Welcome, Summer

Bohemian waxwing, via wikipedia

Chaucer celebrates the beginning of summer in February – hang on…

I was walking with my family through our local park the other day when I noticed a flock of a waxwi – no wait: some readers find that boring, right? I’ve noticed posts that start with my walking through my local neighbourhood don’t tend to get a lot of views.

I guess people think – what do I care about this guy’s local park, or some damn birds or something? Tell us something useful, or at least partway interesting.

I shall start instead with an interesting fact for the trivia-loving general reader: the below short poem, written in the late 14th century, includes the first known reference to Valentine’s Day in relation to romance. There’s an interesting factoid to tell your loved one over your Valentine’s dinner this Wednesday, to break the ice and possibly lead the way to intimate, um, things. But what exactly links Saint Valentine, the 3^rd Century Roman martyr, to romantic love? Not very much, apparently, but I have a theory about that, and it is all to do with birds, and broken ice, and the below poem. So let’s go ahead and read it…

 

Now welcome, Somor, with sonne softe,

That hast thes Wintres wedres overeshake,

And drevine away the lange nightes blake.

Saynt Valentine, that art full hye alofte,

Thus singen smal fowles for thy sake.

 

Now welcome, somor, with thy sonne softe,

That hast this Wintres wedres overshake.

 

Wele han they cause for to gladen ofte,

Sethe ech of hem recovered hathe hys make;

Full blisseful mowe they singe when they wake.

 

Now welcome, Somer, with thy sonne softe

That hast this Wintres wedres overeshake

And drevine away the lange nightes blake!

 

From Medieval English Lyrics, Ed. R.T. Davies, Faber and Faber, London, 1963

Overeshake – overthrown, fowles – birds, seethe – since, make – mate, mowe – may

Although there are certainly conventional elements in the poem, it is one of the most beautiful things that Chaucer wrote, and it feels like its images and sensations are pulled straight from nature not from other art (The editor of the book I took it from, called it typical of the ‘freshness’ or ‘immediacy’ of certain Middle Englsih poetry). One feels like Chaucer is someone who has really contended with the long dark nights of winter, and is really glad for the soft sun of summer.

Summer, you say, in February? That makes little sense when some of us are still clearing snow from our driveways or drying our shoes beneath the radiator. But in Middle English, the word carries something of the meaning of spring, so, it is at least a little less premature. The weather in February is still pretty cold – and that sense of warm weather battling and overcoming cold weather – that wouldn’t make sense in June, would it? The first heralds of spring, or the end of winter – which add up to the same thing, do appear in February if your senses are open to them: the lengthening of days, the first drooping snowdrops in the corner of your garden and the birds starting to return to their nesting grounds. I had a vivid reminder of this last sign just the weekend past when I was (yes), walking in our local park with my family and my son pointed out to me a little flock of birds in a tree that, on closer inspection, turned out to be waxwings, with their distinctive Mohican-style crests. I have encountered these birds this time of year on either side of the Eurasian continent, and they are doing the same thing – following the thaw back towards their nesting sites in the great cold forests of the north – Russia and Scandinavia.

This fragment is from a longer poem of Chaucer’s called the Parlement of Fowles, that is, the Parliament of the Birds. The parliament in question is an assembly of birds, convened by nature in which they all choose their mate (except for the poor old eagle, who has to wait a year), at the end of which this joyous song is sung. The choice of theme may have been partly political – it is thought that this poem may have been written to celebrate the marriage of Richard II to his wife, Anne of Bohemia.But in any case, it is the association of February with mating birds, and the association of birds with love, that won Saint Valentine – whose day just happens to be in February – his enduring association with love. That’s my theory, anyway.