gest of Arthure composed by Huchowne. An examination of this romance does not lead me to the same conclusion, unless Huchowne was a Midland man, for the poem is not written in the old Scotch dialect,4 but seems to have been originally composed in one of the Northumbrian dialects spoken South of the Tweed.5

The manuscript from which Mr. Halliwell has taken his text is not the original copy, nor even a literal transcript of it. It exhibits certain orthographical and grammatical peculiarities unknown to the Northumbrian dialect which have been introduced by a Midland transcriber, who has here and there taken vii the liberty to adapt the original text to the dialect of his own locality, probably that one of the North Midland counties, where many of the Northumbrian forms of speech would be intelligible.6

A comparison of the Arthurian romance with the following poems throws no light whatever upon the authorship of the poems. The dialect of the two works is altogether different, although many of the terms employed are common to both, being well known over the whole of the North of England. The grammatical forms (the best test we can have) in the poems are quite distinct from those in the Morte Arthure, and of course go far to prove that they do not proceed from the pen of the same writer.

The Editor of “Syr Gawayn and the Green Knight” acknowledges that the poems in the present volume, as now preserved to us in the manuscript, are not in the Scottish dialect, but he says “there is sufficient internal evidence of their being Northern,7 although the manuscript containing them appears to have been written by a scribe of the Midland counties, which will account for the introduction of forms differing from those used by writers beyond the Tweed.”

Now, with regard to this subsequent transcription of the poems from the Scotch into a Midland dialect,—it cannot be viii said to be improbable, for we have abundant instances of the multiplication of copies by scribes of different localities, so that we are not surprised at finding the works of some of our popular Early English writers appearing in two or three forms; but, on the other hand, a comparison of the original copy with the adapted transcriptions, or even the reading of a transcribed copy, always shows how the author’s productions have suffered by the change. Poetical works, especially those with final rhymes, of course undergo the greatest amount of transformation and depreciation. The changes incident upon the kind of transcription referred to are truly surprising, and most perplexing to those who make the subject of Early English dialects a matter of investigation.

But, in the present poems, the uniformity and consistency of the grammatical forms is so entire, that there is indeed no internal evidence of subsequent transcription into any other dialect than that in which they were originally written. However, the dialect and grammatical peculiarities will be considered hereafter.

Again, in the course of transcription into another dialect, any literary merit that the author’s copy may have originally possessed would certainly be destroyed. But the poems before us are evidently the work of a man of birth and education; the productions of a true poet, and of one who had acquired a perfect mastery over that form of the English tongue spoken in his own immediate locality during the earlier part of the fourteenth century. Leaving out of consideration their great philological worth, they possess an intrinsic value of their own as literary compositions, very different from anything to be found in the works of Robert of Gloucester, Manning, and many other Early English authors, which are very important as philological records, but in the light of poetical productions, cannot be said to hold a very distinguished place in English literature. The poems in the present volume contain many ix passages which, as Sir F. Madden truly remarks, will bear comparison with any similar ones in the works of Douglas or Spenser.

I conclude, therefore, that these poems were not transcribed from the Scotch dialect into any other, but were written in their own West-Midland speech in which we now have them.

Mr. Donaldson, who is now editing for the Early English Text Society the Troy Book, translated from Guido di Colonna, puts forward a plea for Huchowne as its author, to whom he would also assign the Morte Arthure (ed. Perry) and the Pistel of Sweet Susan.8 But Mr. Donaldson seems to have been misled by the similarity of vocabulary, which is not at all a safe criterion in judging of works written in a Northumbrian, West or East Midland speech. The dialect, I venture to think, is a far safer test. A careful examination of the Troy Book compels me to differ in toto from Mr. Donaldson, and, instead of assigning the Troy Book to a Scotchman, say that it cannot even be claimed, in its present form, by any Northumbrian south of the Tweed; moreover, it presents no appearance of having been tampered with by one unacquainted with the dialect, though it has perhaps been slightly modernised in the course of transcription.

The work is evidently a genuine West-Midland production,9 having most of the peculiarities of vocabulary and inflexions that are found in these Alliterative Poems.10 I feel greatly inclined to claim this English Troy Book as the production of the author of the Alliterative Poems; for, leaving out identical and by no means common expressions, we find the same power of x description,11 and the same tendency to inculcate moral and religious truths on all occasions where an opportunity presents itself.12 Without dwelling upon this topic, which properly falls to the Editor of the Troy Book, it may not be out of place to ask the reader to compare the following description of a storm from the Troy Book, with that selected from the present volume on pp. 14 and 18.

A TEMPEST ON ÞE SEE.

There a tempest hom toke on þe torres hegh:—

A rak and a royde wynde rose in hor saile,

A myst & a merkenes was mervell to se;

With a routond rayn ruthe to be-holde,

Thonret13 full throly with a thicke haile;

With a leuenyng light as a low fyre,

Blaset all the brode see as it bren wold.

The flode with a felle cours flowet on hepis,

Rose uppon rockes as any ranke hylles.

So wode were the waghes & þe wilde ythes,

All was like to be lost þat no lond hade

The ship ay shot furth o þe shire waghes,

As qwo clymbe at a clyffe, or a clent14 hille.

Eft dump in the depe as all drowne wolde.

Was no stightlyng with stere ne no stithe ropes,

Ne no sayle, þat might serue for unsound wedur.

But all the buernes in the bote, as hom best liked,

Besoght unto sainttes & to sere goddes; (p. 65)

A STORME ON THE SE.

All the company enclinet cairyn to ship;

Cachyn in cables, knyt up hor ancres,

Sesit vp hor sailes in a sad hast;

Richet þere rapes, rapit unto see.

Hokit out of hauyn, all the hepe somyn,

Hade bir at hor bake, blawen to þe depe;

Sailyn forthe soberly, somyn but a while,

Noght fyftene forlong fairly to the end.

...........

When sodenly the softe aire unsoberly rose;

The cloudis overcast, claterrit aboute;

Wyndes full wodely walt up the ythes;

Wex merke as the mydnighte mystes full thicke:

Thunret in the thestur throly with all;

With a launchant laite lightonyd the water;

And a ropand rayne raiked fro the heuyn.

The storme was full stithe with mony stout windes,

Hit walt up the wilde se vppon wan hilles.

The ffolke was so ferd, that on flete were,

All drede for to drowne with dryft of the se;

And in perell were put all the proude kynges. —(p. 150.)

The poems in the present volume, three in number, seem to have been written for the purpose of enforcing, by line upon line and precept upon precept, Resignation to the will of God; Purity of life as manifested in thought, word, and deed; Obedience to the Divine command; and Patience under affliction.

In the first poem, entitled by me “The Pearl”, the author evidently gives expression to his own sorrow for the loss of his infant child, a girl of two years old, whom he describes as a

Perle plesaunte to prynces paye

Pearl pleasant to princes’ pleasure,

To clanly clos in golde so clere

Most neatly set in gold so clear.

Of her death he says:

Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere

Alas! I lost her in an arbour,

Þurȝ gresse to grounde hit fro me yot

Through grass to ground it from me got. —(p. 1.)

The writer then represents himself as visiting his child’s grave (or arbour) in the “high season of August,” and giving way to his grief (p. 2). He falls asleep, and in a dream is carried xii toward a forest, where he saw rich rocks gleaming gloriously, hill sides decked with crystal cliffs, and trees the leaves of which were as burnished silver. The gravel under his feet was “precious pearls of orient,” and birds “of flaming hues” flew about in company, whose notes were far sweeter than those of the cytole or gittern (guitar) (p. 3). The dreamer arrives at the bank of a stream, which flows over stones (shining like stars in the welkin on a winter’s night) and pebbles of emeralds, sapphires, or other precious gems, so

Þat all the loȝe lemed of lyȝt

That all the deep gleamed of light,

So dere watȝ hit adubbement

So dear was its adornment. —(p. 4.)

Following the course of the stream, he perceives on the opposite side a crystal cliff, from which was reflected many a “royal ray” (p. 5).

At þe fote þer-of þer sete a faunt

At the foot thereof there sat a child,

A mayden of menske, ful debonere

A maiden of honour, full debonnair;

Blysnande whyt watȝ hyr bleaunt

Glistening white was her robe,

(I knew hyr wel, I hade sen hyr ere)

(I knew her well, I had seen her before)

At glysnande golde þat man con schore

As shining gold that man did purify,

So schon þat schene an-vnder schore

So shone that sheen (bright one) on the opposite shore;

On lenghe I loked to hyr þere

Long I looked to her there,

Þe lenger I knew hyr more & more

The longer I knew her, more and more. —(pp. 6, 7.)

The maiden rises, and, proceeding along the bank of the stream, approaches him. He tells her that he has done nothing but mourn for the loss of his Pearl, and has been indeed a “joyless jeweller” (p. 8). However, now that he has found his Pearl, xiii he declares that he is no longer sorrowful, but would be a “joyful jeweller” were he allowed to cross the stream (p. 8). The maiden blames her father for his rash speech, tells him that his Pearl is not lost, and that he cannot pass the stream till after death (p. 10). The dreamer is in great grief; he does not, he says, care what may happen if he is again to lose his Pearl. The maiden advises him to bear his loss patiently, and to abide God’s doom (p. 11). She describes to him her blissful state in heaven, where she reigns as a queen (p. 12). She explains to him that Mary is the Empress of Heaven, and all others kings and queens (p. 13). The parable of the labourers in the vineyard15 (pp. 15-18) is then rehearsed at length, to prove that “innocents” are admitted to the same privileges as are enjoyed by

those who have lived longer upon the earth (p. 18). The maiden then speaks to her father of Christ and his one hundred and forty thousand brides (p. 24), and describes their blissful state (p. 26). She points out to him the heavenly Jerusalem, which was “all of bright burnished gold, gleaming like glass” (p. 29). Then the dreamer beholds a procession of virgins going to salute the Lamb, among whom he perceives his “little queen” (p. 33). On attempting to cross the stream to follow her, he is aroused from his dream (p. 35), laments his rash curiosity in seeking to know so much of God’s mysteries, and declares that man ever desires more happiness than he has any right to expect (p. 35).

The second poem, entitled “Cleanness,” is a collection of Biblical stories, in which the writer endeavours to enforce Purity of Life, by showing how greatly God is displeased at every kind of impurity, and how sudden and severe is the punishment which falls upon the sinner for every violation of the Divine law.

After commending cleanness and its “fair forms,” the author relates (I.) The Parable of the Marriage Feast (p. 39); xiv (II.) the Fall of the Angels (p. 43); (III.) The wickedness of the antediluvian world (p. 44),

He watȝ famed for fre þat feȝt loued best

He was famous as free that fight loved best,

& ay þe bigest in bale þe best watȝ halden

And ever the biggest in sin the best was held; (p. 45.)

(IV.) The destruction of mankind by the Flood. When all were safely stowed in the ark,

Thenne sone com þe seuenþe day, when samned wern alle

Then soon came the seventh day when assembled were all,

& alle woned in þe whichche þe wylde & þe tame.

And all abode in the ark (hutch), the wild and the tame.

Þen bolned þe abyme & bonkeȝ con ryse

Then swelled the abyss and banks did rise,

Waltes out vch walle-heued, in ful wode stremeȝ

Bursts out each well-head in full wild streams,

Watȝ no brymme þat abod vnbrosten bylyue

There was no brim (stream) that abode unburst by then,

Þe mukel lauande loghe to þe lyfte rered

The much (great) flowing deep (loch) to the loft (sky) reared.

Mony clustered clowde clef alle in clowteȝ

Many a clustering cloud cleft all in clouts (pieces),

To-rent vch a rayn-ryfte & rusched to þe vrþe

Rent was each a rain-rift and rushed to the earth;

Fon neuer in forty dayeȝ, & þen þe flod ryses

Failed never in forty days, and then the flood rises,

Ouer-walteȝ vche a wod and þe wyde feldeȝ

Over-flows each wood and the wide fields;

..............

Water wylger ay wax, woneȝ þat stryede

Water wildly ever waxed, abodes that destroyed,

Hurled in-to vch hous, hent þat þer dowelled

Hurled into each house, seized those that there dwelt.

Fyrst feng to þe flyȝt alle þat fle myȝt

First took to flight all that flee might,

Vuche burde with her barne þe byggyng þay leueȝ

Each bride (woman) with her bairn their abode they leave,

& bowed to þe hyȝ bonk þer brentest hit wern

And hied to the high bank where highest it were,

& heterly to þe hyȝe hilleȝ þay [h]aled on faste

And hastily to the high hills they rushed on fast;

Bot al watȝ nedleȝ her note, for neuer cowþe stynt

But all was needless their device, for never could stop

Þe roȝe raynande ryg [&] þe raykande waweȝ

The rough raining shower and the rushing waves,

Er vch boþom watȝ brurd-ful to þe bonkeȝ eggeȝ

Ere each bottom (valley) was brim-ful to the banks’ edges,

& vche a dale so depe þat demmed at þe brynkeȝ

And each dale so deep that dammed at the brinks. —(pp. 47, 48).

The ark is described as “heaved on high with hurling streams.”

Kest to kyþeȝ vncouþe þe clowdeȝ ful nere

Cast to kingdoms uncouth the clouds ful near,

Hit waltered on the wylde flod, went as hit lyste

It tossed on the wild flood, went as it list,

Drof vpon þe depe dam, in daunger hit semed

It drove upon the deep dam, in danger it seemed,

With-outen mast, oþer myke, oþer myry bawe-lyne

Without mast, or mike, or merry bow-line,

Kable, oþer capstan to clyppe to her ankreȝ

Cable or capstan to clip to their anchors,

Hurrok, oþer hande-helme hasped on roþer

Oar or hand-helm hooked on rudder,

Oþer any sweande sayl to seche after hauen

Or any swinging sail to seek after haven,

Bot flote forthe with þe flyt of þe felle wyndeȝ

But floated forth with the force of the fell winds.

Wheder-warde so þe water wafte, hit rebounde

Whither-ward so (as) the water waft, it rebounded,

Ofte hit roled on-rounde & rered on ende

Oft it rolled around and reared on end,

Nyf our lorde hade ben her lodeȝ-mon hem had lumpen harde

Had our Lord not been their (pilot) leader hardship had befallen them. —(p. 49.)

(V.) The Visit of Three Angels to Abraham (p. 54).