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Mediaeval Latin Lyrics
English, Latin
342 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1929
3 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Helen Waddell
47 books12 followersHelen Jane Waddell was an Irish poet, translator and playwright.
She was born in Tokyo, the tenth and youngest child of Hugh Waddell, a Presbyterian minister and missionary who was lecturing in the Imperial University. She spent the first eleven years of her life in Japan before her family returned to Belfast. Her mother died shortly afterwards, and her father remarried. Hugh Waddell himself died and left his younger children in the care of their stepmother. Following the marriage of her elder sister Meg, Helen was left at home to care for Mrs Waddell, whose health was deteriorating.
Waddell was educated at Victoria College for Girls and Queen's University Belfast, where she studied under Professor Gregory Smith, graduating in 1911. She followed her BA with first class honours in English with a master's degree, and in 1919 enrolled in Somerville College, Oxford, to study for her doctorate. A travelling scholarship from Lady Margaret Hall in 1923 allowed her to conduct research in Paris. It was at this time that she met her life-long friend, Maude Clarke.
She is best known for bringing to light the history of the medieval goliards in her 1927 book The Wandering Scholars, and translating their Latin poetry in the companion volume Medieval Latin Lyrics. A second anthology, More Latin Lyrics, was compiled in the 1940s but not published until after her death. Her other works range widely in subject matter. For example, she also wrote plays. Her first play was The Spoiled Buddha, which was performed at the Opera House, Belfast, by the Ulster Literary Society. Her The Abbe Prevost was staged in 1935. Her historical novel Peter Abelard was published in 1933. It was critically well received and became a bestseller.
She was born in Tokyo, the tenth and youngest child of Hugh Waddell, a Presbyterian minister and missionary who was lecturing in the Imperial University. She spent the first eleven years of her life in Japan before her family returned to Belfast. Her mother died shortly afterwards, and her father remarried. Hugh Waddell himself died and left his younger children in the care of their stepmother. Following the marriage of her elder sister Meg, Helen was left at home to care for Mrs Waddell, whose health was deteriorating.
Waddell was educated at Victoria College for Girls and Queen's University Belfast, where she studied under Professor Gregory Smith, graduating in 1911. She followed her BA with first class honours in English with a master's degree, and in 1919 enrolled in Somerville College, Oxford, to study for her doctorate. A travelling scholarship from Lady Margaret Hall in 1923 allowed her to conduct research in Paris. It was at this time that she met her life-long friend, Maude Clarke.
She is best known for bringing to light the history of the medieval goliards in her 1927 book The Wandering Scholars, and translating their Latin poetry in the companion volume Medieval Latin Lyrics. A second anthology, More Latin Lyrics, was compiled in the 1940s but not published until after her death. Her other works range widely in subject matter. For example, she also wrote plays. Her first play was The Spoiled Buddha, which was performed at the Opera House, Belfast, by the Ulster Literary Society. Her The Abbe Prevost was staged in 1935. Her historical novel Peter Abelard was published in 1933. It was critically well received and became a bestseller.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 18, 2014
You at God’s altar stand, His minister,
And Paris lies about you and the Seine:
Around this Breton isle the Ocean swells,
Deep water and one love between us twain.
Wild is the wind, but still thy name is spoken;
Rough is the sea: it sweeps not o’er thy face.
Still runs my love for shelter to its dwelling,
Hither, O heart, to thine abiding place.
Swift as the waves beneath an east wind breaking
Dark as beneath a winter sky the sea,
So to my heart crowd memories awaking
So dark, O love, my spirit without thee.
Venantius Fortunatus
I laughed when I read the inside flap: ‘This book, first published in 1929 and a runaway best seller, revealed to a wide public the riches of the poetry of the Middle Ages.’ Well, I’m not laughing now. Or rather, if I am, it’s at the fabulous Confession of the Archpoet, from which:
Seething over inwardly
With fierce indignation,
In my bitterness of soul,
Hear my declaration.
I am of one element,
Levity my matter,
Like enough a withered leaf
For the winds to scatter.
...
Down the broad way do I go,
Young and unregretting,
Wrap me in my vices up,
Virtue all forgetting,
Greedier for all delight
Than heaven to enter in:
Since the soul in me is dead,
Better save the skin.
...
Look again upon your list. [of my sins]
Is the tavern on it?
