So Long I Have Lady

DESCRIPTION: "So longe ic haue lauedi, yhoued at þi gate, þat mi fot is ifrore lauedi, for þi luue faste to þe stake." "So long, lady, have I Waited at your gate, That my foot is frozen, lady, For, your love, (held) fast to the stake (gate-post)"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: (fifteenth century)
KEYWORDS: love MiddleEnglish | waiting at gate
FOUND IN: Britain
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #3167.3
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #4940
ADDITIONAL: Celia and Kenneth Sisam, _The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse_, Oxford University Press, 1970; corrected edition 1973, #267(i), p. 550, "(Snatches)" (1 text)
J. A. W. Bennett, _Middle English Literature_, edited and completed by Douglas Gray and being a volume of the Oxford History of English Literature, 1986 (I use the 1990 Clarendon paperback), p. 365, "(no title)" (1 text)
Siegfried Wenzel, _Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric_, Princeton University Press, 1986, p. 240, "(no title)" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: London, British Library Harley 3823, folio 182
MANUSCRIPT: Durham, Cathedral Library B.I.18, folio 56
MANUSCRIPT: Berlin, Staatsbibl. Berlin Theol. lat. fol 249, folio 131
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "One Night As I Lay On My Bed" (theme)
NOTES [468 words]: The text cited in the description above is that from the Berlin manuscript. The title is that used by the Digital Index of Middle English Verse, since no one else has a title for it. If it was actually derived by a religious verse, as Siegfried Wenzel, Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric, Princeton University Press, 1986, p. 240, seems to hint, it very likely inspired by Song of Songs 5:2:
I slept, but my heart was awake.
Listen! My beloved is knocking.
"Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my perfect one;
for my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the drops of the night."
Indeed, Wenzel says that it is found in the midst of a Latin sermon citing Song of Songs, from Thomas Aquinas. This sermon is found in the Durham and British Museum manuscripts, which have apparently-identical texts of this poem which run:
So lange ik aue lefman stonden at þe yathe
þat my fote is hi-frosen fast to þe stake
This has same meaning as the Berlin text in the description, but is different enough in detail that I have to suspect some dialect-shifting. And that, plus the fact that there are three manuscript copies, hints to me that this is a traditional verse, even though we have no text other than these four lines. I have not found any source that makes this claim, but it appears from the IMEV number that no one noticed the verse until after the publication of most of the anthologies of Middle English folk poetry. Bennett/Gray files it under "lyrics," in a context which seems to imply "folk lyrics."
Harley 3823 has a handful of other short lyrics, but most seem to be proverbs. So also the Durham manuscript -- indeed, it has several of the same proverbs; clearly the two manuscripts are related (and not of much folk interest other than for this piece). The Berlin manuscript doesn't have many English poems either -- just five lyrics listed by the DIMEV -- but one of them (IMEV #3900.5; DIMEV #6215) is extremely interesting. The Berlin text is
Weilawei þat ich ne span
þo ich into wude ran
The other copy, in London, British Library Addit. 33956, folio 98, runs
Weylawey þat iche ne span
Whan y to þe ringe ran
One suspects these might be different verses of the same song, in which the girl runs to the ring, gets pregnant, and flees to the wood, regretting that she got in trouble rather than remaining at her spinning (? -- the only meaning I know or can discover for "span" is the past tense of "to spin"). Indeed, Green seemingly regarded this as an (amorous?) carol (based on the notes in the DIMEV), though I cannot track the citation. It is possible that this song too should be regarded as folk, but it's probably enough to cite it here. The point is that the Berlin manuscript, although it had only a few lyrics, has two which look like they might be secular love lyrics. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: MSSLIHL

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