Alison

Bytuene Mershe ant Averil
When spray biginneth to spring,
The lutel foul hath hire wyl
On hyre lud to synge:
Ich libbe in love-longinge
For semlokest of alle thynge,
He may me blisse bringe,
Icham in hire bandoun.
An hendy hap ichabbe y-hent,
Ichot from hevene it is me sent,
From alle wymmen my love is lent
Ant lyht on Alisoun.

On heu hire her is fayr ynoh,
Hire browe broune, hire eye blake;
With lossum chere he on me loh;
With middel smal ant wel y-make;
Bote he me wolle to hire take
For to buen hire owen make,
Long to lyven ichulle forsake
Ant feye fallen adoun.
An hendy hap, etc.

Nihtes when I wende and wake,
For-thi myn wonges waxeth won;
Levedi, al for thine sake
Longinge is y-lent me on.
In world his non so wyter mon
That al hire bountè telle con;
Hire swyre is whittore than the swon,
Ant feyrest may in toune.
An hendy hap, etc.

Icham for wowyng al for-wake,
Wery so water in wore;
Lest eny reve me my make
Ichabbe y-yerned yore.
Betere is tholien whyle sore
Then mournen evermore.
Geynest under gore,
Herkne to my roun—
An hendy hap, etc.

GLOSS: on hyre lud] in her language. ich libbe] I live. semlokest] seemliest. he] she. bandoun] thraldom. hendy] gracious. y-hent] seized, enjoyed. ichot] I wot. lyht] alighted. hire her] her hair. lossum] lovesome. loh] laughed. bote he] unless she. buen] be. make] mate. feye] like to die. nihtes] at night. wende] turn. for-thi] on that account. wonges waxeth won] cheeks grow wan. levedi] lady. y-lent me on] arrived to me. so wyter mon] so wise a man. swyre] neck. may] maid. for-wake] worn out with vigils. so water in wore] as water in a weir. reve] rob. y-yerned yore] long been distressed. tholien] to endure. geynest under gore] comeliest under woman's apparel. roun] tale, lay.

AQC's second poem -- and incidentally, I note that Bartleby has the whole collection here. It is, indeed, a rather powerful poem about being properly smitted in love with a woman called Alison (unlike this perhaps even greater 'Alison' lyric, in which the desire of the male narrator is more complicated and, even, ironic). He has, by his own admissions, 'fallen down feye' ('like to die' is a rather poor rendering of 'feye', I think; Keats's Belle Dame Sans Merci is a better sense of it). Perhaps this explains the slightly odd colouration of the beloved person: with her brown brow and white neck.

Amis

There have been a few pieces recently, here and there, about Martin Amis's old 'Space Invaders' book. I'm less interested in that (writer picks up paying gig: it's a dog-bites-man sort of headline) and more in the implications of this comment over 'alex' added to the LRB blog:

Can’t remember if it was Amis himself or a critic who described him as having a stylistic prowess out of proportion to his emotional development: but this subject seems commensurate to his talents, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.

This has some intriguing implications: why should it be, after all, that a sophisticated style correlates to a sophistocated emotional awareness? Mightn't we want to suggest that in fact something the reverse is true?

dscr

The sound 'dscr' is almost impossible to say as a single syllable. Yet (for instance, in the middle of the word 'widescreen') it has the quantity of one syllable -- doesn't it? I'm missing something.

Sumer Is Icumen In

Picked up a 1900 first-edition of this old warhorse from a charity short (£2), and have decided to work through it, poem by poem, on this blog -- though not, obviously, on consecutive days, since that would turn the Europrog wholly over to the project for years to come. But from time to time, starting with AQC's first poem:

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
Lhouþ after calue cu.
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, wel singes þu cuccu;
Ne swik þu nauer nu.
Pes:
Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!

There's a whole wikipedia page devoted to this poem, I discover, including a modern English version:

Summer has arrived,
Loudly sing, Cuckoo!
The seed grows and the meadow
blooms
And the wood springs anew,
Sing, Cuckoo!
The ewe bleats after the lamb
The cow lows after the calf.
The bullock stirs, the stag farts,
Merrily sing, Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo, well you sing,
cuckoo;
Don't ever you stop now,
Sing cuckoo now. Sing, Cuckoo.
Sing Cuckoo. Sing cuckoo now!

But I prefer the original (could anything be flatter than 'summer has arrived'?). I remember my first-year-poetry-course lecturer dilating upon the farting buck of line 8 -- he told us that when the grazing animals get onto the fresh green grass in later spring it makes them much fartier than old grass, or hay, which seemed to me an Interesting Fact, and certainly one that has stuck with me.

But now I'm wondering: is this a lewd poem? Is it a poem singing the delights of early summer shagging, 'cuckoo' sounding through it rather as the refrain does in Joyce's Ulysses? The virile stag and bullock, the female who groweþ sed as a result of the man who, cum-ishly, 'bloweþ med'? Perhaps 'murie' is not merrily so much as Mary, the girl with whom the narrator is enjoying his roll in the hay? Or maybe I have a dirty mind.

