Three hyperlinked, annotated and translated Medieval English lyrics

1.
(ca. 1300)

Whan I thenke thynges three
Ne may I nevere blithe be:
That oon is that I shall awey;
That other is I ne wot which day;
The thriddle is my moste care—
I ne wot whider I shal fare.

Notes:
Ne = no, not, neither or acts as general negative of verb it precedes.
Wot = I know. This is the irregular first person present of witen = to be certain, to know..
Thriddle is found in no Middle or Early English dictionary I can find, but its meaning is obvious from the context.
Sources:
Evidently popular in its time, this poem is attested in at least five manuscripts, including the collection of New College Oxford and the Arundel collection at the British Library.
Text Notes:
The orthography of the three poems in this post was regularized by Robert D. Stevick in One Hundred Middle English Lyrics (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1964). The three poems here are numbered there, respectively, 21, 64 and 36.
Hyperlinks are to the University of Michigan’s very valuable (albeit unfinished) online Middle English Dictionary.

Translation [by DK Fennell]
(“Fears”)

Three things so disturb my thoughts
and prevent my happiness.
One is that I’ll cease to be,
Another: I know not when,
The third gives me greatest fear
I don’t know where I’ll go.

2.
(1400s)

Go, litel ryng  to that ilke swete
That hath myn herte in hir demeyne,
And loke thou knele doun at hir feet
Bisechyng hire she wolde not desdeyne
On hir smale fyngers thee to streyne,
Than I wyl thee seye boldely:
“My maister wolde that he were I.”

Notes:
Ilke = aforementioned, or, when used with definite article or demonstrative adjective (as here) the same. Here, however, it functions as an intensifier. The modern English anagram like, which means similar rather than the very one, evidently has a different Middle English origin.
Swete = sweet, as in contemporary English. And likewise it can act as a nominalized adjective: “Sweet one.” It was often associated with the most precious of religious symbols: the Virgin, the blood of Christ, etc. Oddly, the homophone swete is a noun meaning perspiration and symbolically used to describe man’s punishment from the Fall.  Man’s mortification is complete in this noun, for it also means “life blood.”
Myn – my. There are twop forms for most personal adjectives: my  myn, thy / thyn, hir / hires, etc. When it immediately precedes the noun it modifies my is generally used, except occasionally when the noun begins with a vowel, as here. In other cases myn is commonly used.
Loke – look. Loken means to use one’s eyes. Here it is used in the sense of “see to it.”
Hir – her. Part of the pronomial pair hir / hires.
Demeyne – exclusive possession; private land. Demesne is one of the key property concepts that entrenced the overclass in the feudal system. It meant that part of one’s real property that those lower were excluded from. Peasants who workedlands enfeeoffed to them by their lord were not entitled to the the use of any of the lord’s demesne. Lords themselves obtained their fee from the king. Lands retained for the king’s sole benefit were known as royal demesne.
Desdeyne – disdain; hold in ctempt. Imported with the Normans from Old French desdeignier (modern French dédaigner.
Streyne – to encircle. The word is very similar to other roots often confused in Middle English. Here it likely is a variant of streinen, meaning to fasten, tie, bind up and more figuratively to enclose (i.e., fence in) and bind (as if by an oath).
Wyl – desire; want
Source:
From manuscript in Royal collection, published in Rossell Hope Robbins, Secular Lyrics of the Xivth and XVth Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962)..
Comment:
Note the clever A-B-A-B-B-C-C rhyme scheme. 

Translation [by DK Fennell]
(“To the Ring”)

Go, little ring, to that dearest sweet,
Who has my heart in her domain,.
And see to it you bow at her feet,
While begging her not to disdain,
That you on her fingers remain,
Then I would have you say boldly,
“My master would rather be me.”

3.
(post 1300)

Al nyght by the rose, rose
Al nyght by the rose I lay;
Durste I noght the rose stele,
And yet I bar the flour awey.

Notes:
Rose (n.) – rose. (plant of the genus Rosa, and especially its flower). As a symbol of great beauty it became a heraldic emblem of great families (cf. War of the Roses). In the Middle Ages “rose” could refer to a person of great beauty, of great valor, or of great goodness (especially the Virgin). 
Rose (v.) -past tense of risen –  to rise and also to awake, to become alive. It carries the sense of excitement and readiness.
Durste – from durren – Io be courageous, to dare,  but also to be able to.
Lay – past tense of lien – to be recumbent, to lie down.
Noght – variant of  nought – not (adv.) nothing. (n.).
Bar – past tense of baren – to carry. With awei / awey (as here), imeans to carry away in the sense of  to steal.
Flour – flower, both in the literal sense, and, in the figurative sense of maidenhead (the source of flowering).
Source:
From manuscript in the Rawlinson Collection of the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. It was published in Robbins, Secular Lyrics, cited above.

Translation [by DK Fennell]
(“Theft”)

All night by the rose, awake,
All night by the rose I lay:
I dared not steal the rose,
Yet I take the “flower” away.

2018

03/01

POSTED BY

DK Fennell

CATEGORY

Poetry

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