General Prologue
lines 118-162: The Prioress
|
|
The Prioress’s Tale: Relating to the Past, Imagining the Past, Using the Past
Emily Steiner
An essay chapter from The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales (September 2017)
Tools
Emotional Encounters with the Past
At the end of the Shipman’s Tale, the Host chuckles over the story of a monk who sleeps with a merchant’s wife and gets away with it. As he turns to the Prioress, the Host changes his demeanor, addressing that lady “As curteisly as it had been a mayde” (ShT 446) in anticipation of a more decorous tale. Indeed, as we already know from the General Prologue, the Prioress acts the part of a genteel lady who spoils her lap dogs and lisps in French. In the portrait, the contrast between her role as head of a nunnery (a rank just under that of an abbess)—a role that should involve charitable works for the human poor—and her “pitee” for trapped mice comes across as comic.
As the Prioress indicates with her allusions to “Seint Nicholas” (PrT 514) and “yonge Hugh of Lyncoln” (684), the tale draws from the popular genre of saints’ lives (vitae), biographies of people with privileged access to the divine, as well as to a subgenre of saints’ lives, the lives of child-saints.[1] In these stories, the child has a special claim to sanctity, either because he or she is spiritually precocious—the Prioress admires St. Nicholas because “he so yong to Crist dide reverence” (515)—or because he or she dies prematurely, as in the case of Hugh of Lincoln, who was murdered in 1255. Child-saints are supposed to elicit particular emotions, such as tenderness for the child’s age and anxiety for his or her wellbeing. The Prioress stokes these emotions by emphasizing the youth of the singing boy, who “so yong and tendre was of age” (524). In three harrowing stanzas, she charts the grief of the boy’s widowed mother, who after an anxious night, begins to search at dawn “With face pale of drede and bisy thoght” (589) and with mounting fear as she learns that he was last seen in the Jewry (i.e., the Jewish ghetto): “With moodres pitee in hir brest enclosed, / She gooth, as she were half out of hir mynde” (593-94). In general, medieval saints’ lives strive to move readers to devotion through emotion; if the reader can feel pity, love, or fear for a long-dead saint, he or she may try to emulate the saint’s piety or pray to them for heavenly intercession. In that sense, the goosebumps raised by such a tale have the potential to shape readers into good Christians: worshipful and repentant.
In child-saint vitae, as in the Prioress’s Tale, the lives of special children are often cut short by tragic, even sadistic events, which presumably make one’s feelings for them all the more acute. The Prioress’s Tale evokes a further subgenre of children-saints ritually murdered by Jews; in turn, these disturbing stories show us that emotion is always a function of our relationship to the past, whether that past is understood as recent or remote. The Tale is set in a non-specific “Asia” (as many medieval exempla are), yet we are asked to imagine that location specifically as an English town. The most notorious ritual murder cases in England were those of Little Hugh of Lincoln (and St. William of Norwich [d. 1144]), (neither officially canonized), both of whom were said to have been abducted by Jews and killed in imitation of Christ’s crucifixion. Although these accusations may sound farfetched—and they did not go uncontested by contemporaries—they had real-world consequences for England’s vulnerable Jewish minority. Following the accusation in Lincoln, for example, eighteen Jews were executed, and ninety were imprisoned in the Tower of London; in Norwich, a local sheriff saved the community from the mob, but its fortunes declined, as did those of English Jewry as a whole. On February 6th, 1190, the Norwich Jewish community was massacred by a pogrom; in 2004, archeologists unearthed a medieval well, in which they found the remains of seventeen members of one likely Jewish, Norwich family, with the children piled at the top.[2] In 1290, Edward I expelled all Jews from his kingdom, their property forfeited to the Crown. Jews would not be readmitted to England for 365 years, but the intervening gap between expulsion and readmittance has affected the way that modern scholars and pre-modern writers interpret medieval stories of anti-Semitic violence.[3]
The presence of Jews in the Prioress’s Tale amps up its emotional charge. This is true not only because the Jews are accused of a crime understood to be peculiarly Jewish, but also because they embody a complex relationship between feeling and history for medieval readers as well as for modern ones. A century after the expulsion, Chaucer’s English readers likely experienced Jews as specters, consigned to a baleful past or antagonistic future; or perhaps more potently as “absent presences,” their very absence making them loom threateningly large.[4] To put this idea a different way, the presence of Jews in the Prioress’s Tale reminds us that proximity and distance can wreak havoc with our feelings about other people and not always in predictable ways. The Prioress, for example, historicizes her presentation of Jews by comparing them to villains from the Bible. She maximizes the rhetorical force of these comparisons: the Jews resemble Cain, whom God accuses of murdering his brother Abel in Genesis 4 (PrT 575); and King Herod who, in Matthew 2:16-18, is said to have massacred all infants under one year old, trying to rid himself of the newborn Jesus (“O cursed folk of Herodes al newe, / What may youre yvel entente yow availle?” [574-75]). Additionally, she links the scriptural past to the narrative present by alluding to recent but unspecified horrors, “as it is notable, / For it is but a litel while ago” (685-86). Even if, after 1290, medieval English readers were unlikely to meet Jewish people in person, their likely proximity to institutions of Jewish culture, such as the remains of synagogues or mikvehs (ritual baths), or books formerly owned by Jews, meant they continued to be in touch with a Semitic “real.”[5] Similarly, writers like Chaucer might expand or contract the time of Jewish enmity in order to meet the emotional demands of a particular narrative. We might ask, in the Prioress’s Tale, how “real” (embodied, recent, or near) do Jewish people need to be in order to provoke an emotional response?
