Then, from a trunk that stood hard-by,
The Owl in turn made her reply,
O'er it the ivy grew apace;
There made the Owl her dwelling-place.
The Nightingale, who saw her plain,
Surveyed the bird with high disdain,
Filled with contempt she viewed the Owl,
Whom all men loathsome deem and foul.
"Monster," she cried, "take wings and flee,
I am the worse for sight of thee,
Truly, at thy black looks of yore
Full oft my song I've given o'er;
My tongue grows weak, my courage flies
When you appear before mine eyes,
I'm more inclined to spit than sing
At sound of thy harsh sputtering."
The Owl abode till it grew late.
Eve came, she could no longer wait;
Her heart began to swell and strain
Half choked with rage, these words she flung:
Till scarce she could her breath contain.
"What think'st thou now about my song?
Think'st thou in song I have no skill
Merely because I cannot trill?
Thou'rt like some cross-grained, crabbed wight, Who turns black looks on each delight,
Ready to grudge it, and to lower
If men are happy for an hour; He wishes rather to espy
Often to wrath thou movest me,
And dost abuse me shamefully.
If in my claws I held thee fast,-
And so, mayhap, I shall at last,-
And thou wert down from off thy spray
Then should'st thou sing another way.'
Then made the Nightingale reply:
"If I avoid the open sky,
And shield myself in places bare,
Nothing for all thy threats I care;
While in my hedge secure I sit,
I reck not of your threats a whit.
I know you cruel to devour
All helpless things within your power,
Wreaking your wrath in evil way
On smaller birds where'er you may.
Hated of all the feathered rout,
The birds combine to drive you out;
Shrieking and scolding after you,
They hard upon your flight pursue.
The tit-mouse, if she had her will,
Would tease you and would work you ill.
Hateful to look upon thou art
In many ways, and every part;
Thy body's short, thy neck is small,
As though with woad they had been dyed;
You stare as though you'd like to bite
Each thing your cruel claws could smite;
Just like an awl that has been crooked,
Your bill is stiff and sharp and hooked,
With it you hoot both oft and long, This passes with you for a song.
You threaten me, longing to clasp
My flesh and crush me in your grasp;
More fit for thee would be a frog,
That sits beneath the mill-wheel's cog,
Or snails, and mice, and creatures foul,Such are the sort fit for an Owl.
The blossom 'gins to spring and sprede
Upon the tree and on the mede,
The lily, with her face of snow,
Welcometh me, as well you know,
And bids me, with her aspect fair,
To fly to her, and greet her there.
So too, with ruddy face, the rose,
That from the thorny briar grows,
Bids me to sing in bush and grove,
A joyous carol for her love."
Now when the ghost with gruesome cheers 49
Thus had made his mournful moan,
The corpse, stretched stark upon the bier,-
A ghastly thing thus left alone,-
Its head and neck did strait uprear;
As a sick thing it 'gan to groan,
And said: "Where art thou now, my fere, 55
My ghost, that quite art from me gone?
"God shaped thee in His image fair,
And gave to thee both wit and skill;
He trusted me unto thy care
To guide according to thy will.
In witchcrafts foul I had no share,
Nor wist I what was good nor ill,
But like dumb beast thy yoke I bare
And as thou bad'st I must fulfill.
They bid him then his horn to blow, To urge on Bauston and Bevis, His hounds, well wont his call to know, For they would shortly sound the pris. A hundred devils, in a row,
Then wept the ghost most bitterly, "Body, alas, alas!" (it said). "That e'er of old I loved thee! Lost was the love I on thee stayed; Falsely you feigned a love for me, And me a house of glass you made; I gave you pleasures trustfully, You, traitor, still my trust betrayed.
"No longer, Body, may I dwell, No longer stand to speak with thee; Now I hear the hell-hounds yell,
And fiendės more than man may see;
Drag him with ropes toward the abyss,
The loathly flames are seen below,
The mouth of hell it was, I wis.
When once that dread abode is won, The fiends set up so loud a yell
7 Heckle. An instrument consisting of a board in which are inserted sharp spikes used for dressing flax or hemp, by splitting and straightening the fibres. See Burns' Address to the Toothache.
8 The note of the horn blown at the taking of the deer; used in hunting. French prendre.
A good womán is manės bliss,
When her love right and steadfast is.
No solace is there 'neath the sky,
Of all that man may name or try,
That man to joy so greatly moves
As a good woman that truly loves.
Nor dearer is none in all God's herd
Than a chaste woman with lovely word.
CURSOR MUNDI1
(c. 1320-1325)
THE PROLOGUE
Man yearneth rimes for to hear,
And romances of strange mattére,
Of Alisaundere2 the conquerour,
Of Julius Caesar the emperour,
Of Greece and Troy the strange strife
Where many thousand lost their life;
Of Brut, that hero bold of hand,
First conquerour of Engeland;
Of King Arthour that was so rike3
Whom no one in his time was like;
Of wonders that his knights befell
Adventures many as I've heard tell,
As Gawain, Kay, and others stable,
For they were men of the Round Table;
Then should there be thereafter told
How that Joséph was bought and sold;
How Moses 'midst the Jews arose,
That Goddės folk to lead them chose;
How God the law to him did give
By which the Jewish folk should live.
Of Saul the king, and David too
How he Goliath fought and slew;
And next of Solomon the Wise,
How craftily he did justice;
How Charles and Roland waged their fight, 15
With Sarcens they no troth would plight;
Of Tristrem and his dear Ysote
How he for her became a sote;
Of Joneck and of Ysambrase,
Of Ydoine and of Amadase,
Stories alsó of sundry things,
Of princes, prelates, and of kings,
Many songs of storied rime,
English, Frankish, and Latine.
To read and hear each one is prest
Of whatsoe'er he likes the best;
The wise man will of wisdom hear,
The fool to folly draws him near;
The wrong to hear of right is loath,
And pride with buxomness" is wroth.
But by the fruit the wise may see
Of what vertú is every tree.
All sorts of fruit that man shall find
Must draw from out the root their kind;
From goodly pear-trees come good pears,
Worse tree, the worse the fruit it bears.
That I should speak from this same tree
Betokens, man, both me and thee;
This fruit betokens all our deeds,
Both good and ill who rightly reads.
Our dedės in our hearts take root,
Whether they be for bale or boot;
For by the thing man draweth untó
For good or ill men shall him know..
How Christ came down through prophecy, And how He came His folk to buy.
[The author next goes on to enumerate various other matters of which he proposes to treat, such as the birth of Christ, the destruction of the innocents, the flight into Egypt, and so on through the gospel story. After this outline of the general plan and scope of his work he concludes his prologue as follows:-]
These are the subjects put in place
I think within this book to trace;
Speaking but shortly of each deed,
For there are many tales to speed.
Useful, methinks, it were to man
To know himself how he began;
How he at first was born and bred,
How o'er the earth his offspring spread;
Both of the first and of the last,
And in what course this world is past.
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