Skip to main content

Where can I find a translation of the poem "The Upcheringe of the Messe" by Luke Shepherd?

There's no "translation" of Luke Shepherd's poem "The Upcheringe of the Messe" because it's already in English! So why does the poem look so strange and sometimes indecipherable? Because it is not written in modern English! 


Luke Shepherd is a pen name derived from two religious references: "Luke" referring to the "Luke" of the Gospels and "Shepherd" referring to the biblical herders of sheep. The writer known as Luke Shepherd was penning his satirical religious works during the mid 16th century under the reign of Edward VI; this time period marked the gradual shift from Middle English to Early Modern English. While can be difficult to understand Early Modern English (which was used for Shakespeare's works, the King James Bible, etc.),  reading pieces like "The Upcheringe of the Messe" (which might be best classified as "Renaissance verse") is certainly not impossible for a contemporary reader.  


So, how should we approach this process? When reading "The Upcheringe of the Messe," you must attempt to look past the odd spelling of words and think phonetically instead. This becomes less difficult with practice. For example, look at a few lines from the early part of the poem:



"Wherin the high professours


Apostlique successours


Take holde to be possessours


And some wer made confessours


Some of them were no startars


But were made holi marters..."



When we start to look closely, we can "translate" this into modern English:



Wherein the high professors [in other words, one who "professes"]


Apostolic successors [one who inherits something; in this case a position or title]


Take hold to be possessors 


And some were confessors


Some of them were no starters


But were made holy martyrs...



Shepherd is essentially critiquing those in positions of power within the Church as being title-hungry. He is also criticizing the false worship of these figures, who are often seen as being holy and self-sacrificial.


See how we can start to decipher the words that look "wrong" to us by saying them out loud and paying attention to vowel sounds rather than spellings? 


Another tool that should prove to be helpful for you is the University of Michigan's Middle English Dictionary, which is an online database that allows you to look up tricky words that you may not be able to understand. I have included the link below. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more