Modern readers’ reactions to the tale, however varied, will presumably be quite different from those of medieval readers. This is in part because 21st-century readers have the opportunity to read the Tale alongside the history of European Jewry, which places the ritual murder accusation within a narrative governed by a different set of sympathies and advocating a different course of action (for example, tolerance, rather than persecution, of religious minorities). Readers might fear for the child and pity the mother and, at the same time, be repulsed by the slit throat, the desecration of the body, and the gory execution of the Jews, who, like traitors, are first dragged by wild horses and then hung. They may weep at the wonder of the grain on the tongue or be silenced by the ontological mysteries, like the living corpse, that are miracle stories’ stock and trade.[6] But they may also feel dismayed by the narrator’s hatred for Jews and by the thought that medieval readers rejoiced in their punishment. Certainly, the fact that anti-Semitism survives today and continues to generate lurid tales about Jewish conspiracy challenges any easy opposition we might make between medieval and modern morality. A trickier moral problem may lie with the Tale’s narrative ethics, the way that it provokes—and coopts—a huge range of emotions in the service of Christian piety. Modern readers, historically-minded, may be shocked more by Chaucer’s representation of Jews than they are by the Jews’ sensational crime. But can anger, shock, or pity, whatever their objects, ever succeed in making readers fully moral or fully modern? And, we might ask, does the success of the Prioress’s Tale for modern readers depend on a certain view of English history, a history emptied of medieval Jews or haunted by their ghosts?
Text
Performing Emotion—Enacting the Past
Although the Prioress’s Tale looks like a saint’s life, the protagonist is not a saint but a nameless boy who goes missing and suffers a martyr’s death (PrT 680). His anonymity is part of his appeal: anyone’s child could be abducted on the way home from school. The diminutive language that pervades the tale highlights his generic littleness: this “litel child” attends “a litel scole of Cristen folk” full of “[c]hildren an heep” (495; 497), where he learns to read Latin with his primer (“his litel book lernynge” [516]), just as “smale children doon in hire childhede” (501). What makes this child unique is his intense worship of the Virgin Mary, who, for him, is a second mother.[7] Medieval Marian tales often celebrate the Virgin’s miraculous intervention into the lives of ordinary folk. In the Prioress’s Tale, the miracle is twofold: the boy’s focused piety, expressed by the Marian refrain “Alma mater redemptoris” (Hail, Mother of the Redeemer), and his postmortem singing, masterminded by the Virgin. The wonder of a boy so devoted to Mary that he sings after death unites the town’s Christians in ritual community: the boy’s “litel body sweete,” wondrous to behold, is processed to the altar of the abbey church and buried with pomp in a marble tomb (681-82).If miracle stories are supposed to trigger feelings—fear, tenderness, anxiety, horror, pity—for the Prioress, then these feelings are complex because she identifies with different characters in the tale, as a performer and as a supplicant, as a child and as an adult. First, she identifies with the singing boy, whose youthful innocence makes him the ideal worshipper. In the Prologue to her Tale, she compares herself to a tiny child, less than one year old, who can “unnethes any word expresse” (485). This comparison might be read as a humility topos—tthe Prioress is modest about her ability to praise the Virgin (in line 460, for example she claims to be a spiritual infant). But as her tale amply shows, some children are remarkable in their ability to praise God: “for on the brest soukynge / Somtyme shewen they thyn heriynge” (458-59). By comparing herself to a small child, the Prioress highlights her own ability to perform religious tales and associates herself with the most innocent of beings, a “gemme of chastite” (609).
Although the Prioress identifies with special children who perform praise, she also identifies with female supplicants who, through their devotion, form an emotional trinity with the Virgin and Child.[8] In later medieval depictions of the Virgin and Child, the baby Jesus, traditionally portrayed as a miniature adult, stiff and regal, became more “baby-like,” chubbier and more playful, and the expression on the Virgin’s face fonder and more tender. The assumption behind such representations is that children are adorable, in the original sense of being “worthy of veneration”; through their startling littleness, they convert sentimentality into devotion. In many Virgin and Child images, a third figure joins the group, the donor, beneficiary, or artist, often drawn in smaller scale. Sometimes, as in figure 1, a painting of “The Virgin and Child with an Augustinian Canoness” in London’s National Gallery, this third person is an abbess, gazing piously at the baby Jesus whom the Virgin dandles on her lap. In her tale, Chaucer’s Prioress inserts herself into such a portrait: she triangulates herself emotionally between the Virgin and the baby Jesus, just as her singing boy is triangulated between his grieving mother and the Virgin. This triangulation of emotion allows for role-playing critical to Christian devotion.
