/"P. ■^ ■''Tfr'ifc ..■<«l Death and Liffe: an alliterative Poem MJc. ANi DEATH AND LIFFE: An Alliterative Poem Edited with Iijtroduction and Notes By JAMES HOLLY HANFORD, Associate Professor of English in the University of North Carolina and JOHN MARCELLUS STEADMAN, JR., Instructor in English in the University of North Carolina Mors et vita duello ccnflixere mirando; Dux vitae mortuus regnat vivus. CHAPEL HILL Published by the University 1918 6 i. i. u ii « c c c t c T « • • .•• • • • ' • • / . \ DEATH AND LIFFE: An Alliterative Poem n r f^ c^ PEEFACE A new edition of this unique and beautiful alliterative poem has long been felt to be a desideratum. The Hales-Furnivall reprint of Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, published in 1868, where Death and Liffe is edited by Professor Skeat, is out of print, and Arber's modernization of the piece in the Dunbar Anthology is of little use for scholarly purposes. No other reprint exists, though an edition wa« promised some years ago by Professor Gollancz as a future number of his excellent series, Select Early English Poems. The present edition aims to make the poem accessi- ble with a somewhat more extensive critical apparatus than falls within the scope of Professor Gollancz's plan. The publication, since the Hales- Furnivall reprint, of various important alliterative poems, with further studies of the alliterative style and meter, and the accumulated comment of several scholars, notably York Powell, Brotanek, Holthausen, and Miss Edith Scamman, have made possible a fuller illustration of Death and Liffe and a more accurate account of its literary relations than have heretofore been given. The poem is well worth study, both from the scholarly and from the purely literary point of view. There are few finer things in the whole range of Middle-English poetry. The author has brought to his didactic theme a lofty imagination and a sense of poetic phrase which make Death and Liffe rank high even among the most powerful productions of the alliterative school. Its noble solemnity and religious fervor are touched with a romantic grace, and the subject is handled with the artistry of a poet bred in the traditions of such matchless works as Gawain and the Green Knight and The Pearl. The unusual combination of conventional materials gives to the work an exceptional degree of originality, a fact which has been somewhat obscured by undue insistence on the author's debt to Piers Plowman. Unfortunately the text of Death and Liffe is corrupt beyond the powers of a modern editor to restore, or even, in some places, to explain. Originally written in the archaic diction affected by writers of the alliterative school, the piece was copied by a scribe or scribes to whom many of the expressions were unintelligible. The latest copyist, moreover, was very careless. As a result the manuscript is a chaos of modernization and sheer blunder. A striking example is the line & I ffayrlye befell, so fayre me bethought. 223 224 Death atid Liffe: An AUitcrative Poem which would seom to be a scribe's " translation " of some such original as the following: & II fayrlye bofoU, of fayrie mo thought. The present editors, while correcting some obvious errors, have thought it unwise to attempt any such restoration of the poem as was recommended by York Powell. Many of his suggestions have, however, been incorporated in the notes. In jjoncral the introductory sfctions on language and meter and the vocabulary arc the work of Dr. Steadman; the discussions of the debate form, the thome and the sources are by Professor Hanford. For the conclusions as to date and for the textual and literary notes we are jointly rt\> a and 0; the retention of 2/ < 0. E. ^ < u/i, j; the infinitive in e or -; and the confusion of a, e, and o/r. 3. Northern are the past participle in -en; the infinitive without ending (usually) ; and -es (ten cases) in the third person singular of the present indicative. 4. Characteristic of Midland are -eth in the third person singular of the present indicative (fifty-three cases) ; -en in the third plural indicative; the participle without exception in ing(e) ; sh < 0. E. sc and wh < 0. E. hw; 6/r < 0. E. ce/r; < 0. E. ea/ld and the absence or sco and scho <( 0. E. seo. C. Vocabulary In respect to vocabulary Death and Liffe is very similar to the alliterative poems of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The majority of the words are derived from Anglo-Saxon (79%), the Romance and Norse elements being much smaller (Romance 14.2%, Norse 6.6%). Many of the words are to be found in the other alliterative poems of this school. For example, the words listed by Skeat as peculiar to Death and Liffe and Scotish Feilde occur in practically all of the alliterative poems after Piers Plow- man.'^ As will be seen from the notes on alliterative phrases, the language of Death and Liffe is thoroughly conventional and entirely in line with the traditions of the alliterative school.^ 'Leeds, Pari. Wm. Troy, Morte Arthure; frekes, heames, segges. Pari., Wm., Tr. M. A.; weld, Wm., Tr., M. A.; keyre. Pari., Wm., Tr., M.A.; ding, Pari, Tr. Nay, which Skeat takes as the equivalent of nor in D. & L. ^S3 and 443, is the only word that is peculiar to D. d- L. and Sc. F. But in Sc. F. the word clearly means not, while in D. d L. it may mean nay or nor. It will be noted that the word occurs in lines which are identical in D. d L. A comparison of the vocabulary of D. & L. with the glossaries of ofher alliterative poems shows that D. & L. has 22 words (leaving out of con- sideration the familiar and common words) in common with Pari., 29 with Wm., 37 with M. A., and 40 with Troy. 'The difficulties in determining the meaning of some of the words in the poem are discussed in the textual notes or in the glossary. Some of the words listed may be miswritings of the copyist. Others are certainly correct writings of words which are rare and unusual. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 229 III. The Date Criteria for dating Death and Liffe with any degree of definite- ness are almost wholly wanting. The extreme lateness of the manuscript makes the usual linguistic tests of uncertain value, and the poem contains no historical allusions which might afford a clew. Certain inference may, however, he drawn from its literary relations. Bishop Percy speaks of the piece as having been for aught that appears written as early as, if not before, the time of Langland, though he elsewhere suggests a common authorship with the sixteenth centuiy Scotish Feilde, a poem written in the same general style and meter, which happens also to have been included in the Folio Manuscript. Subsequent commentators have agreed that Death and lAffe is later than Piers Plowman. The connection between the two works is obvious and a close examination of the parallels (see below, p. 348) will be found to establish pretty firmly the conclusion that it is the Death and Liffe author who is the debtor. The borrowings are from the B or C version, probably from C, though the evidence is somewhat contradictory. We are safe, therefore, in assuming that Death and Liffe was composed after 1377 (B) or 1386-1399 (C). Percy's suggestion as to identity of authorship with Scotish Feilde was taken up by Skeat, who concludes that Death and Liffe was written not far from 1513, a date established for Scotish Feilde by the battle of Flodden Field in that year. Skeat's argument, based on a supposedly " remarkable similarity in the style, diction, and rhythm of the two poems," is entirely inconclusive. It is effectively disposed of by Miss Edith Scamman ^ in an extended consideration of the subject,, the main points of which may be here given, together with some additional observations. 1. The metrical similarities are no greater than is to be expected in two poems of the alliterative tradition. There are indeed some important distinctions in metrical usage which led Luick, on this ground alone, to deny the common authorship of Death and Liffe and Scotish Feilde. (See pp. 259-260.) 2. The use in both pieces of such words as ''' frekes," " bearnes," '" The Alliterative Poem: Death and Liffe," Radcliffe Studies in English and Comparative Literature. 230 De^th and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem " segges," as equivalent of men and of peculiar words like " weld," " keyre/' " ding," is unimportant, since these and similar phrases are a part of the conventional and archaic vocabulary employed by all writers of the alliterative tradition. (See above, p. 228). The use of " nay " for " ne " or " nor " is more unusual, but the word occurs only twice in Death and Liffe (for "nor," 433, 443), and once in Scotish Feilde (for "not," 81). If any importance is to be attached to this point the use in Scotish Feilde may be explained ae due to the author's knowledge of Death and Liffe. 3. The parallel lines and phrases to which Skeat has pointed as evidence of common authorship lose their significance in view of a wider survey of the poems in the alliterative group; the parallels cited by Skeat being in almost every case alliterative commonplaces. (See notes to lines 24, 172, 185, 436, etc.). In any case these parallels can prove only that the Scotish Fielde poet was familiar with Death and Liffe. 4. Linguistic differences between the two ^re sufficiently marked to cast doubt on Skeat's hypothesis. (See above, p. 227). 5. In general Death and Liffe and Scotish Feilde bear but little resemblance to each other. The first is a vision allegory, embodying a debate, the work of a serious-minded poet steeped in mediaeval literary traditions and possessed of exceptional imaginative power; the second a chronicle of contemporary events, by a gentleman (cf. line 416), vigorously written, but less archaic in form and entirely lacking in the poetic fervor and elevation of Death and Liffe. Professor Manly ^ is entirely right in feeling its author to have been incapable of the excellence of our poem. Further discussion of Skeat's conjecture is unnecessary in view of the fact that it has not seriously commended itself to any later student of the poem. It was based, no doubt, on the circumstance that these two allitera- tive poems happened to occur together in the Percy Manuscript, and a more mature consideration of the matter would probably have led Skeat to change his view. A second attempt to fix the date of Death and Liffe in the six- teenth century is made by Miss Scamman in the article already cited. She finds in the poem an apparent imitation of certain passages describing Nature in Dunbar's The Golden Ta/rge (93 ff.) and The Thistle and the Rose (73 ff.), and a general similarity ^ Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. ii, p. 46. James H. Hanford and John M. Stead-man, Jr. 231 of theme with such poems as The Lament for the MaTcaris. She therefore concludes that the piece was written shortly after 1503, the date of The Thistle and the Rose. The true explanation of the parallels between the description of Liffe in our poem and those of Dame Xature in Dunbar, lies, however, not in Miss Scamman's theory of direct borrowing, but in the use of a common source, viz., the widely known De Planctu Natures of Alanus de Insulis. The relation of Death and Liffe to this poem is discussed in detail below. As to the theme of the inevitability and the destructive might of Death, we need go no further than the passages in Piers Plowman which the Death and Life author may be shown to have used. Indeed, one is embarrassed with riches in endeavor- ing to find sources for the use of this motive in Death and Life. Miss Scamman's conclusion as to date must therefore be rejected. From the linguistic standpoint it is difficult to believe that Death and Life is as late as 1500. Despite the modernization of spelling, as in such words as " ghost," " doubt," the language of the poem appears to belong rather to the fifteenth than to the sixteenth century. A comparison of the phonology with that of Winnere and Wastoure and of Emare forbids the conclusion that these poems and Death and Life are two hundred and fifty years apart in date. In literary form Death and Life holds very closely, as will be shown, with the older poems of the alliterative school, and it seems likely that its author was nearer to them in point of time than the poet of Scotish Feilde. Eecent scholarly opinion has inclined to the middle of the fifteenth century as a probable period for the origin of Death and Liffe. Thus Luick (op. cit., p. 612) observes that the style. is " fiir das sechzehnte jahrhundert in hohem grade alterthiimlicher." On metrical grounds he concludes that Death and Life probably originated at a time when the final -e was sometimes still pronounced in poetry (i. e., in the fifteenth century).^ Schneider, after a comparative study of the metre of the two poems, infers that the final -e was much more often pronounced in Death and Life than in Scotish Feilde and believes that it was composed some fifty years earlier, circa 1450.* Our own study of Death and Life inclines us to the opinion that the •See also Luic-k's treatment of the wr : w alliteration in Death and Liffe and Scotish Feilde. * Bonner Beitrage, xn, 109 ff. 232 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem _ poem is before 1450 rather than after that date. Further comment on this subject will be found in the sections on language and meter, and on the theme and sources. IV. The Debate Form The conflictus or debate, of which, as we have already remarked, Denth and Liffe is to be regarded as an example, is the joint product of the mediaeval love of allegory and of the habit of controversy and. disputation fostered by the discipline of the schools. The literary type is widespread and ill-defined, springing up not in mediaeval Europe alone, but spontaneously in various times and places. Thus there was in the ancient synkrisis substan- tially the same phenomenon ^ and allegorical disputes, often identical in theme with those of the Middle Ages, exist in large numbers in Persian and Arabian Literature.^ The mediaeval debate has, however, a history of its own, developing certain tradi- tional characteristics which are clearly traceable in Death and Liffe. The term debate has been used to cover a great variety of more or less contentious dialogues, whether between real or fictitious individuals or between personified abstractions. The distinguishing feature of the class of debates to which Death and Liffe belongs is the clear cut opposition of two ideals or principles or points of view, expressed in a dialogue between typical or abstract figures who are themselves the embodiment of that for which they contend. The disputants may be typical persons, as a Christian and a Jew; animals, birds or objects; or finally mere abstractions, as Vice and Virtue, Wisdom and Folly, the World and Eeligion, Death and Life. The schematic mind of the Middle Ages, tending as it did to see things in black and white and prone to find everywhere opposites, antipathies, and contrasts, provided such materials in rich abundance. The debate is partly a jeu d'esprit, the work of pedagogues and scholastic philosophers on a half holiday, or of ^ See Miss Margaret Waites' article, " Some Aspects of the Ancient Alle- gorical Debate," in Radcliffe Studies in English and Comparative Litera- ture, also Otto Hense, Die Synkrisis in der antiken Litteratur, and Hirzel, Der Dialog. ' Moriz Steinschneider, " Rangstreit-Literatur," Sitzungsherichte der Wiener Akad., Phil.-Hist. Kl., 155 (4), 1907-8. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 333 students amusing themselves with clever parodies of their serious intellectual occupations; it is partly, also, the fruit of a sincere endeavor of the mediaeval man to represent imaginatively the great dualisms of existence and to proclaim the triumph of one or another principle in the eternal warfare of ideals. Hence, while many debates are trivial and wearisome, their cleverness having long since lost its point, others, like the Debate of the Body and the Soul, and the present one of Death and Life, are among the deepest and most powerful expressions of the mediaeval spirit. Since the contestants are personified principles or causes their discussion tends to resolve itself into a strife for superiority, but while the question is usually one of relative merit other issues may be involved. Iij the Debate of the Body and the Soul, for example, the contest hinges on the question of which one is respon- sible for the sins of man. Sometimes the point lies in the mutual rights of the two antagonists, and in such debates the contest is commonly conceived of as a legal one. The issue in Death and Life is fundamentally one of relative power and right. Liffe complains that Death is wantonly trampling down her children. Death boasts of her superior might, and also, after the more usual fashion of the debate, defends her utility in the scheme of things. Finally Liffe proclaims her eternal victory over the enemy through Christ. There is also in our poem the customary appeal to a judge, in this case God, who sends Countenance to restrain the ravages of Death, and the very common combination with the debate of the dream or vision setting. For the origin of these and other conventions we must review briefly the early history of the genre in mediaeval literature. The formal tradition of the mediaeval debate begins in the neo-Latin poetry of the Carolingian renaissance. The materials for debate, expressed in forms which tend to approximate to the later mediaeval type, and which did, as a matter of fact, often come to fuse with it, were already common enough, deriving from classical. Christian, and Teutonic sources. Chief of these were the rhetorical comparisons, contrasts and encomia which were familiar as literary exercises in the late Roman and early mediaeval schools; didactic allegories like the Psychomachia of Prudentius and the theological dialogue between the four daughters of God ; philosophical and polemical dialogue, particularly those in which 234: Death and Lijfe: An Alliterative Poem. the Christian faith is defended against paganism, Judaism, and other heresies; and lastly flytings and other types of popular dialogue. The establishment of a fairly definite literary form for the embodiment of the numerous contrasts and rivalries inherent in medieval life and thought was, however, due to the determining influence of the classical pastoral, revived by Alcuin and his followers in the eighth and ninth centuries.^ In the typical debates of this period the characters — Winter and Summer, Truth and Falsehood, the Lily and the Rose — contend in amoebsean strains with obvious reminiscences in their style and setting of the Virgilian eclogue. From these poems a definite tradition can be traced to the host of Latin conflictuses in the twelfth century, and, through them, to the debates which flourished in the vernacular literatures throughout the Middle Ages and well into modern times. In the Carolingian debates the dialogue is given with a simple narrative introduction like that in the pastoral, describing the contestants and telling of their meeting. In the eleventh century the author first appears as auditor of the dispute * and the innovation made way for a more elaborate introduction recounting his experience. The debate thus becomes an " adventure " and is inevitably brought into association, as a second step, with the literature of vision. No discussion of the mediaeval vision as an independent literary tradition is deemed necessary here, the subject having been extensively dealt with by many scholars. General allegories in vision form of course long antedate the earliest mediaeval debates. The first instances of formal debates with vision introduction are the Visio Fulherti, the Latin original of the Debate of the Body and the Soul and, with a fuller develop- ment of the setting, the Golice Dialogus inter Aquam et Vinum.^ both of the twelfth century. The judge, already present in the Carolingian debates as a figure borrowed from the eclogue (in the Conflictus Veris et HiemU he is called Palaemon), is repre- sented in most of the later disputations, appeal being made to * See Hanf ord, " Classical Pastoral and. Medieval Debat« " in The Ro- manic Review, vol. ii, nos. 1 and 2. * In the Conflictus Ovis et Lini, ascribed to Hermannus Contractus, Haupt's Zeitschrift, vol. xi, pp. 215-238. ' See Hanford, " The Medieval Debate between Wine and Water," Publi- cations of the Modem Language Association, xxvni, 3. James H. Eanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 235 some neutral third person, often the author himself, or to a higher power, as in the case of Death and Life. In the Latin conflictus of the twelfth century we have also for the first time the introduction into the debate of themes and motives drawn from the system of courtly love. The earlier disputations had been wholly learned and academic. The new strain of romantic allegory appears in the well-known AUercatio Phyllidis et Flarce,^ a poem in which the amatory controversy of the relative merits of the clerical and the knightly lover is completely assimilated to the traditional debate type, but with an elaboration of the descriptive and narrative machinery which, as in Death and Life and the vernacular debates generally, leaves the actual verbal disputation simply one incident in a series of romantic and allegorical events. The opening is an ornate description of springtime, a feature which became common in the Latin and vernacular disputes. The contestants are vividly characterized. They argue their cases warmly, and at length agree to submit the question to Cupid. The last half of the piece contains an account of their journey to the court of Love, where the God hears their cause and submits it to his judges. Use and Nature, who declare in favor of the clerk, thereby betraying very clearly the authorship of the composition. The AUercatio was widely known and imitated, and it is to be counted a chief influence in the later vernacular debate. The court of Love materials and the consequent extension of the allegory appear also in Numnius et Amor, a work of perhaps even earlier date than the AUercatio but apparently of little influence.'^ In the AUercatio Ganymedis et Helence^ the dispute takes place on Olympus, not in the court of Cupid but in that of Mother Nature, a personage who, as we shall see, plays an important though disguised role in Death and Life. The poem is a vision with the conventional description of spring. 'See Oulmont, Les Debals du Clerc et du Chevalier, Paris, 1911, for the texts and an extended study of this debate and its numerous imitations. ' Extracts are printed from the twelfth century Tegernsee ms. in tlie Sitzungsberichte of the Munich Akademie, Phil. -Hist. Klasse, 873, 685 ff. This very important document in the history of the Court of Love allegory has been passed over in silence by both Neilson and Langlois. As a debate it is a distant forerunner of Winnere and Wastoure. * Edited by Wattenbach, ZeitscJirift fiir deutsches Alterthum, xvin, 124 flf. 236 Death and Lijfe: An Alliterative Poem With the extension of the narrative elements in the debate there goes also a change in the character of the dialogue. The earliest Latin disputations are under the domination of the pastoral form and the alternate speeches of the contestants are short and of equal length after tlie manner of the Virgilian eclogue. This is true also of some of the twelfth century poems, but in others, as, for example, the Visio Fulherti, the Phyllis et Flora, and in the ver- nacular debates generally, the dialogue tends to lose its amoebaean character, the arguments becoming long, argumentative and with- out definite correspondences. In the twelfth and thirteenth century Latin pieces we have, then, all the essential features of the fully developed allegorical debate, which became popular toward the end of the Middle Ages in France and England. The shift in emphasis from scholastic argument to picture and romantic story was inevitably carried still further, and various other motives, such as the allegorical tournament, adapted from the Psychomachia and from the romances themselves, are added. In Hueline et Aiglantine, a French imitation of PliTjlR't et Flora, there is an extension of the account of the trial before Cupid. Bird advocates plead on either side, and champions, the nightingale for the knights and the parrot for the clerks, engage in combat. Similar developments are illus- trated in the English Debate of Heart and Eye,^ a fifteenth century version from the French. In these debates the courtly, romantic, and amatory elements predominate; the more serious didactic debates derive their materials rather from moral allegory, satire, and theology. Their authors, however, especially in the fifteenth century, tend to follow the program set by the amatory disputes and are often more or less affected by their spirit. Thus in Winnere and Wastoure, a fourteenth century poem, which as we shall show is very closely related to Death and Liffe, we have the descriptive and narrative machinery developed at the expense of the debate proper, which nevertheless remains central in the work. There is an extended vision and springtime introduction, the appeal to a judge, and the elements, at least, of an allegorical tournament in the description of the accoutrements of the two contestants and their rival armies. These features are substantially •Discussed by me in Modern Langtiage Notes, June, 1911. The text is given by Miss Eleanor Hammond, Anglia, xxxv, 235 ff. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 237 repeated in our poem. It remains to consider the debate theme of Death and Lijfe and to indicate the specific influences under which the piece took form. V. The Theme A. The Coming of Death and the Debate of the Living and the Dead In substance the alliterative Death and Life obviously be- longs to the vast body of mediaeval literature which has for its theme the inevitableness and the destructive might of Death, a topic of which the Middle Ages never wearied and upon which the authors of the period exhausted their powers of rhetoric and imagination. The conception of Death as the irresistible foe of mortality is, of course, universal. Classical literature contributed its part to the medieval stream, as in Horace's Pallida Mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turris. But the chief source was naturally scripture, with its many texts embodying the warning of the inevitability of Death and the uncertainty of its hour.^ Such motives are elaborated in mediaeval literature, with growing insistence on Death's hostility and appalling voraciousness. Characteristic embodiments in English are such poems as Erthe upon Ertlie,^ Death,^ The Enemies of Man,*" The Signs of Death.^ One of the commonest of mediaeval formulae for the universality of death is the ubi sunt, wherein the author reviews all classes of mankind, conceiving them as leveled alike by the scythe of the grim destroyer. Often enough the iihi sunt is boastfully pronounced by Death himself, as in Cursor Mundi, 330 fl[., a passage which is paralleled in Death's enumera- tion of his conquests in Death and Lijfe. A special development of this motive, which brings us nearer to the present poem, is the Dance of Death, and its probable original in literature and art, the ^E.g., Psalms 88, 49; Ecclesiastea 3, 19; Romans o, 12; 1 Thessalonians 5, 2; James 4, 14. ^Anglia, xx\i, 216; E. E. T. S., cxu. ^E. E. T. 8., XLix, 168. *Engli8che Studien, ix, 440. " E. E. T. S., cxvn. 2 238 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem Dialogue or Debate of the Three Living Men and the Three Dead Men. TJie source of the legend is oriental. In a sixth century Arabian poem the poet and a king are passing some graves, when they hear the dead call out to the monarch : " Wliat you are, we were; what we are, you shall be." A thirteenth century French poem by Baudoin de Conde gives the standard form of the legend. Three Living Men express one after another their terror at the sight of the Dead. Then the Dead, in order, address the Living: noiies quel sommes, Tel ser6s-vous; et tel comme ore estes, fumes.' Sometimes the Living and Dead speak alternately. The reduction of the indefinite number of Dead in the Arabian legend to three involved making the Living Men representatives of Youth, Middle Age, and Old Age, thus enforcing the moral that Death comes alike at all periods of mortal life. In one form or another this theme had a tremendous popularity. The innumerable dialogues of Death and Life found in all languages are mostly fragments of it. Young men and old, man and woman, peasant, pope, and prince, with one voice record the vain protest against dissolution and receive the same grim answer from the cadavers or skeletons which are their other selves.'^ The Dance of Death or the danse macabre is but a grotesque extension of the Three Dead Men and the Three Living Men.* It appears first in the fifteenth century, in the form of a series of art representations of men and women of all classes, each led to the sepulchre by a skeleton. The designs are accompanied by texts similar to those already discussed. The protest of living things and the blind ruthlessness of the destroyer are evidently the motivating ideas of our debate. It is unlikely that the danse macabre conception was present in the author's mind, since the great development of this motive was later than the probable date of Death and Life. He must, however, • Montaiglon, U Alphabet de la Mort de Hans Holbein, Paris, 1856. 'For examples see Montaiglon, Recueil de Poesies, v, 60flF.; D'Ancona, Teatro Italiano, i, 550; Steinschneider, op. cit. ' This is the view of Kiinstle, Die Legende der drei Lebenden und der drei Toten, und der Totendanz; but see Hammond, Latin Texts of the Dance of Death, Modem Philology, vrn, 399. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 239 have known plenty of examples of the Trois morts dispute and the material would have come to him also through The Parletnent of the Thre Ages, where its influence is palpable. One important point of difference, however, is to be noted between the present debate and that of the Trois morts. In the latter it is not Life and Death who hold converse but the living and the dead. The Dead, however, easily become representatives of Death itself. In the Dance of Death, for example, the skeleton came to be inter- preted as a personification of Death, and not merely as a mortal relic of humanity. The Living Men, moreover, are types of human life, and in some cases their place is taken by an abstraction, who still preserves the role of helpless victim. Thus the Zwiegesprach zwischen dem Lehen und dem Tode ® proves upon examination to be simply a Trois marts dispute with the personifications. So also in the Dehat et Proces de Nature et de Jeunesse, Nature is Death and Youth a type of all who live.^° The conception of death as a skeleton, which through the influence of the Dance of Death, became universal in the fifteenth century, was long antedated by other forms of the personification. To these we may now turn in explanation of the grisly figure who in our poem smites Life's children in the dust. Throughout the literature of death there is a strong tendency to allegory and personification. Thus in Horace the Atra Cura sits behind the horse- man as he rides. In scripture the most vivid representation is in Revelations, 6, 8 : " And I looked, and behold a pale horse : and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." The mediaeval figures of Death are infinitely varied. Sometimes it is a youth, sometimes a man, sometimes a beast. The weapon is a bow, or lance, or scythe, or sword. The idea of Death's sovereignty is often suggested by a crown. Occasionally the figure is a woman, as in the representations of the crucifixion (See below, p. 243), in the Three Enemies of Man. and in Death and Liffe.