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Abbreviations
AEL An Anthology of English Literature. Passages from Mediaeval and Renaissance Poetry, Drama and Prose BGEL Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature CPED The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson CPPTSE The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot HAAL 1 The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Volume 1 HAAL 2 The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Volume 2 HB Holy Bible IV Intimate Voices. Selected Work 1965-1983 JTL Journeys through Literature KP Kabalarian Philosophy M Miscellany. Poems. Stories. Broadcasts NAAL The Norton Anthology of American Literature OAEL The Oxford Anthology of English Literature PP1 Poezii / Poems PP2 Poeme / Poems SLFS Ultimele sonete nchipuite ale lui Shakespeare n traducere imaginar de V. Voiculescu / Shakespeare's Last Fancied Sonnets in V. Voiculescu's Imaginary Translation SM.SPS Stranger Music. Selected Poems and Songs TCSP The Faber Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry WSCO William Shakespeare. The Complete Works

Beowulf Verse Indeterminate Saxon Hwt! We Gardena in geardagum, eodcyninga, rym gefrunon, hu a elingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaena reatum, monegum mgum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Syan rest wear feasceaft funden, he s frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weormyndum ah, ot him ghwylc ara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. t ws god cyning! m eafera ws fter cenned, geong in geardum, one god sende folce to frofre; fyrenearfe ongeat e hie r drugon aldorlease lange hwile. Him s liffrea, wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf; Beowulf ws breme (bld wide sprang), Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean, fromum feohgiftum on fder bearme, t hine on ylde eft gewunigen wilgesias, onne wig cume, leode gelsten; lofddum sceal in mga gehwre man geeon. Him a Scyld gewat to gescphwile felahror feran on frean wre. Hi hyne a tbron to brimes faroe, swse gesias, swa he selfa bd, enden wordum weold wine Scyldinga; leof landfruma lange ahte. r t hye stod hringedstefna, isig ond utfus, elinges fr. Aledon a leofne eoden, beaga bryttan, on bearm scipes, mrne be mste. r ws madma fela of feorwegum, frtwa, gelded; ne hyrde ic cymlicor ceol gegyrwan hildewpnum ond heaowdum, billum ond byrnum; him on bearme lg madma mnigo, a him mid scoldon on flodes ht feor gewitan. Nals hi hine lssan lacum teodan, eodgestreonum, on a dydon e hine t frumsceafte for onsendon nne ofer ye umborwesende. a gyt hie him asetton segen geldenne heah ofer heafod, leton holm beran, geafon on garsecg; him ws geomor sefa, murnende mod. Men ne cunnon secgan to soe, selerdende, hle under heofenum, hwa m hlste onfeng. a ws on burgum Beowulf Scyldinga, leof leodcyning, longe rage folcum gefrge (fder ellor hwearf, aldor of earde), ot him eft onwoc heah Healfdene; heold enden lifde, gamol ond gureouw, glde Scyldingas. m feower bearn for gerimed in worold wocun, weoroda rswan, Heorogar ond Hrogar ond Halga til; hyrde ic t ws Onelan cwen, Heaoscilfingas healsgebedda. a ws Hrogare heresped gyfen, wiges weormynd, t him his winemagas georne hyrdon, o t seo geogo geweox, magodriht micel. Him on mod bearn t healreced hatan wolde, medorn micel, men gewyrcean onne yldo bearn fre gefrunon [...]

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The earliest productions of English literature were brought over by the Germanic tribes when they invaded Britain. Though they mirrored the life of the Germanic tribes while they lived on the Continent, they were touched up and adapted to the new historical developments and thus came to be considered English. The earliest Anglo-Saxon literature is unwritten; it is the collective creation of the people to which professional singers (gleemen and scops) contributed their share. It was handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, since heathen tradition and heathen priests forbade men to write the poems down. It is only after Christianity was introduced into Britain that learned monks started compiling these poems, and often interpolated Christian themes and meditations in order to tone down their pagan outlook. Anglo-Saxon literature sings of the life of the tribe at a time when the tribal system was already showing signs of disintegration. The poems point to a certain social stratification: the heroes belong to the rising tribal aristocracy, they are kings and chieftains surrounded by a group of henchmen (noblemen) former warriors (thanes), followers in war and lesser retainers of the court. They were still bound in kinship (close relationship through blood ties), a peculiar feature of the tribal system. Though the literature of this early period includes both poetry and prose, the verse productions are by far superior in point of artistry and conception. The specimens of lyrical poetry extant are short fragments of longer poems which have been lost. Most of the lyrical poems are elegiac in tone; they express grief for the fallen warriors and regret or nostalgia for past glory. The descriptions of the grim and primitive nature of Northern countries enhance the sombre atmosphere pervading the poems. Some lyrics dwell on the wandering life of the minstrels (Widsith), or on the misfortunes they encounter (Deor's Lament). The Ruined Burg describes the results of the devastation of a Roman settlement (probably the city of Bath) by the Saxons. The Wanderer throws light on the close relationships between the early feudal lord and his thanes. The Seafarer sings of the attraction and the dangers of life at sea, quite unknown to the landsman in his comfortable castle. Epic poetry includes Beowulf, the greatest monument of Anglo-Saxon literature and the earliest fully rounded off narrative extant among the Germanic peoples, and some passages of lost poems: The Battle of Finnsburh (a vivid description of a battle scene in pre-feudal times; it mentions Finn, the king of the North Frisians); Waldhere (a song about Waldhere, son of a king of Aquitaine, given up as hostage to Atilla); The Battle of Brunanburh (a song of triumph recounting the victory won by the king of Wessex and Mercia over an army of Northmen), and The Battle of Maldon (the story of the East-Saxons' defeat by the Northmen) were included in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". There were, besides, miscellaneous Anglo-Saxon verses such as The Rune Song, Charms against spells, Riddles humorously describing some object, the sea, etc. The excerpts below are translations into Modern English. [in AEL, pp. 11-12]

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Beowulf Anonymous (the Gummere translation) Prelude to the Founder of the Danish House LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes, from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore, awing the earls. Since erst he lay friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him: for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve, till before him the folk, both far and near, who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate, gave him gifts: a good king he! To him an heir was afterward born, a son in his halls, whom heaven sent to favor the folk, feeling their woe that erst they had lacked an earl for leader so long a while; the Lord endowed him, the Wielder of Wonder, with world's renown. Famed was this Beowulf: far flew the boast of him, son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands. So becomes it a youth to quit him well with his father's friends, by fee and gift, that to aid him, aged, in after days, come warriors willing, should war draw nigh, liegemen loyal: by lauded deeds shall an earl have honor in every clan. Forth he fared at the fated moment, sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God. Then they bore him over to ocean's billow, loving clansmen, as late he charged them, while wielded words the winsome Scyld, the leader beloved who long had ruled.... In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel, ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge: there laid they down their darling lord on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure fetched from far was freighted with him. No ship have I known so nobly dight with weapons of war and weeds of battle, with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay a heaped hoard that hence should go far o'er the flood with him floating away. No less these loaded the lordly gifts, thanes' huge treasure, than those had done who in former time forth had sent him sole on the seas, a suckling child. High o'er his head they hoist the standard, a gold-wove banner; let billows take him, gave him to ocean. Grave were their spirits, mournful their mood. No man is able to say in sooth, no son of the halls, no hero 'neath heaven, who harbored that freight! WIDSITH (7th century) Widsith (The Far-traveller) spake, unlocked his wordhoard he who of men of the tribes of earth had wandered most among the peoples: ..."So I have wandered through many strange lands, throughout the wide world. There, cut off from kindred, I have found good and evil; far abroad from kinsmen I have gone. Therefore I can sing and tell a story, say before the company in the mead-hall how the great nobles have dealt full well with me... When Scilling and I, with a clear voice, raised the song before our royal lord, loud with the harp sounded the melody: then many a man, exultant in mind, those who knew, spake and said that they never had heard a better song... So, following their destiny, wandering, the gleemen pass by men of many lands; they tell their need, speak their thank-words, always south or north they meet

someone wise in songs, free with gifts, who would raise his renown before men, make known his sway, until it all shall pass, light and life together. Who so maketh songs of praise shall have lasting honour under the heavens." Glossary Widsith a fictitious name, "the far-travelled" mead-hall the hall where king and warriors feasted and drank mead (alcoholic liquor of fermented honey and water) Scilling another minstrel gleemen professional singers, minstrels who sang the songs composed by the scops [in AEL, pp. 12-13] DEOR'S LAMENT (7th century ?) Weland himself knew exile, the resolute hero endured affliction; sorrow and longing he had as follows, winter-cold wretchedness; oft he found woe... He overcame that, so may I this! We have heard of Eormanric's wolfish mind: he ruled the widespread folk of the realm of the Goths; that was a grim king! Many a man sat bound in sorrows, expecting woe, wishing earnestly the end of that kingdom. He overcame that, so may I this!... I, as to myself, will say this: that for a while I was bard of the Heodening, dear to a prince, Deor was my name. Many winters I held a good office, and had a king lord, until now Heorrenda, a songskilful man, has taken the land-right, which the lord of men to me beforetime had given. I overcame that, so may I this!
Glossary Weland the Germanic god Vulcan Eormanric king of the Goths Heorrenda Deor's rival, a more skilful minstrel [in AEL, pp. 13-14]

This poem and "The Wanderer," which follows it here, are preserved in the Exeter Book, a manuscript collection of AngloSaxon poetry transcribed at the end of the tenth century and given to the chapter of Exeter Cathedral, in Devon, by its Archbishop, Leofric, in
the middle of the eleventh. The book is still kept in the chapter library at Exeter. None of the poems in it has a title: the titles by which the poems are now known have all been supplied by modern editors. Nothing is known of the bard who names himself Deor (Brave or Excellent) in line 35. We do not know, either, when he wrote his poem. It cannot (by reason of the references to Theodoric the Ostrogoth) be earlier than the sixth century in origin; it may belong to the eighth; and there is evidence that it existed in King Alfred's time (reigned 871-99). Perhaps the most likely date is the late ninth century. The mood of "Deor's Lament" is elegiac, and its genre that of the consolatio, the topics of which go back at least as far as Homer. The Roman poets use them often Horace, for example: Dead too is the sire of Pelops, the guest of the gods And Tithonus, carried off into air, And Minos, party to Jove's secrets. Now Tartarus Keeps Panthous' son... All these great men had to die: their greatness could not save them from the greatest misfortune of all. We who remain must take what consolation we can from the realization that our lot is common to all. What must happen must happen. We can hope for better in this life than its misfortunes, but the ways of the gods are inscrutable. When Christian writers took over the topics of the consolatio, they could add a dimension: God's ways were mysterious, but there was the promise of eternal life, vindication, and happiness for the good man. But though "Deor's Lament" is a poem written by a Christian, it can hardly be called a Christian poem: hope is for the passing of sorrow in this world, not in the world to come. The quality of that hope can be read as stoical resignation toward, or as heroic defiance of, the lot of Deor. The refrain which drives home the moral and separates the single exempla of misfortune one from another can be read in either sense. In the conventional consolatory mode, the poem proceeds by these exempla of misfortune, its structure a set of such units, its movement punctuated by the refrain. In this it is unusual, almost unique in Anglo-Saxon poetry: only one other poem, and that a late one, uses a stanza division, and only one other any kind of refrain. Though the poet is using a genre that was popular in the Latin poetry of the early Middle Ages, his exempla are all drawn from Germanic legend. His characters would be well known to his audience. Weland, Beadohild, and Maethhild are entirely mythological; Theodoric and Eormanric were historical characters around whom legend grew. But though all but

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Maethhild are familiar figures, no coherent or convincing explanation of their presence together in the poem has yet been offered. The translations of this poem and the three that follow ("The Wanderer", The Battle of Maldon, and The Dream of the Rood) are those of C.W. Kennedy, published in his An Anthology of Old English Poetry , 1960. The lines have been numbered here merely as a guide. [in OAEL, pp. 9899]

Deor's Lament Weland knew fully affliction and woe, Hero unflinching enduring distress; Had for companionship heart-break and longing, Wintry exile and anguish of soul, When Nithhad bound him, the better man, Grimly constrained him with sinewy bonds. That evil ended. So also may this! Nor was brother's death to Beadohild A sorrow as deep as her own sad plight, When she knew the weight of the child in her womb, But little could know what her lot might be. That evil ended. So also may this! Many have heard of the rape of Hild, Of her father's affection and infinite love, Whose nights were sleepless with sorrow and grief. That evil ended. So also may this! For thirty winters Theodoric held, As many have known, the Maering's stronghold. That evil ended. So also may this! We have heard of Eormanric's wolf-like ways, Widely ruling the realm of the Goths; Grim was his menace, and many a man, Weighted with sorrow and presage of woe, Wished that the end of his kingdom were come. That evil ended. So also may this! He who knows sorrow, despoiled of joys, Sits heavy of mood; to his heart it seemeth His measure of misery meeteth no end. Yet well may he think how oft in this world The wise Lord varies His ways to men, Granting wealth and honor to many an eorl, To others awarding a burden of woe. And so I can sing of my own sad plight Who long stood high as the Heodenings' bard, Deor my name, dear to my lord. Mild was my service for many a winter, Kindly my king till Heorrenda came Skillful in song and usurping the land-right Which once my gracious lord granted to me. That evil ended. So also may this! Late 9th century
Notes Deor's This poet is mentioned nowhere else and nothing is known of him beyond the poem's implication that he was an exile; the name is probably a persona adopted by the poet. Weland or Wayland or Welund, whose name means "maker" or "workman", the smith of Germanic legend, a supernatural being corresponding to the Vulcan of classical mythology. He had been captured by Nithhad, set to work, and hamstrung to prevent his escape. But he managed to escape, after all, killing the two sons of Nithhad and raping his daughter Beadohild. Weland is shown on the whalebone reliefs of the Franks Casket (Northumbria, c. 700) in the British Museum ( Fig, 22). fully a fill-in for two words in the Old English for which no one has yet suggested a suitable translation sinewy bonds bonds imposed by cutting the sinews That... ended Weland got away (by flying, in one form of the story). That... ended (1.12) As a result of the rape, Beadohild bore the hero Widia;

the poet considers that to be the mother of a hero is sufficient compensation for her. Hild Beadohild. This translation takes this and the obscure next two lines to be a restatement of Beadohild's plight as it affected her father. The reference may rather be to an unidentified Hild or Maethhild and an unidentified Geat, her lover, so that affection... love should be rendered "passion", and sorrow and grief as "bitter love". Theodoric probably Theodoric the Great, 454-526, king of the Ostrogoths, lord of Italy, who murdered Odoacer, the barbarian mercenary who had made himself Emperor of the West in 493; the reference is not clear. Others have suggested that Theodoric the Frank ( Wolfdietrich), who also suffered exile and defeat, may be meant. The Maering (1.18) may be Theodoric. Eormanric's the historical Eormanric, or Ermanric, king of the Ostrogoths, who died about 375, having made himself ruler from the Baltic to the Black Sea; later legend made him a cruel tyrant. Goths the Ostrogoths, who originated in southern Russia and held Italy during the late fifth and early sixth century eorl The word means either a nobleman, man of the upper class (as it does here), or a warrior: by this time its use was largely confined to poetry. Heodenings' ruling family, descended from Heoden Heorrenda Nothing is known of this bard, either. land-right estate granted to Deor as a reward for his poetry [in OAEL, pp. 99-100]

