Medieval Poetry Quotes

“Looking for your light,
I went out:
it was like the sudden dawn
of a million million suns,

a ganglion of lightnings
for my wonder.”
― Allama Prabhu, Speaking of Siva

“En la forest de Longue Attente
chevauchant par divers sentiers
m'en voys, ceste année présente
où voyage de Desiriers.
Devant sont aller mes fourriers
pour appareiller mon logis
en la Cité de Destinée.
Et pout mon cœur et moy ont pris
l'ostellerie de Pensée.

Dedans mon livre de pensée
j'ay trouvé escripvant mon cœur
la vraie histoire de douleur
de larmes toute enluminée.

In het Woud van Lang Verwachten
te paard op pad, dolenderwijs,
zie ik mijzelf dit jaar bij machte
tot Verlangens' verre reis.
Mijn knechtstoet is vooruitgegaan
om 't nachtverblijf vast te bereiden,
vond in Bestemming's Stad gereed
voor dit mijn hart, en mij ons beiden,
de herberg, die Gedachte heet.

In 't boek van mijn gepeinzen al
vond ik dan, schrijvende, mijn hart;
het waar verhaal van bitt're smart
verlucht met tranen zonder tal.

Charles d'Orléans”
― Hella S. Haasse, In a Dark Wood Wandering: A Novel of the Middle Ages

“Sometimes the pagan spirit of Roman poetry arouses qualms. Guibert of Nogent confesses in his autobiography that early in his monastic life he took up verse making and even fell into "certain obscene words and composed brief writings, worthless and immodest, in fact bereft of all decency," before abandoning this shocking practice in favor of commentaries on the Scriptures.”
― Joseph Gies, Life in a Medieval City

“Swarms of bees, beetles, soft music of the world, a gentle humming; brent geese, barnacle geese, shortly before All Hallows, music of the dark wild torrent.
(Medieval poem by a monk of Ynys Enlli, an island off the coast of Wales)”
― Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places

“History is full of incremental improvements and revolutionary convulsions - often these are followed by reactionary backlashes in which rights are revoked, inequalities re-established.”
― Elizabeth Boyle, Fierce Appetites: Loving, Losing and Living to Excess in My Present and in the Writings of the Past