The 13th-century round known as the Reading Rota or, more informally, The Cuckoo Song, isn't about the approach of summer, but its arrival. "Sumer is icumen in" is frequently mistranslated, but "icumen" means it has come, as the presence of the cuckoo implies, and it's here, nu (now). Summer, that is. If this thought is nu to you, if your bank holiday skies are grey, and cold raindrops falling down your neck, you might not be in the mood for such a loud, sweet, jolly Poem of the Week. On the other hand, The Cuckoo Song could cheer you up. Especially if you can find a group of people to sing it with you – in a gorgeous West Country accent.
There are numerous versions in print and online: here's a rather nice one. The variations between the different modern texts available are small, and mostly connected to the decisions made by later editors confronted by 13th-century orthography. I don't know why different editors modernise different words: perhaps they're guided by assumptions about their readers' understanding. Nevertheless, which version you happen to discover first can make quite a difference to the way you savour the poem. For instance, doesn't "lhude" sound ruder and louder than the "loude" some editors prefer? And "murie" seems worlds away from "merry". The old spelling pushes your lips and tongue to a different pronunciation, while charming your eye with an unfamiliar pattern of letters that has nothing in common with the cliches of "Merry Christmas" or "Merrie England".
Awes, lombs, bullucs and cus are likewise stranger beasts that ewes, lambs, bullocks and cows. A lomb has got to be fatter than a lamb. So it beautifully suits those delinquent teenage lambs of early summer. If "sed" seems a bit colourless compared to "seed", "med" makes "mead" seem stilted. It sounds like a friendly nickname for meadow. Perhaps it even reminds you of the Med.
None of this, of course, could have been foreseen by the monk who first inscribed the song. He wasn't trying to delight anyone with some unusual dialect spelling. Or I don't imagine he was. Our sense of pleasure and renewal is simply an effect of time – and one of the happier ones.
Where the translation into modern English is concerned, the word most often disputed is "verteth". Does the "bucke" turn about and cavort, as some interpreters say, or does he fart (a territorial device not unknown among males of many species). I'd opt for the farting, while letting the other meaning linger, too, for a complete picture of buckish elation. I think this is a line that wants us to hear those animals, just as the whole song wants us to hear the cuckoo it's addressing.
The verb in "bulluc sterteth" doesn't seem to perplex translators. I've never seen it rendered as anything other than "starts" or "starteth". Starteth what? Well, of course we can guess. And anyway, the verb works perfectly well intransitively. A bullock, surprised by joy, or its prospect, has started from his grassy drowse. A "cu" chews the cud nearby. What more needs to be said? Well, it's worth noticing that the Latin word "stertere" means "to snore". Etymologically, "snore" is kin to "snort". It's only guesswork on my part, but I feel this bullock, too, could be voicing his territorial rights – like the buck, but from the other end. He's snorting. Intransitively, of course.
The last line is interesting. Russians say that the number of times you hear the cuckoo's call represents the number of years you have left to live. By asking the cuckoo never to stop, the singer may just be wishing that summer could be neverending. But it's plausible that there was once a similar, English superstition about the cuckoo, an interpretation that would heighten the final plea ("Don't ever stop, now") and give it added bittersweet flavour. Life, don't ever stop.
The version of the text I've chosen is fussily punctuated but at least the spelling is not sanitised. Another point in its favour is that it begins with the "ground" – the repeated two lines that, in performance, are sung by the lower voices. This device, which printed versions don't always make apparent, enriches the song's lovely polyphonic texture, and, reproduced, brings the reader closer to imagining the lines as a round. The change of rhythm between the opening couplet and the first stanza adds to the contrast and vitality. And the paired lines look attractive on the page because of the chiasmus, more easily seen than heard: it adds a playful touch.
Have a murie bank holiday. You might hear a cuccu, if you're luccy. And if the weather's really awful, sing along with Ezra Pound instead.
The Cuckoo Song
Sing, cuccu, nu. Sing, cuccu.
Sing, cuccu. Sing, cuccu, nu.
Sumer is i-cumen in –
Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wude nu.
Sing, cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu,
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth –
Murie sing, cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu.
Wel singes thu, cuccu.
Ne swik thu naver nu!