The Middle English poem of _Erthe upon Erthe_ is one which occurs fairly
frequently in fifteenth-century MSS. and even later. It was a favourite
theme for Commonplace Books, and was frequently inserted on the spare
leaves at the beginning or end of a manuscript. From the many texts of
the poem which have survived, and from the fact that portions of it
continued to be inscribed on walls and tombstones up to the beginning of
the nineteenth century, a wide popularity may be deduced. The extant
versions, moreover, point to a knowledge of the poem throughout the
greater part of England, as well as in the south of Scotland. The
grimness of the motive, based on the words _Memento homo quod cinis es
et in cinerem reverteris_, allies the text both with the earlier group
of poems relating to _The Soul and the Body_, and with the more or less
contemporary _Dance of Death_, but whereas the two latter groups can
claim a popularity which extended over western Europe, _Erthe upon
Erthe_ exists only in Middle English texts, and in one parallel Latin
version.[1] It is, indeed, difficult to see how the play upon the word
_earth_ on which the poem depends could have been reproduced with equal
success in any language outside English, and the Latin version is
distinctly inferior in this respect. There would seem, therefore, to be
good reason for the assumption that _Erthe upon Erthe_ is of English
origin, belonging to the same class of literature as the English
versions of the _Soul and Body_ poems.
The earliest texts of the poem known to be extant are found in MSS.
Harleian 2253 and 913, both dated about the beginning of the fourteenth
century. The two texts vary greatly in length--MS. Harl. 2253 consists
of four lines as against seven six-lined stanzas in MS. Harl. 913--and
the latter text has the parallel Latin rendering mentioned above, but
they coincide so far as they go, and appear to represent a thirteenth or
fourteenth-century type of the poem, which may be called the A
version.[2]
Another poem of the same kind, which differs considerably from the A
version, but is, in all probability, closely connected with it in
origin, is common in fifteenth-century MSS. I have traced eighteen texts
of this version, dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century,
all of which represent or are based upon the same common type, though
individual transcribers appear to have expanded the theme according to
their own taste. Such additions may easily be distinguished, since they
seldom succeed in maintaining either the grim simplicity, or the
fundamental play upon the word _earth_, which characterize the genuine
portions of the poem. This common fifteenth-century type may be called
the B version.
Lastly, a single fifteenth-century MS. (Cambridge University Library,
Ii, 4. 9) has preserved a text of the poem in which some attempt seems
to have been made to combine the A with the B version. This text may be
called the C version, or Cambridge text.
In the following pages an attempt has been made to justify the premises
in part laid down already, and to show that the A and B versions may be
traced back to a common source, and that this source was not only
confined to England, but was itself English.