THE RUINED CITY (8th century ?) Wondrous is its wall-stone: fates have broken, have shattered the city, the work of giants is perishing. The roofs are fallen, the towers in ruins, the towers with grated doors despoiled, rime on the lime, the ramparts' shorn down, fallen, with age undereaten. The earth-grasp, the hard grip of the ground, holds the mighty workers, decayed, departed: till a hundred generations of men pass away. Oft its wall abided, goat-grey and red-stained, through rule, steady under storms... bright were the burg-dwellings, bathhalls many, high the clustered pinnacles, great the warlike sound, many a mead-hall, full of mirth of men, until the strong Wyrd changed it... There stood the courts of stone; the stream threw forth hot and speeding billows: a wall encircled all its bright bosom, where the baths were, hot within; that was well fitted men.
Glossary the ramparts notched shower-defences the clustered pinnacles horn-work, fortifications Wyrd the all powerful goddess of destiny whom all the gods obeyed [in AEL, p. 14]

LAYAMON
Layamon was a priest who lived near the Welsh border in the late l2th century and early l3th century. His translation (1205) of Wace's Brut from French into English verse (which in its turn had been based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Bretonum) is representative of the Anglo-Norman chivalrous literature which was much indebted to the French romances. Layamon's Le Brut tells the legends included in the "matter of Britain" cycle, which, of the three cycles (matter of Britain, the matter of Troy, and the matter of Rome) is the most important one for the English people. Le Brut, whose title was inspired from Brutus [who, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, was believed to have been the grandson of Aeneas and to have made his way from Italy to Britain where he founded London; the legend, no doubt, confuses the word Bryt (a Briton) with the classical name of Brutus], was also the first work to sing of King Arthur in English verse, hence its significance. His sympathies were with the Britons and he invested the story of Arthur with a mysterious fairy-like atmosphere as he was, no doubt, familiar with sagas and old folk-songs of neighbouring Wales. Layamon preserved the epic vein of Anglo-Saxon poetry, part of its vocabulary, but he was the first to introduce the rhymed couplet into English verse and used it alongside the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. He often resorted to similes. The legends of Le Brut, recited by minstrels to the noblemen and the ordinary folk alike, must have instilled a new feeling, the national feeling, into their listeners who, at that time, were being welded into the English nation. [in AEL, p. 49]

KING LEAR AND HIS THREE DAUGHTERS Sixty winters had Leir wholly governed this land. The king had three daughters by his noble queen. He had no son to uphold his dignity (thereof he was sorry), but only his three daughters. The eldest daughter was called Gornoille, the second Regau, the third

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Cordoille. She was the youngest sister, in face fairest of all. She was as dear to her father as his own life. Then, the king grew old, and weak in dignity of manhood, and he bethought him what he might do with his kingdom after his day. He said to himself what was evil: "I will break up my realm and give my daughters my kingdom and share it among my children. But first I will prove which of them is my best friend, and she shall have the best part of my lordly land". Thus the king thought and thereafter he wrought. He called Gornoille his goodly daughter out of her bower, to her father dear; and thus spake the old king where he sat among his nobles. "Say to me, Gornoille, true words; very dear thou art to me, how dear am I to thee? How much worth holdest thou me for wielding royal sway?" Gornoille was very wary, as women are nearly everywhere, and said a leasing to her father the king. "Beloved father dear, as I look for God's mercy, so help me Apollin, for my faith is all in him, dearer art thou alone to me than all this whole world. And yet I will speak with thee, thou art dearer to me than my life, and this I say to thee for sooth, thou mayest well believe me." Leir, the king, believed his daughter's leasing, and thus the old king gave answer. "I say to thee, Gornoille, beloved daughter dear, good shall be thy meed for thy greeting. I am greatly enfeebled by my old age, and thou lovest me much more than is in life. I will divide my lordly land entirely in three; thine shall be the best share. Thou art my daughter dear, and shalt have for lord my best thane of all that I can find in my kingdom." After wards spake the old king with his (second) daughter. "Beloved daughter Regau, what sayest thou to me for counsel? Say thou before my people how dear I am to thee in heart." Then answered she with prudent words: "All that is in life is not so dear to me as thy limbs alone, before my own life". But she said nothing true, no more than her sister; all her leasing her father believed. Then answered the king (his daughter pleased him), "The third part of my land I give to thee in hand; thou shalt take a lord where is most pleasing to thee". Then still the king would not leave his folly. He bade come before him his daughter Cordoille. She was the youngest of all, heedful of truth and most prudent, and the king loved her more than both the other two. Cordoille heard the leasing which her sisters said to the king; she took to her faithful mind, so that she would not lie; she would say the truth to her father, were it lief to him or were it loath to him. Then said the old king (ill counsel followed him), "Hear I will of thee, Cordoille, so help thee Apollin, how dear unto thee is my life". Then answered Cordoille, loud and no whit still, with game and with laughter to her father beloved: "Thou art dear to me as my father and I to thee as thy daughter. I have to thee soothfast love, for we are very near in kinship, and as I look for mercy I will say to thee more: As much thou art worth as thou dost wield, and as much as thou hast men will love thee, for soon he is loathed who possesseth little". Thus said the maiden Cordoille, and afterwards sat very still. Then was the king wroth for he was not at all pleased and weened in his mind that it might be through illmanners that he were so unhonoured by her, so that she would not honour him as her two sisters who both together spake leasings. Then King Leir turned as black as if were a black cloth, his skin and his hue turned, for he was greatly hurt; with wrath he was dazed so that he fell in a swoon. Then he slowly recovered. The maiden was afraid when his wrath all broke out; it was evil that he spake. "Hearken, Cordoille, I will tell thee my will. Of my daughters thou wert dearest to me, now thou art to me the most hateful of all; shalt thou never hold a portion of my land, but with my daughters I will share my kingdom, and thou shalt be troubled and dwell in misery. For never weened I that thou wouldst thus shame me; therefore thou shalt be as dead I ween. Flee out of my eyesight. Thy sisters shall have my kingdom, and this is pleasing to me. The Duke of Cornwall shall have Gornoille, and the Scottish King Regau the fair, and I give them all the possessions that I am ruling over." And all the old king did as he had said. Oft was she for her father's wrath. She went into her bower, and there she oft sat sorry because she would not lie to her father beloved. The maid was put greatly to shame because she had shunned her father, and had followed then best counsel, and she abode in her bower, and suffered trouble of mind, and mourned greatly.
Glossary Leir Lear thereof (archaic) of that he bethought him he thought thereafter (archaic) accordingly

he wrought he acted goodly good-looking spake spoke wielding (poetical) controlling leasing lying Apollin name of a maiden and afterwards martyr of Alexandria for sooth (archaic) really, truly meed (poetic) reward thane (in early English history) nobleman of lower rank lief gladly, willingly loath reluctant, unwilling no whit not at all soothfast (archaic) truthful, steadfast wroth (poetical) angry he weened (poetical) he was of opinion hearken listen oft often bower dwelling, room [in AEL, pp. 50-53]

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1300-1400)

The 14th century was a time of great changes in England's history; it was during this period that England rose to the rank of a great national state. Alongside the process leading to the formation of the English nation and the English national language, English literature also came into existence. Geoffrey Chaucer is honoured as England's first poet of world stature. His genuine interest in the society of his time, his lay conception as well as the novelty of his poetic artistry point to the new spirit at work in 14th century English literature, a spirit equally opposed to the theological and scholastic interpretation of the phenomena and to the traditional versification of mediaeval poetry. The son of a London vintner, Geoffrey Chaucer had the privilege of university education as well as the opportunity of coming into close touch with the people in all the walks of life. He also benefited by his travels abroad as a page at the court, he joined the expedition to France during the One Hundred Years' War, then he was sent to France and Italy on various missions such as concluding a trade agreement, etc. Travelling abroad broadened Chaucer's outlook, while his first-hand knowledge of the Italian Renaissance poets matured his artistic genius. Later on, as a controller of the customs in the port of London, Chaucer came to know the representatives of many trades and crafts. The young poet's experimental period includes the unfinished translation of Le Roman de la Rose into English verse; the French allegorical and satirical poem held the English poet in thrall to the end of his life. In his earlier poems The Book of the Duchess; The Parliament of Fowls; The House of Fame; his most remarkable narrative, Troylus and Cresside, which is a realistic study of character and a psychological motivation of age-old personages' conduct; The Legend of Good Women , Chaucer's narrative and mildly satirical gift mingle with many realistic remarks on the life of his own day. However, most of these are still traditional poems in many respects. Even when Chaucer borrows his themes from foreign models (the classical ancient poets, Le Roman de la Rose, or Boccaccio), even when having recourse to such traditional forms as the dream vision, the bestiary, the romance, Chaucer manages to infuse a new spirit, a lay spirit, into the poems mentioned above. He enlivens older motifs thanks to his eager interest in such aspects that lent themselves to a realistic approach. Chaucer's masterpiece and most original contribution, The Canterbury Tales, is also the first great poetical work in English. It consists of a General Prologue and about twenty-four tales told by the pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. The pilgrims' portraits, drawn in the General Prologue and further rounded off by the Minor Prologues those preceding the tales , by the tales, convey a vivid and true-to-life picture of 14th century English society. Essential physical and moral features of each social class or category are minutely observed and humorously or sometimes satirically delineated. Chaucer's pilgrims, however, are no mere types; individual peculiarities, each character's idiosyncrasies are good-humouredly revealed and made fun of. Chaucer does not spare the clergy, the dishonest middle-class townsfolk or the country people. Yet, the poet refrains from mentioning and jeering at the high clergy and the court aristocracy. Chaucer's sympathy goes to the ordinary, hardworking honest men such as the parson and the ploughman. The Tales tackle themes as varied as the sources they rest on and as different as the likes and dislikes of the story tellers (e.g. the robust Wife of Bath telling a fairy tale derived from a Celtic chivalrous romance; the Pardoner in fact a swindler choosing a moralizing tale of Italian origin about the three young revellers in search of Death; the Franklin a healthylooking landed squire (no nobleman proper) deciding on a Breton romance about a high-minded knight and his pure rash wife; the drunken Miller's Tale, coarse and full of fun, probably indebted to a French popular fabliau; the Nun's Priest telling the fable about Chanticleer, the cook, his beloved Pertelote and Russell, the fox the tale is a masterpiece of humour, dynamism and pictorial details, presumably drawn on "Le Roman de Renart"). Thanks to the wide range of subjects, the poet's art of handling the

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narrative, his ability to make the story help reveal the characters, the readers' interest in the Tales never flags. Liveliness and dramatic effect are derived from Chaucer's technique of allowing the pilgrims to react quite naturally to each other's tale. Not only do they often interrupt the tale in progress, or ask for another, more to their liking, but they also quarrel, protest and comment on the tales they have been listening to (e.g. the end-links of The Miller's Tale, The Reeve's Tale, The Pardoner's Tale, The Friar's Tale, etc.). The clash of conception of some of the pilgrims on one and the same question also comes to the fore, e.g. the attitude to women and to marriage in The Wife of Bath's Tale contrasted to that of the Clerk of Oxford's in his Tale about Griselda. Besides the poet's own comments, there are also those of Harry Bailey, the genial Host of the Tabard Inn. His censure of the tales in steeped in common sense evincing the sound taste of the practicallyminded common townsfolk (e.g. his arguments with the Miller, the Reeve, the Franklin, the Pardoner, his urging the company not to waste time the end-link of the Man of Law's Tale , or the Clerk of Oxford to be cheerful and take his turn in telling a story, his impatience with Chaucer whose Tale about Sir Topaz a mock-heroic romance he interrupts, his sympathetic remarks on The Doctor of Physics' Tale, on Chaucer's Tale of Melibeus, etc.). The Tales and their end-links are thus genuine studies of character. Chaucer is credited for having been the first English poet to use a regular metre the iambic pentametre and to introduce end-rhymed verse as also the stanzaic form. With Geoffrey Chaucer the mediaeval outlook in literature comes to an end. With his naive realism conveying the pulsing life of his age, his goodnatured humour, his democratic views, Chaucer closely heralds the Renaissance. Equally great are Chaucer's contributions to moulding the English language so as to make it flexible enough for poetic expression. [in AEL, pp. 63-66]

Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales The Prologue When that Aprille with his showres swoot The drought of Marche hath percd to the root, And bathd every veyn in suche licor, From which vertu engendred is the flour; When Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Enspird hath in every holte and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe course runne, And smale fowles maken melodie, That slepen al the night with open eye, So pricketh them natre in their corges: Thenne longen folk to go on pilgrimges, And palmers for to seeken strange strandes, To distant seintes, known in sondry landes; And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Canturbury they wende, The holy blisful martir for to seeke, That them hath holpen when that they were weeke. Byfel that, in that seson on a day, In Southwerk at the Tabbard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrimge To Canturbury with ful devout corge, At night was come into that hostelrie Wel nyne and twenty in a companye, Of sondry folk, by ventre i-falle In felowshipe, and pilgryms were they alle, That toward Canturbury wolden ryde. The chambres and the stables weren wyde, And wel we weren lodgd at the beste. And shortly, when the sonne was to reste, So hadde I spoken with them everyone, That I was of their felowshipe anon, And made covenant erly to aryse, To take oure weye where I shal you devyse. But nonetheles, whiles I have tyme and space, Or that I ferther in this tale pace, Me thinketh it according to reson, To telle you alle the condicion Of eche of them, so as it semd me, And who they weren, and of what degree; And eek in what array that they were inne: And at a knight than wil I first bygynne.

A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man, That from the tyme that he ferst bigan To ryden out, he lovd chyvalrye, Trouth and honor, fredm and curtesie. Ful worthi was he in his Lordes warre, And thereto had he riden, noman so farre, As wel in Cristendom as hethenesse, And ever honoured for his worthinesse. At Alisandre he was when it was wonne, Ful ofte tyme he hadde the feast begunne Aboven alle the knights that were in Pruce. In Lettowe had he ridden and in Ruce No cristen man so ofte of his degree. In Gernade at the siege eek had he be Of Algesir, and riden in Belmarie. At Lieys was he, and at Satalie, When they were wonne; and in the Grete see At many a noble landyng had he be. At mortal batailles had he been fiftene, And foughten for oure feith at Tramassene In lystes thrice, and ever slayn his foe. This same worthi knight had ben also Somtyme with the lord of Palatye, Ageynst another hethen in Turkye: And evermore he hadde a sovereyn price. And though that he was worthy he was wyse, And of his port as meke as is a mayde. He never yet no vilonye had sayde In al his lyf, unto no manner of wight. He was a very perfit gentil knight. But for to telle you of his array, His hors was good, but yet he was not gay. Of fustyan he ware a cotepleyn Whereon his hauberk left ful many a stain. For he was late come from his voyge, And wente for to do his pilgrimge. With him ther was his sone, a yong Squyer, A lover, and a lusty bacheler, With lokkes curled as if they lay in presse. Of twenty yeer he was of age I gesse. Of his statre he was of even lengthe, And wondrous quik he was, and gret of strengthe. And he had been somtyme in chivalrye, In Flaundres, in Artoys, and in Picardie, And born him wel, though in so litel space, In hope to standen in his ladies grace. Embroidred was he, as it were a mead Al ful of fresshe floures, white and red. Syngynge he was, or flutynge, al the day; He was as fressh as is the month of May. Short was his goune, with sleeves long and wyde. Wel coud he sitte on hors, and faire ryde. He coude songes make and wel endite, Joust and eek daunce, and wel purtray and write. So much he lovd, that by nightertale He slept nomore than doth a nightyngale. Curteous he was, lowly, and servisable, And carved byfore his fader at the table. A Yeoman had he, and servntes nomo At that tyme, for him liste ryde so; And he was clad in cote and hood of grene. A shef of pecok arrows bright and kene Under his belte he bare ful thriftily. Wel coude he dresse his tackel yeomanly; His arrows droopd nought with fetheres low. And in his hond he bare a mighty bowe. A round-hed had he with a broun visge. Of woode-craft wel knew he al the usge. Upon his arme he bar a gay bracer, And by his side a swerd and buckeler, And on that other side a gay daggere, Adornd wel, and sharp as poynt of spere; A buckle on his brest of silver shene. An horn he bare, the girdle was of grene; A forester was he soothly, as I gesse.

