No More Learning

3 MS Balliol 354, 1. 224 2- Anglia, XIVI, 243.


## p. 379 (#397) ############################################

Carols
379
The themes of secular carols are the feasting and sports of Yule-
tide, customs that were inseparable from the great hall of the
nobleman's residence, where the whole community was wont to
assemble for the Christmas festivities. To be sure, these carols
were sometimes sung at other seasons, for did not the Green
Knight entertain Sir Gawain with
Many athel songez,
As conndutes of Kryst-masse, and carolez newe,
With all the manerly merthe that mon may of telle 1 ?
but Christmas week in hall was the proper setting. Several carols
relate to the custom of bringing in the boar's head. The classical
example is the familiar carol,
The boar's head in hand bring I,
Caput apri differos,
but others, though less well known, possess equal interest. In one,
the minstrel relates how, in 'wilderness,' he was pursued by a
wyld bor,' 'a brymly best. ' In the encounter that followed, he
succeeded in refting both life and limb from the beast, in testimony
of which he brings the head into the hall. Then he bids the
company add bread and mustard, and be joyful. In another,
warning is given that no one need seek to enter the ball, be he
groom, page, or marshal, unless he bring some sport with him".
In still another, the minstrel speaks in the character of Sir
Christmas, and takes leave of
kyng & knyght,
& erle, baron & lady bryghts,
but not without a fond wish that he may be with them again the
following year. He hears Lent calling, and obeys the call : a
lugubrious summons indeed to the luckless wanderer who must
turn his back on this genial hospitality for eleven months to come,
and depend on the fortuitous goodwill of the ale-house.
Charming, also, are the songs of ivy and holly, which were
sung in connection with some little ceremony of the season. In all
the songs, ivy and holly appear as rivals; and, whatever the
ceremony may have been, it certainly was a survival of those
festival games in connection with the worship of the spirit of
fertility, in which lads invariably championed the cause of holly,
1 E. E. T. S. f. 484 ff.
Of. MS Balliol 354, f. 212 - Anglia, IXV, 257.
3 Bodleian MS, Eng. Lit. E. I. f. 23 a—Percy Society, LXIII, 25. .
• MS Balliol 354, f. 223 – Anglia, XXVI, 241.
• Ibid. 1. 208 6- Anglia, XXVI, 245.


## p. 380 (#398) ############################################

380
Transition English Song Collections
and lasses that of ivy? We can fancy young men entering the
hall with branches of holly? :
Here commys holly, that is so gent,
To pleasse all men is his entent, etc. ;
singing the praises of the shrub, and warning their hearers not to
speak lightly of its ; while young women enter from an opposite
direction, and go through a similar performance with the ivy.
Thereupon, both young men and young women enter upon some
kind of a dance, which resolves itself into a contest in which the
boys drive the girls from the hall:
Holy with his mery men they can daunce in hall;
Ivy & her ientyl women can not daunce at all,
But lyke a meyny of bullokes in a water fall,
Or on a whot somer's day whan they be mad all.
Nay, nay, ive, it may not be iwis;
For holy must haue the mastry, as the maner is.
Holy & his mery men sytt in cheyres of gold;
Ivy & her ientyll women sytt withowt in ffold,
With a payre of kybid helis cawght with cold.
So wold I that euery man had, that with yvy will hold.
Nay, nay, ive, it may not be iwis;
For holy must have the mastry, as the maner ise.
This débat of holly and ivy, like other songs of winter and
summer, looks back to that communal period, when dialogue was
just beginning to emerge from the tribal chorus.
Related to Christmas carols are spiritual lullabies, for the
simplest of the three forms of the lullaby is, virtually, a carol, in
which, along with other episodes of Christmas Eve and Christmas
Day, the spectacle of Mary singing 'lulley' to the Infant is de-
scribed. The refrain is all that differentiates this carol from others :
Lullay, myn lykyng, my dere sone, myn swetyng;
Lulley, dere herte, myn owyn dere derlyngó
In the second type of lullaby, Mary and the Infant talk to one
another. Mary regrets that a child, born to be King of kings, is
lying upon hay, and wonders why He was not born in a prince's
hall. The Babe assures her that lords and dukes and princes will
come to worship Him. Then Mary would fain know how she
1 Cf. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, I, 251, and chapter m; Ellis and Brand,
Popular Antiquities, 1, 68, 519 ff.
Cf. Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 53 6—Percy Society, LXXIII, 84.
8 Ibid. ff. 30 a, 53 6-Percy Society, LXXIII, 44, 84.
MS Balliol 354, f. 229 6-Anglia, XXVI, 279.
SMS Sloane 2593, f. 32 Warton Club, iv, 94.


