SOURCE: Sister Mary Arthur Knowlton, "Rolle's Lyrics," in The Influence of Richard Rolle and of Julian of Norwich on the Middle English Lyrics, Mouton, 1973, pp. 49-70.

[In the excerpt below, Knowlton sets out her basic reading of Rolle, noting the features that she considers definitive of his verse.]

Lyric poetry, among the Greeks, meant poetry to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. Professor Frye suggests in the Anatomy of Criticism that the Greek word for lyric would be more meaningfully translated "poems to be chanted",¹ since the emphasis should be placed on the words, not on the music. The lyric is now generally found to be defined in some such terms as those used by M. L. Rosenthal and A. J. Smith in Exploring Poetry, namely, "a brief, unified expression of emotion in words as melodious as possible".² The best lyrics are necessarily brief since they express a single feeling at the moment of its greatest intensity. The emotion is ordinarily attached to some idea or object or experience which constitutes the subject or theme of the lyric.³ John Drinkwater in his essay on the lyric exalts it as the highest kind of poetry:

Poetry is the result of the intensest emotional activity attainable by man focussing itself upon some manifestation of life, and experiencing that manifestation completely…. The emotion of poetry expresses itself in rhythm and … the significance of the subject-matter is realised by the intellectual choice of the perfect word. We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order—poetry; and to put this essential poetry into different classes is impossible. But since it is most commonly found by itself in short poems which we call lyric, we may say that the characteristic of the lyric is that it is the product of the pure poetic energy unassociated with other energies, and that lyric and poetry are synonymous terms.⁴

Included in Rolle's English epistles are five lyrics, three in Ego Dormio and two in The Form of Living. Apart from these, we cannot be sure how many of the lyrics attributed to Rolle are certainly his. Our two principal sources are Cambridge MS. Dd. v. 64, III (late fourteenth century) and Longleat MS. 29 (fifteenth century). Neither manuscript is absolutely definite about the number of the lyrics found in them that are to be ascribed to Rolle. Miss Hope Emily Allen has examined all the lyrics in these manuscripts and from internal and external evidence has admitted six to the canon of Rolle's works, namely, A Salutation to Jesus, A Song of Love-longing to Jesus, A Song of the Love of Jesus, The Nature of Love, Thy Joy be in the Love of Jesu, and the prose lyric, Gastly Gladnesse.⁵ Two others, Exhortation and A Song of Mercy, Miss Allen implies, may be accepted as Rolle's and she includes them in her edition of his English Writings. In this chapter I shall discuss Rolle's verse lyrics. His prose lyric, Gastly Gladnesse, I have treated with Rolle's prose works in Chapter I.

Rolle's lyrics present certain distinctive features. First, they all employ devotional religious themes. Love of God is the dominant theme, but the themes rarely appear singly in the lyrics; they are found interwoven with one another. For example, lyrics on divine love usually include expressions of ardent confidence in the Holy Name. This is to be expected in view of Rolle's conviction, which is formulated in the Incendium Amoris, that no one will receive the highest gifts of love who does not honour and esteem the Holy Name of Jesus and keep it ever in his mind.⁶ In examining the lyrics which are not incorporated in the prose works I shall try to indicate the main theme and the secondary themes treated, using the divisions of subject matter already employed in discussing the ideas in the prose works, namely, devotion to the Holy Name, divine love, the passion, penitence, mercy and death, and devotion to the Virgin Mary. In truth, with the exception of mercy and devotion to the Virgin Mary, the subject divisions I have listed resolve themselves in Rolle's lyrics into one subject, love in its three degrees. To the first degree of love, that in which a man "haldes be ten commandments, and kepes hym fra be seven dedely synnes",⁷ belong lyrics treating the theme of penitence; to the second degree, that in which a man forsakes the world and follows Christ, "ay havand hym in mynde",⁸ belong reflections on the passion, lyrics honouring the Holy Name and ones appealing for love; to the third degree, that in which the soul experiences a degree of vision and union with God, when "Jhesu es al þi desyre, al þi delyte, al þi joy, al pi solace, al þi comforth",⁹ belong the poems of love-longing, of yearning for union with God, of desire for death as a means of union. The three lyrics of Ego Dormio which are incorporated into the structure of the piece as illustrations of the three degrees of love may best be studied from this point of view. The two lyrics found in The Form of Living serve the function of crystallizing Rolle's recommendations for those enjoying the two higher degrees of love; they, too, should be treated as organic parts of a whole. But Rolle's other lyrics do not generally keep the characteristic sentiments of the three degrees of love so sharply divided. Nor does his influence on the later lyric literature discernibly follow this pattern. Furthermore, since his major prose works, which play such a large part in this influence, are not as highly organized as is the Ego Dormio, it seems to me to be more profitable to adhere to the plan of looking at those lyrics which are not functional parts of the structure of his prose works from the point of view of subjects or themes treated.

The second distinctive feature of Rolle's lyrics concerns the emotions which animate them. They are those of joy, hope, confidence, compassion, and love-longing, never those of fear, gloom, or self-pity. The lyrics are the overflow of Rolle's love of God which reaches its culmination in the gift of "canor", the heavenly melody which belongs to the songs of everlasting praise,¹⁰ turns his thoughts into song,¹¹ and transports his mind into singing the delights of eternal love, "rapitur mens ad canendum delicias amoris eterni".¹² His lyrics are, then, in general, ecstatic expressions of the sweetness and joy that flooded his soul in his longing for God. Even the one lyric which is almost wholly penitential in tone concludes with a reminder of the joy that is to come and with a confident message of hope for the one who loves Christ and hates sin.

Thirdly, Rolle's lyrics show great irregularity in structure and metre. Within single poems, stanza lengths, as indicated by rhyme schemes, may vary from three to six lines, as they do, for example, in the "Cantus Amoris" of the Ego Dormio.¹³ Rolle's commonest unit in the lyrics is the four-line stanza; however, certain of the lyrics do not admit of any divisions but run on for the full length of the poem, as do the two lyrics incorporated into The Form of Living.¹⁴ Identification of his metre is just as elusive. Many of his lines are patterned on the four-stress line with medial pause and a varying number of lightly accented syllables between the stresses, the normal rhythm in Old English poetry and the system used by Rolle in his Latin poem, the Canticum Amoris. As Professor Frye has pointed out in the Anatomy of Criticism,¹⁵ it is this arrangement of "a predominating stressed accent with a variable number of syllables between two stresses (usually four stresses to a line, corresponding to 'common time' in music)" which makes poetry musical.