Yea, an never have I scorned,
Never shall I scorn it,
Till the holy angels come
And my eyes discern them,
Singing for the dying soul,
Requiem aeternam.
For on this my heart is set:
When the hour is nigh me,
Let me in the tavern die,
With a tankard by me,
While the angels looking down
Joyously sing o’er me,
Deus sit propitius
huic potatori.
’Tis the fire that’s in the cup
Kindles the soul’s torches,
’Tis the heart that drenched in wine
Flies to heaven’s porches.
Sweeter tastes the wine to me
In a tavern tankard
Than the watered stuff my Lord
Bishop hath decanted.
Let them fast and water drink
All the poets’ chorus,
Fly the market and the crowd
Racketing uproarious:
Sit in quiet spots and think,
Shun the tavern’s portal,
Write, and never having lived,
Die to be immortal....
Helen Waddell gave us a bounty of medieval praise, of God, of spring, of women, of drink, of life. Her exquisite versions of the Latin originals, en face, are fine poetry indeed. She selected from an array of sources from monastaries and elsewhere, as detailed in her notes. Wadell had originally written about the authors in her Wandering Scholars, in which I hope to learn more about the world which produced these writers.
Especially commendable is her ability to cover many different meters with equal agility and beauty. She creates nuanced voices for each poet, to capture their attitudes and abilities. My one year of Latin doesn’t allow me to assess her accuracy, but surely it must be pretty good to have survived the critics of Oxbridge.
I urge you to read this--it should be easy to find a used Penguin paperback. Beautiful work
Time’s shut up and Spring
Hath broken prison,
Into clearer skies
Hath the sun arisen,
Purple flowers the heath.
Spring, put thy kingship on,
Reborn to gleaming beauty
From frozen earth.
And Paris lies about you and the Seine:
Around this Breton isle the Ocean swells,
Deep water and one love between us twain.
Wild is the wind, but still thy name is spoken;
Rough is the sea: it sweeps not o’er thy face.
Still runs my love for shelter to its dwelling,
Hither, O heart, to thine abiding place.
Swift as the waves beneath an east wind breaking
Dark as beneath a winter sky the sea,
So to my heart crowd memories awaking
So dark, O love, my spirit without thee.
Venantius Fortunatus
I laughed when I read the inside flap: ‘This book, first published in 1929 and a runaway best seller, revealed to a wide public the riches of the poetry of the Middle Ages.’ Well, I’m not laughing now. Or rather, if I am, it’s at the fabulous Confession of the Archpoet, from which:
Seething over inwardly
With fierce indignation,
In my bitterness of soul,
Hear my declaration.
I am of one element,
Levity my matter,
Like enough a withered leaf
For the winds to scatter.
...
Down the broad way do I go,
Young and unregretting,
Wrap me in my vices up,
Virtue all forgetting,
Greedier for all delight
Than heaven to enter in:
Since the soul in me is dead,
Better save the skin.
...
Look again upon your list. [of my sins]
Is the tavern on it?
Yea, an never have I scorned,
Never shall I scorn it,
Till the holy angels come
And my eyes discern them,
Singing for the dying soul,
Requiem aeternam.
For on this my heart is set:
When the hour is nigh me,
Let me in the tavern die,
With a tankard by me,
While the angels looking down
Joyously sing o’er me,
Deus sit propitius
huic potatori.
’Tis the fire that’s in the cup
Kindles the soul’s torches,
’Tis the heart that drenched in wine
Flies to heaven’s porches.
Sweeter tastes the wine to me
In a tavern tankard
Than the watered stuff my Lord
Bishop hath decanted.
Let them fast and water drink
All the poets’ chorus,
Fly the market and the crowd
Racketing uproarious:
Sit in quiet spots and think,
Shun the tavern’s portal,
Write, and never having lived,
Die to be immortal....
Helen Waddell gave us a bounty of medieval praise, of God, of spring, of women, of drink, of life. Her exquisite versions of the Latin originals, en face, are fine poetry indeed. She selected from an array of sources from monastaries and elsewhere, as detailed in her notes. Wadell had originally written about the authors in her Wandering Scholars, in which I hope to learn more about the world which produced these writers.
Especially commendable is her ability to cover many different meters with equal agility and beauty. She creates nuanced voices for each poet, to capture their attitudes and abilities. My one year of Latin doesn’t allow me to assess her accuracy, but surely it must be pretty good to have survived the critics of Oxbridge.
