Introduction

De Tribus Regibus Mortuis is didactic in tone and moralistic in purpose, but like the iconographic tradition which inspired it,

it has a muscularity and a taste for the macabre which make it compelling. The muscularity is largely a result of the poet’s

adoption of terse and determined patterns of alliteration, and a rhyme-scheme which can be subtle and strident by turns.

These lend themselves particularly well to the description of the hunting scene which opens the poem, but also to its

descriptions of the decomposing corpses of the three dead kings, which are related with a vigour almost suggestive of relish.

In translating from the Middle English, I have loosely observed these alliterative patterns in a manner which hopefully will

not seem strained to a modern English reader, but have rendered the whole poem in the present tense.

Audelay’s original audience (if Audelay was indeed the author, which many scholars doubt) would have been familiar with his

theme – both as expressed in a broad sense through the memento mori tradition as played out in the iconography of the

Dance of Death and in the vogue for cadaver tombs, and more specifically as a ghost narrative. Scenes of The Three Living and

the Three Dead had appeared in manuscripts such as the De Lisle Psalter, the Taymouth Hours and the Smithfield Decretals,

and were depicted in mural paintings in a number of English churches in the fourteenth century. These images share motifs

with Audelay’s poem: the meeting between three living kings on a hunt – one of whom carries a hawk in his outstretched

hand – and three decomposed corpses; the speeches of the living (sometimes supplied in scrolls issuing from their mouths)

and the replies of the dead; and the insistence on the part of one of the ghosts that the living will soon die and their

appearance will become just as nauseating as his own. Audelay puts the living kings on horseback, and by choosing to open

his narrative with a description of a boar hunt, refers ironically to the chivalric romance tradition, implying that the hunt

itself is a sign of their irresponsibility, cruelty and impiety.

These might seem to be themes of merely historical interest, were it not for the fact that the poet has peppered his narrative

with references to the despotic behaviour of the three living kings. They not only waste their time on a brutal hunt when they

ought to be attending to affairs of state; they have oppressed the poor, and – significantly – laid waste to their own lands.

Moreover, they are apparently heirs to a whole dynasty which has been politically irresponsible, since their forefathers appear

before them as animated corpses, their souls confined to Purgatory. In this respect, Audelay crystallises a tradition which

reaches its most sophisticated expression in Shakespeare’s Hamlet – a play with its own revenant king, its references to

“kissing carrion”, its preoccupation with death, decomposition and worms, and its depiction of the insoluble spiritual

dilemmas which face the secular ruler who wishes also to fulfil the requirements of his religion and moral code. It is also

arguable that no theme could have more compelling contemporary relevance in a world in which our own “kings” fiddle their

expenses claims, indulge in bloody foreign wars, enter into unholy alliances with the tabloid press, acquiesce in the

continuing subjugation and destruction of the natural world, and would go hunting themselves if they were not so afraid of

public opinion.

We should, however, be wary of the temptation to cast the poem in a too self-consciously modern light. The single most

important aspect of the dead kings’ reproof of their living counterparts is the charge that they have not attended masses and

prayed for the souls of their forefathers. Like the Anturs of Arther, Audelay’s poem is an advertisement for that great

invention of the later Middle Ages: the chantry chapel. It is therefore a part of the last great flowering in this country of the

notion that the prayers of the living have a direct effect on the status of the dead. It is significant that both of these texts

insist so stridently that prayers for the souls of the dead are an important aspect of the duties of royalty: the king and queen

must not only be just and merciful administrators of the earthly economy, but loyal servants of the heavenly one as well.

My translation is based on the excellent annotated text edited by Susanna Fein: John the Blind Audelay: Poems and Carols

(Oxford, Bodleian Library M.S. Douce 302), Kalamazoo, Michigan, Medieval Institute Publications, 2009. The photographs

which illustrate these pages show details of two separate representations of The Three Living and the Three Dead: one in the

little Cotswold church at Widford, and the other in a much larger church in the Northamptonshire town of Raunds.

The Three Dead Kings

On a birch-clad bank, beneath bright boughs,

I see a bristling boar brought to bay:

Hounds harry it with hungry howls,

Priming their hackles, hunting their prey,

Never resting. I hear, and am roused by the sound.

Besieged in the sallows, the boar faces the fray,

The squealing and howling a meaningless row:

Its night but a blink from the dawning of day.

It has barely seen life

But is writhing and dying,

And the greenwood is rife

With the hallooing strife:

All that hooting and crying.

That hue and cry is harsh to the ear,

As dogs in the greenwood bring him to ground.

Barons bring bloodhounds, baying and fierce,

And blow on their bugles, a barrage of sound,

And truly I tell, three kings trotting near

Are chatting of trifles, all armoured and crowned.

