The anonymous poem ''Pascon agan Arluth'' is the oldest complete literary work in the

Cornish language Cornish (Standard Written Form: or , ) is a Southwestern Brittonic language, Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. Along with Welsh language, Welsh and Breton language, Breton, Cornish descends from Common Brittonic, ...

, 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 Chris ...

'', 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 () 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 institutions. History T ...

, at Penryn. More than a dozen manuscripts of the poem have been found, but all derive from BL Harleian 1782, a mid-15th century manuscript.

Analysis

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

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

, 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 Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

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

Historia scholastica The ''Historia scholastica'' () is a Biblical paraphrase written in Medieval Latin by Petrus Comestor. Completed around 1173, he wrote it for the cathedral school of Notre Dame in Paris. Sometimes called the "Medieval Popular Bible", it draws on ...

'' of

Petrus Comestor Peter Comestor (, "Peter the Eater"; ; died 22 October 1178) was a 12th-century Kingdom of France, French Theology, theological writer and university teacher. Life Peter Comestor was born in Troyes. Although the surname (Latin language, Lati ...

and the ''

Golden Legend The ''Golden Legend'' ( or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of 153 hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in Europe during the Late Middle Ages. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary Maddo ...

'' of

Jacobus de Voragine Jacobus de Voragine, OP (13/16 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 mediev ...

. It consists of 259 stanzas, each of four

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

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 pre ...

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 Paul Aurelian (known in Breton as Paol Aorelian or Saint Pol de Léon and in Latin as Paulinus Aurelianus) was a 6th-century Welshman who became first bishop of the See of Léon and one of the seven founder saints of Brittany. He allegedly die ...

, 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 a British engineer, author, and politician. He was elected to the Royal Society on 17 November 1791 and served as its President from 1827 to 1830. He changed his name to ...

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 John Keigwin (1641–1716) was a Cornish antiquary, born at Mousehole, Cornwall. He was a leading member of a group of antiquaries in west Penwith: this group also included John and Thomas Boson, William Gwavas, Thomas Tonkin, William Borlase, O ...

dating back to 1682. A better edition by Whitley Stokes 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, incl ...

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