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Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of her smylyng was ful symple and coy; Her grettest oth was only by seynt Loy; And she was namd madame Englentyne. Ful wel she sang the servises divyne, Entund in her nose ful seemely; And Frensh she spake ful faire and sweetely, After the scole of Stratford-atte- Bowe, For Frensh of Parys was to her unknowe. At mete wel i-taught was she in all; She let no morsel from her lippes falle, Nor wet her fyngres in her sauce deepe. Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel keepe, That never drope upon her brest should be. For al her thoughte was sett on curtesie. Her overlippe wypd she so clene, That in her cuppe was no ferthing sene Of greese, when she dronken hadde withinne. Ful semely to ete she did beginne. And certeynly she was of gret disport, And ful plesnt, and amyable of port, And peynd her to counterfete cheere Of court, and to be stately of manre, And to be holden digne of reverence. But for to speken of her conscience, She was so charitable and so piteous, She wolde weepe if that she saw a mous Caught in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde. Of smale houndes had she, that she fedde With rosted flessh, and mylk, and wastel breed. But sore wepte she if one of them were ded, Or if men smote it with a stikke smerte: And al was conscience and tendre herte. Ful semely her cloke i- pynchd was; Her nose streight; her eyen grey as glas; Her mouth ful smal, and therto soft and red; But certeynly she hadde a fair forheed. It was almost a spanne broad, I trowe: For verrily she was not undergrowe. Ful faire was her robe, as I was war. Of smal corl aboute her arme she bare A paire of bedes, the greatest were of grene; And theron hung a broch of gold ful shene, On which was first i-writ a crownd A, And after, Amor vincit omnia. Another Nonne also with her had she, That was her chapelleyn, and Prestes three. A Monk ther was, wel fit for sovereyntee, An out-rydere, that lovd venerye; A manly man, to be an abbot able. Ful many a dainty hors had he in stable: And whan he rode, men might his bridel here Jyngle in a whistlyng wynd so cleere, And eek as loude as doth the chapel belle. Where that this lord was keper of the celle, The rule of seynt Maure or of seint Beneyt, Bycause that it was old and somwhat streyt, This ilke monk let pass the olde day, And helde after the newe time alway. He gaf nat for that text a pulld hen, That seith, that hunters be no holy men; Nor that a monk, when he is cloysterless, Is likened to a fisshe that is watirless, This is to sey, a monk out of his cloystre. But that same text held he not worth an oystre. And I seide his opinioun was good. Why! shulde he studie, and make himselve wood, Uppon a book in cloystre alway to pore, Or diggen with his handes, and labore, As Austyn bad? How shal the world be served? Lat Austyn have his toil to him reserved. Therefore a horsman ever he was aright; Greyhoundes he had as swifte as fowl in flight; Of prickyng and of huntyng for the hare Was his delight, for no cost wolde he spare. I saw his sleves rounded at the hand

With fur, and that the fynest in the land. And for to fastne his hood under his chyn He hadde of gold y-wrought a curious pyn: A love-knotte in the gretter ende ther was. His heed was bald, and shon as eny glas, And eek his face as he had been anoynt. He was a lord ful fat and in good poynt; His eyen bright, and rollyng in his heed, That stemd al as doth a furnace red; His bootes souple, his hors in gret estate. Now certeinly he was a fair prelate; He was not pale as a for-pynd ghost. A fat swan loved he best of eny roast. His palfray was as broun as is a berye. A Frere ther was, a wanton and a merye, A prechour, and a ful solemne man. In alle the ordres foure is non that can So moche of daliaunce and fair langge. He had i-made many a marige Of yonge wymmen, at his owne cost. Unto his ordre he was a noble post. Ful wel biloved and familiar was he With frankeleyns everywhere in his cuntree, And eek with worthi wommen of the toun: For he hadde power of confession, As seyde himself, more than a curte, For of his ordre he was licenciat. Ful sweetly herde he their confession, And plesaunt was his absolucion; He was an esy man to geve penance When that he thought to have a good pitance For unto a poore ordre for to give Is signe that a man is wel i-shrive. For if he gaf, he dorste make avaunt, He wiste that a man was rpentant. For many a man so hard is of his herte, He may not wepe though he sore smerte. Therefore in-stede of wepyng and prayres, Men may give silver to the pore freres. His typet was ay stuffd ful of knyfes And pynnes, for to give to faire wyfes. And certaynly he hadde a mery note. Wel coude he synge and pleyen on a flute. Of songes he bar utterly the price. His nekke whit was as the fluer-de-lys. Therto he strong was as a champion. He knew the tavernes wel in every toun, And every ostiller or gay tapstere, Better than lazars or the pore beggere, For unto such a worthi man as he It was not right, as by his facultee, To have with such sick lazars queyntance. It is not honest, it may not advaunce, For a good Frere to dele with such poraile, But al with riche and sellers of vitaille, And specially when profyt shulde arise. Curteous he was, and gentil of servyse. Ther was no man nowher so vertuous. He was the beste begger in al his hous, For though a widewe hadde but one shoe, So plesaunt was his In principio, Yet wolde he have a ferthing ere he wente. His begging was far better than his rente. And rage he coude and pleye right as a whelpe, In love-dayes coude he people helpe. For then was he not like a cloysterer, With a thredbare cope as a pore scolr, But he was like a maister or a pope. Of double worsted was his semy-cope, That round was, as a belle, out of the presse. Somwhat he lipsed, for his wantounesse, To make his Englissh swete upon his tunge; And in his harpyng, when that he hadde sunge, His eyen twynkled in his hed aright, As do the sterres in the frosty night. This worthi prechour was y-called Huberd.

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A Marchaunt was ther with a forked berd, In motteleye, and high on horse he sat, Uppon his hed a Flaundrish bever hat; His botes buckled faire and properly. His resons spak he ful solemnely, Touching alway the encrease of his wynnyngs. He wolde the see were guarded for his thinges Betwixe Middulburgh and Orewelle. Wel coude he in eschange sheeldes selle. This worthi man ful wel his wittes sette; Ther wiste no man that he was in dette, So stately was he of governaunce, With his bargayns, and with his sufficience. For sothe he was a worthi man withalle, I know not, sooth to say, what men him calle. A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also, That unto logik had long tyme i-go. As lene was his hors as is a rake, And he was not right fat, I undertake; But lokede hollow, and therto soberly. Ful thredbare was his overest cloke to see, For he hadde nought geten him a benefice, Nor was so worldly to have high office. For he wold rather have at his beddes hed Twenty bookes, clothed in blak and red, Of Aristotil, and his philosophie, Then robes riche, or fiddle, or psaltery. But although that he were a philosphre, Yet had he but a litul gold in cofre; But al that he might gete, and his frendes sent, On bookes and his lernyng he it spent, And busily gan for the soules pray Of them that gaf him money to scolay. Of studie tooke he most cure and most heede. Not one word spak he more than was need; Al that he spak it was of heye prudence, And short, and quyk, and ful of gret sentence. Sowndynge in moral virtu was his speche, And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche. A Sergeant of Lawe, wys and war, That often hadde ben wher lawyers are, Ther was also, ful riche of excellence. Discret he was, and of gret reverence He semd such, his wordes were so wise. Justice he was ful often in assise, By patent, and by pleyn commission; For his science, and for his high renoun, Of fees and robes had he many a one. So gret a lawyer was there nowher noon. Al was fee symple to him in effecte, His word of law might never be suspecte. Nowher so busy a man in eny case, And yet he semd busier than he was. In termes of lawe had he the judgementes al, That from the tymes of kyng Will were falle. Thereto he coude endite, and make a thing, Ther coude no man blame aught of his writyng. And every statute coude he pleyn by rote. He rode but hoomly in a medly cote, Girt with a girdle of silk, with barres smale; Of his array telle I no lenger tale. A Frankeleyn ther was in our companye White was his beard, as is the dayesye. Of his complexioun he was sangwyn. Wel loved he in the morn a sop of wyn. To lyven in delite he loved allone, For he was Epicurus owne son, That held opynyoun that pleyn delite Was verrily felicitee perft. An householder, and that a gret, was he; Seynt Julian he was in his countree. His bred, his ale, was alway best of al; His store of wyn was known in special. Withoute bake mete never was his hous,

Of flessh and fissh, and that so plentyous, It snowd in his hous of mete and drynk, And alle deyntees that men coude thynk. After the sondry sesouns of the yeer, He chaungd them at mete and at soper. Ful many a fat partrich had he in mewe, And many a bream and many a luce in stewe. Wo was his cook, unless his sauce were Poynant and sharp, and redy al his gear. His table dormant in his halle alway Stood redy covered al the longe day. At sessions there was he lord and sire. Ful ofte tyme he was knight of the shire. A dagger and a wallet al of silk Heng at his gerdul, white as morning mylk. A shirreve and a counter hadde he ben, Was nowher such a worthi Frankeleyn. An Haberdassher and a Carpenter, A Webber, a Dyer, and a Tapicer, Were with us eek, clothed in one lyveree, Of a solemne and gret fraternitee. Ful fressh and newe their gear y-trimmd was; Their knyfes were y-sette nat with bras, But al with silver wrought ful clene and faire, Their gurdles and their pouches every where. Wel semd eche of them a fair burgeys, To sitten in a gildehalle on the dais. Every man for the wisdom that he can, Was fitted for to be an alderman. For money hadde they inough, and rente, And eek their wyfes wolde it wel assente; And else certeyn had they ben to blame. It is right fair for to be clept madame. And for to go to churches al byfore, And have a mantel roially i-bore. A Cook thei hadde with them for the nonce, To boyle chikens and the marrow bones, And to make powders swete and tasten wel. Wel coude he knowe a draught of London ale. He coude roste, sethe, broille, and frie, Make soupe and brawn and bake wel a pye. But gret harm was it, as it semd me, That on his shin a sore wound had he; For blankemange he made with the beste. A Shipman was ther, dwellyng far by weste: For ought I wot, he was of Dertemouthe. He rode upon a hackneye, as he coude, In gowne woollen falling to the knee. A dagger hangyng on a lace had he Aboute his nekke under his arm adoun. The hot somr had made his hew al broun; And certeinly he was a good felwe. Ful many a draught of wyn had he y-drawe From Burdeaux-ward, whil that the merchant sleep. Of nyce conscience took he no keep. If that he foughte, and had the higher hand, By water he sente it home to every land. But of his craft to reckon wel the tydes, His stremes and his dangers al bisides, His harbour and his moone, his pilotage, Ther was none such from Hulle to Cartage. Hardy he was, and wys to undertake; With many a tempest hath his beard ben shake, He knew wel alle the havenes, as thei were, From Scotlond to the cape of Fynestere, And every creek in Bretayne and in Spayne; His barge y-clepd was the Magdelayne. Ther was also a Doctour of Phisk, In al this worlde was ther non him like To speke of phisik and of surgerye; For he was grounded in astronomye. He kepte his pacient wondrously and wel In al houres by his magik naturel. Wel coude he gesse the ascending of the star

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Wherein his patientes fortunes settled were. He knew the cause of every maladye, Were it of cold, or hete, or moyst, or drye, And where they engendred, and of what humor; He was a very parfit practisour. The cause once knowen and his right measre, Anon he gaf the syke man his cure. Ful redy hadde he his apothecaries, To sende him drugges, and electuaries, For eche of them made the other for to wynne; Their frendshipe was not newe to begynne. Wel knew he the old Esculapius, And Deiscorides, and eek Rufus; Old Ypocras, Haly, and Galien; Serapyon, Razis, and Avycen; Averrois, Damascen, and Constantyn; Bernard, and Gatisden, and Gilbertyn. Of his diete mesurble was he, For it was of no superfluitee, But of gret norishing and digestible. His studie was but litel on the Bible. In blue he clad was al and in sangwyn Lynd with taffata and silke thin. And yit he was but esy in dispence; He kepte that he won in pestilence. For gold in phisik is a cordial; Therfore he lovd gold in special. A good Wif of beside Bathe ther was, But she was ever somwhat def, allas. In cloth-makng she had such judgement, She passd them of Ypris and of Ghent. In al the parrissh wyfe was ther none That to the altar byfore hir shulde goon, And if ther dide, certeyn so wroth was she, That she was thenne out of alle charitee. Her kerchiefs weren al ful fyne of grounde; I durste swere they weigheden ten pounde That on a Sonday were upon her hed. Hir hosen were of fyne scarlett red, Ful streyt y-tyed, and shoes ful moyste and newe Bold was hir face, and fair, and red of hewe. She was a worthy womman al her lyfe, Husbondes at chirche dore hadde she fyfe, Withouten other companye in youthe; But thereof needeth nought to speke the truth. And thrice she had ben at Jerusalem; She hadde passd many a strange streem; At Rome she had ben, and at Boloyne, In Galice at seynt Jame, and at Coloyne. She knewe moche of wandrying by the weye. Big- toothd was she, sothly for to seye. Upon an amblere esely she sat, Clokd ful wel, and on her hed an hat As brood as is a buckler or a targe; A foot-mantel aboute her hippes large, And on her feet a paire of spurres sharpe. In felawshipe wel coude she laughe and carpe. Of remedyes of love she knew parchaunce, For of that art she knew the olde daunce. A good man was ther of religion, And was a poore Parson of a town; But riche he was of holy thought and werk. He was also a lernd man, a clerk That Cristes gospel gladly wolde preach; His parishioners devoutly wolde he teach. Benigne he was, and wondrous diligent, And in adversitee ful pacient; And such he was i-provd ofte to be. To cursen for his tithes ful lothe was he, But rather wolde he given out of doute, Unto his pore parishioners aboute, Of his offrynge, and eek of his substaunce. He coude in litel thing have sufficience. Wyd was his parish, and houses far asonder, But yet he lafte not for reyne or thonder,

In siknesse and in meschief to viste The ferthest in his parisshe, smal and great Uppon his feet, and in his hand a staf. This noble ensample unto his sheep he gaf, That ferst he wroughte, and after that he taughte, Out of the gospel he those wordes caughte, And this figre he addid yet therto, That if gold ruste, what shulde iron do? For if a priest be foul, on whom we truste, No wonder if the ignorant shulde ruste; And shame it is, if that a priest take kepe, A dirty shepperd and a clene shepe; Wel oughte a priest ensample for to give, By his clennesse, how that his sheep shulde lyve. He sette not his benefice to hire, And lefte his sheep encombred in the myre, And ran to Londone, unto seynte Paules, To seeken him a chaunterie for soules, Or with a brothurhood to be withholde; But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde, So that the wolfe made it not myscarye. He was a shepperde and no mercenarie; And though he holy were, and vertuous, He was to sinful man ful piteous, Nor of his speche wrathful nor yet fine, But in his teching dscret and benigne. To drawe folk to heven by clenenesse, By good ensample, was his busynesse: But were it eny person obstinat, What-so he were of high or lowe estat, Him wolde he snubbe sharply for the nonce. A bettre priest I trowe ther nowher non is. He wayted after no pompe nor reverence, Nor made himself spicd in conscience, But Cristes love, and his apostles twelve, He taught, and ferst he folwed it himselve. With him there was a Ploughman, was his brother, That hadde i-lad of dung ful many a fother. A trewe worker and a good was he, Lyvynge in pees and perfit charitee. God loved he best with al his trewe herte At alle tymes, though he laughed or smerte, And thenne his neighebour right as himselve. He wolde thresshe, and therto dyke and delve, For Cristes sake, with every pore wight, Withouten hyre, if it laye in his might. His tythes payd he ful faire and wel, Bothe by his owne work and his catel. In a round coat he rode upon a mare. There was also a reeve and a mellere, A summoner and a pardoner also, A manciple, and my-self, ther was no mo. The Mellere was a stout carl for the nones, Ful big he was of braun, and eek of bones; And proved it wel, for everywhere he cam, At wrastlynge he wolde bere awey the ram. He was short shuldred, broode, a thikke felw, There was no dore he coude not heave and drawe Or breke it at a runnyng with his hed. His beard as eny sowe or fox was red, And therto brood, as though it were a spade. Upon the cop right of his nose he had A werte, and theron stood a tuft of heres, Red as the berstles of a sowes eeres. His nose- trilles blake were and wyde. A swerd and bocler bar he by his side, His mouth as wyde was as a gret forneys. He was a jangler, and a singer of lays, And that was most of synne and harlotries. Wel coude he stele corn, and profit thrice; In profit he hadde a thombe of gold alway. A whit cote and a blew hood werd he. A baggepipe coude he blowe and sowne, And therwithal he brought us out of towne.