## p. 381 (#399) ############################################

Spiritual Lullabies
381
herself can best serve Him, and He replies, by rocking Him
gently in her arms and soothing Him to sleep:
Ihesu, my son, I pray ye say,
As thou art to me dere,
How shall I serue ye to thy pay
& mak the right good chere?
All thy will
I wold ffulfill,–
Thou knoweste it well in ffay-
Both rokke ye still,
& daunce the yer till,
& synge 'by, by; lully, lulley. '
Mary, moder, I pray ye,
Take me vp on loft,
& in thyn arme
Thow lappe me warm,
& daunce me now full ofte;
& yf I wepe
& will not slepe,
Than syng 'by, by; lully, lulley1
The third type is distinguished from this by the melancholy
character of the conversation. The Mother tries in vain to assuage
the grief of her Child, and, when she fails to do so, inquires the
cause of His tears; whereupon He foretells the sufferings that
await Him.
A variant of this type introduces an allegory, in which a maiden
weeps beside the couch of a dying knight:
a
Lully, lulley, lull(y), lulley;
The fawcon hath born my make away.
He bare hym vp, he bare hym down,
He bare hym in to an orchard browne.
(Ref. )
In that orchard there was an halle,
That was hangid with purpill & pall.
(Ref. )
And in that hall there was a bede,
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.
(Ref. )
And yn that bed there lythe a knyght,
His wowndis bledyng day and nyght.
(Ref. )
By that bede side kneleth a may,
& she wepeth both nyght & day%.
(Ref. )
1 MS Balliol 354, ff. 210 b, 226 6-Anglia, XXVI, 250.
? Cf. ibid. ff. 210 a, 226 a-Anglia, XXVI, 249; MS Bodleian, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 20 a
--Percy Society, LXXIII, 19.
3 MS Balliol 354, f. 165 b-Anglia, xxvi, 175.


## p. 382 (#400) ############################################

382
Transition English Song Collections
All these poems are characterised by a lullaby refrain, and
it is the conventional introduction for the poet to describe the
scene as one that he himself witnessed 'this other night. ' The
device certainly savours of the French, but I have not yet dis-
covered a French poem of this character. Nor do there seem to
be corresponding poems in Latin or German. The metre of most
of the songs falters between the Teutonic four-stress alliterative
verse and the septenarius; the original type was, probably, English,
and later singers tried to conform it to a new metre. Moreover,
the word 'lulley,' which is the burden of the refrain, supports the
theory of English origin, and this supposition is also borne out by
the character of the secular lullaby, which has the same lugubrious
tone, with its regret that the little Child is ushered into a world of
sorrow. This is characteristically Teutonic.
Merging into the lullaby is the complaint of Mary, of which
many examples have survived. The song which blends these two
types is one of great beauty. As in other lullabies, the Virgin tries
in vain to soothe the Babe to sleep, and, distraught at His grief,
enquires its cause. Thereupon, the Child foretells the sufferings
that await Him, and each new disclosure calls forth a fresh burst
of grief from the afflicted Mother: 'Is she to see her only Son
slain, and cruel nails driven through the hands and feet that she
has wrapped? When Gabriel pronounced her “full of grace," he
told nothing of this. ' The medieval world thought long upon the
sorrows of Mary, as upon the passion of Christ, and this poem
portrays the crushing grief of the Virgin with the naïve fidelity
and tenderness characteristic of medieval workmanship.
The refrain of the poem shows that it was sung as a carol:
Now synge we with angelis
Gloria in excel(s)is.
Conversely, another carol, which is concerned with the events at
the cross, has, for its refrain, a complaint of Mary:
To see the maydyn wepe her sonnes passion,
It entrid my hart full depe with gret compassions.
Some of the complaints are monologues; others are dialogues
or trialogues. The monologue is usually addressed to Jesus or to
the cross, but, sometimes, it has no immediate relation to the
passion, and is not directed to any particular hearer. The
1 Cf. Guest, History of English Metres, 512.
: MS Balliol 354, f. 209 6, 225 6-Anglia, xxvI, 247.
3 Ibid. ff. 214 a, 230 a—Anglia, XXVI, 263.
* Ibid. 214 a-Anglia, XXVI, 262; E. E. T. S. XV, 233, xxrv, 126.