For such miracles (the constant singing, the singing corpse) to happen, the body must be breached. In this sense, the singing boy recalls the Virgin Mary, whose intact body proves no obstacle to divine penetration; according to the medieval analogy, Mary was pierced by the divine spirit just as the sunbeam shines through glass. The Prioress, comparing Mary to the burning bush of Exodus, which burns but is not consumed, calls attention to the paradoxical body of the performer, sexually intact and yet violated: “O bussh unbrent, brennynge in Moyses sighte” (468). For the Prioress, virginity is essential to sacred performance, yet the tale shows how we come to know the sacred through violence and, more specifically, through the ways in which bodies and spaces are penetrated. To the boy, the Alma mater redemptoris is so sweet that he feels as if he has been stabbed in the heart: the “swetnesse his herte perced so / Of Cristes mooder that, to hire to preye / He kan nat stynte of syngyng by the weye” (555-57); and he swears he will learn the hymn even if he is beaten three times every hour for neglecting his primer (542). Like the sweetness of the song, the song takes control, passing unobstructed through the boy’s passive throat: “Twies a day it passed thrugh his throte / To scoleward and homeward whan he wente” (548-49). Most significantly, the act which sets the miracle into motion, the slitting of the boy’s throat, both violates the body and is itself breached: the cut obstructs both voice and breath but is itself overcome through divine grace.
The sweetness that pierces the heart, the song that passes through the throat: these phenomena occur in the body of a child who walks twice daily between home and school down a street which cuts through a Jewish neighborhood. This link between the body and the built environment—both passable, both hazardous—is key to the way that the tale fashions its miracle. It also shows that Jews are intrinsic to the tale not just as narrative villains, but also as historical denizens of urban spaces. At the beginning, we are told that the Jewish community is propped up by a local lord who permits them to practice usury (lending at interest), a practice that was critical to economic development, but detrimental to Jewish-Christian relations.[12] More sinisterly, we are told that the Jews’ street is freely accessible, but we are led to suspect it ought to be closed off so as not to endanger—or contaminate—the rest of the town: “And thurgh the strete men myghte ride or wende, / For it was free and open at eyther ende” (493-94). This street functions as a narrative “short-cut” and as a directional one; when a character takes a short cut, he is sure to meet trouble. And just like the boy’s permeable body, the Jewry, open but straitened, is a site of miraculous performance. From a different perspective, however, the tale is complicit with the centuries-long European project of ghettoizing the Jewish population, constricting its living space and sealing it off. Now, instead of picturing bustling neighborhoods, we remember medieval Jewish communities as one-block affairs, such as Winchester’s Jewry Street and Jewry Lane in Canterbury.
Finally, this notion of passage links performance to poetics in the Prioress’s Tale. The Tale is composed of rhyme royal stanza (rhymed ababbcc), which Chaucer reserved for elevated stories, heightened emotion, and higher-ranking narrators. Rhyme royal stanzas are stately with enough variation in rhythm and rhyme to capture entire narrative episodes. For example, lines 565-71 encapsulate the scene in which the Jews hire an assassin, who seizes the boy, cuts his throat, and throws him in a pit.[13] Compared to the rhymed iambic pentameter in which most of the Canterbury Tales is written, rhyme royal is stylistically more ornate. Its intricate rhyme scheme, for example, showcases multiple linguistic registers, as we see with the many French-derived, multisyllabic rhymes in the Prioress’s Tale, such as entraille-availle-taille; reverence-diligence; and lamentacioun-processioun. With the Prioress’s Tale, Chaucer proves himself master of this stanza form. He uses it, for instance, to contrast the elevated poetics of rhyme royal and the childishness of the boy, as in the rhyme at 519-20: “As children lerned hire antiphoner; / And as he dorste, he drough hym ner and ner.”
Rhyme royal is also, like the body, a material form, its stanzas strung together like the beads on the rosary in the hands of the Christ child (see figure 1).[14] Its stanzas give the impression of text rendered into material objects, just as with a rosary, one progresses through prayer from one bead to the next. In the case of the Prioress’s Tale, these textual objects are precious, small wonders like the grain on the tongue or the saint’s tiny body encased in jewels. These transformations of prayer to bead and text to gem are especially resonant in stanza 607-13, which describes the miracle of the singing corpse in lapidary form: “This gemme of chastite, this emeraude, / And eek of martirdom the ruby bright” (609-610).
Notably, Chaucer uses rhyme royal in four tales involving women and children (the Prioress’s singing boy, Constance, St. Cecilia, Griselda), whose innocence and forbearance are tested in frankly abusive situations. Two of these tales are told by nuns, professionally chaste but still violable as liturgical performers. How does rhyme royal highlight the (in)violability of the body? Rhyme royal stanzas resemble the body, at once self-contained and vulnerable. They are bound by line number and girded by rhyme, like sonnets in miniature with couplets at the close. And yet they make up—and permeate—larger narratives, their rhymes wandering from one stanza to another, as with the repeated rhyme throte/note/rote and seye/weye. This dynamic between open and closed forms is exemplified by the Latin refrain Alma mater redemptoris, which travels from stanza to stanza, in various metrical positions: “He Alma redemptoris herde herde synge” (518); “ ‘O alma redemptoris’ everemo” (554); “He Alma redemptoris gan to synge” (612); and “Yet spak this child, whan spreynd was hooly water, / And song ‘O alma redemptoris mater’” (640-1).