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A gentil Manciple was ther of a temple, Of which al buyers mighten take exemple For to be wys in buyyng of vitaille. For whether that he payde, or took by taille, Ever he watchd so to buy or sell, That he was ay bifore and fard wel. Now is not that of God a ful fair grace, That such a simple mannes wit shal pass The wisdom of an heep of lerned men? Of mastres hadde he mo than thrice ten, That were of lawe expert and curious; Of which there were a doseyn in an hous, Al worthi to be stiwards of rente and lond Of any lord that is in Engelond, To make him lyve by his propre good, In honour detteles, unless he were wood, Or lyve as scarsly as he can desire; And able for to helpen al a shire In any case that mighte happe or falle; And yit this manciple past the wit of all. The Reeve was a slendre colerik man, His beard was shave as nigh as ever he can. His heer was by his eres rounde i-shorn. His top was dockd lyk a priest biforn. Ful longe were his legges, and ful lene, Al like a staff, ther was no calf y-sene. Wel coude he kepe a garner and a bynne; Ther was no auditour coude from him wynne. Wel wiste he by the drought, and by the reyn, The yeeldyng of his seed, and of his greyn. His lordes sheep, his cattle, his dayerie, His swyn, his hors, his store, and his poultrie, Was wholely in this reeves governynge, And as he seyd so was the rekenynge, Since that his lord of age was twenti yeer; There coude noman bringe him in arrear. Bailiff and herd and men of al degree, Knewen ful wel his sleight and subtiltee; They were adread of him, as of the deth. His dwellyng was ful fair upon an hethe, With grene trees i-shadewed was his place. He coude bettre than his lord purchce. Ful riche he was i-stord privily, His lord wel coude he plese subtilly, To geve and lend him from his owne good, And have a thank, a cote, and eek an hood. In youthe he hadde ben a good werker; He was a wel good wright, a carpenter. This reeve sat upon a wel good stot, That was a pomely gray, and namd Scot. A long surcote of blew uppon he hadde, And by his side he bar a rusty blade. Of Northfolk was this reeve of which I telle, Byside a toun men callen Baldeswelle. Tuckd he was, as is a friar, aboute, And ever he rood the hynderest of the route. A Summoner was with us in that place, That hadde a fyr-red cherubynes face, For spotted al he was, with eyen narrow. As hot he was, and lecherous, as a sparrow, With roughe browes blak, and shorte berd; Of his visge children were sore afeard. No quyksilver, litarge, nor bremstone, Boras, ceruce, nor oille of tartre none, Nor oyntement that wolde clense and byte, Might ever help him of his whelkes white, Or of the knobbes sittyng on his cheekes. Wel loved he garleek, oynouns, and eek leekes, And for to drinke strong wyn red as blood. Thenne wolde he speke, and crye as he were wood. And when that he wel dronken had the wyn, Than wolde he speke no word but Latyn. A fewe termes had he, tuo or three, That he hadde lernd out of som decree; No wonder is, he herde it al the day;

And eek he knowe wel, how that a jay Can clepe Watte, as wel as can the king. But who-so wolde him try in other thing, Thenne hadde he spent al his philosophie, Ay, Questio quid juris, wolde he crye, He was a gentil felaw and a kynde; A bettre summoner shulde men nowher fynde. He wolde suffre for a quart of wyn A good felawe to have his concubyn A twelve month, and excuse him utterly. And fooles coude he deceive privily. And if he fond somewhere a good felwe, He wolde teche him for to have no awe In such a case of the archedeknes curse, Unless a mannes soule were in his purse; For in his purs he sholde punysshed be. Thy purse and money is thy hell, quoth he. But wel I wot he lyd right in dede; For cursyng ought each gilty man to drede; Cursing wil slay and bring damnation; Bewar of excommunication. In his control he hadde at his assise The yonge wommen of the diocise, And knew their counseil, and their every nede A garland had he set upon his hed, As gret as it were for an alehouse-stake; A buckler had he made him of a cake. With him there rood a gentil Pardoner Of Rouncival, his friend and his compeer, That streyt was comen from the court of Rom e. Ful loude he sang, Come hider, love, to me. This summoner sang to him in deepe tone, Was nevere trumpe of half so gret a soun. This pardoner had heer as yellow as wex, But smothe it hung, as doth a strike of flex; By ounces hunge his lokkes that he hadde, And therwith he his shuldres overspredde. Ful thinne it lay, in lengthes, one by one, And hood, for jolitee, werd he none, For it was trussd up in his wallet. He thought he rode al of the newe set, Disheveled, save his cappe, he rode al bare. Suche glaryng eyen hadde he as an hare. A Christes image hung upon his cappe. His wallet lay byfore him in his lappe, Brim-ful of pardouns come from Rome al hot. A voys he had as smale as eny goat. No beard had he, nor never beard sholde have, As smothe it was as it ware late i-shave; I trow he were a geldyng or a mare. But of his craft, from Berwyk unto Ware, Ther was not such another pardoner. For in his bag he hadde a pilow there, Which that he saide, was oure Ladys veyl: He seide, he hadde a gobet of the seyl That seynt Peter hadde, when that he wente Uppon the see, til Jhesu Crist him hente. He hadde a cros of brasse ful of stones, And in a glas he hadde pigges bones. But with these reliques, whenne that he found A pore persoun dwellyng uppon ground, Upon a day he gat him more moneye Than that the parsoun gat in monthes tweye. And thus with feynd flaterie and japes, He made the parsoun and the people his apes. But trewely to tellen at the laste, He was in churche a noble ecclesiaste. Wel cowde he rede a lessoun or a storye, But best of al he sang an offertorie; For wel knew he, when that the song was songe, He muste preche, and wel affyle his tunge, To wynne silver, as he right wel coude; Therefore he sang ful merily and loude. Now have I told you shortly in a clause Thestate, tharray, the nombre, and eek the cause

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Why that assembled was this companye In Southwerk at this gentil ostelrie, That highte the Tabbard, faste by the Belle. But now is tyme to you for to telle How that we bare us in that same night, When we were in that ostelrie alight; And after wil I telle of oure vige, And al the remnaunt of oure pilgrimage. But ferst I pray you of your curtesie, That ye ne think it not my vilanye, Though that I speke al pleyn in this matre, To tellen you their wordes and their cheere; Nor though I speke their wordes properly. For this ye knowen al-so wel as I, Who-so shal telle a tale after a man, He moste reherce, as nigh as ever he can, Every word, if it be in his charge, Though speke he never so rudely nor so large; Or else must he telle his tale untrewe, Or feyne thing, or fynde wordes newe. He may not spare, though he were his brother; He moste as wel say one word as another. Crist spak himself ful broade in holy writ, And wel ye wot no vilanye is it. Eke Plato seith, who-so that can him rede, The wordes must be cosyn to the dede. Also I pray you to forgeve it me, If I have folk not set in their degree Here in this tale, as that they shulde stonde; My wit is thynne, ye may wel understonde. Greet cheere made oure host us every one, And to the souper sette he us anon; And servd us with vitaille as he could, Strong was the wyn, and wel we drynken wolde. A semely man oure ostewas withalle For to have been a marchal in an halle; A large man was he with eyen deep, A fairere burgeys is ther noon in Chepe: Bold of his speche, and wys, and wel i-taught, And of manhoode lakkd he right naught. Eke therto he was right a mery man, And after soper playen he bygan, And spak of myrthe amonges other thinges, When that we al hadde made our rekonynges; And saydethus: Lo, lordynges, trewely Ye be to me right welcome hertily: For by my trothe, if that I shal not lye, I never saw so mery a companye At one time in this harbour as is now. Fayn wold I do you merthe, wiste I how. And of a merthe I am right now bythought, To do you ese, and it shal coste nought. Ye go to Caunturbury; God you speede, The blisful martir give you al youre meede! And wel I wot, as ye go by the weye, Ye shapen you to talken and to pleye; For trewely comfrt and merthe is none To ryde by the weye domb as a stoon; And therfore wil I make you some disport, As I seyde erst, and do you som confrt. And if you liketh alle by one assent Now for to standen at my judgement, And for to werken as I shal you seye, To morrow, when ye riden by the weye, Now by my fadres soule that is ded, Save ye be merye, smyteth off myn hed. Hold up youre hond withoute more speche. Oure counseil was not longe for to seche; Us thoughte it was not worth to say him nay, And graunted him withoute more delay, And bad him say his verdite, as him leste. Lordynges, quoth he, now herken for the beste; But take it not, I pray you, in disdayn; This is the poynt, to speken short and playn, That each of you to shorten this youre weie, In this vige, shal telle tales tweye,

To Caunturburi- ward, I mene it so, And hom-ward he shal tellen other tuo, Of ventres that there have bifalle. And which of you that bereth him best of alle, That is to seye, that telleth in this case Tales of best sentnce and of solce, Shal have a soper at the cost of al Here in this place sittynge in this halle, When that we comen ageyn from Canturbery. And for to make you the more mery, I wil myselven gladly with you ryde, Right at myn owen cost, and be youre gyde. And who-so wile my judgement withseie Shal paye for al we spenden by the weye. And if ye vouchesafe that it be so, Telle me anon, withouten wordes mo, And I wil erly shape me therfore. This thing was graunted, and oure othes swore With ful glad herte, and prayden him also That he would vouchesafe for to do so, And that he wolde be oure governour, And of our tales judge and rportour, And sette a souper at a certeyn prys; And we wolde rewld be at his devys, In high and lowe; and thus by one assent We be accorded to his judgement. And therupon the wyn was fet anon; We dronken, and to reste wente each one, Withouten eny lengere taryinge. And when the morning day bigan to sprynge, Up rose oure ost, and broughte us out of sleep, And gadered us togider alle in a heep, And forth we riden a litel more than pace, Unto the waterynge of seint Thomas. And there oure ost bigan his hors areste, And seyde, Lordes, herken if you liste. Ye wot youre covenant, and I it you recorde. If eve-song and morning-song acorde, Let see now who telle ferst a tale. As evere I may drinke wyn or ale, Who-so be rebel to my judgement Shal paye for al that by the weye is spent. Now draw the straws, ere that we forther win; And he that hath the shortest shal bygynne. Sir knight, quoth he, my maister and my lord, Now draw the cut, for that is myn acord. Come near, quoth he, my lady prioresse; And ye, sir clerk, let be your shamfastnesse, Ne studie not; ley hand to, every man. Anon to drawen every wight bigan, And shortly for to tellen as it was, Were it by venture, or other case, The sooth is this, the cut fil to the knight, Of which ful glad and blithe was every wight; And telle he moste his tale as was reson, By covenant and composicion, As ye have herd; what needeth worde mo? And when this good man saw that it was so, As one that wys was and obedient To kepe his covenant by his free assent, He seyde: Since I shal then bygynne the game, What! welcome be the cut, in Goddes name! Now lat us ryde, and herken what I seye. And with that word we riden forth oure weye: And he bigan with right a merie chere His tale, and seide right in this manre.
Glossary Zephyrus (in Greek mythology) name of the West Wind the sign of the Ram zodiacal sign that corresponds to the month of March small fowl birds palmer pilgrim who returns from the Holy Land with a palm branch of palm leaf, itinerant monk shire county Canterbury town in the South East of England (Kent) with an old Gothic cathedral erected in the 12th century

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wend (archaic) go Southwark district on the South side of the Thames in the county of Surrey The Tabard the knight's garment worn over armour; herald's coat. The Tabard was the sign of the inn where the pilgrims met. hostelry inn array (poetical) dress, outfit apparel (archaic) dress, clothing fustian thick cotton cloth dyed dark cadet younger son lowly humble, modest yeoman independent farmer gear equipment woodcraft knowledge of forest conditions useful in hunting prioress superior of an abbey of nuns St. Loy St. Louis seemly becoming Strattford-at-Bowe a provincial town in Essex, three miles East of London withal (archaic) moreover courtliness refined manners sedately calmly abbot head of an abbey of monks aye always uncloistered out of monastery Austin St. Augustin, the apostle sent in 596 to convert England to Christianity lover's knot a kind of double knot prelate high ecclesiastical dignitary palfrey a horse for riding limiter friar licensed to beg within certain limits Four Orders monastic orders at shrift (archaic) while confessing the sins absolution forgiveness of sins penance act of giving absolution for the sins confessed tippet muffler scum the worst part of society might accrue might be derived (obtained) Harwick Harwich, a harbour in the East of England, passage for the Netherlands ranges direction exchanges exchanges of goods preferment promotion to an office or position fiddles unimportant matters at that moreover, into the bargain haberdasher dealer in small wares (of clothes) livery distinctive clothes worn by members of a guild guild mediaeval corporation of craftsmen gear equipment, clothing avouches guarantees pouch small bag outside pocket burgess citizen alderman councillor in cities, next in dignity to Mayor revenue income magic effigies image of a person to be hanged or burnt humour (unscientific) one of the four fluids of man's body determining his physical and mental qualities apothecary chemist goodish while long time close (here) niggardly Ypres town in Belgium (Flanders) known for its linen and lace industry Ghent Gand, a town in Belgium (Flanders) known for its textile industry ground surface worked upon in embroidery pound 0.453 kg. hose stockings forsooth in truth, truly (ironical) Boulogne harbour in Northern France Cologne Koln, a town in Germany St. James of Compostella a church in Spain ambling horse horse moving by lifting two feet on one side together wimpled up (covering of linen) won by nuns, formerly also by women about head, cheeks and chin mantle loose, sleeveless cloak stone weight of 14 pounds or 6.350 kg. brawn muscle heave lift (heavy things) gauge measure exactly bagpipes wind instrument with bag as receptacle of air pardoner man licensed to sell papal pardons or indulgences Charing Cross street in the West End of London The Court of Rome the Vatican, the official residence of the Pope hank of flax coil of flaxyarn driblets small quantity mode fashion gelding castrate Berwick Berwick-on-Tweed, a seaport town at the mouth of the Tweed Ware Wareham, a town in Dorsetshire gobbet (archaic) piece rubble waste fragments up-country towards the interior, inland

prevarication evasive speech made monkeys of showed contempt of, played tricks with offertory part of Mass at which offerings are made girth leather or cloth band tightened round the body marshal (here) officer of royal household with judicial functions Cheapside a busy market in mediaeval London and a place of pageants and sports [in AEL, 66-85]

