"Adam lay ybounden", originally titled "Adam lay i-bowndyn",[1] is a 15th-centuryEnglish Christian text of unknown authorship. It takes as its theme theFall of Man, as described in theBook of Genesis.
Originally a song text, no contemporary musical settings survive, although there are many notable modern choral settings of the text, such as that byBoris Ord.
The manuscript in which the poem is found (Sloane MS 2593, ff. 10v-11) is held by theBritish Library, which dates the work to c.1400 and speculates that the lyrics may have belonged to awandering minstrel. Other poems included on the same page in the manuscript include "I have a gentil cok", the famous lyric poem "I syng of a mayden" and tworiddle songs – "A minstrel's begging song" and "I have a yong suster".[2]
Analysis of their dialect by K.R. Palti (2008) places them within the song tradition ofEast Anglia and more specificallyNorfolk; two further carol manuscripts from the county contain songs from Sloane MS 2593.[3] The texts of the songs were first printed byVictorian antiquarianThomas Wright in 1836, who speculated that a number of the songs were intended for use inmystery plays.[4]
Adam lay ybounden relates the events ofGenesis, Chapter 3. Inmedieval theology, Adam was supposed to have remained in bonds with the otherpatriarchs in thelimbus patrum from the time of his death until thecrucifixion of Christ (the "4000 winters").[5] The second verse narrates theFall of Man followingAdam's temptation by Eve and the serpent. John Speirs suggests that there is a tone of astonishment, almost incredulity in the phrase "and all was for an apple", noting "an apple, such as a boy might steal from an orchard, seems such a little thing to produce such overwhelming consequences. Yet so it must be because clerks say so. It is in their book (probably meaning theVulgate itself)."[6]
The third verse suggests the subsequent redemption of man by the birth ofJesus Christ byMary, who was to become theQueen of Heaven as a result,[7] and thus the song concludes on a positive note hinting atThomas Aquinas' concept of the "felix culpa" (blessed fault).[6] Paul Morris suggests that the text's evocation of Genesis implies a "fall upwards".[8] Speirs suggests that the lyric retells the story in a particularly human way: "The doctrine of the song is perfectly orthodox...but here is expressed very individually and humanly. The movement of the song reproduces very surely the movements of a human mind."[6]
| Middle English original spelling[9] | Middle English converted (Edith Rickert)[10] |
|---|---|
Adam lay i-bowndyn,
Fowre thowsand wynter
| Adam lay ybounden,
Four thousand winter
|
And al was for an appil,
As clerkes fyndyn wretyn
| And all was for anapple,
Asclerkës finden written
|
Ne hadde the appil take ben,
Ne hadde never our lady
| Nor had one apple taken been,
Then had never Our Lady,
|
Blyssid be the tyme
Therfore we mown syngyn
| Blessed be the time
Therefore we may singen |
The text was originally meant to be a song text, although no music survives. However, there are many notable modern choral settings of the text, with diverse interpretations by composers such asPeter Warlock,[11]John Ireland,[12]Boris Ord,[13]Philip Ledger,[14]Howard Skempton[15] andBenjamin Britten (titledDeo Gracias in hisCeremony of Carols).[16] A new setting byGiles Swayne was commissioned for and first performed in 2009 by theChoir of St John's College, Cambridge and their annual broadcast of the Advent carol service onBBC Radio 3.[17] The Connecticut composerRobert Edward Smith wrote a setting of the text that was premiered in December 2018 in Hartford atTrinity College's annual Lessons and Carols. The piece featured the College's Chapel Singers, directed byChristopher Houlihan.[18]
Boris Ord's 1957 setting is probably the best-known version as a result of its traditional performance following the First Lesson at the annualFestival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the chapel ofKing's College, Cambridge, where Ord was organist from 1929 to 1957.[13]