Transformation
- The Prioress’s Tale offers a tiny window into medieval early education, a subject that historians such as Nicholas Orme have assiduously researched but which remains somewhat out of reach. What is the status of Latin literacy in this tale, as opposed to song, memorization, and performance?
- Chaucer uses rhyme royal in several other tales, including the Clerk’s Tale, where the stanzas often create enclosures that are at least as much psychological as they are physical. A well-known example is the stanza sequence in which the marquis, Walter, asks Griselda’s father for his consent to marriage, which Griselda’s poor father feels compelled to grant. How does rhyme royal produce different physical, psychological, and emotional effects in the Clerk’s Tale and the Prioress’s Tale?
- The last ten stanzas of the Prioress’s Tale take place in an abbey attached to a convent, a community of men or women bound together by canonical rule. The abbot, who presides over the miracle of the singing corpse, is deeply affected by what he sees, and he and the entire convent throw themselves to the ground, weeping and praying. In what other ways does communal religious life play a role in this narrative? How does institutional monasticism, its people, organization and architecture, impact the way the story is told?
- Some of the Canterbury Tales, such as the Knight’s Tale and the Miller’s Tale, take pains to associate the narrator to the tale, through the framing links (for example, the Miller’s competition with the Reeve) or through genre (the Pardoner, for instance, tells a tale related to the topic of his sermon). Others, such as the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, feel as if they could be told by anyone. The Prioress’s Tale, appropriately, is told by a narrator with a strongly pious voice using a poetic form reserved for more elevated speakers and subjects. Is this voice also a strongly gendered voice, and if so, how do we know? Compare the Prioress to the Wife of Bath: how does gender matter to the construction of narrative voice?
Works Cited and Suggestions for Further Reading:
Bale, Anthony. Feeling Persecuted: Christians, Jews and Images of Violence in the Middle Ages. London: Reaktion Books, 2010.— — —. The Jew in the Medieval Book: English Antisemitisms, 1350-1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Donavin, Georgiana. “Chaucer and Dame School.” In Scribit Mater: Mary and the Language Arts in the Literature of Medieval England. Catholic University of America Press, 2012, 163-219.
Gayk, Shannon “‘To wondre upon this thyng’: Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale.” Exemplaria 22.2 (2010): 138-56.
Holsinger, Bruce. “Musical Violence and the Pedagogical Body: the Prioress’s Tale and the Ideologies of ‘Song.’” In Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture: Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer. Stanford University Press, 2001, 259-94
Kruger, Steven. The Spectral Jew: Conversion and Embodiment in Medieval Europe. University of Minnesota Press, 2005.
Krummel, Miriamne. Crafting Jewishness in Medieval England: Legally Absent, Virtually Present. Palgrave, 2011.
Lavezzo, Kathy. “The Minster and the Privy: Rereading The Prioress’s Tale.” PMLA 126.2 (2011): 363-82.
Mitchell, J. Allan. Becoming Human: The Matter of the Medieval Child. University of Minnesota Press, 2014, 133.
Mundill, Robin. The King’s Jews: Money, Massacre and Exodus in Medieval England. London, Continuum, 2010.
Price, Merrall Llewelyn. “Sadism and Sentimentality: Absorbing Antisemitism in Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review 43.2 (2008): 197-214.
Rouse, Robert. “Emplaced Reading, or Towards a Spatial Hermeneutic for Medieval Romance.” In Medieval Romance and Material Culture, edited by Nicholas Perkins. D.S. Brewer, 2015, 41-58.
Tomasch, Sylvia. “Postcolonial Chaucer and the Virtual Jew.” In The Postcolonial Middle Ages. Edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Palgrave, 2000, 243-260.
+Notes:
[1] In this chapter I refer to the narrator as “the Prioress,” because her tale-telling voice is so distinctive.[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-13855238. Shortly after the discovery, the bodies were given a Jewish burial in Earlham cemetery in Norwich. Perhaps the most horrific documented conflict occurred in York in 1190, where some 150 Jews were murdered in Clifford’s Tower, where they had sought refuge, many of them committing suicide before they could be taken.
[3] For further reading on the history of the Jews in England, see Bale and Mundill (below).
[4] See Kruger, Tomasch, and Krummel (below).
[5] On proximity, Jews, and material culture, see Rouse (below).
[6] See Gayk (below).
[7] Though notably neither she nor the widow keep him safe from harm. See Price (below).
[8] The real children mentioned in her tale—the singing boy, St. Nicholas, Little Hugh of Lincoln, the innocents slain by Herod—all are closely linked to the Christ child seated in Mary’s lap.
[9] On song, learning, and performance in the Prioress’s Tale, see Holsinger and Donavin (above).