Fourthly, elaborate rhyme schemes distinguish Rolle's lyrics and assist in imparting to them their musical quality. The system he most commonly uses is the four-line rhyming stanza, but within a single poem he may vary this to aabb, aaabbb, aabbcc, aabbb, as he does in the "Cantus Amoris" of the Ego Dormio.¹⁶ Medial rhyme is generally present, employed in a variety of ways. His favourite method is the use of rhyming words immediately before the pause in each of the four lines of a stanza, in addition to end rhymes, as for example, in this stanza from Thy Joy be in the Love of Jesus:

Bot luf hym at þi myght, whils bu ert lyvand here;
And loke unto þi syght, bat nane be be so dere.
Say to hym, bath day and nyght: 'When mai I negh be nere?
Bring me to þi lyght, þi melodi to here.¹⁷

His scheme may vary from stanza to stanza within the same poem, as in A Song of Love-longing to Jesus.¹⁸ In places alliteration seems to have been substituted in lines where no medial rhyme appears, as in stanza eleven of this poem:

Blynded was his faire ene, his flesch blody for bette.
His lufsum lyf was layde ful low, and saryful umbesette.
(ll. 41-42)

Still another combination appears in the last stanza of this poem. Internal rhyme is used within the first halfline of each verse, and alliteration in the second half, except in the last line of the stanza:

Lyf was slayne, and rase agayne; in fairehede may we fare;
And dede es brought til litel or noght, and kasten in endles kare.
On hym, bat be bought, hafe al þi thought, and lede be in his lare.
Gyf al pati hert til Crist þi qwert, and lufe hym evermare.
(ll. 45-58)

There are examples, also, of lines in which the medial rhyme and the end rhyme are identical sounds. Six lines at the beginning of the "Meditacio de passione Christi" in Ego Dormio¹⁹ have this elaborate rhyme scheme:

My keyng, bat water grette and blode swette;
Sythen ful sare bette, so bat hys blode hym wette,
When þair scowrges mette.
Ful fast þai gan hym dyng and at be pyler swyng,
And his fayre face defowlyng with spittyng.

Þe thorne crownes be keyng; ful sare es þat prickyng.
Alas! my joy and my swetyng es demed to hung.
(ll. 218-224)

Finally, there is noticeable in Rolle's lyrics a scarcity of imagery. The ideas and emotions are expressed in simple, vigorous language, carrying a straightforward statement of his convictions and aspirations, intense and effective in its very simplicity. The lyrics depend for their beauty on the music of the lines and the sincerity of the sentiments. There are, however, occasional examples of figurative writing, for example, in A Song of Love-longing to Jesus,²⁰ Rolle uses the concept of God piercing the soul with the spear of love (1. 6); he asks that the memory of the passion may be rooted in his heart (1. 17); he speaks of Christ as the food of angels (1. 33), and of death and life striving for mastery as Christ hung upon the cross (1. 43). He frequently uses the symbol of "light" for heaven.²¹ In The Nature of Love²² he uses again the figure of Christ wounding the soul with love, (1. 29), and the idea of Christ as our "weddyd keyng", (1. 42). The figure of Christ as king occurs in all but two of the lyrics.²³ A rapid survey of three of the major prose works reveals its use about four times in the Incendium Amoris,²⁴ twice in the Emendatio Vitae,²⁵ and seventeen times in the Melos Amoris.²⁶ This is interesting in view of the fact that the "melos" is the gift that inspires the lover to express "the delights of eternal love" in song,²⁷ and has, therefore, the closest connection with the lyrics. There is no doubt that Rolle uses it in the lyrics as a convenient word for rhyming with other "yng" words, seeming to preserve something of definiteness of the final syllable of the Old English "cyning", but the significance of its presence in the lyrics is deeper than that. In the lyrics, Rolle is, in almost every case, talking about his love of God and his longing for union with Him in the kingdom of heaven. It is eminently fitting, then, that he address his plea for this final grace to the king of that kingdom. This is precisely the association he is recalling in eight of the lyrics in which he uses the epithet. In A Song of Mercy he prays:

God of al, Lorde and Keyng, I pray þe, Jhesu, be my frende,
Sa þat I may þi mercy syng in þi blys withowten ende.²⁸

In A Song of Love-longing to Jesus, the request is the same in substance:

Jhesu, my God, Jhesu my keyng, forsake noght my desyre.
…. .

Þi wil es my 3hernyng; of lufe þou kyndel þe fyre,
Þat I in swet lovyng with aungels take my hyre.²⁹

In The Nature of Love, the admonition at the end is directed towards the same consummation of love with the King in his kingdom:

Take Jhesu in þi thynkyng, his lufe he will Þe send.
…. .

And use þe in praiyng, barin þou may be mend,
Swa þat þow hafe þi keyng in joy withowten endyng.³⁰

In Exhortation³¹ the concept is related, but the approach is different. The poet pictures the King of heaven coming in judgment on his enemies, while he himself hopes for a place in the kingdom.

