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Middle English Poetry (PCMEP)
PCMEP Text Information
Somer Soneday
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| Text name: | Somer Soneday |
| Alternative names: | Summer Sunday; Opon a somer soneday; Upon a summer Sunday; Opon a somer soneday se I þe sonne; A Lament for Edward II; Alliterative poem on Fortune |
| Content: | The poem opens with a chanson d’aventure motif as the first-person narrator goes outside early in the morning during a summer day and finds a jovial hunting game (lines 1-19). He leaves the hunt behind, crosses a wild water, and walks far until he suddenly encounters Lady Fortune and her wheel (lines 20-35). The narrator sees several figures on the wheel, which Lady Fortune spins from woe to wealth and back, grows depressed, but nevertheless draws closer as if bewitched by her appearance (lines 36–66). He observes a happy man on the wheel revealing himself to be a king (lines 67-107). The poem then describes the king's downfall; his complexion darkens; his crown drops (lines 108-116). The fallen king speaks to the narrator, lamenting his fate, and concludes that fate is fickle (lines 117-128). The narrator watches the king die (lines 129-133). The poem Somer Soneday has received considerable attention in literary studies (e.g., Smallwood 1973, Fein 2010, Bell 2015). |
| Genre/subjects: | chanson d'aventure, vision, transitoriness of life, rise and fall, death, lamentation, fortune, fate, Lady Fortune, Wheel of Fortune, Formula of Four |
| Dialect of original composition: | West Midlands "The dialect of Somer Soneday is clearly that of the West Midland" (Brown 1929: 369). "[T]he dialect is more closely related to William of Palerne or to Piers Plowman than to the Gawain poems" (ibid.). This suggests a Southwest Midlands provenance. "Shropshire is suggested by the pret. gloud (57) and the plur. kyngus (122), but this evidence is too slight to have much significance" (ibid.: fn. 3). "[T]he dialect is West-Midland […] possibly Cheshire or Shropshire" (Robbins 1959: 302). "[W]estern (probably Glouc[ester]s[shire]) original" (McIntosh et al. 1986: 149). "[T]he alliterative thirteen-line stanza poetry flourished in the West and North-West Midlands in the late 14th century" (Burrow and Turville-Peter, 2005: 59). This supports the claim that the poem was composed in the West Midlands region. |
| Date of original composition: | 1300-1400 The text was composed in the fourteenth century, but determining a more exact date has proven difficult. The poem could thus fall into PCMEP periods 2b (1300-50) or 3 (1350-1420). Brown (1929: 370-2) argues that the lament of the king in the poem symbolizes the suffering of the imprisoned Edward II (died 1327) and must therefore have been written in the first half of the fourteenth century (citing as evidence a non-consensual early manuscript date, closeness between the Southwestern dialect of the original and the region where sympathies for Edward II were strongest, retention of final -e, the vocabulary, and an Anglo-Norman poem composed by Edward II in prison on a similar theme). The argument has not found widespread acceptance. "There is no reason to suppose that 'Summer Sunday' is a lament for any particular king" (Turville-Petre 1974: 6). Smallwood (1973: 242), assuming a relatively early manuscript date of 1330-70, maintains that the poem was first composed before 1350, some time prior to its recording in the manuscript witness. Turville-Petre (1974: 1, 5-6) shows that the 13-line stanzaic form of Somer Soneday became popular only from the second half of the fourteenth century on, suggesting the poem should be from that period. Similarly, themes and wording in Somer Soneday find parallels in texts mainly (though not exclusively) from the second half of the fourteenth century. The "Wheel of Fortune" motif is found, for instance, in the quatrain Lady Fortune is both friend and foe (IMEV 3408) (before 1350), Awntyrs of Arthure (late 14th c.), alliterative Morte Arthure (before 1400), Golagros and Gawane (perhaps before 1450) (Brown 1929: 372-3). The chanson d'aventure opening is reminiscent of Piers Plowman (late 1360s) (cf. Estabrook Sandison 1913: 130-9, Appendix B). An example of parallel wording is: His dyademe was droppede downe dubbyd with stonys (alliterative Morte Arthure line 3,296, before 1400) vs. His diademe of dyamans droppede adoun (Somer Soneday, line 112) (Brown 1929: 372). Fein finds that "the best date estimate for Somer Soneday […] is […] post-1350" (2010: 295). The online version of the MED dates the text "a1350." The text has been grouped into PCMEP period 2b (1300-1350) because its linguistic features align better with the first than the second half of the fourteenth century:
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| Suggested date: | 1350 |
| PCMEP period: | 2b (1300-1350) |
| Versification: | 11 stanzas; normally thirteen alliterative lines with 8 long lines of typically 5 stresses rhyming alternately, followed by a 'bob' with 1 stress, completed by a 'wheel' of four short lines with typically 3 or 4 stresses, resulting in the rhyme scheme abababab cdddc (stanzas 1-6, 8, 10); two verses of eight short lines of 3 or 4 stresses, the first in couplets (stanza 7), the second in alternating quatrains (stanza 9); the final verse rearranges the thirteen line scheme with eight initial short lines of 3 or 4 stresses, the first four alternating, the last four enclosing, followed by 5 long alternating lines of 5 stresses, creating the rhyme scheme abab cddc efefe (stanza 11). For comments on versification, see e.g., Brown (1929: 367), Turville-Peter (1974: 1-4), Kirkpatrick (1976: 81-2). |
| Index of ME Verse: | 3838 (IMEV), 3838 (NIMEV) |
