Digital Index of Middle English Verse: No. 6724

DIMEV 6724

IMEV 4189

NIMEV 4189

With favor in her face far passing my Reason

A lament of the Virgin Mary over her Son — four 9-line stanzas (aaaabbbcc) with refrain ‘Who can not wepe come lerne of me’ and a 4-line burden: ‘Sodenly afraide / Half wakyng half slepyng / And gretly dismayde / A wooman sate weepyng’

Subjects: Virgin Mary, lament of; carols, of the Passion

Versification: — nine-line — aaaabbbcc

Manuscript Witnesses:

1.Source: Cambridge UK, Trinity College O.9.38 (1450), ff. 63v-64

First Lines:

With fauour yn here fare far passynge my reson
And of here sore wepynge þis was þe encheson…

Last Lines:

…Who can not wepe thys ys the lay
And with that wordys schee vanyschyd a way

Note: Partly written as if prose.

Editions:

Furnivall, Frederick James, ed. Hymns to the Virgin and Christ…and other religious poems. EETS o.s. 24 (1867); repr. 1973: 126-7.

Chambers, Edmund Kerchever, and Frank Sidgwick. Early English Lyrics…. London: Buller, 1907, 1911 et seq: 144-5.

Segar, Mary Gertrude, ed. A Mediaeval Anthology. London, NY: Longmans, Green, 1915: 61-2.

2.Source: Manchester, John Rylands Library Lat. 395, ff. 120-120v

First Lines:

With fauoure in hir face ferr passyng my Reason
And of hir sore weepyng this was the enchesone
Hir soon in hir lap lay she seid slayne by treason
Yif wepyng myght ripe bee it seemyd þan in season…

Last Lines:

…Who cannot wepe this was the laye
& with þat word she vanysht away

Editions:

Brydges, Sir Samuel Egerton. Censura Literaria. 10 vols. London: Longman, 1805-09; 2nd ed., 1815: 10.186-7.

Greene, Richard Leighton. The Early English Carols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1935; 2nd ed., rev., Oxford: Clarendon, 1977: 121; 1977, 108-9.

Brown, Carleton Fairchild, ed. Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century. Oxford: Clarendon, 1939: 17-18.

Stevick, Robert D., ed. One Hundred Middle English Lyrics. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964: 150-1.

Sisam, Celia, and Kenneth Sisam, eds. The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970: 486-7.

Silverstein, Theodore, ed. Medieval English Lyrics. York Medieval Texts. London: Edw. Arnold, 1971: 102-3.

Pearsall, Derek, ed. Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology of Writings in English 1375-1575. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999: 390-1.

Saupe, Karen, ed. Middle English Marian Lyrics. Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University for TEAMS, 1998: 91-2; 221-2.

priven: verb To deprive (sb.) of (sth.), deny (sb. sth.); ppl. prived, bereaved, bereft of, deprived of; without; (b) ~ of (from), to deprive (sb. of sth.), deny (sth. to sb.), exclude (sb. from sth.); prived of (from), deprived of (sth.), bereft of; lacking, without; ben of god priving, be a robber of goods; (c) to depose (sb.), dismiss; ~ of (from), deprive (sb.) of (power, kingdom, etc.), remove or dismiss (sb.) from (office or position); (d) to take (sth.) away; prevent (sth.), deny, oppose; weaken (the body); -- also without obj. MED