Each rules his lands through riches and fear:

They own every wood, and the regions all round.

On the woods and the waste

They are working their worst –

But hear now, how fate

Ignores men of state,

And crass rulers are cursed.i

The three of them falter as they forge forth:

With wailings of winds, the weather turns wan,

And a rime-grey mist arises from earth –

All of their men have turned tail and gone.

“Our daring adventures may yet end in dearth,

And though we seek honour, I fear we breed wrong –

We are three wealthy kings with kindred of worth,

Yet caught up in care: we’ll reap wrath ere long,

For our fates have been cast

And we must count the cost

And hope that this mist

By morning has passed

Or our three lives are lost.”

They creep a foot forward, then flee back a few,

Onto a field where the fug seems to glow,

And out of the grove, three men come in view:

Shadowy phantoms, fated to show,

With legs long and lean, and limbs all askew,

Their livers and lights all foetid.ii With slow,

Ungainly gaits they approach, and slew

Each horse into frenzy. They bridle, they blow,

They pant, stride and bite

As the ghosts groan, “Pay heed!”

And no succour in sight.

Each king carps at Christ

With crossings and Creeds.iii

The first king is cringing, his heart overcast,

For he recognises the cross on a rotting king’s shroud.iv

His foal flinches and falters, reined in and cursed;

His fair falcon falls to his fist.v He howlsvi,

“Now gladness is gone! I am groaning, aghast

At these three grim ghosts” – he blurts it out loud –

“For I’ve wandered by woods, and walked in the waste,

And never before was so craven and cowed.

My mettle is daunted

And I quiver with dread.

I know, without doubt:

If we run, we’re all dead –

In spite of our titles, we’re all of us doomed!”

The second king stutters, that sovereign of might

Whose vigour and valour were often vaunted,

“M – methinks, m – my lords, I s – see the strangest sight

That m – men under the s – sun have ever been granted:

Three liches, all loathly, seeking lost light,

With lips all shredded, and livers rotted!

If we flee, all the city will pity our plight.

Peril besieges us. Fate has plotted

Against us – and now

I am telling you true,

Though we hunt boars, shout “Ho!”

To these ghouls we must bow,

Or run off – and rue!”

Then up speaks the hindmost king – staring off at the hills –

Holding his head in his quivering fists.

It’s as if a well-stropped knifevii has stilled

His heart, like a slaughtered cow’s. He frets:

“These three are demons: each one could kill

Us here in the woods. Help us, God, who somehow fits

Us into the world! I quiver like a flagviii, spill

My silver. My fingers clench. I lose my wits,

And fear terribly for our fate.

I think that we should flee, and fast;

The only counsel's not to wait -

Fortune’s got us on a plate!

The devils have us! The die is cast!”

“Fiends? Demons? Nay! You’re mistaken!

We’re your fathers – salt of the earth – soon forgotten

As you flourish, like leaves on the lindenix,

Holding lordship of towns from Lorne to Londonx.

Those who doubt your decree, or don’t do your bidding,

You beat and bind, or defraud for a flogging.

Look! The worms use my bowel for a womb, all writhing,

Each ribboned like the rope my shroud is a-binding.xi

With this rope I am bound

Though the world once esteemed

Me. My carrion was found

Kissable oncexii. But you – unsound

Masters – say no mass, leave us unredeemed!”xiii

Then the middle corpse begins to channer,

“Look at my bones, all black and bare!

When we lived in the world, we were held in honour;

We had wives at our will, and wealth to spare.

Don’t think of marvels, but learn, and wonder:

Though now you are fair, thus shall you fare!xiv

Believe Christ! Learn love! Ponder

Your own clay, and give your flesh no care!

Don’t believe it! It lies!

Its falsehoods are snide.

So forget pomp and pride:

When the finest man dies

His worst works are decried!”

The loathliest one speaks last, his loins so lean

His legs are lank as leeks swathed in linen:

“I am your mirror. My merrymaking’s a mean

Bit of murk now. I’ve done more earthly sinning

Than any moral excellences, mistreated the men

Of my lands: vilified villagers, scorned those serving

My meals, thought myself regal, who was always moaning.

There’s not a knave now will do my bidding

Who’s not an idiot or fool

Who pays no heed to the tomb.

No one succumbs to my rule.

Time, remorseless and cruel

Leads me on to the Doom.”

The ghosts, having spoken, all gather and glide

Off to their graves, and the kings in the glade

Are a little more glad, and agree they should ride

Through the red rays of day – and never again grind

The grist of their servantsxv, or let pride

Deprive them of merciful minds

Ripe for redemption – but abide

In God’s mercy. The chantry they foundxvi

Is made holy at mass –

And in church, or on mossxvii

Where men meet: I bid you, emboss

This imagexviii. Who’ll believe it? Alas!