A second association that Rolle establishes with the notion of kingship is that of a King crowned with thorns. In the lyric on the passion embedded in the Ego Dormio, the symbol is explicit, "be thorne crownes be keyng".³²

The figure of the "fire of love" is another familiar one in the lyrics. In A Song of Love-longing to Jesus Rolle requests, "of lufe þou kyndel be fyre";³³ and in A Song of the Love of Jesus he asks to be made "bymand" in the love of God.³⁴ He admonishes his readers in Thy Joy be in the Love of Jesus to forsake the joy of men and promises them that their hearts "sal bren with lufe þat never sal twynne".³⁵

Structurally, the Ego Dormio and the Form of Living in their blend of prose and verse in various metres resemble Menippean Satire.³⁶ In the Ego Dormio³⁷ Rolle gives an exposition of the three degrees of love, and, following his description of each degree, he inserts a poem embodying the sentiments proper to that state. The first degree, essential for every man who wishes to save his soul, consists in the avoidance of sin, fidelity to the Church and to the service of God, and a determination to renounce any earthly pleasure rather than offend God. No man can come to heaven "bot if he lufe God and his neghbor" and avoid sin. Men, he says, think it sweet to sin, but the wages of sin are bitterness. At this point Rolle inserts an unrhymed, alliterative poem, ten lines in length, developing the theme of the transitoriness and false attractiveness of this world and its glittering shows:

Alle perisches and passes þat we with eghe see
It wanes into wrechednes, be welth of þis worlde.
(104-105)

But while those who follow this "wretchedness" fall into hell, those who relinquish these deceitful pleasures for love of Christ are rewarded:

Bot he may syng of solace, þat lufes Jhesu Christe.
Þe wretchesse fra wele falles into hell.
(112-113)

Rolle always has a positive attitude towards penance and renunciation of the world and sin. The threat of punishment for the sinner is recognized, but the motivation which he recommends, here and elsewhere, for purity of life is love, not fear.

When a man has proven himself in the first degree of love, he advances into the second. In this degree he forsakes the world and his kindred and follows Christ in poverty and the other virtues. Now he despises the world and covets the joy of heaven. In this stage Rolle recommends frequent prayer and constant recollection, especially thought of the passion and of the Holy Name of Jesus. "Gode thoghtes and hali prayers" (1. 160) shall make the soul burn in the love of Christ, and "lufe of bis nam Jhesu" (1. 183) will prepare the soul for the highest gifts of love which God may bestow upon it. The soul now "covaytes to be Goddes lufer". (1. 176) The second lyric embodied in the Ego Dormio repeats and elaborates these themes. It begins as a meditation on the passion: this stirs the poet, who now despises the world and covets the joy of heaven, to ask for the grace to become a lover of God.

The reflections on the passion concentrate on the physical sufferings of Christ. With realistic precision and compassion Rolle recalls the scourging, the defouling of Christ's "fayre face" with spittle, the painful crowning with thorns, the nailing of the hands and feet, and the piercing of the sacred side. He weaves into his text a variant of a four-line poem popular in the period, known as the Candet Nudatum Pectus:

Naked es his whit breste, and rede es his blody syde;
Wan was his fayre hew, his wowndes depe and wyde.
In fyve stedes of his flesch þe blode gan downe glyde
Als stremes of þe strande; hys pyne es noght to hyde.
(ll. 227-230)

Carleton Brown prints two versions of this poem from early fourteenth-century manuscripts. In his notes Professor Brown says this short lyric is a translation from a treatise ascribed in the Middle Ages to St. Augustine.³⁸ Miss Hope Emily Allen attributes the original to St. Anselm.³⁹ Migne prints it in the Meditationes of St. Augustine,⁴⁰ and also in the Orationes of St. Anselm.⁴¹ In the "Admonitio" with which Migne prefaces the Meditationes of St. Augustine, he casts doubt on their authenticity. He cites Bernardus Vindingus' arguments from internal evidence of style, diction and inconsistency of statements in the Meditationes with the facts of Augustine's life, as sufficient proof to deny authorship to St. Augustine. He also points out that twentyfour of the forty chapters of the Meditationes have manuscript authority for the authorship of John, Abbot of Fecamp, who died in the year 1078. Migne is of the opinion that later copyists incorporated material from Abbot John's writings into St. Augustine's works, not that Abbot John stole from St. Augustine.⁴²

Father Hugh Pope, who includes in his study of St. Augustine a list of his authentic works, believes that the Meditationes, though constantly spoken of as the genuine work of St. Augustine, are almost certainly to be attributed to John, the Abbot.⁴³

It would seem that St. Augustine is not to be credited with the lines in question, usually referred to as the "Candet Nudatum Pectus", the first words of the Latin text. Since these lines do not appear in the twenty-four chapters of the Meditationes which are ascribed to Abbot John, they may belong to St. Anselm. But doubt has been attached to the genuineness of some of Anselm's Meditationes and Orationes, too, since the discovery of a late eleventh-century manuscript in which many are combined with extracts from St. Augustine and the whole prefaced by a letter from Abbot John of Féecamp.⁴⁴ In any case Rolle's direct source was probably an English translation of the lines. S. Harrison Thomson, in his article, "The Date of the Early English Translation of the 'Candet Nudatum Pectus'", Medium Aevum IV (1935), 100-105, sums up the results of his investigations with a statement to the effect that there were two completely distinct translations of the passage in England before the end of the thirteenth century—one in four lines current in at least three recensions, the second in six lines in two recensions.

Let us return to the analysis of the lyric. Gratitude and compassion, surging in the poet's heart from reflection on the suffering of Christ, move him to desire love and he asks to be made God's lover. He no longer cares for this world; he seeks God alone and longs for the moment when he may see Him in everlasting joy and bliss. The gifts of heat and song, which belong to the highest degree of love, he earnestly requests in the sweet name of Jesus:

Kyndel me fire within,…

…. .

þou be my lufyng,
þat I lufe may syng.
(242, 255-256)

The change of address from "my keyng" in the section of the poem commemorating the passion to "Jhesu" in the part in which the poet asks for love, seems to indicate a growing intimacy of love which springs from reflection on the passion. There is still a great difference between the restrained use of the Holy Name here and the ecstatic repetition of it in the next lyric, which exemplifies the highest degree of love.

Rolle concludes the discussion of the second degree of love with the promise of exhilarating sweetness to the soul faithful to the ideals presented in his little poem. Then the privileged soul may, at God's good pleasure, enter into the third degree of love, that of the contemplative life, in which the "egh of þi hert mai loke intil heven" (ll. 261-262). In this state the soul feels surpassing "lufe, joy and swetnes" (1. 281), experiences the burning of love in the heart, and song and melody in the mind, and places all its desire and delight in Jesus. The heart must be set on God alone before this great grace will be bestowed. Now, Rolle says, he will write a song of love such as the lover of Christ will delight in. Then follows the "Cantus Amoris", a song of yearning for the union of perfect love in heaven. The world means nothing to the lover now; there is not even mention of despising it; the whole attention is centred on the longing for death and the eternal vision and union of love into which the soul enters through death:

When wil þou come, Jhesu my joy,
(l. 318)

…. .

