Three medieval love lyrics close to each other in Harley 2253—a collection of lyrics in Middle English, Middle French, in a manuscript dated ca. 1340—seem utterly unrelated to each other, apart from their pessimism and their sheer idiosyncrasy and pessimism. The incessant moralizing of “Charnel amour” comes off, at first glance, as the medieval equivalent of a Tweet by a prudish youth pastor. “When the nhytegale singes the wodes waxen grene” features a man so desperate for an unrequited love that he wanders about singing palely for her. Most puzzling is “In a fryth as y con fare fremede,” in which a gender-ambiguous woman hammers her male suitor with striking assertions of her autonomy—a reversal of the typical pastourelle encounter where a knight wins over a demure lowborn girl.

Despite their apparent differences, these lyrics draw from a similar repository of poetic tropes and use similar mechanisms to advance multilayered and fluid alternatives to commonly accepted secular and sacred wisdom about love.

All Love Is Futile?! Provocative Aphorisms in “Charnel amour”

Pulling no punches, the poet of “Charnel amour” pronounces that “charnel amour est folie,” or “carnal love is folly,” and concludes that “brief delit est lecherie • mes santz fyn dure le torment,” meaning, “Lechery is a brief delight • but torment lasts without end.”^[1] However, the author does not intend horror about eternal hellfire so much as deep existential awareness as the basis for moral restraint. In the Harley manuscript, a line in Latin and the infamous “Erthe toc of erthe” riddle-poem accompany “Charnel amour.”^[2] Although the manuscript-writer started “Erthe” with a rubrication (¶), he left no space separating it from the previous lines.^[3] Moreover, the proverb “momentaneum est quod delectat set eternum quod cruciat”—“what delights is momentary but what tortures is eternal”—has a nearly identical construction and meaning to its French counterpart.^[4] This connective Latin line compels us to see “Erthe” and “Charnel amour” as thematically unified on the transience of earth, flesh, and fleshly pleasure.

The poetic construction of “Charnel amour” as laid out in the Harley manuscript is gorgeous. Each line is split into two heptasyllabic phrases^[5] with the rhyme scheme A and B, generating elegant cascades of A rhymes at the end of the left ‘column’ and B rhymes at the end of the right ‘column’:

This layout reveals thematic pairs. “Folie” and “breve vie” are equated; there is an inherent folly in the shortness of life. The corollary is that those who want to love wisely (“qe velt amer sagement”) should seek that which lasts a long time (“lesse durer longement”). Likewise “flourishing” flesh (“char si florie”)^[6] and excessive sexual desire (“lecherie”) are temporal delights that lead to rot (“purreture”)^[7] and endless torment (“santz fyn dure le torment”).

“Charnel amour” and its partner lyrics poetically elaborate the conventional Biblical wisdom about the transience of earthly things. Susanna Fein reads “Erthe toc of erthe” specifically as a “mind-teasing elaboration of the Ash Wednesday liturgy,”^[8] which derives from Ecclesiastes: “All are from the dust, and to dust all return.”^[9] But “Charnel amour,” unlike its Biblical and liturgical inspiration, does not explicitly develop a theory of redemption, salvation, heaven, or such—unless the highly enigmatic meditation “Erthe toc of erthe” counts! In other words, “Charnel amour” pronounces that carnal love is something to “eschywe”—eschew—because life is short, hellish torment is long, and, crucially, all flesh descends into rot:

Ja n’ert la char si florie • que a purreture ne descent

There was never flesh so flourishing • that it did not descend into rot. (5-6)

This instance of the word “char,” meaning “flesh,”^[10] supports a re-reading of the opening phrase “charnel love” as “fleshly love” rather than “carnal love.” Indeed, the primary middle French definition of “charnel” is “composé de chair,” or “composed of flesh.”^[11] As all love is inherently fleshly, as it involves human bodies, the author opens the door to a meditation on the futility of not only lust but of all love. “Charnel amour” and its accompanying lyrics belong to a tradition of medieval poems that, despite their aphoristic air, complicate conventional wisdom.

Love-sick Hell-on-Earth in “When the nyhtegale singes the wodes waxen grene”

“When the nyhtegale singes the wides waxen grene” presents a first-person portrait of a man who pines with unrequited love after a fair maiden. This unremarkable synopsis becomes much more interesting in light of the spiritual vulnerability with which the poet portrays this lover. The jarring shift in the first four lines introduces the subject’s volatile emotional world. Initially, he seems to inhabit a lovely springtime atmosphere:

When the nyhtegale singes the wides waxen grene

Lef and gras and blosme springes in Averyl y wene

When the nightingale sings, the woods grow green;

I know that leaf and grass and blossom spring in April,^[12]

This atmosphere recalls counterparts such as “Mirie is thentre of May,” a secular lyric where crowds play, maidens sing and green meadows bloom.^[13] But “When the nyhtegale singes” ruptures this evoked mood with a spear:

ant love is to myn herte gon with one spere so kene

nyht and day my blod hit drynkes myn herte deth me tene

And love is gone from my heart with one spear, so sharp;

night and day it drinks my blood, and my heart hurts me.^[14]

The notion of a spear spilling blood recolors the secular April atmosphere with sacred Easter light, recalling the soldier who pierces Jesus’s side after his crucifixion.^[15] Another Harley 2253 lyric, “When y se blosmes springe,” follows a similar structure in which the first two lines show the speaker innocuously observing blossoms springing and birds’ singing, until “a swete lovelongynge / myne herte through out stong”—”a sweet love-longing pierces [his] heart.”^[16] Both lyrics proceed to explain the source of this pierced heart. In “When y se blosmes springe,” it is reverence for the crucified Savior, whereas in “When the nhytegale singes,” it is pining for a “may,” a maiden.^[17]

In “When the nhytegale singes” the speaker’s language for his love elevates her to a nearly Christ-like status. He seeks her “ore,” mercy (6), promises not to seek anyone else in the whole world,^[18] and would consider a kiss of her mouth his “leche” (12), a word that translates as “doctor” and can mean “God” when paired with the adjective “hevenlich,” heavenly.^[19] Also, he repeatedly addresses her as “swete lemmon,” sweet darling; the word “lemmon” can also mean Jesus (the ultimate love),^[20] for example in the poem “Hi sike al wan hi singe”:

Jhesu mi lemmon

his wondis sor smerte the sper is at his herte

ande thorit his side g[on]

Jesus, my darling—

his sore wounds smart, the spear is at his heart,

and has pierced his side.^[21]

Since the speaker of “Nyhtegale” is so devoted—“bounde,” chained to—his substitute Christ, his spiritual health is jeopardized.^[22] The poet puns on the phrase “waxe[n] grene” to juxtapose the way the trees become a healthy green (1), while the speaker grows a sickly green from excessive thought on his love (16). While love lyrics such as “Mirie is thentre of May” commonly use the word “grene” to describe the luscious renewal that accompanies new love in spring,^[23] the writer of “Nyhtegale” subverts this trope to underscore the speaker’s deviance from natural harmony. The speaker is pale, drained of lifeblood, and tormented: an ideal student of “Charnel amour.”

Although Fein acknowledges the way “Nyhtegale” inspired religious poets, she defines this lyric as secular: “The lyric represents the type of English love song — courtly sentiment modulated with vernacular idiom — most prone to be adapted by religious poets.”^[24] I would counter that this lyric inspired religious poets because it is subtle and yet clearly religious. Although “Nyhtegale” does not didactically declare that true religious devotion will redeem the speaker, it paints his temporal devotion as so miserable that we conclude for ourselves that he ought to pull the spear out of his heart, turning his attention to the crucified Savior (a more proper springtime activity). And where “Charnel amour” warned of eternal torment for such misplaced desire, “Nyhtegale” depicts a man’s hell on earth. The last stanza jolts us from the locale of the green woods into a bird’s eye view of this desperate man:

bitwene Lyncolne ant Lyndeseye Northamptoun ant Lounde

ne wot y non so fayr a may as y go fore y bounde

Between Lincoln, Linsey, Northampton and Lound,

I do not know so fair a maiden as the one for whom I go about, enchained. (17-18)

