Whan That Aprille Day 2019

A lyric for the annual celebration of ancient, archaic, and "dead" languages (the Middle English is in roman type and my "translation" is interleaved in italics):

I have a young suster
I have a young sister
Fer beyonden the see;
Far beyond the sea;
Many be the drowries
Many are the love-tokens
That she sente me.
That she sent me.

She sente me the cherye
She sent me a cherry
Withouten ony ston,
Without any stone (pit),
And so she ded the dove
And so she did the dove
Withouten ony bon.
Without any bone.

Sche sente me the brer
She sent me a briar
Withouten ony rinde;
Without any bark;
Sche bad me love my lemman
She bade me love my sweetheart
Withoute longing.
Without longing.

How shuld ony cherye
How could any cherry
Be withoute ston?
Be without a stone (pit)?
And how shuld ony dove
How could any dove
Ben withoute bon?
Be without bones?

How shuld ony brer
How could any briar
Ben withoute rinde?
Be without bark?
How shuld I love min lemman
How could I love my sweetheart
Without longing?
Without longing?

Whan the cherye was a flour,
When the cherry was a flower,
Than hadde it non ston;
Then had it no stone (pit);
Whan the dove was an ey,
When the dove was an egg,
Than hadde it non bon.
Then had it no bones.

Whan the brer was onbred,
When the briar was a sprout,
Than hadde it non rind;
Then had it no bark;
Whan the maiden hath that she loveth,
When the maiden has what she loves,
She is without longing.
She is without longing.

I was taught a version of this riddle song back when schoolchildren had music lessons; it's interesting to see how long it's been around in a very similar form – our fruit was also a cherry (still referred to as one of the stone fruits, that is, fruit with a pit or kernel in the center), but I think the boneless bird in our version was a chicken (I'm sure some clever or misguided child would these days offer "chicken tenders" as an answer). In the song I learned, it was the lover who was asking us the riddles; here it is, perhaps oddly, the lover's sister, who is for some reason far beyond the sea – is she at home, or is he? Is he a soldier, a pilgrim, a knight? Is she a pilgrim? I think we can rule out "nun in a convent" though . . . maybe not; after all, as Chaucer's Prioress tells us, Amor Vincit Omnia, or Love Conquers All. The mysterious love-tokens are explained, but not why this young woman is sending them to her brother; perhaps the clue is in the final lines: When the maiden hath that she loveth, / She is without longing: in other words, your sweetheart also wants you, so go ahead and . . . you know. In the springtime tradition of carpe diem poems, grab the cherry blossom before it falls, the dove (the traditional symbol of faithful love) before it hatches and flies away, the briar before it gets large and thorny, and the lover while he or she is willing.

I'm pretty pleased that I also worked two Latin tags into this! I took this lyric from the Norton Critical Edition of Middle English Lyrics, edited by Richard L Hoffman and Maxwell S Luria. The translation they give for rind is unborn, but this version offers bark, which I think makes more sense.

Whan That Aprille Day 2018

Since Whan That Aprille Day coincides with Easter this year, here is a tender Middle English religious poem in honor of both days. It seems like the sort of simple lyric you would teach a child as a prayer. In addition to the repetitions of sweet, Jesus is addressed throughout with the intimate thou/thee, creating a kindly sense of deep and personal devotion. There is a lovely pun on springe at the end, meaning grow but also suggesting the season when the earth renews itself.

I've interleaved a crib in italics. I found this poem in the Norton Critical Edition of Middle English Lyrics, edited by Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman. I've used their annotations as well as the glossary in the Penguin Classics edition of The Canterbury Tales.

Previous entries for Whan That Aprille Day can be found here, here, here, and also here.

Swete Jhesu, king of blisse,
Sweet Jesus, king of bliss,
Min herte love, min herte lisse,
My heart's love, my heart's joy,
Thou art swete, mid iwisse:
You are indeed sweet:
Wo is him that thee shall misse.
Woe to him who shall fail to find you.

