"Now Pentecost, the feast, by some
Call'd 'merry Whitsuntide,' was come!
The fields show'd brave, with kingcups dight,
And hawthorns kercheft were in white:
Her low-breathed lute the fresh'ning rill
Unto the waken'd woods 'gan trill;
Whilst, hid in leafy bower remote,
The cuckoo tuned his herald-note;
The meads were prankt in gold and green,
And 'leetel fowles' of liveried sheen,
Their pipes with JUBILATE! swelling,
From bush and spray were philomelling--
The breeze came balmy from the west,
And April, harness'd in her best,
The laughing sun led forth to see--
When Noble (lion-king was he,
And sceptre sway'd o'er bird and beast,)
Held ancient ways, and kept the feast,
The trumpets clang'd loud proclamation--
The couriers coursed throughout the nation--
Full many a Brave and many a Bold
Came hastening in troops untold."
The German translator here keeps precisely within the same compass of
fourteen lines with his "first type," while the Londoner has one-half
more. But this is not the main difference. The German is neater and more
natural, and nearer the spirit as well as the letter of his model. All
the trash in the new reproduction about hawthorns "kercheft in white,"
the low-breathed lute of the rill trilling, the cuckoo and his herald
note, the 'leetel fowles' swelling and philomelling, and April harnessed
in her best, are mere frippery sewed on by the reproducer, to make the
venerable old garment look finer in the eyes of his co-Cockneys.
We next give the two translations of that part of the poem which
represents the Cock's complaints against Reynard, for killing his
daughter, and which is supposed to give so accurate a representation of
the form of process in the Middle Ages in an accusation of murder.