The Prioress’s Tale: The Tale

O Lord our Lord! thy name how marvellousIs in this large world y-spread! (quoth she)For not only thy laude preciousPerformed is by men of high degree,But by the mouth of children thy bountePerformed is, for on the breast suckingSometimes showe they thy herying.

Wherefore in laud, as I best can or mayOf thee, and of the white lily flow’rWhich that thee bare, and is a maid alway,To tell a story I will do my labour;Not that I may increase her honour,For she herselven is honour and rootOf bounte, next her son, and soules’ boot.

O mother maid, O maid and mother free!O bush unburnt, burning in Moses’ sight,That ravished’st down from the deity,Through thy humbless, the ghost that in thee light;Of whose virtue, when he thine hearte light,Conceived was the Father’s sapience;Help me to tell it to thy reverence.

Lady! thy bounty, thy magnificence,Thy virtue, and thy great humility,There may no tongue express in no science:For sometimes, Lady! ere men pray to thee,Thou go’st before, of thy benignity,And gettest us the light, through thy prayere,To guiden us unto thy son so dear.

My conning is so weak, O blissful queen,For to declare thy great worthiness,That I not may the weight of it sustene;But as a child of twelvemonth old, or less,That can unnethes any word express,Right so fare I; and therefore, I you pray,Guide my song that I shall of you say.

There was in Asia, in a great city,Amonges Christian folk, a Jewery,Sustained by a lord of that country,For foul usure, and lucre of villainy,Hateful to Christ, and to his company;And through the street men mighte ride and wend,For it was free, and open at each end.

A little school of Christian folk there stoodDown at the farther end, in which there wereChildren an heap y-come of Christian blood,That learned in that schoole year by yearSuch manner doctrine as men used there;This is to say, to singen and to read,As smalle children do in their childhead.

Among these children was a widow’s son,A little clergion, seven year of age,That day by day to scholay was his won,And eke also, whereso he saw th’ imageOf Christe’s mother, had he in usage,As him was taught, to kneel adown, and sayAve Maria as he went by the way.

Thus had this widow her little son y-taughtOur blissful Lady, Christe’s mother dear,To worship aye, and he forgot it not;For sely child will always soone lear.But aye when I remember on this mattere,Saint Nicholas stands ever in my presence;For he so young to Christ did reverence.

This little child his little book learning,As he sat in the school at his primere,He Alma redemptoris hearde sing,As children learned their antiphonere;And as he durst, he drew him nere and nere,And hearken’d aye the wordes and the note,Till he the firste verse knew all by rote.

Nought wist he what this Latin was tosay,For he so young and tender was of age;But on a day his fellow gan he prayTo expound him this song in his language,Or tell him why this song was in usage:This pray’d he him to construe and declare,Full oftentime upon his knees bare.

His fellow, which that elder was than he,Answer’d him thus: “This song, I have heard say,Was maked of our blissful Lady free,Her to salute, and eke her to prayTo be our help and succour when we dey.I can no more expound in this mattere:I learne song, I know but small grammere.”

“And is this song y-made in reverenceOf Christe’s mother?” said this innocent;Now certes I will do my diligenceTo conne it all, ere Christemas be went;Though that I for my primer shall be shent,And shall be beaten thries in an hour,I will it conne, our Lady to honour.”

His fellow taught him homeward privilyFrom day to day, till he coud it by rote,And then he sang it well and boldelyFrom word to word according with the note;Twice in a day it passed through his throat;To schoole-ward, and homeward when he went;On Christ’s mother was set all his intent.

As I have said, throughout the Jewery,This little child, as he came to and fro,Full merrily then would he sing and cry,O Alma redemptoris, evermo’;The sweetness hath his hearte pierced soOf Christe’s mother, that to her to prayHe cannot stint of singing by the way.

Our firste foe, the serpent Satanas,That hath in Jewes’ heart his waspe’s nest,Upswell’d and said, “O Hebrew people, alas!Is this to you a thing that is honest,That such a boy shall walken as him lestIn your despite, and sing of such sentence,Which is against your lawe’s reverence?”

From thenceforth the Jewes have conspiredThis innocent out of the world to chase;A homicide thereto have they hired,That in an alley had a privy place,And, as the child gan forth by for to pace,This cursed Jew him hent, and held him fastAnd cut his throat, and in a pit him cast.

I say that in a wardrobe he him threw,Where as the Jewes purged their entrail.O cursed folk! O Herodes all new!What may your evil intente you avail?Murder will out, certain it will not fail,And namely where th’ honour of God shall spread;The blood out crieth on your cursed deed.

O martyr souded to virginity,Now may’st thou sing, and follow ever-in-oneThe white Lamb celestial (quoth she),Of which the great Evangelist Saint JohnIn Patmos wrote, which saith that they that gonBefore this Lamb, and sing a song all new,That never fleshly woman they ne knew.

This poore widow waited all that nightAfter her little child, but he came not;For which, as soon as it was daye’s light,With face pale, in dread and busy thought,She hath at school and elleswhere him sought,Till finally she gan so far espy,That he was last seen in the Jewery.

With mother’s pity in her breast enclosed,She went, as she were half out of her mind,To every place, where she hath supposedBy likelihood her little child to find:And ever on Christ’s mother meek and kindShe cried, and at the laste thus she wrought,Among the cursed Jewes she him sought.

She freined, and she prayed piteouslyTo every Jew that dwelled in that place,To tell her, if her childe went thereby;They saide, “Nay;” but Jesus of his graceGave in her thought, within a little space,That in that place after her son she cried,Where he was cast into a pit beside.

O greate God, that preformest thy laudBy mouth of innocents, lo here thy might!This gem of chastity, this emeraud,And eke of martyrdom the ruby bright,Where he with throat y-carven lay upright,He Alma Redemptoris gan to singSo loud, that all the place began to ring.

The Christian folk, that through the streete went,In came, for to wonder on this thing:And hastily they for the provost sent.He came anon withoute tarrying,And heried Christ, that is of heaven king,And eke his mother, honour of mankind;And after that the Jewes let he bind.

With torment, and with shameful death each oneThe provost did these Jewes for to sterveThat of this murder wist, and that anon;He woulde no such cursedness observeEvil shall have that evil will deserve;Therefore with horses wild he did them draw,And after that he hung them by the law.

The child, with piteous lamentation,Was taken up, singing his song alway:And with honour and great procession,They crry him unto the next abbay.His mother swooning by the biere lay;Unnethes might the people that were thereThis newe Rachel bringe from his bier.

Upon his biere lay this innocentBefore the altar while the masses last’;And, after that, th’ abbot with his conventHave sped them for to bury him full fast;And when they holy water on him cast,Yet spake this child, when sprinkled was the water,And sang, O Alma redemptoris mater!

This abbot, which that was a holy man,As monkes be, or elles ought to be,This younger child to conjure he began,And said; “O deare child! I halse thee,In virtue of the holy Trinity;Tell me what is thy cause for to sing,Since that thy throat is cut, to my seeming.”

“My throat is cut unto my necke-bone,”Saide this child, “and, as by way of kind,I should have died, yea long time agone;But Jesus Christ, as ye in bookes find,Will that his glory last and be in mind;And, for the worship of his mother dear,Yet may I sing O Alma loud and clear.

“This well of mercy, Christe’s mother sweet,I loved alway, after my conning:And when that I my life should forlete,To me she came, and bade me for to singThis anthem verily in my dying,As ye have heard; and, when that I had sung,Me thought she laid a grain upon my tongue.

“Wherefore I sing, and sing I must certain,In honour of that blissful maiden free,Till from my tongue off taken is the grain.And after that thus saide she to me;‘My little child, then will I fetche thee,When that the grain is from thy tongue take:Be not aghast, I will thee not forsake.’”

This holy monk, this abbot him mean I,His tongue out caught, and took away the grain;And he gave up the ghost full softely.And when this abbot had this wonder seen,His salte teares trickled down as rain:And groff he fell all flat upon the ground,And still he lay, as he had been y-bound.

The convent lay eke on the pavementWeeping, and herying Christ’s mother dear.And after that they rose, and forth they went,And took away this martyr from his bier,And in a tomb of marble stones clearEnclosed they his little body sweet;Where he is now, God lene us for to meet.

O younge Hugh of Lincoln! slain alsoWith cursed Jewes, — as it is notable,For it is but a little while ago, —Pray eke for us, we sinful folk unstable,That, of his mercy, God so merciableOn us his greate mercy multiply,For reverence of his mother Mary.