When wil þou me kall? me langes to þi hall,
To se þe þan al;
(ll. 327-328)

I sytt and syng of luf langyng þat in my breste es bredde.
Jhesu, Jhesu, Jhesu, when war I to þe ledde?
Full wele I wate, þou sees my state; in lufe my thought es stedde.
When I þe se, and dwels with þe, þan am I fylde and fedde.
(ll. 333-336)

…. .

When wil þou rew on me, Jhesu, þat I myght with þe be,
To lufe and lok on þe?
(ll. 358-359)

The intimacy of love which now floods the soul of the lover pours itself out in repeated tender invocations to the Holy Name. In the prose explanation preceding the lyric, Rolle had written, "pan es Jhesu al þi desyre, al þi delyte, al þi joy, al þi solace, al þi comforth" (ll. 285-286). In the lyric he conveys perfectly this sense of complete fulfilment and absorption in Jesus, his Beloved:

When wil þou come, Jhesu my joy,
(l. 318)

…. .

Jhesu my savyoure, Jhesu my comfortoure,
(l. 324)

…. .

Jhesu, Jhesu, Jhesu, when war I to þe ledde?
(l. 334)

…. .

Jhesu, Jhesu, Jhesu, til þe it es þat I morne.
(l. 339)

…. .

Jhesu, my dere and my drewry, delyte ert þou to syng.
Jhesu, my myrth and melody, when will þow com, my keyng?
Jhesu, my hele and my hony, my whart and my comfortyng,
Jhesu, I covayte for to dy when it es þi payng.
(ll. 341-344)

…. .

Jhesu, my lufe, my swetyng
(l. 350)

…. .

Jhesu, my hope, my hele, my joy ever ilk a dele,
(l. 353)

The heat, sweetness and song, which Rolle promises will þe present in the heart and mind of the lover in the third degree of love, are indicated in the lyric:

Al wa es fra me went, sen þat my hert es brent
In Criste luf sa swete …
(ll. 345-346)

…. .

Jhesu, my dere and my drewry, delyte ert pou to syng.
(l. 341)

The song begun in this life will be continued in heaven for ever:

And I þi lufe sal syng thorow syght of þi schynyng
In heven withowten endyng.
(ll. 362-363)

With this exultant hope of an everlasting union of love in heaven, he concludes the "Cantus Amoris" and the Ego Dormio.

In the first part of the Form of Living⁴⁵ Rolle gives instructions "how þou may dispose þi lyfe and rewle it to Goddes will" (p. 102). But he is aware that his disciple, Margaret de Kirkeby, desires "to here some special poynt of þe luf of Jhesu Criste, and of contemplatyf lyfe" (p. 103), and this he undertakes to teach her. In a brief exposition he outlines the three degrees of love discussed in Ego Dormio. Not all men love God equally. All who keep his commandments certainly love Him; those who keep his counsels love Him more. But there is a higher love than this in which a man feels "mykel joy and swetnes and byrnyng in his lufe" (p. 103). A man to feel this love must þe "clene and fylled with his lufe"; he comes to this love with "grete travayle in praier and thynkyng" (p. 103). This is the work of the soul in the second degree of love. To illustrate his meaning Rolle gives Margaret an example of a prayer she may say in her heart that will serve to focus her thoughts on God while she is eating and at other times when she is not engaged in formal prayer or conversation. There follows a short prayer written in verse, expressing love, thanksgiving and petition. As in the lyric embodied in the Ego Dormio as an exemplification of the second degree of love, reference to the passion is included. Christ is addressed as "keyng" three times in this short poem and as "Jhesu" only once, an indication that the fulness of love is not yet reached. The final petition of the prayer is a request for the gift Rolle attaches to the third degree of love—that of song:

þou gyf me grace to syng
þe sang of bi lovyng.
(ll. 37-38)

Rolle goes on to assure Margaret that if she is faithful to prayer and meditation she will grow in the love of Jesus Christ in a short time.

A more detailed discussion of the three degrees of love follows, in this case given the labels, "insuperabel", "inseparabel" and "syngulere" (p. 104). Very few, he says, ever receive the third degree of love, for "God gyfes it til wham he wil, bot noght withouten grete grace comand before" (p. 106). If Margaret should be granted this great favour, she may sing to Jesus Christ in her heart this song of love which he is composing for her. She may sing it when she is longing for "hys comyng" and her own "gangyng" forth to union with him (p. 107). A twelve-line lyric of ardent love and longing for union and the vision of heaven follows. The ideas of the Ego Dormio lyric of love-longing are repeated here; some of the lines are almost identical; the sweetness of love and the burning of love are mentioned but song is not nor is the Holy Name. The omission of reference to the gift of song may be accounted for by the prefacing instruction that makes the whole poem a song to be sung in the heart: "And ymang other affeccions and sanges bou may in bi langyng syng bis in bi hert til bi Lord Jhesu" (p. 107). The absence of direct address to the Holy Name is unusual but interesting here in view of the comment Rolle had made on this devotion a few sentences before the composition of the lyric. He says: "Bot þe sawle þat es in be thyrd degre … es anely comforted in loving and lufyng of God and til be dede com es syngand gastly til Jhesu, and in Jhesu, and Jhesu, noght bodily cryand wyth mouth" (p. 106). It is sufficient that the name be in the heart. Immediately following the lyric is a chapter on devotion to the Holy Name in which Rolle points out its wonderful effects on the soul, "þis name Jhesu", he says, "fest it swa fas tin þi hert, þat it come never out of þi thought" (p. 108).