Beowulf prologue

The third of my Beowulf posts: a translation of the first 55-lines, aiming to reproduce more of the sounds of the original, line-by-line, and to give it a fresher, less archaic vibe:

Hey!
We’ve heard the Germans of years-gone-by,
all their great kings, and splendid stories,
how those athelings earned their fame.
Scyld Scefing was skilled at scattering enemies! 5
He crushed many clans and many mead-settlements,
undid all those earls. Since from the first he was
found to lack funds, he fell back on friendship, and
grew great with welcome, thrived on his own worth,
until everyone who lived in that land, and 10
over the whale-road too all of them knew him,
offered him fealty. He was a good king!

Then came his heir afterward into the world,
a son in his sight, who the one God sent him.
The folk frolicked; after formerly grieving 15
that they’d until then lacked an earl to lead them
for such a long while. Him the Lord gave,
this Wonder-Wielder the whole world’s fame;
Beowulf was renowned (his fame spread wide),
this Scyld’s son through all Scandinavia. 20
So shall good children all go gracefully,
giving fine gifts of gold under his father’s name,
that when he’s older loads of loyal followers
and best bosom-buddies, they’ll all come,
to redeem their oaths; lovely deeds doing, 25
by the might of the many man shall prosper.

Then Scyld expired at his destined hour
he went off full of years, on the way to God.
They bore him away to the briny beach,
those who were dear to him, did what he’d himself said, 30
when he’d had power of speech over the Scyldings;
beloved land-befriender who had ruled for a long time.

There in the harbour stood a ringed ship,
iced-over and outbound, a floating palace.
There they laid-down their much-loved Lord, 35
he, the ring giver, on the beam of his ship,
main-man by the mainmast. And much treasure fetched
from faraway, finely wrought, was brought in;
I’ve never heard of a comelier craft being equipped
with all gear of war and grim battledress, 40
with cleaver and corselet. On his bosom lay
multitudinous marvels, that were meant to move
over the flood with him far to travel.
They didn’t stint the store of sovereign riches,
thane’s great gifts, those that did 45
those that in former times forth had sent him
alone over the waves when still only a wee one.
what’s more they up-lifted a golden sign
high overhead, the home bear him,
offered to the ocean; sad were their spirits, 50
a mourning mood. Men do not ken
how to tell, in truth, no territorial man,
or hero under heaven, where that hull reached harbour.

Hwæt!

The second of my three consecutive Beowulf posts ponders the poem's famous first word. How to translate it? I have seen 'Lo!' and 'Attend!' and 'Listen!' and, Heaney's 'So!' All very well and good. Me, I'd like to see the sound of the word reproduced a little better (although 'What?' would be a little Bertie Wooster for this context). In yesterday's post I proposed: 'Hey!' which, though doubtless too informal, fits the bill in other ways. Today I'm wondering whether 'Word!' might not have a suitably early 21st-century vibe to it.

Gār‐Dena

The 'Gār‐Dena' are the 'Spear-Danes' from line one of Beowulf. All the translations I have read translate the name as 'Spear-Danes', which has a suitably tough-looking OE feel. But I was wondering: does it actually mean Germans? Can't find evidence to support it. The OED notes that 'Deutsche' and its cognates are ancient ('from the Old High German word diutisc -- diot "people"') but that the English didn't start calling them Germans until the 16th-century or later. 'Germans', of course, is from Tacitus' Germania. But where did that come from? Was it picked up from one of the German tribes themselves, who called themselves the Spear-folk, the 'Gār‐Diutisc' or Spear-men, 'Ger-menn'? I daresay there are endless dusty tomes already in the libraries arguing this thesis, or disproving it. But it gives me the chance to retranslate the opening lines of Beowulf:

Hwæt! Wē Gār‐Dena in geār‐dagum
þēod‐cyninga þrym gefrūnon,
hū þā æðelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaðena þrēatum,
monegum mǣgðum meodo‐setla oftēah.
Egsode eorl, syððan ǣrest wearð
fēa‐sceaft funden: hē þæs frōfre gebād,
wēox under wolcnum, weorð‐myndum ðāh,
oð þæt him ǣghwylc þāra ymb‐sittendra
ofer hron‐rāde hȳran scolde,
gomban gyldan: þæt wæs gōd cyning!

Hey! We've heard of the Germans of years-gone-by,
all their great kings, and splendid stories,
how those athelings earned their fame.
Scyld Scefing was skilled at scattering enemies!
He crushed many clans and many mead-settlements,
undid all those earls. Since from the first he was
found to lack funds, he fell back on friendship, and
grew great with welcome, thrived on his own worth,
until everyone who lived in that land, and
over the whale-road too all of them knew him,
offered him fealty. He was a good king!