[10] Foundational texts are Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 148 in the Confessions, and Basil’s commentary on the same psalm in the Hexaemeron.
[11] See Mitchell (above) on the singing boy as automaton in Becoming Human: The Matter of the Medieval Child.
[12] Lavezzo (above) shows how important Jewish moneylending was to the building of Christian churches despite the Church’s prohibition on usury and its demonization of Jewish usurers.
[13] It is this feature of rhyme royal that makes it useful for retelling saints’ lives, such as the Second Nun’s Tale of St. Cecilia, or romance, such as the Man of Law’s Tale about the itinerant princess Constance, or the Clerk’s Tale, a rags-to-riches story with a long-suffering heroine.
453 O Lord, oure Lord, thy name how merveillous Oh Lord, our Lord, how marvelous thy name
454 Is in this large world ysprad -- quod she -- Is spread in this large world -- said she --
455 For noght oonly thy laude precious For not only thy precious praise
456 Parfourned is by men of dignitee, Is performed by men of dignity,
457 But by the mouth of children thy bountee But by the mouths of children thy goodness
458 Parfourned is, for on the brest soukynge Is made known, for on the breast sucking
459 Somtyme shewen they thyn heriynge. Sometimes they show thy praise.
460 Wherfore in laude, as I best kan or may, Therefore in praise, as I best know how or can,
461 Of thee and of the white lylye flour Of thee and of the white lily flour
462 Which that the bar, and is a mayde alway, That bore thee, and is a maid always,
463 To telle a storie I wol do my labour; To tell a story I will do my labor;
464 Nat that I may encressen hir honour, Not that I may increase her honor,
465 For she hirself is honour and the roote For she herself is honor and the root
466 Of bountee, next hir Sone, and soules boote. Of goodness, next to her Son, and soul's remedy.
467 O mooder Mayde, O mayde Mooder free! Oh mother Maiden, Oh generous maiden and Mother!
468 O bussh unbrent, brennynge in Moyses sighte, Oh bush unburned, burning in Moses' sight,
469 That ravyshedest doun fro the Deitee, That ravished down from the Deity,
470 Thurgh thyn humblesse, the Goost that in th' alighte, Through thy humility, the Ghost that alighted in thee,
471 Of whos vertu, whan he thyn herte lighte, By whose power, when he illuminated thy heart,
472 Conceyved was the Fadres sapience, The Father's Wisdom was conceived,
473 Help me to telle it in thy reverence! Help me to tell it in thy reverence!
474 Lady, thy bountee, thy magnificence, Lady, thy goodness, thy magnificence,
475 Thy vertu and thy grete humylitee Thy virtue and thy great humility
476 Ther may no tonge expresse in no science; There can no tongue express in (the language of) any science;
477 For somtyme, Lady, er men praye to thee, For sometimes, Lady, ere men pray to thee,
478 Thou goost biforn of thy benyngnytee, Thou goest before because of thy kindliness,
479 And getest us the lyght, of thy preyere, And gettest us the light, by thy prayer,
480 To gyden us unto thy Sone so deere. To guide us unto thy Son so dear.
481 My konnyng is so wayk, O blisful Queene, My ability is so weak, Oh blissful Queen,
482 For to declare thy grete worthynesse To declare thy great worthiness
483 That I ne may the weighte nat susteene; That I can not sustain the weight;
484 But as a child of twelf month oold, or lesse, But as a child of twelve months old, or less,
485 That kan unnethes any word expresse, That can hardly express any word,
486 Right so fare I, and therfore I yow preye, Right so I do, and therefore I pray to you,
487 Gydeth my song that I shal of yow seye. Guide my song that I shall say of you.
The Prioress' Tale
488 Ther was in Asye, in a greet citee, There was in Asia, in a great city,
489 Amonges Cristene folk a Jewerye, Among Christian folk a Ghetto,
490 Sustened by a lord of that contree Sustained by a lord of that country
491 For foule usure and lucre of vileynye, For foul usury and shameful profits,
492 Hateful to Crist and to his compaignye; Hateful to Christ and to his company;
493 And thurgh the strete men myghte ride or wende, And through the street men might ride or go,
494 For it was free and open at eyther ende. For it was free and open at either end.
495 A litel scole of Cristen folk ther stood A little school of Christian folk there stood
496 Doun at the ferther ende, in which ther were Down at the farther end, in which there were
497 Children an heep, ycomen of Cristen blood, A good many children, descended from Christian blood,
498 That lerned in that scole yeer by yere That learned in that school year by year
499 Swich manere doctrine as men used there, Such sort of doctrine as men used there,
500 This is to seyn, to syngen and to rede, This is to say, to sing and to read,
501 As smale children doon in hire childhede. As small children do in their childhood.
502 Among thise children was a wydwes sone, Among these children was a widow's son,
503 A litel clergeon, seven yeer of age, A little schoolboy, seven years of age,
504 That day by day to scole was his wone, Whose custom was day by day to go to school,
