Sumer is icumen in. Lhude sing cuccu. Groweth sed And bloweth med And springth the wde nu. Sing cuccu.
Awe bleteth after lomb, Lhouth after calve cu; Bulluc sterteth, Bucke verteth, Murie sing cuccu. Cuccu, cuccu.
Wel singes thu cuccu, Ne swik thu naver nu.
Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu.[1]
[1] For facsimile of the MS., music, and valuable remarks, see Chappell, 'Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time,' Vol. i., frontispiece, and pages 21 ff. For pronunciation, see A. J. Ellis, 'Early English Pronunciation,' ii., 419 ff. The translation given by Mr. Ellis is:--
"Summer has come in; loudly sing, cuckoo! Grows seed and blossoms mead and springs the wood now. Sing, cuckoo! Ewe bleats after lamb, lows after (its) calf the cow; bullock leaps, buck verts (seeks the green); merrily sing, cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo! Well singest thou, cuckoo; cease thou not never now. _Burden_.--Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo! Sing, cuckoo, sing cuckoo, now."--_Lhude_, _wde_ (=_wude_), _awe_, _calve_, _bucke_, are dissyllabic. Mr. Ellis's translation of _verteth_ is very doubtful.
The monk, whose passion for music led him to rescue this charming song, probably regretted the rustic quality of the words, and did his best to hide the origin of the air; but behind the complicated music is a tune of the country-side, and if the refrain is here a burden, to be sung throughout the piece by certain voices while others sing the words of the song, we have every right to think of an earlier refrain which almost absorbed the poem and was sung by a dancing multitude. This is a most important consideration. In all parts of Europe, songs for the dance still abound in the shape of a welcome to spring; and a lyrical outburst in praise of the jocund season often occurs by way of prelude to the narrative ballad: witness the beautiful opening of 'Robin Hood and the Monk.' The troubadour of Provence, like the minnesinger of Germany, imitated these invocations to spring. A charming _balada_ of Provence probably takes us beyond the troubadour to the domain of actual folk-song.[2] "At the entrance of the bright season," it runs, "in order to begin joy and to tease the jealous, the queen will show that she is fain to love. As far as to the sea, no maid nor youth but must join the lusty dance which she devises. On the other hand comes the king to break up the dancing, fearful lest some one will rob him of his April queen. Little, however, cares she for the graybeard; a gay young 'bachelor' is there to pleasure her. Whoso might see her as she dances, swaying her fair body, he could say in sooth that nothing in all the world peers the joyous queen!" Then, as after each stanza, for conclusion the wild refrain--like a _procul este, profani!_--"Away, ye jealous ones, away! Let us dance together, together let us dance!" The interjectional refrain, "eya," a mere cry of joy, is common in French and German songs for the dance, and gives a very echo of the lusty singers. Repetition, refrain, the infectious pace and merriment of this old song, stamp it as a genuine product of the people.[3] The brief but emphatic praise of spring with which it opens is doubtless a survival of those older pagan hymns and songs which greeted the return of summer and were sung by the community in chorus to the dance, now as a religious rite, now merely as the expression of communal rejoicing. What the people once sang in chorus was repeated by the individual poet. Neidhart the German is famous on account of his rustic songs for the dance, which often begin with this lusty welcome to spring: while the dactyls of Walther von der Vogelweide not only echo the cadence of dancing feet, but so nearly exclude the reflective and artistic element that the "I" of the singer counts for little. "Winter," he sings,--