Rolle has written one lyric dedicated to the Holy Name, A Salutation to Jesus.⁴⁶ Reverence, confidence, faith and love inspire the invocations to Jhesu, my creatowre (1. 1), Jhesu, mi saveowre (1. 2), Jhesu, helpe and sokowre (1. 3), Jhesu, þe blyssed flowre of þi moder virgyne (1. 4), Jhesu, leder to lyght (1. 5), Jhesu, Lorde of Mageste (1. 13), joy bat lastes ay (1. 14) and all delyte to se (1. 14). A brief sentiment of penitence (1. 12), desire to be God's lover (1. 15), longing to come to Him (1. 16), yearning to see God in heaven (1. 7), and to share in His bliss (1. 9), compassion with the sufferings of Christ (ll. 17-20) are themes woven in with the main subject of devotion to the Holy Name.

Four of Rolle's lyrics are composed with love as the dominant theme. A Song of the Love of Jesus⁴¹ is a sustained exposition of what love is. It covers recommendations and petitions for all three degrees of love. In it are repeated many phrases from the Form of Living and from the Incendium Amoris. In the Form of Living, Rolle asks the question, "What is lufe?" and he answers it:

Luf es a byrnand Ʒernyng in God, with a wonderfull delyte and sykernes. God es lyght and byrnyng … Lufe es a lyf, copuland togedyr þe lufand and þe lufed … Lufe es desyre of þe hert, ay thynkand til þat þat it lufes; and when it hase þat it lufes, þan it joyes, and na thyng may make it sary … Verray lufe clenses þe saule … for luf es stalworth als þe dede, … and hard als hell….⁴⁸

In the lyric these ideas appear in wording that is only slightly different:

Luf es lyf þat lastes ay, …
(l. 1)

…. .

þe nyght it tournes intil þe day, …
(l. 3)

…. .

Lufe es thoght with grete desyre, of a fayre lovyng,
Lufe I lyken til a fyre, …
Lufe us clenses of oure syn, …
Lufe be keynges hert may wyn, lufe of joy may syng.
(ll. 5-8)

…. .

…luf copuls God and manne.
(l. 12)

…. .

Take til þe al myne entent, þat pow be my Ʒhernyng.
(l. 22)

…. .

Fra kare it tornes þat kyend, and lendes in myrth and glew.
(l. 44)

…. .

For luf es stalworth as þe dede, luf es hard as hell.
(l. 48)

Miss H. E. Allen has pointed out in Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle (p. 299) that the first sixty lines of this poem are a close translation of scattered sentences from chapters forty and forty-one of the Incendium Amoris. Indeed, the similarity is very striking both in scattered phrases and in whole blocks, especially from chapter forty-one. The stanza in the lyric which reads:

If I lufe any erthly thyng þat payes to my wyll,
And settes my joy and my lykyng when it may come me tyll,
I mai drede of partyng, þat wyll þe hate and yll;
For al my welth es bot wepyng, when pyne mi saule sal spyll.
(ll. 29-32)

is almost a literal translation of a passage in the Incendium Amoris:

Si enim amavero aliquam creaturam mundi huius, que mee voluntati per omnia piacerei, et posuero gaudium meum et finem solacii mei ac desiderii, quando ad me ipsa eveniret, timere potero de separacione ardente et amara, quoniam omnis felicitas quam habeo in huiusmodi amore, in fine non est nisi fletus et anxietas quando iam prope est, quod pena amarissime animam cruciabit.⁴⁹

Lines forty-nine to sixty of the poem translate another block from the Incendium Amoris:

Luf es a lyght byrthen, lufe gladdens Ʒong and alde;

…. .

Luf es a gastly wynne, pat makes men bygge and balde.

…. .

Luf es þe swettest thyng þat man in erth hase tane;
…. .

Luf es Goddes derlyng; lufe byndes blode and bane.

…. .

For me and my lufyng, lufe makes bath þe ane.
Bot fleschly lufe sal fare as dose þe flowre in May,
And, lastand þe na mare þan ane houre of a day;
And sythen syghe ful sare þar lust, þar pryde, þar play,
When þai er casten in kare til pyne þat lastes ay.

In the Incendium Amoris we read the following sentences which cover exactly these ideas:

Amor enim est levis sarcina, … que iuvenes cum senibus letificai, … Amor est vinum spirituale inebrians mentes electorum, et faciens provectos et viriles, ut venenosam mundi delectacionem obliviscantur, et nee cogitare current, immo de hac vehementer dedignentur; … Amor igitur res dulcissima est et utilissima quam unquam accepit creatura racionalis. Est enim Deo amor acceptissimus et dilectissimus, qui ligat non solum nexibus sapiencie et suavitatis Deoque coniungit, sed eciam carnem et sanguinem constringit…. Verumtamen carnalis dileccio prosperabitur et peribit quemadmodum flos agri in estate, et non erit amplius exultans et existens quam si non nisi per diem unum perduraret, … Superbia eorum, et ludus in falsa pulchritudine, in putredinem et turpitudinem detrudetur, quoniam iam precipitati sunt in tormentum, quod cum eis erit in eternum.⁵⁰

"Calor", "canor" and "dulcor" are prominent in the poem. Heat is mentioned more than once: "Lufe I lyken to a fyre" (1. 6); "Lufe es hatter pen pe cole" (1. 13); "pe flawme of lufe" (1. 14). Song is spoken of as the usual accompaniment of love:

If þat my sawle had herd and hent þe sang of tþi lovyng.(l. 24)

…. .

If pou wil lufe, þan may þou syng til Cryst in melody.
(l. 67)

Sweetness and joy flow into the soul with love:

In myrth he lyfes, nyght and day, þat lufes þat swete chylde;

…. .

þar es na tonge in erth may tell of lufe þe swetnesse.
þat stedfastly in lufe kan dwell, his joy es endlesse.
(ll. 89-90)

The doctrine of the indwelling of God in the soul is one that has little prominence in Rolle's writings. It appears here in much the same words as it is stated in the Ego Dormio:

If þou luf in all þi thoght, and hate þe fylth of syn,
And gyf hym þi sawle, þat it boght, þat he þe dwell within.
(ll. 37-38)

In the Ego Dormio he writes: "For he wil with pe dwelle, if pou lufe hym."⁵¹ Julian of Norwich in her Revelations of Divine Love gives this doctrine of the indwelling of God in man's soul an important place in her teaching on divine love. It is simply a difference of point of view. Rolle usually writes of man's love for God and his yearnings for union with Him; Julian commonly writes of God's love for man, and she feels filled with gratitude at this wonderful manifestation of it. Neither one excludes the point of view of the other; but the emphasis is different.