I imagine a bird, flying over this corner of the world utterly indifferent to this man’s plight as he “mone,” moans, his song (20). This tragic conclusion recalls the theme of Ecclesiastes: humankind’s fragility and its need for a greater eternal purpose. But the poet has chosen not to dictate this moral, instead gently breathing it over this sad scene.

It is worth briefly comparing “When the nhytegale” to the lyric immediately preceding it in the Harley 2253 manuscript, “My deth y love my lyfe ich hate for a levedy shene,” featuring a love-sick clerk:

My deth Y love, my lyf Ich hate, for a levedy shene;

heo is brith so daies liht, that is on me wel sene.

al y falewe so doth the lef in somer when hit is grene

My death I love, my life I hate, for a dazzling lady.

She is bright as day’s light that is clearly seen on me.

I utterly fade as does the leaf in summer when it is green.^[25]

This man, whose ‘greenness’ also indicates an unhealthy pallor, eventually manages to convince the very adamantly opposed lady to change her opinion of him. In a shocking reversal, the woman gives herself up:

fader moder and al my kun ne shal me holde so stille

that y nam thyn and thou art myn to don al thi wille

Father, mother, and all my kin shall not hold me so tightly

that I am not yours and you are not mine, to do all you desire. (35-36)

So far, our medieval love lyrics, if they do not shun love altogether, always feature a sad pining man who may or may not get his way with a lady. Is there no alternative?

“In a fryth as y con fare fremede”

“In a fryth as y con fare fremede” finally gives the archetypical pining man a rhetorical match, if not a superior. This lyric, according to Fein, is the “earliest extant English pastourelle, a poem of amorous encounter, often seduction, between a nobleman and a lowborn girl.”^[26] It is thus remarkable that this lyric subverts the ordinarily male perspective of this originally French genre, in stating “social realities and a woman’s psychological dilemma.”^[27] “In a fryth,” as with “When the nhytegale,”  begins with first-person narration by a presumably male speaker who spots a “fenge”—a trophy, or a catch—in the woods.^[28] But the instance that turns his world on its head is not his own love-sickness, but… a command from a woman who already knows what’s coming in this genre!

heo me bed go my gates lest hire gremede

ne kepte heo non henyng here

She commanded me to take my leave lest she get angry;

she did not want to hear an insult. (7-8)

The man’s reply reveals his construction of her as a helpless figure. His admiring and deferential tone recalls the “When the nhytegale” speaker’s quasi-religious adoration for a lady. But the man is also presumptuous, as if heroically promising to swoop up a pretty orphan in rags:

Yhere thou me now hendest in helde

nav y thee none hermes to hethe

Casten y wol thee from cares and kelde

comeliche y wol thee now clethe

Hear me now, most gracious and fair one!

I have no harsh words to mock you with.

I will deliver you from cares and the cold;

beautifully I will now clothe you. (11-12)

The woman responds by reasserting her autonomy with the defense of a moral pronouncement. Her anaphoric repetition of “Betere is”^[29] and the speakers’ A/B/A/B rhyme structures resemble those in “Charnel amour”:

Clothes y have on forte caste

such as y may were with wynne

Betere is were thunne boute laste

then syde robes and synke in to synne

I have on clothes to wear

such as I may wear with joy.

Better it is to wear thin clothes without guilt

than flowing robes and sink into sin. (13-16)

The reference to “synne” suggests Biblical allusion, and indeed, the woman could be creating her own proverb in response to the First Epistle of Peter:

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.^[30]

While building on Peter’s logic that distinguishes a woman’s clothing from her inner character, the woman replaces his prescription for modesty with permission for her clothing to give her joy. In this way, she reclothes conventional Biblical wisdom, just as the author of “Charnel amour” recontextualizes wisdom from Ecclesiastes. Susanna Fein notes how the narrator “dress[es] the woman (corporeally, rhetorically) versus how the sharp-witted woman reacts to this proposed reconstruction of who she is.”^[31] In other words, the woman recasts the man’s objectifying conception of her by rhetorically reclothing herself.

