#minstrel
Song from Ælla: Under the Willow Tree, or, Minstrel's Song
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17 or younger
Modernization/Translation by Michael R. Burch
MYNSTRELLES SONGE ("MINSTREL'S SONG")
O! sing unto my roundelay,
O! drop the briny tear with me,
Dance no more at holy-day,
Like a running river be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Black his crown as the winter night,
White his flesh as the summer snow
Red his face as the morning light,
Cold he lies in the grave below:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note,
Quick in dance as thought can be,
Deft his tabor, cudgel stout;
O! he lies by the willow-tree!
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Hark! the raven ***** his wing
In the briar'd dell below;
Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the nightmares, as they go:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
See! the white moon shines on high;
Whiter is my true-love's shroud:
Whiter than the morning sky,
Whiter than the evening cloud:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Here upon my true-love's grave
Shall the barren flowers be laid;
Not one holy saint to save
All the coldness of a maid:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
With my hands I'll frame the briars
Round his holy corpse to grow:
Elf and fairy, light your fires,
Here my body, stilled, shall go:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drain my heart's red blood away;
Life and all its good I scorn,
Dance by night, or feast by day:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Water witches, crowned with plaits,
Bear me to your lethal tide.
I die; I come; my true love waits.
Thus the damsel spoke, and died.
The song above is, in my opinion, competitive with Shakespeare's songs in his plays, and may be the best of Thomas Chatterton's Rowley poems. It seems rather obvious that this song was written in modern English, then "backdated." One wonders whether Chatterton wrote it in response to Shakespeare's "Under the Greenwood Tree." The greenwood tree or evergreen is a symbol of immortality. The "weeping willow" is a symbol of sorrow, and the greatest human sorrow is that of mortality and the separations caused by death. If Chatterton wrote his song as a refutation of Shakespeare's, I think he did a **** good job. But it's a splendid song in its own right.
William Blake is often considered to be the first English Romantic. Blake is the elder of the so-called “big six” of Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. I would add the great Scottish poet Robert Burns, making it a big seven. However, I believe Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats actually nominated an earlier poet as the first of their tribe: Thomas Chatterton. Unfortunately, Chatterton committed suicide in his teens, after being accused of literary fraud. What he did as a boy was astounding.
On this page, I prove that Thomas Chatterton could not possibly be guilty of the crime he was accused of:
(http://www.thehypertexts.com/Thomas%20Chatterton%20Modern%20English%20Translations%20Modernizations%20Burch.htm)
Keywords/Tags: Chatterton, Romantic, Rowley, fraud, forger, forgery, roundelay, minstrel, song, Aella, willow
May 31, 2020
May 31, 2020 at 6:54 AM UTC
.
*All was quiet
the Lord and Lady retired,
courtiers all gone to bed,
the Great Hall silent.
Hounds slumberingly snored
next to the dying embers
of a cooling Inglenook,
occasional crackles popping
as the heat catches wood resin,
it splatters and dies.
A lute lays idle
amongst the mess of banquet
as a lonely secretive figure
detaches from the shadows,
prowling through the detritus.
Slim fingers pick up the lute
and gently strums a chord,
the Minstrel exits stage left,
to compose and construct
new songs and ribald stories
from this nights celebrations.
Retiring to his chamber
his eyes stare balefully
at an uneaten bowl of stew,
the gruel of his station,
a metaphor for the content
of a nearby journal,
closed but waiting,
for a quill rich in ink
to fill its void
with the musings of a Fool.*
© Pagan Paul (26/06/19)
Jun 27, 2019
Jun 27, 2019 at 4:38 AM UTC
.
*A gemshorn and a mandolin
strike up counterpoint melodies,
as a harp and viola
caress the notes of a minuet.
Soft waves of music creep
around the joy of the Hall,
cuddling the fibres of granite stone
with a warming fire for all.
And she steps to the fore,
slippers of silk gliding so slow,
eyes as blue as robins eggs,
smile sweet as a full moons glow.
Hair laced with summer flowers,
a long dress of velvet green,
and the shawm she is ready to play
held lightly by fingers so keen.
Her tongue moistens shyly,
as the reed approaches her lips,
with fingers dancing over holes,
and deftly into a trance she slips.
Descending chords in choral hue,
drip colours into an aching heart,
the sweetest of mediaeval muses,
playing well her minstrels part.*
© Pagan Paul (21/10/17)
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 4:01 AM UTC
It ain’t too bad to be from there
Just ask my family and friends
But it’s too flat, ain’t no way out
The roads are all dead ends.
Sometime soon I’ll find a place
Where the music I’ll enjoy
But for now I keep on tryin’
To escape from Illinois!
There’s a river on the border west
That moves a lot of dirt
Mighty Muddy Mississipp
Drowns the pain and covers hurt
Yeah, I’m movin’ south to New Orleans
Maybe I can find employ
In a blues bar down on Bourbon Street
Escape from Illinois!
Well I stopped a week along the way
When I saw the Gateway Arch.
But the folks out by the airport
Were stagin’ up a march.
Seems a white cop fired a shot that killed
An unarmed teenage boy
Oh yeah, the teenage boy was black,
Escape from Illinois.
Kept walkin’ to the Landing
(Named for Pierre Laclede)
It has most every thing you want
But nothing that you need
Some travelin’ folk told me some news
That made me jump for joy
Memphis maybe had some work
Escape from Illinois!
Found the haunted house called Graceland
And the grave where Elvis lay
Where half a million go each year
(Fifteen thousand every day)
They all want to pay respects
To the rockin’ – rollin’ boy
Put their finger in the bullet holes
Escape from Illinois.
Went downtown, knocked on some doors
Once or twice I went inside
But Beale Street was broken
The travelin’ folks had lied.
‘Cuz there ain’t no jobs in Memphis,
Or maybe I’m too coy
So I hitched a ride to Nashville
Escape from Illinois.
Nashville’s a big old meltin’ ***
Lots of great ones started here
But most end up as tourists
Getting’ ****** and drinkin’ beer
So money’s at a premium
And fame’s a fake decoy
End up workin’ in a record store
Escape from Illinois?
From Asheville to Atlanta
From Austin to LA
From Biloxi back to Baton Rouge
Need a place where I can play
I’ll follow all the buskers,
Form a musical convoy
Livin’ day by day and town by town
Escape from Illinois!
I’m a minstrel, like a rubber band
I keep on snappin’ back
I’m gonna make it somewhere
Singing somewhere, that’s a fact
Got my guitar and my music
Gotta do what I enjoy
Find a place to sing my songs for you,
Hell, it may be Illinois!
Phil Lindsey 6/4/15
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC