Candidate Number: 2009763
2009763
Translation:
When the Nightingale sings the plants grow green, foliage and
grass and blossom spring. In April, I believe, and love to my heart is gone
with a spear so sharp, night and day my blood spills; my heart suffers.
I have loved thee this past year to which I may love no more, I have
sighed many a sigh, beloved, for thy mercy; I have not loved thee nearer
and that which grieves me sore. Sweet beloved think on me; I have loved
thee for a long time.
Sweet beloved, I pray thee for one expression of love1. While I live
in a wide world, I will seek no other. With my love, my sweet dear,
though my joy might increase. A sweet kiss of thy mouth might be my
doctor.
Commentary:
Within the Harley Lyric, ‘When the nyghtegale singes’ (line 1)
secular love is the central theme, whereby the speaker is profoundly
1
J. A Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre. A Book of Middle English. 3rd ed., Wiley, 2013,
p. 264. All further references to this work are incorporated within the text.
1
, Candidate Number: 2009763
affected by the emotions they hold towards their lover, rather than
religion. Throughout this commentary I will explore how imagery and
structure are used to connote the speaker’s devotion to their lover.
Within the lyric, imagery of nature is used. The lyric opens ‘When
the nightingale sings, / The plants grow green’ (lines 1-2). Here, the
image of the nightingale, often used in literature as having symbolic
associations with Western spiritual tradition and virtue, is presented. By
opening the poem with this image, the speaker implies that the
nightingale resembles their lover – a virtuous woman. Additionally, it
conveys how when the nightingale sings, the nature around it also starts
to bloom. This portrays how the speaker’s lover, is portrayed as similar to
the nightingale; they make everything surrounding them seem brighter
and ‘blosme’ (line 3); blossom.
This striking idea of the nightingale being a symbol of love, is
popular throughout medieval poetry, as explored by Thomas Alan
Shippey. Shippey argued that ‘the nightingale is repeatedly linked with
spring and the swelling of buds, with the pleasures of love, with the
cruelty of desire’.2 Here Shippey identifies how the nightingale,
throughout this poem and often within other medieval poems, reflects the
actions and behaviour of the speaker’s lover. This is emphasised in the
opening line of the poem ‘When þe nyhtegale singes’, conveying how the
poem centres around the nightingale actions; everything is triggered by
the nightingale singing.
2
Thomas Alan Shippey “Listening to the Nightingale.” Comparative Literature, vol. 22,
no. 1, 1970, pp. 46–60. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1769299. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.
2
2009763
Translation:
When the Nightingale sings the plants grow green, foliage and
grass and blossom spring. In April, I believe, and love to my heart is gone
with a spear so sharp, night and day my blood spills; my heart suffers.
I have loved thee this past year to which I may love no more, I have
sighed many a sigh, beloved, for thy mercy; I have not loved thee nearer
and that which grieves me sore. Sweet beloved think on me; I have loved
thee for a long time.
Sweet beloved, I pray thee for one expression of love1. While I live
in a wide world, I will seek no other. With my love, my sweet dear,
though my joy might increase. A sweet kiss of thy mouth might be my
doctor.
Commentary:
Within the Harley Lyric, ‘When the nyghtegale singes’ (line 1)
secular love is the central theme, whereby the speaker is profoundly
1
J. A Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre. A Book of Middle English. 3rd ed., Wiley, 2013,
p. 264. All further references to this work are incorporated within the text.
1
, Candidate Number: 2009763
affected by the emotions they hold towards their lover, rather than
religion. Throughout this commentary I will explore how imagery and
structure are used to connote the speaker’s devotion to their lover.
Within the lyric, imagery of nature is used. The lyric opens ‘When
the nightingale sings, / The plants grow green’ (lines 1-2). Here, the
image of the nightingale, often used in literature as having symbolic
associations with Western spiritual tradition and virtue, is presented. By
opening the poem with this image, the speaker implies that the
nightingale resembles their lover – a virtuous woman. Additionally, it
conveys how when the nightingale sings, the nature around it also starts
to bloom. This portrays how the speaker’s lover, is portrayed as similar to
the nightingale; they make everything surrounding them seem brighter
and ‘blosme’ (line 3); blossom.
This striking idea of the nightingale being a symbol of love, is
popular throughout medieval poetry, as explored by Thomas Alan
Shippey. Shippey argued that ‘the nightingale is repeatedly linked with
spring and the swelling of buds, with the pleasures of love, with the
cruelty of desire’.2 Here Shippey identifies how the nightingale,
throughout this poem and often within other medieval poems, reflects the
actions and behaviour of the speaker’s lover. This is emphasised in the
opening line of the poem ‘When þe nyhtegale singes’, conveying how the
poem centres around the nightingale actions; everything is triggered by
the nightingale singing.
2
Thomas Alan Shippey “Listening to the Nightingale.” Comparative Literature, vol. 22,
no. 1, 1970, pp. 46–60. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1769299. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.
2