So who is this woman who decrees her own social contract with such presumed authority? The man is of course asking this same question. Feeling threatened, he finally tries to one-up her with the “beste red,” the best advice (41), he can produce:

that thou me take ant y thee toward huppe

thah y swore by treuthe and othe

that God hath shaped mey non atluppe

[my advice is]… that you take me and I jump at you,

even though I swear by truth and oath

that what God has shaped, no one may undo. (42-44)

Ardis Butterfield suggests the rich punning potential of the verb “shapen.”^[32] It could mean “decree,” as in, the man is troubled by the woman’s reclothing of God’s decrees. But it may also mean to “create” or to “create an appearance for oneself.” The man may feel as though the woman has reshaped her appearance in an ungodly way, as supported by his initial bafflement at her beautiful appearance:

nes ner gome so gladly on gere

Y wolde wyte in world who hire kenede

There was never a person so beautiful in clothes.

I wondered who in the world conceived her. (5)

This is the only recorded instance in which “gome” does not explicitly mean “man”; “gere,” the word for “clothes,” is also gender-neutral.^[33] It is possible that this woman is genderfluid or does not explicitly dress herself as a woman would; after all, her first defense was of her “thinne boute”—thin, perhaps boyishly thin, clothes. Indeed, she fires back that shape-shifting would not make her flinch, but the verb “shapen” permits us to read this as “reclothing” or “reshaping” herself as well:

Mid shupping ne mey hit me ashunche

nos y never wycche me wyle

Shape-shifting would not make me flinch. [i.e., would not faze me]

I was never a witch nor sorcerer. (45-6)

As she is not a witch, perhaps she is more akin to Mélusine, a shape-shifting woman whose lower body transforms into a serpent’s tail on Saturdays. Unlike the many medieval romance stories “which feature a helpless woman in desperate need of a male protector because she is incapable of governing due to her gender,” Mélusine is a “capable and astute” ruler. E. Jane Burns argues that Mélusine’s adoption of a hybrid, monstrous form may alter “her gender and perceptions of her as a gendered being.”^[34] Perhaps likewise in “In the fryth,” the man’s perception of this appearance-shifting woman shifts from condescending admiration to fear of a mysteriously powerful figure. After all, it would be very odd and unchivalrous of him to rather violently “toward huppe”—jump at a woman, let alone a supposedly helpless one. The woman’s last pronouncement is razor-sharp (and a bit brutal!):

Ych am a maid that me ofthunche

luef me were home boute gyle

I am a virgin, which often displeases me.

Beloved to me would be a man without guile. (47-8)

In contrast to “My deth I hate,” in which the clerk’s rhetoric wins over the woman, here we have a reversal. The woman delivers the final verdict: a verdict that is, at best, playfully sarcastic and, at worst, forbidding.

To Conclude…

Love is not lovely in these three lyrics. “Charnel amour” features pronouncements on fleshly futility that subvert and complicate biblical wisdom. “When the nyhtegale singes” centers the perspective of a man so infatuated after an unrequited love that he wilts spiritually. And “In a fryth” presents another pining man with a woman who challenges his perceptions with the surprisingly masculine authority of godlike decrees reminiscent of  “Charnel amour.”

Taken together, these lyrics shatter the stereotype of the vulnerable female damsel—not via modern feminism, of course, but via a metaphysical reevaluation of love itself. Love can consume and destroy a lover (including the implied lover, the reader, of “Charnel Amour”) who does not respect his proper place in the universe. Neglect of sacred love for God, as well as overzealous secular love that makes a man presumptuous of his entitlement to a woman, are dangerous. The uniquely omnivorous, multilayered, and multilingual hermeneutics of these medieval poets make possible such a sobering reimagining of love lyrics.

