I can't show you the exquisite little 1538 prymer in Englysshe sette out alonge after the use of Sarum I found at the Morgan Library today, but you'll get to see it, as it's my final missing illustration for my book!
Instead I offer you a picture of one of the apparently Assyrian
lionesses which guard the (no longer used) original entrance to the
library, quite an interesting complement to New York Public Library's
signature lions.
Here's the translation of the Office of the Dead's final reading, Job 10:
Why from my mothers wombe / hast thou me out brought
That wolde to god / that I had ben clene
Consumed away evyn to ryght nought
So that none eye / me euer myght haue sene
For then shulde I be / as I had neuer bene
Nowe brought in to thy worlde / and streyght agayne out sent
Oh that my lyfe dayes full soone are gone and spent
Wherefor good lorde spare me yet a whyle
That I may bewayle my sorowe / or I go
From whens is no retourne / I meane that wretched yle
Whiche is the lande of mystery and wo
Couered all with death / in darknes ouerthrow
Where is no rule / nor ordre at all
But horror euerlasting / and payne contynuall
The Prymer's a pocket book, smaller than my own little book will be, so the image will be big enough that readers can read it, and wonder that these desperate words come just after Job's certainty that his redeemer lives, and on dying
... these same eyes shal se hym manyfest
This conforte sure remayneth in my brest…
Here's the translation of the Office of the Dead's final reading, Job 10:
Why from my mothers wombe / hast thou me out brought
That wolde to god / that I had ben clene
Consumed away evyn to ryght nought
So that none eye / me euer myght haue sene
For then shulde I be / as I had neuer bene
Nowe brought in to thy worlde / and streyght agayne out sent
Oh that my lyfe dayes full soone are gone and spent
Wherefor good lorde spare me yet a whyle
That I may bewayle my sorowe / or I go
From whens is no retourne / I meane that wretched yle
Whiche is the lande of mystery and wo
Couered all with death / in darknes ouerthrow
Where is no rule / nor ordre at all
But horror euerlasting / and payne contynuall
The Prymer's a pocket book, smaller than my own little book will be, so the image will be big enough that readers can read it, and wonder that these desperate words come just after Job's certainty that his redeemer lives, and on dying
... these same eyes shal se hym manyfest
This conforte sure remayneth in my brest…