505 And eek also, where as he saugh th' ymage And in addition, moreover, where he saw the image
506 Of Cristes mooder, hadde he in usage, Of Christ's mother, he had the practice,
507 As hym was taught, to knele adoun and seye As was taught to him, to kneel down and say
508 His Ave Marie, as he goth by the weye. His `Hail Mary,' as he goes by the way.
509 Thus hath this wydwe hir litel sone ytaught Thus this widow has taught her little son
510 Oure blisful Lady, Cristes mooder deere, Our blissful Lady, Christ's dear mother,
511 To worshipe ay, and he forgat it naught, To worship always, and he forgot it not,
512 For sely child wol alday soone leere. For an innocent child will always quickly learn.
513 But ay, whan I remembre on this mateere, But always, when I think about this matter,
514 Seint Nicholas stant evere in my presence, Saint Nicholas stands ever in my mind,
515 For he so yong to Crist dide reverence. Because he so young did reverence to Christ.
516 This litel child, his litel book lernynge, This little child, learning his little book,
517 As he sat in the scole at his prymer, As he sat in the school at his primer,
518 He Alma redemptoris herde synge, He heard `Gracious (mother) of the Redeemer' being sung,
519 As children lerned hire antiphoner; As children learned their antiphonal hymns;
520 And as he dorste, he drough hym ner and ner, And as he dared, he drew him nearer and nearer,
521 And herkned ay the wordes and the noote, And listened always to the words and the notes,
522 Til he the firste vers koude al by rote. Until he knew the first verse entirely by heart.
523 Noght wiste he what this Latyn was to seye, He knew not what this Latin meant,
524 For he so yong and tendre was of age. For he was so young and tender of age.
525 But on a day his felawe gan he preye But on one day he did pray his fellow
526 T' expounden hym this song in his langage, To explain to him this song in his language,
527 Or telle hym why this song was in usage; Or tell him why this song was in regular use;
528 This preyde he hym to construe and declare This he prayed him to translate and explain
529 Ful often tyme upon his knowes bare. Very frequently upon his bare knees.
530 His felawe, which that elder was than he, His fellow, who was older than he,
531 Answerde hym thus: "This song, I have herd seye, Answered him thus: "This song, I have heard tell,
532 Was maked of our blisful Lady free, Was composed about our generous blissful Lady,
533 Hire to salue, and eek hire for to preye To salute her, and also to pray her
534 To been oure help and socour whan we deye. To be our help and succour when we die.
535 I kan namoore expounde in this mateere. I can explain no more of this matter.
536 I lerne song; I kan but smal grammeere." I learn song; I know but little grammar."
537 "And is this song maked in reverence "And is this song composed in reverence
538 Of Cristes mooder?" seyde this innocent. Of Christ's mother?" said this innocent.
539 "Now, certes, I wol do my diligence "Now, certainly, I will do my best efforts
540 To konne it al er Cristemasse be went. To learn it all before Christmas is gone.
541 Though that I for my prymer shal be shent Though I for my primer shall be punished
542 And shal be beten thries in an houre, And shall be beaten thrice in an hour,
543 I wol it konne Oure Lady for to honoure!" I will learn it to honor Our Lady!"
544 His felawe taughte hym homward prively, His fellow privately taught him (as they went) homeward,
545 Fro day to day, til he koude it by rote, From day to day, until he knew it by heart,
546 And thanne he song it wel and boldely, And then he sang it well and boldly,
547 Fro word to word, acordynge with the note. From word to word, in harmony with the tune.
548 Twies a day it passed thurgh his throte, Twice a day it passed through his throat,
549 To scoleward and homward whan he wente; When he went toward school and homeward;
550 On Cristes mooder set was his entente. On Christ's mother his mind was set.
551 As I have seyd, thurghout the Juerie As I have said, throughout the Ghetto
552 This litel child, as he cam to and fro, This little child, as he came to and fro,
553 Ful murily than wolde he synge and crie Very merrily then would he sing and cry
554 O Alma redemptoris everemo. Always `O Gracious (mother) of the Redeemer'
555 The swetnesse his herte perced so So pierced his heart the sweetness
556 Of Cristes mooder that, to hire to preye, Of Christ's mother that, to pray to her,
557 He kan nat stynte of syngyng by the weye. He can not stop singing by the way.
558 Oure firste foo, the serpent Sathanas, Our first foe, the serpent Satan,
559 That hath in Jues herte his waspes nest, That has his wasp's nest in Jews' hearts,
560 Up swal, and seide, "O Hebrayk peple, allas! Swelled up, and said, "Oh Hebraic people, alas!
561 Is this to yow a thyng that is honest, Is this a thing that is honorable to you,
562 That swich a boy shal walken as hym lest That such a boy shall walk as he pleases
563 In youre despit, and synge of swich sentence, In scorn of you, and sing of such a subject,
564 Which is agayn youre lawes reverence?" Which is against your law's (due) reverence?"
To test your knowledge of the Middle English, take a quiz.
