Maudlin tears

‘The Legend of the Magdalene’, early 16th century, Netherlands (National Gallery, London)

The Tears of the Magdalene
by Dr Thalia Hilary. 
Vernal Books, 2020.

I do love a literary study that both informs and entertains, and this one by Dr Hilary (published, incidentally, by Vernal Books, part of a consortium of small presses)¹ is a real doozy. Her specialism is Chaucer, and she has for many years been focusing on a couple of fragments from one of over ninety manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales; at some stage the fragments were bound up with what appears to be a fragment of yet another text by the poet.

This last text seems to be a bit of Chaucer’s otherwise missing translation of a discourse by the Early Christian scholar Origen, usually referred to as Orygenes Upon the Maudeleyne (that is, ‘Origen’s [homily] on Mary Magdalene’).

Dr Hilary argues that one text throws light on the other, and that it’s no coincidence that the several fragments have long been bound together. What is their relationship, and what does it signify? Hang on tight, for it’s a real mystery tour we’re being taken on.

Clerk of Oxford, Ellesmere Chaucer

Chanticleer and Renard
Let’s start with The Canterbury Tales, of which the two principal fragments are the opening and an extract from ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ (in full, ‘The Nonnes Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen, Chauntecleer and Pertelote’). The tale itself concerns the cockerel Chanticleer who, after telling his wife Pertelote about his dream of being captured by Renard the Fox, is then tricked by Renard into singing with his eyes closed, and is thus grabbed by the neck.

Luckily by playing on the fox’s pride he escapes, living to sing another day. Now what exactly is the extract that is included? It consists of these opening lines:

Whan that the monthe in which the world bigan
That highte March, whan God first maked man,
Was compleet, and passed were also
Syn March was gon, thritty dayes and two,
Bifel that Chauntecleer in al his pryde,
Hise sevene wyves walkynge by his syde,
Caste up hise eyen to the brighte sonne […]

According to Dr Hilary this could be rendered into modern English something like this:

‘When the month called March (in which the world came into being) was established, and in fact 32 days after, it happened that proud Chanticleer, with his seven wives walking beside him, raised his eyes to the shining sun …’

Placed immediately before this is the very garbled extract (possibly in the hand of the poet’s scribe, Adam Pinkhurst) from Chaucer’s supposed translation of the Latin homily De Maria Magdalena. Wrongly ascribed to the 4th-century scholar Origen (and who is thus now called Pseudo-Origen) it was probably composed in France by Cistercian monks in the late 12th or early 13th century. Based on the Gospel of John (20:11–18) it discusses the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene at the empty sepulchre after the Resurrection.

Now Orygenes upon the Maudeleyne actually appeared in a list of Chaucer’s translated works given by Cupid in the Prologue to Chaucer’s poem The Legend of Good Women, so we know he translated it.

‘And, for to speke of other besynesse,
He hath in prose translated Boece,
And of the Wreched Engendrynge of Mankynde,
As man may in pope Innocent yfynde,
And mad the lyf also of Seynt Cecile.
He made also, gon is a gret while,
Orygenes upon the Maudeleyne.’
— From ‘The Legend of Good Women’.

However, it’s generally agreed by scholars to be no longer extant. Apart, that is, from the scrap that Dr Hilary has been examining.

Maudlin tears
What is the significance of Mary Magdalene in this study? In popular belief she was not only identified as waiting with other women at Christ’s tomb but also as the penitent who washed his feet with her tears, accounting for the use of the term maudlin, meaning ‘sentimental’ or ‘mawkish’. And Dr Hilary believes the maudlin weeping penitent features in this unusual compilation because here is also found the famous opening of The Canterbury Tales bound up with the homily fragment and the extract from Chanticleer’s adventures:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne […]

In summary then, here we have (a) April with its ‘sweet showers’ ending the month of March; (b) Mary Magdalene not only crying at the tomb but also washing Christ’s feet with her tears; (c) the Nun’s Priest implying the cockerel’s misfortunes occurred the 32nd day after the start of March. April showers; a penitent’s tears; the end of March. What is the anonymous medieval compiler trying to say?

Cybele and Attis
The Prologue, however, refers to the sun having passed halfway through the sign of Aries (“the yonge sonne | Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne”) – that is, midway between 25th March and 23rd April – but Dr Hilary dismisses out of hand arguments that the tale of Chanticleer and the Fox must have referred to the later month. She prefers instead the familiar theory that Chaucer was undoubtedly fond of wordplay pranks – as exemplified by the tricks played first by Renard on Chanticleer, and then by the cockerel on the fox – and that The Canterbury Tales as a whole are primarily intended as literary trickery.

She points out that in ancient Rome there was a festival which involved days of fun and merriment following the spring equinox (which then occurred around 25th March); called Hilaria, it involved the worship of the Phrygian goddess of fertility, Cybele. Her cult especially celebrated the resurrection of the vegetation god Attis, the companion of Cybele, a time of great rejoicing among her worshippers. The author thinks that kind of hilarity and wild rejoicing seems to have continued through the centuries, taking in Chaucer’s era and on to the early modern era: for example in 1698, several people were pranked into going to the Tower of London to “see the Lions washed”. 

Provenance
The only real drawback to Dr Hilary’s hypothesis, as far as I can see, is that she doesn’t appear to cite the provenance of the fragments she discusses in great detail, nor where they’re currently housed.

Surely that’s somewhat misleading? Or is she pulling our legs? After her very involved arguments I for one would feel exceedingly self-pitying, if not maudlin, should I discover that I’d been tricked, and you may be too.

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¹ Over the years I’ve reviewed several titles published under the aegis of this consortium; several can be found under this tag.