^^ The associa- 'Freybe, Das Memento Mori, Gotha, 1909, 86 ff. " Le Dehat des Deux Demoyselles, Paris. 1825. " See J. L. Wessely, Die Gestalten des Todes und Des Teufels in der dar- stellenden Kunst ; Th. v. Frimmcl, Beitrdge zu einer Ikonographie des Todes in Mittheil. der k. k. Oentralcomm. ziir Erforsch. u. Erhalt der Haudenk- male, N. F., xrn-xvii (1887-1891); Kraus, Geschichte der Ch/ristlichen Kunst, n, 446-7. 240 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem tion of Death with Satau led to the adoption of many grotesque and horrible characteristics from the current demonology. This iuHuence is particularly evident in Death and Liffe, where the " long tushes " and the neb of the nose reaching to the navel betray the hellish origin of the conception, while the leanness of the body and the deathly hue of the face suggest the cadaver. More specifically, however, the description of Dame Death in our poem was written under the influence of a considerable tradition of monsters and grisly ghosts in the poetry of the alliterative revival (See below, p. 254 and in the notes to lines 151 &..). It is unnecessary to allude further to the mediaeval representa- tions of the assaults of the monster Death on human kind. The subject constitutes, as is well known, one of the standard themes of the morality play. In the Pride of Life the action approximates a debate. The King of Life, boasting of his power and flattered by Strength and Hele, sets out to conquer death, but flnds that he must share the lot of all mortality. It is important to note that the development of these plays and the great popularity of the Dance of Death fall together in the fifteenth century. There can be no question that the close of the Middle Ages saw an enormous increase in the emphasis on the idea of death and particularly on its more horrible aspects. Male ^" notes that the grewsome image of death does not appear frequently in medigeval art until the end of the fourteenth century. " Ce cadavre qui sort du tombeau pour nous ensigner non pas la neante mais le serieux de la vie, viola un personage tout nouveau dans Fart. Le XIII siecle ne nous offre rien de pareil." The change is indicated in the different spirit in which death is represented in the Trois Marts and the danse macabre. " Dans le dit des trois morts et des trois vifs la mort se presente, sans doiite, sous un aspect redoubtable. Mais, au fond, elle est plein de cl6mence. Elle parle rudement aux grands de ee monde mais elle leur laisse un delai ; elle ne met pas sa main seche sur leur epaule. Elle a 6te suscit^e par Dieu pour 6mouvoir le p^cheur, non pas pour le frapper. Dans la Danse macabre, au contraire, toute idee de pitie disparait. This new emphasis, Male believes, results from the efforts of the mendicant friars to terrify the multitudes. The great pestilences " L'Art religieuic, 375 ff. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 241 of the fourteenth century are also to be counted as an influence in burning on tlie consciousnesses of artists and poets the image of mortality. The vision of destruction in Death and Life, echoing and amplifying as it does similar materials in Piers Plowman (See below, p. 247) is in harmony, therefore, with the dominant temper of the literature of the late fourteenth and of the fifteenth centuries. The contemporary works of Lydgate are full of reflec- tions on dissolution,^^ death and change being indeed his principal themes; echoes of the Trois niorts dispute are to be found in Henryson ^^; and Dunbar's poetry is steeped in the grotesque horror of the tomb. The elaborate didactic allegories of the time almost invariably introduce Death in a role similar to that played by him in the Moralities.^^ The representation of Death in our poem as a demon rather than as a skeleton is an archaic feature and points to fourteenth century tradition as a primary influence in the author's conception. B. The Conflict of Death and Life and the Victory of Life. In the materials we have thus far considered the might of Death stands alone and unopposed. The protests of mortal creatures are weak and impotent. Life is a helpless victim, rather than a worthy antagonist of Death. The conception of an opposition between two great principles of Death and Life, in which the latter is not only coequal with its enemy but ultimately triumphant over him, in other words, the real debate of Death and Life may, I believe, be traced to two widely divergent sources, each contributing material of considerable importance in mediaeval literature, and blending, in our poem, in a truly curious and characteristic fashion. The first of these is to be found in the popular consciousness, inherited from pagan times, of a titanic struggle pervading all nature, and in the primitive faith which sees the life principle temporarily obscured but never wholly conquered — perishing, so far as the eye can see, from the face of the earth in winter but "His Damce of MaoJiabree is the moat important English text of tlic Dcmce of Death. " The Reasoning betwixt Deth and Man, Scottish Text Society, in, 134. ^ See Lydgate's Assembly of the Oods, stanzas 84 S. ; Hawes' The Pastime of Pleasure, and especially his Example of Virtue. 243 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem welling up eternal in the spring. The record of this belief is written in primitive myth and ritual, and it survives the stage of civilization which gave it birth in innumerable folk customs and in the themes and motives of popular literature. The ancient ceremony of the expulsion of Winter or Death, a central theme of mediaeval folk-drama,"' supplied the materials for the earliest of mediaeval debates, The Conflictus Veris et Hiemis, to which allusion has already been made, and contention poems on the same subject, popular in essence, however much they may be transformed by literary and academic influences, are common in all the European languages.^^ It is no mere accident that this contest of Winter and Summer heads the list, in time and perhaps also in popularity, of mediaeval debate literature. The motive, indeed, pervades the whole debate tradition. In poem after poem we may recognize the same opponents, altered in name only and in external character. Thus Spring, or the vital principle, reappears as Youth in contrast to Age; as Wine, representing the untrammeled joy of living, in contrast to Water, the symbol of asceticism; as the Flower in contrast to the Leaf; as the Nightingale, the bird of spring and youth and merriment, in contrast to the Owl, stern apostle of Winter and the mortification of the flesh. The sympathies of the author are, of course, not always on the side of the vital as opposed to the ascetic principle. A large number of mediaeval debates are to be regarded as single combats in the great battle between the virtues and the vices; and here it is inevitably the stricter ideal which is championed against the more liberal, or the more spiritual against the more material. But even when the author officially swears allegiance to religion and asceticism, he is sometimes wont to allow the Devil's advocate to plead with a dangerous eloquence. In the Goliardic pieces the graceless poet openly espouses the Devil's cause. From one point of view these expressions are due simply to the welling up of human instinct against an abnormal asceticism; but the champion- ship of the life principle in its various hypostases undoubtedly derived support also from a literary tradition deeply grounded in primitive culture and religion. " See E. K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage, vol. i, Book n. "See Uhland's essay on the folk-drama of the seasons, Gesammelte Schriften, in, 17 flf. James H. Eanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 243 Thus did instinctive mediaeval faith in life maintain itself unorthodoxly against a whole theological and moralistic artillery of memento mori's. Meanwhile Christian theology provided, in salvation, the triumph won for mankind by Christ's sacrifices upon the cross, its own transcendent weapon against death. It was indeed partly with a view to heightening this triumph that the terrible power of the destroyer was magnified. Already in Scrip- ture there is implicit the conception of a mightly struggle : " I will ransom them from the power of the grave ; I will redeem them from death. Ero mors tua o mors." {Rosea, 13, 14) " So that when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall he bring to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory," (J Corinthians, 15, 54). The rendering of this struggle in terms of concrete allegory was, for the Middle Ages, inevitable. As early as the ninth century the essential motive of our debate in its theological aspect is neatly formulated in the Victimm paschali, an Easter sequence ascribed to Wipo of Burgundia, known in the liturgy throughout the Middle Ages and still retained, it is said, in the Eoman missal. Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando; Dux vitae mortuus regnat vivus." Similar expressions are not uncommon in the hymns. The allegory of the Death and Life conflict on the cross is embodied also in a widespread theme of Christian art. The two figures, Life and Death, appear together beside that of Christ in representations of the crucifixion, Life crowned on the right. Death falling or standing with broken lance upon the left. Life is generally represented as a female figure; Death as a man, a woman, a beast, or (in the fifteenth century) a skeleton. Their positions are connected with the general symbolism which made the right of the cross a token of eternal life, the left of death and damnation.^^ The representations are accompanied by texts based on scriptural passages.^" " Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, n, 95. "Durandus, Rationale, Lib. vii, cap. xliv: Per sinistram enim mortalitas, per dextram immortalitas designatur, secundum illud: Leva ejus sub capite meo, et dextera eju^ amplexabitur me. " For example, in an eleventh century illumination : " Mors devicta peris 244 Death and Lijfe: An Alliterative Poem The omploviuent of tliis motive in art is antecedent to the developed allegorical debate of Death and Life, and is to be counted one of the chief formative elements in its development. A similar relation exists between the disputation of Church and Synagogue and the allegorical figures of the Church in triumph and the Synagogue in defeat, also found in mediasval portrayals of the crucifixion. Meanwhile other elements are contributed by the apocryphal Harrowing of Hell, interpreted in the medigeval accounts as an allegorical combat between Christ and Satan. The struggle for the salvation of man's soul finally merges into the general battle of the Virtues and the Vices, with Christ engaged in a perpetual warfare against Satan, Sin, and Death. We have, then, two distinct aspects of the conflict of Death and Life, each receiving allegorical embodiment throughout the Middle Ages; namely, the opposition of the life principle to Death as a physical fact, and the triumph of Eternal Life over both natural death and the " secunda mors," or the death of the soul. These two motives are combined in Death and Lijfe. The exultant boast of Death and the vision of destruction are, as we have already seen, an embodiment of the general theme of the coming of Death to all mankind. Lady Liffe, in this aspect, is one with the King of Life in the morality or with the Lord of Life in Piers Plowman, though the poet's viewpoint is different in that his sympathies are on the side of the lovely knights and ladies who must fall before Death's falchion, while he represents Death herself, not as God's chastening instrument, but as a ruthless alien power who brings to a sudden conclusion the innocent joy of mortal life. But Lady Liffe in the earlier part of the poem is obviously something more than a simple type of all that lives and is subject to the power of Death. Instead of playing the role of a helpless victim, like the frail creatures who surround her, she is herself a power, a goddess — exempt from chance and change. She is, indeed, a symbol of the vital principle itself, which animates all nature and gives life and joy to all created things. She opposes the might of Death, not by arms, but by a challenge of her right, and by an appeal qui Christum vincere gestis." A full treatment of the Life and Death motive in art is given by P. Wetber, Geistliches 8chauspiel und kirchliche Kunst, 63flF. James H. Hanford and John M. Stead-man, Jr. 215 to the high King of Heaven, who quickly bids Death cease from her ravages among Life's children. Still, in her words to Dame Death, Liffe can do little more than protest and vaguely threaten- To Death's recitation of her conquests there is no effective reply, until she is betrayed by her arrogance into adding to them the name of Christ: Have not I lusted gentlye with lesii of heauen? He was frayd of my flFace in ffreshest of time. Yett I knocked him on the crosse & carued throughe his hart. Then suddenly the whole aspect of the contest changes. The " witless words " of Death afford Liffe the opportunity for a triumphant answer. Out of her own mouth is Death condemned. For Life in Christ has been victorious over Death. At this point the earlier pagan conception of Life merges into the theological and Christian. Henceforth she is eternal Life, salvation, the conqueror of Death and Satan. She was upon the cross with Christ, her bower " bigged forever " in his heart. In that great battle she had beaten Death forever, and, following her to Hell, had redeemed from thence Death's captives. In this part of the allegory Liffe becomes for the time a mere abstraction. The author has difficulty even in keeping the figure of speech which distin- guishes her from Christ himself. But at the close of the poem she again becomes the kindly Lady " with lookes so gay," caring for her children, raising them from the earth where they lie slain, and hying over the hills with her winsome troop. The two divergent conceptions are here beautifully blended. The vital spirit which pervades all nature has become one with God, and the yearning faith in its permanence, darkened by the compelling phenomenon of death, is illumined and fortified by the idea of the resurrection. The poet has thus transcended the narrow bounds of mediaeval ascetic thought, in which all material things are evil and nature itself an ally of Death and Hell, and has unconsciously and half accidentally adopted the more modern point of view, constructing out of purely mediaeval materials a work which constitutes a dim prophecy of the Eenaissance. 