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The Date, Author, and Sources of the Owl and the Nightingale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

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Extract

The composition of The Owl and the Nightingale is dated by all editors after the death of Henry the Second in 1189, undoubtedly because of the prayer

þe King Henri Iesus his soule do merci (vv. 1091-2).

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 1929 , pp. 329 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 329 The Owl and the Nightingale, ed. Atkins, p. xxxv.

Note 2 in page 329 Mod. Phil. XVII, 252.

Note 3 in page 331 It may be added that in Genesis and Exodus, 626, Noah sacrifices for the benefit of his soul: “And sacrede he Ðor-on for sowles frame.”

Note 4 in page 333 Munimenta Academica, ed. Anstey, Rolls Series, pp. 250-252.

Note 5 in page 334 See A. F. Leach, English Schools at the Reformation, p. 137. This book contains much information concerning the chantries, foundations to support one or more priests to pray, sing or celebrate continually for the soul of the founder and of others. Unfortunately in most cases it is not perfectly clear whether the souls of living persons were included, though the frequently recurring phrase “for all Christian souls” probably requires that interpretation, and such a phrase as “for the sowles of his said founder and his heires” (p. 122) certainly requires it.

Note 6 in page 334 It is not uninteresting to note that in the Dialogus inter Corpus et Animam (vv. 239-248), a poem nearly contemporary with the Owl, it is expressly and emphatically declared that, after a soul has entered hell no amount of prayer is of any avail; and that the poem represents damnation as taking place very shortly after death. Taken by itself alone, this might lead us to believe that people never prayed for the souls of the departed. We must beware of attributing to the Middle Ages complete uniformity either of religious faith or of religious practise. See the Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes, ed. Wright, pp. 102-104. On the other hand, St. Gregory was said to have delivered from hell the soul of the Emperor Trajan, and St. Dunstan that of King Eadwig, by prayer.

Note 7 in page 334 Every line begins with a capital, and after each line, except 1093, there is a point above the line. Is not v.1092 sufficiently like a tag (as if the writer desired a rime for Henri without caring how he got it) to justify us in saying that the form of benediction is, in this case, no evidence as to whether the King was dead or alive?

Note 8 in page 335 Kenyon (Mod. Phil., XVIII, 55-56), suggested that the correct reading is underat, “perceived,” being an echo of underat in 1055; he also contended that if we must read underwat we must take it as a regular preterit of underwīten (with a long ī). I have already answered the first suggestion. And I know of no evidence that an English underwīten ever existed. Atkins misreports the Cotton MS. (C) as reading underþat or underyat, although the letter y rarely occurs in C, and then only in a later hand.

Note 9 in page 335 Owl 909-910. See my article, Mod. Phil. XVII, 247-248.

Note 10 in page 335 See Owl 909-910 and Atkins' edition pp. 166-167.

Note 11 in page 336 Cf. Owl 203: & leof him were nihtegale.

Note 12 in page 336 Owl 905-910. In the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Eleventh Edition, Mr. Alfred Newton remarks under Nightingale: “The range of the European Nightingale, Daulias, Luscinia is very peculiar. In Great Britain it is abundant in suitable localities to the south-east of a line stretching from the valley of the Exe in Devonshire, to York, but it does not visit Ireland, its occurrence in Wales is doubtful or intermittent, and it is extremely improbable that it has ever reached Scotland.”

Note 13 in page 336 Owl 321-322.

Note 14 in page 337 Cf. Atkins, p. xxxviii.

Note 15 in page 337 Owl 1757-1758.

Note 16 in page 337 See Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi (Rolls Series) I, p. 93: Praecepit [rex] etiam ne aliquis arma gestaret per Angliam citra Sabrinam scilicet arcum et sagittas et cultella cum punctis; et si quis hujus modi arma gestaret caperetur. Sed haec praecepta parvo tempore custodita sunt.

Note 17 in page 338 See Owl 1047-1062, 1076-1104. The story has a considerable history. See Warnke, Die Lais der Marie de France, 2d. ed. Halle, 1900, pp. cxxvi-cxxxiii.

Note 18 in page 338 See Owl 1101, and notes thereon by Gadow and Atkins.

Note 19 in page 338 So Webb in his note on the following passage in his edition of the Policraticus, I, 30: “Quodque magis mirere, pedicas parare auibus, laqueos texere, allicere modis ut fistula, ac quibuscumque insidiis supplantare, ex edicto saepe fit criminis, et uel proscriptione bonorum multatur, uel membrorum punitur dispendio. Volucres celi et pisces maris communes esse audieras, sed hae fisci sunt, quas uenatica exigit ubicumque uolant.”

Note 20 in page 339 See Great Roll of the Pipe for the Twenty-Second Year of King Henry II, a.d. 1175-1176. Ed. J. H. Round, Introd., pp. xxiii-xxiv.

Note 21 in page 339 Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia XCVI, gives an account of a trial conducted by swans in the castle of Angra in Essex, quod bonae memoriae Ricardus de Luci, domini avi vestri illustrissimi regis Anglorum in Anglia quondam justitiarius, construxit. Was this fable inspired by The Owl and the Nightingale?

Note 22 in page 339 De Naturis Rerum ed. Wright, pp. 102-103.

Note 23 in page 340 He was, nevertheless, a patron of letters. Cf. Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History, pp. 110-155; Haskins, “Henry II as a Patron of Literature,” in Essays in Medieval History Presented to Thomas Frederick Tout, Manchester, 1925, pp. 71-77.

Note 24 in page 340 See Neckam De Naturis Rerum (ed. Wright, Rolls Series), p. 204; ramo alicujus arboris suspensa [vulpes] canes errare cogit, quae vestigia sequi habeant incertos.

Note 25 in page 340 Ibid., p. 205.

Note 26 in page 340 Atkins, ed. of Owl pp. xxxvii-xxxviii. Neckam is generally supposed to have written his De Naturis Rerum about a.d. 1200.

Note 27 in page 341 Historia Animalium, 1, 5, 4: .

Note 28 in page 341 See The Cambridge Natural History: Mammalia, by Frank Evers Beddard, M. A. . . . . , 1902, pp. 524-526; also The American Natural History . . . . by William T. Hornaday . . . . N. Y. 1904, pp. 66-67.

Note 29 in page 341 This identification was propounded in Gadow's edition of the Owl pp. 12-13. It was suggested to Gadow by the late Dr. Felix Liebermann.

Note 30 in page 341 Cf. Owl 203: Ich wot he is nu suþe acolede.

Note 31 in page 342 Hiis testibus, Radulfo archid. Wynton. Roberto Archid. Surr. Roberto de Lunes, Alberto Summano, Will Tifell, Bernardo, Adam, Roberto, capellanis meis, magistro Herberto, magistro Nicholao, magistro Willielmo, Turstino . . . . clericis meis. . . . . Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. 1655, I, 703. The italics are mine.

Note 32 in page 342 My information concerning the Bishops of Winchester is derived from the Dictionary of National Biography under Henry of Blois and Richard of Ilchester.

Note 33 in page 342 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, Rolls Series I, p. 118; Lawrie, Annals of the Reigns of Malcolm and William, p. 214.

Note 34 in page 342 Owl 191, 1746, 1778.

Note 35 in page 342 Les Fabulistes Latins, IV, p. 6.

Note 36 in page 342 Master Nicholas certainly seems to allude to Odo's fable De Rosa et Volatilibus in Owl 1184. Cf. Hervieux, op. cit., IV, 226.

Note 37 in page 343 The Soul of Dorset, p. 263.

Note 38 in page 343 Owl 1583-1592.

Note 38 in page 343 Cf. Owl 1587 with Wife's Lament 29b: eal ich eom oflonged.

Note 40 in page 343 Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon, . . . . Herausgegeben Von Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander. Leipsic, F. A. Brockhaus. 5 vols. including Supplement. 1867-1880.

Note 41 in page 344 Mecklenburgische Volksüberlieferungen II, 40. Sparling or papagei is sometimes substituted for uhl. Cf. Grimm's Märchen 69, Jorinde and Joringel. Here the maiden Joringel is transformed into a nightingale around whom her enemy, a witch transformed into an owl, flies three times crying “Schu, hu, hu, hu!'

Note 42 in page 344 See Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, ed. James, p. 143. For Neckam see his De Laudibus Divinae Sapientiae, ed. Wright in Rolls Series, Distinctio Secunda vv. 101-102:

Hupupa, strix bubo tenebris, lu[s]cinia lucem

Appetit, haec [the kinglet] modulis secula mulcet aves.

Compare the mention of the Wren in Owl 1717 ff.

Note 43 in page 344 Edward B. Eastwick, in Dole and Walker, The Persian Poets, p. 309.

Note 44 in page 345 For marridi, cf. Meyer-Lübke's Wörterbuch 5373; barbagiouan = Italian barbagianni = French barbe à Jean = owl.

Note 45 in page 345 Used to signify “a laughing-stock to the company.” Wander compares the French Il était la chouette de la compagnie, the Dutch Dat is een uil onder de kraijen, and the Latin Asinus inter simias.

Note 46 in page 345 Owl 303-308. Observe that the Owl classes herself with “the kindred of the Hawk” in vv. 269-271.

Note 47 in page 346 See Skeat, The Proverbs of Alfred, p. xlv. Skeat's translation of the last line is incorrect. wol means “perhaps.”

Note 48 in page 346 Skeat op. cit. p. xlii. The poem is printed in Grein-Wülker, I, 353 ff.

Note 49 in page 346 Cf. Petit Plet, ed. Koch, vv. 1279-1281:

Pur ceo dist li Engleis trop ben:

Tant cum l'amez, luez tun chen

E ta femme e tun cheval.

Also Freeman's Norman Conquest, V, p. 888 which cites Walter Map: Proverbium Anglicum de servis est “Have hund to godsib ant stent [read stenc = ‘stick‘] in thir oder hond.”

Note 50 in page 347 See Warnke, Die Fabeln der Marie de France, pp. xliv-xlviii.

Note 51 in page 347 Cf. the second persons singular in C: clackes 81, wones 985 and bodes 1155, which are Northernisms or West Midlandisms—if they are not errors.

Note 52 in page 348 In primitive science any winged creature is likely to be classed as a bird. Thus in Grimm's Märchen 102, Der Zaunkönig und der Bär, the insects side with the birds against the quadrupeds. In the Bible the bat is twice enumerated after the birds which it is forbidden to eat (Leviticus 11.19; Deuteronomy 14.19). See N. E. D. under Fowl, 2, “winged creatures,” where the bee, the butterfly and the bat are all cited as “fowl” or “fowls.” Further examples of bees classed as birds are adduced by Cook in MLN 21.111-112. Cook rightly contends that Chaucer uses foules (= “birds”) for “bees” in Parlement of Foules 353-354:

The swalow mordrer of the foules smale

That maken hony of floures fresshe of hewe.

There is also a beetle popularly known to-day as the “lady-bird.”

Note 53 in page 348 See the excellent analysis in Atkins, pp. lxiii.

Note 54 in page 348 In this connection one may compare Marie's lur deriere (Marie 79 35) with Owl 596: heore bihinde; and nurreture = “offspring” (79.32) with Owl 94: fode, of the same meaning. Cf. L. nutrimentum, O. F. norriture. “a young animal.” Furthermore Gadow is undoubtedly right in regarding of twere twom, “of the two,” as a reduplicative (pleonastisch) phrase like A. S. bā twā. As Marie rather frequently uses ambedous, < L. ambo + duo, it is possible that of twere twom was taken over by our poet from Alfred's fables. Mätzner's emendations, of þan twom, of þinge twom, are unnecessary; while Atkins' of twene (< A. S. twēona, g. pl. of twēo, twēon, = “doubt”) twom does not suit the context, since the Nightingale's question is merely rhetorical and implies that there is no doubt about the matter.

Note 55 in page 349 Cf. Marie No. 98 with Owl 809-834. The red-purs (Owl 694) is an allusion to Alfred's fable. Cf. Marie 98.10 pleine puche, 98.11 puche; 98.28 puchete; 98.31 sac; 98.35 puche pleine.

Note 56 in page 349 Marie No. 66. Cf. Owl 33-40.

Note 57 in page 349 Owl 86, MS. J only.

Note 58 in page 349 Marie No. 3.

Note 59 in page 349 Warnke, Die Quellen des Esope der Marie de France, in Festgabe für Hermann Suchier, p. 168.

Note 60 in page 350 Cf. the statement (Owl 87-88) that the Owl eats mice.

Note 61 in page 350 De Rosa et Volatilibus. See Hervieux, IV, p. 226.

Note 62 in page 350 Given in Warnke's edition of Marie as No. 65b.

Note 63 in page 350 Owl 1730-1734. Cf. especially griþbruche, “breach of the peace” in 1734.

Note 64 in page 350 Marie No. 65. Cf. Owl 79-85.

Note 65 in page 350 See Atkins, The Owl and the Nightingale, pp. lii-lv.