The anonymous poem ''Pascon agan Arluth'' is the oldest complete literary work in the Cornish language, dating from the 14th century. The modern title (it is untitled in the oldest manuscript) means "The Passion of Our Lord", but the poem has also been published as ''Mount Calvary''.

Date, manuscripts and authorship

''Pascon agan Arluth'' dates from the 14th century; it pre-dates the ''

Ordinalia The are three medieval mystery plays dating to the late fourteenth century, written primarily in Middle Cornish, with stage directions in Latin. The three plays are (The Origin of the World, also known as , 2,846 lines), (The Passion of Christ, ...

'', a cycle of three verse plays on Biblical themes, and is therefore the earliest complete literary work in Cornish to have survived. The author's name is not known, but he may have been connected with

Glasney College Glasney College ( kw, Kolji Glasneth) was founded in 1265 at Penryn, Cornwall, by Bishop Bronescombe and was a centre of ecclesiastical power in medieval Cornwall and probably the best known and most important of Cornwall's religious institut ...

, at Penryn. More than a dozen manuscripts of the poem have been found, but all derive from BL

Harleian The Harleian Library, Harley Collection, Harleian Collection and other variants ( la, Bibliotheca Harleiana) is one of the main "closed" collections (namely, historic collections to which new material is no longer added) of the British Library in ...

1782, a mid-15th century manuscript.

Analysis

The ''Pascon'' deals with the last days of

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, beginning with the temptation in the wilderness. Though it is in narrative form it also incorporates commentary on the story to explain its meaning. The main source of the poem is the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s, but it also draws on later legendary material such as can be found in the ''

Historia scholastica The ''Historia Scholastica'' is a twelfth-century Biblical paraphrase written in Medieval Latin by Petrus Comestor. Sometimes called the "Medieval Popular Bible", it draws on the Bible and other sources, including the works of classical scholars an ...

'' of

Petrus Comestor Petrus Comestor, also called Pierre le Mangeur (died 22 October 1178), was a twelfth-century French theological writer and university teacher. Life Petrus Comestor was born in Troyes. Although the name ''Comestor'' (Latin for 'eater', ''le Ma ...

and the ''

Golden Legend The ''Golden Legend'' (Latin: ''Legenda aurea'' or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in late medieval Europe. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary ...

'' of

Jacobus de Voragine Jacobus de Voragine (c. 123013/16 July 1298) was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of the '' Golden Legend'', a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medi ...

. It consists of 259 stanzas, each of four

rhyming couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...

s, and each line having seven syllables, stressed on the first, third, fifth and seventh syllables.

Influence

''Pascon agan Arluth'' was certainly known to the author of ''Passio Christi'', one of the Middle Cornish mystery plays comprising the ''Ordinalia'', as some of the poem's lines are incorporated in it. The modern Cornish poet

Ken George Kenneth John George is a British oceanographer, poet, and linguist. He is noted as being the originator of Kernewek Kemmyn, an orthography for the revived Cornish language which he claims is more faithful to Middle Cornish phonology than its prec ...

was inspired by the ''Pascon'' to write ''Devedhyans Sen Pawl yn Bro Leon'' ("St. Paul comes to Leon") a poem about the journeys of St. Paul Aurelian, using the same metre as the older poem.

Editions and translations

The ''Pascon'' was first edited by

Davies Gilbert Davies Gilbert (born Davies Giddy, 6 March 1767 – 24 December 1839) was an English engineer, author, and politician. He was elected to the Royal Society on 17 November 1791 and served as President of the Royal Society from 1827 to 1830. He ...

in 1826 under the title ''Mount Calvary; or the History of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection, of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ''; he included an English translation by John Keigwin dating back to 1682. A better edition by

Whitley Stokes Whitley Stokes, CSI, CIE, FBA (28 February 1830 – 13 April 1909) was an Irish lawyer and Celtic scholar. Background He was a son of William Stokes (1804–1878), and a grandson of Whitley Stokes the physician and anti-Malthusian (1763� ...

appeared in 1860–1861, and another by

Robert Morton Nance Robert Morton Nance (1873–1959) was a British writer and leading authority on the Cornish language, a nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society. Nance wrote many books and pamphlets on the Cornish language, inclu ...

in 1934–1936, both with new English translations. More recently there have been editions by E. G. R. Hooper, by Goulven Pennaod (with English and Breton translations), and by Ray Edwards (with English translation).

Notes

Footnotes

References

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External links

The 1826 edition by Davies Gilbert, with translation by John Keigwin, at Google Books

The 1826 edition at the Internet Archive
{{Culture of Cornwall 14th-century poems Biblical poetry Depictions of Jesus in literature Middle Cornish literature Anonymous works