## p. 383 (#401) ############################################

Didactic Songs
383
a
dialogue is between Mary and Jesus, or Mary and the cross'.
In the trialogues, Mary, Jesus and John converse. John leads
the weeping Mother to the cross, she calls upon Jesus, and He
tenderly commits her to the care of the beloved disciple?
These complaints are based upon Latin hymns and similar
writings, upon Stabat Mater, Ante Crucem Virgo Stabat, Crux
de te Volo Conqueri, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Meditations
of Augustine and the Tractat of Bernard, and, while the English
poems display much lyrical excellence, they contribute little to
the tradition.
A similar type of poem is the complaint which the crucified
Christ makes to sinful man. This is usually a monologues, though
sometimes a dialogue, remorseful man responding to the appeal of
Christ, and pleading for mercy.
Other poems which celebrate the Virgin include prayers-some
in the form of carols, aves, poems upon the five joys of Mary, or
upon the six branches of the heavenly rose. Some of these songs
are translations, in whole or in part, of Latin poems; others seem
to be original. They perpetuate the intense ardour of devotion,
the mysticism, the warmth and rich colour of the earlier English
songs to Mary, and they heighten the effect by a superior melody.
Apart from the types of religious songs already considered,
there are a large number of moral and reflective poems. Some
of these are hortatory, urging man to know himself", to beware
of swearing by the mass, to make amends for his sins? , or to
acknowledge his indebtedness to God8. Others are contemplative,
and reflect upon the certainty of death°, the fickleness of riches
or fortune 10, the prevalence of vice", or the worldliness of the
clergy.
In their most highly developed form these poems are allegories,
12
1 Herrig's Archiv, LXXIIX, 263; E. E. T. S. XLVI, 131, 197, CXVII, 612; Bodleian MS,
Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 34 a–Percy Society, Lxxm, 50.
; MS Sloane 2593, f. 70 -Percy Society, iv, 10; Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I.
f. 270 Percy Society, LXXIII, 38.
3 E. E. T. S. OxVII, 637.
• Add. MS 5465, f. 68 a-Herrig's Archiv, CVI, 63.
3 US Balliol 354, f. 156 6-Anglia, XXVI, 170.
& Ibid. ff. 214 a, 230 a-Anglia, XXVI, 263.
7 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 306—Percy Society, LXIM, 44.
& Ibid. f. 27b-Percy Society, LXXIII, 39.
Ibid. ff. 386, 48 a—Percy Society, LXXIII, 57, 74; MS Balliol 354, f. 1776-Anglia,
.
XXVI, 191,
10 M$ Balliol 354, ff. 194 a, 206 2–Anglia, XXVI, 207.
11 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. 1. 606-Percy Society, LXXII, 96.
12 US Balliol 354, f. 156 2–Anglia, XXVI, 169.


## p. 384 (#402) ############################################

384 Transition English Song Collections
with conventional introduction and conclusion, and a prelude,
which is commonly in Latin. In some of the songs, the allegory
is highly articulated. For example, the poet pictures himself
as sallying forth on a bright summer's morning in search of sport,
with his hawk in hand, and his spaniel leaping by his side.
A hen pheasant is flushed, and the hawk gives chase; but, while
the sport is at its height, the poet suddenly finds himself en-
tangled in a briar, on every leaf of which is written the warning
revertere:
My hart fell down ynto my to,
That was before full lykyngly;
I lett my hawke & fesavnt fare,
My spanyell fell down vnto my kne-
It toke me with a sighyng fare,
This new lessun "revertere'i.
The summer's day symbolises the period of youth; the hawk, its
fierce passions; and the briar, conscience.
In the majority of the
songs, the allegory is less developed than in this.
Most often the poet represents himself as wandering through
a forest on a sunny morning. As he wanders, he hears the singing
of a bird, or of a company of birds, and the burden of their song
is some moral reflection or some exhortation. The allegory is
usually neglected after the introductory stanza. Almost invariably
the song concludes with a prayer for succour in death and deliver-
ance from the fiends. The conventionalised nature setting and the
allegory of these poems are clearly French, and the metres most
often used are the ballade stanza and the rime royal.
In the forms in which we have been considering them, these
songs were ill adapted to the ordinary audience of the minstrel,
and he, accordingly, popularised them by shortening them, intro-
ducing a refrain and substituting simple metres, in which the
rhythm is strongly marked.
These moral songs shade into another group of didactic poems, ,
which embody shrewd practical wisdom, of the type dear to
Polonius. They concern themselves with such homely advice as
to hold your tongue", to try your friends, to look out for a rainy
>
1 MS Balliol 354, f. 155 b-Anglia, xxvi, 168.
• Ibid. f. 1706-Anglia, XXVI, 180; Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 386–
Percy Society, LXXI), 57; Porkington MS, No. I-Warton Club, 11, 1.
8 Cf. MS Balliol 354, ff. 156 b, 157 a, 170 6-Anglia, XXVI, 170, 171, 180 et freq. ;
Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. ff. 24 a, 386, 606-Percy Society, LXXIII, 28, 57, 96
et freq.
• Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. ff. 22 a, 28 a—Percy Society, LXXIII, 23, 41.
5 Ibid. f. 23 6—Percy Society, LXXII, 28.
3


## p. 385 (#403) ############################################

Satires against Women 385
day and to beware of matrimony? These songs also employ the
prelude and refrain, and, incongruous as it may seem, often close
with a prayer. Some of them are distinguished by quaint and
picturesque humour, as is shown in the following stanzas :
Quan I haue in myn purs inow,
I may haue bothe hors & plow
& also frynds inow,
Throw the vertu of myn purs.
Quan my purs gynnyzt to slak
& ther is nowt in my pak,
They will seyn, 'Go, far wil, Jak,
Thou xalt non more drynke with v83. '
The songs warning young men to avoid matrimony belong to
the satires against women, a poetical tradition which was one
of the contributions of France to Buranic verse. In no class
of songs is the esprit gaulois more evident. That sly distrust
of woman which early insinuated itself into French romances,
and which grew bolder and harsher as the ideals of the renascence
encroached upon medievalism, in the poetry of the common people
found expression in blunt and broad satire. This tradition was
augmented, however, by a native English contribution, for the
satire which gives evidence of the greatest antiquity of all is
strongly alliterative, and observes the repetitions of early com-
munal verse :
Herfor & therfor & therfor I came,
And for to praysse this praty woman.
Ther wer III wylly, 3 wyly ther wer,-
A fox, a fryyr, and a woman.
Ther wer 3 angry, 3 angry ther wer,-
A wasp, a wesyll, & a woman.
Ther wer 3 cheteryng, ini cheteryng ther wer,--
A peye, a jaye, & a woman.
Ther wer 3 wold be betyn, 3 wold be betyn ther wer,-
A myll, a stoke fysche, and a woman 4.
Several different types of these satires are to be recognised,
but the style best designed to endear itself to the popular taste
was that used in little dramatic narratives of the Punch and Judy
school of comedy, in which the poet tells the story of a family
quarrel, wherein the good man is invariably worsted by his
muscular and shrewish helpmeet. This broad farce finds its
1 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 26 b.
• Ibid. f. 26 a–Percy Society, LXXIII, 34 eto.
: MS Sloane 2593, f. 56–Warton Club, iv, 14.
* Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 13 a-Percy Society, LXXII, 4.
E. L. II. CH. XVI.
25


