Digital Index of Middle English Verse: No. 5683

DIMEV 5683

IMEV 3596

NIMEV 3596

This ender night / I saw a sight / A maid a cradel keep

The Complaint of the Child Jesus to his Mother — nine six-line stanzas (aabccb) and burden: ‘Lullay my chyld & wepe no more / Slepe & be now styll / The kyng of blys this fader ys / As it was hys wyll’

Note: Cf. 2089 for the same burden.

Subjects: carols, lullaby; dialogues, Virgin and Christ

Versification: — six-line — aabccb

Manuscript Witnesses:

1.Source: Oxford, Bodleian Library Eng. poet. e.1 (SC 29734), ff. 20-21

First Lines:

This endrys nyȝt
I saw a syȝth…

Last Lines:

…þat deth it ys
for þe & many mo

Editions:

Greene, Richard Leighton. The Early English Carols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1935; 2nd ed., rev., Oxford: Clarendon, 1977: 110-12; 1977, 98-9.

Wright, Thomas, ed. Songs and Carols from a manuscript…of the Fifteenth Century. Percy Society 23. London: Richards, 1847: 19-20.

Chambers, Edmund Kerchever, and Frank Sidgwick. Early English Lyrics…. London: Buller, 1907, 1911 et seq: 119-20.

Cook, Albert Stanburrough. A Literary Middle English Reader. Boston and New York: Ginn, 1915: 466-8.

Rickert, Edith, ed. Ancient English Christmas Carols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1910: 69-70.

Stevens, John, ed. Mediaeval Carols. Musica Britannica 4. London: Stainer and Bell, 1952, 2nd ed. 1958: 10.

Sisam, Celia, and Kenneth Sisam, eds. The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970: 472-3.

2.Source: Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Library Addit. 5943, f. 145

Transcription:

Þys oþer nyȝth
y say asyȝt
a mayde a cradel kepe
lullay ȝe songe
& seyde amonge
ly stille my childe & slepe
How scholde I slepe
y ma not for wepe
O so sore y am by gone
Slepe y wolde
y may not for colde
& cloþys hau y none
ffor Adams gult
mankunde is y splylde
& þat me rewyth sore
ffor Adam & eue
y schal leue here
þtytty wynter & more

Note: 3 stanzas, corresponding to 1, 2, 5 of Oxford, Bodleian Library Eng. poet. e.1 (SC 29734); alternate burden: ‘Lullay lullay thow lytil child slep & be wel stylle / þe kynge of blys þy fader is as it was his wille’.

Facsimiles:

Mayer, L. S. Music, Cantilenas and Songs. London, 1906 (privately printed); by "L. S. M.": 10.

Rastall, Richard. “Introduction.” A Fifteenth-Century Song Book: Cambridge University Library Additional MS 5943 made in facsimile. Leeds: Boethius Press, 1973.

Editions:

Greene, Richard Leighton. The Early English Carols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1935; 2nd ed., rev., Oxford: Clarendon, 1977: 110-12; 1977, 99-100.

Mayer, L. S. Music, Cantilenas and Songs. London, 1906 (privately printed); by "L. S. M.": 11.

3.Source: London, British Library Addit. 5666, ff. 2v-3

First Lines:

This ender nithgt
I sauy ha sithgt
Ha may ha credill kepe…

Last Lines:

…Fadere ofe blys
Wartu þou has
Forsaking me this sone

Note: 6 stanzas, corresponding to 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 of Oxford, Bodleian Library Eng. poet. e.1 (SC 29734).

Editions:

Greene, Richard Leighton. The Early English Carols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1935; 2nd ed., rev., Oxford: Clarendon, 1977: 110-12; 1977, 99.

Ritson, Joseph, ed. Ancient Songs and Ballads from the Reign of King Henry the Second to the Revolution. 2 vols. London, 1877; first published 1790; ed. William Carew Hazlitt : xlviii.

Robbins, Rossell Hope. Early English Christmas Carols. New York and London: Columbia UP, 1961: 72 (burden only).