246 Death and Liffe: A71 Alliterative Poem VI. Immediate Sources A. Piers Plowman. That the author of Death and Liffe was acquainted with The Vision of Piers Plowman and derived from that work much of the essential material of his poem is beyond question. Skeat went so far as to *say that he wrote in imitation of Piers Plowman, and Manly does not hesitate to class Death and Liffe among those works which continued the Piers Plowman tradi- tion into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is the purpose of the present discussion to define in some detail the extent and the limits of this debt. The central motive of the theological conflict is embodied in a passage contained in the B and C versions, in which Life contends with Death and triumphs through the resurrection. ' Ho shal louste with lesus,' quath ich • ' lewes, other scrybes ? ' ' Nay,' quath Faith, ' bote the feond • and Fals-dom-to-deye. Deith seith he wol for-do • and a-down brynge Al that lyueth other loketh • a londe and a watere. Lyf seith that he lyeth • and hath leyde hus lyf to wedde. That for al Deth can do • with-inne thre dayes, To walke and fecche fro the feonde • Peers frut the Plouhman, And legge hit ther hym lylveth • and Lucifer bynde. And forbete and bringe adoun • bale and deth for euere; mors, ero mors tua.' And dede men for that deon • comen oute of deope graues, And tolden why that tempest • so longe tyme durede. ' For a byter bataile ' • the dede bodye seyde, ' Lyf and Deth in this deorknesse her on for-doth that other, Ac shal no wi3t wite witerliche • ho shal haue mastrye, Er Soneday, a-boute sonne-rysynge ' • and sank with that til erthe.^ The conception of an actual debate between the powers of Life and Death is here clearly implied, and though the general theme is, as we have seen, a common one, verbal similarities ^ would appear to render it quite certain that the motive of the second half of Death and Liffe was suggested primarily by the above quoted passage. In both Piers Plowman and Death and Liffe the account of the >C, Passus XXI, 26-35 and 64-70. Cf. B, Passus xvni, 29-36 and 62-68. ' See notes to line 345. James H. Hanfard and John M. Steadman, Jr. 247 battle on the cross culminates in the triumphant descent into Hell. The resemblance between the two is on the whole confined to well established features which had become traditional in the numerous narrative and dramatic renderings of this part of the apocryphal Gospel of NicodemuS;, the biblical original of the legend. These are the cry " attoUte portas " at the entrance ; the light which pro- ceeds from Christ; the confusion of the demons; the binding of Lucifer; and the rescue of the Hebrew captives. The description in Death and Life is at once briefer and more picturesque. The author has omitted the preliminary debate between the Daughters of God and sacrificed the lengthy theological discussions, empha- sizing the idea of a dramatic conflict and adding such touches as that of Lucifer hurling fiends on the fire in his fury. He has, moreover, assimilated the whole to the allegory of Death and Life. Skeat's implication that the two passages are substantially identical gives a wrong impression. There are, however, a few detailed par- allels which confirm the conclusion that the account in Death and Liffe is primarily based on that in Piers Plowman. (See notes to lines 404 ff.) In like manner the author of Death and Liffe seems to have drawn material for the description of Death's destructive assaults upon the children of Liffe from the later account in Piers Plowman of the ravages of Death, who is represented as coming in the train of Antichrist, accompanied by Disease and Old Age, against Lyf, here conceived, not as Everlasting Life, but as a type of sinful man.^ Definite proof that the author of Death and Liffe has this part of Piers Plowman in mind is afforded by the figure of Sir Comfort (Cf. Death and Liffe, 177-8), who in the passage referred to is summoned by "the lord that lyued after lust" to bear his banner against Death. The association of Death with the seven deadly sins explains the presence in Death and Liffe of Pride, who precedes the steps of Death as a sort of herald (Cf. 157 and 183). A further parallel between Death and Liffe and Piers Plowman is to be found in the introductory visions. Conventional as the materials are, the parallels are sufficiently close to warrant the conclusion that the Death and Liffe author followed in outline the first twenty lines of the Prologue. The allegorical map of Death ' C. Passus xxiii, 69 ff. Cf. B. Passus xx, 68 ff. 248 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem and Liffe is modelled after that in the earlier work, and verbal similarities are closer and more numerous in the visions than elsewhere in the two poems. (See notes.) The Piers Plowman vision, with its simple and logical allegory, is plainly the original. Thus the " field full of folk," suggested by Matthew 13, 38 (" The field is the world "), ceases in Death and Liffe to be a representa- tion of all mankind and becomes a particular chivalnc gathering, though traces of the original conception persist in the phrase " all the world full of wealth" and in the presence of swains as well as knights in Death and Liffe. So also the allegorical tower and dungeon are transmuted into a whole panorama of towns and castles, and in general the description of the landscape in Death and Liffe is much elaborated. The more essential inspiration for this part of the poem comes, as a matter of fact, from an altogether different source. (See section C, below.) B. De Planctu Naturae. It will be apparent from the above comparison that the author of our poem, however much he may have depended on Piers Plowman for his material, has but little in common with the stern moralist of that great work. His treat- ment of the motives which he appropriates reflects a widely different point of view. Thus even the coming of Death, handled by the author of the B version with the grim satisfaction of the mediaeval preacher, is rendered in Death and Liffe with a poetic and imaginative rather than with a moral emphasis, and much the same may be said of the treatment of the crucifi:s;ion and the Harrowing of Hell. These elements, moreover, are neither the most characteristic nor the most attractive portions of the poem. It is in the conception of the lovely Lady Liffe, not in her theological aspect, but as the winsome being who invigorates all earthly things with her smile, that the charm and freshness of the piece chiefly reside. And for this conception there is no satisfactory counterpart in Piers Plowman. Lyf, the type of corrupt mortality ripening toward destruction, who in Passus XXIII is assailed by Deth and Elde, obviously has no relation to the ''alma Venus genetrix" of Death and Liffe. Nor is she, as Skeat maintains, the Lady Anima of the Vision of Dowel in Passus XI, though the relationship here is somewhat closer. Anima in Piers Plowman, is represented, according to the conventional allegory, as a lady dwelling in the castle of the body. The senses are enclosed in the castle " for loue James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 249 of the lady Anima that Lyf is ynempned," a detail suggestive of the affection which all creatures have for Lady Liffe. Here,, however, the resemblance stops. The allegorical being of Lady Anima is confined within the pinfold of the body, while Lady Liffe is a deity, the magna parens of living things. Her abode is on that new Olympus, where the mediasval deities of pagan mythology — Venus, Fortune, Dame Nature and many others — hold their state. Enough has already been said of her character and function to show with which one of the divinities she is to be associated; her own words, addressed to the destroyer Death, betray her origin : * & as a theefe in a rout thou throngeth them to death, tJiat neither Natv/re, nor I ffor none of thy deeds may bring up our bearnes.' Dame Liffe is, indeed, but a hypostasis of Dame Nature, a being to whom the Middle Ages had given vivid reality as the embodiment of God's creative power. Closer examination of the Anima passage in Piers Plowman will reveal the source from which the author of Death and lAffe may have derived the first suggestion for a transferal to Life of the attributes of Nature. The castle of Anima was made by Kind. " What sort of thing is this Kind? " asks the poet. ' Kynde is a creator,' quath Wit • ' of alle kyne thynges, Fader and formour • of al that forth groweth, The which is god grettest * that gynnynge hadde neuere, Lord of lyf and of lyght • of lysse and of payne Angeles and alle thyng • aren at hus wil; Man is hym most lyk • of members and of face. And semblable in soule to god • bote yf synne hit make.' Having once adopted, from the hint afforded in this passage, the idea of associating the figures of Life and Nature, the Death and Liffe poet did not rely on Piers Plowman for the details of his picture. He turned rather to the richer image of Nature in the well-known De Planctu Naturce of Alanus de Insulis,^ a work *The following discussion is adapted from my article, "Dame Nature and Lady LiflFe," Modern Philology, xv, 5, 313. * Death amd Liffe, 251-253. •Reprinted in Wright's Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets, vol. i. My quota- tions are from the English translation by Douglas M. Moffat, Yale Studies in English. 250 Death and Lijfe: An Alliterative Poem which had furnished Jean de Meung, Chaucer, and many others with the materials of their descriptions of the Goddess of Kind. iS^atura, with Alanus, is the parent of living things. Like Lady Liffe, she appears to the poet in a vision, radiant and goddess-like, crowned with a heavenly diadem. Her neck and breasts are described in terms closely paralleled in the debate. Special emphasis is laid throughout the work on her love function, a characteristic which reappears in the picture of Lady Liffe. At the approach of Natura the instinct of life and love springs up in all things. "The earth, lately stripped of its adornments by the thieving winter, through the generosity of spring donned a purple tunic of flowers." So also as Liffe draws near Blossomes & burgens breathed flfull sweete, flSowers fflourished in the frith where shee fforth stepedd, & the grasse that was gray greened beliue. The similarity of detail at this point in the two descriptions leaves no doubt that the author of Death and Lijfe is following the account of De Planctu. In both poems the fish express their joy; in both the trees bend their branches in honor of the goddess' approach. These lowered their leaves and with a sort of bowed veneration, as if they were bending their knees, offered her their prayers. [De Planctu, Prose n.] The boughes eche one they lowted to that Ladye & layd forth their branches. [Death and Liffe, 69-70.] Even more conclusive is the following. The garment of Nature is allegorieally described by Alanus after the model of Boethius, whose De Consolatione Philosophice he is following throughout. It is ever changing, elusive to the eye, and of a supernaturil substance. Similarly the author of Death and Liffe, quite unin- telligibly, except on the hypothesis that he is echoing Alanus, invests his goddess in a mysterious mantle. In kirtle & mantle of goodlyest greene that ever groome wore ffor the kind of that cloth can noe clarke tell. Indeed, the whole passage describing the approach of Liffe {Death and Liffe, 57-141) is but an elaboration of suggestions in James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 251 Ve Planctu Natures. In the subsequent narrative of the poet'vS meeting with Lady Liffe there is also a general similarity with Alanus' work, but these elements are more connectional. In view of the substantial identity of Lady Liife and Alanus' Natura it becomes unnecessary to resort, as Skeat does, to vaguer parallels with the descriptions in Piers Plowman of Lady Meed and Holichurche. The atmosphere which surrounds these figures is quite different from that which surrounds Lady Liffe. The latter is obviously close akin to the Venus of mediseval love allegory; her host is a kind of Court of Love, recruited from among the well-known names of romantic story, and, in the case of the abstractions, from the traditions of the Romance of the Rose. The materials of this part of the debate reveal in the poet a source of inspiration very different from the sombre earnest- ness of Piers Plowman. C. Winnere and Wastoure and The Parlement of the Thre Ages. A survey of the romantic poetry of the alliterative revival affords abundant evidence of the Death and Liffe author's wider range. The recurrence in the poem of phrases not found in Piers Plowman but common in other poems of the alliterative school shows the poet to have been well versed in the alliterative tradition. In style and meter Death and Liffe is really much closer to such works as the Morte Arthure than it is to Piers Plowman. To two poems, The Parlement of the Thre Ages and Winnere and Wastoure,'' which are among the earliest products of the alliterative revival, the relation of Death and Liffe is particularly close. All three poems conform to the type of the fully developed allegorical debate, having the vision setting and the elaborately developed narrative and descrip- tive machinery. The opening visions have several common features which are wanting in Piers Ploivman, and there are some ' Edited by Gollancz, The Parlement of the Thre Ages, Roxburghe Club Publications, 1897; The Parlement is reprinted by Gollancz in Select Early English Poems. The three alliterative debates are described together by Professor W. H. Schofield as illustrating certain conventional features of Khe mediseval vision in his article " The Nature and Fabric of the Pearl," P. M. L. A., XIX, 195 flF. Miss Scamman, op. cit., points out the structural similarity of Death and JAffe and Winnere, giving numerous parallels in alliterative phraseology in these poems and in The Parlement of the Thre Ages. 252 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem striking resemblauees ol" detail.® In all three the land of streams and birds and flowers in which the poet is wandering is richly described. Despite their apparent imlikeness the principal figures in the three debates have, moreover, an essential kinship. Thus Middle Elde and Youth, the former expressly pictured as a money-getter, the latter a spender, are Winnere and Wastoure; and Winnere and Wastoure, in turn, suggest in their qualities and relation to each other Death and Liffe. Liffe complains that Death destroys all that she labors to produce, as Winnere reproaches Wastoure with wasting through pride what he himself wins through will. Old Age, moreover, in The Parlement speaks as Death's messenger, employing many of the conventional motives repeated in Death and Life. Winnere, Wastoure, and Liffe are accompanied by armies of typical and allegorical figures,® In both Death and Life and Winnere and Wastoure appeal is made before the debate begins to a higher power (the King in Winnere, God in Death and Life) ; and in both a messenger is sent to put a stop, in one case to the conflict, in the other to the ravages of Death. Finally the authors of all three poems show a consider- able predilection for romance. The worthies listed as Death's conquests in The Parlement by Old Age are practically recapitu- lated in Death's boast in Death and Life. From this comparison it will appear that in its general structure Death and Life approximates very closely to Winnere and Wastoure, while in its essential theme and in details of expression it is rather nearer to The Parlement. TJie resemblances in either case are too striking and fundamental to be the result of accident. Since * Se* notes. ' Winnere addresses Wastoure in terms which would be equally applicable to the Death and Life dispute: Bot this felle false thefe >at byfore 30we standes Thynkes to stryke or he styntt and stioye me for ever. (W. and W., 228). Winnere and Death express hatred of their opponents in similar language: Sit harde sore es myn and harmes me more Ever to see in my syghte that I in soul hate. ( W. and W., 454 ) . Therefore, liffe, thou me leaue. I loue thee but a little; I hate thee and thy houshold, and thy hyndes all! (D. and L., 277). James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 253 Winnere and Wastoure can be definitely dated not mucli later than 1350, i. e., before the earliest version of Piers Plowman, and since there