## p. 386 (#404) ############################################

386 Transition English Song Collections
dramatic counterpart in those brawling scenes in the mystery
plays which pleased the rude populace, and, like the scenes
from the plays, the songs are not without clever and humorous
touches, as when the hen-pecked husband is sent flying from his
door, only to discover his doleful neighbour in a similar plight.
Does not such a song perpetuate a tradition of the Latin stage,
which the joculatores, with their rude performances, carried to
the Gallic provinces, and eventually bequeathed to the minstrels?
In another class of satires, women are praised ironically, the
refrain serving to turn the apparent praise to dispraise; thus :
For tell a woman all your cownsayle,
& she can kepe it wonderly well;
She had lever go quyk to hell
Than to her neyghbowr she wold it tell.
Cuius contrarium verum est.
To the tavern they will not goo,
Nor to the ale-howse neuer the moo,
For God wot ther hartes wold be woo
To sspende ther husbondes money soo.
Cuius contrarium verum est 2.
The third type of the satire against women is pretentious
and artificial. It consists in proposing impossible phenomena,
and then concluding that when such phenomena actually exist,
women will be faithful. These poems are drawn out to an in-
terminable length; a few specimen lines may suffice:
Whan sparowys bild chi[r]ches & stepalles hie,
& wrennes carry sakkes to the mylle,
& curlews cary clothes horsis for to drye,
& se mewes bryng butter to the market to sell,
& woddowes were wod knyffes theves to kyll,
And griffons to goslynges don obedyence,
Than put in a woman your trust & confidence.
These poems are scarcely more than translations of the many
French poems of the same kind'.
Of all popular poems, convivial songs, with their festivity and
their rollicking spirits, are the most engaging. For eight hundred
years students have been singing
Gaudeamus igitur,
Juvenes dum sumus,
and it is to these medieval student songs that the youth of to-day
turn as to the perennial source of convivial inspiration.
1 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 346--Percy Society, Lxxm, 51.
MS Balliol 354, ff. 228 a, 250 a-Anglia, XXVI, 275.
3 Ibid. f. 250 b-Anglia, XXVI, 277.
4 Cf. Montaiglon et Rothschild, Recueil de Poésies Françaises des xve et XVIe
siècles, Paris, 1855—78.


## p. 387 (#405) ############################################

Convivial Songs
387
Some drinking songs are daring parodies of hymns, justifications
of drinking by the Sacrament, credos of wine, women and song.
All these were already venerable in the fifteenth century.
Other songs savour of the ale-house rather than of college
halls. These look back to the folk-poetry. Drinking songs were,
assuredly, one of the early types of communal verse, and the folk-
element is apparent in many fifteenth century convivial songs, as,
indeed, in the corresponding verse of the Elizabethans. Such
well known refrains as 'Hey trolly lolly' and 'Dole the ale'
are of venerable antiquity, and the songs which consist of varia-
tions of a common phrase show an indebtedness, of course, im-
mediate or remote, to communal poetry. Thus, such a song as
the following plainly took its cue from the folk-song:
Bryng vs in good ale, & bryng vs in good alo,
For owr blyssyd lady sake, bryng vs in good ale.
Bryng vs in no browne bred, fore that is mad of brane,
Nore bryng us in no whyt bred, fore ther in is no game,
But bryng us in good ale.
Bryng vs in no befo, for ther is many bonys,
But bryng vs in good ale, etc. 1
This song, however, can hardly claim so remote an ancestry as
another, in which the repetitional phrases are, in themselves, of no
significance, and are merely used as framework. This is evidence
of remote origin, as the study of comparative literature testifies,
and the little Latin courtesy with which the song introduces itself
cannot conceal its real age:
Omnes gentes plaudite,
I saw myny bryddis setyn on a tre;
He tokyn here fleygt & flowyn away,
With ego dixi, have good day.
Many qwyte federes hazt the pye,
I may noon more syngyn, my lyppis arn so drye.
Many qwyte federes hazt the swan,
The more that I drynke, the lesse good I can.
Ley stykkys on the fer, wyl mot is brenne;
Geue vs onye drynkyn, er we gon benne.
A merry song that links the convivial poem to the satire on
women is the narrative of the gay gossips who hie them to the
tavern, and there, tucked away, discuss their husbands, though not
without many an anxious eye on the doors.
1 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 416—Percy Society, LXXIII, 63.
; MS Sloane 2593, f. 10 a-Warton Club, iv, 32.
& Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 57 6-Percy Society, LXXIII, 91; MS Balliol
354, if. 194 b, 206 6-Anglia, XXVI, 208.
25-2


