Thys may wel be rym dogerel

In th’olde dayes of the Teching Kynge,
Who knew best how to manage everythynge,
This land was filled of grading fayerye.
Th’endityng elves, with her compaignye,
Daunced ful ofte on many a scolar’s book,
Esily seen by any that myght look.
This was the olde opinioun, as I rede;
But now the worde is come that elves be dede.
For now the service and utilité
Of Blacke Borde and such futilité
That filleth every classe and every halle
As thikke as leves that in autumn falle,
This maketh that ther ben no fayeryes.

Balladry

One of my forthcoming pieces is about a set of verses I have spent five years tracking through various manuscript collections, including some very tattered assemblages of loose sheets with odd notations. Among them I discovered some tantalizing stanzas. Though I have not found anything quite like them elsewhere, I am tempted to try my hand at finishing the ballad they appear to belong to:

The dame called her scriveyn near,
and said the gome vntil,
"Use yr best yr fairest hand
to write my lord this bille."

He wroot it with the quill of goose,
he wroot with quill of swanne;
ever the lady shook her head
& said sche wd haue nane.

He wroot it in the light of moon,
he wroot in light of sunne;
ever the lady shook her head
& said again he mun.

He took in hand a quill of doue,
and wroot in lettres fine;
again the lady shook her head
& [indecipherable] line.

At last he laid his ink aside,
& dropped his weary head.
& then there came a little man
dressed in green and red.

"What will ye gie me, Thomas True,
what will ye gie for mine,
if I write this bille for you
in letters true and fine?"

Paleographer Barbie

Apparently there is now a Computer Engineer Barbie. I learned about this from a set of letters in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. One said, "Even though Barbie is a computer engineer this year, she is still a Barbie with a a disproportionate body type and plastic must-have 'career' accessories. In a time when young women need better self images, this Barbie still doesn't convince me that Mattel is on the leading edge of engineering images . . . . " Um. I really hope you're not saying that women (or men, for that matter) with disproportionate body types can't be computer engineers. To put it bluntly, people with big breasts can be smart, too. I had very much hoped that the stereotype of women in STEM fields being mousy nerdish un-sexy types had passed. But perhaps not.

Aside from that, of course you need the accessories. Barbie is a toy. When you play with toys, you either have or make stuff that goes with whatever imaginative adventure is at hand. Artist Barbie can have a palette and easel; Physician Barbie a stethoscope and syringes; Chef Barbie a whole array of miniature cooking implements. But as Sir John said, "What does this one do, sit in front of a computer and complain about her aching neck every once in awhile?" I thought it would be hard to tell Computer Engineer Barbie from Mathematician Barbie or any number of Barbies engaged in work that mainly takes place inside one's head. I suppose English Professor Barbie and Historian Barbie would have big piles of books as well as the laptop, but really, it's hard to tell one intellectual worker from another by the accessories (now that the day of slide rules has passed).

And then I thought, "Oh, hey: Paleographer Barbie!" Besides the laptop, she can have a ruler, a magnifying glass, and sheets of lovely writing: a page of Insular Minuscule, a page of a tidy Gothic book hand, and a page of Italic (let's not frighten the children with fifteenth-century English Secretary Hand. Time enough for that when they're older). Clothing includes a big woolly sweater, since most libraries and archives are freezing, and a blazer with huge pockets, since you often aren't allowed a bag of any kind (Yale wouldn't even let me have my glasses case, though en revanche, the Beinecke is at least warm). Since some libraries provide clear plastic bags for one's belongings, there's another possible accessory.

Anything else you think Paleographer Barbie should have?

The Marriage of Research and Teaching

It's funny that Dr Virago should have mentioned this recently. Because I've been trying to decipher a very difficult couple of pages I found in a manuscript last summer, written on white space between two other texts, and not mentioned in any catalogues I consulted. Here is what I have come up with so far (I've supplied punctuation):

On a nyht in November, nyh upon midnyht,
I slumbered into slepeing and slipped into swevenes,
mette wyth maistresses of mervelous lerning.
Teching hyht that one, Reserche that othere;
hond in hond fared thei over hyh hilles,
disputed and debated ther drawing togideres.
"Can we consorten?" quod Teching, ac "Contra!" quod her comrade.
"Sikerer is that we semen as sistren,
for the world ne weneth that we go a-wooing;
Turpitudinem sororis tuae non revelabis."

Of course, it will probably turn out that what I've read as "Reserche" is actually "Vnferth" and this is some late-medieval re-working of Beowulf.

If I figure out the rest of the page, I'll let you know.

Bradwardine

One evening, as I rambled
Among the trees and vines,
I overheard a young woman
Converse with Bradwardine.

Her hair was black, her lips were red
As sacramental wine;
And he smiled to gaze upon her,
That wise clerk, Bradwardine.

She said, “Kind sir, be civil;
I know not canon law.
But in the common custom,
I fear you go too far.”

“Oh no,” he said, “Not far at all!
I’ll prove it to you so:
A college of philosophers
Will swear I’m nice to know.

“I’m searching for a Heloise
To match my Abelard.
I’ll give you private lessons;
You’ll find they’re not too hard.

“And if by chance you look for me,
Perhaps you’ll not me find,
For I’ll be in the chapter house:
Inquire for Bradwardine.”

And so at night, she followed him,
As monks sang their Compline.
There was the mirth and solace
For that sly, bold Bradwardine.