#john gower

Colorful tomb of English poet John Gower (c. 1330-1408).

Southwark Cathedral, London

have an excerpt from john gower's Confessio Amantis, ca. 1390. really fun to read aloud. that pounding rhythm of the meter!

this is from the climax, ulysses (the "he" in the first line) defending his castle gates against telegonus, both yet unaware that they're father and son:

The original source of this story is lost, but it’s believed to have been a Greek text originally composed Syria around the 3rd Century A.D., which was translated into Latin either or 5th or the 6th Century. This theorized Latin translation also would have changed passages such as the riddle spoken by Antiochus and perhaps the recognition scene between Apollonius and his daughter.

The story was so famous that 114 Latin manuscript survive to this day, as well as many vernacular ones. Few of those manuscripts are identical, and there tends to be two major versions, which scholars call RA and RB, with RB using a more classically correct Latin and having extra details and names, despite also being a shorter narrative.

It was translated to English as early as the 11th century, but the most diffused version was the one by John Gower in his Confessio Amantis of 1390. Other vernacular versions exists, such as the 13th Century Danish balled called Kong Apollon af Tyre; the Old Norse tale Thidreks Saga af Ber, which feature Apollonius as the son of King Arthur and the Spanish, and very Christianized, Libro de Apolonio, among many others. More famously, it was adapted by Shakespeare into the play Pericles, in 1609.

For Shakespeare's version of the story, please check my Pericles post.

The Lover's confession. From a mid-15th-century manuscript of John Gower's Confessio Amantis.

Love that desires to stay awake By night, may an example take From Cephalus, that time he played With fair Aurora, that sweet maid, And lay within her arms all night. But when the hours drew towards the light, Within his heart, he seemed to spy The day that was approaching nigh; So, with this prayer, born of his lust, He sought to gain the sun god’s trust: “O Phoebus, who controls the day, Till nighttime drives its light away, Thou risest, gladdening every creature By the laws that rule thy nature. There’s one thing all lovers share; It must reject thy knowing glare For privacy, so none may tell That Love has done his duty well. It only asks for secret haunts, And silence and seclusion wants, Desiring not to be exposed: And so, when Venus is disclosed, Upon the fading of thy light And shines with softness in the night, Beneath cloud cover, dark and still, That’s when we lovers have our will. From thee, upon thy throne on high, Because thou art the day’s bright eye, No lovers may their secrets hide. Upon this night’s dark flowing tide, With all my heart, I thee beseech, That I my pleasure’s prize might reach With she who drowns me in her charms. Withdraw the banner of thine arms, And let thy daylight be unborn Within the Sign of Capricorn Where Saturn’s lusty court holds sway. I pray that thou might make thy way Where evenings long and dark must be, For my love lies here next to me, Quite naked, only for my sake, And she would like to stay awake, And never let me go to sleep. It would be good of thee to keep Away, in answer to my need. I pray thee, hinder with all speed Thy fiery cart, and so ordain That thy swift horses shall restrain Their course beneath the western sky, And towards the east begin to fly Across an arc the longer way. And to Diana, thee I pray, Known as thou are for nobleness, The night’s own Moon, and its goddess, Be kind to me, and grant me grace, In Cancer, which is thine own place; Opposed to Phoebus, end thy flight To dally there. For thy delight, Fix Venus with a gladsome eye, For then celestial laws apply, By which thou wilt be guaranteed To foster much prolific seed, So that fair children may be born. And if such grace should then adorn My life, with all my heart I’ll serve By night, thy vigil to observe.” Lo, thus this lusty Cephalus Prayed unto Phoebe and Phoebus To lengthen out night’s starry tract So Love’s own law he might enact, And thus could keep, at Love’s behest, That which is called the Nachtenfest, Without the sluggishness of Sleep, Whom Venus chooses not to keep As company, for oft it’s he Who is the one to guarantee A lustless night devoid of games In bed, when otherwise love’s flames Could be expected to burn brightly. Sloth, which is at night unspritely Has with Sleep a compact made So that those debts cannot be paid Which unto love are due by dawn: He knows not where the night has gone Nor how, so soon, comes on the day; He sleeps and snores the night away, And waits until it’s noon to rise. But Cephalus did otherwise, As you, my Son, have heard above. My father, he who has his love In bed all naked by his side, And still would deign his eyes to hide In sleep, why then, no man is he: But as for me, it certainly Befalls me not, that fate of his. In fact, I’ll tell you how it is: As I’m a very lonely man, I try to catch what sleep I can, To dream a merry dream ere day. And if it happens that I may My thoughts with such a dreaming please, I think I am somewhat at ease, And that must be my only fun. There’s no need to implore the Sun His horse and wagon to let linger, Nor the Moon, that she may wing her Way more slowly through the sky, For that is not the means whereby I’ll move towards love in some degree. But in my sleep, I still may see Some things I like, within my dreams. And then, however good it seems, I wake up hoodwinked by my heart. So I would like to know what part Sleep plays to make a man feel whole. My son, you speak the truth. Its role At least as far as I have found, Is to ensure the body’s crowned With health, when it’s not overdone: But he who sleeps too much is one Who fails to use some common sense, And buys bad luck, at great expense, And such misfortune that he grieves. But he who thumbs the musty leaves Of books that treat of Somnolence, May still discover truth and sense If good instruction he will take Of why it’s good to stay awake: Whereof a tale in poetry I think to tell, specifically.

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The Prayer of Cephalus

John Gower  1330–1408

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Page from John Gower’s Confessio Amantis—as reprinted in Bernard Quaritch’s Palæography: Notes upon the History of Writing and the Medieval Art of Illumination, 1894 CE (illuminator unknown, 14th century CE).