Swete Jhesu, min herte light,
Sweet Jesus, my heart's light,
Thou art day withouten night.
You are day without a night.
Thou geve me strengthe and eke might
You give me strength and also the power
For to lovien thee all right.
To love you completely.

Swete Jhesu, my soule bote,
Sweet Jesus, my soul's remedy,
In min herte thou sette a rote
In my heart you plant a root
Of thy love that is so swote,
Of your love that is so sweet,
And wite it that it springe mote.
And guide it that it might grow.

detail of The Resurrection by an unknown artist active in Aragon in the first half of the fifteenth century, at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco

a poem for #WhanthatAprilleDay17

The first day of April is Whan That Aprille Day, a day celebrating "alle langages that are yclept ‘old,’ or ‘middel,’ or ‘auncient,’ or ‘archaic,’ or, alas, even ‘dead’" in the words of the day's founder, Geoffrey Chaucer Himself. Ignore all other holidays alleged to take place on this day. You may find the 2014 poem here, which has some internal linkage to other Middle English posts; check here for 2015, and here for 2016. I've posted Middle English poems a few other times; you can click the poesy label and read through all the poems, and honestly there are worse ways you could be spending your time.

In a further tradition, the Google machine is apparently unable to cope with the sophisticated typesetting I had in mind, in which the lines of the original Middle English, set in green and roman, are interleaved with a crib, set in black and italic. Only the color thing didn't quite work out and my attempts to fix it disappear no matter how many times I save, so: apologies for the confusion, but the lines in italic are my version of the lines above in roman. If any scholar wishes to dispute my interpretation, I will accept the rebuke gratefully and gracefully, as a true student should.

When the nightegale singes,
When the nightingale sings,
The wodes waxen grene:
The woods grow green:
Lef and grass and blosme springes
Leaf and grass and blossom spring
In Averil, I wene,
In April, as I expect,
And love is to min herte gon
And love goes to my heart
With one spere so kene:
With a sharp spear:
Night and day my blod it drinkes;
Night and day it drinks my blood;
Min herte deth me tene.
My heart grieves me so.

Ich have loved all this yer
I have loved all this year
That I may love namore;
So much that I can't love any more;
Ich have siked mony sik,
I have sighed many sighs,
Lemmon, for thin ore.
Sweetheart [leman], for your favors.
Me nis love never the ner,
But love has not come any nearer,
And that me reweth sore.
Which grieves me sorely.
Swete lemmon, thench on me:
Sweet sweetheart, think on me:
Ich have loved thee yore.
I have loved you for so long.

Swete lemmon, I preye thee
Sweet lover, I beg you
Of love one speche.
For one word of love.
Whil I live in world so wide
While I live in this big old world
Other nulle I seche.
I will seek no other but you.
With thy love, my swete leof,
With your love, my sweetest love,
My bliss thou mightest eche:
You would increase my happiness:
A swete cos of thy mouth
A sweet kiss from your mouth
Mighte be my leche.
Would be my doctor [leech, meaning doctor, as applying leeches was a frequent medical maneuver]

Swete lemmon, I preye thee
My beloved, I beg you
Of a love-bene;
For this lover's boon:
If thou me lovest, as men says,
If you love me, as men say,
Lemmon, as I wene,
Darling, then I expect,
And if it thy wille be,
And if you desire it,
Thou loke that it be sene.
That you shall see that it happens.
So muchel I thenke upon thee
I think about you so much
That all I waxe grene.
That my whole self grows green.

Bitwene Lincolne and Lindeseye,
Between Lincoln and Lindsey,
Norhamptoun and Lounde,
Northhampton and Lound,
Ne wot I non so fair a may
I do not know of so fair a maiden
As I go fore ibounde.
As the one I am bound to.
Swete lemmon, I preye thee
Sweet sweetheart, I beg you
Thou lovie me a stounde.
To love me, at least for a moment.
     I wole mone my song
     I will moan my song
     On wham that it is on ilong.
     To the one who inspired it.