is no reason to contest Gollancz' opinion that Winn&re and The Parlement are by the same author we must conclude that the Death and Life poet was acquainted with both poems and used them almost as extensively as he did Piers Plowman. Presumably he knew other poems of the alliterative school as well. Something of a case could be made out for the Awntyrs of Arthwre. (See notes to lines 151, 159, 165, 175, 196, 340). The foregoing analysis of the various motives and influences traceable in Death and Liffe warrants a somewhat more specific account of the genesis and literary character of the poem than has hitherto been given. The author, living probably in the fifteenth century, is first of all an inheritor of the rich tradition of the earlier alliterative re- vival. His acquaintance with this literature in its more romantic and imaginative aspects is reflected in his free use of the highly poetic vocabulary of the school, which enables him to achieve a style more vivid and colorful than that of Piers Plowman or Scotish Feilde. The atmosphere of the piece bears evidence of contact with the galaxy of poems which have been indiscriminately ascribed to Huchowne of the Awle Eyale. In reality, however, the Death and Liffe author stands apart from the writers of this school ; he is one of the after-born and has never been admitted to the deeper mys- teries of their chivalric order. There is in his poem, to be sure, the fresh breath of springtime in wood and field; he beholds the same visionary landscape, conventional in form but permeated with a real sense of the "beauty and bliss" of nature. He has, too, their somewhat sober sympathy with the brighter and happier side of life— with knights and lovely ladies in the trappings of romance, with the birds that sing amid the boughs, and with the fish that swim gaily in the element. Yet he has, on the other hand, nothing of the technique of chivalry— no hunting scene, no feast in Arthur's hall, no elaborate description of armorial bearings or equipment. In all this his poem differs markedly not only from Gawain and the Green Knight, but also from The Parlement and Winnere. Its catalogue of romance heroes shows no such intimate feeling for the stories as is apparent in the 3 254 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem corresponding passage in The Parlement. Our poet sees romance, as it were, from a distance and without participating, like the Gawain poet, in its inner life. His temperament and the spirit of his time inclined him rather to allegory, in that form which combines didacticism with romance — The Court of Love and the Komance of the Rose. He is possessed also of the deeper moral and religious consciousness of his age, sees Death as the inevitable counterpart of romance and joy, and salvation joining issue with and triumphant over Death. It was natural, therefore, that he should have been attracted, among the alliterative poems, particu- larly by Winnere and Wastowe, with its stately and picturesque didactic allegory, and by The Parlement of the Thre Ages, in which a sermon on death and dissolution is made a means for the introduction, with obvious sympathy on the part of the author, of the richly varied matter of mediaeval romance. Designing to compose an allegorical work after the model of these poems the author of Death and Life found new but kindred materials in Piers Plowman in the war of Death on mankind and in the spiritual tri- umph over Death of Eternal Life in Christ. The account in Piers Plowman of the ravages of physical death fell in with the sermon of Elde in The Parlement and with the general current of the moral- izing literature of the fifteenth century. But the personification in Piers Plowman lacked vividness, and in elaborating the picture the poet turned to the earlier images of Death in mediaeval litera- ture, particularly, it may be, to the description of the ugly ghost in the Awntyrs of Arthure. The opposing concept of Life as a type of corrupt and sinful man and the correlative sense of Death as God's instrument of punishment were out of accord with the poet's partisan sympathies. He found, however, in the winsome Lady Anima the hint for a more fitting allegorical counterpart of the grisly horror, and the passage in which she is associated with Kind suggested a new opportunity for poetic elaboration, the materials for which were ready at hand in Alanus. Life, as the hypostasis of Dame Nature, thus becomes the heroine, and with her is associated the idea of Venus and her gentle troupe of followers from the realms of love allegory and romantic fiction. Death henceforth is a hateful intruder and her theological defeat a fitting punishment. The result is a poem of peculiar charm, an unquestionable work of art, sufficiently distinct in spirit and effect James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 255 from the work of the great romantic writers of the Gawain group and from that of the serious moralists and social reformers who followed in the wake of " Langland." The author's name, if we could know it, would perhaps stand first, in actual poetic merit, among the English writers of the fifteenth century, and it would be not the least memorable in the great but shadowy list of those poets who found in the ancient Teutonic verse form a more powerful instrument for poetic expression than they could possibly have found in the glib octosyllabics of French romance or the broken down heroic couplet of the fifteenth century disciples of Chaucer. VII. Metre Death and Life is written in that modified alliterative verse which appeared in Middle English during the second quarter of the fourteenth century and which continued for about two hundred years. The lengthening of short vowels in accented syllables and the loss of final -e caused this verse to differ in many respects from Old English poetry.^ The line is divided by a sense-pause into two halves, each of which contains at least two accented syllables.- These half lines are bound together, in most cases, by alliteration. According to the number and the position of the alliterative words, the lines may be classified according to the following types: I. Two alliterative words in the first half line with one in the second : aa/ax or aa/xa. This is the normal line in Death and Liffe; ^ three hundred and forty-three out of the 459 lines in the poem are of this type. For examples, see 11. 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, etc. * For a full discussion of iShe Middle English alliterative poetry, see J. Schipper, A History of English Versification, Oxford, 1910, Chapter rv; Saintsbury, History of English Prosody, London, 1906, i, 100 ff.; K. Luick, " Die Englische Stabreimzeile im xiv, xv, und xvi Jahrhundert," Anglia, XI, 393-443 and 553-618; and K. Schumacher, " Studien (iber den Stabreim in der mitteleng. Alliterationsdichtung," Bonner Studien, xi (1914). ' Since the sense^pause generally coincides with the end of the line, there are fewer run-on lines than in Old English poetry. •I have examined Scottish Feilde, The Parlement of the Thre Ages, and William of Paleme (the first 450 lines) for the purpose of comparing the metre of these poems with that of D. d L. 8c. F. has 420 11., The Parle- 256 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem II. Two alliterative words in each half line,* a a / a a. This type is a slight variant of I. III. Three alliterative words in the first half line with one or two in the second: aaa/a (a). The frequent occurrence of this type of line — with three alliterative words in the first half — convinces me that the triple alliteration was consciously sought after.'' IV. One alliterative word in the first half line with two in the second : ° a x / a a. This type is the inverted form of I. V. One alliterative word in each half line : '^ x a / x a or xa/ax or ax/ax. VI. Double alliteration : ^ a a / b b. Skeat {Percy Folio i, 216, note to Scotish Feilde, line 75) regards this t)rpe as debased since each half line is independent in its alliteration. Furnivall admits the presence of lines of this type, but he points out that in some cases, as in 11. 74-76 of Scotish Feilde, the alliteration is carried over from line to line. Thus the first half line of type a a / b b may form a triplet with the two halves of the preceding line and the second a triplet with the two halves of the following line. An examination of the lines in Death and Life with double alliteration shows that Furnivall was right in admitting this as a new type of alliterative line. See Death and Life, 130, 159, 209, for variations of this run-on alliterative line. But contrast lines 30, 184, 207, 262, 276, 354, 457. In Scotish Feilde there are four examples of run-on alliteration : 75, 85, 368 and 392. VII. Transverse alliteration : ® a b / a b. VIII. Introverted alliteration : ^° a b / b a. ment 665, and D. <& L. 459. Far tilie first type of line the results are as follows: D. d L., 343, 8c. F., 123, Pari. 564, and Wm., 397. *D. & L., 1 (line 122) ; Sc. F., 11, Pwrl, 6, Wm., 0. "D. & L., 41 (1, 3, 10, etc.), 8c. F. 16, Pari. 20, Wm. 3. •Z>. d L., 7 (18, 173, 192, 211, 221, 258, 295), Sc. F. 6, Pari. 3, Wm. 2. '/). d L., 16 (40, 69, 349. 372, 411, 447, etc.), 8c. F. 21, Pari. 5, Wm. 11. "D. d L., U (30, 130, 159, 184, 207, 262, 276, etc.), Sc. F. 12, Pwrl. 2, Wm. 4. •/). d L., 2 (95. 160), Sc. F. 1, Pari. 0, Wm. 3. In D. d L. there are no occurreoices of the types a a I) / a b and a a / a b b, which occur a few times in Sc. P. and Pari. '"D. d L., 1 (285), 8c. F. 4, Pari. 0, Wm. 2. There are no examples in D. d L. of a b b / a or of a a b / b, types which occur, though very rarely, in Pari and Sc. F. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 257 IX. Vocalic alliteration. This type is very common in all the poems of this school.^^ X. Alliteration in the first half line only : ^^ a a / x or a a a / x. XI. Lines without alliteration.^^ It is impossible to tell whether lines without alliteration are due to corruptions of the text or to the failure of the author to compose alliterative lines. In the case of Death and lAffe and Scotish Feilde some of these lines are obviously due to careless copying. Again it is significant that Parlement, which is relatively free from scribal errors, contains not a single example of a non-alliterative line. The presence of such a great number of types of alliteration shows that the " rules" were followed less closely in this poem, and in other poems of this school, than in the Old English alliterative verse. The author was apparently satisfied if he succeeded in binding his half lines together by any sort of alliteration. He allows himself many poetic licenses in the manner of binding the half lines together. In the first place, the alliteration sometimes falls upon an unstressed word, as in lines 194, 209, 245, 262, 314, 322. Some- times the attributive adjective takes the accent, sometimes the noun. In the combination of verb plus prepositional adverb either the verb or the preposition may take the accent. In one case, line 211, both are accented. Again, in verbal compounds either the prefix or the root may bear the alliteration. In the great majority of cases (Ifi), however, the root of the word bears the alliteration. The prefix bears the alliteration in lines 128 and 406.^* ^D.&L., 11 (19, 57, 104, 185, etc.), 8c. F. 10, Pwrl. 46, Wm. 5. Vocalic alliteration becomes rarer in the fifteenth century. Schumacher, p. 5, discusses this type in D. d L. See also pp. 62 and 351. "D. c6 L., 15 (2, 38, 92, 121, 156, 168, 291, etc.), 8c. F. 28, Pwri. 6, Wm. 17. A slight change in some of these lines would make them conform to the normal type. In the case of some of the proposed emendations of York Powell, Holthausen, and Brotanek, the change seems justified by a comparison with other lines. But in the majority of cases the changes are so radical as to involve a rewriting of these lines to make them conform to the normal line. The presence of type X, however, in the poems of thiq school is not due, I think, to the errors of the copyists, but rather to the authors themselves. "D. d L., 6, (150, 153, 171, 307, 417, 421), 8c. F. 6, Pari. 0, Wm. 7. "Even in Edgelong cmd everlasting, the alliteration is on I, and in line 258 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem Moreover, the author of Death and Liffe admits many allitera- tions upon sounds only approximately the same, such as w.wr (269), k:lcn (47, 51, 100, 118, etc.), and j:g (331), s:sch {■^OQ),sh:st (370), fc;gu 357.1= Finally, the number of unaccented syllables in the arsis or in anacrusis varies considerably. A comparison of Death and Life with The Destruction of Troy shows that the regularity of the metre in the latter is not to be found in our poem.^" It is prob- able, therefore, that the author of Death and Life was imitating a form of verse which he understood only imperfectly. In view of these facts, therefore, it is extremely hazardous to attempt to emend the unusual or imperfect lines in order to make them conform to the more rigid requirements of Old English alliterative verse or even to the requirements of the early Middle English alliterative poems. The attempts of York Powell, Holthausen, and Brotanek to normalize the imperfectly alliterating lines in Death and Life involve such radical changes in the poem as to constitute a rewriting of most of the difficult passages.^'' Such changes are based on the assumption that the author's copy of the poem was entirely regular in metre. But such an assumption, 152 the alliteration is (v)glyest — ghosts — gone. This false division of a word is seen also in (E)menyduse, Pari. 342, 359, (Ec) clesiastes — clerke — (de) dares, 638. There is no difference between D. d L. and the other poems of this school in respect to the alliteration of compound words. " Such combinations were evidently perfectly permissible, however, according to the " rules " of this school. In Pari., which, like D. d L., is comparatively strict in this respect, I find only k : kn, s : sh, and v) : wh. 8c. F. and Wm. are more lax. In 8c. F. I find w : v, sk : k, sk : k : Ion, 9 • jy 9 '• ^, and sq : sw : sn; in Wm. k : ch, k : J, but the MS. certainly has saye. See line 50 and textual note. 165. Her. ms. his is probably due to attraction from the preceding line. The pronouns in this poem are greatly confused. Cf. lines 192, 322, 393, etc. 171. d for an— P. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 267 & I for f eare of that f reake ffell in a swond. Had not Sir Comfort come & mv care stinted, I had beene slaine with that sight of that sorrowfull Ladye. Then he lowted to me low & learned me well ; sajd, " Be thou not abashed, but abyde there a while; 180 here may thou sitt & see selclothes ffuU manye. Yonder damsell is Death that dresseth her to smyte. Loe, Pryde passeth before & the price beareth, many sorrowffuU souldiers following her fast after : both Enuye & Anger, in their yerne weeds, 185 Morninge & Mone, Sir Mis[c]heefe his ffere, Sorrow & Sicknesse & Sikinge in Hart; all that were lothinge of their liffe were lent to her court. When she draweth vp her darts & dresseth her to smite, there is no groome vnder God may garr her to stint. 190 Then I blushed to that bearne & balefullye looked ; [s]he stepped forth barefooted on the bents browne, the greene grasse in her gate she grindeth all to powder, trees tremble for fFeare & tipen to the ground, leaues lighten downe lowe & leauen their might, 195 fowles faylen to fflee when the heard wapen, & the ffishes in the fflood ffaylen to swimne ffor dread of Dame Death that dolefullye threates. Wzth that shee hveth to the hill & the heard ffindeth ; in the roughest of the rout shee reacheth forth darts. 