society, we often find that that which shows itself uppermost is but the froth, a sign, it may be, of life beneath, but in itself worthless. When the man arises with a servant's heart and a ruler's brain, then is the summer of the Church's content. But whether the men who wrote the following songs moved in some shining orbit of rank, or only knelt in some dim chapel, and walked in some pale cloister, we cannot tell, for they have left no name behind them.
My reader will observe that there is little of theory and much of love in these lyrics. The recognition of a living Master is far more than any notions about him. In the worship of him a thousand truths are working, unknown and yet active, which, embodied in theory, and dissociated from the living mind that was in Christ, will as certainly breed worms as any omer of hoarded manna. Holding the skirt of his garment in one hand, we shall in the other hold the key to all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
I think almost all the earliest religious poetry is about him and his mother. Their longing after his humanity made them idolize his mother. If we forget that only through his humanity can we approach his divinity, we shall soon forget likewise that his mother is blessed among women.
I take the poems from one of the Percy Society publications, edited by Mr. Wright from a manuscript in the British Museum. He adjudges them to the reign of Edward I. Perhaps we may find in them a sign or two that in cultivating our intellect we have in some measure neglected our heart.
But first as to the mode in which I present them to my readers: I have followed these rules:—
1. Wherever a word differs from the modern word only in spelling, I have, for the sake of readier comprehension, substituted the modern form, with the following exception:—Where the spelling indicates a different pronunciation, necessary for the rhyme or the measure, I retain such part of the older form, marking with an acute accent any vowel now silent which must be sounded.
2. Where the word used is antique in root, I give the modern synonym in the margin. Antique phrases I explain in foot-notes.
It must be borne in mind that our modern pronunciation can hardly fail in other cases as well to injure the melody of the verses.
The modern reader will often find it difficult to get a rhythm out of some of them. This may arise from any of several causes. In the first place many final e's were then sounded which are now silent; and it is not easy to tell which of them to sound. Again, some words were pronounced as dissyllables which we treat as monosyllables, and others as monosyllables which we treat as dissyllables. I suspect besides, that some of the old writers were content to allow a prolonged syllable to stand for two short ones, a mode not without great beauty when sparingly and judiciously employed. Short supernumerary syllables were likewise allowed considerable freedom to come and go. A good deal must, however, be put down to the carelessness and presumption of the transcribers, who may very well have been incapable of detecting their own blunders. One of these ancient mechanics of literature caused Chaucer endless annoyance with his corruptions, as a humorous little poem, the last in his works, sufficiently indicates. From the same sources no doubt spring as well most of the variations of text in the manuscripts.
The first of the poems is chiefly a conversation between the Lord on the cross and his mother standing at its foot. A few prefatory remarks in explanation of some of its allusions will help my readers to enjoy it.
It was at one time a common belief, and the notion has not yet, I think, altogether vanished, that the dying are held back from repose by the love that is unwilling to yield them up. Hence, in the third stanza, the Lord prays his mother to let him die. In the fifth, he reasons against her overwhelming sorrows on the ground of the deliverance his sufferings will bring to the human race. But she can only feel her own misery.
To understand the seventh and eighth, it is necessary to know that, among other strange things accepted by the early Church, it was believed that the mother of Jesus had no suffering at his birth. This of course rendered her incapable of perfect sympathy with other mothers. It is a lovely invention, then, that he should thus commend mothers to his mother, telling her to judge of the pains of motherhood by those which she now endured. Still he fails to turn aside her thoughts. She is thinking still only of her own and her son's suffering, while he continues bent on making her think of others, until, at last, forth comes her prayer for all women. This seems to me a tenderness grand as exquisite.
The outburst of the chorus of the Faithful in the last stanza but one,—
When he rose, then fell her sorrow, is as fine as anything I know in the region of the lyric.
"Stand well, mother, under rood;1 the cross.
Behold thy son with gladé mood; cheerful.
Blithe mother mayst thou be."
"Son, how should I blithé stand?
I see thy feet, I see thy hand
Nailéd to the hard tree."
"Mother, do way thy wepynde: give over thy weeping.
I tholé death for mankind— suffer.
For my guilt thole I none."
"Son, I feel the dede stounde; death-pang.
The sword is at my heart's ground bottom.
That me byhet Simeon." foreshowed.
"Mother, mercy! let me die,
For Adam out of hell buy, for to buy Adam.
And his kin that is forlore." lost.
"Son, what shall me to rede?2
My pain paineth me to dede: death.
Let me die thee before!"
"Mother, thou rue all of thy bairn; rue thou; all is only expletive
Thou wash away the bloody tern; wash thou; tears.
It doth me worse than my ded." hurts me more; death.
"Son, how may I terés werne? turn aside tears.
I see the bloody streamés erne flow.
From thy heart to my fet." feet.
"Mother, now I may thee seye, say to thee.
Better is that I one deye die.
Than all mankind to hellé go."
"Son, I see thy body byswongen, lashed.
Feet and hands throughout stongen: pierced through and through.
No wonder though me be woe." woe be to me.
"Mother, now I shall thee tell,
If I not die, thou goest to hell:
I thole death for thy sake." endure.
"Son, thou art so meek and mynde, thoughtful.
Ne wyt me not, it is my kind3
That I for thee this sorrow make."
"Mother, now thou mayst well leren learn.
What sorrow have that children beren, they have; bear.
What sorrow it is with childé gon." to go.
"Sorrow, I wis! I can thee tell!
But it be the pain of hell except.
More
The rhymes of the first and second and of the fourth and fifth lines throughout the stanzas, are all, I think, what the French call feminine rhymes, as in the words "sleeping," "weeping." This I think it better not to attempt retaining, because the final unaccented syllable is generally one of those e's which, having first become mute, have since been dropped from our spelling altogether.
For the grammatical interpretation of this line, I am indebted to Mr. Richard Morris. Shall is here used, as it often is, in the sense of must, and rede is a noun; the paraphrase of the whole being, "Son, what must be to me for counsel?" "What counsel must I follow?"
"Do not blame me, it is my nature."
