Court Poetry in Late Medieval England and Scotland

The sun and the mone on the sterre shall gone

That after shall it neuer shyn ne couer^82

As the editors point out, it seems that the failure to comfort this prophet
in the wilderness will ignite a holocaust (the writing concludes with refer-
ences to the Psalms). The lover has already spoken of his books as forms of
prediction; now he is also prophet, whose“/p/p/p/ thre”may also be the
“paynes”of which the“good gretest P”(Pater, as God the Father: cf. Gluck
and Morgan, note to 139 ) will release him. Pater or Pucell: the miseries of
the persecuted prophet compassed about by foes are superimposed on the
frustrations of the complaining lover, and the lover’s desire is bound up with
a fantasy of apocalyptic vengeance.
“The resynge of a knyght”follows as the“ymage”has foretold. The sword
nearby has been set there in a steel hand by“a grete lady a hondred yeres
ago,”and, we learn,

No maner persone maye[st hol]de this swerde

But one persone, chosen by god in dede

Of this ladyes kynred... ( 504 – 06 )

But yf that he be not of the lygnage,

The hand wyll sle hym, after olde vsage. ( 510 – 11 )

We are again close to the allegorical tournament; the shield, which the lover
in good heraldic fashion“blase[s],”contains the Tudor colors of green and
white, and an olive tree. At the same time, it recalls earlier reflections on the
thematics ofnobilitas. A romance motif marking a knight’s election to a
quest^83 coincides with the idea of“lygnage,”the prophetic pattern with the
symbolics of blood. In this recursion, echoing the direction towards the
“sun”or source which is doubled by return, the lover takes the sword by
“auctoryte”( 710 ).
The lover’s encounter with the temple and the mirrors has offered to
close the sense of loss in his desire through a narrative of origin and
prophetic destiny, to construct a smooth and linear temporal continuity.
The lady, however, now arrives, and herfirst words are brusque and
dismissive.

“Ihesu,”sayd she than,“who hadde wende? To fynde

Your selfe walkynge in this place all alone

Full lytell thought I; ye were not in my mynde.” ( 701 – 03 )

Though he has obtained the sword and shield, she repudiates him with“it
was no thynge to you ordynate”( 717 ). The incipient romance has been cut
short before it has even begun.

138 Court Poetry in Late Medieval England and Scotland