Pearl, an English Poem of the Xivth Century
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\jf\>C^(r^ r^M\ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Coolidge Otis Chapman ,PhD. Cornell, 1927 URIS . CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRAfiY 924 059 407 035 DATE DUE i^Avi OBp PRINTED IN U.S-A. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924059407035 SELECT EARLY ENGLISH POEMS * SELECT EARLY ENGLISH POEMS EDITED BY SIR I. GOLLANCZ. VIII. PEARL, WITH MODERN RENDERING, &c. :'Q^;gf;;'0';.ig):;-.(S;::0"-V0L>;.©}l -'••' •^4. ' • 'ii'iimi'r'n By arrangement with Messrs. Chatto &^ IVindus, the publishers of " The Medieval Library" in which the Ordinary Edition is included, this Large Paper Edition {limited to 200 copies, 1^0 for sale) has been specially, prepared, to range in format with the " Series of Select Early English Poems" of which it forms Vohcme VIII. J^hlfn^yt ^.^jJi/ OAt PEARL AN ENGLISH POEM OF THE XIVI!? CENTURY: EDITED, WITH MODERN RENDERING, TOGETHER WITH BOCCACCIO'S OLYMPIA, BY SIR ISRAEL GOLLANCZ, Litt.D., F.B.A. HUMPHREY MILFORD : OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMEN CORNER: LONDON 1921 URiS LIBRARY lltM 9 k 1QQ1 ''^' vA^ ^^^ All rights reseri>ed WE LOST YOU—FOR HOW LONG A TIME- TRUE PEARL OF OUR POETIC PRIME ! WE FOUND YOU, AND YOU GLEAM RE-SET IN BRITAIN'S LYRIC CORONET. TENNYSON CONTENTS PREFATORY NOTE My edition of 'Pearl' in 1891 was my first contribution to Middle English studies, and my interest in the poem has remained unabated all these years, during which I have endeavoured to understand it aright and to unravel many a problem. Many requests have reached me from far and wide to re-issue the book, now long out of print, but I resisted these appeals until I could feel satisfied in respect of all the outstanding difficulties of the poem. I trust that those who are qualified to judge will recognise that the present new edition makes good its claim. As in the issue of 1891, so in the present edition, an unrhymed rendering into modern English faces the Middle English text. A translation which aims at interpreting the original is to my mind the best form of commentary ; at all events it clearly indicates the editor's decision, good or bad, on difficult passages. At the same time, for those who are not deeply interested in Middle English, it may serve as an adequate introduction to the poem, not the less effective for avoiding the perversions and obscurities that too often mar the attempts to maintain the highly complicated rhyming system of the original. It will, I think, be admitted that, both as regards text and inter- pretation, a new edition 6f ' Pearl ' is much needed. I am proud to know that my early enthusiasm for the poem, still maintained, has been efifective in stimulating so much interest in ' Pearl,' far beyond the limited circle of students of Middle English, and has gained for it, through X PREFATORY NOTE its intrinsic worth, a foremost place among the choicest treasures of medieval literature. I feel sure that, whatever may be the views of students as to the relationship of 'Pearl' and Boccaccio's Eclogue, ' Olympia,' they will be grateful to me for adding, as a com- plement to 'Pearl,' the original text of the Latin poem, together with my rendering into English. In 1891 it was my privilege to express my grateful acknow- ledgment to three great men who have since passed away : to Professor Skeat, my beloved master, for valued help ; to Holman Hunt, for having given 'Pearl' a noble place in English art by his drawing of the frontispiece for my edition of the poem ; to Alfred Tennyson for having graced with the most coveted of distinctions my efforts to re-set this Pearl ' in Britain's lyric coronet.' In recognition of cordial help in those now far-off days, it is a pleasure to refer to the fourth name then mentioned, that of Dr. Henry Bradley, happily still with us. I. G. King's College, London July 13, 1921. INTRODUCTION ' Of the West Cuntrh it semeth that he was, Bi his maner of speche and bi his style! ' Pearl ' in the Lineage o£ English Poetry.—While Chaucer was still learning from Guillaume de Machault and his followers the cult of the Marguerite, flower of flowers, as symbol of womanhood, a contemporary English poet had already found inspiration in the more spiritual associations of the Marguerite as the Pearl of Price. It is indeed rather with the Prologue of ' The Legend of Good Women' than with Chaucer's earlier effort of 'The ' Book of the Duchess ' that the poem of Pearl ' may best be contrasted, though Chaucer's Lament for Blanche the Duchess, as an elegy, invites comparison with 'Pearl' as elegy. From this point of view, Chaucer's Lament seems somewhat unreal and conventional ; our poem exercises its spell, not merely by its_ artistic beauty, but even more by its simple and direct appeal to what is eternal and elemental in human nature. Again, its artistic form indicates the peculiar position that ' this early In Memoriam ' holds in the progress of English poetry. It represents the compromise between the two schools of poetry that co-existed during the latter half of the fourteenth century, the period with which Chaucer is especially identified as its greatest and noblest product. xii INTRODUCTION. On the one hand, there were the poets of the East Midland district, with the Court as its literary centre, who sought their first inspiration in the literature of France. Chaucer and his devotees were the representatives of this group, for whom earlier English poetry meant nothing, and whose debt to it was indeed small. These poets preluded 'the ; were forward spacious times of great Elizabeth ' they the link in our literary history. But there were also poets suggesting the backward link, whose literary ancestors may be found before the Conquest, poets belonging to districts of England where the old English spirit lived on from early times and was predominant, notwithstanding other in- fluences. This school had its home in the West—along the line of the Welsh Marches, in Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland, well-nigh to the Tweed ; and it is clear that in these regions not only did the old English spirit survive after the days of the Conquest, but also the old English alliterative measure was at no time wholly forgotten, until at last Langland and a band of other poets, whose names have not come down to us, revived this verse as an instrument of literary expression. In these West Midland poets, kinship in feeling with the older English tradition predominated, even as the Norman in the East Midland poets. It was not merely a matter of vocabulary and versifi- cation, though indeed Chaucer could not have appreciated Langland's poetry at its proper worth ' right for strangness of his dark langage,' to use the actual words of an East Midland poet concerning another, whose 'manner of speech and style' pronounced him 'of the West country." Lang- ' ' The poet in question was Capgrave ; see Prologue to the Life of St. Katherine,' printed in Capgrave's 'Clironicle,' edited by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, Rolls Series. ' INTRODUCTION. xiii land, on the other hand, with his intensely didactic purpose, would have had but scant sympathy with the light-hearted and genial spirit of his greater contemporary. But it would seem that there arose a third class of poets during this period, whose endeavour was to harmonise these diverse elements of Old and New, to blend the archaic Teutonic rhythm with the measures of Romance song. We see this already in the extant remains of lyrical poetry, especially in a number of those preserved in MS. Harl. 2253, dating from some years before the middle of the fourteenth century. The later political ballads of Minot and other fourteenth-century poems point also in this direction. But I can name no sustained piece of literature at all comparable with ' Pearl' as an instance of success in reconciling elements seemingly so irreconcilable. The poet of 'Pearl' holds, as it were, one hand towards Langland and one towards ' Chaucer ; as poet of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,' he was the direct precursor of the poet of the 'Faerie Queene,' and helps us to understand the true significance of Spenser as the Elizabethan poet par excellence. ' Pearl stands on the very threshold of modern English poetry. The Manuscript.—A kindly fate has preserved this poem from oblivion ; a fate that has saved for us so much from the wreckage of time. Indeed, the Old English Muse must have borne a charmed life, surviving the many ills that ancient books were heirs to. Our knowledge of early English literature seems almost miraculous, when we note that so many extant works are preserved to us in unique MSS. 'Cotton Nero A. x.,' in the British Museum, is one of these priceless treasures. Bound up with a dull •panegyrical oration' on a certain John Ched worth. Arch- deacon of Lincoln in the fifteenth century, four Enghsh : xiv INTRODUCTION, poems are contained in this small quarto volume, each of high intrinsic worth, and of special interest to the student of our early literature. The handwriting of the poems, ' small, sharp, and irregular,' belongs on the best authority to the latter years of the fourteenth century or the early fifteenth. There are neither titles nor rubrics in the MS.; but the chief divisions are marked by large initial letters of blue, flourished with red, and several illuminations, coarsely executed, serve by way of illustration, all but one occupying a full page.