| Digital Index of ME Verse: | 6125 |
| Wells: | Supplement 4, 4.9a |
| MEC HyperBibliography: | Opon a somer |
About the edition and manuscript base:
| Edition: | Robbins, Rossell Hope. 1959. Historical Poems of the XIV and XV Centuries. New York: Columbia University Press. 98-102. |
| Manuscript used for edition: | Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 108 (SC 1486), ff. 237r-237v |
| Online manuscript description: | Manuscripts of the West Midlands 1300-1475 (Part 2, item 6) Digitization of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 108 |
| Manuscript dialect: | Unknown, perhaps East Midlands Analysing the language of St Blase and St Cecilia from the same part of the manuscript, McIntosh et al. (1986: 149) find that the scribal dialect is a mix between the western original with an East Anglian overlay. |
| Manuscript date: | s. xiv-ex, s. xv-in The manuscript was "written early in the fifteenth century" (Wright & Halliwell-Phillipps 1845: 7). The relevant section of the manuscript were written "in a hand of the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century" (Hall 1901: ix). Citing a personal communication with "Mr. M. B. Parkes of Keble College, Oxford", Turville-Petre maintains "that the hand of this part of MS. Laud 108 is of the fifteenth century" (1974: 6). The relevant part of the manuscript is from the "[s]econd half [of the] 14th cent[ury]" (McIntosh et al. 1986: 149) According to LAEME, the relevant part of the manuscript "is in hands of late C14 and C15." The relevant part of the manuscript is from "the late fourteenth century" (Bell & Nelson Couch 2010: 9). Two suggested manuscript dates conflict with this general consensus: Brown cites "Mr. H. H. E. Craster, of the Bodleian Library", to declare "the handwriting to be clearly that of the first half of the fourteenth century" (1929: 368). "[T]he single (cursive) hand in which the continuation of MS. Laud 108 is written seems to be of roughly 1330-70, probably of the earlier part of that period" (Smallwood 1973: 242). |
About the file:
| File name: | M2b.SomSunday |
| ID: | SomSunday,x.y.z: x=page number, y=line, z=token |
| Word count: | 886 |
| Token count: | 98 |
| Line count: | 133 |
Other:
| General notes: | Somer Soneday could potentially be the earliest of the surviving poems of the 13-line alliterative stanzaic form. It has been suggested that the end of the poem is incomplete (Wright & Halliwell-Phillipps 1845: 9). The claim has not found acceptance (e.g., Brown 1929: 362, 376). Another edition of the poem is Wright and Halliwell-Phillipps (1845: 7-9) Somer Soneday is uniquely found in manuscript Laud 108, one of the most important collections of Middle English poetry, which includes texts such Havelok the Dane or King Horn. The manuscript consists of several individual booklets, which were copied by four main scribes. Somer Soneday is found at the very end of the manuscript, in the last booklet, copied by the fourth scribe in a cursive hand. The same scribe also renumbered the texts in the entire manuscript (e.g., Bell & Nelson Couch 2010: 9). The information for this text is based on data collected by Yujue Yan as part of the assessment for a Directed Reading module at the University of Manchester in 2024. |
| Remarks on parses: | The line breaks in the electronic text file follow Robbins' edition (1959: 98-102). The poem features several fragments, which are usually explained with comment CODEs. Otherwise, the parses are largely unproblematic. |
References
Bell, Kimberly & Nelson Couch, Julie. 2010. 'Introduction.' In: Bell, Kimberly & Nelson Couch, Julie (eds.) The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: The Shaping of English Vernacular Narrative. Leiden: Brill. 275-97. (available online)
Bell, Kimberly. 2015. '"Rounes to Rede": Ludic Reading Games in the Alliterative Wheel of Fortune Poem Somer Someday.' In: Patterson, Serina (ed.) Games and Gaming in Medieval Literature. Leiden: Brill. 31-50. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 169–86. (available online)
Brown, Carleton. 1929. 'Somer Soneday.' In: Malone, Kemp & Martin B. Ruud (eds.) Studies in English Philology: A miscellany in Hornor of Frederick Klaeber. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 362-374. (available online)
Estabrook Sandison, Helen. 1913. The "chanson d'aventure" in Middle English. Bryn Mawr: Bryn Mawr College Press. (available online)
Fein, Susanna G. 2010. 'Somer Soneday: Kingship, Sainthood, and Fortune in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108.' In: Bell, Kimberly & Nelson Couch, Julie (eds.) The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: The Shaping of English Vernacular Narrative. Leiden: Brill. 275-97. (available online)
Hall, Joseph. 1901. King Horn: A Middle English Romance. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (available online)
Kirkpatrick, Hugh. 1976. The Bob-Wheel and Allied Stanza Forms in Middle English and Middle Scots Poetry. PhD thesis North Texas State University. (available online)
McIntosh, Angus, Samuels, Michael L. & Benskin, Michael. 1986. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press.
Robbins, Rossell H. 1959. Historical Poems of the XIV and XV Centuries. New York: Columbia University Press. (available online)
Smallwood, T.M. 1973. 'The interpretation of "Somer Sunday".' Medium Aevum 42.3. 238-243. (available online)
Turville-Peter, Thorlac. 1974. '"Summer Sunday", "De Tribus Regibus Mortuis", and "The Awntyrs off Arthure": Three Poems in the Thirteen-Line Stanza.' The Review of English Studie 25. 1-14. (available online)
Wright, Thomas & Halliwell-Phillipps, James O. 1845. Reliquiae Antiquae. Volume 2. London: Smith. (available online)