200 There shee fell att the first fflappe 1500 of comelyes queenes with crowne & hings full noble; proud princes in the presse prestlye shee quellethe ; 186. MS. Misheefe. F. prints Mis[c}heefe. 188. Lent, led? — P. ms. letit, or a. t crossed through for the first stroke of an n — F. I read the MS. as let — undotted i — t, or better, as lent, with n written over a t. See Glossary. 192. MS. he for she — P. Cf. lines 165 and 393. He, of course, may be feminine, but since this is the only occurrence of the form in the poem, we think it more likely that the copyist has miswritten the original she. See note. 197. MS. Sicimne is possibly a miswriting for stmmme. 268 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem of dukes that were doiightye shee dang out the braynes ; merry maydeus on the mold shee mightilye killethe ; 205 there might no weapon them warrant nor no walled towne ; younge children in their craddle they dolefullye dyen; shee spareth ff or no specyaltye but spilleth the gainest ; the more woe shee worketh more mightye shee seemeth. When my Lady Dame Liffe looked on her deeds 210 & saw how dolefullye shee dunge downe her people, shee cast vp a crye to the hye 'King of heauen. & he hearkneth itt hendlye in his hye throne ; he called on Countenance & bade his course take, " Hyde thou to the resohew of yonder wrought Ladye." 215 Hee was bowne att his bidd & bradd on his way, that wight as the wind that wappeth in the skye. He ran out of the rainebow through the ragged clowds & light on the land where the lords [lay] slaine, & vnto dolefull Death he dresses him to speake; 220 sayth, " Thou wrathefull Qiieene.that euer woe worketh, cease of thy sorrow thy soueraigine comandeth, & let thy burnished blade on the bent rest, that my Lady Dame Liffe her likinge may haue." Then Death glowed & gran for gryme of her talke, 225 but shee did as shee dained, durst shee noe other ; shee pight the poynt of her sword in the plaine earth, & wtth a looke full layeth shee looked on the hills. Then my Ladye Dame Liffe shee looketh full gay, kyreth to Countenance & him comelye thankes, 230 kissed kindlye that knight, then carped she no more ; but vnto dolefull Death she dresseth her to speake ; sayth : " Thou woeful! wretch, weaknesse of care, bold birth full of bale, bringer of sorrowe, dame daughter of the devill, Death is thy name : 235 but if thy fare be thy fairer the feend haue thy soule. 218. Rainebow. The w is made over a 7/ in the MS. — F. 219. Some word, probably a word beginning with I, has beeoi omitted by the scribe. We adopt F's emendation. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 369 Couldest thou any cause ffind, thou kaitiffe wretch, that neither reason nor wright may raigne with thy name ? Why kills thou the body that neuer care rought ? The grasse nor the greene trees greened the neuer, 240 but come fforth in their kinds Christyans to helpe, ,,5 with all beawtye & blisse that barne might devise. But of my meanye thou marreth marveild I haue how thou dare doe them to death, eche day soe manye, & the handy worke of him that heauen weldeth. 245 How keepeth thou his comandements, thou kaytiffe retch ! Wheras banely hee them blessed & biddeth them thriue, waxe fforth in the wor[l]d & worth vnto manye, & thou lett them of their leake with thy lidder turnes. But with wondering & with woe thou waiteth them full yorne, 250 & as a theefe in a rout thou throngeth them to death, that neither Nature nor I ffor none of thy deeds may bring vp our bearnes, their bale thee betyde. But-if thou blinn of that bine thou buy must full deere ; they may wary the weeke that euer thou wast fformed." 255 Then Death dolefullye drew vp her browes, armed her to answer & vpright shee standeth, & sayd : " O lonely Liffe, cease thou such wordes. Thou payneth thee with pratinge to pray me to cease. Itt is reason & right that I may rent take, 260 thus to kill of the kind both kings & dukes, loyall ladds & liuelye, of ilke sort some ; all shall drye with the dints that T deale with my hands. I wold haue kept the comandement of the hye 'King of heauen, but the bearne itt brake that thou bred vp ffirst 265 when Adam & Eue of the earth were shapen, 242. MS. ha/rme. "The alliteration requires 6; and h is continually mie- written for h. It should be home = ieame ( 265 ) " — Sk. So also Po. 248. MS. word for world — Po. 250. Wondering, only half of the last n in the MS. 251. MS. then for them. 259. The t of pratvnge is written over the s in the MS. F. reads praainge. 266. The e of Eue haF a tag on the end like an r — F. 4 270 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem & were put into paradice to play with their selues, <&r were brought into blisse, bidd if the wold. He warned them nothing in the world but a wretched branche of the ffajntyest ffruit that euer in ffrith grew. 270 Yett his bidding they brake, as the booke recordeth. When Eue ffell to the tfruite with ffingars white k plucked them of the plant & poysoned them both, I was ifaine of that ffray, my ffawchyon I gryped & delt Adam such a dint that hee dolue euer after. 275 Eue & her of spring I hitt them I hope ; for all the musters that they made I mett with them once. Therf ore, Liffe, thou me leaue, I loue thee but a litle ; I hate thee & thy houshold & thy hyndes all. Mee gladdeth not of their glee nor of their gay lookes; 280 att thy dallyance & thy disport noe dayntye I haue ; thy ffayre liffe & thy ffairenesse ffeareth me but litle ; thy blisse is my bale breuelye of others, there is no game vnder heauen soe gladlye I wishe as to haue a slapp with my ffawchyon att thy fayre state." 285 [11] Then Liffe on the land ladylike shee speakes : sayth, " These words thou hast wasted, wayte thou no other; shall thy bitter brand neuer on my body byte. I am grounded in God & grow for euermore ; but to these men of the mold marvell methinketh 290 in whatt hole of thy hart thou thy wrath keepeth. Where ioy & gentlenesse are ioyned together 269. Wretched. The r is written over some other letter. 283. Breuelye. Bremelyef — P. The fourth letter may be an n, but is more likely «, as F. reads it. 286. The scribe has bracketed line« 286-291 and has written " 2 fl5tt " in the margin. 292. The i of ioyned has an accent on it as if for a o — F. James H. Eanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 271 betweefne a wight & his wiffe & his winne children, & when ifaith & ffellowshipp are ffastened Ifor aye, loue & charitje, w/iich our Lord likethe, 295 then thou waleth them wtth wraeke & wratheffully beginneth ; vncurteouslye thou cometh, vnknowne of them all, & lacheth away the land that the lor^ holdeth, or woryes his wiffe or waits dowiie his children. Mikle woe thus thou waketh where mirth was before. 300 This is a deed of the devill, Death, thou vsest. But if thou leaue not thy lake & learne thee a better, thou wilt lach att the last a lothelich name." " Doe away, damsell," qw-oth Death; " I dread thee nought. Of my losse that I losse lay thou noe thought; 305 thou prouet mee full prestlye of many proper thinge ; I haue not all kinds soe ill as thou me vpbraydest. Where I wend on my way the world will depart, bearnes wold be ouer bold bales ffor to want, the 7 sinnes for to serue & sett them full euer, 310 & giue no glory vnto God, that sendeth vs all grace. If the dint of my dart deared them neuer, to lett them worke all their will itt were litle ioy. Shold I for their fayrnesse their ffoolishnes allowe? My Liffe (giue thou me leaue), noe leed vpon earth 315 but I shall master his might, mauger his cheekes, as a conquerour keene, biggest of other, to deale dolefull dints & doe as my list ; for I fayled neuer in fight but I the ffeild wan, sith the ffirst ffreake that formed was euer, 320 & will not leaue till the last bee on the beere layd. But sitt sadlye, thou Liffe, & the soothe thou shalt know. If euer any man vpon mold any mirth had, that leaped away with thee, Liffe, & laughed me to scorne, 293. a wight, MS. his wight, probably by attraction from the following his. So also Po. 315. The parentheses are in the MS. 322. MS. thy Liffe. Thy for thou—P. Cf. lines 165, 192, and 393. 273 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem but I daug them wtth my dints vnto the derffe earthe. 325 Both Adam & Eue & Abell I killed, Moyses & Methasula & the meeke Aronn, losua & Joseph & lacob the smoothe, Abraham & Isace & Esau the roughe; Samuell, for all his ffingers, I slew with my hands, 330 & Jonathan, his gentle sonne, in Gilboa hills; David dyed on the dints that I delt oft ; soe did Salomon, his sonne, that was sage holden, & Alexander alsoe, to whom all the world lowted ; in the middest of his mirth I made him to bow ; 335 the hye honor that he had helped him but litle. When I swang him on the swire to swelt him behoued. Arthur of England & BPector the keene, both Lancelott & Leonades, with other leeds manye, & Gallaway tlie good 'Knighi & Gawaine the hynde, 340 & all the rowte I rent ffrom the round table ; was none soe hardye nor soe hye, soe holy nor soe wicked, but I burst them wtth my brand & brought them assunder. How shold any wight weene to winn me on ground ? Haue not I iusted gentlye wtth lesu of heauen ? 345 He was f rayd of my ff ace in ffreshest of time. Yett I knocked him on the crosse & earned throughe his hart." & with fJiat shee cast of her crowne & kneeled downe lowe when shee minned the name of that noble Prince. Soe did Liffe vpon land & her leeds all, 350 both of heauen & of earth & of hell ff eends ; all they lowted downe lowe their 'Lord to honor. Then Liffe kneeled on her knees wtth her crowne in her hand, & looketh vp a long while towards the hye heauen ; she riseth vpp rudlye & dresseth her to speake; 355 355. Rudlye. For radyle, A. S. radlice, quickly, speedily? — P. Po. and Holt, emend to radlye. The tips of the u are close together and the second letter, therefore, may be read as an imperfect a. Both radlye and rudlye are often used in alliteration with rise. Rudlye rise, although not quite 60 common as radlye rise, is perfectly intelligible. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 273 shee calleth to her companye & biddeth them come neere, both km^s and queenes & comelje dukes : " Worke wiselye by yowr witts my words to heare, ihat I speake ffor yowr speed & spare itt noe longer." Then shee turneth to them & talketh these words : 360 she sayth, " Dame Death, of thy deeds now is thy doome shapen through thy wittles words that thou hast carped, which thou makest with thy mouth & mightylye avowes. Thou hast blowen thy blast breemlye abroade; how hast thou wasted this world sith wights were first, 365 euer murthered & marde, thou makes thy avant. Of one point lett vs proue or wee part in sunder: how didest thou iust att Jerusalem with lesu my Lord ? Where thou deemed his deat[h] in one dayes time, there was thou shamed & shent & stripped ffor aye. 370 When thou saw the K.ing come with the crosse on his shoulder, ion the top of Caluarye thou camest him against ; like a traytour vntrew, treason thou thought. Thou layd vpon my leege Lord lotheliche hands, sithen beate him on his body & buffetted him rightlye, 375 till the railinge red blood ran from his sides ; sith rent him on the rood with ffull red wounds. To all the woes that him wasted (I wott not ffew), tho deemedst to haue beene dead & dressed for euer. but, Death, how didst thou then with all thy derfFe words, 380 when thou prickedst att his pappe with the poynt of a speare, & touched the tabernackle of his trew hart where my bower was bigged to abyde for euer ? 356. MS. thenn. 364. Breemlye is Percy's suggestion. The MS. has breenlye or ireitlye (undotted i). The word is therefore breemlye or breeulye. Since the alliterative group blow-hlast-breemlye is so common, we read breemlye with P., Po., and F. 369. MS. deat. F. prints deatih]. 376. Sides. F. prints s[i]des. But the i is dotted. The imperfect letter is d, which lacks the first stroke. 379. Tho. See note. 274 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem When the glory of his godhead glented in thy face, then was thou feard of this fare in thy false hart ; 385 then thou hyed into hell hole, to hyde thee beliue ; thy f awchon flew out of thy fist, soe fast thou thee hyed. Thou durst not blushe once backe, for better or worse, but drew thee downe ffull in that deepe hell, & bade them barre bigglye Belzebub his gates. 390 Then the told them tydands that teened them sore, how that King came to kithen his strenght, & how [he] had beaten thee on thy bent & thy brand taken, with euerlasting Liffe that longed him till. Then the sorrow was ffull sore att Sathans hart ; 395 hee threw ffeends in the ffyer, many ffell thousands ; & Death, thou dange itt on whilest thou dree might ; for ffalte of thy ffawchyon, thou fought wtth thy hand. Bost this neuer of thy red deeds, thou ravished bitche! Thou may shrinke for shame when thou the sooth heares. 400 Then I leapt to my Lord that caught me vpp soone, & all wounded as hee was, wtth weapon in hand, he fastened ffoote vpon earth & ffollowed thee ffast till he came to the caue that cursed was holden. He abode before Barathron that bearne while he liked, 405 that was euer merke as midnight wtth mourni[n]ge & sorrows; he cast a light on the land as beames on the sunn. Then cryed that T^ing wtth a cleere steuen, * Pull open your ports, you princes wtthin ; here shall come in the Kw^ crowned wtth ioy, 410 vfhich is the hyest burne, in battell to smite.' There was ffleringe of ffeends throughe the fyer gaynest, hundreds hurled on heapes in holes about. The broad gates all of brasse brake all in sunder & the Yjing with his crosse came in before. 415 393. MS. he for she. Cf. lines 165, 192, and 322. 400. The Hales-Furnivall text inadvertently omits the second thou. 401. that is written over the abbreviation for and. 406. MS. motumige. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 275 He leapt vnto Lucifer that Lord himselfe ; then he went to the tower where chaynes were manye, & bound him soe biglye that hee for bale rored. Death, thou daredst that day & durst not be seene ffor all the glitering gold vnder god himseluen. 420 Then to the tower hee went where chanes are many ; hee tooke Adam & Eue out of the old world, Abraham & Isaac & all that hee wold, David & Danyell & many deare bearnes that were put into prison & pained ffuU long. 425 Hee betooke me the treasure that neuer shall haue end, that neuer danger of death shold me deere after. Then wee wenten fforth winlye together & left the dungeon of devills & thee, Death, in the middest. & now thou prickes ffor pride, praising thy seluen. 430 Therfore bee not abashed, my barnes soe deere, of her ffauchyon soe ffeirce nor of her ffell words. Shee hath noe might, nay no meane, no more you to greeue, nor on yowr comelye corsses to clapp once her hands. I shall looke you ffull liuelye, & latche ffull well 435 & keere yee ffurthe-r of this kithe aboue the cleare skyes. If yee [loue] well the Ladye that light in the mayden, & be christened wtth creame & in jour creede beleeue, haue no doubt of yonder Death, my deare children, for yonder is damned with devills to dwell, 440 where is wondcxing & woe & wayling ffor sorrow. Death was damned that day, daring ffull still. Shee hath no might, nay no maine, to meddle with yonder ost, against euerlasting Liffe that Ladye soe true." Then my Lady Dame Liffe with lookes soe gay, 445 437. Same word lias been omitted by the scribe. P. suggests serue or loue. We supply loue, as Po. and F. suggest. 440. The Hales-Furnivall text supplies death after yonder. But since yonder is used absolutely, death is not necessary for the meaning, the alli- teration, or the metre. 