DIMEV 4051
IMEV 2553
NIMEV 2553
O soothfast sun of all brightness
Lydgate’s paraphrase of the Eight Verses of St. Bernard — in nine
or eleven 8-line stanzas (ababbcbc)
Note: Cf.
1508 for another
version.
Author(s): John Lydgate
Title(s): Eight Verses of St. Bernard
Subjects: paraphrases; devotional verse; Saint Bernard
Versification: —
eight-line —
ababbcbc
Manuscript Witnesses:
1.Source: Oxford, Bodleian Library Laud misc. 683 (SC 798), ff. 27-29
v
First Lines:O sothfast sun of al brightnesse
Enlumyng with thy cleer
lyght…
Last Lines:…Tyl pes be leyd as ffor Ostage
That right and mercy may
accorde
Note: Version I, 9 stanzas; each introduced by Latin prose text.
Attributed Title: These be the viij verse folwyng of hooly seynt Bernard who so euer seith
hem euery day devoutly shal neuer be dampned but he may neuer be þe bolder
to syne (f. 27)
Editions: MacCracken, Henry Noble,
ed.
John Lydgate: The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems.
EETS
e.s. 107 (1911; repr. 1961): 206-9.
2.Source: Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Library Kk.1.3, Part XII, ff. 18
v-19
First Lines:O sothefast sonne of all bryghtnesse
Enlumyne with thy clere
lyghte…
Last Lines:…Make me a sygne through y godenesse
And marke me yn my
forhede
Note: Six stanzas and first two lines of seventh, i.e. lines 1-50
only.
Attributed Title: Versus Barnardi (f. 18v)
3.Source: London, British Library Addit. 29729, ff. 126
v-127
v
First Lines:O sothefast son of all bryghtnes
enlumen withe thy clere
lyght…
Last Lines:…And when I ere ageynst thy wyll
have mercy or thow do
vengeance
Attributed Author: Iohn lydegat (f. 126v); Explicit lidgatt (f.
127v)
Attributed Title: Here begyneth verses of þe whiche þat lynge herry the v whom god
assoyle by gret devocion vsyd in his chapell at his hyȝe masses by twene
þe levacion and þe concecracion of þe sacrement / translatid by
þe monke lydegat dan Iohn (f. 126v, by scribe, John
Stow)
Editions: MacCracken, Henry Noble,
ed.
John Lydgate: The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems.
EETS
e.s. 107 (1911; repr. 1961): 209-11.