King Horn, Floriz and Blauncheflur, The Assumption of Our Lady
General
King Horn, Floriz and Blauncheflur, The Assumption of Our Lady
English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500; Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint -- Legends; Romances, English
This same version appears in a later MS., Bodl. 779,[I-25] of the 16th
century. In this MS. the legend cycle is greatly extended by the
addition of a whole new series of legends. The number of legends in this
MS. reaches the number of 135, of which the version of the Assumption is
number 57.
Another version of our legend is that belonging to the Northern legend
cycle, and preserved in two MSS.: Harl. 4196 and Cott. Tiber. E.
VII,[I-26] of which the latter is the older, but the former the more
complete. These two texts correspond word for word, and apart from
possible scribal blunder, letter for letter, abbreviation for
abbreviation. Harl. MS. 4196 is a large folio on parchment, evidently of
about the middle of the 14th century, and written in a beautiful large
hand of the Northern type. It has 258 double-columned leaves, and
contains (1) several parts of the gospel in verse, which end at fol. 132
_a_, then after a blank page, (2) collection of legends in verse, with
special title and an introduction of eight verses (folios 133-205), then
as a sort of appendix, (3) a metrical gospel of Nicodemus (folios
206-215 _a_), and (4) the Prick of Conscience in verse. This version,
which appears as number 8 in the second division, the legend collection
of the Harl. MS., and whose text is identical in the two MSS. above
mentioned, opens as follows,--
Of mari milde now will I mene
Þat of all heuyns es corond quene
And lady of all erth to tell
And also Emp{er}ise of hell.
Another version belonging to the Southern cycle is that contained in the
younger MS. of this cycle, Lambeth MS. 223, a 4to parchment from the
beginning of the 15th century. (Cf. Horstmann, Neue Folge, p. xlvii. and
Notes.) In this MS. the Assumption appears, not in the legendary itself,
but as the fifth and last division in the _temporal_, which is prefixed
to the Southern cycle of legends. This version has frequent rimes within
the verse, and the last half verse has four stresses. The version agrees
in many respects with the Northern one just described and also with the
earlier Southern version, the one of our present volume. The opening
lines are as follows,--
Herkkenes alle gode men, ȝif ȝe ben wise and slye
And I wole to ȝow rede þe assumpcioun of Marie
How she was from erþe taken into heuen on hegh
And þere she shal euer wone and sitte Ihesu negh.
Another English version of our legend is that incorporated into the
Cursor Mundi (vv. 19993-20064). This version is translated into a
Northern dialect from a Southern English poem. (Cf. Cursor Mundi, ed. by
R. Morris, Introduction by Dr. Haenisch, pp. 42 ff.)
And sant edmund o ponteni
Dais o pardun þam gis tuenti
In a writt þis ilk i fand,
He-self it wroght, ic understand.
In sotherin englis was it draun
And turnd it haue i till our aun
Langage o northrin lede,
Þat can nan oþer englis rede.
vv. 20057-64.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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