## p. 388 (#406) ############################################

388
Transition English Song Collections
Hardly to be distinguished from convivial songs are the songs
of good fellowship, of 'pastyme with good companye,' which
exhort
Tyme to pas with goodly sport
Our spryts to reryve and comfort;
To pype, to synge,
To daunce, to spryng,
With pleasure and delyte
Following sensual appetytel
Such songs were especially liked by Henry VIII, when he was
a youth, and a group of them is to be found in his song-book.
The song of the death dance is represented in several manu-
scripts by a most melancholy and singularly powerful poem. The
insistent holding of the mind to one thought, with no avenue of
escape left open; the inexorableness of monotonous rimes; the
irregular combination of monosyllables, iambics and anapaests,
that strike like gusts of hail in a hurtling storm; all these aid in
compelling heavy-hearted acquiescence:
Erth owt of erth is worldly wrowght;
Erth hath goten vppon erth a dygnite of nowght;
Erth vpon erth hath set all his thowght,
How that erth vpon erth myght be hye browght.
Erth vpon erth wold be a kyng;
But how that erth shall to erth he thynkith no thyng :
When erth biddith erth his rentes home bryng,
Then shall erth for erth have a hard partyug2.
And so the poem runs for sixteen stanzas.
Love songs are varied, and they are genetically so complex that
they often baffle analysis. They range from the saucy and realistic,
though always animated, songs of the clerks, to the ornate and
figured address of the gallant, who imitates in his ruffled and
formal phrases models brought from over seas. Though some songs
have advanced little, if at all, from the rude amours of country
swains, and others are merely a transplanting of the graceful and
artificial toyings of the court-trained gallants of France, the majority
fuse traditions, so that a single song must sometimes look for its
ancestry not merely to direct antecedents in English folk-song and
French polite verse, but, ultimately, to French folk-poetry and the
troubadour lays of which this polite verse of France was com-
pounded. Indeed, English verse itself may hạve been directly
influenced by the troubadours.
The French types which were translated or imitated without
i Flügel, Neuenglisches Lesebuch, 148.
9 MS Balliol 354, f. 207 6—Anglia, XXVI, 217.


## p. 389 (#407) ############################################

Love Songs
389
material modification include the address, the debat, the pastourelle
and the ballade.
The address is a poem in stately and formal language wherein
the poet addresses his lady, his 'life's souereign pleasaunce. ' His
attitude is that of a humble and reverential suppliant, who, though
confessing the unworthiness of the service which he proffers, yet
relies upon the mercy of his lady to accept it. Not uncommonly
the poem is a New Year's letter, in which, failing a better gift, the
poet offers his mistress his heart—to her a little thing, to him
his all'.
Though the débat has a variety of themes in French lyrics, in
English it is restricted-save for the song of holly and ivy-to
contentions between the lover and his heartless lady. These
songs are as unfeeling as the vapid French verse of which they are
but echoes.
Of the type of pastourelle in which a gallant makes love to a
rustic maiden there are two examples. One of these pastourelles
was sung by Henry VIII and his companions, and, in somewhat
revised form, is still popular to-day:
'Hey, troly, loly, lo; made, whether go you? '
the medowe to mylke my cowe,' etc. ;
In the other, a gallant urges a maid to visit the wildwood with
him, that they may gather flowers, and at length she yields to
his importunity:
*Come oner the woodes fair & grene,
The goodly mayde, that lustye wenche;
To sbadoo yow from the sonne
Vnder the woode ther ys a benche. '
'Sir, I pray yow doo, non offence
To me a mayde, thys I make my mone;
But as I came lett me goo hens,
For I am here my selfe alone,' etc.
The more primitive type of pastourelle in which one shepherd
laments to another the treatment of an indifferent shepherdens
survives in a song attributed to Wyatt, but which he can hardly
more than have revised :
'I go
6
A! Robyn, joly Robyn,
Tell me how thy leman doeth, etc. 5
1 E. E. T. S. xv, 66- Padelford, Early Sixteenth Century Lyrics, XXXIV.
3 MS Sloane 1710, f. 164 a.
3 Add. MS 31922, f. 124b-Early Sixteenth Century Lyrics, 84.
* MS Rawlinson, C. 813, f. 58 6. This MS is being edited by the writer for Anglia.
5 Early Sixteenth Century Lyrics, 10.


