"Adam lay ybounden", originally titled Adam lay i-bowndyn[1] is a 15th century macaronic English text of unknown authorship. The manuscript on which the poem is found, (Sloane 2593, ff.10v-11), is held by the British Library, who date the work to c.1400 and speculate that the lyrics may have belonged to a wandering minstrel; other poems included on same page in the manuscript include "I have a gentil cok", the famous lyric poem "I syng of a mayden" and two riddle songs - "A minstrel's begging song" and "I have a yong suster".[2]
The Victorian antiquarian Thomas Wright suggests that although there is consensus that the lyrics date from the reign of Henry V of England (1387–1422), the songs themselves may be rather earlier.[3] Wright continues to speculate, on the basis of the dialect, that the lyrics probably originate in Warwickshire, and suggests that a number of the songs were intended for use in mystery plays.[3]
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Adam lay ybounden relates the events of Genesis, Chapter 3. In medieval theology, Adam was supposed to have remained in bonds with the other patriarchs in the limbus patrum from the time of his death until the crucifixion of Christ (the "4000 winters").[4] The second verse narrates the Fall of Man following Adam'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 the Vulgate itself)."[5]
The third verse suggests the subsequent redemption of man by the birth of Jesus Christ by Mary, who was to become the Queen of Heaven as a result,[6] and thus the song concludes on a positive note hinting at Thomas Aquinas' concept of the "felix culpa" (blessed fault).[5] Paul Morris suggests that the text's evocation of Genesis implies a "fall upwards.[7] 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."[5]
| Middle English original spelling[8] | Middle English converted[9] |
|---|---|
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Adam lay i-bowndyn,
Fowre thowsand wynter
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Adam lay ybounden,
Four thousand winter,
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And al was for an appil,
As clerkes fyndyn wretyn
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And all was for an apple,
As clerkes finden,
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Ne hadde the appil take ben,
Ne hadde never our lady
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Ne had the apple taken been,
Ne had never our ladie,
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Blyssid be the tyme
Therefore we mown syngyn
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Blessed be the time
Therefore we moun singen.
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The text was originally meant to be a song text, although no music survives. However, there are many notable 20th century choral settings of the text, with diverse interpretations by several English composers, including Peter Warlock,[10] John Ireland,[11] Boris Ord,[12] Philip Ledger,[13] Carson Cooman[14] and Benjamin Britten (titled Deo Gracias in his Ceremony of Carols).[15]
Boris Ord's setting is probably the best-known version as a result of its traditional performance following the First Lesson at the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, where Ord was organist between 1929-57.[12] A new setting by Giles Swayne was commissioned for and first performed in 2009 by the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge and their annual broadcast of the Advent carol service on BBC Radio 3.[16]