A Ceremony of Carols is beloved of high school vocal music teachers, and has been featured in many a holiday concert.
The words to Wolcum Yole are as follows:
"Wolcum, Wolcum,
Wolcum be thou hevenè king,
Wolcum Yole!
Wolcum, born in one morning,
Wolcum for whom we sall sing!
Wolcum be ye, Stevene and Jon,
Wolcum, Innocentes every one,
Wolcum, Thomas marter one,
Wolcum be ye, good Newe Yere,
Wolcum, Twelfthe Day both in fere,
Wolcum, seintes lefe and dere,
Wolcum Yole, Wolcum Yole, Wolcum!
Candelmesse, Quene of Bliss,
Wolcum bothe to more and lesse.
Wolcum, Wolcum,
Wolcum be ye that are here, Wolcum Yole,
Wolcum alle and make good cheer.
Wolcum alle another yere,
Wolcum Yole. Wolcum!"
It is a lighthearted celebration of the twelve days of Christmas, welcoming the saints Stephen the Martyr, John the Evangelist, the Holy Innocents, and Thomas a Becket, and for good measure, extending the celebration all the way to Candlemas. We still celebrate the feasts of those "...seintes lefe and dere", a link with those unknown forbearers of the late Middle Ages.
Migosh, I just read olde English and understood every word. Also listened to it and will add it to my collection of music for keeping the season (into which we entered late last Monday and not a moment sooner). Many thinks, Katherine
ReplyDeleteIt's Middle English.
DeleteOh, that explains it!
DeleteHere's the Lord's Prayer in Old English:
DeleteFæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice.
Here it is in Middle English:
Oure fadir that art in heuenes, halewid be thi name; thi kyndoom come to; be thi wille don in erthe as in heuene: gyue to us this dai oure breed ouer othir substaunce; and forgyue to us oure dettis, as we forgyuen to oure gettouris; and lede us not in to temptacioun, but delyuere us fro yuel.
Note that just 300 years separate these versions.
The Lord's Prayer that most everybody uses now looks (to me) to be in early modern English. Protestants and Catholics end it slightly differently, but basically it is the same. With all the wrangling over different Mass translations the Our Father is the one thing no one wants to change. And that's a good thing, that at least across the English speaking Christian world, that's one thing we are are all pretty much in agreement about.
DeleteWhen I was in high school, we had to memorize the first 18 lines of the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the original. I assume that was also middle English (right, Jean?) although I thought it was old English. The first few lines have never left me, although I can't recite the entire 18 lines anymore.
ReplyDeleteOur Christmas traditions have dwindled to having a wreath on the front door and candles in the windows. We are in California for most of the season these days, so the candle lights are on timers, to make the house look occupied while we are gone.
I used to play Christmas music non-stop for weeks.
Now it's pretty much down to a couple of favorites - especially A Ceremony of Carols.
I think Old English was the pre-Norman English, yes? Beowulf? Possibly Sir Gawain? Don't think we could read it without a translation?
ReplyDeleteBut then, does that mean that Shakespeare and Chaucer are all lumped together in the same category? Doesn't seem quite right, either.
I remeber in a high school English class that we listened to a recording of a selection from Beowulf being read in the original. Or what was imagined to be original. After all, if the person reading got the pronunciation wrong, there were no native speakers around to correct them! Anyway it was unintelligible to speakers of modern English. I think the point was to show how language changes over time. I have read that Old English was actually more logical and coherent in structure and grammar than Modern English which incorporates so many bits and snippets from other languages.
DeleteAt the risk of being insufferable:
DeleteOld English = prior to "Normanization" in 1066. No one could quite decipher these manuscripts until some Icelanders came over in the 1700s and helped figure it out.
Middle English = 1066-1400, when Old English grammar regularized and took in vast quantities of French loan words. Chaucer, Morte d'Arthur. Yeah, you can read it, but spelling is dicey and some familiar words had different meanings. Ex, "devyze" looks and sounds like like "devise," but it means "tell."
Early modern English = 1400-1600. Shakespeare. Spelling continues to be dicey, and but fwords take on more modern meanings.
Modern English = publication of Dr. John's dictionary 1755. Spelling and and grammar stabilize. Birth of standard English.
Post-modern English = technological advances in communication beginning about 1980 pushed more leveling of inflection (loss of distinction between who/whom, less/fewer, wide use of "their" as neuter plural and singular even in standard usage) and tech/media jargon extending to common usage, e.g., ghosting, sexting, unfriending, etc.
Thanks, Jean. Interesting!
DeleteThank you for clarifying, Jean!