^[1] Ardis Butterfield, ed., Medieval English Lyrics, Norton Critical Editions (Norton: forthcoming), “Charnel amour / momentaneum est / Erthe toc of erthe,” No. 34, lines 1-4. All quotations are from this edition and cited by first line, number, and line numbers. Where my translations of the French differ from Butterfield’s, I cite the Dictionnaire du Moyen Français.

^[2] “Harley MS 2253” (London), f.59v, British Library, https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_2253_f059v.

^[3] “Harley MS 2253.”

^[4]  Butterfield, ed., “Charnel amour/ momentaneum est/ Erthe toc of erthe,” No. 34, lines 4-5. Translation mine.

^[5] Fein, Susanna Greer, ed., “Art. 24a, Charnel Amour Est Folie: Introduction,” The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, Volume 2, https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/fein-harley2253-volume-2-article-24a-charnel-introduction.

^[6] “Florie,” Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500), http://www.atilf.fr/dmf/definition/fleurir.

^[7] “Pourriture,” Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500), http://www.atilf.fr/dmf/definition/pourriture.

^[8] Fein, Susanna Greer, “Art. 24a, Charnel Amour Est Folie: Introduction.”

^[9] Eccl. 3:20 ESV

^[10] “Charnel,” Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500), http://www.atilf.fr/dmf/definition/charnel.

^[11] “Charnel.”

^[12] Butterfield, ed., “When the nyhtegale singes the wodes waxen grene,” No. 46, lines 1-2. Translation mine.

^[13]  Butterfield, ed., “Mirie is thentre of May,” No. 54.

^[14]  Butterfield, ed., “When the nyhtegale singes the wodes waxen grene,” No. 46, lines 3-4. Translation mine.

^[15] Jn.19:31-37, ESV

^[16] Butterfield, ed., “When y se blosmes springe,” No. 42, lines 3-4. Translation mine.

^[17] Butterfield, ed., “When the nyhtegale singes the wodes waxen grene,” No. 46, line 18.

^[18] “Whil I live in world so wyde other nulle y seche,” meaning, “While I live in the world-so-wide, I seek none other” (10).

^[19] “Leche – Middle English Compendium,” https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED24922.

^[20] “Lemman – Middle English Compendium,” https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED25097.

^[21] Butterfield, ed., “Hic sike al wan hi singe,” No. 22, line 22-4. Translation mine.

^[22] Butterfield, ed., “When the nyhtegale singes the wodes waxen grene,” No. 46, line 18. Translation mine.

^[23] Butterfield, ed., “Mirie is thentre of May,” No. 54. See line 4.

^[24] Fein Susanna Greer, ed., “Art. 65, When the Nyhtegale Singes: Introduction,” The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, Volume 2, https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/fein-harley2253-volume-2-article-64-introduction.

^[25]  Butterfield, ed., “When the nyhtegale singes the wodes waxen grene,” No. 45, line 3-4. Translation mine.

^[26] Fein Susanne Greer, ed., “Art. 35, In a Fryht as Y Con Fare Fremede: Introduction,” The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, Volume 2, https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/fein-harley2253-volume-2-article-35-introduction.

^[27] Fein, “Art. 35, In a Fryht as Y Con Fare Fremede: Introduction.”

^[28] Butterfield, ed., “In a fryth as y con fare fremede,” No. 38, line 2. Translation mine.

^[29] See lines 15, 19, and 37.

^[30] 1 Pt. 3:3-4 ESV

^[31] Fein, “Art. 35, In a Fryht as Y Con Fare Fremede: Introduction.”

^[32] Butterfield, ed., “In a fryth as y con fare fremede,” Footnote 73.

^[33] Butterfield, ed., “In a fryth as y con fare fremede,” Footnote 71.

^[34] “Melusine,” Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index, https://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/DetailsPage.aspx?Feminae_ID=32648.