565 Fro thennes forth the Jues han conspired From thenceforth the Jews have conspired
566 This innocent out of this world to chace. To drive this innocent out of this world.
567 An homycide therto han they hyred, For this they have hired a murderer,
568 That in an aleye hadde a privee place; Who in an alley had a secret place;
569 And as the child gan forby for to pace, And as the child began to pass by,
570 This cursed Jew hym hente, and heeld hym faste, This cursed Jew seized him, and held him tightly,
571 And kitte his throte, and in a pit hym caste. And cut his throat, and cast him in a pit.
572 I seye that in a wardrobe they hym threwe I say that they threw him in a privy
573 Where as thise Jewes purgen hire entraille. Where these Jews purge their entrails.
574 O cursed folk of Herodes al newe, Oh cursed folk of new Herods,
575 What may youre yvel entente yow availle? What may your evil intent avail you?
576 Mordre wol out, certeyn, it wol nat faille, Murder will come out, certainly, it will not fail,
577 And namely ther th'onour of God shal sprede; And especially where the honor of God shall spread;
578 The blood out crieth on youre cursed dede. The blood cries out on your cursed deed.
579 O martir, sowded to virginitee, Oh martyr, firmly united to virginity,
580 Now maystow syngen, folwynge evere in oon Now canst thou sing, following continuously
581 The white Lamb celestial -- quod she -- The white celestial Lamb -- said she --
582 Of which the grete evaungelist, Seint John, Of which the great evangelist, Saint John,
583 In Pathmos wroot, which seith that they that goon In Pathmos wrote, who says that they that go
584 Biforn this Lamb and synge a song al newe, Before this Lamb and sing a song all new,
585 That nevere, flesshly, wommen they ne knewe. (Are) those who never, in a carnal way, knew women.
586 This poure wydwe awaiteth al that nyght This poor widow waits all that night
587 After hir litel child, but he cam noght; For her little child, but he came not;
588 For which, as soone as it was dayes lyght, For which, as soon as it was daylight,
589 With face pale of drede and bisy thoght, With face pale from dread and intense thought,
590 She hath at scole and elleswhere hym soght, She has sought him at school and elsewhere,
591 Til finally she gan so fer espie Until finally she got so far as to discover
592 That he last seyn was in the Juerie. That he was last seen in the Ghetto.
593 With moodres pitee in hir brest enclosed, With mother's pity enclosed in her breast,
594 She gooth, as she were half out of hir mynde, She goes, as if she were half out of her mind,
595 To every place where she hath supposed To every place where she has supposed
596 By liklihede hir litel child to fynde; Most likely to find her little child;
597 And evere on Cristes mooder meeke and kynde And ever on Christ's meek and kind mother
598 She cride, and atte laste thus she wroghte: She cried, and at the last thus she acted:
599 Among the cursed Jues she hym soghte. Among the cursed Jews she sought him.
600 She frayneth and she preyeth pitously She asks and she prays piteously
601 To every Jew that dwelte in thilke place, To every Jew that dwelt in that same place,
602 To telle hire if hir child wente oght forby. To tell her if her child at all went by there.
603 They seyde "nay"; but Jhesu of his grace They said "nay"; but Jesus of his grace
604 Yaf in hir thoght inwith a litel space Gave it in her thought within a short while
605 That in that place after hir sone she cryde, So that she cried for her son in that place,
606 Where he was casten in a pit bisyde. Where he was cast in a pit near by.
607 O grete God, that parfournest thy laude Oh great God, who performest thy praise
608 By mouth of innocentz, lo, heere thy myght! By mouths of innocents, lo, here is thy power!
609 This gemme of chastite, this emeraude, This gem of chastity, this emerald,
610 And eek of martirdom the ruby bright, And also the bright ruby of martyrdom,
611 Ther he with throte ykorven lay upright, Where he with throat carved lay on his back,
612 He Alma redemptoris gan to synge He `Gracious (mother) of the Redeemer' began to sing
613 So loude that al the place gan to rynge. So loud that all the place began to ring.
614 The Cristene folk that thurgh the strete wente The Christian folk who went through the street
615 In coomen for to wondre upon this thyng, Came in to wonder upon this thing,
616 And hastily they for the provost sente; And hastily they sent for the magistrate;
617 He cam anon withouten tariyng, He came quickly without tarrying,
618 And herieth Crist that is of hevene kyng, And praises Christ who is king of heaven,
619 And eek his mooder, honour of mankynde, And also his mother, honor of mankind,
620 And after that the Jewes leet he bynde. And after that he had the Jews bound.
621 This child with pitous lamentacioun This child with piteous lamentation
622 Up taken was, syngynge his song alway, Was taken up, singing his song always,
623 And with honour of greet processioun And with the honor of a great procession
624 They carien hym unto the nexte abbay. They carry him unto the nearby abbey.
625 His mooder swownynge by his beere lay; His mother swooning lay by his bier;
626 Unnethe myghte the peple that was theere The people that were there could hardly
627 This newe Rachel brynge fro his beere. Bring this new Rachel from his bier.
