“Sumer Is Icumen In”

Edited by Jack Lynch

One of the most famous Middle English poems is a song, written in or near Reading around the middle of the thirteenth century — say, 1240–60 — a bit more than a century before Chaucer started his career. The text appears in British Library MS Harley 978, fol. 11^v. I’ve consulted images of the original and compared them to various published transcriptions.

Things that can’t be explained in a word or two get fuller treatment in the “Notes” section at the bottom of the text.

“Sumer Is Icumen In”

Sumer is icumen° in	has come
Lhude° sing cuccu	loudly
Groweþ sed
and bloweþ med°	mead bloweth (the meadow blooms)
and springþ° þe wde° nu	sprouts — forest
Sing cuccu

Awe° bleteþ° after lomb	ewe — bleateth
lhouþ° after calue cu°	loweth — cow
Bulluc sterteþ°	leaps
bucke° uerteþ	stag
murie° sing cuccu	merry

Cuccu cuccu
Wel singes þu° cuccu	thou
ne swik° þu° nauer nu°	stop — thou — now
Sing cuccu nu · Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu · Sing cuccu nu.

Notes

Sumer: Though it’s (obviously) the source of our word summer, it seems the word also covered what we call spring.
uerteþ: Critics differ on how to translate this. The Middle English Dictionary speaks for the majority in reading uerteþ as a form of ferten, defined as “To break wind, fart; also, to make indecent or unseemly sounds.” Others, though, think it means something like “cavorts.”