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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Occleve's Lerne to Dye has been spoken of as “a really fine Ars Sciendi Mori, the most dignified, and the most poetical, thing that Occleve has left us.” It may be worth while to determine how much of this praise should be given to Occleve as translator and amplifier, how much to his original, an eloquent and famous chapter in Henry Suso's Horologium.
1 Professor Saintsbury, in Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., II, 207.
2 The present writer has already pointed out (M. L. N., XXXVIII, 337-39) that the source of the poem is Chap. II, Bk. II, of Suso's Horologium Sapientiae (1334); has explained the relation of the Horologium to Suso's earlier Büchlein der Ewigen Weisheit; has noted the Middle English prose versions of the same chapter, the six Latin MSS of the chapter in the British Museum Library, and the six early printed editions of the Horologium in the same Library; and has indicated from which exemplar of the Latin Occleve's poem probably derives. It is from an equivalent of this exemplar, an undated quarto (Allosti: 1488?; Brit. Mus. Cat. No. IA. 49032), that the Latin quotations in this paper have been taken.
3 Cf. Denifle's ed. of Suso's German works (1880), p. xxi.
4 See the preface to the Büchlein. Suso's contribution to Christian mysticism lay not in the substance of his thought — that he derived from Scripture, from his master, Eckhart, from St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, and others—but in the poetic form, romantic and symbolical, in which he cast his thought. Cf. C. Schmidt, “études sur le mysticisme allemand au XIV” siècle“ (Mém. de l'Acad. Royale des Sc. Moral. et Polit. de l'Inst. de France, T. III: Savants étrangeres, Paris, 1847, pp. 225-502, esp. 416ff.; Suso, 396-436).
5 M. Diepenbrock, H. Suso's, genannt Amandus, Leben und Schriften, 2 ed., Regensburg, 1837, p. 177; K. Bihlmeyer, H. Seuse, Deutsche Schriften, Stuttgart, 1907, p. 200.
6 Bihlmeyer, p. 197; Diepenbrock, p. 174; English trans., Little Book of Eternal Wisdom by Blessed Henry Suso, 2d ed. Lond.: 1910.
7 Diepenbrock, pp. 173-77.
8 Diepenbrock, pp. 174-76; English trans., pp. 22-24.
9 Schmidt, pp. 432-33.
10 The poem has been found in seven MSS: B'odl. 1504, f. 29a; Bodl. 3441, f. 117a (wanting stanzas 1-3); Bodl. 27627, f. 30a; Harl. 172, f. 73a; Royal 17. D. vi, f. 120b; Durham Univ. Cosin. V. iii. 9, f. 52b; Gollancz (formerly Ashburnam Addit. 133), f. 55a (stanzas 1-96). See Brown, Register, 2:2009. Furnivall printed (E.E.T.S., E.S. 61) the Durham text, collating it with the Gollancz MS (said to have been written by Occleve himself, but Furnivall doubted this; cf. J. H. Kern, Anglia, 39, 443, who suggests that the Gollancz version is a later working-over of the Durham, and that both texts are Occleve's work—but cf. Kern's statement, p. 389; Gollancz says, in his edition of the MS, E.E.T.S., E.S. 73, p. v, that “it is a beautiful specimen of early 15th century writing”) and giving some variant readings (stanzas 97ff.) from the Royal MS. Kern, 443-47, has again compared the Durham and Gollancz texts, noting a few variants missed by Furnivall. I have compared Furnivall's text with the 15th century Harl. and Royal exemplars. Though there are many verbal variations in these MSS, they do not affect the substance of Occleve's translation, for they neither materially subtract from what he has added to the Latin nor supply what he has omitted. They consist, rather, for the most part, of slight rearrangements in the order of words, of substitutions of more or less equivalent words or phrases, of the insertion or omission of single words. Stanzas 132-34 and the prose addendum are missing in the Harl. MS. The Royal (first quarter of the 15th cent.) is closer to Furnivall's text than is the Harl. (probably 15th cent.), but in not a few instances the Royal and the Harl. agree in a variant from Furnivall. A collation of the existing MSS doubtless would supply a better text. It would certainly mend some of the metres. Perhaps it would clarify a thought here and there.
11 This Lesson is the source of the last stanza (lines 932-38) and of most of the prose supplement. See Kurtz, M. L. N., XXXIX, 56-57.
12 Seven cases in the third lines is the minimum, eleven cases in the first lines the maximum.
13 Vv. 703-4. Occleve's additions are printed in italics.
14 The spurt in declination at the third line has been explained above, in the comments on that verse.
15 In four stanzas lines 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, constitute a group of lines added for matter; in four stanzas lines 4, 5, 6, 7, appear as such a group; in five appears the group 5, 6, 7; and in four the group 6, 7. On the other hand, the grouping of original lines marked as added primarily for rhyme is quite different : two cases of lines 3, 4, 5; four cases of lines 4, 5; two cases of 5, 6, 7; and eight cases of 6,7.
16 Dialogue with a Friend, vv. 204-31. E.E.T.S., E.S., 61:117.
17 In the prose supplement to this poem. See Kurtz, M. L. N., XXXIX, 56-57.
18 So, e. g., in vv. 197-224, 235-37, 246-48, 344-50, 372, 554-58, 568-70, 631-37, 654 ff., 701-4, 911-17. Some of Suso's best figures are from The Wisdom of Solomon. From chapter 5, verses 9-14, are derived vv. 199-224.
19 As in v. 585, which, with its corresponding Latin, is cited below.
20 Examples of conventional phrases, each from the second half of a line: not worth a myte (523), haaste and hye (534), y wole it now expresse (583), in soothfastnesse (751), it is no fable (336), par auenture (472), ther-to yeue y may credence (518), ful lowde& hye (706), withouten any lye (151). There are many others.
21 Walkid, Furnivall.
22 Anglia, X, 357-65; cf. Kurtz, M. L. N, XXXVIII, 337, Note 2. It is interesting to observe that this prose version omits many of the strongest figures in Suso.