Anonymous, Harley 2253

The speaker goes right from the lovely springtime renewal of the natural world into his (or her; I don't want to rule out that possibility) world of love-pain, though he (or she – from here on I'll stick with the masculine adjective but feel free to supply any other one you want) cleverly brings the waxe grene back in the end, this time in reference to his whole self: does this mean that thinking about love renews him? or that it makes him jealous (was green already the color of envy at this time?)? or sick, with the greenish tinge of anemia, hence the term green-sickness? I am utterly charmed by the declaration that the beloved is the fairest maiden between Lincoln and Lindsey, Northhampton and Lound – so much more discreet, sensible, and provable than proclamations about your beloved being peerless in the world.

This poem is from the Harley Lyrics, a manuscript now in the British Library and dating from the middle of the fourteenth century containing poems in Middle English, Middle French, and Latin. You may read more about it here, and you may see some pages of the manuscript here.

The Middle English text is taken from Middle English Lyrics: A Norton Anthology, selected and edited by Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman.

Poem of the Week bonus: #whanthataprilleday16

Welcome to the third annual Whan That Aprille Day, a celebration of all languages called Middle, Old, Ancient, Archaic, or even Dead. Go here to read a full statement on the celebration by the founder of the feast, the Internet's own Geoffrey Chaucer. You know it's official because the day has its own hashtag: #WhanthatAprilleday16.

You may go here to read the 2014 entry, here to read the 2015 entry, and I'm surprised to realize this is the first year I've used an excerpt from Chaucer (though he has been featured twice before in Poem of the Week; go here to read an excerpt from The Second Nun's Prologue and here for the opening of The Canterbury Tales; the latter entry also has a link to a Middle English pronunciation guide.)

This is an excerpt from the Nun's Priest's tale in The Canterbury Tales. He starts with a description of the small farm of a poor widow (the she of the first line of the excerpt), to which the richly jewel-like appearance of her glamorous rooster provides an ironic contrast. This charming and gently satirical beast fable has always been one of the most popular of the variegated Tales of Canterbury. In an amusing touch in this excerpt, you'll note that the justifiably smug rooster among his harem of hens displays his swete acord by singing a song about how his love has gone away. (Perhaps the rooster surrounded by his hens is a gently self-mocking image by the Nun's Priest himself?)

I've put a crib in italic black text below each of the Middle English lines.* As for the lines about the celestial equator, I have to admit that, in a shameful and unscholarly way, when it comes to technical descriptions of medieval science I am sometimes content with comprehension that is "vague but close enough". The basic sense is that the rooster knew exactly when it was the moment to crow, more precisely than any timepiece. Speaking of timepieces, they were fairly new and expensive technology when Chaucer wrote these lines – an abbey clock-tower might be the only clock for miles around.

The text I used is the Penguin Classics edition of The Canterbury Tales (which they call, rather oddly, an "original spelling" edition), edited by Jill Mann, whose notes bravely explain all about the celestial equator as well as medieval clocks.

* For some reason the Google Machine is unable to handle the text colors I've now carefully put in at least three times; either that, or it's playing an April Fool's joke on me. Apologies for the way this looks but I think it's clear which lines are Middle English and which are not.

