Talk:Sumer is icumen in

message: I couldn't understand why the article stated "Canon by Unknown;
speculated to be W. de Wycombe" when many sources state that the speculated composer was John of Fornsete, indeed he was already mentioned by one of the sources cited at the bottom. So I have added the latter into the article and cited a source - In this case the Oxford Companion to Music, though there are others.
The entry states, "The composition (sometimes called The Reading Rota)...is usually attributed to John of Fornsete, monk of Reading Abbey, where he was Keeper of the Cartulary (or records); the grounds for this attribution are the fact that it has been written into the book of records, and in what is evidently his handwriting."
Bkesselman (talk) 08:17, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Composer

message: Sumer does mean spring in this Middle English. I don't want to see that mistake again. Make a note of it because it will be on your next test. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.89.121.43 (talk) 21:05, 21 June 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think you should be quite so categorical, since some scholars disagree with you. Whilst "Sumer" in ME doesn't mean "Summer" in modern English, neither does it mean "Spring" in modern English - the word extended over a longer period of time than its modern equivalent . It could also mean, less definitively, "warm weather". So how about approaching this issue from the music? It's well known that the cuckoo at the beginning of its arrival in the British Isles sings the interval of a minor third; as the season progresses this interval gets progressively larger (via a major third to a perfect fourth or even a perfect fifth ). The musical interval f-d-f, which starts the round and recurs frequently, is a minor third. Hence we can reasonably conclude that the bird has only just arrived - it must therefore be April at the earliest, though most likely early May (and according to the nursery rhyme, the bird doesn't change its tune until June). Is this summer in the modern sense? Probably not; even gardeners consider summer doesn't start until 1 June (rather than on the solstice three weeks later), although May can often be really quite warm. Is this conclusive either way? Again, probably not, but I still don't think you should be so definite about it. (interestingly Delius's Cuckoo also sings a minor third – but it is after all the first cuckoo of spring). I've therefore inserted the possibility of "Sumer" meaning (early) summer or warm weather in the article. You'll probably revert, but at least I'll have tried.195.217.52.130 22:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I really don't see any reason to translate svmer as anything other than summer. According to the OED, summer "in popular use compris[es] in the northern hemisphere the period from mid-May to mid-August", and it gives no indication that the word has changed in meaning since the middle ages. And wasn't Beltane on May 1 originally the first day of summer? It seems just unbearably pedantic to translate svmer as spring, rather than to translate it as summer but leave a note explaining that at the time summer was considered to start at the beginning of May. —Angr 19:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Sumer" does mean both spring and summer. See entries under A.1.a. in the Oxford English Dictionary, especially this line from C. Brown's English Lyrics 13th Cent. (1932) 108: "Somer is comen & winter gon." 2601:189:8480:7CC0:B5A4:2724:C601:858 (talk) 13:44, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Sumer

message: I'm about to edit this and wanted to explain my rationale. My aim is to be as absolutely faithful to the text as possible while illuminating the meaning for a modern reader. 
I prefer "Summer has come in" (see above) to the limp "Summer has arrived". Arriver is a French verb so it shouldn't be replacing the good Anglo-Saxon cum/come.
I have returned seed and meadow to the singular which is accurate and more in tune with the animals being in the singular.
Translating "wde" as forest when wood is available seems extremely perverse.
I am aware that billy-goat is a more usual term than buck-goat, however buck-goat is also perfectly correct and captures the essence of bucca far better.
Rendering "sterteth" as stirs seems more natural than "jumps" but I know "uerteth" as the simple turns is going to cause controversy. I simply see no evidence that "uerteth" means farts when it could so easily simply be from vertere to turn. See my further comments in the FART? section below. I like Silverstein's suggestion of cavorts but as the word is disputed I've gone for the most unadorned word. There's a lot of scholarly debate about the reading of "uerteth" so I hope people wont just change it back without at least attempting to do some work on the subject.
"Ne swik þu nauer nu" has proved a little troublesome. The construction ne <verb> nauer simply means never and is reminiscent of ne jamais in French. So literally we have "Never stop you now". By flipping the negative round "Don't you ever stop now" includes both "you" and "now". TheMathemagician 23:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have always thought it translates best as "Summer is a-coming in".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.207 (talk) 21:42, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be properly translated as “summer is come in”, “icumen” being the past participle. “Come” is the modern form, having lost its prefix and suffix (the latter can still be seen in some verbs like holpen or eaten, and the former in some uses of “a-” and in the German/Dutch ge-).Steepleman (t) 15:45, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern English Translation 

message: You're right, if a swallow does not make a summer, a cuckoo does not make spring. I made the corrections and checked the migratory pattern of the bird, and it's May-June. I have bookmarked this article and i will watch it closely. --Wikipedius 21:50, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But in the song they do not say that the cuckoo makes spring. They want it to sing. 82.29.201.140 (talk) 13:25, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Corrections

message: An image of the original manuscript is available under the first reference link.  Look at it; the word for "forest" is definitely written "wde".  I don't doubt other ME sources might write the word "wude" or the like—spelling was hardly regular at this point—but in this document, it's "wde".  I'm changing it back.  /blahedo (t) 23:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It’s pronounced as worde 82.29.201.140 (talk) 13:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: "Wde", spelling

message: The original has no punctuation other than line breaks.  Here is a more plain transcription:
 Svmer is icumen in
 Lhude sing cuccu
 Groweþ sed and bloweþ med and springþ þe wde nu
 Sing cuccu
 Awe bleteþ after lomb
 lhouþ after calue cu
 Bulluc sterteþ
 bucke uerteþ murie sing cuccu
 Cuccu cuccu Wel singes þu cuccu ne swik þu nauer nu
 