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390 Transition English Song Collections
Transferred to the religious lyric, it has also survived in a
shepherd's complaint of the indifference of the clergy to the
welfare of their flocks.
Of all forms of French amatory verse, the ballade enjoyed the
greatest popularity in England. It was the form in which the
gallant most often essayed to ease his bosom of the torments of
love. Every phase of the conventional love complaint, every
chapter in the cycle of the lover's history, is treated in these
ballades precisely as in the corresponding verse in France? .
Light-foot measures, such as the lai and the descort, exerted
a noteworthy influence upon late Transition lyrics, though English
poets were content merely to adopt the characteristic common
to all the species—the long stanza of very short verses—and
did not observe the metrical peculiarities that differentiate one
species from another. This light-foot verse was cultivated to good
effect, and furnishes some of the best songs. They are rapid,
musical and enthusiastic. Any phase of the lover's experience
may be treated in this verse, but it seems to have been most
employed in those songs which deal with the parting, the absence,
or the reunion of lovers. The following verses, which open one of
these songs, will illustrate their grace and spirit:
Can I chuse
But refuce
All thought of mourning,
Now I see
Thus close by me
My love returning?
If I should not joy
When I behould
Such glory shining,
Sith her tyme of stay
Made me to decay
With sorrow pining,
Silly birds might seem
To laugh at me,
Which, at day peering,
With a merry voyce
Sing 'O doo rejoyce! '
Themselves still cheering.
Absence darke
Thou dost marke,
No cause but fearing,
And like night
Turnst thy sight
All into hearing.
1 MS Balliol 354, f. 156 a—Anglia, XXVI, 169.
* MS Rawlinson, C. 813, contains a large number of the ballades,
3 MS Harleian 367, f. 183–Herrig's Archiv, cvii, 56.


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Love Songs
391
6
A French type, which, while having no complete exponent,
has yet influenced several English songs, is the aube, or complaint
of the lover at the envious approach of morn, a motive which
Chaucer used with effect in Troilus and Criseydet, and which
Shakespeare immortalised in Romeo and Juliet. In one of the
songs, the refrain of an aube is put into the mouth of a 'comely
queen' (Elizabeth of York? ) who, in a 'glorious garden,' is
gathering roses
This day dawes,
This gentill day dawes,
And I must home gone.
The aube motive is also used as the introduction to another song,
in which a lover complains of an inconstant mistress:
Mornyng, mornyng,
Thus may I synge,
Adew, my dere, adew;
Be God alone
My love ys gon,
Now may I go seke a new%.
One of the earliest phases of the aube tradition, that the
approach of day is announced by the crowing of the cock, is the
theme of a festive little song, which, in other respects, is not at
all like the conventional type. Indeed, the light-hearted spirit
of this merry song is a direct violation of the aube tradition:
I haue a gentil cook
orowyt me day,
He doth me rysyn erly
my matying for to say.
I hane a gentil cook,
comyn he is of gret,
His comb is of reed corel,
his tayil is of get.
I have a gentyl cook,
comyn he is of kynde,
His comb is of red scorel,
his tayl is of inde;
His legges ben of asoor,
80 geintil & 80 smele,
His spores arn of sylver quyt
in to the wortewale;
His eyuyn arn of cristal,
lokyn al in aunbyr;
& euery nygt he perchit hym
in myn ladyis chaumbyr.
The repetitions in this song show that it is of considerable
antiquity.