445. With. The scribe wrote vp and then added th without changing the vp to tr, Vpon is never abbreviated in this poem. 276 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem that was comelje cladd with kirtle and mantle, shee crosses the companye with her cleare fiiiigers. All the dead on the ground doughtilye shee rayseth fairer by 2 ffold then they before were. [450 With that shee hyeth ouer the hills with, hundreds ffuU manye. I wold have ffollowed on that f aire, but no further I might ; what with, wandering & with woe I waked beliue. Thus fared I throw a ffrith in a ffresh time, where I sayd a sleepe in a slade greene. There dreamed I the dreame with dread all bef righted. 455 But hee that rent all was on the rood riche itt himseluen. & bringe vs to his blisse with blessings enowe! Therto, lesu of Jerusalem, grant vs thy grace, & saue there our howse holy for euer ! Amen. fEnts. 446. Kirtle. MS. christall. Cf. 11. 83 and 89. 447. This line was accidentally omitted in the H.-F. text. 450. Mounye. The n ie imperfeot in the MS. 462. Wandermg. There is only one stroke for the last n in the MS., or the first stroke of the g is written orer part of the n. 455. With. MS. which. , NOTES P. = Percy (notes recorded in the Folio MS. and reprinted in the Halea- Fumivall edition), Sk. = Skeat (notes in the Hales-Furnivall edition), F. = Furnivan (ibid.), Po. =:York Powell (Eng. Stud., vii, 97-101), Br. = Brotanek (Anglia Beihlatt, xm, 176-177), Holt. = Holthauaen (AngUa Beiblatt, xxm, 157-159 ) . The quotations from Piers Plowman are from the C version. 1 ff. Cf . The Crowned King, 1 : Crist, crowned kyng that on cros didest. A similar invocation is to be found in Morte Arthure. 2. hadd pavnes. Po., Br., and Holt, read " hard paines." The syntax does not demand the change. defend. Po. reads " preserve." Holt. " repair " to improve the allitera- tion. But the type of line without alliteration in the second half is common enough. See the section on Metre in the Introduction. 4. Cf. Morte Arthure, 3990 : TMi ryalle rede hlode ryne appone erthe. 5 ff. The text here is very puzzling. Perhaps the meaning is " give us grace to serve thee . . . and to take to ourselves thy joyous word, as the world, with its riches etc., demands that we should do." The phrase " as the world asketh " is a commonplace. Cf. Piera Plowman, i, 21 : Worchynge and wandrynge as the worlde asketh. Also Morte Arthure: werke nowe thi wirchipe as the worlde askes (2187). 6. Cf. Parlement, 634: Ne ther is reches ne r^nt may rawnsome 30ur lyves. 9. worthes to nought. Cf . Parlement, 637 : Me thynke pe wele of this werlde worthes to noghte. 13. Cf. Scotish Feilde, 87 and 203: thus he promised to the prince [that paradice weldeth]. Also Winnere and Wastowre, 296: It es plesynge to the prynce J?at paradyse wroghte. 16. thou shalt hytenrlye lye. Po. reads "bye it," a suggestion which is supported by Piers Plownum, B in, 249 (not in C) : Shal abie it bittere or the boke lyeth! 277 278 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem But the verb is not always transitive. Cf. 254 and Piers Ploicman, xxr, 448: Thow shalt abygge bittere. 20. Cf. Morte Arthttre, 4: and gyffe vs gra>ce to gye, and gouerne vs here. 21. The line is substantially repeated in Sootish Feilde, 421: lesus bring vs to blisse that brought vs forth of bale. 22-39. Compare the very similar description in the Parlement, 7-16, and in W inner e and Wastoure. 24. Cf. Parlement, 119: Raylede alle with rede rose, richeste of floures. Variants of this line are constantly repeated in alliterative poetry. Cf. Destruction of Troy, 624: As the Roose in his Radness is Richest of floures; Morte Arthure, 3457: A reedde actone of rosse the richeste of floures ; and Sootish Feilde, 26: rayled full of red roses and riches enowe. 28. As I there glode. Holt, would read " as I glode there." But the second accented, syllable in the second half line sometimes bears the alliter- ation. Cf. 311 and see the section on Metre. 30. / settled me to sitt. Po. reads " I fettled me to sit " in the interests of the metre. Of. Parlement, 20: And ferkes faste to her fourme & fatills her to sitt. But the double alliteration aa/bb is very common, there being ten other such cases in D. d L. See Metre, type VI. For the expression cf. Scotish Feilde, 254 and 257 : at the ffoot of a fine hill they setteled them all night . . . bidd them settle them to fight or they wold fare homeward. The emendation settled > fettled would help the metre here as well as in D. & L., but the author certainly wrote settled. 31. Of. Piers Plowm^wn, xix, 184: As hor as an hawethorn. In Winnere and Wastoure the author lies down on a hill beside a hawthorn. 32. / bent my hacke to the hole. Cf . Parlement, 39 : And to the bole of a birche my berselett I cowchide. 33. Powell says this line is all wrong. " The sense is ' as I looked about me for a time under the green hawthorne ' ; the p-words are misreadings of the scribe. The original he had before him must have had two g-words instead." The inconsistency to which Po. objects is, however, simply an instance of a characteristic confusion of expression due to the tyranny of the alliterative phrase. Cf. 37, " lying Edgelong on the ground," which James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 279 does not suit with " I 'bent my back to the ibole." The alliteration, more- over, is perfectly correct. See note to 30. 34. Cf. Winnere, 44: ffor din of the depe watir and dadillyng of fewllys ; William of Paleme, 23: & briddes ful bremely on ]>e bowes singe. 36. / aayed a sleepe. Gf. Destruction of Troy, 679: ])ait all sad were on «leee lady. 71. Of. Parlement, 11: Burgons & blossoms & braunches full swete, and Destruction of Troy, 2736: burions of bowes brethit full swete. 72. ffloivers flourished in the frith. Cf. Morte Arthu/re, 924: The frithez were floreschte with flourez fulle many. 78. Barrons & iachelov/rs. The identical phrase occurs in Wars of Alex- ander, 155. 82. lowly Ladye. Probably for " lovely Ladye." So. P. and Po. Cf, 258, 83-4. in kvrtle and mamtle of goodlyest greene. Cf. Pa/rlement, 122: He was gerede alle in greene ; and see the whole description of the bejewelled figure in the Parlement representing Youth. For a discussion of the second line and its relation to the mystic garment of Natura see Introduction, p. 250. Cf. also Winnere and Wastoure, 90: This kynge was comliche clade in kirtill and mantill. 86. A similar line occurs in Morte Arthu/re, 3877: and the graciouseste gome that vndire God lyffede. Cf. D. d L., 190, " no groome under God." " 8. d the price of her [perrie]. Sk's suggestion for the lacuna in the MS. is confirmed by Parlement, 129: pe price of that perry were worthe powTides full many. The line occurs in the description of Youth and is pretty certainly the original of the line in D. d L. Of. Parlement, 192: The pryce of thi perrye wolde purches the londes. 92. as ieames of the sun. The conunentators are agreed that heamea here and in line 407 is a " stupid alteration of leames." Sk. says " the conjecture is changed to certainty by Scotish Feilde, 309: James H. Eanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 281 with leames full light all the land over. 95. Schumacher calls attention to the cross alliteration : a b / a h. 98 ff. Skeat thinks that Lady LiflFe and her train are to be identified with Langland's Lady Anima and her attendants, Sir Seewel, Sir Seiwel, Sir Huyrewel the hende, etc. See Introduction. The Death and Liffe author has developed the assemblage in accordance with the traditional conception of the Court of Love. 100. Sir Comfort that Knight. "Sir Comfort their (or her) Chamber- lain" — Po. This emendation makes the sense easier, but there is no assurance that the author did not write the line as it stands. Cf. the awkwardness of 101. In Piers Plowman, xxxin, 91, the " lord that lyuede after lust " cries out to " Comfort, a knyght " ito bear his banner against death. 101. yee sturdye been both. Yee should be "that" or "who" according to Po. (i. e., the abbreviation yt may have been misread by the scribe) . But possibly yee = yea; or the expression may stand as it is, the half line being parenthetical with a shift in point of view characteristic enough of the author's style. 109. beawtye [c€] blisse. Cf. line 242. 110 ff. With this description of the effects of Lady Liffe's presence on living things compare the parallels with Alanus de Insulis' De Planctu Natures, given in the Introduction, p. 250. 112. Br. reads "both bearnes and beastes and birds in the leaues." Of. delend. — P. But of — by and is required by the verb made in line 110. 116. what woman that was. Cf. Piers Plowma/n, u, 68: "what womman hue were." " The failure of a poet at first to recognize his allegorical visitant had by this time (t. e., the date of The Pearl) become almost a convention." See Schofield, " The Nature and Fabric of the Pearl," P. M. L. A. xix, 1, 179. Schofield cites as examples Philosophia in Boethius, Reasion in The Romance of the Rose, Holichurche in Piers Plowmwn. We may add Natura in Alanus' De Planctu. 119. Cf. Piers Plotomam, n, 76: Thanne knelede ich on my knees and criede hure of grace. And preiede hure ipytously. Sk. infers that " praysed " should be " prayed." Cf. also Piers Plowman, in, 1. 122. hee cherished me cheerlye, i. e.. Comfort fondled me lovingly. 127-8. ffostered & ffed. The phrase is commonplace. Cf. Wm.of Paleme, 243: ]>ei han me fostered and fed. Also ibid 318 and 356, and Winnere, 206. The recurrence of the expression renders unimportant Skeajt's parallel from the description of Holichurche, Piers Plowman, li, 73: "Ich vnder- feng the formest." The idea, " I nourished you even before your birth," points clearly to the conception in Alanus, De Planctu, of Nature as the source of man's physical life. Skeat cites also Piers Plowman, B, rs, 55, where it is said of Lady Anima : 282 Death and Life: An Alliterative Poem Ac in the herte is hir home and hir moste reate. Of. C, XI, 173: Inwitt is in the hefd as Anima in the herte. 130. Po. would read '• feare not to frayne if thou wilt flferlyes wit." But see note to line 30. 131. & I shall kindlye thee ken. Cf. Morte Arthure, 3521: kene tho\x me kyndely whatte caase es be-fallene. 135. Cf. 421. Also Sootish Feilde, 103 : for all the gloring gold vnder the god of heauen. 13&-7. the longer the more. We have retained the MS. reading. The Hales-Furnivall text reads "the longed." Holt, says that "I" is obviously to be substituted for " the." The passage, however, may be read as it stands: "Thus in the enjoyment of this living (the longer the more) there was riding and revel that rang in the banks till it neared to noon." Or a line may have 'been dropped out after 136. In any case " the longer the more " should not be altered. Cf. The Pearl, 180: & ever J^e lenger, pe more & more. till that it neighed neere noone. Cf. Piers Plowman, and it neighed nyghe the none, and Avmtyrs of Arthwre, vi : Euyn atte the mydday this ferly con falle. 139. Wimne to behold. " Woe to behold "—P. " The word woe in the first half line is the difficulty ; may it be the A. S. wo, woh, in the original sense of bent, inclined? Or rather it's (put for wo[d'^e, mad. Winne is joy, pleasure." — Sk. Wvnne seems to be right. Skeat's suggestions, however, are far-fetched and the line remains a puzzle. 142. In a nooke of the north. Cf. Piers Plowma/n, n, 112ff. See Intro- duction, p. 247. Cf. also Piers Plowman, XXT, 168: '" Out of the nype of the north." 144. vnth the biggest bere. Cf. Avmtyrs of Arthure, X: The greundes were alle agast of the gryme here. Also ibid. XXVI: "with a grym bere." 147. Cf. the description of the crucifixion in Piers Plowman, xxi, 58 ff, especially 64: The erthe quook and quashte as hit quyke were. 151 fif. The description of Death has its parallels in the accounts of various monsters in the alliterative poems, e. g., the bear in Arthur's dream, Morte Arthure, 774 ff: Thanne come of the Oryente ewyne hyme agaynez A blake bustow-s bere abwenc in the clowdes foith yche a pawe as a poste, and paumes fulle huge, James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 283 toith pykes fulle periloM.s, alle plyande tham.e s€myde, Lothene and lothely, lokkes and other . . . The foulleste of fegure that fowrmed was euer! Cf. also the description of the giant, 1074 ff. Closer is the passage describing the ghost of Guinevere's mother in the Avmtyra of Arthwre, ix: Alle bare was the body, and blak by the bone, Vmbeclosut in a cloude, in clething evyl clad; Hit gaulut, hit gamurt, lyke a woman, Nauthyr of hyde, nyf of heue, no hilling hit had . . . Hyr enyn were holket and holle. And gloet as the gledes. (cited by Miss Scamman). Comparison should also be made with Elde in The Parlement, 152 ti. 153. Powell rewrites: ther was no segge of this syht but he was sore aflfrayd. This does well enough as original composition In the alliterative manner, but there is no justification for a radical treatment of the texit to normalize imperfect lines. Segge for man may of course be right. 155. The " quintful queene " is Pride. Cf. 183. Quintful = delicate. In the account of the coming of Antichrist, Piers Plowmcm, xxn, Pride bears the ihanner of Antichrist and Elde and Death follow in his train. On the association of Death with the Vices see Introduction, p. 247. Envy and Anger are mentioned in 185 as attendants upon Death. 156. Cf. Scotish Feilde, 232: with 3 crownes full cleare all of pure gold. This line in D. d L. is a, good test case for Powell's hypothesis of full alliteration in every line. He emends : " all of cleane gold." The Scotish Feilde poet, then, must have been a victim of the same scribal substitution. As a matter of fact, however, there are so many lines in this and other alliterative poems which have no alliteration in the second half that we must assume a loose practice on the part of their authors rather than changes due to error and substitution. See section on Metre in the Intro- duction. 157. d shee the ffoulest ifreake that formed was euer. " Shee " is Death, not Pride. Cf. Morte Arthure, 781 : The foulleste of fegure that fowrmede was euer! Cf. also D. & L. 320 and Morte Arthwre, 1061, 3301, for similar alliterative groups. 159-160. " Strangely enough none of the editors has noticed the contra- diction between these two lines; according to line 159 Death was stark naked, according to line 160, clothed in linen. I propose: She was naked as my nayle, but (=only) above, and belowe She was lapped about in Linnen breeches " — Br. 284 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem If this is the sense there is no necessity for a change in the text. But it is to consider too curiously to consider so. The author was probably uncon- scious of or indifferent to the contradiction. It happens that precisely the same inconsistency occurs in The Awntyrs of Arthure, rx: Alle bare was the body, and blak by the bone, Vmbeclosut in a cloude, in clething evyl clad. Cf. Piers Plowman, n, 3: A loueliche lady of lere in lynnen y-clothid. 1©5-I66. Cf. Awntyrs of Arthure, vs.: Her enyn were holket and holle, And gloet as the gledes. 170. her lere like the lead, i. e., the leaden hue of the cadaver. 171. & = an. — F. 172. bloody beronen. A favorite phrase. Cf. Destruction of Troy, 10424; Sootish Feilde, 31; Parlement, 62. 173-4. The construction is obscure. The idea is that her left hand waa like a griflBji's leg, with the claws coming together (touching) at the tips. Very likely the passage is corrupt, but it may be simply another instance of loose grammatical construction. 175. Cf. The Awntyrs of Arthv/re, X, where, however, the formula is used of Gawain, not of the " ugly ghost " whom he is facing: Then this byrne braydet owte a brand. 185. yeme. P. interprets promptus, cupidus. Sk., however, is correct in exiplaining the word as " iron." Cf. Scotish Feilde, 363, " in their Steele weeds"; Oolagrus and Gawaine, xliv, 557: " in gleman steil wedis." 187. Cf. William of Paleme, 566: What sorwes & sikingges I suffer for hia sake. 190. Cf. Destruction of Troy, 572: There is no gome vnder gode J>at hym greue may, 192. she (MS. he) stepped forth. The confusion of pronouns here and elsewhere is probably scribal. The common gender " bearne " in the preced- ing line and the fact that Death is usually thought of as masculine may, however, account for the change in this case. 196 ff. The effects of Death's presence are parallel to those of Liffe'e (Nature's). See above 69 ff. and note. Somewhat similar is the account of the terror occasioned by the appearance of the ghost in The Awntyrs of Arthure, x : The houndes hyes to the holtes and thayre hedus hidus; . . . The bryddus in the boes. That of the gost gous, Thay scryken in the scoes, That herdus my3ten horn here. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 285 196. when thS heard wapen. Po. reads " when they heard her frappen." But see Glossary. Wapews = weapons in Wars of Alexander, 65. In any case " her " has probably dropped out. 207. dolefullye dyen. " Carefully dyen " — Po. and Schumacher. But again we have the standard type of line aa/ibb. So also in 184, where Schumacher would alter " following " to " suing." 210 flf. Life's complaint of her injuries at the hands of Death is closely paralleled in Winnere and Wastoure, 229, where Winnere protests that the false Wastoure, is ruining the goods which he has accumulated; Winnere brandishes his brand and boasts that he will destroy the whole country. thynkes to strike or he styntt and stroye me for euer. 213. <£ he hearkneth itt hendlye. Cf. Destruction of Troy, 9238: She hearknet hym full hyndly. 215. Cf. Morte Arthure, 1953 : That rode for the rescowe of 3one riche knyghttez. 216. Hee was bovme att his bidd. Cf. Golagrus and Gaicain, 330: Be boune of your bidding. 218. he ran out of the rainehoic. A reminiscence of the classical Iris, messenger of the gods? 219. & light on the Land. Cf. Destruction of Troy, 2817: ffor to light on J>e londe. 221. "There is something wrong with this line; perhaps we should read ' wrecche ' for ' Queene '" — Po. There are, however, many lines of this type: ax /a a. See section on Metre. 225. for gryme. P. suggest forgrim, very grim, A. S., grim, fury, rage. " Looked fiercely and gnashed her teeth for rage at Countenance's talk." — F. Pronominal confusion again. Cf. 165, 192, etc. 226. hut shee did as shee davned. Dained = ordained, bade — Sk. " The context wants the meaning 'was told to'" — F. We interpret: "but shee (Death) did as she (Life) dained (thought proper), durst shee no other." See Glossary. Po. emends: "but shee did as he dained." Br. suggests "as she dained was." 231. kissed kindlye, a common alliterative phrase. Cf. Morte Arthure, 714. 233. weakmesse of care. " Weaknesse is entirely meaningless. Read 'worker of care' (parallel with ' bringer of sorrow,' line 234) " — Br. 238. For the very common alliteration on reason: right see Destruction of Troy, 10715, etc. 239. why kills thou the body. Po. would emend to " why kills thou the corse," in order to make this line regular. But see section on Metre, where this type of line is discussed. There is perhaps a reminiscence here of The Debate of the Body amd the Soul, where the body's innocence is defended. 254. thou buy must full deere. The venb is intransitive as in 16. 255. If "they" is correct, it refers to "lyearnes" of 253; but perhaps it is an error for "thou" or for "thee" (Po's reading). 286 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem 268. hidd if tM wold. Cf. Scotish Feilde, 116: saies, " I am bound to goe as ye me bidd wold." The line may be explained: "Would have been brought into bliss (of heaven) if they had petitioned it." 278. therefore, liffe, thou me leaue. Perhaps giue has been omitted. Cf. 315. 285. as to haue a slapp with my ffawchyon. Po. reads : " as to haue a flapp." But the line is of a fairly common type: a b / a b. 287. wayte thou no other. P. says wayte = wat. For the Northern spelling ay for a cf. layeth, 229. But " wat " gives poor sense. The half line may be explained: "don't expect anything more," or, perhaps, as a miswriting for wayste, waste. 290-291. " It seems a marvel to me in what hole of thy heart thou keepest thy wrath toward the men of the earth." Holt, would read " wra " for " hole." But the alliterative expression " hole of thy heart " seems certainly the original. 308-9. "Where I pass, the world (i.e., worldly things and thoughts) depart. [If I did not come] men would be over bold. Wastoure makes a similar justification of his utility in Winnere and Wastoiire. Were it not for him the poor would have nothing, etc. 310. The second half line is unintelligible. 311. "Transpose: 'that all grace us sendeth ' or write, according to 1. 458, ' granteth ' instead of ' sendeth ' " — Holt. But the last accented syllable may bear the alliteration. Moreover, type a a / a is the most common type of alliteration in this poem. 312. Of. Morte Arthwre, 3611: That no dynte of no darte dere theme ne schoulde. 321. on the ieere layd. "The alliteration demands: " layd on the beere " — Br. But see note to line 311. 325 ff. The author is pretty clearly adopting the roster of the Nine Worthies and the heroes of romance from The Parlement. The following names are common to both lists: Soloman, Alexander, Joshua, David, Hector, Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, Galahad (Gallaway?). 330. Samuel. Read Saul. — P. The scribe may have misread Saul as the abbreviation for Samuel, Saml. ffor all his ffingers. Po. would read slingers. The meaning is " Saul, in spite of the strength of his hands." 334-5. Cf. Parlement, 400: Jjare he was dede of a drynke, as dole es to here. That the curssede Cassander in a cowpe hym broughte. 339. Leonides, i. e., Leonadas. The author is apparently not unversed in classical lore. Cf. note on 218. 340. d GallawoAf the good Knight. Galahad, possibly. Cf. Parlement, 473: James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 287 Bot sir Galade the gude. More probably, however, the author has created a new knight out of the name of Gawain's province, Galway. Cf. Awntyrs of Arthwre, xxxm. 341. Cf. Golagrus and Gawain, 520: with the rout of the Round Tabill that wes richest. 345, 368. uisted gentlye with lesu. Cf. Piers Plotoman, xxi, 26: Ho shal louste with lesus? Also XXI, 17 : 'And ho shoulde lusten in lerusalem? ' 'lesus,' he seide. 349. Cf. Scotish Feilde, 33-34 : & carryed him to Liester & Naked into Newarke I will mine him noe more. This quotation and others that might be cited (see mene, Northern Passion) render impossible Skeat's suggestion that minned — nemned. 351. both of heauen and of earth. " Can we read ' home ' for ' earth ' ; it would suit the verse best ? " — Po. But h freely alliterates with vowels in this poem (see lines 57, 276, 338, etc.). Again, by improving the allitera- tion we should destroy the meaning of the line. " Heauen and earth " is a commonplace. 378-9. tho demedst to haue heene dead. Tho = thou. " Deemedst [him.]" — Po. This emendation is unnecessary in view of the writer's carelessness in construction. 381 ff. The author has been unable to visualize the combat. Death appears from lines 384-388 to have retreated in haste, dropping her falchion as she ran. But in 367-8 the contest seems to have been bitter and prolonged. Death is disarmed and continues fighting with her hand. Again the literal and allegorical aspects of the crucifixion become confused. 385. then was thou feard of this fare. Cf. Destruction of Troy, 11008: I am not ferd of J^i fare, ne Yi fell speche. 390. For the phrase " barre bigglye " cf. Destruction of Troy, 691, 6035, 10739, etc. 391. tM told them tydamds. Percy suggests "thou toldest." The con- text demands " thou." 393. & how he had beaten the on the (ms. thy) bent. d how he had beaten — Po. The ms. shee may, however, stand for Everlasting Life, identified with Christ. 399. bost this neuer. " host thee neuer " — Po. But the meaning may be " Boast never of this (thy slaying of Jesus) among thy red deeds." 404 fT. This passage follows, in general, as Skeat has shown, the account of the Harrowing of Hell in Piers Plowman, xxi, 27 fiF. Cf. especially the following details: A voys loude in that light to Lucifer seide. Princes of this palys prest unto the 3ates. For here cometh with coroune the kyng of alle glorie. P. PI. 274-8. 288 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Poem Pull open your ports yon princes within ! Here shall come in King crowned with ioy. D. & L. 409-410. Ac rys vp Ragamoflfyn and reche me alle the harres That Belial thy bel-isyre boet with thy damme Ar we thorw bryghtnesse be blent barre we the jates. P. PI. 284-6. & bade them barre bigglye Belzebub his gates. D. & L. 390. Thow shalt abygge bittere quath god and bond hym with cheynes. P. PI. 448. Cf. D. & L. 417. The Death d Liffe author has condensed the account by omitting the long discussion between Christ and Satan, and he has greatly heightened the picturesque and dramatic features. Various complications caused by the introduction of the allegorical figures of Truth, etc., are avoided. See Introduction, p. 247. 407. Cf. 92 and note. On = of. 416. he leapt vnto Lucifer. Cf. Piers Plowmcm, B i, 116: " Lopen out with Lucifer"; C n, 112-3: " thulke wrechede Lucifer Lopen alofte." 417. This line is perhaps out of place here. Cf. 421, Po. suggests " thanes " for " chanes " in 421, but the line as it stands there is certainly right, whereas the sense in 417 is better without it. 435-6. " I shall watch over you carefully, and do ye understand full well and turn ye further from this world to a place above the clear skies." Cf. Morte Arthure, 6: That we may kayre til hys courte, the kyngdome of hevyne, and Scotish Feilde, 154 : " keire wold no further." 437. Ladye. Perhaps for leed (cf. 315). But the author is identifying Christ and Eternal Life throughout the passage and " Ladye " may be right; i.e., if you love well salvation. Liffe speaks of herself or rather of her other self again in 444. 451. that favre. Cf. pat faire, Destruction of Troy, 525; ]>at comly, 552, etc. 457-9. Cf. Pa/rlement, 664: There, dere Drightyne, this daye dele vs of thi blysse, And Marie, J>at es mylde qwene, amende vs of synn; also Destruction of Troy, 14044 : He bryng vs to the blisse, J>at bled for our Syn. There is no need of supposing an omitted line, as Po. does. The construc- tion is clear. " To that end Jesus of Jerusalem grant us grace and save there (i. e., in Jerusalem) a place or a ' mansion ' for us." GLOSSARY avant, 366, boast. bachelaurs, 78, bachelors, aspirants to knighthood. hade, 390, ordered, bade. ball, 21, bale. This spelling occurs in Wm. of Palerne, 1819, and Cursor Mundi, 4775. hanely, 247, promptly, willingly, readily. Barathron, 405, Barathriun, the abyss, hell. The first citation in N. E. D. is dated 1520. barnes, see hea/rne. bearne, 14, 90, 112, 242, 424, child, man, person. beere, 321, bier. behoved, 336, behooved. belitie, 73, 387, 452, quickly. bent, 63, 149, 192, 223, grassy slope, field ; thy bent, 393, the bent. Cf . 236. here, 144, noise, uproar. beronen, 172, overflown, surrounded. betooke, 426, delivered, committed. bidd, 268, petition, ask for; or bide (Sk). See note. bigged, 383, built. biglf/e, bigglye, 390, 418, greatly, mightily. bine, 254? This word occurs in Floris and Blaucheflour, Trent- ham MS. 1010, "Blanoheflour seide byne, J)e gilt of our dedes is moyne." So far as I have been able to determine, this is the only occur- rence of the word outside of D. d L. The context in both poems shows that the word may be an adverb. It is possible that bine is an ablaut form of 0. N. bemn, direct, straight, prompt. Cf. nu beint, just now. birth, 234, maiden, lady (M.E. bird, burd). I think that the scribe has confused th and d here as in lodlye and lothelich. blee, 65, 98, color, complexion. blenched, 32, turned to. blinn, 254, cease. blusche, 388, cast a glance, blushed, 191. bode, 149, abode, remained. boolish, 58 ? '' Perhaps ' tumid,' swelling, rounded." Thus bole in 1. 32 from 0. E. bolne, to swell. — Sk. both, both; 12, also. bower, 383, bower. bowes, 23, boughs. bovme, 216, prepared, ready. bradd, 175, made a sudden motion, jerk, brandish; 216, start. brake, 265, 271, 414, broke. brand, 175, brand, sword. brawders, 63, embroideries. breath, 34, breath, odor. breathed, 23, emitted odors. brcme, 34, 74, bold, fierce, boldness. bremelye, 364, boldly, fiercely, vigor- ously. breuelye, 283. briefly ? or for breme- lye (Percy) ? brode, 63, broad. burgens, 71, burgeons, buds. burlyest, 145, stoutest, largest. burne, 411, man, warrior. burnisht, 175, polished, made ready. but, 9, 56, 316, but; 254, imless. buy. 2.54, pay for, atone for. Cf. bye. bye, 16, pay for, make amends. See note. 289 290 Death and Liffe: An Alliterative Foem hyterlye, 16, bitterly. carped, 231, 362, talked, chattered, complained. carucii, 43, carved. certes, 123, certainly. cheereing, 61, turning, moving. Cf. keere, here, kyreth. Clarke, 85, clerk. Cf. clearkes. clears, 43, 62, clear, bright. clearkes, 8, clerks, learned men. Cf. Clarke. cold, 114, could. Ct. wold. colour, 89, collar. coninge, 8, knowledge, skill. Cf. cuninge. corsses, 434, bodies. cost, 8, condition. craddle, 207, cradle. creame, 438, chrism, cleum sacra- turn. Cf. Gen and Ex. 2458. cuninge. 111, knowledge, skill. Cf. coninge. dained, 226, deigned ? ordered ? See note. dallyance, 108, 281, dalliance, pleas- ure. dang, 204, 325, beat, struck. Cf. dunge. daring, 442, hiding. daredst, 418, hid, lay close, lurked. dayntye, 281, delight. deared, 312, injured. Cf. deere. deere, 427, injure. Cf. deared. derffe, 325, hard, firm, cruel. 0. E. dearf, Cf. Sc. F. 32, etc. derffe, 380, troublesome. 0. E. gedeorf. dint, 275, blow, stroke. disport, 108, sport, disport. dolue, 275, delved. doult, 439, fear. doughtye, 53, doughty. doughtilye. 448, doughtily. dree, 395, endure, carry through. Cf. drye. dresses, 220, 182, 189, prepares. dright, 38, noble, magnificent. driueth, 10, driveth. drm-yes, 87, love tokens, gifts, treas- ures. drye, 263, endure. Cf. dree, dunge, 211, struck, beat. Cf. dang, durst, 226, durst, dared. edgelong, 37, edgelong. en owe, 457, enough. erles, 53, earls. faine, 113, 274, glad, joyous. faire, 451, fair one. See note. fairer, thy fairer, 236, the fairer. Cf. 393. falte, 398, lack, need. farden, 165, fared, went, were. fare, 235, business, proceeding; 385, fair one ( cf . fayre ) . See note to 1. 385. fared, 22, fared, went. fawchyon, 274, 286, fawchon, 387, falchion. fayleth, 16, fail, be false. fayntyest, 270, faintest, poorest. fayre, 64, fair one; 30, 385, fair. fayrlye, 49, wonder, strange event. feard, 385, afraid. feeld, 64, feild, 319, field. /eK, 396, cruel. fell, 201, felled, /ere, 186, companion. fist, 387, hand. flappe, 201, stroke. fJeringe, 412, grimacing, making wry faces. See N.E.D. fleer, fravne, 130, question, inquire. frayd, 346, afraid, /reafce, 157, 161, 176, 320, man, creature. freshest, 346, newest, earliest. frith, 72, 270, forest. (jainest, 208, quickest, readiest, best. Gallaway, 340. See note. garr, 190, cause. gate, 193, way, manner of going. gaynest, 412, quickest. James H. Hanford and John M. Steadman, Jr. 291 geere, 175, gear, trappings. gentlye, 345, nobly, like a gentle- man. glented, 384, gleamed, shone sud- denly. glode, 28, glided. glowed, 225, glowered, looked angry. gogled, 147, shook. gone, 151, walk, go. gran, 225, gnashed the teeth. great en, 17, increase. greened, 73, turned green. grislye, 154, terrible, grim. groome, 84, 86, 190, man, creature. grow, 289, grow. gryme, 225, variant of grim, anger, fury. See note. grype, 173, raven. gryped, 274, gripped. hart, 7, heart. heard, 196, heard. heard, 199, herd, company. heare, 158, hair. hend, 80, prompt, gracious. hendlye, 213, graciously. hew, 158, hue. 7ii