I urge you to read this--it should be easy to find a used Penguin paperback. Beautiful work
Time’s shut up and Spring
Hath broken prison,
Into clearer skies
Hath the sun arisen,
Purple flowers the heath.
Spring, put thy kingship on,
Reborn to gleaming beauty
From frozen earth.
July 19, 2016
Helen Waddell was undoubtedly a genius. I have encountered no other writer in English who has captured, with such elegance and precision, the different voices given expression here. From the poignant writings of cloistered monks on love and friendship to the bawdy roistering of wandering scholars, they are all given individuality and vibrancy. And the biographical notes on each poem are miniature masterpieces of lapidary erudition. This was a truly life-enhancing purchase - for £2 from a second hand book shop in Hay-on-Wye. My only regret is that my copy - already rather ancient - may not outlast me, for I sense it is destined to become even more well-thumbed than it is already.
December 28, 2018
I enjoyed the English translations even though I don't read Latin!
October 27, 2023
This was an absolutely fascinating collection of Latin lyrics. There’s some wonderful stuff in here. It was a fun edition, too, with the Latin on the left and Waddell’s translation on the right. This was a wildly eclectic group of poems from all over: in space, time, topic, and tone!
It’s a little presumptuous of me to criticize her translations because she was a far better Latinist and scholar than I am, but I’m going to anyway, because she translated very freely and generally took out most of what made the original interesting! I understood maybe 80% of the Latin, but even I could tell when the original invoked two goddesses and she depersonalized them into a single abstract noun. She would also just, you know, strongly shorten lines that she felt didn’t need to all come across. Maybe she thought they were too racy.
The whole thing felt late Victorian to me—which is honestly not an insult, because I like Victorian scholars—but to the point I was surprised it was published in 1923.
The copy I have was from the 1943 4th edition reprint. 1st edition was 1923.
It’s a little presumptuous of me to criticize her translations because she was a far better Latinist and scholar than I am, but I’m going to anyway, because she translated very freely and generally took out most of what made the original interesting! I understood maybe 80% of the Latin, but even I could tell when the original invoked two goddesses and she depersonalized them into a single abstract noun. She would also just, you know, strongly shorten lines that she felt didn’t need to all come across. Maybe she thought they were too racy.
The whole thing felt late Victorian to me—which is honestly not an insult, because I like Victorian scholars—but to the point I was surprised it was published in 1923.
The copy I have was from the 1943 4th edition reprint. 1st edition was 1923.
June 20, 2022
Blissful! For a few days I was nothing but filled with this melody of these lyrics. And Alcuin is by new favourite poet.
The translator has also attached a very useful and salubrious biographical section at the end written with so much joy and spirit! Waddell is indeed a man with sense of humour.
The translator has also attached a very useful and salubrious biographical section at the end written with so much joy and spirit! Waddell is indeed a man with sense of humour.
August 16, 2020
the poetry is a mixed bag as most anthologies would be, but waddell's capsule biographies at the end often contain more life than a collection of short stories
June 11, 2022
Fairly easy Latin and nice translations to help you along. A LOT of poems about birds and spring
March 28, 2021
Helen Waddell gives us a selection of 100 pieces of varying length. Her real love, I think, is the poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Peter Abelard and the Goliards and the Carmina Burana, but she does a good job including the earlier poetry, all the way back through the Carolingians, including Alcuin and Sedulius Scottus, to those she considers antecedents of the later lyric, including Prudentius and even Petronius Arbiter. Miss Waddell's translations are somewhat free but always poetic, and her notes are highly personal and allusive; if they often leave you wishing you knew what she was alluding to, they just as often prove a spur to send you to a reference book (or website) to find out.
The book was originally published in 1929, and the back cover notes to my 1977 Norton edition says it was a "runaway best seller" at the time. Now? O tempora, O mores!
The book was originally published in 1929, and the back cover notes to my 1977 Norton edition says it was a "runaway best seller" at the time. Now? O tempora, O mores!
September 8, 2008
An astonishingly generous and lyrical collection. I have returned again and again to this book over the years. Waddell's translations if anything improve on the originals with their gentle gracious humble pious profane celebratory profundity. God I've got some fucking good books on the shelf. It just makes me want to get up and sing sometimes.
October 14, 2011
Effing epically beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews