Untitled lyric ('O westron wynd')

It’s a dank dark morning here in Belgium and I am huddled cosily under a blanket in my dank dark study and this poem seeped into my head.

O westron wynde when wyll thow blow
The smalle rayne downe can rayne –
Cryst, yf my love wer in my armys
And I in my bed agayne!

(Anon., 1520; from Paul Keegan, ed., The New Penguin Book of English Verse (London: Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 2000), p. 74)

There’s a lot of smalle rayne falling here, but it’s nice to be inside and warm. Have a lovely weekend, dear friends!

(Jean Mansel, illuminated page in Vie de Nostre Seigneur Jésus Christ (11.1 x 15.8 cm, fol. 174), fifteenth century;  Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; found here with the following explanation of conception and ensoulment:

This illumination from a fifteenth-century French manuscript shows a couple in bed. The Holy Trinity—father, son and Holy Ghost—watch from the upper left corner and send them a childlike form. This recalls the iconography of the Annunciation. The scroll quotes Genesis from the Latin Bible: ‘Let us create man in our image and likeness’ (Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudem nostram). The slippers by the bed refer to God’s commandment to Moses to remove his sandals before the holy ground of the burning bush, and so point to the holiness of the sacrament of marriage. The woman’s extended right arm probably signifies Eve’s offering the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, reminding us that we all inherit Original Sin at conception. The burning candle on the mantelpiece indicates the beginning of a new life. Ensoulment and conception are tightly linked here, and so probably took place in the same moment, contrary to Aristotelian and vernacular ideas.)

Comments

[litlove]

Very gloomy here this morning, too, and since I was up in the night having eaten something wrong, I am most definitely in huddling mode! Love the picture, and have a peaceful, restful weekend, dear Helen!

[Helen]

Oh litlove, how horrid, I do hope you feel better soon and are warm and comfy in the meantime.

(I must say I am rather taken with the nightcaps in the picture, just the ticket for the winter.)

[Harriet]

One of my favourite poems -- though here in France it is bright and sunny. Lovely picture, too. Thanks.

[Helen]

You're welcome Harriet!

To be honest, about half an hour after I posted the poem, the rain let up, the sun shone and now everything here is fresh and sparkling... Glad you are enjoying lovely weather in France too.

[Stefanie]

We've got sunshine here but it is cold and we could use some of that rain. There is a promise for some Saturday morning in which case I will get to stay in bed just a wee bit longer than usual. The illumination is lovely. The blue in it is quite striking.

[Alex]

Coming into the conversation a day later, but we had a glorious day yesterday and today and tomorrow are promised the same. It's cold(er) but when the sun's out I don't care. Off to stratford to walk by the river which wasn't possible on Thursday when it did rain..and rain and rain and rain and...........

[Helen]

It's a beautiful blue, isn't it, Stefanie? I wonder if it's a reference to the Virgin Mary? I hope that you had a good lie-in this morning.

Oh Alex, I think we are having your Thursday weather now... If the sun is shining then the world is quite different, isn't it?

[Christine Harding]

One of my favourite poems as well, and I love the picture - I'm always amazed at the detail and colour in medieval paintings and illuminations, but don't know enough about them to understand the meanings.

[Helen]

I'm glad you liked them Christine! I don't really understand much about them either, I think it probably takes years of study to recapture that very different world view.