THE ENGLISH POPULAR BALLADS

Folk literature, ballads more especially, saw a remarkable flourishing during the 14th and 15th centuries, a period when no poet made a name for himself in England. Ballads are anonymous narrative creations, whether individually or collectively conceived. They spread throughout the country by word of mouth, which accounts for the many variants of the same specimen. The rich store of ballad poetry extant forms a comprehensive picture of the life of the people in those remote times. They treat the of various domestic relations, elopements, exiled husbands, quarrels between brothers and sisters, or between a daughter and her cruel step-mother, love and death (Binnorie; Edward, Edward; The Cruel Mother; The Nut-Brown Maid; etc.), of the popular superstitious belief in ghosts, witches, fairies, fateful numbers, etc. (The Wife of Usher's Well; Sweet William's Ghost; Thomas the Rhymer; etc.), of certain historical facts often blending with legends (Sir Patrick Spens; Queen Eleanor's Confession; etc.); the Border ballads dwell on the feuds and hatred between the English and the Scottish lords and their followers (the most famous among these being Chevy Chase and Gude Wallace); other ballads relate a humorous incident of domestic life or reveal the villagers' shrewd mind ( Get up and Bar the Door; Take Thy Old Cloak About Thee ; King John and the Abbot of Canterbury; etc.). The Ballads of outlawry, often referred to as Greenwood ballads, were mainly composed in the 14th century. They echo the people's struggle against the feudal lords who were despoiling and oppressing the peasants. Robin Hood is the most celebrated hero of the outlawry ballads circulated in the South and the central districts of mediaeval England. He is supposed to have lived in the 12th century. He is depicted as a champion of liberty and social justice, valiant, resourceful, devoted to the poor and needy, a sworn enemy of the feudal lords. Genuine feelings, simplicity of tone and composition as well as the prevalence of the epic motifs are typical features of the ballads. The narrative is dynamic and dramatic, dialogue is often present. Nature, though scantily depicted, is often the background of the ballads of outlawry. Abundant repetitions, conventional comparisons and epithets, refrains, alliterations are the most characteristic stylistic devices to be found in ballads. The verse pattern is very simple: as a rule it is the four-line stanza consisting of two iambic tetrameters alternating with two iambic trimeters. The popular ballads have always had a stimulating influence on art and literature. For some of the greatest English poets (Walter Scott, John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, etc.) the folk ballads were an inexhaustible source of inspiration. [in AEL, pp. 87-88]

CHEVY CHASE God prosper long our noble king, Our lives and safeties all! A woeful hunting once there did In Chevy Chase befall. To drive the deer, with hound and horn, Earl Percy took the way; The child may rue, that is unborn, The hunting of that day! The stout Earl of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods, Three summer's days to take; The chiefest hearts in Chevy Chase To kill and bear away. These tidings to Earl Douglas came In Scotland, where he lay. Who sent Earl Percy present word, He would prevent his sport. The English Earl, not fearing that, Did to the woods resort.

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With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, All chosen men of might, Who knew full well, in time of need, To aim their shafts aright. The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran, To chase the fallow deer. On Monday they began to hunt, Ere daylight did appear; And long before high noon they had A hundred fat bucks slain: Then, having dined, the drovers went To rouse the deer again. The bowmen mustered on the hills, Well able to endure; Their backsides all with special care That day were guarded sure. The hounds ran swiftly through the woods The nimble deer to take, That view their cries the hills and dales An echo shrill did make. Lord Percy to the quarry went, To view the tender deer, Quoth he, 'Earl Douglas promised once This day to meet me here: 'But if I thought he would not come, No longer would I stay!' With that, a brave young gentleman Thus to the Earl did say: 'Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, His men in armour bright; Full twenty hundred Scottish spears All marching in our sight! 'All men of pleasant Tividale, Fast by the river Tweed'. 'O, cease your sports!' Earl Percy said, 'And take your bows with speed; 'And now with me, my countrymen, Your courage forth advance; For there was never champion yet, In Scotland, nor in France, 'That ever did on horseback come; But, and if my hap it were, I durst encounter man for man, With him to break a spear!' Earl Douglas, on his milk-white steed, Most like a baron bold, Rode foremost of his company, Whose armour shone like gold. 'Show me', said he, 'whose men you be, That hunt so boldly here, That, without my consent, do chase And kill my fallow deer?' The first man that did answer make, Was noble Percy he, Who said, 'We list not to declare, Nor show, whose men we be: 'Yet, we will spend our dearest blood The chiefest hearts to slay'. Then Douglas swore a solemn oath, And thus in rage did say: 'Ere thus I will outbraved be, One of us two shall die:

I know thee well, an earl thou at; Lord Percy, so am I. 'But, trust me, Percy, pity it were, And great offence, to kill Any of these, our guiltless men, For they have done no ill. 'Let thou and I the battle try, And set our men aside'. 'Accurst be he', Earl Percy said, 'By whom it is denied'. Then stepped a gallant squire forth, Witherington was his name, Who said, 'I would not have it told To Henry our king, for shame, 'That e'er my Captain fought on foot, And I stand looking on. You be two earls', quoth Witherington, And I a squire alone. 'I'll do the best that do I may, While I have power to stand: While I have power to wield my sword, I'll fight with heart and hand'. Our English archers bent their bows, Their hearts were good and true. At the first flight of arrows sent, Full fourscore Scots they slew. ........................................................ They closed full fast on every side, No slackness there was found: And many a gallant gentlemen Lay gasping on the ground. O, Christ! it was a grief to see, And likewise for to hear, The cries of men lying in their gore, And scattered here and there. At last, these two stout earls did meet, Like captains of great might, Like lions wood, they laid on load, And made a cruel fight: They fought, until they both did sweat, With swords of tempered steel, Until the blood, like drops of rain, They trickling down did feel. 'Yield, thee, O Percy!' Douglas said, 'In faith I will thee bring, Where thou shall high advanced be By James, our Scottish King: 'Thy ransom I will freely give, And this report of thee, "Thou art the most courageous knight That ever I did see"'. 'No, Douglas', quoth Earl Percy then, 'Thy proffer I do scorn; I will not yield to any Scot That ever yet was born'. With that, there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart, A deep and deadly blow. Who never spake more words than these, 'Fight on, my merry men all; For why? My life is at an end, Lord Percy sees my fall'.

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Then leaving life, Earl Percy took The dead man by the hand, And said, 'Earl Douglas, for thy life Would I had lost my land. 'O, Christ! my very heart doth bleed With sorrow for thy sake, For sure, a more redoubted knight Mischance could never take'. A knight amongst the Scots there was, Which saw Earl Douglas die; Who straight in wrath did vow revenge Upon the Lord Percy. Sir Hugh Montgomery was he called; Who, with a spear most bright, Well-mounted on a gallant steed, Ran fiercely through the fight; And passed the English archers all, Without all dread or fear; And through Earl Percy's body then He thrust his hateful spear; With such a vehement force and might He did his body gore, The staff ran through the other side, A large cloth-yard and more. So thus did both these nobles die, Whose courage none could stain. An English archer then perceived The noble earl was slain; He had a good bow in his hand, Made of a trusty tree; An arrow of a cloth-yard long Up to the head drew he. Against Sir Hugh Montgomery So right the shaft he set, The grey goose-wing that was thereon In his heart's blood was wet. This fight did last from break of day Till setting of the sun: For when they rang the evening bell, The battle scarce was done. ........................................................ Of twenty hundred Scottish spears Scarce fifty-five did fly. Of fifteen hundred Englishmen, Went home but fifty-three; The rest were slain in Chevy Chase, Under the greenwood tree. Next day did many widows come Their husbands to bewail: They washed their wound in brinish tears, But all would not prevail. Their bodies, bathed in purple gore, They bare with them away. They kissed them, dead, a thousand times, Ere they were clad in clay. The news was brought to Edinborough, Where Scotland's King did reign, That brave Earl Douglas suddenly Was with an arrow slain. 'O, heavy news!' King James did say, 'Scotland may witness be, I have not any captain more Of such account as he'.

Like tidings to King Henry came, Within as short a space, That Percy of Northumberland, Was slain in Chevy Chase. 'Now, god be with him!' said our king, 'Sith it will no better be; I trust I have, within my realm, Five hundred as good as he: 'Yet shall not Scots, nor Scotland, say But I will vengeance take; I'll be revenged on them all, For brave Earl Percy's sake'. This vow full well the king performed After, at Humbledown, In one day fifty knights were slain, With lords of great renown; And of the rest, of small account, Did many thousands die. Thus endeth the hunting of Chevy Chase, Made by the Earl Percy. God save our king; and bless this land With plenty, joy, and peace; And grant henceforth, that foul debate 'Twixt noblemen may cease.
Glossary Tividale place where the battle was fought hap luck, chance, lot we list not we do not want thy proffer your offer a more redoubted knight a more formidable (redoubtable) knight a trusty tree trustworthy the grey goose-wing the arrow (one end of which was supplied with a goose-quill) brinish tears briny tears (brine very salt water) they bare they bore sith since [in AEL, pp. 88-97]

POPULAR BALLADS
Ballads are short, anonymous, narrative poems, preserved by oral transmission and sung, often with accompaniment and dance, before gatherings of people. They exist in all nations. Some ballad themes and stories pass freely from one culture to another and from language to language over many centuries, their words and characters altered to fit the new context. Some are passed on with very little change. Their subject is usually tragic, death by accident or by treachery in love or in war, often with supernatural accompaniments, being the most frequent. Motif and incident may be taken from a folklore tradition stretching back many centuries, or from a comparatively recent historical occurrence. Since ballads were passed on by word of mouth, they exist in many versions even within one language and are sung to more than one tune. But since ballad meter is so simple, a single tune will do duty for many ballads. (We have a more sophisticated parallel in the case of hymns, where the rhythm is also simple: the same words are sung to many tunes, and the same tune is used for many hymns.) Basically, ballad meter is the Western norm for the simple melodic phrase, four primary beats to the line. The lines are usually arranged in quatrains, i.e. groups of four lines. The simplicity of ballad form implies a simplicity of language and of syntax, as well as an economy of expression. Few ballads are longer than a page or two of print, and those that exceed this limit are generally historical narratives with a simple story-line. Since they were intended to be understood by an audience that would hear them only once and since they were performed by a single singer, they could not make use of the sophisticated imagery and complicated sentence structure of the written lyric. The ballads operate with "and" clauses, not "though" or "if" clauses, with successive statements, not with statement followed by qualifications. Their imagery, even where it seems not fully articulate and is difficult to interpret fully, is simple and direct. The popular ballad is essentially a primitive art form, composed and transmitted in a society such as that of the Scottish Border counties between the later Middle Ages and the early nineteenth century. These societies are made up of small, self-contained local units, relatively unmixed and homogeneous; their outlook is limited to their own locality and their own past; and they value ballad-makers both as story-tellers and as newsvendors. Naturally, the demands of this audience influenced ballad

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composers, and its criticisms of a performance influenced the singers. Earlier theories of the origin of the popular ballad gave the audience a much greater role than this and saw the ballads as the corporate poetic expression of the folk, the cooperative productions of a whole community, related to the chorus songs and dances which accompany primitive work and play. This idea is not now widely accepted: it originated in late eighteenth-century Germany at a time when the ballads were beginning to be collected, studied, and imitated. Modern study has shown the importance of the bard, the singer of tales, in primitive societies and the privileged position he often occupies in them, even where he has some other trade or duty. Each performance that he gives of a ballad, old or new, is a unit in itself and may include variations. He is the chief, but not the only, hander-on of the ballads to other executants. The handing-on may be lateral, across a society or societies; or vertical and chronological, through successive generations in the same community or family. These considerations explain both the existence of many variants of a single ballad and the often surprising consistency in those variants. As in all orally transmitted literature, differences between variants may be the result of conscious manipulation to fit the ballad to new circumstances or a different audience of children, perhaps, rather than adults (as in some of the versions of "Lord Randal"), or an audience drawn from another community on whom the allusions would be lost, or which is more sophisticated in its tastes. Or they may be accidental, the result of over- or under-sophistication in the transmitter, of failure of understanding or memory, or even of simple mishearing. A good number of the ballads that we now possess were not written down until the eighteenth century or even later, and when they were recorded in this way, they were recorded in a composite of the forms in which they were then being recited. In consequence, it is not possible to decide, of many of them, what the original version would have looked like, or when it was composed. All we can say is that most were composed at some time between 1200 and 1700, though some are later than that. The earliest references in other literature to ballads belong to the later fourteenth century: Langland, in Piers Plowman, has a slighting remark about the Robin Hood ballads. Of some, we have sixteenth-century versions; others, such as "The Carpenter's Wife" ("The Demon Lover") we know from mid-seventeenth-century printed broadsides; others again, like "The Three Ravens", are found in early seventeenth-century printed collections; yet others in manuscript poetical miscellanies of the same century. Of some, such as "Sir Patrick Spence", we have no version before the eighteenth century, or the mid-nineteenth ("The Unquiet Grave"), so that we cannot be quite sure that we are not dealing with a modern poem masquerading as an old ballad. That we know them at all is due to eighteenth-century antiquarian scholarship, with its interest in origins and the romantic past of one's own people. It is also due to the rise, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, of the primitive and "natural" as a valued literary mode. Sir Philip Sidney, in the Defence of Poesie (1595), felt it necessary to apologize for his barbarousness in finding himself moved by the ballad of "Chevy Chase". Joseph Addison, in 1711, finds ballad verse despicably simple, but the sentiment moving because genuine and unaffected. As the eighteenth century goes on, the distinction between natural and artificial poetry is more and more used to favor the natural. The publication, in 1765, of Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, its texts largely drawn from a manuscript of about 1650, marks the beginning of modern ballad study and ballad collection. Percy's example inspired others, in Germany as well as in England (the communal theory of ballad composition mentioned above was developed by German scholars on the basis of their reading of Percy's collection). But the most important result of his publication was the new impetus it gave to ballad collecting in the North, notably to Sir Walter Scott, whose Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, published in 1802-3, incorporated the results of ten years' work taking down ballads from the lips of the ballad singers themselves. Like all his contemporaries, Scott emended and improved these versions: his aim was to construct one coherent poem from the variants. In this he was moved by practical considerations as well as by his interest in the ballads as records of older beliefs and superstitions and of past events as can be seen from the use he made of their material and their prosody in his own poems. It was Scott who set the pattern for the nineteenth-century ballad of romantic chivalry and love. By the time Scott published his Minstrelsy the ballad had already been accepted in England and Germany as a new literary model for the short poem of tragic love, of rustic life, of childhood, or of any combination of these, together with the poem of "faerie" and the supernatural. The simplicity of language and prosody could reflect the directness and purity of the emotions involved, whether war-like, loving, gentle or pathetic; or it could reflect the directness of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural worlds. The Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge share an influence from this direction with the poems based on ballad meter written by such poets as Thomas Chatterton, William Blake, and Robert Burns. The literary ballad further evolved in the nineteenth century in the hands of writers as different as Thomas Moore, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Algernon Charles Swinburne. Later still, the ballad influences the poetry of Rudyard Kipling, A.E. Housman, and W.B. Yeats. Most of the texts selected here are tragic in tone. Many give the feeling of suspension between natural and supernatural, and the sensation that one has been plunged, without preparation, into the middle of the action, which are hallmarks of the ballad. In many, the quality of dramatic

performance that also goes with ballads is to be seen. (It has been said that reading a ballad is like going to the theater when the play has already reached its fifth act.) A tune is given for most, since the ballad can barely be said to exist without its tune, which shapes and controls it in important ways. The tune also enhances the impression of performance, of a single act performed with variations, which is essential to our understanding of this form of poetry. The same effect of performance, almost of rite, is aided, in many of the ballads, by the repeated refrain or burden. In some ballads this consists of nonsense, incantatory words or syllables. The first ballad below, "The Cherry-tree Carol", has a biblical theme, handled with great tenderness and delicacy. It might equally well have been put among the religious lyrics above, but it is included here because of its meter and a specimen of the overtly sacred ballad. The next five are "faerie" ballads, involving supernatural beings and feats, forfeits, riddles, changings of shape, the returning dead, with overtones of tragic love. Only the first of them and the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, for which see The Other World section below suggest that an encounter with the supernatural can breed anything but ill. The next two ("Lord Randal" and "The Three Ravens") are also grim in tone, with echoes of violence and perhaps of Border feuds. The single Robin Hood ballad gives an adequate impression of the not very high poetic quality, the simplicity, and low intensity of this large class. The final ballad, "Sir Patrick Spence", is possibly based on historical incidents. The standard collection of ballads is still F.J. Child's monumental fivevolume The English and Scottish Ballads (1882-98), now supplemented by B.H. Bronson's four volumes of The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (1959-70). Child succeeded in assembling all the significant versions of each ballad then known: references to his numberings are given in the footnotes. The versions and tunes used here are, with modifications, those of The Oxford Book of Ballads (ed. J. Kinsley, 1969). Some spellings and capitalization have been normalized, but Northern forms have been retained where they occur. [in OAEL, pp. 425-428]

The Wife of Usher's Well There lived a wife at Usher's Well And a wealthy wife was she; She had three stout and stalwart sons And sent them o'er the sea. They hadna been a week from her, A week but barely ane, Whan word came to the carline wife That her three sons were gane. They hadna been a week from her, A week but barely three, Whan word came to the carline wife That her sons she'd never see. 'I wish the wind may never cease, Nor fishes in the flood, Till my three sons come hame to me In earthly flesh and blood.' It fell about the Martinmas Whan nights are lang and mirk, The carline wife's three sons came hame And their hats were of the birk. It neither grew in skye nor ditch Nor yet in ony sheugh, But at the gates o' Paradise That birk grew fair eneugh. 'Blow up the fire, my maidens, Bring water from the well; For all my house shall feast this night Since my three sons are well.' And she has made to them a bed, She's made it large and wide, And she's ta'en her mantle her about, Sat down at the bed-side. Up then crew the red, red cock And up and crew the grey; The eldest to the youngest said, ' 'Tis time we were away'.