          Sing cuccu nu
          Sing cuccu
 Pes
          Sing cuccu
          Sing cuccu nu
69.87.193.214 13:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The b with the line at the bottom is pronounced as f. 82.29.201.140 (talk) 13:16, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: punctuation

message: There seem to be a number of online audio files of the music.  But we also need audio files of the spoken words.  Sung with musical accompaniment, and separately.  As round and plain.  In modern English, and in original pronounciation, as close as we can reconstruct it.  A recording of an authentic Oxford Don? 69.87.193.214 13:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: audio of words needed

message: The media display template which is currently being used tries to display the MIDI files as images(?!), and if you right click on an ostensible midi file link, what you save to disk is HTML, not midi... AnonMoos (talk) 03:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: MIDI linking isn't working

message: I'm fairly sure Walt Kelly did a version of this in Pogo at some point; I'll see if I can find it. --Jim Henry (talk) 20:41, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other parodies 

message: As a linguist and teacher of English, it makes more sense to me to render the modern version as "Summer is a-comin' in," an archaic form still used in dialects of the American South (and, I believe, in parts of Great Britain as well). Not only does this give the song verisimilitude, it fits the meter better.  I would use the present continuous forms of the verbs (e.g., "The wood is springing anew") to give the song a sense of immediacy ("All this is happening right now, so let us rejoice!") along with contracted forms ("The ewe's a-bleatin' after the lamb"), again to provide verisimilitude. 188.123.241.111 (talk) 17:00, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Not quite: "icumen" is most definitely a past participle (cf. German gekommen).137.205.222.209 (talk) 12:58, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

text: That would be a mistranslation. Middle English "is icumen" means "has come" in Modern English, not "is a-comin'." Mr.Slade (talk) 22:20, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

text: Maybe it’s actually summer is coming here 82.29.201.140 (talk) 13:27, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: A-comin'

message: I recall from my undergraduate music studies (long, long ago, so I couldn't hope to find notes or citation) that a close examination of the manuscript showed that it had originally been written in duple meter and then scraped over and rendered in triple meter. Our University Early Music Ensemble performed it this way, which actually made a good case for the change. Can someone supply a citation?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wdjordan (talk • contribs) 19:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Music 

message: Why and where does this article need additional citations for verification? What references does it need and how should they be added? Hyacinth (talk) 07:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional citations

message: I tried to click on source 4 (which is located on http://www.soton.ac.uk - I'm not giving the full URL), and my browser warned me that I was attempting to visit a malware-infested site. What should we do? Against the current (talk) 16:07, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The page http://www.soton.ac.uk/~wpwt/harl978/sumernn.htm is part of Southampton University, and is unlikely to be compromised.  I clicked on the link just now and the page does not seem to be infected and my anti-virus software did not complain. BabelStone (talk) 16:21, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

text: We should "avoid" linking to sites containing malware (it's #3 of WP:ELNO). It's entirely plausible that a university site could be compromised, but it seems fine to me, I can't see anything dubious in the page's HTML, and a Google diagnostic is clear ("this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days"). --McGeddon (talk) 16:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compromised site as a cited source? 

message: By what authority is the piece only 1'40" long? The last line alludes to the musical possibility of an infinite canon, and it seems believable that it was a favorite for drunken singathons. 166.137.244.63 (talk) 17:53, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I never noticed that before, thanks for calling attention to it. Another poke in the eye for misinfoboxes, I reckon.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:02, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length? 

message: Sounds like the former listening to the song to me. I'm no English scholar to know whether it's interchangeable or meaningless. Cake (talk) 21:32, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: "Listening to the song"?? There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of performances, with all sorts of variations, alterations, mistakes, etc. What about looking at the score? It is, after all, the authority.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:55, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure. Perhaps I should ask another question. In the version by the Hilliard Ensemble, they seem to say "Wel þu singes cuccu." Can this be chalked up to error, or is such variation in the language allowed? Cake (talk) 16:11, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know the answer to your question. Either seems possible, and I do not know which "version by the Hilliard Ensemble" you may be referring to, in order to verify the reading of the words.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:42, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is one example. It seems the easiest version to find. Cake (talk) 21:01, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like it must be ripped off of a CD recording. Still, I have no idea why they might change the order of the subject and verb. I am not well-versed in Middle English. Perhaps you should ask this question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Wel þu singes cuccu or Wel singes þu cuccu? 

message: Before reading the translation, I thought this is a old English song and reads phonetically.  simple but seems possible more probable.  
Summer is a comin in, loud does sing cuckoo grow up seeds and brew up meed and spring be away by now?  (guessing now)  a ewe will tup after lamb (something about cow and calf then the bull tups the buck tups and merry sings cuckoo..... something about merry sings the cuckoo but does you.
Just a guess from a simple unstudied person :)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catif120 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Not bad for a phonetic rendering. Perhaps you should now try "Un petit d'un petit / S'étonne aux Halles. / Un petit d'un petit / Ah! degrés te fallent. / Indolent qui ne sort cesse, / Indolent qui ne se mène, / Qu'importe un petit, / Tout gai de Reguennes."—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:49, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phonetic 

message: The tune is in a tempo so slow as to make the tune unrecognizable for modern listeners. If there is some period stuff going on, I would suggest making also a modern, faster version available.
2804:214:82A7:1A7E:1:2:110:F560 (talk) 00:42, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tempo of the midi tune 

message: There's been some controversy over the translation used. Would it be beneficial perhaps to provide an “updated spelling” version, along with the “modern translation”? That is to say, something like this.
Middle English
Modernised Spelling
Modern English
The modernised spellings can be cited from the OED if needed, though most seem to be common sense. Steepleman (t) 06:15, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modernised spelling