You don’t? That’s your loss!xix

Amen.

i Already in the first two stanzas of the poem, its didactic tone has been established. The boar’s life is over seemingly before it has started, just as the kings’ lives will be forfeit before their souls are ready for judgement. Whilst the poet conveys the excitement of the hunt, it is clear that he thinks kings and barons ought to have better things to do with their time. ii There are strong similarities between this ghost-narrative and that described in the slightly earlier Anturs of Arther: in both cases, the manifestation takes place during a hunt (a common mediaeval symbol of the worldly excesses of kings), and is preceded by a supernatural fog which separates the main protagonists from the other hunters. Both poems also feature corporeal ghosts who are in an advanced stage of decomposition. Indeed, on the basis of poems such as these, and the depictions of The Three Living and the Three Dead in wall-paintings and manuscript illuminations, Rosemary Horrox has hypothesised “that in western Europe at this time the death of the body was not seen – as Christian teaching required – as something which occurred when the soul left the body. The orthodox version of events dominates the religious iconography of the period, with the moment of death shown by the departure of the soul, represented as a little naked figure, from the mouth of the dying person. But an alternative tradition gives the body a continuing post-mortem life of its own.” (See ‘Purgatory, Prayer and Plague: 1150-1380’, in Peter C. Jupp and Clare Gittings (Eds.), Death in England: An Illustrated History, Manchester University Press, 1999, pp. 93-95.) iii A sign of the living kings’ hypocrisy: they lack piety, but resort to Christian formulae when they are afraid – so their bravery is also a sham. iv He recognises from the heraldic insignia that one of the dead kings is his father. v This detail is often present in the iconography. vi From here onwards, the speeches of the three living and the three dead are expanded versions of those which commonly appear in mediaeval manuscripts and wall-paintings: First Living: “Ich am afert.” Second Living: “Lo whet ich se.” Third Living: “Methinketh hit beth develes thre.” First Dead: “Ich wes wel fair.” Second dead: “Such sheltou be.” Third Dead: “For Godes love, be wer by me.” vii Here, the Middle English text plays on the word “knoc”, which can mean a blow, a shock, or a death knell. The next line compares the shock of seeing the ghosts with the slaughtering of cattle. viii The reference to a “flag” is, of course, an allusion to the yellow flag iris, which grows in ditches and ponds, and quivers in the wind. It is sometimes translated “reed”, but this loses the implication of stately grandeur surrendered to fear. ix The linden tree is often the trysting tree in mediaeval texts, and lime woods are common scenes for hunt-narratives, but Susanna Fein also points out that “The linden, with its delicate leaves easily set in rapid motion by the wind, symbolized lightheartedness, and also carelessness.” The linden is, of course, also deciduous. x From Scotland to the south of Britain. Lorne is in Argyllshire.

xi One of the most skilful features of the poem is its juxtaposition of close rhymes (in this verse “fynden/ fondon/ lynden/ London/ byndon/ bondon/ wyndon/ wondon/ iwys/ was/ cysse/ amys/ mas”) which are virtually impossible to replicate in modern English. The first dead king alludes to the “wormus in my wome” – another untranslatable phrase which I have tried to render as faithfully as possible, given that the speaker is clearly male, whilst making a passing reference to modern parasitology. xii Shakespeare makes an obvious allusion to the memento mori tradition in Hamlet’s reference to “good kissing-carrion” – words which might have been borrowed from this poem. xiii The first dead king chides the living kings for their failure to commemorate him at the mass – another similarity with the Anturs of Arther, in which the dead mother of Queen Gaynore reproves her daughter for the same reason. xiv An adaptation of the statement commonly inscribed on wall-paintings: “As I am now, so shall you be.” xv Literally “never act oppressively regarding land or servants”. The Middle English word “pres” means to oppress, or to hold under pressure. xvi Repentant, the living kings pledge to build a chantry chapel at which masses can be said for the dead kings: a similar ending to that arranged by the women in the Anturs of Arther. xvii The phrase “on moss” refers to a public place, implying that the idea of decomposition after death should be preached not only by the secular clergy inside the churches, but also by the preaching friars on the wayside. xviii Literally “write this [poem] on the wall”: a clear reference to the iconography. xix I have softened the rather abruptly didactic final line (literally “Our Lord deliver us from loss”) in favour of a further gloss on the penultimate line, which anticipates that some hard-hearted readers will respond to the ghost story with an unholy incredulity. The pictures show wall-paintings depicting The Three Living and the Three Dead, from Widford Church, near Burford, in the Cotswolds, and Raunds Church in Northamptonshire.