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The cock he hadna crew but once And clapp'd his wings at a' When the youngest to the eldest said, 'Brother, we must awa'. The cock doth craw, the day doth daw, The channering worm doth chide; Gin we be mist out of our place A sair pain we maun bide. Fare ye weel, my mother dear; Fareweel to barn and byre, And fare ye weel, the bonny lass That kindles my mother's fire'.
Notes The Wife of the Usher's Well Child, no. 79; Air: Scott, Minstrelsy; a widespread ballad and tune in the modern Appalachians wife woman hadna had not ane one carline wife old woman, witch gane lost fishes perhaps a corrupt reading Martinmas Feast of St. Martin, November 11, not long after All Hallows Eve; the beginning of winter, a dark, bloody time, when cattle and hogs were slaughtered for winter food mirk dark birk birch skye stream sheugh trench, ditch, or furrow; thus, ground eneugh very crew The dead could not be aboard after first cockcrow. daw dawn The... chide the grumbling worm chides us; i.e. calls us back to the grave Gin if A... bide a harsh torture we must endure [in OAEL, pp. 435-437]

Thomas Wyatt Sonnet My love to scorn, my service to retain, Therein, methought, you used cruelty; Since with good will I lost my liberty, To follow her which causeth me all my pains Might never woe yet cause me to refrain; But only this, which is extremity, To give me nought, alas, nor to agree That, as I was, your man I might remain: But since that thus ye list to order me, That would have been your servant true and fast: Displease you not, my doting time is past And with my loss to leave I must agree: For as there is a certain time to rage, So is there time such madness to assuage.
Glossary ye list it is pleasing to you, you desire servant close, steady servant doting time time to show one's afection to assuage to calm, to soothe [in AEL, pp. 135, 136]

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Vow to Love Faithfully Set me whereas the sun doth perch the green, Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice. In temperate heat where he is felt and seen; In presence 'prest of people, mad or wise: Set me high or yet in low degree, In longest might or in the shortest day, In clearest sky or where clouds thickest be. In lusty youth or where my hairs are gray. Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell: In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood; Thrall or at large, alive, whereso I dwell, Sick or in health, in evil fame or good; Hers will I be, and only with this thought Content myself although my chance be nought.
Glossary whereas (archaic) where thrall slave at large at liberty, free whereso (archaic) wherever [in AEL, pp. 136,137]

RENAISSANCE LYRICISM
The rising wave of lyricism in the mid- and late 16th century, largely stimulated by the Italian sonneteers Dante and Petrarch, was ushered in by Thomas Wyatt's (1503-1542) sonnet sequence, madrigals and satires, and was further originally developed by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey's (15171547) sonnets; it finally came into its own with Sir Philip Sidney's (15541586) sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella consisting of 108 sonnets published posthumously in 1591. While the early sonneteers composed most of their verse for musical accompaniment hence their directness and simplicity , the devices of declamatory art can easily be traced in Philip Sidney's sonnets which, besides great poetic skill, also evince vigorous thought and are therefore better suited for reading and reciting. Sidney's Apologie for Poetry is an impassioned defence of poetry and is the first notable prose work of literary criticism in English. [in AEL, p. 133]

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Sonnet: On Spring The soot season, that bud and bloom forth brings. With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale: The nightingale with feathers new she sings; The turtle to her mate hath told her tale; Summer is come, for every spray now springs, The hart hath hung his old head on the pale; The buck in brake his winter coat he flings; The fishes fleet with new repaired scale; The adder all her slough away she slings; The swift swallow pursueth the flies small; The busy bee her honey now she mings; Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale. And thus i see among these pleasant things Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!
Glossary the soot season the sweet season eke (obsolete) also hart male of a deer after its fifth year on the pale on a pointed piece wood in brake in the thicket, in the brush wood fleet slip away, move swiftly scale thin, horny plate on the skin of a fish slough the skin a snake or viper casts in spring slings throws mings mingles bale destruction, woe [in AEL, pp. 136-138]

Thomas Wyatt Description of the Contrarious Passions in a Lover I find no peace, and all my war is done; I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice; I fly aloft yet can I not arise; And nought I have, and all the world I seize on, That locks nor loseth, holdest me in prison, And holds me not, yet can I scape no wise: Nor letteth me live, nor die at my devise, And yet of death it giveth me occasion. Without eye I see; without tongue I plain: I wish to perish yet I ask for health; I love another, and I hate myself; I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain. Lo, thus displeaseth me both death and life; And my delight is causer of this strife.
Glossary done over nought I have I have nothing scape escape at my devise according to my plan I plain I complain causer the cause [in AEL, pp. 133-134, 135]

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Philip Sidney Leave Me, O Love Leave me, O Love! which reachest but to dust, And there, my mind, aspire to higher things; Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms be, Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light, That doth both shine and give us sight to see. Oh, take fast hold! Let that Light be thy guide In this small course, which birth draws out to death, And think how eveil becometh him to slide Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath. Then farewell, world! Thy uttermost I see. Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me.
Glossary take fast hold hold firmly becometh suits [in AEL, pp. 138, 140]

Philip Sidney LXXXI O kiss, which doth those ruddy gems impart, Or gems or fruits of new-found Paradise, Breathing all bliss, and sweet'ning to the heart, Teaching dumb lips a nobler exercise; O kiss, which souls, even souls, together ties By links of love and only Nature's art, How fain would I paint thee to all men's eyes, Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part! But she forbids; with blushing words she says She builds her fame on higher-seated praise. But my heart burns; I cannot silent be. Then, since, dear life, you fain would have me peace, And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease, Stop you my mouth with still, still kissing me.
Glossary ruddy red how fain how willingly, how glad [in AEL, pp. 139-140]

Philip Sidney Come, Sleep, O Sleep EDMUND SPENSER (1552-1599) Come, sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace, The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, The indifferent judge between the high and low. With shield of proof shield me from out the press Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw: Oh, make in me those civil wars to cease: I will good tribute pay if thou do so. Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light, A rosy garland and a weary head. And if these things, as being thine by right, Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.
Glossary baiting place place where food or rest can be obtained balm of woe fragrant substance that soothes pain shield protective armour plate darts pointed missile civil wars presumably a hint at the war waged by the Dutch against the Spaniards; Sidney joined the war as a volunteer and was mortally wounded at Zutphen [in AEL, pp. 138-139,140] Edmund Spenser was the first original poet after Chaucer, his successor in epic poetry, though two centuries separated them. He was born in London, the son of a cloth-maker, and was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and at Cambridge, where he was the centre of a brilliant set of scholars and where he took his MA degree. Owing to his poor circumstances, he accepted the post of secretary to the governor of Ireland, where he spent the rest of his life (1580-1599). His prose treatise View of the Present State of Ireland affords a glimpse into the living conditions of the subjected Irish people. His work includes The Shepherd's Calendar (1579), a set of twelve pastoral eclogues inspired by Virgil, of great merit in point of verse technique, the Amoretti (1595), a sonnet sequence celebrating the poet's courtship of his wife, in which the English sonnet is further developed, Epithalamion (1595) or Marriage Songs, unique in English poetry, glorifying the happiness of shared love, the traditional rites of the wedding, praising the bride in solemn, harmonious verse. Spenser's greatest and most ambitious poetical work, The Faerie Queene (the first three books published in 1590, three more books in 1596), is an epic planned on a vast scale (twelve books, each of twelve cantos), but left unfinished. This intricate allegorical epic sets forth twelve cardinal virtues, embodied in separate knights, coming across striking imaginary difficulties, equally allegorically presented. All the virtues are consummated in Prince Arthur, the moral allegory of Magnificence, considered the supreme virtue; he is also the chivalrous lover and courtier of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene. As the impersonation of the perfect Christian knight and gentleman, Prince Arthur is to rescue the other knights from the dangers besetting them, while Gloriana is the idealized allegory of Queen Elizabeth. Had Spenser been able to finish this epic, the figure of Prince Arthur would perhaps have come into some prominence towards the end of the poem. The troubled, storm-tossed Ireland of Elizabeth's reign, with its landscape of bogs and forest, partly provides the gloomy setting for this complicated tale of adventures in which deeds of chivalry, fantastic occurrences, detailed descriptions of marvellous places and creatures, grave moralizing stand side by side. The purport of The Faerie Queene was to teach a moral lesson, i.e. how to fight and overcome vices, temptations and perils menacing man, to eulogize spiritual love, pure beauty, noble conduct, temperance, friendship, justice, but also to idealize England and the absolute monarchy. Patriotic feeling, Renaissance humanism, Neoplatonic idealism and Protestant faith blend in point of conception just as devices of the classic epic and those of the mediaeval chivalrous romance are interwoven in point of expression. The smooth, melodious verse, the rich, elaborate language, which joins archaisms to terms of 16th century vocabulary, to dialectal forms and poetical terms, the profusion of pictorial and auditive imagery, the gorgeous, ornate descriptions point to Spenser's keen sense of beauty and entitle him to be regarded as "The Poets' Poet". The more so as he also invented new metrical patterns. The Spenserian stanza used in The Faerie Queene is the most important; it was actually adapted from Italian models and consists of nine lines, eight iambic pentameters, made to rhyme in three sets, followed by a solemn concluding hexameter. The impact of Spenser's poetic artistry on the poets of later generations cannot be overlooked; the Spenserian stanza became a favourite verse form with such great poets as James Thomson, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. Spenser's archaic spelling has been preserved in the excerpt from The Faerie Queene. [in AEL, pp. 147-149]

Philip Sidney XXXI With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies, How silently, and with how wan a face! What, may it be that even in heav'nly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tried? Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case, I read it in thy looks; thy languisht grace, To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. Then, ev'n of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, Is constant love, deem'd there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
Glossary wan pale descries describes deem'd considered, regarded want of wit lack of wit, not clever beauties beautiful women [in AEL, pp. 139, 140]

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Edmund Spenser Amoretti, Sonnet VII Fair eyes, the mirror of my mazed heart What wondrous virtue is contained in you, The which both life and death forth from you dart Into the object of your mighty view? For when ye mildly look with lovely hew, Then is my soul with life and love inspired But when ye lower, or look on me askew, Then do I die, as one with lightning fired. But since that life is more than death desired, Look ever lovely, as becomes your best, That your bright beams of my weak eyes admired, May kindle living fire within my breast. Such life should be the honour of your light, Such death the sad example of your might. [in AEL, p. 156] Sonnet
A short poem of 14 lines, and a rhyme scheme restricted by one or other of a variety of principles. The most famous pattern is called the 'Petrarchan sonnet', from its masterly use by the Italian poet Petrarch. This divides naturally into an eight-line stanza (octave) rhyming abba abba, and a sixline stanza in which two or three rhymes may occur; the two stanzas provide also for contrast in attitude to the theme. The origin of the sonnet is unknown, but its earliest examples date from the 13th century in Europe, although it did not reach England until the 16th century. The immense popularity of the form perhaps derives from its combination of discipline, musicality and amplitude. The subject-matter is commonly love, but after the 16th century it becomes, at least in England, much more varied. The first writers of sonnets in England were Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard Surrey; the popular anthology Tottel's Miscellany (1559) made their experiments widely known. The first really fine sonnet sequence was Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella. Its publication in 1591 set an eagerly followed fashion for its distinctively English form. This consisted of a single stanza of 14 lines concluding in a couplet; it is thought that the comparative scarcity of rhyming words in the English language may be the explanation of the greater number of rhymes and freedom in the rhyming scheme in contrast to the Petrarchan form. The greatest of the succeeding sequences was undoubtedly Shakespeare's, but notable ones were produced by Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, and Edmund Spenser. The sonnet form continued to be used after 1600, notably by John Donne and John Milton, but much less for amorous themes and more for religious ones (eg Donne's Holy Sonnets) or by Milton for expressions of other forms of personal experience (eg On His Blindness) or for political declamation (On the Late Massacre in Piedmont). Milton used the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, but he kept the English form of using a single stanza. From the mid-17th to mid-18th century the different style of thought and feeling suggested by the heroic couplet kept the sonnet out of use; the cult of sentiment by poets such as Thomas Gray and William Cowper then brought it back, but a real revival had to wait for the first 30 years of the 19th century in the work of the 'romantics' especially William Wordsworth, who used it freely, John Keats, who wrote few but some of them among his best short poems, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose Ozymandias sonnet is one of the best of all his poems. The romantic poets tended to follow the Miltonic example both in form and subject-matter. After 1830, the form continued to be popular in the 19th century, notably in the work of Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1847). G.M. Hopkins experimented very boldly in the form, and produced some of his best work in what he claimed to be sonnets, though they are often scarcely recognizable as such. Though in the earlier part of the 20th century the sonnet form appeared to have lost favour, in the later part of this century there has been a revival of interest in the form. The most notable example of this re-awakening of interest is perhaps the two 'sonnet sequences' by John Berryman (1938-68) published in 1952 and 1967. [in BGEL, pp. 918-919]

Thorpe, the stationer (ie bookseller and publisher of the sonnets); speculation centres on what is meant by 'begetter' and who is meant by 'W.H.'. 'W.H.' may stand for the man (William Hughes?) who procured the manuscript of the sonnets for Thorpe, if that is what 'begetter' means. But if 'begetter' means 'inspirer', it has been conjectured that W.H. may be the inverted initials of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare had dedicated his Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, or they may stand for William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, or for someone else. Guesses have also been made as to the identity of the 'dark lady', who has been thought by some to be Mary Fitton, a Maid of Honour at Court who was a Mistress of William Herbert. There is too little evidence for profitable conjecture on either subject. Critics and scholars disagree about the extent to which the sonnets are autobiographical (and if so what they express) or whether they are 'literary exercises' without a personal theme. A middle view is that they are exploratory of personal relations in friendship and in love, and that some of them rehearse themes later dramatized in the plays for instance 94 suggests the character of Angelo in Measure for Measure, and the recurrent concern with the destructiveness of time seems to look forward to Troilus and Cressida and the great tragedies. Since it is unknown whether the edition of 1609 is a reliable version, there is also some doubt whether the order of the sonnets in it is that intended by Shakespeare; most scholars see little reason to question it. One of the most valuable recent editions of the Sonnets is Stephen Booth's which uses the 1609 text, rightly accepting its ordering of the poetry as binding. Booth's edition compares the modern text with the Quarto versions at each stage. But if his extensive notes are instructive, they also tend to be too comprehensive in their suggestions of infinite and ultimately meaningless ambiguities in the text. John Kerrigan's edition of The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint provides a sensitive text, informative notes and does justice to the often neglected A Lover's Complaint. Kerrigan authoritatively attributes the poem to Shakespeare and offers the best commentary on it to date. Bibliography: Leishman, J.B., Themes and Variations in Shakespeare's Sonnets; Schaar, C., Elizabethan Sonnet Themes and the dating of Shakespeare's Sonnets; Smith, Hallett, The Tension of the Lyre: Poetry in Shakespeare's Sonnets. [in BGEL, pp. 901-902]

William Shakespeare Sonnet XIX Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood. Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st, And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets. But I forbid thee one most heinous crime: O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen. Him in thy course untainted do allow For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. Yet do thy worst, old time; despite thy wrong My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Glossary Phoenix bird fabled to burn itself on a pyre and rise renewed from the ashes fading gradually disappearing carve not do not wrinkle for beauty's pattern as a model of beauty [in AEL, pp. 225, 227, and WSCO, p. 753]

William Shakespeare Sonnet LXVI Tired with all these, for restful death I cry: As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabld, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill. Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that to die I leave my love alone.