628 With torment and with shameful deeth echon, With torment and with shameful death for each one,
629 This provost dooth thise Jewes for to sterve This magistrate had these Jews put to death
630 That of this mordre wiste, and that anon. Who knew of this murder, and that immediately.
631 He nolde no swich cursednesse observe. He would not tolerate any such cursedness.
632 "Yvele shal have that yvele wol deserve"; "Evil shall have what evil will deserve";
633 Therfore with wilde hors he dide hem drawe, Therefore with wild horses he had them torn apart,
634 And after that he heng hem by the lawe. And after that he hanged them by the law.
635 Upon this beere ay lith this innocent Upon this bier always lies this innocent
636 Biforn the chief auter, whil the masse laste; Before the chief altar, while the masse lasted;
637 And after that, the abbot with his covent And after that, the abbot with his convent
638 Han sped hem for to burien hym ful faste; Have hurried to bury him very quickly;
639 And whan they hooly water on hym caste, And when they cast holy water on him,
640 Yet spak this child, whan spreynd was hooly water, Yet spoke this child, when holy water was sprinkled,
641 And song O Alma redemptoris mater! And sang `O Gracious (mother) of the Redeemer!'
642 This abbot, which that was an hooly man, This abbot, who was a holy man,
643 As monkes been -- or elles oghte be -- As monks are -- or else ought to be --
644 This yonge child to conjure he bigan, He began to entreat this young child,
645 And seyde, "O deere child, I halse thee, And said, "Oh dear child, I beseech thee,
646 In vertu of the hooly Trinitee, By power of the holy Trinity,
647 Tel me what is thy cause for to synge, Tell me what is thy cause to sing,
648 Sith that thy throte is kut to my semynge?" Since thy throat is cut as it seems to me?"
649 "My throte is kut unto my nekke boon," "My throat is cut unto my neck boon,"
650 Seyde this child, "and as by wey of kynde Said this child, "and in the natural course of events
651 I sholde have dyed, ye, longe tyme agon. I should have dyed, yea, a long time ago.
652 But Jesu Crist, as ye in bookes fynde, But Jesus Christ, as you find in books,
653 Wil that his glorie laste and be in mynde, Desires that his glory should last and be in mind,
654 And for the worship of his Mooder deere And for the worship of his Mother dear
655 Yet may I synge O Alma loude and cleere. Yet can I sing `O Gracious (mother)' loud and clear.
656 "This welle of mercy, Cristes mooder sweete, "This well of mercy, Christ's sweet mother,
657 I loved alwey, as after my konnynge; I loved always, according to my ability,
658 And whan that I my lyf sholde forlete, And when I had to lose my life,
659 To me she cam, and bad me for to synge She came to me, and told me to sing
660 This anthem verraily in my deyynge, This anthem truly as I was dying,
661 As ye han herd, and whan that I hadde songe, As you have heard, and when I had sung,
662 Me thoughte she leyde a greyn upon my tonge. It seemed to me that she laid a grain upon my tongue.
663 "Wherfore I synge, and synge moot certeyn, "Therefore I sing, and must sing certainly,
664 In honour of that blisful Mayden free In honor of that blissful generous Maiden
665 Til fro my tonge of taken is the greyn; Until the grain is taken off my tongue;
666 And after that thus seyde she to me: And after that thus she said to me:
667 `My litel child, now wol I fecche thee, `My little child, at that time I will fetch thee,
668 Whan that the greyn is fro thy tonge ytake. When the grain is taken from thy tongue.
669 Be nat agast; I wol thee nat forsake.'" Be not afraid; I will not forsake thee.'"
670 This hooly monk, this abbot, hym meene I, This holy monk, this abbot, I mean him,
671 His tonge out caughte, and took awey the greyn, His tongue pulled out, and took away the grain,
672 And he yaf up the goost ful softely. And he gave up the ghost very gently.
673 And whan this abbot hadde this wonder seyn, And when this abbot had seen this wonder,
674 His salte teeris trikled doun as reyn, His salt tears trickled down like rain,
675 And gruf he fil al plat upon the grounde, And face-down he fell all flat upon the ground,
676 And stille he lay as he had ben ybounde. And still he lay as if he had been bound.
677 The covent eek lay on the pavement The convent also lay on the pavement
678 Wepynge, and herying Cristes mooder deere, Weeping, and praising Christ's dear mother,
679 And after that they ryse, and forth been went, And after that they rise, and forth are gone,
680 And tooken awey this martir from his beere; And took away this martyr from his bier;
681 And in a tombe of marbul stones cleere And in a tomb of clear marble stones
682 Enclosen they his litel body sweete. They enclose his sweet little body.
683 Ther he is now, God leve us for to meete! There he is now, God grant us to meet!
684 O yonge Hugh of Lyncoln, slayn also Oh young Hugh of Lincoln, slain also
685 With cursed Jewes, as it is notable, By cursed Jews, as it is well known,
686 For it is but a litel while ago, For it is but a little while ago,
687 Preye eek for us, we synful folk unstable, Pray also for us, we sinful folk unstable,
688 That of his mercy God so merciable That of his mercy God so merciful
689 On us his grete mercy multiplie, Multiply his great mercy on us,
690 For reverence of his mooder Marie. Amen For reverence of his mother Mary. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment