| Author | Topic: Add: Mirie It Is | |
| dmcg | Posted - 25 Aug 07 - 11:22 am | |
Mirie it is, while sumer ilast, With fugheles song. Oc nu necheth wides blast, And weder strong. Ey! Ey! what this night is long! And ich, with well michel wrong, Soregh and murne and fast. (Modern English Translation: It is pleasant, while summer lasts, with the birds' song. But now, the storming wind comes on, and severe weather. Alas! how long this night is, and I, because of very great wrong, grieve, and mourn and fast.) Notes Notes taken from "Medieval English Lyrics - A Critical Anthology" by R.T. Davies, Faber and Faber, ISBN 0 571 06571 6. ... All three [versions of the poem] are accompanied by music, but it is not the music of simple, rustic folk. The music: New Oxford history of music. ii: Early medieval music up to 1300 ed. Dom A. Hughes (London, 1954): Giraldus Cambrensis (12c) reports there was a long tradition of singing in many parts of Wales and in two parts in England, north of the Humber: Descripto Cambriae ed J.F. Dimock (Rolls Series 1868), p 189. This poem is written on a sheet that has later bound up as a fly-sheet in another MS. Index 2163. Bodl. Ms. Rawlingson G, 22(14755), f. 1b. C.B. 13c p. 14, no 7; E.E.L. p. 3, no 1; E.M.E.T., p 118, no 25. C.B. 13c denotes "English Lyrics of the thirteenth century", ed C. Brown (Oxford, 1932). E.E.L. is "Early English Lyrics, amorous, divine, moral and trivial", ed. E. K. Chambers and F. Sedgewick (London, 1907) E.M.E.T is "Early Middle English Texts", ed. B Dickins and R. M. Wilson (Cambridge, 1951). Source: New Oxford History of Music, Early medieval music up to 1300, ed Dom A Hughes | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 25 Aug 07 - 12:14 pm | |
As I do not have access to the original music, I cannot be certain which of the three sources listed in R. T. Davies' notes is the melody used here. | ||
| John Shaw | Posted - 26 Aug 07 - 06:25 pm | |
The version as sung by the Hotwells Howlers comes from the Bodleian Rawlinson ms. that Dave has mentioned above, as published by E.J.Dobson and F.Ll.Harrison in "Medieval English Songs" (1979). | ||