References to the spirit of penitence (ll. 37, 57-66), to the passion (ll. 80, 85-88), and to the Holy Name supplement the main theme. In the last stanza the confident devotion to the Holy Name, the ardent lovelonging and yearning for the eternal vision of heaven, and the hopeful spirit of joy are summed up in a great overflow of sincere and tender feeling:

Jhesu es lufe þat lastes ay, till hym es owre langyng.
Jhesu þe nyght turnes to þe day, þe dawyng intil spryng.
Jhesu, thynk on us now and ay, for þe we halde oure keyng.
Jhesu, gyf us grace, as þou wel may, to luf þe withowten endyng.
(ll. 93-96)

A Song of Love-longing to Jesus has some lines identical with and some similar to those in the Ego Dormio lyrics. It is a strange medley of the aspirations that belong to all three degrees of love. As the poem opens, it would seem to reveal the state of soul of one in the early stages of love. The poet is asking for the courage and determination to seek God only and for the grace of detachment from the world in order that God may be his love. He begs for the virtue of meekness and protests his hatred of pride and anger, the two vices which Rolle most often repudiates.⁵² He makes his request for the grace of purity of soul, which belongs to the first degree of love, "And make me clene of syn, þat I may come þe tylle." (1. 16); for recollection, which belongs to the second degree of love, "þat I þi lufe may wyn, of grace my thoght þou fylle. (1. 15); and for the sweetness and fire that belong to the third degree of love:

Me langes, lede me to þi lyght, and festen in þe al my thoght.
In þi swetnes fyll my hert …
(ll. 7-8)

…. .

…of lufe þou kyndel þe fyre,
þat I in swet lovyng with aungels take my hyre.
(ll. 11-12)

Three stanzas of love-longing in the centre of the poem are taken, with some re-arrangement and slight changes, from the "Cantus amoris" of the Ego Dormio. These are followed by lines on the passion made up of phrases drawn from the "Meditacio de passione Christi" in the Ego Dormio.

The first thirty-two lines of this poem are requests or reflections made in the first person; the next ten lines refer to the passion of Christ and are written in the third person singular; the next four lines are impersonal except for one first person plural pronoun and corresponding adjective; the last two lines are addressed to a second person.

It seems hardly credible that Rolle, after making such a careful distinction between the second and third degrees of love in the Ego Dormio lyrics, would mix lines from the two poems in such a disorderly manner in this lyric. The shifting of point of view also gives it a very patchwork quality. Even though it is ascribed to Rolle in Longleat MS. 29,⁵³ one wonders if it may not be the work of one of his imitators who did not see the significance of what he was doing in the Ego Dormio.

The two lyrics, Thy Joy be in the Love of Jesus⁵⁴ and The Nature of Love,⁵⁵ are addressed to beginners in the life of love. The first of these, Thy Joy be in the Love of Jesus, is an urgent exhortation to such a novice to give his love to God. Rolle points out the difficult preliminary steps to be taken by the earnest soul, and the joys that may be hoped for:

þou kepe his byddyngs ten; hald þe fra dedely synne;
Forsake þe joy of men, þat þou his lufe may wynne.
þi hert of hym sal bren with lufe þat never sal twynne.
Langyng he will þe len heven to won withinne.
(ll. 17-20)

Recollection and meditation on the passion, recommendations belonging to the second degree of love are briefly mentioned:

In Cryst þou cast þi thoght, þou hate all wreth and pryde,
And thynk how he þe boght with woundes depe and wyde.(ll. 5-6)

…. .

þou thynk on hys mekenes, how pore he was borne.
Behald, his blody flesch es prikked with thorne.
(ll. 21-22)

The soul that is steadfast in love, longing, and praying, "Bryng me to þi lyght, þi melodi to here" (1. 32), is promised joy, sweetness and the fire of love:

Joy in þi brest es bredde, when þou ert hym lufand.
þi sawle þan hase he fedde, in swete lufe brennand.
(ll. 35-36)

There is reference in this lyric to the predilection for a sitting position:

With joy þou take his trace, and seke to sytt hym nere.
(l. 14)

This lyric lacks the intensely personal and ecstatic character of the lyrics in which Rolle pours out his love-longing and his tender devotion to the Holy Name. The Holy Name is not mentioned once. The reason may þe that Rolle is concentrating here on the first degree of love, even though he includes some instructions proper to the second degree; and devotion to the Holy Name does not belong to the first degree. The other possible explanation is that he was following his own explicit statement in the Form of Living that it was sufficient that the name of Jesus þe in the heart and mind; it need not þe cried aloud.⁵⁶

The exhortations of The Nature of Love are also addressed to those not far advanced in the life of love. The recommendations are suitable to persons in the first and second degrees who are desirous of being lovers of God:

All vanitese forsake, if þou his lufe will fele.
(l. 1)

…. .

Of synne þe bitternes, þou fle ay fast þerfra.
Þis worldes wikkednes, let it noght with þe ga.
(ll. 5-6)

…. .

Þe world, cast it behynd, and say: 'Jhesu, my swete,
Fast in þi lufe me bynd, and gyf me grace to grete,
To lufe þe over al thyng; …
(ll. 25-27)

The more positive aspects of recollection, prayer and devotion to the Holy Name, exercises belonging to the second degree of love, are urged in the last stanza:

Take Jhesu in þi thynkyng, his lufe he will þe send.
Þi lufe and þi lykyng, in hym þou lat it lend.
And use þe in praiyng, þarin þou may be mend,
Swa þat þow hafe þi keyng in joy withowten endyng.
(ll. 57-60)

The rewards of a life of love are re-phrased from lines 327-329 of the "Cantus Amoris" of Ego Dormio. In that lyric they are a personal outpouring of love-longing:

When wil þou me kall? me langes to þi hall,
To se þe þan al; þi luf, lat it not fal.
My hert payntes þe pall þat steds us in stal.⁵⁷

Here they are a sober argument to persuade the reader of the advantage of choosing God for his love:

His lufe es lyf of all þat wele lyvand may be.
Þou sted hym in þi stal, lat hym noght fra þe fle.
Ful sone he wil þe call (þi setell es made for þe),
And have þe in his hall, ever his face to se.
(ll. 45-58)

In spite of the serious, penitential tone of this lyric, there are a few lines expressive of the joy of loving God. Rolle is never gloomy in his love of God. Even penance, undertaken for the love of God, is a joyful thing, and the rewards of fidelity are happiness in this life and union in the next:

For joy þi hert burd brest, to have swylk a swetyng. (l. 43)

…. .

When þe dede neghes negh, and þou sall hethen wende,
Þou sal hym se wyth hegh, and come till Cryste þi frende.
(ll. 39-40)

One lyric ascribed to Rolle in Longleat MS. 29⁵⁸ is wholly penitential in tone. It is the Exhortation,⁵⁹ beginning "All synnes sal þou hate thorow castyng of skylle." Following a warning that "Dede dynges al sa sare, þat nane may defende; … For þi of synn make þe bare, þou knawes not þi ende." (ll. 10, 12), the poet passes on to a description of the Day of Judgment. The little poem draws to a close with the expression of hope and joy which we always find in Rolle's attitude towards penance. The Judgment must þe feared by those who are not God's friends; but for his faithful ones who have loved God and hated sin here, it is a day of triumph. They will go forth with joy to take their longawaited places within the kingdom of heaven:

Þat day owre joy sal begyn, þat here suffers pyne;
Owre flesch wytt of mykel wyn and bryght as sonn schyne.
Owre setels heven ar within, me lyst sytt in myne.
Lufe Criste and hate syn, and sa purches þe þune.
(II. 21-24)

The authorship of A Song of Mercy is not certain. Miss Allen prints it in the English Writings of Richard Rolle⁶⁰ as one of those from the Cambridge MS. Dd. v. 64 which "seem certainly to þe covered by the colophon there ascribing lyrics to Rolle",⁶¹ but in her earlier volume, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, she had written that "the poem needs more external evidence to make Rolle's authorship certain".⁶² The poem is written in praise of mercy, and is informed by a spirit of confidence in that attribute of God in his dealings with men. In life and at the hour of death, mercy is, for Rolle, his guiding beacon, his source of trust, his help, his salvation. The word "mercy" is repeated over and over in the poem; it is used nineteen times in the twenty-four lines; it is the pivot about which the reflections turn as the various depths of its beauty reveal themselves to the contemplating mind. Mercy is "curtayse and kynde" (l. 2), that is, it treats its object with respect and consideration and charity; mercy is powerful in lifting one from the bonds of evil, "fra al mischeves he mai me rayse" (l. 2); mercy guides one's final faltering steps in this life and saves him from the fiend, "lede me at þe last, when I owt of þis world sal wende; … þat þou save me fra þe fende" (II. 5-6); mercy is true and dependable and always ready to respond to man's appeal, "it fayles noght" (l. 8); mercy is the comfort and nourishment of the soul, "þat es my solace and my fode" (l. 12); mercy is most worthy of esteem because, through mercy, man's salvation was accomplished, "for thorogh mercy was I boght" (l. 10); mercy transcends and comprehends the wretchedness of men, "Mercy es sa hegh a poynt, þar may na syn it suppryse" (l. 19); mercy embraces both our particular needs and our general condition; it is source and ground of all our confidence, "Mercy es bath al and some; barin I trayst and after pray" (l. 24).

The appeal for mercy from the creature to the Sovereign Being, "pou graunte mercy" (l. 12); the request to þe conducted to the presence of the Beloved in the royal tower; the desire to gaze upon the beauty of the Loved One, "And bring me til þe rial toure, whare I mai se mi God sa bryght" (l. 16); these concepts establish a contact with the courtly love tradition, but at the same time transcend it in the recognition of the futility of the artificial convention when placed in juxtaposition with the reality of God's power to extend true mercy, "þou graunte mercy, þat mercy may" (l. 12).

Rolle's characteristic desire to turn into song the enthusiastic conviction welling up in his heart is expressed here in a manner which foreshadows the eternizing conceit of later poetry, "God of al, Lorde and Keyng, I pray þe, Jhesu, be my frende, / Sa þat I may þi mercy syng in þi blys withowten ende" (II. 17-18).

The richness of Rolle's poem is deepened by the addition of legal associations to the theological and literary relationships already pointed out. In the final stanza the poet prays that God's mercy may þe at hand to preserve his soul when he comes before his Judge at the last great court of Judgment:

Lord, lat it noght be aloynt, when þou sal sett þi gret assyse.
With þy mercy my sawle anoynt, when I sal come to þi jugise.
Til þe Juge sal I come, bot I wate noght my day.
(II. 21-23)

These lines bring forward an interesting question. About the year 1366 Chaucer translated Guillaume de Deguilleville's poem, Pèlerinage de l'Ame, composed in 1330 or 1331.⁶³ Lines 55-56 of that poem read:

Las! mes quant la grant assise
Sera, se n'y es assise⁶⁴

Chaucer translates these in the poem he calls A B C as follows:

But mercy, lady, at the grete assyse,
Whan we shul come bifore the hye lusty se!
(II. 36-37)

The likeness in thought and wording in lines 21-22 of Rolle's Song of Mercy (quoted above) and in lines 36-37 of Chaucer's A B C raises the question of the possible influence of Rolle's poem on Chaucer. The similarity may þe purely accidental, but it is striking and may indicate an impression left on Chaucer's mind by an earlier reading of Rolle's poem.

Rolle has written no lyrics in English on the Virgin Mary. He has, however, composed in her honour, in Latin, one long poem, the Canticum Amoris. The poem has definite lyrical qualities. The metre is musical—the four stress line with a variable number of unstressed syllables between the stresses. The poem is filled with praises of Our Lady and with the poet's love which breaks out in joyful song:

Letum carmen concino, pondus portans spei,
Et amore langueo resplendentis rei.
Celo est serenior inquisita mei;
Omnibus amancior, sum electus ei.
(Stanza 31)⁶⁵

Rolle's lyrics have beauty in their melody and intensity. They celebrate the loftiest emotion possible—that of love of God—in simple, sincere words. The medium of verse seems, however, not to have been the most congenial mode of expression for his gift of "canor". The passages of lyrical intensity in his prose seem to me to reveal the deepest emotions of his soul more completely than do his few lyrics.

