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Giles Watson - The Three Dead Kings - The Fifteenth Century Middle English Alliterative Poem 'De Tribus Regibus Mortuis', Attributed To John Audelay-None (2012) PDF
Giles Watson - The Three Dead Kings - The Fifteenth Century Middle English Alliterative Poem 'De Tribus Regibus Mortuis', Attributed To John Audelay-None (2012) PDF
De Tribus Regibus Mortuis is didactic in tone and moralistic in purpose, but like the iconographic tradition which inspired it,
it has a muscularity and a taste for the macabre which make it compelling. The muscularity is largely a result of the poet’s
adoption of terse and determined patterns of alliteration, and a rhyme-scheme which can be subtle and strident by turns.
These lend themselves particularly well to the description of the hunting scene which opens the poem, but also to its
descriptions of the decomposing corpses of the three dead kings, which are related with a vigour almost suggestive of relish.
In translating from the Middle English, I have loosely observed these alliterative patterns in a manner which hopefully will
not seem strained to a modern English reader, but have rendered the whole poem in the present tense.
Audelay’s original audience (if Audelay was indeed the author, which many scholars doubt) would have been familiar with his
theme – both as expressed in a broad sense through the memento mori tradition as played out in the iconography of the
Dance of Death and in the vogue for cadaver tombs, and more specifically as a ghost narrative. Scenes of The Three Living and
the Three Dead had appeared in manuscripts such as the De Lisle Psalter, the Taymouth Hours and the Smithfield Decretals,
and were depicted in mural paintings in a number of English churches in the fourteenth century. These images share motifs
with Audelay’s poem: the meeting between three living kings on a hunt – one of whom carries a hawk in his outstretched
hand – and three decomposed corpses; the speeches of the living (sometimes supplied in scrolls issuing from their mouths)
and the replies of the dead; and the insistence on the part of one of the ghosts that the living will soon die and their
appearance will become just as nauseating as his own. Audelay puts the living kings on horseback, and by choosing to open
his narrative with a description of a boar hunt, refers ironically to the chivalric romance tradition, implying that the hunt
itself is a sign of their irresponsibility, cruelty and impiety.
These might seem to be themes of merely historical interest, were it not for the fact that the poet has peppered his narrative
with references to the despotic behaviour of the three living kings. They not only waste their time on a brutal hunt when they
ought to be attending to affairs of state; they have oppressed the poor, and – significantly – laid waste to their own lands.
Moreover, they are apparently heirs to a whole dynasty which has been politically irresponsible, since their forefathers appear
before them as animated corpses, their souls confined to Purgatory. In this respect, Audelay crystallises a tradition which
reaches its most sophisticated expression in Shakespeare’s Hamlet – a play with its own revenant king, its references to
“kissing carrion”, its preoccupation with death, decomposition and worms, and its depiction of the insoluble spiritual
dilemmas which face the secular ruler who wishes also to fulfil the requirements of his religion and moral code. It is also
arguable that no theme could have more compelling contemporary relevance in a world in which our own “kings” fiddle their
expenses claims, indulge in bloody foreign wars, enter into unholy alliances with the tabloid press, acquiesce in the
continuing subjugation and destruction of the natural world, and would go hunting themselves if they were not so afraid of
public opinion.
We should, however, be wary of the temptation to cast the poem in a too self-consciously modern light. The single most
important aspect of the dead kings’ reproof of their living counterparts is the charge that they have not attended masses and
prayed for the souls of their forefathers. Like the Anturs of Arther, Audelay’s poem is an advertisement for that great
invention of the later Middle Ages: the chantry chapel. It is therefore a part of the last great flowering in this country of the
notion that the prayers of the living have a direct effect on the status of the dead. It is significant that both of these texts
insist so stridently that prayers for the souls of the dead are an important aspect of the duties of royalty: the king and queen
must not only be just and merciful administrators of the earthly economy, but loyal servants of the heavenly one as well.
My translation is based on the excellent annotated text edited by Susanna Fein: John the Blind Audelay: Poems and Carols
(Oxford, Bodleian Library M.S. Douce 302), Kalamazoo, Michigan, Medieval Institute Publications, 2009. The photographs
which illustrate these pages show details of two separate representations of The Three Living and the Three Dead: one in the
little Cotswold church at Widford, and the other in a much larger church in the Northamptonshire town of Raunds.
The Three Dead Kings
Amen.
i
Already in the first two stanzas of the poem, its didactic tone has been established. The boar’s life is over seemingly before it has
started, just as the kings’ lives will be forfeit before their souls are ready for judgement. Whilst the poet conveys the excitement of the
hunt, it is clear that he thinks kings and barons ought to have better things to do with their time.
ii
There are strong similarities between this ghost-narrative and that described in the slightly earlier Anturs of Arther: in both cases,
the manifestation takes place during a hunt (a common mediaeval symbol of the worldly excesses of kings), and is preceded by a
supernatural fog which separates the main protagonists from the other hunters. Both poems also feature corporeal ghosts who are in
an advanced stage of decomposition. Indeed, on the basis of poems such as these, and the depictions of The Three Living and the
Three Dead in wall-paintings and manuscript illuminations, Rosemary Horrox has hypothesised “that in western Europe at this time
the death of the body was not seen – as Christian teaching required – as something which occurred when the soul left the body. The
orthodox version of events dominates the religious iconography of the period, with the moment of death shown by the departure of
the soul, represented as a little naked figure, from the mouth of the dying person. But an alternative tradition gives the body a
continuing post-mortem life of its own.” (See ‘Purgatory, Prayer and Plague: 1150-1380’, in Peter C. Jupp and Clare Gittings (Eds.),
Death in England: An Illustrated History, Manchester University Press, 1999, pp. 93-95.)
iii
A sign of the living kings’ hypocrisy: they lack piety, but resort to Christian formulae when they are afraid – so their bravery is also a
sham.
iv
He recognises from the heraldic insignia that one of the dead kings is his father.
v
This detail is often present in the iconography.
vi
From here onwards, the speeches of the three living and the three dead are expanded versions of those which commonly appear in
mediaeval manuscripts and wall-paintings: First Living: “Ich am afert.” Second Living: “Lo whet ich se.” Third Living: “Methinketh
hit beth develes thre.” First Dead: “Ich wes wel fair.” Second dead: “Such sheltou be.” Third Dead: “For Godes love, be wer by me.”
vii
Here, the Middle English text plays on the word “knoc”, which can mean a blow, a shock, or a death knell. The next line compares
the shock of seeing the ghosts with the slaughtering of cattle.
viii
The reference to a “flag” is, of course, an allusion to the yellow flag iris, which grows in ditches and ponds, and quivers in the wind.
It is sometimes translated “reed”, but this loses the implication of stately grandeur surrendered to fear.
ix
The linden tree is often the trysting tree in mediaeval texts, and lime woods are common scenes for hunt-narratives, but Susanna
Fein also points out that “The linden, with its delicate leaves easily set in rapid motion by the wind, symbolized lightheartedness, and
also carelessness.” The linden is, of course, also deciduous.
x
From Scotland to the south of Britain. Lorne is in Argyllshire.
xi
One of the most skilful features of the poem is its juxtaposition of close rhymes (in this verse “fynden/ fondon/ lynden/ London/
byndon/ bondon/ wyndon/ wondon/ iwys/ was/ cysse/ amys/ mas”) which are virtually impossible to replicate in modern English.
The first dead king alludes to the “wormus in my wome” – another untranslatable phrase which I have tried to render as faithfully as
possible, given that the speaker is clearly male, whilst making a passing reference to modern parasitology.
xii
Shakespeare makes an obvious allusion to the memento mori tradition in Hamlet’s reference to “good kissing-carrion” – words
which might have been borrowed from this poem.
xiii
The first dead king chides the living kings for their failure to commemorate him at the mass – another similarity with the Anturs of
Arther, in which the dead mother of Queen Gaynore reproves her daughter for the same reason.
xiv
An adaptation of the statement commonly inscribed on wall-paintings: “As I am now, so shall you be.”
xv
Literally “never act oppressively regarding land or servants”. The Middle English word “pres” means to oppress, or to hold under
pressure.
xvi
Repentant, the living kings pledge to build a chantry chapel at which masses can be said for the dead kings: a similar ending to that
arranged by the women in the Anturs of Arther.
xvii
The phrase “on moss” refers to a public place, implying that the idea of decomposition after death should be preached not only by
the secular clergy inside the churches, but also by the preaching friars on the wayside.
xviii
Literally “write this [poem] on the wall”: a clear reference to the iconography.
xix
I have softened the rather abruptly didactic final line (literally “Our Lord deliver us from loss”) in favour of a further gloss on the
penultimate line, which anticipates that some hard-hearted readers will respond to the ghost story with an unholy incredulity.
The pictures show wall-paintings depicting The Three Living and the Three Dead, from Widford Church, near Burford, in the
Cotswolds, and Raunds Church in Northamptonshire.