The rooster Chauntecleer & his beloved Pertelote

. . . 
A yeerd she hadde, enclosed al aboute
She had a yard, enclosed all around
With stikkes, and a drye dich withoute,
With stakes, and a dry ditch around it,
In which she hadde a cok heet Chauntecleer.
In which she had a cock named Chauntecleer;
In al the land, of crowing nas his peer;
In all the land, he had no peer for crowing;
His vois was murier than the mirye orgon
His voice was merrier [happier, sweeter] than the merry organ [music]
On masse-days that in the chirche gon.
That went on in the church during a feast-day.
Wel sikerer was his crowing in his logge
More certain [reliable] was his crowing in his coop
Than is a clokke or an abbey orlogge.
Than is a clock or an abbey clock-tower.
By nature he knew ech ascencioun
By nature [instinctively] he knew each ascension
Of th'equinoxial in thilke toun;
Of the celestial equator in that town;
For whan degrees fiftene were ascended,
For when fifteen degrees were ascended,
Thanne krew he, that it mighte nat ben amended.
Then he knew [to crow], so that it could not be improved upon.
His comb was redder than the fin coral,
His comb was redder than the finest coral,
And batailled as it were a castel wal.
And crenelated like a castle wall.
His bile was blak, and as the jeet it shoon;
His bill was black, and shone like jet;
Lik asure were hise legges and his toon;
Like azure [lapis lazuli] were his legs and his toes;
Hise nailes whitter than the lilye flour,
His claws whiter than the lily;
And like the burned gold was his colour.
And like burnished gold was his color [the color of his feathers];
This gentil cok hadde in his governaunce
This gentle [noble and refined] cock had in his care
Sevene hennes, for to doon al his plesaunce,
Seven hens, to obey his commands [do his pleasure],
Whiche were hise sustres and his paramours,
Which were his sisters and his paramours,
And wonder like to him, as of colours;
Wondrously like him as to colors;
Of whiche the faireste hewed on hire throte
Of which the fairest hued on her throat
Was cleped faire damoisele Pertelote.
Was called the fair lady Pertelote.
Curteis she was, discreet, and debonaire,
Courteous she was, discreet, and gentle and refined,
And compaignable, and bar hirself so faire
And sociable, and carried herself so beautifully
Sin thilke day that she was seven night oold,
Since that day that she was seven nights old,
That trewely she hath the herte in hoold
That truly she held fast the heart
Of Chauntecleer, loken in every lith.
Of Chauntecleer, locked in every limb.
He loved hire so that wel was him therwith.
He loved her so much that all was well with him because of it.
But swich a joye was it to here hem singe,
But it was such a joy  to hear him sing,
Whan that the brighte sonne gan to springe,
When the bright sun began to rise,
In swete acord, "My leef is faren in londe".
In sweet accord [harmony], "My love has gone away".
– For thilke time, as I have understonde,
– For at this time, as I am given to understand,
Beestes and briddes kouden speke and singe.
Beasts and birds could speak and sing.
. . . 

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, from The Nun's Priests's Tale, ll 2847 - 2881

Poem of the Week bonus: #whanthataprilleday15

See here for an explanation of this holiday celebrating all old, middle, ancient, archaic, and even dead languages. For last year's entry see here. Then see below for this year's entry: a few lines from Silence, an Old French Arthurian romance about a girl raised as a boy. She is named Silence, because her true nature must be kept in silence until the king reverses his decree against women inheriting property. Among her various adventures, she wanders the land in the company of two minstrels. They have trained her in their art, but she so surpasses them that they feel their livelihood is threatened. They plan to kill her. She overhears their plot and saves herself by refusing to leave with them, in a dialogue tense with danger and double-meanings.

Interlined with the original Old French I've put the translation by Sarah Roche-Mahdi, who newly edited and translated this fascinating work. The work's opening line attributes it to the otherwise unknown and probably pseudonymous Master Heldris of Cornwall. The unique manuscript was only rediscovered in 1911, in a British manor house in a box marked "old papers – no value."

"Amis," font il, "ne vos cremés.
"Friend," they said, "don't worry.
Nos amons vos, vus nos amés.
We are loyal to you, as you are to us.
Quant dites qu'estes si haïs,
When you say you feel threatened,
Cremons que ne soiés traïs.
we, too, are afraid you might be in danger.
Se li malfaitor sont a destre,
If the criminals are on the right,
Acuellons la voie a senestre.
we will take the path to the left.
Ses encontrons par aventure
And if we should happen to encounter them,
Et faire nos voelent rancure,
and if they want to attack us,
Por nos meïsmes i serons.
we will all be there to help each other.
S'il i fierent, nos i ferrons."
If they strike, we strike, too."
"Dirai vos," fait il, "une rien:
"I have something to say to you," said Silence.
Je ne cuic pas, ains le sai bien
"I think, or rather, I know very well,
Que vos i ferrés volentiers.
that you will be only too happy to strike.
Et cil se guart endementiers,
In the meantime, the one who has to protect himself
Se il violt, qui a garder s'a,
had better be on his guard, if he wants to defend himself;
U s'il nel fait que fols fera.
And if he doesn't do this, he is a fool.
Segnor, jo que vos celeroie?
Gentlemen, why should I not speak openly?
Mes enemis enconterroie
Se jo aloie o vos en France,
Cho sachiés vos tolt a fiänce;
You know very well indeed
that I would encounter my enemies
whether I went with you to France
U s'o vos aloie en Espagne,
or whether I went with you to Spain
En Alvergne, u en Alemagne.
or Auvergne or Germany.
Si me vient chi miols remanoir,
Therefore, it would be much better for me to stay here
Qu'aler allors por pis avoir.
than to go somewhere else and be worse off.
Jo remanrai, cho est la some,
In short, I'm staying here.
Et vos end irés com prodome
And you will go off, like upright
Et bone gent, bien le savés.
and honest men, make no mistake about that.
Si com vos viers moi fait avés,
As you have done to me,
Vos rendie Dex le gueredon;
may God do to you in return;
Por tel deserte altretel don.
may you receive your just deserts.
Moult m'avés fait, plus eüsciés
You have done much for me,
Se moi faire le peüssciés.
and would have done more if you could have.
En vos servir ai jo perdu."
I haven't been able to do quite enough for you."
Li jogleör sont esperdu.
The minstrels were undone.
Aportent le gaäig avant,
They took out the earnings
Se li ont dit par avenant:
and graciously said to him,
"Sire, amis chiers, prendés vo part."
"Dear friend, good sir, take your share."
Et l'enfes .c. mars en depart./
Then the youth took a hundred marks as his portion,
A çals en lasce plus de .c.,
and left them more than a hundred,
Et cil s'en vont hastivement.
and they took off in a hurry.

Silence, ll 3437 - 3476, translated and edited by Sarah Roche-Mahdi

In line 3466 of the translation I've corrected just desserts to just deserts.

Poem of the Week bonus: for Whan That Aprille Day

I loathe April Fool's Day and all practical joking, so I was delighted to see that our very own Geoffrey Chaucer is bravely attempting to start a new holiday: Whan That Aprille Day, in honor of all old, middle, ancient, archaic, and even dead languages. Geoffrey encourages us to use the hashtag #whanthataprilleday on Twitter. You may read his statement here.

If you're looking for some straight-up Chaucer goodness, you should check out last year's Poem of the Week for the start of National Poetry Month (you may find it here).

Otherwise, to mark the beginning of National Poetry Month and Whan That Aprille Day, here is a lyric in Middle English. The text here is fairly straightforward, even for those with little experience of Middle English. Begild in the fourth line of the first stanza means beguiled; on in the last line of each stanza and the third line of the third stanza means one, that is, the one the speaker loves; certen in the fourth line of the second stanza means certainty; brakes in the second line of the third stanza means bracken, ferns. Unlucky in love, our woeful and anonymous poet seeks a hermitage in the wild woods:

I must go walke the wood so wild,
     And wander here and there
     In dred and dedly fere,
For where I trusted, I am begild,
     And all for on.

Thus am I banisshed from my blis
     By craft and false pretens,
     Fautles without offens,
As of return no certen is,
     And all for fere of on.

My bed schall be under the grenwood tree,
     A tuft of brakes under my hed,
     As on from joye were fled;
Thus from my lif, day by day, I flee,
     And all for on.

The ronning stremes shall be my drinke,
     Acorns schall be my fode;
     Nothing may do me good,
But when of your bewty I do think,
     And all for love of on.

Anonymous

This is from Middle English Lyrics, a Norton Critical Edition selected and edited by Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman.