long period of time comes out as something less than
the torture of the damned: “Four thousand winter
thoughte he not too long” (l. 2), as if Adam might have
chosen to remain longer in such bondage. The 4,000-
year duration refers to the scheme of world ages popu-
larized by Augustine of Hippo, which said that humans
who lived in the fi ve world ages before Christ were
damned for all eternity, although Christ not only
offered men and women the possibility of salvation in
the sixth age but also “harrowed” hell, releasing the
virtuous “heathens”—including, notably, Adam and
Eve.
Recent criticism of the lyric has emphasized the
poem’s versifi cation and its musicality rather than its
doctrinal issues. The middle portion of the lyric is
dominated by the “apple,” which the poet mentions
fi ve times. The fi rst two mentions, in line 3, emphasize
Adam’s sin and priestly recording of the deed (“As cler-
kes fi nden writen in hire book [l. 4]) and the sin’s
deadly consequences. The second two references to
the apple, in line 5, celebrate that sin as the event that
allows Mary to become “hevene qwene” (l. 8). The lyric
offers a late medieval English version of the “fortunate
fall” from the Exultet of the Easter liturgy: It was a good
thing that the fi rst Adam fell because his fall created
the conditions for the new Adam, Christ, born of the
Virgin Mary. The Middle English poet even confers a
special status on the moment of the apple’s selection:
“Blessed be the time that apple taken was” (l. 7). Bless-
ing the time of Adam’s disobedience seems to antici-
pate and allude to the angel’s greeting to Mary in Luke
1.42: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is
the fruit of thy womb.” The lyric’s fi nal line proclaims
that, because of Adam’s sin and Mary’s elevation to
heaven, “we” all may “singen Deo Gratias” (l. 8). The
poem has threatened to break into song from the open-
ing verses, and the conclusion lyrically glorifi es Mary’s
triumph by calling upon all people to sing “Thanks be
to God.”
See also MIDDLE ENGLISH LYRICS AND BALLADS, MIDDLE
ENGLISH POETRY, VIRGIN LYRICS.
FURTHER READING
Duncan, Thomas G. “The Text and Verse Form of Adam
Lay I-Bowndyn.” RES New Series 38, no. 150 (1987):
215–221.
Manning, Stephen. Wisdom and Number: Toward a Critical
Appraisal of the Middle English Religious Lyric. Lincoln: Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press, 1962.
Woolf, Rosemary. The English Religious Lyric in the Middle
Ages. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.
James M. Dean“ADMONITION, BY THE AUTHOR, THE”
ISABELLA WHITNEY (1567) This poem was included
in ISABELLA WHITNEY’s fi rst book of poetry, The Copy of
a Letter, published in 1563. The fi rst poem in this
book, “I. W. TO HER UNCONSTANT LOVER,” is a letter
from a woman to a lover who has been unfaithful to
her. The second poem is an admonition or warning to
other women not to trust men’s fl attery. As critics have
often noted, these poems may not be autobiographical;
nevertheless, the use of the phrase by the Author in the
title suggests that we should imagine that Whitney is
the speaker, and that she is speaking as a betrayed
woman advising other women on how to avoid such
betrayals. She begins by addressing young women who
feel “raging love” boiling in their hearts (l. 3) and who
generally do not receive advice. She cautions women
to beware of men’s fl attery, and she compares this fl at-
tery to the songs of mermaids, who have beautiful
voices they use to lure sailors to their deaths. She also
warns women that some men will pretend to cry in
order to get their sympathy, and she reminds women
that men have learned this trick from OVID’s The Art of
Love. These poems, which teach men how to seduce
women, were often used in the English Renaissance to
teach men and boys the art of rhetoric, or persuasion.
Whitney complains that less trickery than is taught
in Ovid would suffi ce to deceive women, but then she
cleverly appropriates Ovid’s poems for her own pur-
poses, using examples from Ovid’s Heroides and his
Metamorphoses to warn women not to be overly trust-
ing. She recites the story of Scylla, who betrayed her
father and stole the lock of hair that made him invin-
cible in order to give it to the man she loved (who then
betrayed her). She writes about Oenone, a nymph
loved and abandoned by Paris before he was with
Helen of Troy. Next is Phyllis’s tale—she killed herself
when her lover abandoned her and was then trans-
formed into a tree.2 “ADMONITION, BY THE AUTHOR, THE”