DeleteSo Venerable Bede's famous History must have been written in Latin rather than Old English. Otherwise it could have been a Rosetta Stone of sorts for interpreting other manuscripts.
DeleteYes, it was written in Latin. But that's an interesting observation. The Historia might have provided some clues to those trying to read the chronicles in Anglo-Saxon. Lots of overlap in names, places, and events. How Old English was relearned would make an interesting story.
DeleteCatching up with the missed conversations.
ReplyDeleteBelated Christmas greetings to all.
And best wishes for a New Year of as much peace and happiness as we can grab in these difficult times.
I have been chronically depressed since Nov 8, 2016. So my resolution is to find something ordinary that brings joy on a regular basis - as dancing does for Stanley, in spite of some grinches being all OCD about it. My in-laws also dance - round dancing and square dancing - and they say they also have a few of that type in the groups.
Christmas trees - when I was ten, we moved from Los Angeles to the mountains, a small town in a national forest. Our professional fire dept had three firefighters, most firefighters were trained volunteers from the community. The pros would go into the woods every year in late November and cut trees to sell at Christmas. This served two purposes - strategic thinning of the forest, and making money to support the fire dept's purchase of equipment. Fire trucks were stored on private property scattered throughout the mountain, and volunteers were assigned to those stations. Almost all the funding came from donations. We had more than one serious forest fire while I lived there, but, fortunately, nothing as devastating as this year's fire in Paradise, CA.
The bonus for us - FRESH trees that smelled heavenly and lasted forever. Not dropping needles ever. My mother loved decorated,nature-scented Christmas trees, and usually kept ours up until February.
For Margaret - if I had your address, I could add you to our Christmas card list and those of two of our three sons. Our family photo this year of all of us (taken at #1 son's 40th bday) is a prime example of 21st century American diversity! As I have mentioned before, one daughter-in-law is black (Jamaican), and one is Viet Namese, born in a refugee camp. Both couples are demographically "young professional" couples and they have friends who are also in inter-racial marriages, even though, of course, they are still a minority of marriages. Both of these sons live in California where diversity is the norm in most of the state and few people blink an eye when seeing an inter-racial couple or family. Those who don't like it mostly keep quiet about their views because they would then be seen as the outcasts.
I am grateful that our mixed race grandchildren live in California, and not in an almost purely lily-white community elsewhere in the US.
The son whose wife is Viet Namese once took a road trip from DC to Cali with his college roommate to go back to school. Tom flew from California to our house to start the journey. He is also Asian American. My son said that they were a bit discomfited at times when stopping while traveling through the midwest and parts of the west (Montana, eastern Washington and Oregon states) because Tom was so often the object of open staring by people who sometimes did not look very friendly. The stares made them aware that he was the only non-white person they would see in the restaurant, or fast-food place, or gas stations where they stopped, or even in the parts of the town that they could see while driving through, except in big cities like Chicago, or the suburbs of those cities.
Trump whipped up fear of non-whites in places where there are few non-whites. Non-Hispanic whites are a minority in California, and few people there pay much attention to this. It is not seen as a "problem" or a threat by most. If only those who are geographically isolated from "diversity" could experience it - most would lose their fear of those who do not look like themselves, and perhaps the white supremacists would be forced to climb under their rocks again.
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ReplyDeleteOne of the joys of living in California is the diversity. I see more and more mixed-race couples in TV commercials. (Do you see them out there in Elsewhereland as well?) I also have started to see albeit brief glimpses of same-sex couples in some of the commercials. (Ditto my first question).
ReplyDeleteI have extended family back in the upper Midwest (my mother was one of 8) and they are quite accepting of my relationship. I have yet to hear any racial slurs from any of them. They are, to a person, lily-white in their marriages and, so far as I know, children and grandchildren.
One cousin is more Catholic than the pope and everything in her life seems to turn on the subject of abortion. She and her husband had 9 and she is one of 8, so maybe that explains it.
Happy 2019, one and all.
Jim, I'm glad your family is like that.
DeleteUnfortunately I've been hearing a lot about estrangement issues from people lately. I would even call it a theme. The reasons vary, sometimes there doesn't even seem to be a reason that they can articulate. I found out lately about an estrangement that I didn't know about in our extended family. I asked one person for current contact info for his brother, whom we hadn't heard from for awhile. He said, "Beats me, we haven't spoken for quite some time." Ookay. My husband was on to give the homily for Holy Family Sunday. One thing he included was to ask people to pray for the healing of estrangement in families.
Maybe I'll write a post on estrangement sometime, since it keeps popping up.