Notes

¹ Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, [1957] 273.

² Rosenthal and Smith, Exploring Poetry, [1955] 119.

³ Black, ed., Elizabethan and Seventeenth-Century Lyrics, [1938] 5, 9, 10.

⁴ Drinkwater, [1922] The Lyric, 85-86.

⁵ Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, [1927] 294-302.

⁶ Ed. Deanesly, [1915] 190.

⁷English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 63. Quotation from Ego Dormio.

⁸English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 64, 67.

⁹English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 69-70.

¹⁰Incendiimi Amoris, ed. Deanesly, 188.

¹¹Incendium Amoris, ed. Deanesly, 185.

¹²Incendium Amoris, ed. Deanesly, 174.

¹³English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 70-72.

¹⁴English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 104, 107.

¹⁵ Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 255.

¹⁶English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 70-72.

¹⁷English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 53.

¹⁸English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 41-43.

¹⁹English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 67.

²⁰English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 41-43.

²¹ Dom Cuthbert Butler in Western Mysticism [1923] (page 110) points out that "light" was a favourite symbol of St. Gregory's for the contemplative life. Rolle uses it as the symbol for heaven in A Salutation to Jesus (English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 48-49, lines 5, 28); Thy Joy be in the Love of Jesus (ibid., 53, line 32); Ego Dormio (ibid., 70, line 316.)

²²English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 49-51.

²³ The first poem incorporated in Ego Dormio (ibid., 64), and the "Cantus amoris" of the Form of Living (ibid., 107).

²⁴ Ed. Deanesly, 268, 269, 276, 278.

²⁵ Ed. M. de LaBigne, 616.

²⁶ Ed. Arnould, 58, 73, 74, 89, 94, 112, 133, 136, 137, 138, 140, 142, 149, 156, 157, 160. If, as Miss Allen conjectures, in Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, 129, the Melos Amoris was written in 1326-1327, Rolle had good reason to þe conscious of the symbol of kingship. Speaking of the period before the deposition and execution of Edward II, Miss Allen writes (Writings Ascribed, 128): "The Scotch wars brought king, court, and parliament as well as army to Yorkshire during these years."

²⁷Incendium Amoris, ed. Deanesly, 174.

²⁸English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 40, lines 17-18.

²⁹English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 41, lines 9, 11-12.

³⁰English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 51, lines 57, 59-60.

³¹English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 39, lines 15-16, 21-24.

³²English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 67, line 6.

³³English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 41, line 11. This request is made in almost identical words in Ego Dormio (ibid., 68, line 242, "Kyndel me fire within.")

³⁴English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 44, line 26.

³⁵English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 53, line 19.

³⁶ J. Wight Duff writes the following account of Menippean Satire in A Literary History of Rome, [1909] 334-335: "From Quintilian we learn that Varro was the author of an older type of satire than that of Lucilius—one composed in many sorts of metre and in prose as well. These are the Saturae Menippeae. They were so entitled by Varro as being based on the Cynic dialogues of Menippus, the philosopher of Gadara in the third century, whose spirit and figure are so amusing in his imitator Lucian. Varro's aim was comparable to Addison's in the Spectator—to introduce academic thought to the average reader. Realizing the need of gilding the philosophic pill for the unlearned, and bent on overcoming the national repugnance to speculation, he seasoned esoteric truth and logical discussion with jocularity in his treatment of contemporary society. The outcome was a mass of 150 books, as motley in theme as in form. The tradition of this medley passed through Seneca's Apocolocyntosis and Petronius's Satyricon into the pedantic fantasia of Martianus Capella, De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii. Through that educational manual, once a standard, it influenced medieval compositions of the "chante fable" order. Boethius also represents the tradition when he diversifies the prose of his De Consolatione Philosophiae with poems on varied metres—like so many lyric interludes amidst his tragic sorrows."

In Roman Satire, [1936] Professor Duff adds the information that Menippean Satire was revived in France at the end of the sixteenth century (p. 84).

³⁷ The references to the Ego Dormio are from English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 61-72.

³⁸ Brown ed., Religious Lyrics of the XlVth Century, rev. G. V. Smithers, 241.

³⁹ Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, 290.

⁴⁰ J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Vol. XL, 906.

⁴¹ Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Vol. CLVIII, 861.

⁴² Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Vol. XL, 898-902.

⁴³ Pope, St. Augustine of Hippo, 382-383. Eligius Dekkers lists the Meditations under spurious works of St. Augustine. Clavis Patrum Latinorum (1961).

⁴⁴ H. E. Allen, "Mystical Lyrics of the Manuel des Pechiez", Romanic Review, 9 (1918), 183-184, note 65.

⁴⁵ References to the Form of Living are from English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 85-119.

⁴⁶English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 48-49.

⁴⁷English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. 43-47.

⁴⁸English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 108-111.

⁴⁹ Ed. Deanesly, 272-273.

⁵⁰ Ed. Deanesly, 274-275.

⁵¹English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 61.

⁵²Cf. A Salutation to Jesus (ibid., 78, line 12); also Thy Joy be in the Love of Jesus (ibid., 52, line 5).

⁵³ Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, 299.

⁵⁴English Writing of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 52-53.

⁵⁵English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 49-51.

⁵⁶English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed., Allen, 106.

⁵⁷English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 71.

⁵⁸ Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, 297.

⁵⁹English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 39.

⁶⁰English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 40-41.

⁶¹English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Allen, 37.

⁶² Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, 298.

⁶³ Chaucer, Complete Works, ed. W. Skeat, [1926] I, 59.

⁶⁴ Chaucer. Complete Works, ed. W. Skeat, I, 261.

⁶⁵ Ed. André Wilmart, Revue d' Ascétique et de Mystique, 21 (1940), 143-148. For a translation of the Canticum Amoris see Appendix A. Text, Appendix B.