“Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king.” That’s the start of a poem I remember from my schooldays. I found myself quoting it on a beautiful spring morning recently; it’s short, it’s sweet, and it’s by Thomas Nashe, who lived from 1567 to 1601 – which makes him a contemporary of Shakespeare.
Like most youngsters, I assume, I had to learn and recite great chunks of our Glorious Literary Heritage in school English lessons. We memorised an assortment of poems, and Shakespeare speeches of course, and (if we were taking any foreign language exams,) we tried to learn a tiny bit of France’s or Germany’s G.L.H. too, so we could drag in a quote to liven up an essay.
I can still recall some poems now: “If…” (I can do most of that!) and “The Wreck of the Hesperus” (only the first verse alas, but I know it has a dreadfully sad ending,) and “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” – yes, I was interested in the Romans even then.
And, as I said, “Spring, the sweet spring”. It has stuck in my mind because it made us kids laugh. I still think it’s comic on account of the Elizabethan “special effects” at the end of each verse, which aren’t at all what one expects of the G.L.H.
Try reading the first verse out loud:
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Now even at the ripe old age of twelve I could identify birds that went “cuckoo” and “to-witta-woo”. But what in Bill Oddie’s sweet name are the others? “Pu-we” could be a peewit, I suppose. Or maybe a thrush, one of those that has a big repertoire of phrases, and (to quote a quite different poet) sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture that first fine careless rapture.
But I can’t recall ever having heard anything on the wing or up a tree going “jug-jug”.
I wonder, was Nashe just having a laugh, or was he making a serious attempt, in those pre-sound-recording days, to reproduce birdsong for his audience’s delectation? It’s hard to credit it now, but there used to be people who made a living in the variety theatres by performing bird impressions on stage…anyone in the UK remember Percy Edwards? He was a terrific mimic of birds and animals. But I’m sure he never went “jug-jug”.
Well, we have wonderful spring weather as I write this, which I’ll celebrate with the rest of Nashe’s poem.
The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!
And to think I’ve remembered him all these years! Isn’t education wonderful?
Could jug-jug be a dove with a sore throat???? M xx
Margaret, that’s a wonderful suggestion! Or maybe a chiff-chaff with a sore throat…he’s halfway there, with just his two notes.
Jane, I was so intrigued by which bird went jug-jug (sore throat or not) that I had a look on Google and turned up the fact that John Claire, the peasant poet, described the nightingales song as “tweet tweet, jug, jug” . So I listened to a nightingale’s song on YouTube and – yes! Part of the song really did sound like jug jug. And I confused the cat, who started to look for the bird, which is always fun!
Dolores, that’s quite brilliant! A mystery solved, and I hope your cat has got over the disappointment of not finding a bird in the house. I’ve only ever once heard a nightingale in real life, down by the River Test one evening when I and my mother were exercising her dog just as it was growing dark. It was a magical experience. I’ll take a prowl round YouTube and hear it again.