Shakespeare Sonnets
First published in 1609, but there is no clear evidence for when they were written. They are commonly thought to date from 1595-9; Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia (1598) mentions that Shakespeare wrote sonnets. There are 154 sonnets; numbers 1-126 are addressed to a man (126 is in fact not a sonnet but a 12-line poem) and the remainder are addressed to a woman the so-called 'dark lady of the sonnets', since it is made clear that she is dark in hair and complexion. There has been much speculation about the dedication: 'To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets Mr W.H. all happiness and that eternity promised by our everliving poet Wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth T.T.'. 'T.T.' stands for Thomas

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Glossary desert merit disabled crippled doctor-like as if very learned attending being a servant to [in AEL, pp. 225-226, 228, and WSCO, p. 759]

Quarto
A term used in publishing to designate a size of volume, made by folding the standard paper twice instead of only once ( folio size). The quarto editions of Shakespeare's plays are those published in his lifetime, as distinct from the folio collected editions after his death. 18 of his plays appear in separate quarto editions. [in BGEL, pp. 829-830]

William Shakespeare Sonnet CXVI Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring barque, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Glossary marriage union mark beacon Love's not time's fool It does not change with time. bending semicircular compass reach [in AEL, pp. 226, 228, and WSCO, p. 765]

Folio
As applied to books, a folio is one for which the paper has been folded once, and therefore of the largest size. The expression 'the first folio' commonly refers to the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays (1623); there were three other folio editions of Shakespeare's plays in the 17th century. The 1623 volume is edited by two fellow actors of the Lord Chamberlain's Company of Players Heming and Condell and contains a preface by them and prefatory poems, notably one by Ben Jonson. Following the poems there is a list of the 'principal actors in all these plays'; the list includes Shakespeare himself, Richard Burbage, Nathaniel Field, and of course the editors. The edition opens with the print of a rather inferior engraved portrait of the poet by Martin Droeshout. Thirty-six plays are included; Pericles, included by modern editors, is omitted. Eighteen of the plays had already been published in small quarto editions (some of them close to the folio version and some differing substantially), and the remainder were being published for the first time. The plays are undated, and grouped into Comedies, Histories and Tragedies; some have divisions into acts and scenes, and some are without them. [in BGEL, p. 526]

Sonnets after Shakespeare John Milton On Shakespeare WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones The labour of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a live-long monument. For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book Those Delphic lines with deep impression took; Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving, And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
Glossary piled stone monuments hallowed honoured y prefix of the of the past participle in A.S., wrongly used with a present participle reliques relics, dead body, remains of a person Delphic lines lines inspired by Apollo, whose oracle was at Delphi; prophetic sepulchred laid in the tomb [in AEL, pp. 558-559]

William Shakespeare Sonnet CXXX My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red. If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound. I grant I never saw a goddess go: My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.
Glossary dun of a dull greyish-brown colour as any... compare as any she failed to justify because of false comparison [in AEL, pp. 226-227, 228, and WSCO, p. 767]

William Shakespeare Sonnet CXXXII Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain Have put on black, and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain; And truly, not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the gray cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the even Doth half that glory to the sober west, As those two mourning eyes become thy face. O, let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
Glossary ruth indifference sober tranquil [in AEL, pp. 227, 228, and WSCO, p. 767]

William Wordsworth Mutability From low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime, Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care. Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time.
(1821/1822)

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Note Or... Time Samuel Monk points out that this alludes to Milton's tract, Of Education, where he mentions the "unimaginable touches" of music. [in OAEL, p. 232]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Sonnet To the river Otter Dear native Brock! wild Streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have past, What happy and what mournful hours, since last I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny ray, But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, And bedded sand that veined with various dyes Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way, Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fonder sighs: Ah! that once more I were a careless Child!
(1793?/1796) Note native Brock The Otter ran near Coleridge's birthplace, Ottery St. Mary. [in OAEL, p. 236]

which Keats found "too elegiac". Andromeda Andromeda was being sacrificed to a sea monster, to appease Poseidon, the sea god, when Perseus arrived, liberated her from her rock, killed the dragon, turned another suitor to stone, and married the lady; Keats presents himself as Perseus to the English sonnet's Andromeda. Midas King Midas of Phyrgia greedily requested of Dionysus (who owed him a favor) the power to turn everything he touched to gold; after involuntarily transforming his food, his drink, and even his loving daughter to gold, Midas was repentant, and successfully begged to lose his redundant power. [in OAEL, p. 536]

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life: A Sonnet Sequence Sonnet LXIV Ardour and Memory The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring; The rosebud's blush that leaves it as it grows Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose; The summer clouds that visit every wing With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting; The furtive flickering streams to light re-born 'Mid airs new-fledged and valorous lusts of morn, While all the daughters of the daybreak sing: These ardour loves, and memory: and when flown All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight The wind swoops onward brandishing the light, Even yet the rose-tree's verdure left alone Will flush all ruddy though the rose be gone; With ditties and with dirges infinite.
(1879/1881) [in OAEL, p. 1414]

Percy Bysshe Shelley Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(1817/1818) Notes Ozymandias another name for Rameses II of Egypt (13th century B.C.), whose colossal tomb at Thebes was in the shape of a male Sphinx. Yeats's "The Second Coming" and Stevens's Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction both make use of this sonnet. mocked Shelley uses this to mean "artistically imitated" as well as "disdained". [in OAEL, p. 414]

Gerard Manley Hopkins The Windhover To Christ our Lord I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird, the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
(1877/1918) Notes The Windhover Hopkins thought this his best poem. The sparrow-hawk or kestrel can hover in the wind, even head-on. To Christ our Lord a unique dedication in Hopkins; see "my chevalier" in line 11; there as here we are given a suggestion of chivalric, medieval service I caught as in falconry minion beloved dauphin heir to the throne dapple-dawn-drawn drawn out by the dappled dawns rung upon the rein to check at the rein's end, as in horse training wimpling rippling Buckle! a much-disputed word here; it may mean "to give way as if under stress", or it may mean "buckle on! fasten!", or even "get ready to fight!', or it may be some combination of these AND Presumably the capitals here indicate an epiphany, a moment of breakthrough. thee Christ our Lord sillion furrow ah my dear see George Herbert's "Love", II: "I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare, / I cannot look on thee", where "my dear" is Christ, as it is here. [in OAEL, p. 1469]

John Keats On the Sonnet If by dull rhymes our English must be chained, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fettered, in spite of pained loveliness, Let us find out, if we must be constrained, Sandals more interwoven and complete To fit the naked foot of Poesy: Let us inspect the Lyre, and weigh the stress Of every chord, and see and see what may be gained By ear industrious, and attention meet; Misers of sound and syllable, no less Than Midas of his coinage, let us be Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown; So, if we may not let the Muse be free, She will be bound with garlands of her own.
(1819/1848) Notes On the Sonnet the experimental rhyme scheme (abca bdca bcde de) attempts to avoid what Keats called "the pouncing rhymes" of the Petrarchan sonnet and the closing couplet of the Shakespearean kind,

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William Butler Yeats Leda and the Swan A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
(1923/1928) Notes Leda and the Swan Yeats may have had in mind the painting of the subject by Michelangelo, or some other version. Leda had by Zeus the twins Castor and Pollux, and also Helen and Clytemnestra. So her eggs produced the cause of the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon. Yeats saw the rape of Leda as a "violent annunciation" such as might be expected in our own day; an annunciation parallel to the Christian, and involving the union of a god and a woman as the Christian does. The outcome is terror, but the poem dwells on the strangeness of Leda's experience, feeling "the strange heart", and the question whether such a visitation of the divine means an access only of power or also of the knowledge of a new cycle of history which it inaugurates. The broken... tower the sack of Troy Agamemnon dead murdered by his wife Clytemnestra on his return from Troy [in OAEL, pp. 1704-1705]

Notes Sonnet This is one of Thomas's very difficult earlier poems, the last of a sequence of ten loosely connected poems all moving "Altarwise by owl light" (as the first poem begins) through Christian imagery in a starry night-world toward a vision of apocalypse implied in this last poem. In the background of this poem are sexual and religious images,

frequently superimposed (as in "tall fish"), a vision from an

implied shipboard, Crucifixion, St. Peter the fisherman fishing for the fish Christ, and others. tale's sailor Sinbad, in the Arabian Nights, with Christian puns on the two syllables of his name Atlaswise because the poet-sailor-pilgrim may be holding a celestial globe and turning it (like Atlas bearing the globe of the world), looking at its "seas" of darkness, contemplating the constellations December's... holly a holly wreath for Christmas seen as a Good Friday crown of thorns quayrail railing on a dock (but "quay", pronounced "key", puns on St. Peter's keys) fish The Greek acronym for Christ's name and epithet was ichthus, "fish", which was an early Christian symbol. rhubarb perhaps because rhubarb is grown from old roots of its plant, or because its tops are poisonous; also because its stem is red like the flesh of man and his phallus two bark towers the two trees, in Paradise, of Life and Knowledge Day Apocalypse worm the serpent, identified in Revelation with Satan rude, red tree The pun on "rood" as meaning Christ's cross associates it with the fatal Tree of Knowledge in the manner of old biblical interpretation, picks up the rhubarb phallic image, and closes the poem and the sequence with a vision of first and last things brought together. [in OAEL, p. 2124]

Edwin Morgan Glasgow Sonnets V 'Let them eat cake' made no bones about it. But we say let them eat the hope deferred and that will sicken them. We have preferred silent slipways to the riveters' wit. And don't deny it that's the ugly bit. Ministers' tears might well have launched a herd of bucking tankers if they'd been transferred from Whitehall to the Clyde. And smiles don't fit either. "There'll be no bevvying" said Reid at the work-in. But all the dignity you muster can only give you back a mouth to feed and rent to pay if what you lose in bluster is no more than win patience which 'I need' while distant blackboards use you as their duster.
[in TCSP, p. 201]

Wilfred Owen Anthem for Doomed Youth What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk of drawing-down of blinds.
(1917/1920) Note orisons prayers [in OAEL, p. 2053]

Edgar Allan Poe Sonnet To Science1 Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? And driven the Hamadryad2 from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad3 from her flood, The Elfin form the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree4?
(1829) Notes First appeared in print in the collection Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, 1829. 2 Diana was an ancient Roman goddess associated with nature and fertility; Hamadryads are tree nymphs. 3 Naiads are Greek female spirits who dwell in fresh water streams, lakes, etc. 4 Tree noted for fragrance, found in the East and West Indies. [in HAAL-1, p. 1423]
1

Dylan Thomas Sonnet Let the tale's sailor from a Christian voyage Atlaswise hold half-way off the dummy bay Time's ship-racked gospel on the globe I balance: So shall winged harbours through the rockbirds' eyes Spot the blown word, and on the seas I imagine December's thorn screwed in a brow of holly. Let the fist Peter from a rainbow's quayrail Ask the tall fish swept from the bible east, What rhubarb man peeled in her foam-blue channel Has sown a flying garden round that sea-ghost? Green as beginning, let the garden diving Soar, with its two bark towers, to that Day When the worm builds with the gold straws of venom My nest of mercies in the rude, red tree.
(1936)

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Edgar Allan Poe Sonnet Silence1 There are some qualities some incorporate things, That have a double life, which thus is made A type of that twin entity which springs From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade. there is a two-fold Silence sea and shore Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places, Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces, Some human memories and tearful lore, Render him terrorless: his name's "No More". He is the corporate Silence: dread him not! No power hath he of evil in himself; But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!) Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf, That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod No foot of man), commend thyself to God2!
(1840) Notes First published in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier for January 4, 1840. Reprinted several times in the 1840s. 2 The poet suggests that silence in the literal sense (corporate that is, physical) is not to be feared; but silence of the spirit (depression or profound loneliness) can be devastating. [in HAAL-1, pp. 1432-1433]
1

Robert Frost Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall? If design govern in a thing so small.
(1922/1936) Note heal-all an albino version of the common field flower Prunella vulgaris, whose hooded blossom is normally violet or blue [in NAAL, p. 1029]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Chaucer An old man in a lodge within a park; The chamber walls depicted all around With portraitures of huntsmen, hawk, and hound, And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark, Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound; He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound, Then writeth in a book like any clerk. He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song; and as I read I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note Of lark and linnet, and from every page Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead.
(1873) [in HAAL, p. 2738]

Edna St. Vincent Millay I Too beneath Your Moon, Almighty Sex I too beneath your moon, almighty Sex, Go forth at nightfall crying like a cat, Leaving the lofty tower I laboured at For birds to foul and boys and girls to vex With tittering chalk; and you, and the long necks Of neighbours sitting where their mothers sat Are well aware of shadowy this and that In me, that's neither noble nor complex. Such as I am, however, I have brought To what it is, this tower; it is my own; Though it was reared To Beauty, it was wrought From what I had to build with: honest bone Is there, and anguish; pride; and burning thought; And lust is there, and nights not spent alone.
(1936/1939) [in NAAL, p. 1376]

Edwin Arlington Robinson Verlaine Why do you dig like long-clawed scavengers To touch the covered corpse of him that fled The uplands for the fens, and rioted Like a sick satyr with doom's worshippers? Come! let the grass grow there, and leave his verse To tell the story of the life he led. Let the man go: let the dead flesh be dead, And let the worms be its biographers. Song sloughs away the sin to find redress In art's complete remembrance: nothing clings For long but laurel to the stricken brow That felt the Muse's finger; nothing less Than hell's fulfilment of the end of things Can blot the star that shines on Paris now.
(1896) Note Paul Verlaine (1844-96), the hard-drinking, violent, dissolute French Symbolist poet, companion of fellow poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91), who wrote Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell). This sonnet was first published in The Boston Evening Transcript on the occasion of Verlaine's death. [in NAAL, p. 884]

e.e. cummings the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds (also, with the church's protestant blessings daughters, unscented shapeless spirited) they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead, are invariably interested in so many things at the present writing one still finds delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles? perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D . the Cambridge ladies do not care,above Cambridge if sometimes in its box of sky lavender and cornerless, the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
(1923) Note Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), American poet and professor of Romance languages at Harvard. [in NAAL, p. 1393]

