Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Editions
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Winner and Waster: A Poem on the Times
- 1 Chivalry and Internationalism: The Garter Feast of 1358 and English Diplomacy during the 1350s and 1360s
- 2 Treason, Public Order and Dispute Settlement: The Statute of Treasons of 1352 and Royal Arbitration
- 3 Landed Society, Conspicuous Consumption and the Political Economy: The Sumptuary Laws of 1363
- 4 The Private and the Public Spheres: The Royal Household and State Finance under Edward III
- 5 Satire, Complaint and Authorship: Winner and Waster and the Alliterative Revival of the Fourteenth Century
- 6 Winner and Waster: Timeliness and Timelessness
- Appendix 1 Timeline, 1337–70
- Appendix 2 A Modern English Version of Winner and Waster
- Bibliography
- Index
- Publisher̕s Note
Appendix 2 - A Modern English Version of Winner and Waster
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Editions
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Winner and Waster: A Poem on the Times
- 1 Chivalry and Internationalism: The Garter Feast of 1358 and English Diplomacy during the 1350s and 1360s
- 2 Treason, Public Order and Dispute Settlement: The Statute of Treasons of 1352 and Royal Arbitration
- 3 Landed Society, Conspicuous Consumption and the Political Economy: The Sumptuary Laws of 1363
- 4 The Private and the Public Spheres: The Royal Household and State Finance under Edward III
- 5 Satire, Complaint and Authorship: Winner and Waster and the Alliterative Revival of the Fourteenth Century
- 6 Winner and Waster: Timeliness and Timelessness
- Appendix 1 Timeline, 1337–70
- Appendix 2 A Modern English Version of Winner and Waster
- Bibliography
- Index
- Publisher̕s Note
Summary
Note: The modern rendering of W&W offered here is based on the vari¬ous editions and translations itemised above, p. ix, and on my own independent interpretations. In places where the original is defective, Turville-Petre provides important hypothetical readings, generally adopted by Trigg and Ginsberg. I draw freely on the modern English versions provided by Gollancz and Millett. The former, however, stays so close to the original that it sometimes obscures meanings, and the suggested readings are not always secure; Millett is therefore a default, though I also deviate from her understanding in a few places (see, for example, the discussion of line 387 above, p. 68 and n. 21). No attempt has been made to preserve the allitera-tive style of the original, though some relatively archaic forms (for example, ‘laund’ at lines 49, 54 and 209 and ‘comely king’ at lines 86 and 199) are retained for their particular technical sense (in the former case: see p. 16) or their more general literary reverberation (in the latter: see p. 10, n. 28).
Here begins a treatise and a good short debate between Winner and Waster
[Prologue]
After Britain was begun, and Brutus possessed it
Through the taking of Troy by internal treason,
Marvels have been seen in various reigns,
But never so many as now, by the ninth part.
5 For all is ‘Wit’ and ‘Will’ that we have to cope with now,
Wise and sly words, each one obscuring the next.
No western man, while this world lasts, will risk
Sending his son south to see or to hear,
But he shall stay behind, while [his father] grows old.
10 For there was a saying of Solomon the wise,
(It will soon come to pass, I expect nothing else):
‘When waves wax wild and walls are down,
And hares shall crouch on hearth-stones as their lairs,
And mere boys of low birth, with boasting and with pride
15 Shall marry high-born ladies, and lead them at their will,
Then, the dreadful day of doom, it will draw near.’
But whoever will see with clarity and speak the truth
May say that it will come soon, and is nearly here.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Winner and Waster and its ContextsChivalry, Law and Economics in Fourteenth-Century England, pp. 139 - 156Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021