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e.e. cummings "next to of course god america i "next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute?" He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
(1926) [in NAAL, p. 1396]

Mihai Eminescu SONNET Millions of stars shine up there in the sky, millions of waves the sea spills on the shore in a glittering wet profusion of light why, what it all means, who can say? Like any man you're free to choose your path through life. But whether you are good and kind or criminal the same dust, the same chasm at the last waits for you, the same oblivion one day. I seem to see myself dying... at the church gate friends stand gathered there to bury me... I see the torchlight, I can hear them sing. Oh sweet shadow, now come closer... I want to feel the angel of death float over me, to feel the wet lids, and the black wings.
(ORICTE STELE...

e.e. cummings Honour Corruption Villainy Holiness honour corruption villainy holiness riding in fragrance of sunlight (side by side all in a singing wonder of blossoming yes riding) to him who died that death should be dead humblest and proudest eagerly wandering (equally alive in miraculous day) merrily moving through sweet forgiveness of spring (over the under the gift of the earth of the sky knight and ploughman pardoner wife and nun merchant frere clerk somnour miller and reve and geoffrey and all) come up from the never of when come up into the now of forever come riding alive down while crylessly drifting through vast most nothing's own nothing children go of dust
(1926) [in JTL, p. 34]

Oricte stele ard n nlime, Oricte unde-arunc-n fa-i marea, Cu-a lor lumin i cu scnteiarea Ce-or fi-nsemnnd, ce vor nu tie nime. Deci cum voieti tu poi urma crarea. Fii bun i mare, ori ptat de crime, Acelai praf, aceeai adncime, Iar motenirea ta i-a tot: uitarea. Parc m vd murind... n umbra porii Ateapt cei ce vor s m ngroape... Aud cntri i vd lumini de torii. O, umbr dulce, vino mai aproape S simt plutind deasupr-mi geniul morii Cu aripi negre, umede pleoape.) [English version by Roy MacGregor-Hastie; in PP1, pp. 264-265]

Vasile Voiculescu CLXI (7) Of countless torments come onto me hordes, Pains I can't part with I still keep as token. My soul's in them, the way the sound's in chords, Still humming live, after the fiddle's broken. Like the silk-worm, I'd woven ceaseless, tying A charmed cocoon of poetry round thee; Glamorous butterfly, thou'st torn it, flying From the frail prison watched so jealously. Now that I'm used to all those venoms steep, Treason, contempt, I need if they're from thee; Deep in my flesh, my vanquished life they keep. Their lack would be more lethal, now, to me, For, by some witchcraft treacherous reversed, Love, faith themselves are nayward and accursed!
(Dintre attea chinuri, venite-asupr-mi hoarde, Pstrez dureri de care nu pot s m despart; Tot sufletul mi-e-n ele ca sunetul n coarde Ce nc vii vibreaz vioara cnd s-a spart. Ca viermele mtasei esusem nencetat n jurul tu un magic cocon de poezie; Tu strlucitul flutur, l-ai rupt i ai zburat Din gingaa-nchisoare pzit cu gelozie. i astzi, mari otrvuri cu care m-am deprins, Dispreul tu, trdarea mi snt trebuitoare; Intrate-adnc n carne-mi, in viaa de nvins, Ct lipsa lor mi-ar fi i mai ucigtoare, Cci ele, printr-o vraj, snt nsei rsturnate, Iubirea i credina, pe dos i blestemate!) (1954) [English version by Cristina Ttaru; in SLFS, pp. 30-31]

Robert Lowell Ezra Pound Horizontal on a deckchair in the ward of the criminal mad.... A man without shoestrings clawing the Social Credit broadside from your table, you saying, "... here with a black suit and black briefcase; in this brief, an abomination, Possum's hommage to Milton". Then sprung; Rapallo, and the decade gone; and three years later, Eliot dead, you saying, "Who's left alive to understand my jokes? My old brother in the arts... besides, he was a smash of a poet". you showed me your blotched, bent hands, saying, "Worms. When I talked that nonsense about Jews on the Rome wireless, Olga knew it was shit, and still loved me". And I, "Who else has been in Purgatory?" You, "I began with a swelled head and end with swelled feet".
(1969/1973) Notes Pound was held as criminally insane in St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington, D.C., from 1945 to 1958. Social Credit a crackpot scheme for economic reform which Pound vehemently supported Possum's hommage to Milton "Possum" was an affectionate name for Pound's friend and fellow poet, T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), who had written Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Eliot had been critical of Milton's influence on poetry, but in the essay mentioned reverses his opinion. Rapallo After Pound's release ("sprung") from St. Elizabeth's, he returned to Italy, where one of his homes was Rapallo. When I... / wireless During world War II Pound's broadcasts over Italian radio ("wireless", line 12) in favor of the Fascist dictator Mussolini included anti-Semitic remarks. Olga Rudge was Pound's mistress and companion until his death in 1972. [in NAAL, p. 2358]

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Vasile Voiculescu CLXIV (10) The couple is the aim, nature's saint urge: Eagles it stirs to find their mate in space, She-dolphins fight the seas, their grooms to search, Stars yoke in constellations in their race. I stretch out, like to the proud oak the vine, To thee my bunch of passion balmed with sap; In adoration's net I hold thee, wrap A new embrace in every written line. We're victims of the tender law, we twain, For love won't look at random shapes, you see: Werest thou a woman, would I've chosen thee? Why leavest me now? Thou tear'st, unlock'st thy chain? Now, in the dust of crushing, halved, I moan, How could I bear love's burdens all alone?
(Perechea este elul, porunca sacr-a firii: Strnii de ea, vulturii se caut prin spaii, Delfinele iau marea n piept, s-i afle mirii, Chiar stelele n ceruri se-njug-n constelaii... Ca via ctre mndrul stejar, spre tine-ntind Ciorchinii-mi plini de patimi cu sev-mbttoare; n mrejele-adorrii te-nfur, te cuprind, i orice vers i scriu e nc-o-mbriare. Noi doi sntem victime ale suavei legi, Cci dragostea nu cat la forme-ntmpltoare: Dac-ai fi fost femeie, te-a fi ales eu oare? De ce m lai acuma? Te smulgi i te dezlegi? Tiat n jumtate i-n pulberea zdrobirii, Cum am s port eu singur poverile iubirii?) (1955) [English version by Cristina Ttaru; in SLFS, pp. 36-37]

Vasile Voiculescu CCXXXVII (83) Never have I put make-up on my love, Of fards, 'tis verse alone he doth acquire, To swiftly wave the flesh of speech, too rough... His cheek is rosy for I burn entire... Nor weaving skirts, bloom-patterned, is my goal Or clothes of images, to make him shields: In his pure nakedness his splendour sole Thousand delights stay, like in poppy-fields. In all his being, not a flaw he's got: 'Neath measured charms, deep blisses doth bear... Therefore, to show all naked he fears not, Like that ideal goddess, whom begot Eternity, in frothy spasms, ere: Like Paris, once, with laurels on his brow, The craved-for golden fruit give my love now...
(Eu nu dau niciodat cu suliman iubirii i, dintre dresuri, versul e singurul ei fard, Dulci unduiri n trupul prea aspru al vorbirii... i-i rumen la fa pentru c ntreg eu ard. Nu-i es nici mndru vlnic izvod cu chip de floare Nici straie de imagini cu care s-o mbrac: n pura-i goliciune unica ei spendoare Mii de-mbtri stau strnse ca dintr-un lan de mac. m toat-a ei fptur nu e nici o greal: Sub msurate graii adncul voluptii... De-aceea nu se teme s i se-arate goal, Asemenea zeiei ieit ideal Din spasmele cu spume ale eternitii: Ca altdat Paris, ncununat cu laur, Iubirii mele-ntinde-i rvnitul mr de aur...) (1958) [English version by Cristina Ttaru; in SLFS, pp. 190-191]

Vasile Voiculescu CCI (47) Thy love won't change? Only thy lovers do? Same fires flame new faggots, ceaselessly? Thy hell burns up but those convicted to Eternal worship? Why, then, that is me. In thy white demonry I hopeless fell, And in each torture feel eternity: My senses, as six ghastly asps of hell, Imbue my mind with poison, stirred by thee. The frost of bliss doth make pain sparkle, cold, And vice, that diamond fierce, at once doth smother To thousand rainbows my delight, that hold Eden on one end, gritting on the other. Poor Adam, at saint Heavens' gate I cry, When thou dost chase me from thy hell so high.
(Iubirea-i neclintit? i schimbi numai iubiii? Arunci alte noi vreascuri pe-acelai foc mereu? Gheena ta nu arde dect pe osndiii La dragostea etern? Atunci acela-s eu. n alba-i demonie czut fr scpare, Presimt ce-i venicia cu fiecare chin, i simurile-mi, ase nprci spimnttoare, De tine asmuite, m-mbat cu venin. De gerul voluptii durerile-mi scnteie, i viiul, deodat nprasnic diamant, Plcerea mi resfir n mii de curcubeie, C-un capt n edenuri, scrnirea-n cellalt... i plng, Adam nemernic, la sacre pori de rai, Din iadurile-i nalte afar cnd m dai...) (1955) [English version by Cristina Ttaru; in SLFS, pp. 114-115]

Vasile Voiculescu CCXLIV (90) So, do I spoil thy fame? Why, let me say, Ocean of wit who drown'st all memory, Who could, so much the more a fool astray And in whichever way, defile the sea? I've haunted through thy life, I, churlish Will, And could not with thy fiery greatness keep! Then did I dare, while humbly I did kneel, To bring thee low... down to my meekness deep. If I by shades thy kingly light translated, Just like my eyes, my dreams are wet with tears. I mimicked thee: child who learns speech, elated, And in his zeal distorts the words he hears. Yet, timeless sun, allow me that I stay A wretched bug that's basking in thy ray.
(Stric oare faimei tale? ngduie s-i spun, Oceanule de geniu ce-neci chiar i uitarea. Cine-ar putea, cu atta mai mult un biet nebun, i n ce chip pe lume, s pngreasc marea? i-am bntuit viaa, eu, bdranul Will: Nu am putut ajunge nprasnica-i mrire! Am cutezat atuncea, ngenuncheat umil, S te cobor... jos... pn-n adnca mea smerire... De-am tlmcit cu umbre lumina ta regeasc, De lacrimi, ca i ochii, mi-s visurile ude. Te-am ngnat ca pruncul ce-nva s vorbeasc i-n rvna-i sclciaz cuvintele ce-aude... Dar tu eti soare venic: o clip poi ierta S fiu o biat gz jucnd n raza ta.) (1958) [English version by Cristina Ttaru; in SLFS, pp. 204-205]

History of English Literature: Old English to Elizabethan

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24

[Other texts:] William Carlos Williams Lear When the world takes over for us and the storm in the trees replaces our brittle consciences (like ships, female to all seas) when the few last yellow leaves stand out like flags on tossed ships at anchor our minds are rested Yesterday we sweated and dreamed or sweated in our dreams walking at a loss through the bulk of figures that appeared solid, men or women, but as we approached down the paved corridor, melted Was it I? like smoke from bonfires blowing away Today the storm, inescapable, has taken the scene and we return our hearts to it, however made, made wives by it and though we secure ourselves for a dry skin from the drench of its passionate approaches we yield and are made quiet by its fury Pitiful Lear, not even you could outshout the storm to make a fool cry! Wife to its power might you not better have yielded sooner? as on ships facing the seas were carried once the figures of women at repose to signify the strength of the waves' lash. (1948)
Note Lear the aging king whose madness reaches its height during a storm on the heath in Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear (1606) [in NAAL, p. 1097]

A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O, all the devils! This yellow Iachimo, in an hour, was't not? Or less; at first? Perchance he spoke not, but Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one, Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no opposition But what he look'd for should oppose and she Should from encounter guard. Could I find out That woman's part in me for there's no motion That tends to vice in man, but I affirm It is the woman's part: be it lying, note it, The woman's: flattering, hers; deceiving, hers: Lust, and rank thoughts, hers, hers: revenges, hers: Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain, Nice longing, slanders, mutability; All faults that name, nay, that hell knows, why, hers In part, or all: but rather all. For even to vice They are not constant, but are changing still; One vice, but of a minute old, for one Not half so old as that. I'll write against them, Detest them, curse them: yet 'tis greater skill In a true hate, to pray they have their will: The very devils cannot plague them better. This, of course, is only in part a realization of what Shakespeare wrote. Cymbeline was first printed in the Folio of 1623 and the distance between Shakespeare's 'manuscript' and the earliest printed texts continues to exercise scholars. But I am not, in fact, transcribing the Folio text. I am quoting from the Arden edition of the play by J.M. Nosworthy. His version of Posthumus's speech embodies a sum of personal judgement, textual probability, and scholarly and editorial precedent. It is a recension which seeks to gauge the needs and resources of the educated general reader of the mid-twentieth century. It differs from the Folio in punctuation, line-divisions, spelling, and capitalization. The visual effect is markedly different from that achieved in 1623. At one point, the editor substitutes for what he takes to be a corrupt reading what he, and previous scholars, assume to be the most likely emendation. The editor's task here is, in the full sense, interpretative and creative. The direction of spirit and main rhetorical gestures of Posthumus's outburst are unmistakable. But only close reading will exhibit the details and manifold energies at work. A first step would deal with the meaning of salient words with what that meaning may have been in 1611, the probable date of the play. Already this is a difficult step, because current meaning may not have been, or have been only in part, Shakespeare's. In short how many of Shakespeare's contemporaries fully understood his text? An individual and a historical context are both germane. One might begin with the expressive grouping of stamp'd, coiner, tools, and counterfeit. Several currents of meaning and implication are interwoven. They invoke the sexual and the monetary and the strong, often subterranean links between these two areas of human will. The counterfeit coiner stamps false coin. One of the meanings of counterfeit is 'to pretend to be another' which is apposite to Iachimo.
[in AB, pp. 1-3]

Leonard Cohen For Anne With Annie gone, Whose eyes to compare With the morning sun? Not that I did compare, But I do compare Now that shes gone.
[in SM.SPS, p. 22]

George Steiner After Babel. Aspects of Language and Translation Chapter One UNDERSTANDING AS TRANSLATION Act II of Cymbeline closes with a monologue by Posthumus. Convinced that Iachimo has indeed possessed Imogen, Posthumus rails bitterly at woman: Is there no way for man to be, but women Must be half-workers? We are all bastards, And that most venerable man, which I Did call my father, was I know not where When I was stamp'd. Some coiner with his tools Made me a counterfeit: yet my mother seem'd The Dian of that time: so doth my wife The nonpareil of this. O vengeance, vengeance! Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd, And pray'd me oft forbearance: did it with [Puzzle]

the chance to see you smiling like a child will in my lyre novel rays beget since that celestial moment when we met you don't know that the closeness of your eyes a life of endless grief soon pacifies oh, come again! Distil new rhymes, my pet eyes burn, my heart expands, now reconciled 'tis many years, and many more shall pass shine forth on me, without an hour-glass the joys which from your eyes I shall amass my large eyed and cold-handed wonder-lass is balsam for my heart as soothing, mild but still our ecstasies I can't forget as stars which in the evening quiet rise